Author: Duane Fickeisen

The Rev. Orloff Miller, parish minister, AIDS counselor, veteran of the Selma march, tireless advocate for civil rights, and devoted husband and father, died on July 1, 2015, aged 83.

Orloff Miller was among the hundreds of religious leaders who traveled to Selma in March of 1965 in answer to the appeal from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. While there, on March 9, as he left Walker’s Cafe with UU ministerial colleagues James Reeb and Clark Olsen, the three were attacked and beaten by a group of white men. The Rev. Mr. Reeb died two days later. The attack gained nationwide attention, and served as one of the turning points in civil rights history.

Interviewed as part of Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954-1965), the Rev. Mr. Miller reflected back on the larger meaning of white northern presence in Selma that spring:

“I’ve been asked many times what business white clergy had in Selma, Alabama. What right did we have telling folks how they should run their lives? We not only had a right, we had a responsibility to be there because some of our family, our black brothers and sisters were not being treated fairly, and wherever people are not being given their fair shot at having a full and meaningful life we have a responsibility to do what we can to help change that. And if it means we have to argue with other brothers and sisters about that then we better get in there and argue about it. And help them to see that there is another way of living as one human family.

“Yes, I think white people had a responsibility, and white ministers especially had a responsibility to be in Selma, Alabama.” (http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb/mil0015.0841.069revorloffmiller.html)

Fifty years later, in March 2015, Mr. Miller returned to Selma to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march. His son, Orloff Garrik Miller, recalls, “By then [his] sense of balance was a problem, and we rented a wheelchair for the conference. The day of the reenactment of the march, [he] got up and walked across that bridge.”

Orloff Wakefield Miller was born on August 8, 1931 to the Rev. Lawrence Miller and Alice Miller. He received a B.A. from Mount Union College (now University of Mount Union) in 1953, and went on to earn a Master of Divinity from Boston University School of Theology in 1956.

Mr. Miller was ordained by the Methodist Church in 1954, and served as minister to the Federated (Congregational) Church of Francestown (New Hampshire) from 1956 to 1959. He then left the Methodist ministry to serve for two years as Associate Director of the Liberal Religious Youth (LRY). After receiving Unitarian Universalist ministerial fellowship in 1961, he became the Director of the Office of College Centers of the UUA and staff advisor to Student Religious Liberals (1961-66) and then District Executive of the Mountain Desert District of the UUA (1967-70). Moving into parish ministry, he served All Souls UU Church of Colorado Springs (1968-72) and the UU Fellowship of San Luis Obispo, California (1973-79).

In the early 1980s Orloff felt called to respond to the national AIDS crisis. He entered a doctoral program at the Institute for Advanced Human Sexuality in San Francisco, working as a volunteer hospice coordinator and field secretary for the AIDS Interfaith Network and providing support to people with AIDS, and to their friends and families. F
or five years (1984-89) he served as minister and AIDS consultant to the UU AIDS Crisis Ministry in San Francisco. His son, Orloff Garrik Miller saw this as “the hardest work of Dad’s career. Few he assisted survived more than a few months.”

Throughout his ministry the Rev. Mr. Miller was active within the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association; the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; and the UUA’s (former) Full Recognition and Funding of Black Affairs Council. In 1987 he received the Unsung Hero Award of the Pacific Central District of the UUA for his work in AIDS ministry.

Orloff moved to Germany in 1989, married Renate Bauer, and a year later their son, Glenn Erasmus Bauer, was born. Although he officially retired in 1991, the Rev. Mr. Miller began service as Minister-at-Large to the European Unitarian Universalists (EUU) in 1993. In a sermon and personal memoir for the UU Fellowship of Paris in 1993, he looked back on his childhood encounters with American racism and his experience in Selma. In 2000 he was accorded the title of Emeritus EUU Minister-at-Large. In retirement, Orloff enjoyed volunteering, traveling, and being a father to Glenn Erasmus.

