Terry Lytle Birch

1936-

(Generation 211)

Born 15 FEB 1936 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., CA.
Married 1958 to Izetta Evea Bishop
Married 1970 to Silvia Anne Seeley

Terry was born in Los Angeles, CA to his parents, Ruth and Tom Birch. After his parents divorced in 1943 Terry and Colleen, with their mother, went to live at the Osler's boarding home in El Monte, CA. Terry then went to live with his grandparents Alta (Nana) and Alton Beane at "the ranch" in Baldwin Park, CA. Colleen lived with Vera and Doc Provins in Compton, CA and then joined Terry in Baldwin Park.

Terry's Mom, Ruth married Frank Floyd in 1945 but he continued to live with Nana until after the war when Frank and Ruth no longer worked at Douglas. In 1946 the family moved to Summerland, CA to a house Frank had inherited from his Father. Frank's Mother lived there until her death.

Terry attended Summerland Elementary school and graduated from Carpinteria High School in 1954. During these years many jobs were had, from mowing lawns in Summerland to a newspaper route (Terry earned his first bicycle by selling 100 subscriptions to the Los Angeles Times which he then delivered along with the Santa Barbara News Press for about a year and a half) to planting tomatoes in the hills behind Summerland. He then attended UCSB for one year. Terry's first full time job was with the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital as a Diener assisting the pathologist in doing autopsies. He then went to work for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department during the Refugio Canyon fire of 1956. When Terry passed his 21st birthday he applied to the Montecito Fire District where he worked from November 1957 to February 1963. Terry married Izetta Evea Bishop of Lompoc in 1958. They lived in Montecito and Summerland, CA until Terry went to work for Aten's Paint.

After leaving the fire department Terry went to work for Aten's Paint in Santa Barbara, CA as a paint salesman, Terry and Izetta moved into a house on Lomita Road in Santa Barbara. Terry worked for Aten's Paint until the company got into financial trouble and had to lay him off. He then went to work for the Benjamin Moore & Co. as a territory sales representative. Terry and Izetta moved into a new home in Thousand Oaks, CA to be closer to his company office. The marriage ended there in 1969.
In his last year with Benjamin Moore Terry was elected president of the Bill Jones Club, an honorary national sales representative's organization of Benjamin Moore & Co.

In 1970 Terry returned to Santa Barbara to become part owner of Aten's Paint, then with his partner Dick Gledhill a full Co-owner in 1982. In August of 1970 Terry married Anne (Sylvia Anne Seeley) Wilson and set up a household with she and her five children, living first on Stirling Avenue in Carpinteria then the Catlin ranch in Carpinteria. In 1971 Terry and Anne purchased their home on Dariesa Street where they lived until moving to Cave Junction in 1992. The paint store business grew out of one small paint store in 1970 over a period of four years from 1978 to 1982 the business had grown to three stores doing in excess of a million and a half dollars in sales. The stores were sold to satisfy the creditors in 1984 and Terry became a full time consultant and sales representative. In 1986 Terry entered into a representative agreement with SofterWare, Inc. of Fort Washington, PA. Starting with the state of California Terry ultimately represented the company in the fourteen western states, including Alaska and Hawaii.

In July 1992 Terry and Anne moved to Cave Junction, Oregon where they fulfilled a long time dream of building a log home. After buying a house in town to live in while building. construction started in March of 1993 and they moved in just before Thanksgiving 1993. Randy, Tracy, Andy and Sarah were the first to arrive on Thanksgiving eve. Then Tom Perkins arrived from Colorado after driving all night. Mary and Ryan were here and for dinner grandma and grandpa Seeley came over. And what a Thanksgiving it was! Thanksgiving morning Randy, Tom and I went over to the house on Hussey Street and loaded the dining room table and chairs into the trailer and brought it to the house so we could have a place to sit down and eat. THAT was a very thankful day, not only because the house was finished enough to move into but that we could all be there to celebrate together.

Through the following years many festive holidays and enjoyable visits have been had by many family members and friends. Including a deer hunting trip in the fall of 1996 by Ed Thompson and his friends Richard Hotchkiss and Ray Munoz. They were here for about a week and a grand time was had by all even though no deer were shot.

August of 1995 we had a family gathering to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Mary and Ryan flew from Colorado and Tom Perkins drove out as a surprise. Patty, Bill, Jessica, Mandy and Zach came up from Lotus. Susan and her two sets of twins; Kawia and Lahella and Adam and Garrett drove up from Lake Tahoe. Randy and Tracy with Sarah and Andy came down from Seattle. It was the first time we had all of our living children to our new home with the exception of Robert. The time together was so great! Mary, bless her heart, got everybody in the family and many other people including some from SofterWare to give money toward a surprise gift of a cruise through the Inside Passage from Ankorage, AK to Victoria, BC where we boarded a bus to Seattle where Randy, Sarah and Andy picked us up. We had left our car at their house and flew up to Alaska to start the tour.

In November 1996 Dave Mason (who helped Terry build the house) was in town for a week waiting for his dad to have back surgery. During that time Terry and Dave framed, sided and roofed the barn (using the money Auntie Vera had left him) leaving just a little finish work for Terry to do over the next year such as windows, doors, finish roofing and bats on all the vertical siding. This was done by November 1997 the only thing left to finish on the barn was the front barn doors which were finished the next spring.

Thanksgiving of 1997 was a great time; Patty and Bill along with Jessica, Mandy, Zach, Brad, Jasmine and Chantel were here along with Randy and Tracy and their children; Andy and Sarah. Elmer and Pat Moorehead were also here to round out the 16 people we had from Wednesday afternoon through Friday when Patty and Bill left and Saturday when Randy and Tracy and Pat and Elmer left.

February 1998 Terry went into "semi-retirement" by switching from sales to technical support of the software he had sold for so many years. Semi retirement was a joke as more hours were spent on the job doing technical support than ever were spent on sales. The positive side is a lot less traveling is required so we spend a lot more time at home.