NEIGHBORS: "Grams" shares experience with troubled teens

By JEFF FRANK - Staff Writer | Monday, September 29, 2008 5:42 PM PDT ∞

VISTA ---- Terry Adams knows something about being around boys. After all, she raised five of them with her late husband, Jim.

So it's no surprise that she has made herself quite comfortable visiting the teenage boys at New Haven Youth and Family Services. Adams, 78, is playing a role quite familiar to her, as a feisty grandma figure for the troubled adolescents in the residential program.

They call her "Grams," as do Adams' 12 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. She drops by New Haven when she can to show the teens she cares. She's the proud owner of a pair of pens made for her by some of the boys in the wood shop in appreciation of her concern.

Those pens will be used, she pledges, to sign copies of her recently released book, "Guilty Without a Doubt," a novel she wrote at age 75.

"They really left their imprint on me," said Adams of her meetings with some of the youngsters. "What can I do but give them a pat on the back and let them know I care?"

Support for New Haven is a family affair. Adams' son, Jerry, set up a fund at the school in memory of his father, Jim Adams, longtime owner of Jim Adams Service in Vista and a man always willing to extend a helping hand, his wife said.

"My husband was really interested in children as a whole," Terry Adams said. "If a child needed shoes or a pair of glasses, Jim was there to take up some of the slack and share some of the abundance we had."

Adams will join in saluting her husband on Saturday as a guest speaker at the Circle of Hope Gala, which benefits the New Haven programs.

While she'll focus on her husband, Adams has plenty of inspirational material to share from her own life.

She started singing at age 3, eventually signing a contract with the William Morris Agency and performing at hotels and other venues around her native Massachusetts.

One night in 1944, a young sailor recuperating from war injuries was escorted to a front table at a hotel club in Newport, R.I., where Adams was performing.

"Our eyes clicked, and all of a sudden I forgot about everyone else in the club. I was singing just to him," she said.

The young sailor and singer married a year later and found their way to California while Jim Adams finished his Navy commitments. Meanwhile, Terry Adams shared her talents at military hospitals, on Navy ships and in various war benefits at Camp Pendleton.

The family returned to North County to stay in 1949. Jim opened his service station while Terry raised the couple's six children and got involved in activities with the Vista Jaycees, the PTA, Boys Scouts, Girls Scouts and the then-Vista Boys Club.

Each of the children went to work with their father at age 14.

"He believed that if you work, learn responsibility and be in sports, you wouldn't go far wrong," Adams said.

There were struggles. Jim suffered a heart attack in 1970, the same year their son Jay died at age 18 in an automobile accident. Jim's health problems forced him to retire two years later. The couple later lost two more sons, one to a car accident and another in a fire.

Still, her husband maintained a positive attitude and a "philanthropic heart," said Adams, which inspired his family even after his death from cancer in 1998.

His granddaughter, Brittany, did a high school essay about her granddad as the person who most inspired her.

"He taught me the concert of hope. You can't ever give up. It influenced my decision to fight the disease he struggled with," wrote Brittany, who hopes to become a pediatric oncologist. "He also told me to never give up on my dreams."

That's a message Adams hopes to communicate in her talk at Saturday's New Haven gala, which will be held at a private home in Temecula. To reserve a spot, call (760) 630-4035, Ext. 7772.

"They must learn that hopes and dreams can come true and the impossible can become possible," she said. "They need to know they are as important as anyone else in this world."

If you have a suggestion for someone who would make a good Neighbors story, contact staff writer Jeff Frank at (760) 740-5419 or jfrank@nctimes.com.

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