Orloff Garrik Miller has fond memories of a childhood spent with his father. Together they camped, sailed, motorcycled, traveled to regional retreats and encounter groups, and in the early 1980s, they loaded a motorcycle with camping gear and rode from San Francisco to Oregon.

Renate remembers the ease with which Orloff made friends, and connected with people. “He found a way to bond with practically everyone,” she recalls. “He was dedicated to people, even at the end of his life. Even when he was not doing very well during the past two years, he made a point to call those who were worse off.”

Orloff Miller is survived by his wife, Renate Bauer, sisters Karen and Sandra, and children, Orloff Garrik Miller, Tanya Crete, and Glenn Erasmus Bauer. His life was celebrated in two memorial services in August 2015, one for his European family and friends at the Johannes-Ronge-Haus of the Freireligiösen Landesgemeinde Pfalz in Ludwigshafen and one for his American family and friends at the UU Church of Akron, Ohio.

Memorial donations are encouraged to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 689 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-3302.

The Rev. Guy Wheeler Meyer, 94, died in his sleep February 22, 2009. He was a graduate of University of Chicago and Meadville Theological School  He served the First Universalist Church in Stockton, IL, then worked as a labor organizer in New York City. A conscientious objector during World War II, he served in the Merchant Marines after the war. He served churches in RI, Arlington and Saugus, MA, and Newburgh, NY. He was an active voice for justice and civil rights. Guy hosted The Power of Love, a weekly radio program on KWMR in Point Reyes Station (CA) that featured people from all walks of life. He is survived by his partner of 34 years, Joyce Greenwood, his former wife, Verne M. Bell of Newburgh, NY, six children, ten grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren.

The Rev. Dr. William J. Metzger, 73, died January 30, 2010. He was a reporter and editor, who worked with migrant laborers in the Midwest. He was co-founder and partner in Adult Literacy and Training in Wisconsin and Chicago. Bill earned a BS in Journalism from South Dakota State University. Bill earned his M.Div. from the University of Chicago, and his D.Min. from Meadville Lombard. He served churches in OH, AL, NY, IL, TN, PA, and TX. He was founding editor of Quest Magazine for the Theosophical Society in America. He joined the professional interim ministry program for the UUA. He is survived by his wife, Diana Heath, his son, David Metzger and his daughter, Christine Dziawura, their spouses, three grandsons; and a sister. He was predeceased by his first wife, Sarah Castle.

The Rev. Dr. Jack Mendelsohn, 94, died on October 11, 2012. Rev. Mendelsohn was born in Cambridge, MA on July 22, 1918 to Jack and Anna (Torrey) Mendelsohn. Rev. Mendelsohn attained his Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston University in 1939. He then went on to earn a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Harvard Divinity School in 1945. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Meadville Lombard Theological School in 1962.

Rev. Mendelsohn was ordained by the Beverly Unitarian Church in Chicago, IL on October 28, 1945. He was called to the Unitarian Church in Rockford IL and served there from 1946-1954. He then went on to serve the All Souls Unitarian Church in Indianapolis, IN from 1954-1959. Rev. Mendelsohn was called to the Arlington Street Church in Boston, MA and served there from 1959-1969. The years 1969-1978 found him working at the First Unitarian Society of Chicago until he moved his ministry to the First Parish in Bedford, MA where he served from 1979-1988. Rev. Mendelsohn retired and began his next career as an interim minister at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara. He served there from 1990-1991, and then found himself back in the northeastern United States at the Community Church of Boston, where he served from 1991-1993. He served as an interim minister from 1993-1994, and for the last time, at the First Parish Church in Beverly, MA. In 1988, he was named Minister Emeritus of the First Parish in Bedford.

