Terrie Lee Wildermuth Eesley Bain

Terrie Lee was born January 13, 1949 in Oakland, California, to Robert Earl Wildermuth and Dorothy Marie Davis Wildermuth. The Oakland birth is the often-overlooked timing detail: her father was finishing his Stanford B.A. in Biological Sciences in October 1948 and was still in the Bay Area when she was born three months later. She is, in that quiet sense, a Stanford-era child — the first of the family to be born in California, three decades before her son Chuck would join the Stanford faculty.

The memorial speech

The fullest portrait of her, by far, is the speech Chuck delivered at her memorial service on 8 July 2017 — the companion piece to his eulogy for his father, and the second piece of original work in his own voice in this archive:

Read “Memorial Speech for Terrie Lee Bain” (by Chuck Eesley, 2017)

A few of the things that page carries that the obituary cannot: her late-night studying after long days teaching and cooking dinner; her mailing the Duke acceptance back herself, then telling Chuck “don’t worry, I will find a way”; the giant stuffed Easter bunnies; the rule that her father moved around so much for the Air Force that she wanted to stay in one place so Chuck would have a set of childhood friends; her saying life wasn’t meant to live alone, life was meant to be shared with another; and Chuck’s three closing promises.

The fullest portrait of her in her own voice is the eight-line poem she wrote and that was read at the service:

Read “Please don’t cry for me” — a poem by Terrie Lee Bain

“We traveled the country for Uncle Sam / Til settling in Ohio for a life with Fam. / I had a son and 3 siblings to love / My books and students, so why move?” The whole biography is in those four lines.

The teachers and students of Harmar Elementary School, where Terrie had been the Title I teacher in her last years, wrote a children’s tribute, framed around the butterfly effect. It was first read at the school’s end-of-year assembly that May — coordinated by Cheryl Cook, with the choir singing “I Believe,” a song Terrie had liked through the wall from her classroom, and the four staff members who worked closest with her — Ellen, Jean, Sandy, Anne — releasing balloons as the song ended. Chuck then asked his aunts whether it belonged in the memorial program, and read it aloud at the service in July:

Read “Mrs. Bain and the Butterfly Effect” — Tribute from Harmar School (May 2017)

“Mrs. Bain is not famous like Dr. Seuss and J.K. Rowling, but what she said and did has already had important results.”

The biographical record

She grew up an Air Force kid — “Terrie traveled the U.S. and Japan until graduating high school,” her obituary’s compact line for the postings that took her father from the Pacific war’s aftermath through Korea, the Pentagon, and the rest of the career. Japan was part of her childhood, not just Robert Earl’s.

She came back to Ohio for college, taking her degrees at Marietta College and the University of Maryland — a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in early childhood education, plus a string of later certifications, the last a one-year Master Teaching Certification program. She spent twenty-three years in the Marietta City School District. The obituary names the specific posts: children’s librarian at the Marietta Public Library, teacher at North Hills Elementary, and Title I teacher at Harmar Elementary. In the summers she taught Safety Town.

She and Charlie were already together before he shipped to Vietnam in 1969, and the Letters from Vietnam in this archive are most of them addressed to her — the two-year, transpacific correspondence that the next decade of their marriage was built on. One of the few surviving notes in the other direction — Terrie’s own courtship-era note to Charlie, “come for Thanksgiving… try harder than your last visit… Yours, Terry” — is the light, teasing voice underneath all of it. She married Charles M. Eesley in the 1970s — the bride-and-groom couple portrait, and its companion frame of Will and Peggy mid-laugh on the church steps, are the visible end of that arc — and they raised Chuck on Highland Ridge Road in Lowell, Ohio (Washington County, ten miles north of Marietta proper) — the house Will Eesley the architect had designed and built. After that marriage ended she married, fifteen years before her death, Benjamin F. Bain II — he predeceased her by two and a half years (d. 21 December 2014). Chuck’s father followed eleven months after that, in November 2015. Terrie died at home in Marietta on 16 May 2017, age 68. The same age her former husband had been at his death — both of Chuck’s parents died at 68.

Survived in 2017

Her son Chuck and his wife Lijie of Stanford, California.
Her sister Sandra Wildermuth Clement of Atlanta, Georgia.
Her sister Debra Wildermuth Massaro (husband Angelo, deceased).
Her brother Robert E. Wildermuth Jr. (wife Dawn) of Venice, Florida.
Nieces Briana Massaro and Sarah Wildermuth; nephews Gian Carlo Massaro, Trey Wildermuth, and Thomas Wildermuth.
The obituary also names Betty and Norm Wolfe as close relatives by way of long entertainment of visiting family.

