Terry S Allen

Terry S. Allen passed away peacefully on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 12th, 2024 at the age of 91 in South Jordan, UT. He was the second son of Elijah Cecil Allen and Marilla Solomon, born December 20, 1932 in Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ. Terry grew up during the great depression. He moved with the family from AZ to multiple small towns in TX and experienced the beginning of WWII before he was a teenager. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he saw his father go to Hawaii and later to Guam with the US Army Air Corp. Terry was very happy when his father returned home safely.

He attended high school in Winslow, AZ where his father, managed the JC Penney store and his mother frequently taught grade school. Both his parents attended and graduated from the Tempe Normal School which eventually became AZ State University so Terry and his siblings were encouraged to do well in school and to attend college. Terry did play on the high school football team but it was short lived when he suffered a concussion. Helmets were made of leather and had no face guard. Thankfully his father gave Terry a priesthood blessing and his brain injury quickly disappeared without any residual effects. Terry also worked at the JC Penney store and for the Santa Fe Railroad earning and saving money for his tuition, books, and living expenses while at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT. Terry served his first mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 2 ½ years in Argentina when only one mission (1953-1956) and toured Europe for six weeks.

Terry worked hard in school and as he neared graduation, he was introduced to Carol Ann Larsen. For his senior project he had developed a bicycle that would balance itself and stay upright using spinning gyroscopes if they were spinning. This helped him in landing a job at Sperry Flight Systems in Phoenix, AZ shortly after graduating from BYU with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. After moving to Phoenix, they were engaged and married in the Mesa AZ Temple on April 23, 1960.

When Terry first arrived at Sperry he saw an opportunity to apply some of the modern electronics components into Sperry’s traditional gyroscope products. His boss told him that he needed to focus on his assigned work, but that he could spend time after work hours and on weekends to work on this modernization project by replacing traditional relays. The boss said that he didn’t think anyone would ever be interested in a modern “transistorized gyroscope.” When the Chief Pilot from United Airlines visited Sperry in Phoenix, he asked what they were doing to make their gyros more reliable. When they showed him Terry’s prototype gyro with power transistors he had been building on his own time, the Chief Pilot said that he wanted to refit United Airline’s entire fleet with these new devices as soon as they were available. The company ramped up the building of Terry’s new gyros and to date it has been one of the most prolific selling products every created at Sperry Flight Systems.

After moving back to Phoenix William George Allen was born and Terry and Carol purchased their first home where they often hosted extended family activities. Robert Drew Allen was next to join their family. Carol and Terry lost a third child, Stephen, shortly after birth. Then our parents moved to Yuma, AZ where Terry helped a partner to start an engineering business. Unfortunately, there was not enough work to keep both busy, so they moved their family back to Phoenix and Terry returned to work for Sperry, which was later acquired by Honeywell where he was for 37 years. Shortly after the move, Thomas Lynn Allen was a welcome addition and joy for the family. Terry built a family home in Moon Valley Country Club area, a suburb in N Phoenix where he did most of the construction with his own hands, building after work and on Saturdays after his day job work was completed. He also earned a Master of Engineering degree.

As Terry sought more challenges at work, he joined the Sperry Aerospace Group where he did several high visibility projects including designing guidance systems for the Galileo Spacecraft, a robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons. Terry worked closely with other engineers from NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It began its travels on October 18, 1989 and arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet. He also designed the pointing guidance system for the Hubble Space Telescope, a low Earth orbit Space Telescope that provided additional understanding of the Universe and provided Wide Field Camera views of the Universe. Terry has many patents but Honeywell owned them all. He loved math and read physics books his whole life for fun.

Terry’s wife, Carol, passed away on August 15, 1997 in Phoenix. H cared for her several months while she battled Leukemia, showing his affectionate, tender-loving care for her until her passing. Her death came too young, but it was acknowledged that she accomplished more than most in her 61 years and was needed more where she is now.

Dad married Nadine Nelson on February 6, 1999 in the Las Vegas Temple (25 years now). Being ten years older, she did not want to be widowed again but he said, “I am extremely healthy and have never missed a day of work in 37 years. I’ll keep pursuing you until you say YES” and he did. (Then his health fell apart and he’s had 28 surgeries). They maintained her E Layton home and his in AZ until they departed to serve their first mission together at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Afterwards they served in the Phoenix N Mission, Mesa Temple, Public Affairs (Nadine); 4.5 years in Family History Library Spanish-speaking for Terry (two missions and extended both while Nadine worked in General Authority travel. He took every training and became a “black belt FHL expert”).

They loved moving near the Bountiful Temple November 1, 2003 for 13 years then October 12, 2015 to Daybreak in S Jordan near the Oquirrh Mt. Temple, both which he dearly loved along with the Savior, the Book of Mormon, his Church membership, temple and genealogy work, family, gardening (especially tomatoes), history, airplanes, serving others, traveling the world, and always having a “project” to design and build. He was a wonderful singer and could do most anything except dance!

Terry is a Christ-like spiritual giant, loving, kind, generous, very intelligent, talented and fun. He will be very missed and is survived by his beloved wife, Nadine; brother Dwight (Rene Ellsworth); children, William (Jolie Hansen), Robert (Naomi Clinger), Thomas (Susan Dana); Nadine’s children, Kelee H. Newhall, Jeffrey N. (Gigi), Jared G. (Jan), Jeremy D. (Stephanie) Heiner, Kristina H. (Tyler) Thompson and Shirley (Brett) Rountree, foster daughter; 36 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Carol Ann Larsen, his parents Elijah Cecil Allen and Marilla Solomon, his son Stephen Larsen Allen, and siblings Norris, Eleanor (Curtis Brown) and John (Janice).

A viewing will be held Friday, May 17, 2024 at Garden Park 7th Ward, 4842 W Vermillion, S Jordan, UT from 6-8 p.m. and Saturday, May 18, 2024 from 9:30-10:45 a.m. and at 11:00 a.m. a funeral service at the same location. The celebration can be seen on a zoom broadcast at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88221626134?pwd=VzdCTINSQW50ZEJYRkVtZnpldFFzdz09

A graveside service will be held at the Mesa, AZ City Cemetery, 10:00 a.m., Monday, May 20, 2024.