Tom Bird's 1988 Wedding

      A 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon wedding ceremony is unusual. However, when the groom serves a life sentence in a maximum-security prison, there are very few choices.

      Tom Bird started dating Terry Lyn Smith around October 1, 1983, about 2 ½ months after Sandy’s death. Since then, Terry worked to help Tom first preserve and then win his freedom, and following his first incarceration, she spent countless hours handling legal affairs or solving domestic problems for him. Terry grew very close to the Bird children, remembering their birthdays with presents and phone calls, and attending family events. Virginia and Ralph Bird grew close to Terry. Mama Jane even approved of her back in November of 1983.

      When Tom and Terry married inside Lansing Correctional Facility, she had been part of the family for nearly five years. Tom and Terry debated a long time about the decision to marry, their deliberations complicated by the unique living arrangements his life sentence imposed.

      The location of the wedding directed Terry to plan a very unusual ceremony and reception. The wedding party, without Tom, adjourned to a public reception at 7:30 p.m. that night at Grace Lutheran Church in Kansas City, Missouri.

      The wedding party, sans Tom, arrived at the prison en masse. Each person passed through a metal detector and emptied pockets of everything save those items approved for the wedding ceremony. Once cleared, guards passed them through one set of iron gates where they waited until the gate clanged shut behind them. The second iron gate opened into a small hallway. The group faced a guard house set behind bullet-proof glass. This guard eyed the group and pressed a button releasing the heavy metal door that opened into the visitation room which would serve as the wedding chapel. They had 1½ hours for their ceremony.

      Tom Bird entered the room from the other side, dressed in his standard issue blue denim shirt and blue jeans. He quickly changed into a pair of clean white pants he had smuggled in from the prison kitchen. Virginia handed him the white necktie she smuggled into the prison in her bra. (Neckties are forbidden in prison. They are considered escape paraphernalia.) The guards graciously let Tom keep the tie and the white pants on. His tie matched those worn by his two sons, Aaron and Paul who, along with sister Andrea, formed the wedding party. Aaron stood to Tom’s right, closest to his dad, with Paul on Aaron’s right. Andrea stood immediately left of Terry. She wore a beautiful burnt orange chenille dress. Terry wore white, but this dress lacked the long trail and ornate décor of most wedding gowns.

      Rev. Ralph Bird officiated. Also there were Virginia, Terry’s parents Dorothy and Donald Smith, Terry’s two sisters, Dr Donna Benford and Dr. Jeneen Haley, and the witness, Judy Butchka (a friend of Terry’s). After some bluff and bravado, Tom’s pro bono attorney, Glenn Peglau, was allowed to attend as well. That made 13, plus the guards who occasionally walked through the visitation room.

      The “wedding chapel” in the maximum security prison was a section of the regular visitation room. It featured three rows of six cushioned metal chairs separated by a center aisle. The chairs were set in rows at an angle in V-like fashion, in a feeble attempt to look like a church. Just behind the rows of chairs sat more rows of chairs, lined up back to back for the next visitation day. The room looked more like a church basement meeting room just before the members come down for coffee and cake.

      The “altar” was a Formica-topped table with metal legs and no tablecloth. On the “altar” sat three-candled candelabra, with the center candle standing taller than the two outside candles. In front of the candelabra sat three small candles set in their own holders.

      Toward the back of the table were two donated floral arrangements set in empty juice cans covered with tinfoil. Pastor Ralph brought in a communion kit. Most of what sat on this table was prohibited by prison regulations, as was the video-tape of the ceremony.

      Each time guards walked through the room it was an irritating reminder of the sad predicament Tom faced. The lock clanked open and the metal door creaked open on its steel hinges. The guard walked into and across the back of the room, glancing at the wedding party, and then repeated the irritating door sounds as he left the room. As the door slammed shut, its bolt collided with a grudging lock. It’s a sound, like the clatter of keys on a metal ring, from which prisoners long to be free.

      Pastor Ralph Bird read Psalm 1, emphasizing the spiritual strength of people who walk with God. This kind of strength endures and prospers..

      Tom and Terry chose many scripture readings for their ceremony. They chose Song of Solomon 8:6-7:

      “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised.” (NKJ) 

      Pastor Ralph read the “love chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13. Here all of human life and effort is evaluated and compared to the incomparable truth that love—sacrificial, selfless love—is the single most important human trait.

      While grandfather Ralph read these words about love, Andrea, now 11 years old, held tight to Terry’s hand, and occasionally leaned her head against her shoulder. The boys sat close to their Tom, his right arm often draped around Aaron’s shoulder.

