Teresa (Terry) Estelle Whitsell Crites, 73, entered into God’s eternal kingdom on Saturday, 1 October 2022. By her side at her last moment were her husband of 43 years, Herbert E. Crites, Jr., and their daughter, Lauren Elizabeth Shirar.
Terry was born in January of 1949 in Forrest City, Arkansas, the second child behind her big brother, Charles, and the first daughter of Kenneth Preston Whitsell and Mary Estelle Whitsell (Simmons). The Whitsell family would eventually grow to four children, with the births of Kerry Whitsell (Ellison Brummett), and Sherry Whitsell (Hartman).
Terry excelled academically in high school, and earned a scholarship to learn the profession of nursing at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas. There she earned her Associate’s Degree and began her career as a registered nurse in nearby Paragould, caring for newborns. She was later hired by St. Bernard’s Hospital back in her college town of Jonesboro, where her extraordinary talents and tireless devotion to the profession of healing were recognized by a rapid promotion to head nurse at the hospital’s Intensive Care/Cardiac Care Unit.
In 1977, Terry met Herb Crites, a student of Graphic Arts and Military Science at ASU, quite by accident. The two dated for nearly two years thereafter, and a few months after Herb’s graduation and commissioning in the US Army as a second lieutenant, the two were married in Memphis Tennessee’s First Presbyterian Church on 24 May 1979. Herb composed a small poem to never forget the anniversary of that most wonderful day.
“Two dozen kisses she gave me the day, the day we were married on 24 May”
A few months later, Herb began fulfilling his active-duty commitment to the Army with the Armor Officer’s Basic Course at the US Army Armor Center, formerly in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Terry thrived as a new Army officer’s wife, applying the great compassion and maturity she had mastered as a hospital leader toward the task of helping the younger wives cope with the often-trying demands of a military post--and strict military rules--on making a Soldier’s home in an Army community.
After the AOB course, Herb was selected for assignment to the most forward-deployed tank battalion in cold war-era US Army, Europe—1st Battalion, 68th Armor. The battalion was stationed in Suedlager Wildflecken, on a mountaintop above the tiny Bavarian village of Wildflecken, West Germany (translated as “the wilderness spot” in German). While posted there, Herb and Terry were, in October of 1981, blessed with their beautiful, only child, Lauren Elizabeth Crites.
Following their three-year Wildflecken tour of duty, the Crites’ were posted to Fort Knox again, this time so now-Captain Herb Crites could attend the several-month Armor Officer’s Advanced Course. Terry again thrived in the challenging Army environment, planning and participating in countless parties, get-togethers, and leisure-time events with the wives and families in Herb’s class.
After Herb graduated from AOAC at Fort Knox in 1984, the Crites family was next posted to Fort Carson, Colorado. Ft. Carson was the home of 3rd Battalion 68th Armor. There, Herb served in a variety of staff roles before being chosen to command Delta Company, 3-68 Armor. Despite the great demands of practicing motherhood with an all-too-often, training exercise-absent husband, Terry never shirked the many unofficial duties of a commander’s wife. She led the officer and NCO wives of Delta Company to organize after-duty events for the single and married soldiers alike, communicated directly through a unique weekly newsletter to the wives. Soldiers seemingly can never get enough to eat, so it seemed a natural opportunity for the wives to organize spaghetti suppers for them, followed with plenty of home-made ice cream. Terry’s efforts did not go unnoticed in the community, and the assistant post commander tasked Herb with creating a presentation of the company’s family- and soldier-care activities to share with other company commanders at Fort Carson.
Following Ft. Carson, the Crites family again returned in 1987 to the Armor School at Fort Knox…but this time it was not as a student, but as a tank tactics instructor to both the Armor Officer’s Basic Course for new armor lieutenants, and later the Advanced Course for armor captains.
It was here at this four-year posting to Fort Knox that the continuous, tough demands of being in a line combat unit, or in temporary schooling, finally subsided a bit. Herb and Terry got the opportunity to find and pursue some of their own personal endeavors for a change. Terry returned to nursing, now at Ft. Knox’s Ireland Army Hospital, where she aided the recovery of post-operative patients. Herb discovered, and flourished, in competitive road bicycling after Terry gifted him with a new racing bike for Christmas in 1989. She returned to her college passions of music and drama as a singer and actor, by joining in on several Fort Knox Community Theater productions. Terry’s bold, strong, precisely-pitched voice and her natural acting chops ensured that her return to the theater would win great critical acclaim in a variety of musical shows produced for the Armor Center community. And as her life’s ultimate musical accomplishment, Terry auditioned for--and received an offer to professionally join--the chorus of the prestigious Louisville Opera. But due to her family’s imminent reassignment, she declined the honor of the invitation. Without a second thought.
