Laren Terry 1940-2011

We got a call at about 12:15 a.m. on July 13th from Layne's mom telling us that she got a call from work saying they thought Laren had a heart attack and they had called the ambulance. Layne's first reaction was "I knew this was going to happen!" We hurried and got dressed and went and picked Verla up and Layne's brother, Val, so they could give Laren a blessing.

We went straight to the Emergency Room. This was probably 20 minutes after the initial call so we were surprised when they told us the ambulance hadn't come with him yet. After a few minutes they brought us back to an exam room and the doctor came in. He told us that Laren had collapsed at work and that his co-workers had done CPR until the paramedics arrived. They continued to try to revive him for over 40 minutes, but he never regained consciousness.

After that we drove over to the plant. The coroner had been there but the funeral home hadn't come yet. We waited for what seemed like forever. Daren and Vonell drove over from Terreton and met us there. Finally the mortician came from the back to where we were in the front. He already had Laren in the van. Verla and the boys were able to see him. Then we all went to Verla's house where her daughter, Leisa, and sister Vida Mae were waiting.

We waited to tell the kids until the next morning. It was awful. We told Zak first because he got up to go to work. Then about an hour later we woke Tanner and Karlee up before I left for work. They were both sobbing and wanted to just go back to their rooms to cry it out. Karlee just kept saying between sobs, "But I loved him so much!"

The next few days were full of planning and lots of visits. I was overwhelmed at the loving generosity from so many people. Verla asked Vonell and I to do the life sketch. She took the first day off and helped with the obituary and funeral home details. I took the next day off and tried to pull his life story out of Verla and the kids between visits from friends and family. I was pleased with how it turned out. I will post it at the end of this entry. The funeral was very lovely. And even though it is hard to let him go I am happy that he finally feels better now and is getting some much needed rest.

Laren drove so slow that it was like he was always leading a funeral processing when the cars stacked up behind him. So Daren drove the Toyata with Layne and Mackay riding along for Laren's last funeral procession.

The grandsons were the Paul bears and all wore a bolo tie that Grandpa had made.

Cassandra, Isabell, Verla, Judd

This is what was written on the white board above his tool box at work, "God Speed! Rest in Peace Big Guy."

This is the shop were he worked for 21 years up to his dying day.

Laren G. Terry was born Nov. 8, 1940, the fourth child and second son of George Francis Terry and Irene Grover in Egin, Idaho. A loaf of bread was 8 cents, a gallon of milk was 51 cents, a new Ford car was $850 and a new home was less than $4,000.

When he was about five his mom made him a cowboy suit and his Dad took him up town to the shoe shop and had some boots, a hat and chaps made. And he had some tiny spurs with his name engraved on them. He loved wearing this outfit. He and his dad had their picture taken together in their new suits.

He loved to round up the milk cows from the sagebrush with his dog. He would milk the cows and then he would carry buckets of water from the ditch to the cows. He learned to run the tractor as soon as he was big enough and did all the farming and chores to help his family.

When he was little he had a horse that he was barely big enough to straddle. When he was five or six he was riding and the horse got spooked. Laren’s foot got stuck in the stirrup and he fell off upside down. He was being dragged and was knocked unconscious and could have been killed. His dad couldn’t catch the horse and thought he might have to shoot the horse to get him to stop. But the horse finally stopped and Laren was unconscious for several days.

He and his family lived in a two room house and Laren slept in an army sleeping bag on the kitchen floor until he was 18 years old.

Laren attended elementary at Edmunds to the 6th grade. It was a little country school about two miles away from his home. He walked to school each day. There were only about a dozen kids in his grade and so the teacher was able to give them each more help. He then rode the bus over to Sugar Salem to high school. The bus ride was a long one and most of the time it was cold and tiresome. He graduated from Sugar Salem High School in 1959. He said he felt like he had to fight for everything he got, because he didn’t come from a rich family.

His sisters, Joyce and Lecretia liked to cook and use Laren as their guinea pig. Laren wrote in a memory book for his granddaughter, Paige, “I had two of the best sisters anybody could have. They always took good care of me. They would give me money for school hot lunch when I didn’t have enough money. I remember school lunch was 20 cents per day.”

Growing up times were very hard and the family had to live on what they could grow or hunt. When Laren was nine he and his little brother, Boyd, took the tractor out into the field and shot two does. He had a hard time getting them up onto the platform of the tractor. But he did it and he dropped one off at a neighbor’s house who didn’t have any food.

The following is a letter that Laren wrote to his grandchildren many years ago. It gives a glimpse into his childhood.