      Pastor Ralph read from Colossians, starting at chapter 3, verse 12. This passage instructed the families how to deal with each other and with the world, again emphasizing the need for a foundation of love.

      Pastor Ralph read from John, starting at the first verse. Then he read the text that served as the foundation for his meditation—his charge to Terry Smith, the young Christian Education Director and the “lifer” Tom Bird. He read Ecclesiastes, starting at verse 9 of chapter 4.

      “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.

      “Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (NKJ) 

      Terry had been asked countless times why she would marry a convict, especially one with a life sentence? “I suppose there’s always the pat answer. I love him,” she smiled.

      “We really, truly thought he would be out of prison within a short time, a few years maybe. Nobody thought it would go on like this,” she answered a dozen years later.

      Even in this marriage where one partner is locked behind bars, each partner experiences a rewarding relationship. Because of the forced separation and complete lack of freedom to move about, Tom and Terry formed a more marital union that truly must rely on substance and quality, rather than materialism and entertainment. The two of them work together to help other married inmates and their families with prison-based marriage and family life seminars, started at Tom’s instigation. They do not fit the definition of marriage proffered by popular culture but rather one formed in the crucible of true, unselfish altruistic love.

      Their marriage brought peace to Virginia and Ralph Bird who, except for Terry, had been almost left alone to help their son survive his ordeal. Living 400 miles away and with the vagaries of advancing age, the Birds were very grateful for the positive role Terry played in service to her fiancé and after this date, her husband.

      The strength of them bound together, as Pastor Ralph explained it, had been tested in the fiery trials of Kansas’ Court systems, held up to public scrutiny and ridicule and the passage of time. They build their relationship through evening phone calls from Tom at prison and weekend visits, where they are restricted to a 60-second embrace upon greeting and departure, and long, long talks about things that many busy married people never get around to.

      Pastor Ralph emphasized that they had a courtship…literally. They grew their relationship under the stress and strain of public scrutiny, both in the courts and in the media. “Who is to say which is best? Under trial one discovers what is best in another. Each knows what it takes to survive turbulence.” He explained that, “They talked this through over and over for months,” but their love, “Pulled [them] into each other like a whirlpool pulls water into itself.”

      He spoke of the “mathematics of marriage” from Matthew 19:5, “the two shall become one,” which he described as, “1 plus 1 = 1. You two will bring each other happiness and joy.” This is a application of the Christian belief that a man and woman, joined by the Holy Spirit, become one entity, not a 50-50 partnership, but a 100-100 union.

      Andrea fidgeted during the meditation, but Terry settled her down with a loving pat.

      Pastor Ralph continued with his “mathematics of marriage” lesson stating that, “two in Christ are never two. But 1 plus 1 equals 3.” He explained that when a man and woman are woven together with Christ, the three of them become one cable, one chord, one rope, of superior strength, and no longer weak individuals trying to deal with life alone. The strength of three is combined into one. He told them to “twist yourselves around each other like a cable of steel.” He read from Philippians 4:13. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

      Upon completion of the meditation, Tom, Terry and the children stood before the altar. Pastor Ralph, using a cigarette lighter provided by a guard, lit the center candle. Then Tom and Terry took their light from that candle—“it signified that we were taking light from Jesus.”

      Each of the children took one of the small candles that had been sitting in front of the candelabra and Terry lit their candles. The little family stood together for but a short time, ceremoniously taking their light from Christ. (The children lived with Sandy’s brother Joe Stringer in Salt Lake City, Utah. An Arkansas court awarded their custody to Joe and his wife Lynn.)

      Attorney Glenn Peglau prayed for the marriage. Virginia sang “The Lord’s Prayer” acapella.

      The ceremony was over.

      Following the ceremony, the tiny wedding party had a “reception” in the visitation room. Their celebration supper consisted of sodas and candy bars from the vending machines.

      Then they left.

      Tom Bird slipped out of his tie and back into his blue denims, and embraced his new wife one more time. He was taken out, strip-searched and sent back to his cell.

      Terry Bird and the rest of the wedding party left for Grace Church in Kansas City, Missouri where they entertained about 250 guests; a wedding reception without a groom. So great was the media’s curiosity about this event, Terry posted guards at the doors to keep reporters from crashing the reception.

            With the reception over, Terry Bird along with a few others went to a piano bar. Terry Bird said wistfully, “when we would normally have been on our honeymoon.”

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