For their Army career’s final change of duty station, in late 1991 to early 1992 Herb, and later Terry and Lauren, again returned to beautiful, peaceful Germany, being posted this time to the newly-renovated Rose Barracks in Vilseck, a small, Bavarian training post near Nuremburg. While Herb directed a large gunnery and maneuver simulation training facility for 7th Army Training Command there, both as a major until his Army retirement in 1995 and then as a civilian for the decade thereafter, Terry became the local Army elementary school’s nurse. But she was most fortunate to be welcomed into the post’s Bavarian Arts Guild entertainment troupe. The “BAG-ladies” (and a few gents) enjoyed the renown of being one of the leading community theater groups in US Army, Europe, but just one of many such military community theater organizations spread across Germany and Italy. Each year, these theater groups met in Heidelberg to recognize the best examples of US Army, Europe’s Army Community Theater. This extravagant and prestigious, Oscars-like event was known as the USAREUR Tournament of Plays, or Toppers. And in the course of her over 15 years in Vilseck, Terry would receive countless nominations for--and win a great number of--the Tournament of Plays’ Best Performance trophies.
Terry won nominations and Toppers for her outstanding musical reviews and performances (Gypsy, Hello, Dolly!, Man of La Mancha, Nunsense}; for her comedy acting roles (Bye Bye Birdie, The Whole Shebang); for her dramatic acting (Rupert’s Birthday, Our Town, Fiddler on the Roof); and for her masterful directing (Epiphany, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds, Godspell, The Most Massive Woman Wins, and The Music Man). Terry nearly always contributed in some way, big or small, to the success and acclaim of just about every production undertaken by the BAG throughout her long membership in the group.
In 2006, Herb was personally offered a lucrative, two-year unaccompanied military simulation job in Azerbaijan through the US State Department, while the now empty-nest Terry was getting anxious to try civilian life in the continental US. Specifically, she yearned to settle down in The Lone Star State where Lauren and her long-time love and new husband, Paul Atlee Shirar would marry and make their home near Dallas, Texas. (Paul was also from a Bavarian Arts Guild-member family in Vilseck, and had pursued Lauren to college at the University of Central Arkansas.)
Herb (temporarily) and Terry (permanently) returned from Azerbaijan and Germany, respectively, and purchased a home in McKinney, Texas. Later, when Herb returned from Azerbaijan for good, he was unfortunately met by The Great Recession of 2008. Employment opportunities, even in Texas, had all but evaporated. But after some 6 months of dogged searching, a great job offer for a military modeling and simulation professional finally appeared in the inbox. Unfortunately, it was at the opposite end of the country from Texas, near Detroit, Michigan.
Herb and Terry decided he should take the job with defense contractor General Dynamics Land Systems. Terry would manage their permanent Texas home, while helping to care for a soon-to-arrive baby who would be christened Matthew Edward Shirar. Terry believed that as long as each of them continued traversing the Nation to be with the other every few months, along with long, weekly video calls, they could make the great expanse between them bearable. Herb accepted and settled into the new job in Michigan.
In Texas, Terry turned from her theatrical endeavors to quieter pastimes—paper crafting, cooking, scrap booking, mixed media crafts, and sewing. But the job she savored above all others was, in tandem with Paul’s nearby mother, Chris Shirar, helping Paul and Lauren raise Matthew into a smart, curious, and refined young man.
Eventually Herb and Terry enlisted Paul and Lauren to move into and manage the large home they’d bought years earlier. Around 2016, Terry departed Texas to live with Herb in Michigan full-time, with the two of them commuting back to Texas together several times each year—as both had done individually before--to preserve the fabric of the family. Terry supported Herb’s amateur bike racing, as well as his new hobby, high-powered rocketry, as they traveled often and discovered the decidedly un-Texan weather and terrain that Michigan and the Great Lakes region offer.
In 2020, Herb was diagnosed fairly early with cancer. Doctors told them Herb’s multi-phased treatment of it would be long, debilitating, and complicated. But in Terry, Herb fortunately had perhaps the wisest, most insistent, most compassionate, full-time, live-in nurse that anyone could ask for. Herb’s treatments successfully concluded in the summer of 2021. And this must be credited in no small way to Terry, that wonderful, unconditionally-loving gal he’d so wisely courted and married over 40 years earlier.
And this is how, and where, Terry’s life on this earth concluded, much as it had begun, and had remained through the decades. She unselfishly helped restore Herb’s health, and continued to nurture his long, bright career with General Dynamics, as the days advanced toward his long-awaited retirement. She kept their small Michigan apartment, like their many Army quarters, a warm, comfortable, and inviting place to come home to. She played a quiet game of Scrabble with him most every evening, while Golden Oldies played softly in the background. Or she endured watching one of Herb’s silly, cult-classic movies with him at home. She shared the weekly shopping trips, and cooked new, untried recipes--some of which her stubborn, creature-of-habit Herb even enjoyed. And she wandered with him throughout this new and unfamiliar land, to a small-town Arkansas girl—this place called Michigan. Or, she simply enjoyed holding hands with him. Just as she was at her brilliant life’s final moment. Together.
The service will be live streamed at https://celebrationoflife.tv/blog/teresa-terry-estelle-whitsell-crites. After the service, the recorded live stream will be available at the same link location.