To my grandchildren,
I remember back in my early childhood days when I used to go fishing with my dad out to Camas Meadows or Kilgore. We fished West Camas Creek a lot. The fishing was very good. I remember you could pick a beaver dam and sit in one spot and catch from 100 to 150 Eastern Brook trout. I would put on two or three hooks and would catch 2 or 3 fish at a time. When we were fishing up and down the creek we had to watch out for moose. A lot of times the cow moose would have their calves along the creeks and beaver ponds. They were quite mean this time of year. I remember when we would go fishing out there about July and August. The Indians would come to Camas Valley to gather Camus root. They would gather this root and eat it. Dad and I would take the deer hides that we had from the fall before and trade the hides for deer skin gloves. I remember Dad sitting around the fire and talking and trading with the Indians. And so when we went home from our fishing trip, we would have two or three hundred fish, which we would freeze and eat through the winter, and four or five pair of buskin gloves. I hope that I can take all of my grand children to Camas Meadows fishing, and have a picnic and all kinds of fun. The Indians don’t come to the valley anymore but we can still have lots of fun out there.

As a teenager he boxed for the American Legion every Saturday night. At age 16 he fought a 21 year old Golden Glove Champion boxer and fought him to a draw, although he did get his nose broken in the process. He was invited to go and fight in Las Vegas but his Dad wouldn’t let him go. Laren told his kids he didn’t want them to start a fight, but they should know how to defend themselves. If his sons were ever arguing and fighting he would take the boxing gloves and make them fight each other until the snot and blood were flowing. Then he would make them hug when they were done. He would also often say, “If you don’t quit your fighting you’re going to have to fight me.”

Laren and Verla met at a dance when he was 17 and she was 16. They danced all night long. A few days later she and her friend, Trish, saw a car driving back and forth in front of her house. He finally came to the door and asked if he could come visit her once in a while. They loved going up to St. Anthony to the movies and for dances. They dated for two years and married on July 2, 1960. They loved dancing and belonged to the Holiday Dance club at Ricks College. Laren was an excellent dancer and for one of his birthdays the family went to the Green and Gold Ball and the granddaughters all got a chance to dance with Grandpa.

After they were married they lived in her parent’s house in St. Anthony while her parents were gone to Utah for work. Then they moved out to the farm in Egin to a two room house with no running water. It was the hardest year of Verla’s life as she would often remind Laren. He would tell her she was just a spoiled city girl. Leisa Kae was born in 1961 while they lived in that house and she was small enough to fit in a shoe box. Then they moved down the road to a house they rented from Max Hanks. It was heaven for Verla because she finally had running water. There were two bedrooms with a front room and a kitchen. It seemed just like a mansion. Val Laren was born in 1962 while living in this house. After a couple years they bought their first house in St. Anthony, a couple of blocks from Verla’s mom and Dad. They remodeled it and put in new floors and carpeting.

Laren was working at the stud mill in St. Anthony. He helped build it and get it started and taught himself to run all the machinery. Daren G. was born in 1966 while they were living here. Then Laren got a job at the site as a boiler operator. So they bought a trailer and moved it to Idaho Falls. He hated the long bus ride and back in those days the pay at the site wasn’t that great, he was making $2 an hour and they thought they were rich. So he was still working at the mill on his days off. While living in Idaho Falls he took welding classes at Ricks and became a very accomplished welder. After about a year they moved the trailer to Parker and he went back to work full-time at the stud mill. He worked his way through all the positions and worked every shift, many times working double shifts. They only lived in the trailer in Parker for about a year when they bought the home where they currently live. Layne J. was born in 1968.

Laren was very frugal, and never was in debt for anything he ever owned. One time he bought a green station wagon on time to try to build his credit. He made a couple payments and couldn’t stand it and went and paid it off. He also bought a fridge on credit but couldn’t even wait until the first payment was due to go and pay it off.

They bought their house for cash and as he had the money they made improvements themselves. When he worked at the mill he would come home at 10pm and then start working on remodeling the house, tearing out walls and ripping up floors. Verla worked right by his side, tearing out walls and occasionally he would come home to find she had torn down a wall. So a new project was started.

Laren became foreman of the mill and had worked there for 23 years when management changed and he was given an offer to manage a mill in South Dakota. They moved there with Layne in 1985 and stayed for only a year. After working 60 to 80 hour weeks he decided he wasn’t going to do it anymore. They were homesick and missed family so they returned home and Laren worked for John Luthy in Rexburg as a machinist.

