Terry Teh-Su Lin's Obituary
Terry Teh-Su Lin, born Teh-Su Tao, loving mother of two and grandmother of five, died Tuesday October 23, 2018, in her home in Plano, Texas after a three-year battle with lung cancer. She was 73 years old. Terry was born on August 12, 1945 in Chongqing, China to Shou-Chuan Tao and Hung-Chen Han. Her birth coincided with fireworks exploding in celebration of the end of World War II in Asia. Four years later, during the 1949 Communist takeover of China, her family fled on a ship to Taipei, Taiwan to escape persecution. The second oldest of four siblings, Terry was able to lead a carefree childhood in Taiwan, enjoying time with family and colluding with her sister to pull pranks on her brothers. She excelled in literature and public speaking at school. After graduating from Taipei First Girls High School, Terry attended National Taiwan University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Chemistry in 1967. She left Taiwan to attend graduate school on a full scholarship at University of Minnesota. Two years later, she completed her master’s degree in Nutrition with a minor in Biochemistry. While in Minnesota, Terry met a fellow graduate student, Santa Hui-Cheng Lin, through her church. They were married on June 27, 1970. Three years later, their first daughter, Jennifer Terry Lin was born in Bryan, Texas. Eunice Santa Lin was born in St. Louis, Missouri seventeen months after. On July 3, 1976, Terry and her husband proudly became U.S. citizens. Despite an early career as a lab researcher, Terry returned to school at the age of 39, earning a bachelor’s degree in Systems and Data Processing at Washington University. Specializing in the computer language COBOL, she worked more than 15 years as a system analyst at McDonnell Douglas and American Express, and later, as a processing specialist at Southwestern Bell. She helped her company prepare for the Y2K scare before retiring in 1999. Terry’s most important contributions in life, however, were to her family and community. She stepped out of the workforce for a decade to focus on raising her daughters and to support their academic and musical pursuits. During that time, she and her husband started a small Bible study for Chinese students that eventually grew into the St. Louis Chinese Christian Church, serving Chinese immigrants throughout the St. Louis area. She sang in the choir, helped prepare Sunday lunches, hosted fellowship groups, led prayer meetings and served as the church treasurer for many years. Terry cared for her husband through a long battle with lung cancer until his death in 1995, just a few months after they celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. She also spent significant time in Los Angeles taking care of her aging parents until they passed away. Those years were also filled with new life as Terry welcomed two sons-in-law into her family and, later, five grandchildren. She moved to Dallas in 2014 and was an integral part of her daughters’ lives until the very end. Her grandchildren will always remember “Po Po” for her delicious and lovingly prepared Chinese dishes, countless hours spent teaching them Chinese, her love of music and sweets, her practicality, her commitment to the church, and her radical generosity towards family and friends. A memorial service in celebration of her life will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, November 17 at Dallas Chinese Bible Church, 1707 Campbell Trail, Richardson, Texas. Committal of ashes will take place at a future date in Vancouver, Canada. In lieu of flowers or gifts, donations can be made in Terry’s memory to Dallas Chinese Bible Church, the faith community that walked alongside her through the final few years of her life. Terry is survived by her daughter Jennifer Tang, her husband David and their three children, Melody, Valerie and Paxon of Plano, Texas; her daughter Eunice Nichols, her husband Ryan and their two children, Spencer and Tyler of San Mateo, California; and her siblings Ben Tao of Kenya, Bonnie Chang of Houston, Texas, and Ming Tao of Taiwan.
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