Dolores Arlene Terry

Dolores Arlene (Sutton) Terry left this world on September 25, 2026, her final cadence on earth before the melodic orchestra of heaven.

An adoring mother, grandmother, big sister and great grandmother, she traveled this world with a heart as boundless as the wide open Montana skies of her birth. Her feet were always steady to sustain and support the lives and love for many. From the dawning of her experiences travelling the highways and byways in Montana to the setting of her story to travel the pathways of her memories shared. She was a musician, a creator of peaceful memories, an establisher of a family and the heart that kept the beat impacting numerous lives.

She even opting (in her more seasoned years) to dull the pain, resonating from countless well-trodden steps over a lifespan, to let her heart sing the accomplishments of those closest to her. She received a shot of steroids in her hips to travel to her granddaughter's graduation, from Palm Springs, California to Alabama. Her life records show a plethora of amazing examples of how she gave kindness from an authentically loving heart.

She was born in a shack with newspapers wallpapering the walls for insulation. Her parents, Elba Bell (Vagt) Sutton and Thomas W. Sutton were homesteading outside Lone Pine, Montana during the Great Depression. They didn't have two pennies to rub together but they had a loving family. Their entertainment consisting of throwing wet "didies" at each other and rolling on the floor in laughter.

They eventually moved to Great Falls, Montana where they lived in a basement on which they built their dream home. Dolores was a doting daughter, who became the big sister who oversaw her four younger siblings, Thomas Sutton, Jr. (deceased), Shirley Sutton White (deceased), Ava Sutton Pedersen and Nancy Sutton Auer (deceased).

She met and married her husband of 73 years, Eugene Terry, years who was in the Air Force and stationed in Great Falls on April 8, 1953. As the years went on she chose to walk the footsteps of a faithful wife, managing a home and a career in a steady resilience. She gave birth to two children, Kathleen Terry Craig and Eugene Terry, Jr., who, due to an accident at birth was born with significant needs during a time and in a world that did not understand or offer any support to special needs children. He was not expected to live but she became his voice and strong advocate and willed him to survive. They moved into that basement apartment that her parents built their dream house on because they had a trunk filled with medical bills. She was able to get hired on at the Boeing Company in Great Falls about the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis which was the inspiration for the Minuteman Missile Program. Her husband, Eugene began his career at Boeing shortly after Dolores was hired. Eugene worked in Missile Handling which required the family moving almost every year to a new state where Dolores worked often as the only woman in her department. She had a fruitful career at Boeing being at the forefront of early computers and technology. She and her husband retired from Boeing in the early 1990s. Since her husband was a pilot and they had their own small aircraft they flew across the country and continued to travel to the Palm Springs area every winter until 2020.

Dolores was a kind, caring person who had a burden for those folks back home in Montana who provided education for indigenous tribes in the state. She truly cared about people from every community and every land, nation and tongue as the Good Book states in Revelation 7:9.

Even in her last years, she carried on with a song in her heart and a pep in her step or a hop where she plopped. She was extraordinarily kind, witty, charming, doting, thoughtful, hilarious, passionate, full of life and good stories and she slept her last sleep on earth in love.

She is survived by her husband Eugene Terry, her daughter Kathleen Craig and son, Eugene Terry Jr. (otherwise endearingly known as Buzz). Her family roots surviving her are her sister Ava Jean Pedersen, her precious grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Christina Strand, Sarah, Jon-Philippe, Langston and Booker Z. Ruhumuliza, who she loved with all her heart.

May her legacy continue to echo through the melodies she so passionately shared with the ears of her family. Rest in eternal peace.