Then in 1990 he started working for Basic American Foods as a mechanic. He was given the opportunity to go to school to receive his journeyman electrician license and worked there literally to his dying day. He often said, I want to die with my boots on and he did just that. He was working the graveyard shift. Who knew the name of that shift would be so literal and so prophetic. He hadn’t been feeling well all day, but even with six weeks of vacation sitting on the books he refused to stay home. We received a card from one of his co-workers. He wrote the following, “I am sincerely sorry for your loss. I was working with Laren the night he passed. I could see that something was wrong, but every time I asked he assured me he was fine. In all honesty neither of us were happy with the other, we had a frustrating night and it had started to take its toll. The conversation we had while working on some equipment, I will never forget. I am about to get married, and Laren was asking me about it. I expected him to say something along the lines of “It’s your funeral” or something to that effect, instead he said, ‘Of all the possessions and things you hold close to you, your family will be the most important.’ Had I known I would have shown Laren more kindness and respect. Sincerely, Benjamin Johnson.” While sitting in the shop he just fell over. His co-workers did CPR until the paramedics came and tried to revive him for over 40 minutes without any luck. He was a stubborn man and wouldn’t have had it any other way. I am sure he was looking down on them saying, “Leave me alone. My feet and back and heart don’t hurt anymore and I just want to rest.”

He had a great love for the scriptures and the gospel and read books voraciously. The safest gift to give him was either a book or a can of peanuts, which he loved. He was very knowledgeable on church history and church doctrine. He served a stake mission and he and Verla also served a stake mission together.

When Laren was asked if he had any role models when he was a teen he said, “I don’t think I had any role models in my whole life except the Lord. If you look to any man as a role model, you will always be disappointed because man is not perfect. But the Lord is always perfect in what he did while on this earth and in heaven. And I say again always follow his example.”

He loved his children and loved having them close. When he sent his sons on missions he cried all the way home. After visiting Leisa and her family when they lived in California her kids loved how much Grandpa spoiled them and cried when he left, and he felt the same way.

In 1981 when Val was serving his mission Laren had his first heart attack at age 40. They wanted him to have open heart surgery but he refused and instead drove to Salt Lake to receive Kelation treatments, which seemed to help him.

When his kids were little one winter it was 40 degrees below zero and he walked them to school to make sure they made it there safely. Of course he had to do that on a regular basis with Daren or he would hide out behind a snow drift to avoid going at all.

Laren loved his grandkids and loved spending time with them. He never wanted to get garbage service because that was a good time to take one or two of the grandkids and drive up to the junks. If they could stand the slow drive they were always rewarded with a pop from Broulim’s or a visit to Big J’s or Jill’s.

When all the grandkids were little he took all the grandkids to town to get ice cream. There were five kids standing in the back seat when he passed a state cop, and just smiled and waved.

Grandpa loved telling stories to the grandkids and to watch their reactions. One of his favorites was to explain why dogs are always sniffing each other’s rear ends. He said that every day when the dogs went to school they hung their tails up on the tail rack. One day there was a fire and they all had to run out and just grabbed the first tail they could find. So to this day the dogs are sniffing the other dogs to try and find their own tail. When Gabriella heard this story she just rolled her eyes and said, “Oh brother Grandpa!”

Grandpa Terry thought getting an education was very important. He wished he had been able to get more of an education. But as he likes to tell the kids, he only got to go as far as the third grade because there could only be one Terry in the class and since his dad was still there and seniority rules, Grandpa had to leave school.

Laren learned to love rock hunting with his father. He and his dad staked out mining claims and loved being rock hounds. He has passed this on to his kids and grandkids. Whenever he was out with the kids they would bring him a rock and he could tell them what it was. Most of the time the “prettiest” rocks were called “leaveitright.” He would say “Leave it right there.”

Laren made beautiful jewelry from the treasures he found rock hunting. Many people in this room have benefited from it and I’m sure if you look around today you will see many of the efforts of his labors. Many times people would tell him he should sell them, but he always said that would take the fun out of it. He enjoyed giving them away almost as much as he enjoyed making them.

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Shared Memories:

Whitney was scared of dogs and one day when they were visiting from California she was wearing grandpa’s big winter boots that she couldn’t move in. Suddenly she was surrounded by a bunch of yapping dogs and she yelled, “Grandpa, save me!” He said, “They are just little dogs.” And she said, “No, they are big and they are going to eat me.”

Mikal- I was chewing gum while helping my dad skin his deer. Grandpa told me I could mix the deer fat with my gum to make chewing gum. Needless to say I was gullible enough to believe him and try it. It was disgusting. And I still hadn’t learned my lesson when we were getting wood and he told me to chew the tree sap and it would turn into gum.

Grandpa loved to tease us. When he came to visit us when we were wearing our footy jammies he would pull the feet of them down and tie them together so we couldn’t walk. It would make us so mad. As soon as he untied us we would run away, and before long we would peek around the corner and come back for more.

He always had cough syrup from Canada that he said would cure anything if you could stand to take it.

Jake - I remember going hunting with grandpa at 7am and as I was falling asleep he would flick my nose. He always had a diet pepsi and after the first sip he would have to stop for the bathroom.

