Dr. Terry R. Thalman, February 17, 1938- May 10, 2022

Nauset Heights resident Dr. Terry R. Thalman passed away at home in North Carolina on May 10, 2022, after a brief illness. His wife and daughters were at his side.

Dr. Thalman grew up and spent his working life in Carbondale, IL, before retiring to Chapel Hill, NC, with his wife Patricia Ann (Foster). He was born February 17, 1938, to Southern Illinois University Education Professor Wellington A. Thalman and Marion Eloise (Cady) Thalman. He attended SIU and earned his Doctor of Medicine in Dentistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 1963, where he graduated at the top of his class.

Dr. Thalman served as an officer in the United States Air Force, stationed as a dentist at Dyess Air Force base in Abilene, Texas. He then returned to Carbondale where he practiced dentistry for 32 years, first with his brother, Wellington “Duke” Thalman who died in 1971, and subsequently with Dr. G.M Brown. Dr.Thalman served as President of the Carbondale elementary school board in the 1970s and was a member of the First Presbyterian Church, where his mother was the organist.

From a young age, he was a technology enthusiast. In high school, he learned to fly Cessna aircraft, worked at the local FM radio transmitter and built and operated a ham radio in his basement. After suspending a high-powered antenna across two oak trees in front of his family’s home, he heard the first radio signals from the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite in 1957 and helped an SIU professor communicate weekly with his son in Antarctica during the 1957-58 Operation Deep Freeze.

Growing up in Southern Illinois awakened Dr. Thalman’s lifelong love of nature. He would rise at the crack of dawn to go duck hunting or to attend the popular birdwatching class of SIU Professor Hilda Stein.

In the late 1950s, he and his wife began coming to East Orleans, where they have vacationed with family for over 65 years, building Nauset Heights’ first house on telephone poles in 1977. Dr. Thalman was a passionate birdwatcher, fisherman and sailor. After retiring, he reeled in many Stripers off Nauset Beach and made friends with the local surfcasters who shared their fishing expertise with him. His Cape Dory made the front page of the Cape Codder after Hurricane Bob in 1991, when it was airlifted from a Chatham marsh by helicopter, “sailing” high in the sky but just below the fog back to its mooring.

Dr. Thalman was always ready to lend a hand to anyone in need – whether digging a stranded car out of the sand at the bottom of Callanans Pass or treating his neighbors and the beach crew to his freshly baked blueberry muffins.

His unbounded energy and enthusiasm, his unconditional generosity and helpful spirit are sorely missed by all who knew him. Dr. Thalman is survived by his wife and best friend of 65 years, Patricia, his daughters Ellen (Gerrit Wiesmann) and Anne (Sam Coxe), and his grandsons Richard and Oliver Wiesmann. He leaves behind a sister, Shirley Reno, sister-in-law, Barbara Schütz, and many beloved nieces and nephews.