Terry Marshman was a neighborhood advocate and a graduate of Leadership Sunnyvale
By KATHERINE PETERSEN
Close friends of Terry Marshman will remember her as a leader and an inspiration. Marshman, a Sunnyvale resident, died Oct. 4 after being diagnosed with cancer six months earlier. She was 45.
"She was a tremendous role model. She approached this thing with such dignity, grace and spirituality. It gave her the time to be really close to all her friends," said Sharon Davis, who founded the Gavello Glen Neighborhood Association with Marshman. "She was taking care of us and making sure we were OK with her dying.
"I think she viewed this time as a wonderful gift because it gave her a chance to be with the people she loved," Davis said.
Marshman made friends easily, said her husband, Wil. During her illness, friends from childhood turned up to tell her that she had taught them the meaning of friendship. Friends in the neighborhood took her to radiation treatments, brought her flowers in the hospital, visited with her, held her hand and even cleaned her house.
Friends who worked with her in Iran while she was a journalist for the Associated Press turned up to honor their friendships and share memories, her husband said. Friends from the Los Angeles World Hunger Event, where Marshman met her husband 16 years ago, flew in to renew her spirit.
"The first time I saw her, we were in a group of about 300 people. She stood up and said something, and I couldn't stand her," Wil remembered. "But then we broke down into smaller groups, and everything clicked. She was feisty, opinionated and intense. She put her heart into everything she did."
Until her recent illness, Marshman was president of the Board of Directors of Social Advocates for Youth, where she used her leadership skills and political talents to build long-term alliances between SAY and the Sunnyvale community. The agency's emphasis on supporting children and families is what initially attracted her.
Her political activism helped create the Gavello Glen Neighborhood Association, which is an ongoing and respected organization in Sunnyvale. Marshman expanded her community influence through the Leadership Sunnyvale program and its Alumni Association.
Marshman helped Councilmember Pat Vorreiter to her 1995 election to the City Council. Donations may be made to SAY/ The Terry Marshman Scholarship Fund, 1072 S. De Anza Blvd. #A208, San Jose, 95129-3531.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, October 23, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.