Couple gives $30K to PRH

Photo: Contributed

Life in a small town has always held an attraction for Phyllis and Bert Terry.

After living for years in small towns around BC and the Prairies, the Penticton couple have donated $30,000 to help provide medical equipment for the Penticton Regional Hospital expansion.

Bert's ties to small town life date back to his childhood. His father worked as a station agent for the CPR and the family lived in a number of rural towns, including several years in Hardisty, AB, east of Edmonton.

After taking a break from high school in 1947 to help construct a new oil pipeline from Alberta to Wisconsin, Terry eventually returned to school and graduated in 1950 in the equally small town of Hughenden, AB.

After a short stint as a telegraph operator with the CPR in the village of Leoville, Sask., Terry joined the RCMP in 1952 and remained with the Force for 25 years until retiring in 1977.

He was posted at several detachments around BC.

Terry continued his working career with the provincial government, including stints with the Ministry of Human Resources, the BC Liquor Board and as a coroner.

His final job was in Penticton where he worked as a liquor inspector.

Phyllis Terry grew up in Courtenay and was working as a telephone operator in the Vancouver Island community when she met Bert through some friends.

“I enjoyed small places,” Bert said. “You knew everybody and you got involved in the community.” Although Phyllis had spent her entire childhood in Courtenay, she relished an opportunity to experience life other communities.

“One year he took me on a trip to all the places he had lived in Alberta and Saskatchewan, including Leoville,” she recalled. “But by then there was nothing there – the railway had shut down.”

Bert said Phyllis quickly became attached to each community.

“Every place we lived, she never wanted to leave,” he said. “And when she got to the new place, she didn’t want to leave there either.”

A move to Fort St. John and the Peace River country in the mid-1970s was especially tough.

“He dragged me up there,” Phyllis said. “But the people were so friendly.”

The couple moved to Penticton in 1986. Phyllis admitted she cried all the way down to the Okanagan, but they soon found life in the Peach City much to their liking and opted to retire here.

They have now decided to donate to the South Okanagan-Similkameen Medical Foundation’s PRH campaign.

The couple emphasize the SOS Medical Foundation’s efforts to provide new medical equipment for the PRH expansion will benefit everyone in the community.