Rev. Mendelsohn’s lifetime of community activities and accomplishments were vast and impressive. He served as president of the following: the Urban League of Greater Boston, Boston’s Foundation for Housing Innovations, the Binder Schweitzer Foundation, Hyde Park and Kenwood Council of Churches and Synagogues, Chicago’s Alliance to End Repression, and the Abraham Lincoln Centre. He was the president and CEO of the Civil Rights Project, Inc.; and the grant administrator of *Eyes On The Prize*, an award-winning public television series on the civil rights movement. He served as director of the following: the Housing and Planning Association of Metropolitan Boston, the International Institute of Boston, and Chicago’s Center for Psychotherapy and Religion.

Heavily invested in and committed to the denomination, Rev. Mendelsohn served as: a member and an officer of the Board of Directors for the Western Unitarian Conference; vice-president of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; chairman of the board of Beacon Press; vice-chairman of the Unitarian Universalist Black Affairs Council; chairman of the UUA’s Program Committee; chair of the UUA’s Channing Bicentennial Celebration Committee; chair of the UUA Committee on Urban Concerns and Ministry; and president of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association (UUMA). He was also once a candidate for the presidency of the UUA; a founding member of the Association for Liberal Religious Studies (Collegium); a consultant for the Cambridge Forum; the only male member of the UUA Committee on Women and Religion; and an adjunct faculty member at Meadville Lombard Theological School. In 1997, he received the UUA Distinguished Service Award.

Long active in civil rights and political matters, Rev. Mendelsohn made headlines when he conducted the Vietnam War Resistance service at Arlington Street Church in Boston in 1967. He also served as an advisor on religious questions to his friend and fellow UU, Adlai Stevenson; and, in 1968, he served on the campaign staff of Robert F. Kennedy. In 1979, an old friend and colleague, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, asked Rev. Mendelsohn to accompany him on his trip to the Middle East to meet with Yasser Arafat. 15 years later in 1984, he once again travelled with Rev. Jackson to Syria to attend negotiation talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad.

At the 1969 UUA General Assembly, Rev. Mendelsohn came to the microphone on a point of personal privilege following a critical close vote on agenda priority for funding of the Black Affairs Council. He stated that he was leaving the floor of the Assembly and going across the street to Arlington Street Church to contemplate what had happened. This gesture triggered a mass walkout of many Assembly delegates and the ensuing negotiations that resulted in re-consideration of the black empowerment agenda.

A prolific and engaging writer on the subject of liberal religion, Rev. Mendelsohn was the writer of many denominational pamphlets and magazine articles. He also published seven books: Why I Am A Unitarian (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1960); God, Allah and Juju (Beacon Press, 1965); The Forest Calls Back (Little Brown and Co., 1965); The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice (Harper and Row, 1966); Channing: The Reluctant Radical (Little Brown and Co., 1971) and Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age: Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist (Beacon Press, 1964/Skinner House, 1995). Rev. Mendelsohn’s Why I Am books have provided thousands of people with their first in-depth introduction to Unitarian Universalism.

On the subject of “Immortality for Skeptics” in his seminal work, Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age: Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist, Rev. Mendelsohn wrote,

When we reason together about the truths and mysteries of life, there is one all-powerful reality: The humanity of which we are individual expressions is a product of the sense and nonsense of our forebears. We are the living immortality of those who came before us. In like manner, those who come after us will be the harvest of the wisdom and folly we ourselves are sowing. To let this reality permeate and drench our consciousness is to introduce ourselves to the grand conception of immortality which makes yearnings for some form of personal afterlife seem less consequential. So long as there is an ongoing stream of humanity I have life. This is my certain immortality. I am a renewed and renewing link in the chain of humanity. My memory and particularity are personal, transitory, finite; my substance is boundless and infinite. The immortality in which I believe affirms first and foremost my unity with humankind. My unity with humankind gives meaning to my desire to practice reverence for life. It is pride in being and pride in belonging to all being.