Cassandra- MeKenzie, Ranell & Whitney having a sleep over in spare bedroom Grandpa got a werewolf mask and stood in the window and had us all screaming.

He always told us that we had to eat the fish eyes to get all the best nutrition.

Val – We were going on a hunting trip. He was going to show Mom how a sandwich should be made. He didn’t think she put enough horseradish on. He didn’t know she had bought the strong stuff and he slathered it on. When he took the first bite his eye about popped out of his head.

Valeen remembers taking him to dinner at Fong’s and ordering Pork and Seeds. I thought he had eaten it before. When he took a piece of pork and got a big scoop of hot mustard I was amazed and thought he knew what he was doing so I didn’t say anything. After a few seconds his eyes got big and he grabbed the glass of water and guzzled it down.

Daren – I wasn’t old enough to hunt. We went out elk hunting on the desert. We found fresh tracks from a big bull elk. Grandpa Terry was driving and it was like an African safari going over the sage brush, bumps and dips. I was trying to hang on to the guns in the front that were bigger than me. Val and Dad were in the back shooting. They shot the elk and Dad jumped out to cut his throat and he landed in his hands and knees in a cactus patch. When he jumped on the elk it tried to get up. That scared Layne and made him run behind the pickup. When we got home to hang it in the big willow tree he fell out of the tree and into the rock pile and broke his hand.

Vida Mae – Laren came to get Ed to help him get a big bull moose and it had her scared to death that they weren’t going to come home alive.

Ann Enjoyed listening to him tell his stories with all of Verla’s brothers and how they would have all the grandkids fascinated and the story would get bigger and better every time.

Tanner & Zak & Clayton- They took Grandpa “road hunting” with them. They stopped to walk and they weren’t too far from the road. They made a little loop. Tanner wasn’t old enough to hunt yet so he was just walking along. Zak and Clayton had their guns and Tanner was walking out in front of them. .Grandpa yells “Deer!” and Tanner runs off and dives into the sage brush so he never did see the buck. Grandpa said it was the biggest buck he had seen in forty years. Zak yelled, “Should I shoot it, should I shoot it?’ Grandpa yelled “Shoot it!” By then the deer had bounced over the hill and the “air gun” grandpa was trying to shoot the whole time didn’t work. Grandpa loved repeating this story and saying he just laughed til he was sick.

Leisa- Favorite story Dad would tell me. He would come home late at night and I would be in my crib and he would pick me up and I would jabber at him and he would swing me around. It was his favorite part of the night.

When I broke my arm when I was in third grade he took me to the hospital and was so gentle and kind with me.

He taught me to drive a stick shift pickup when I was only about 12. The boys were in a back and every time I tried to shift I would kill it and the boys would slam up against the back window. Finally he just slapped the back of my head and said, “Come on, you can do this.” After that I just did it.

He would always ask me to help him pick out gifts for Mom and say, “You know what your mom likes, come and help me.”

Doyle- After they were married Laren offered Doyle a ride on his motorcycle and took him down the Parker road at about 90 miles an hour. At the first stop sign Doyle said, “Stop this thing and let me off. I’ll walk back to St. Anthony.”

Verla was waiting for Laren to come pick her up for a date in the middle of the winter. Verla begged her brother Ron to go find Laren. She knew something was wrong. He found he had been sick and was behind his car. He had thrown up and his head was frozen to the bumper of the car. Needless to say they didn’t have a date that night.

Verla has this poem framed and feels it sums up Laren’s life. Laren was a hard worker. He worked and earned his own way since he was eight years old. He had been doing it so long he didn’t know how to stop. He told his grandson, Tanner, that he didn’t want to just give up.

If I Had My Life To Live Over
I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice-cream and less beans. I would, perhaps, have more actual problems, but I would have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who lives sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments! And if I had to do it all over again, I’d have more of them, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those people who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, hot water bottle, raincoat, or a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have this time around.

If I could live my life over I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go rounds, and I would pick more daisies.

So after losing Laren this week we all want you to remember to tell the people close to you that you love them more often. Appreciate having them in your lives, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Our family has been overwhelmed with the love and support that has been shown. We have had a non-stop flow of visits from old friends and family and our fridge over-floweth with all of the delicious food you have brought. The most common theme we have heard from everyone is how lucky Laren was to go so fast, without lingering in a lot of pain and misery.
It is actually quite ironic, because those of you who know Laren, know that he has never been in a hurry. Those who work with him always want to get out on the road before he does because if you got behind Laren it would take twice as long to get home. Many people have commented that if they find themselves at the end of a long line of cars that seems like a funeral procession, it is probably Laren Terry at the head of the line. So today, his little Toyota truck that he drove to work every day will lead his last funeral procession.