Terry Smith

Terry Smith of Flin Flon, Manitoba passed away Saturday, September 2, 2023 at the age of 59 years.

A Celebration of Life for Terry Smith will be held Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. from the Flin Flon Royal Canadian Legion Hall, 73 Hapnot Street, Flin Flon, Manitoba with Legion Padre Father Paul Bringleson officiating. If friends so desire memorial tributes may be made to Flin Flon Royal Canadian Legion, 73 Hapnot Street, Flin Flon, Manitoba, R8A 1L7.

The presence of all the Family, Friends and comrades here today is truly amazing. The love & support we have received from the entire community has been unspeakably appreciated by myself & the Smith Family. Thank you to everybody.

Terry grew up in a large Family with 7 siblings and a loving mother & father. He was considered the studious one in the family where we all went to, to get a question answered.

In the past couple of weeks there have been so many memories & stories shared with me about Terry that have filled my heart.

I had a friend message me to ask if Terry knew how much he was loved & how much he will be missed. I laughed & cried as an image of Terry & his cockiness came to mind. In his own words “How can anybody resist this.” Terry was very confident in who he was & today is testimonial to this.

I would like to share a story of Terry in regards to the rumours that have spread quite quickly in this little city of ours. This whole entire situation is devastating & shocking, must rest assured Terry did not meet his maker by being mauled by a bear. Terry’s motto when it came to bears was that you only need to run faster than the slowest person. In fact, a couple of summers ago a bear was in the next site from us. The bear made a move towards us & the next thing I knew was that I was pushed out of the way having Terry yell at me to hurry up & get in the trailer. He was already in the trailer with the door closed waiting for me. No, Terry was not mauled by a bear!

I think now everybody is aware that on that fateful day Terry was doing what he loved the most in life. He spent the whole day fishing at Barbe Lake for rainbows. 4 fish were caught with Terry catching the first, the last & the biggest. He took home all the bragging rights on such a glorious sun shiny day.

Terry’s last post on facebook was of his perfect filleted rainbow trout. He had to make them facebook worthy. Everybody should have their final day as Terry did. Doing what you love.

The first part of Terry’s life will be summarized by Terry himself as he wrote his autobiography in Grade 11:

I am Terry James Smith – 5 foot 9 inches tall 135 pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes. I was born 5:11 p.m. on the winter afternoon of January 13, 1964 in the Flin Flon General Hospital weighing an even 10 pounds and being 22 inches long. The doctor being N. Stephenson. After a usual preschool era I enter grade one at Birchview School. I spent 7 glorious years at Birchview in which I went through the usual childhood diseases successfully with no major ailment. I entered McIsaac School as the first group of students there. During this time I lived at 236 Whitney Street and continue to live there now. I am currently in grade 11 and attending Hapnot Collegiate for my second year. I hope to graduate in the spring of 1982.

Terry did graduate from high school & moved on to university the following year. However, once there he thought that having friends & having fun was more important than attending school. After a few months of this he made his way back to Flin Flon.

He was working at the sawmill when he got the call to go for an interview at HudBay. In those days it was a big thing to get hired on at the company. He worked more than 30 years for HudBay, first in the smelter, traincrew and then his final position as Labatory supervisor where he retired Feb. 1, 2022.

When Terry returned from the city he met Denise MacDonald. It was time for Terry to settle down so him & Denise married and had a beautiful baby girl Megan. Megan was the true love of his life as he was a very devoted father to her. Unfortunately, Terry & Denise went their separate ways. Terry lived as a bachelor for 10 years after that.

To Terry’s good fortune, I entered into his life. Right from the beginning we were so compatible together in the sense of our love for the outdoors. We have spent our whole relationship camping, fishing, boating, quadding & walking. Anything that had to do with outdoors we were doing it.

Our neighbor’s son was leaving to go to work one day, Terry & I were sitting on the patio and told him to have a good shift, well he returned from work finding us still outside sitting. He asked us “Do you guys ever sit in the house?” We all laughed as the answer was no, being outdoors is who we are.

Besides the outdoors Terry’s next love was his sports. His first sport he loved was his baseball due to his father & mothers love of the sport. Through out the years Terry loved to involve himself in hockey, curling, billiards, darts & golf. The tv always had one sport or another on, it was our background noise.

Another love of Terry’s was the legion. Terry introduced me to the legion as his roots were deeply connected to it through his dad, mom & uncle. We both were very active with various legion events. As everybody knows Terry considered himself the “voice of the North” through meet the Legion Saturday mornings on the radio. Friday nights were always stressful for him as he had to always be prepared and organized. He had me as a guest one Saturday to discuss the auxiliary news. He never gave me a chance to speak as it was his show. Needless to say, I never did the show again as he was the one to be in control.

I could stand here & talk & talk about Terry as there are so many, many stories that could be told.

Terry, you are & always will be loved TODAY, TOMORROW & FOREVER.

I love you……