Rev. Mendelsohn is survived by his loving wife, Judith Frediani; son, Channing Mendelsohn; daughter, Deborah Mendelsohn; son, Kurt Mendelsohn; granddaughters, Olivia Jenkins and Hannah Kossow; step-son, Aaron Worth; step-daughter, Keilah Worth; and step-grandson, Luca Domingos-Worth.

A memorial service was held on Monday, November 12, 2012 at 1 p.m. at The First Parish in Bedford, 75 Great Rd., Bedford, MA 01730.

Notes of condolence may be sent to Judith Frediani at 51 Butler Ave., Maynard, MA 01754.

The Rev. Thomas D. McMullen, 76, died Feb. 26, 2008 in Tallahassee, FL. He was a graduate of Florida State University School of Music. He served in the Air Force as instructor of music theory and conductor of the Strategic Air Command Chorus. In Bradenton/Sarasota he was conductor, teacher of brass instruments, music store owner, and publisher. In midlife, he earned a D Min. at Meadville and served UU Churches in Studio City, CA; Plandome, NY; and Orlando, FL. He recently worked at the Florida Dept. of Elder Affairs. Family include his wife, Barbara Stansell; two sons, Tom McMullen of Tallahassee and Nathan McMullen of Nantucket, MA; and two grandchildren. A service was held March 17 at Goodwood Museum and Gardens, Tallahassee.

The Rev. Margo McKenna, a lifelong seeker whose religious restlessness led her from social work to ministry, from Seventh-day Adventism to Unitarian Universalism, from Christianity to skepticism and thence back to a reconsidered theism, and whose torments drove her from doubt to hope and finally to despair, died sadly by her own hand on 16 February 2014 at age 53.

As a parish minister, Margo McKenna was radically welcoming and inclusive in a congregation whose political diversity required greater sensitivity than many UU ministers are called upon to exercise. With dedicated pastoral presence, she worked valiantly among her parishioners in the aftermath of the terrible wildfires that swept through interior San Diego County in October 2007, nearly destroying her church. One colleague who came to give her weekend relief recalled that “she was both exhausted and utterly gracious to me and to all those who came to church that Sunday.”

Her sister Marlene recalls that Margo never met a person who didn’t like her almost immediately: “Whenever we went shopping together for clothes, she would always have a crowd of women around her in the dressing room asking her opinion their selections. These were, of course, people she had never met before.”

Margo Rae Mattson was born in Toronto on 22 November 1960, one of four children of Henry and Frieda Mattson. With her missionary parents, she grew up in Nigeria from age 2 until the family returned from Africa and settled in Michigan in the late 1960s. She was graduated from Andrews University (the “flagship” university of the Seventh-day Adventists in the far southwest Michigan town of Berrien Springs) with a Bachelor of Social Work in 1983 and then studied for some time at Loma Linda University before responding to a ministerial call, transferring to Princeton Theological Seminary, and earning her M.Div. there in 1988.

Female clergy were controversial in Seventh-day Adventism (SDA), and Margo served associate ministries, without ordination, at Paradise Valley SDA Church of San Diego (1988-89), at Tierrasanta SDA Church of San Diego (1989-93), and at Garden Grove SDA Church (1994-98), where on 6 July 1996 she was finally one of the first women to receive SDA ordination. Meanwhile, around that time, a ten-year marriage to Larry Pitrone ended in divorce, whereupon Margo adopted “McKenna” as a new surname, affirming a strong sense of connection to her Irish heritage.

In 1998 the Rev. Ms. McKenna left Seventh-day Adventist ministry and began exploring Unitarian Universalism. She served as the Director of Religious Education at the UU Church of Riverside, California (1999-2000). After receiving UUA ministerial fellowship in November 2000, she was called to the pulpit of Chalice UU Congregation of Escondido, California, in 2001, and served there until 2010. During that ministry, she met and married Tom Brower, with whom she led district workshops on creative responses to political diversity in UU congregations. They were legally separated in 2013.