The photographs that match the lines of her poem

Three photographs in the archive answer most directly to the lines Terrie wrote about herself:

Terrie reading Star Wars to small Chuck, c. 1983-84 — the literal image of “what I thank her for the most: making such a big effort to read to me when I was very little.”
Terrie at the library information desk, c. 1970s — the “former children’s librarian” of Chuck’s memorial speech, the “my books and students” of her poem.
Terrie in the south-side garden, 6 May 2011 and again a few years later — the “warmed by God’s sun with flowers my best” line as two frames of the same azalea, the family’s own then-and-now of continuity.

A fourth photograph — Chuck’s MIT PhD graduation on 5 June 2009 with Terrie at the M.I.T. dome — closes the loop on her “don’t worry, I will find a way” moment with the Duke acceptance: that was the decision, this was the diploma.

The Air-Force-childhood frames

Two newly placed photographs anchor the “traveled the U.S. and Japan until graduating high school” line of her obituary:

Terrie’s high school graduation in Japan, c. 1967 — in cap and gown with the diploma in one frame, and with her parents (Robert Earl in U.S. Air Force dress blues, Dottie in a leaf brooch) and a “1st Place” plaque in the companion frame. The closing image of the Air-Force-childhood years.
The Wildermuth family portrait, mid-1960s — Robert Earl and Dottie with all four children: Terrie and Sandy as teenagers, Debbie school-age, Rob a toddler. The fullest single frame of all four siblings together.

And one Stanford frame outside the Alumni Center yearbook photograph above:

Terrie at the Stanford fountain — the only photograph of Terrie alone on the Stanford campus, at the same fountain her mother Dottie had stood at in 1965 holding Terrie’s own youngest brother Rob as a toddler.

In her garden, May 2011

The captioned photograph — in her own household’s hand, “May 6, 2011 — Our south side gardens, featuring a huge dark pink azalea — Terrie (Wildermuth) Bain” — is the literal image of the line “warmed by God’s sun with flowers my best” in her poem. The full artifact entry, with provenance, is here.

The portrait

The photograph at the head of this page shows Terrie at the Stanford Alumni Center, looking through her father Robert Earl Wildermuth’s Class of ‘48 yearbook — the volume that holds his graduation from Stanford on the GI Bill. It is the family’s quietest single statement of why this campus matters to it: the daughter on the same campus, with her father’s record open in front of her, in the same building her son had become a faculty member of. The Stanford thread runs through her too — not as a graduate, but as the keeper of her father’s record on the campus where her son now works. Three generations meeting across an open yearbook page.

The memorial service

A memorial service was held July 8, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. at the Hadley Funeral Reno Chapel, 1021 Pike Street, Marietta. Cremation. The printed program shows speakers in order: Chuck Eesley, son; Sandy Clement, sister; Debbie Massaro, sister; Daniel Ebaugh, friend; Tribute from the Teachers and Students of Harmar School (read by Chuck Eesley). Terrie’s own poem was printed alongside the obituary.

The tribute wall

On the Hadley Funeral Home tribute wall, Chuck posted the list he called the wisdom of his mother — the distilled inheritance of how she lived:

The wisdom of my mother:

Love of reading, learning, and of books.

To have a meaningful life, give your life for a cause — hers was teaching reading and raising me.

Value family, friends, and experiences over things.

Her love of nature, flowers, and animals; she got pleasure from the simplest thing from nature.

Send letters and cards for friends’ and family’s birthdays and holidays, to show you care and to keep in touch.

Learn the family history; treasure family photos.

Travel is overrated unless it’s visiting family.

When guests visit, cook them a lot of food to show how much they mean to you.

Work hard and be diligent, but celebrate the little successes along the way.

Send a check in the mail when nieces and nephews are in college.

Trust and communication, along with shared hobbies and interests, are the most important things in a relationship.

For those who have children, tell them often how much you love them — and that you KNOW they can accomplish anything they set their minds to do.

— Chuck Eesley, 1 June 2017

Friends, neighbors, colleagues, and family added their own remembrances:

“Terrie’s smile, conversation, and presence are missed daily. She was the brightness across our street every day — watching her leave for school every morning, planting and tending to her flowers, unloading her groceries, enjoying her porch. Seeing and talking with Terrie was always a joy. We will always cherish the vibrancy of her big wave to say hello, and her daily smile and determination.” — Heather McCarter and Jordana Bungard (neighbors), 8 July 2017

“We loved the ‘wisdom of Terrie’ you wrote; very true and a beautiful portrait of a loving mother. She was such a kind person, hospitable and an excellent teacher. Her love of children was especially evident when engaging them in a story. I have a photo of her reading to Nooreen in which she has the same expression as Princess Diana when she greeted children — so lovely.” — Jeanne Kamiab (“Aunt Jeanne”), 5 June 2017

“I taught with your mother and also subbed for her a few times. I considered her a good friend and I am so sad about her passing. I will greatly miss her.” — Linda Christman, 11 June 2017

“We fondly remember Terrie reading stories to the young children at the Washington County Public Library story hour every week. She definitely instilled a love of books and reading in all the children she worked with.” — Karen and Richard DeLong, 29 May 2017