Roy Test

Roy Test, who helped start the LASFS, died December 20 of complications from a fall. He was 88.

As a teenager Test co-founded the Los Angeles chapter of the Science Fiction League in 1934. Interviewed in 2007 about the club’s first meeting Roy recalled, “I had been corresponding with people through the SF magazines, and it was surprising to be in the same room with them. There were only eight or 10 of us, but that was more science fiction readers than we’d ever seen in one place.” (The club was renamed the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society when it left the SFL a few years later.)

Speaking at the club’s 75th anniversary banquet last October, Roy described meetings at Clifton’s Cafeteria when he was 13 or 14 years old, and how his mother, Wanda Test, volunteered to be club secretary as a way to come “and see what kind of oddballs I was associating with. Maybe it didn’t occur to her I was the oddest one there.” (They called her minutes “Thrilling Wanda Stories.”)

Roy joined the Army in WWII and became a pilot. He flew 32 missions over Europe in a B-17 Flying Fortress known as “The Bad Penny.” He earned two Bronze stars, the Air Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross.

In recent years Roy actively participated in the Commemorative Air Force, spoke publicly about his WWII experiences, and volunteered as a docent at the Planes of Fames Air Museum in Chino.

Roy’s family and friends will hold a memorial service at 11 a.m. Feb. 27 at the Baldwin Park Performing Arts Center.

There is an online memorial and guest book here.