Leaving parish ministry 2010, Margo spent her last years as a social worker in hospice settings throughout Southern California, while pursuing various creative arts. “She loved drawing, painting, sculpting, and photography,” recalled her sister Marlene. “She was an artist at heart.” From an early age she also enjoyed hiking and mountain climbing. The photo at right shows Margo with her sister Marlene in their late teens after they had just hiked the Bright Angel Trail on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

In both Seventh-day Adventist and Unitarian Universalist ministries, Margo’s conviction of religion as a cooperative force for social good and equality was lived out in her many commitments to public and interfaith work. She founded the Women Ministers Association (SDA) in 1988, and served presidencies of the North Park Christian Service Agency of San Diego in 1990 and of the North Park Ecumenical Ministerial Association in 1991. She was co-organizer of the Orange County Interfaith Council in 1995 and a member of the Orange County chapter of the National Conference Commission on Justice from 1995 to 1998. She maintained membership with the National Association of Socially Responsible Organizations, the National Organization for Women, and later, the Liberal Religious Educators Association and the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. Colleagues remember Margo arriving at ministerial gatherings with her tiny and much beloved canine companion, Gita, peeking out of the top of her purse or from inside her jacket.

Margo is survived by sisters Melodie Mattson-Bell and Marlene Harris, a brother, Morris Mattson; her mother, Frieda Mattson, and eight nieces and nephews. A memorial service was held on 15 March 2014 at the Chalice UU Congregation in Escondido, California. Margo was remembered as “very outgoing” and “loved by everyone,” and described by a sister as “a beautiful person” who was “a blessing to so many people.”

Memorial donations are encouraged to Heifer International, 1 World Ave, Little Rock, Arkansas 72202.

The Rev. Dr. Gordon “Bucky” McKeeman, passionate Universalist, beloved mentor, devoted institutionalist, lover of life, of humanity, and of ministry, died peacefully at age 93 on December 18, 2013, at Madonna Towers, a Benedictine retirement and care facility in Rochester, Minnesota.

Through the living of his life, the wisdom of his words, and the gentleness of his spirit, Gordon touched the lives of untold numbers of laypeople and ministers.  Younger colleagues recall Gordon as “a kind of spiritual grandfather” (Amy Zucker Morgenstern) and as a Universalist “ancient of days, as bright and new as our most recent breath” (James Ishmael Ford).  Honored by the Conference in Berry Street as its essayist for 1993, he said:

“We are lovers; we say Yes to each other, Yes to life—to more and more of life—to its brevity, its grief, its disappointments, to its possibilities, its magnificence, its glory.  We quarrel because we glimpse further possibilities—the non-sense—and wish to lay claim to it.  We remember death, and that life is brief, and that the time for love is now and more is possible—one more step toward the holy.  It is to know the peace that passes understanding and that there is no peace.  It is to love others as they are, warts and all, and to believe that more is possible, and to bespeak that wanting.  It is to pray “Give us this day our daily bread” and to know that we do not live by bread alone.  It is to remember death, and to love life and to accept them both as holy.”

Gordon Butler McKeeman was born in Lynn, Mass, on September 12, 1920, to William Neil and Lena Mabel (Goodridge) McKeeman. He graduated from Lynn English High School in 1938 and from Salem State College with a B. S. in Education in 1942.  On Nov. 5, 1944, in Lynn, Mass., Gordon wedded Phyllis Bradstreet.  He went on to receive his ministry degree in 1945 from the Universalist School of Religion at Tufts University. In 1969 he was granted an honorary doctorate by Meadville Lombard Theological School.

Mr. McKeeman was first called to serve All Souls Universalist Church of Worcester, Mass, 1944-1950, where he was ordained in 1945.  He went on to the First Parish Universalist Church of Stoughton, Mass, 1950-1955, St. Paul’s Church of Palmer, Mass, 1955-1961, and then the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron, Ohio, 1961-1983, where he was named Minister Emeritus.  In 1983, he accepted the invitation to serve as President of Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California, doing so faithfully until 1988.

