McKinstry 65th

MCKINSTRY 65th

Jim and Pearl McKinstry celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary on Sept. 11, 2015, with friends and family at dinner in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Pearl Maguire graduated from Laurelwood Academy (Gaston, Ore.) in 1943, and Jim graduated from Auburn (Wash.) Academy in 1945.

They met at Walla Walla College, where Pearl graduated in 1949. She went to work at Columbia Academy in Battle Ground, Wash., as the dean of girls. They were married Sept. 10, 1950, in Portland, Ore., after Jim had graduated and gone to work for the Upper Columbia Conference as the Book and Bible House assistant manager. While there, Jim handled the business of the literature evangelists (formerly known as colporteurs) for both the Upper Columbia and Washington conferences.

In 1955 they were called to the Pacific Union Conference (PUC) to help establish a central office to handle the work of the literature evangelists for the entire PUC territory. This was the beginning of each Union having their central office rather than each local conference Book and Bible House handling the business for each conference. This office, known as Home Health Education Service (HHES) was located in San Jose, Calif.

The McKinstry family loved camping along the Oregon coast as well as in Yosemite. They would go to Yosemite Valley and camp over the Memorial Day holiday and then again later in the summer to Camp Wawona for a retreat with the literature evangelists working in Central California Conference.

While living in San Jose, Pearl went back to school for her nursing degree, which she received the same year their son finished the eighth grade. As a registered nurse, she mostly worked in doctor offices and hospitals and worked out of a registry. While living in Texas, she worked for a group of doctors visiting their patients in their homes and helping them both medically and spiritually. Pearl liked to travel with Jim when he took business trips and attended rallies for the literature evangelists.

After 17 years in San Jose, Jim was asked to start offices in several other unions: Southwestern Union office in Richardson, Texas, in 1972; Lake Union Conference in Berrien Springs, Mich., in 1975; and then to the North Pacific Union, in 1977, that had already established an HHES office in Portland, Ore. Then the couple moved back to Southwestern Union, where Jon served as the assistant treasurer until the Atlantic Union in South Lancaster, Mass., asked him to establish an HHES office.

In 1984, as cancer surgery hit their family, the pair moved back to the Pacific Union HHES, which had been moved to Westlake Village in Southern California. They worked there until Jim's retirement in 1990.

Both Jim and Pearl thoroughly enjoyed being part of the church’s publishing program. They're thrilled to attend rallies and hear literature evangelists tell their experiences placing books in the homes of thousands of families. 

They retired in the Portland, Ore./Vancouver, Wash., area and lived there until they recently moved to Sandy, Utah, to an assisted living facility memory-care unit, near their son, Larry.

Their family includes Larry and Diane (Alsop) McKinstry of Murray, Utah; Anne Shihadeh of Portland, Ore.; 3 grandchildren, 3 step-grandchildren, a great-grandchild and 11 step-great-grandchildren.