Terry Purvis-Smith
August 10, 1943 - May 4, 2024
“Terry” was born in Pasadena, California, and died at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. Even drives in the Rocky Mountains did not diminish his hope to dip his toes in the Pacific Ocean once again as he went through this past year of treatment for acute myeloid leukemia.
After careening down his first zipline in his 60s, he used it as a metaphor. He said graduating from Covina, CA, High School (1961) was like standing on a zipline tower, scared to take the plunge. But plunge he did, reaching the first secure tower in the person of a local pastor. Their give-and-take conversations led him to Whitworth University and graduation (1966)—and a wife. Virginia (Ginny) Purvis and he married in 1965. Other secure towers included theological and graduate school with ethics as his field of study (MDiv, Andover Newton Theological School, 1969, and PhD, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1972). His professional focus was pediatric chaplaincy, first at Children’s Hospital of Michigan and culminating at the University of North Carolina.
He reflected that the leap from each tower replicated life’s progression in that one feels simultaneously safe and frightened, change is rapid, and sometimes one is out of control and challenged by ethical dilemmas and questions that don’t have answers. The place he felt welcomed and encouraged to explore those challenges was the church. He was ordained in 1971 and never retired, responding to the call to assist Presbyterian Churches (USA) in transition around the country as an interim pastor until leukemia robbed him of strength. One of the tallest zipline towers he plunged off was to join the Foreign Service in 1999, which took Ginny and him, as a diplomat, to Sénégal, Washington DC, and The Bahamas. In all these professional contexts, a guiding value was to express himself with integrity but not to personally demean those with whom he disagreed. His competitive spirit and sense of humor were constants, whether in family games of charades, cards, and chess, or playing baseball and running in the Memorial Day Bolder/Boulder 10K.
Family was central in Terry’s life. He is survived by spouse Ginny, daughter Julie Fouque, son-in-law Guillaume, their children, André and Mélanie, son Steven Adams- Smith, daughter-in-law Kelly, their children, Sophie and Ben, brother Steven Smith and sister-in-law Marcia and their two children and two grandchildren, and sister Patricia Eichenlaub and brother-in-law Frank, their two children and five grandchildren.
Frank invited Terry and Ginny to hike the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain several years ago, and that experience added life-as-pilgrimage to his life-as-zipline metaphor. Terry and Ginny walked 100 miles of the demanding 500-mile walk. In spite of blisters and sore knees, he started using walking as meditation, even calling himself an urban pilgrim when he chose walking over public transportation in cities to more closely observe traveling companions and the unfolding journey. Family, friends, and colleagues are as grateful for his kindness as for the clarity of his commitments.
Memorial Service
Saturday, July 13
Kirk of Bonnie Brae United Church of Christ
1201 S Steele St, Denver, CO 80210
10 AM
Make a Donation
In lieu of flowers, please make a gift to support the General Hematology Fund for Blood Diseases and Disorders at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Please send your gift in memory of Terry Purvis Smith to: University of Colorado Foundation, PO Box 17126, Denver CO 80217. On the memo line of the check, please note Terry's name and the code D-0037286. Make it payable to the CU Foundation. Gifts may also be made online here, including Terry's name in the "In Memory Of" section.
