All Bluffton Icon News

Louis Terry Chappell, known to all as Terry, died in Bluffton, Ohio, Monday, February 12, 2024. Terry was born in 1942 in South Haven, Michigan to Louis and Pauline Chappell.

In his youth, Terry enjoyed boy scouts, sports and being outdoors. He was the President and Co-Valedictorian of his high school class. After undergraduate studies at DePauw University, Terry attended medical school at the University of Michigan, where he met Bobbie Heiks at a meeting of medical students opposing the Vietnam War. In less than two weeks they were engaged and married in three months. As a student, Terry had developed pacifist convictions, which he found affirmed in Bobbie’s Mennonite heritage. The couple also became convinced members of the Religious Society of Friends, and would be deeply involved in the First Mennonite Church during their Bluffton years, raising their four children in both faiths.

Terry’s medical positions took them to Ogden, Utah and Harlan, Kentucky before they settled in Bobbie’s hometown of Bluffton. They lived for three years in a land trust community called Quaker Earth, near Cedar Mills, Ohio, a place that remained a cherished destination for their family and a wide circle of friends for years after the Chappells moved back to Bluffton.