Deeply committed to Universalism, he was a charter member of The Humiliati (the humble ones), a group of Tufts students and alumni formed in 1945, whose vision “stressed that human beings are impelled, not compelled, by the power of God to fulfill the good potential of their lives. The impulse toward wholeness in humanity is predisposed to good, though it can be weakened or distorted by chaos and conflict. Authentic worship keeps it alive and restores its integrity.” When the group disbanded in 1954, members elected Mr. McKeeman as their lifetime Abbot. With others of The Humiliati, he then joined The Fraters of the Wayside Inn. This ministerial study group, founded by Universalist ministers in 1903, expanded, after Universalist and Unitarian consolidation, to include ministers with Unitarian and combined ordination. Gordon advocated for admission of women to the group, a step finally realized in 1989. In his later years, Gordon treasured mementos and memories of his years with The Fraters and reflected wistfully upon being the last living member of The Humiliati.

During his years in parish ministry, the Rev Mr. McKeeman engaged in civic life with zeal. He held various offices on the Unity Community Council, served on the board of the Akron Rotary Club, founded the Fair Housing Contact Service, and founded the Planned Parenthood chapter of Akron. He also served on the adjunct faculty at the University of Akron.

Heavily invested in and committed to Universalist tradition and institutions, Gordon McKeeman served as Vice President of the Massachusetts Universalist Convention, and President of the Massachusetts Universalist Ministers’ Association. At Ferry Beach he and his wife Phyllis served as youth leaders. After moving to Ohio, he served as the President of the Ohio-Meadville District, Vice President and President of the UU Service Committee, and Vice Moderator of the UUA Board of Trustees. The Rev. Mr. McKeeman received the Angus H. MacLean Award from the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1982. He and Phyllis were jointly honored with the UUA Distinguished Service Award in 1993.

Gordon McKeeman placed high value on lay ministry. The Ohio Meadville District’s Commissioned Lay Leader program is an outgrowth of his grounding in Universalism and his understanding of the importance of lay leadership that emerges from within congregations, nourished through well-informed and intentional training. But he could look with wry humor on some of the absurdities of professional ministry. In speaking to colleagues on the 50th anniversary year of his ordination, he offered to sum up his ministry in three numbers:  books read since graduation from seminary – 738; books purchased over that same time – 2155; books told by parishioners that he “must read” – 6784 (not exact numbers but the gist is accurate).

The Rev Dr. McKeeman’s presidency of Starr King School for the Ministry afforded him the opportunity to reflect more deeply on the manifold richness and meanings of ministry. In a booklet of meditations, Out of the Ordinary, he wrote a reflection on Ministry:

“Ministry is a quality of relationship between and among human beings that beckons forth hidden possibilities; inviting people into deeper, more constant more reverent relationship with the world and with one another; carrying forward a long heritage of hope and liberation that has dignified and informed the human venture over many centuries; being present with, to, and for others in their terrors and torments, in their grief, misery and pain; knowing that those feelings are our feelings, too; celebrating the triumphs of the human spirit, the miracles of birth and life, the wonders of devotion and sacrifice; witnessing to life-enhancing values; speaking truth to power; speaking for human dignity and equity, for compassion and aspiration; believing in life in the presence of death; struggling for human responsibility against principalities and structures that ignore humaneness and become instruments of death. It is all these and much, much more than all of them, present in the wordless, the unspoken, the ineffable. It is speaking and living the highest we know and living with the knowledge that it is never as deep, or as wide or a high as we wish. Whenever there is a meeting that summons us to our better selves, wherever our lostness is found, our fragments are united, our wounds begin healing, our spines stiffen and our muscles grow strong for the task, there is ministry.”

“I cherished every opportunity I had to be in conversation with Gordon,” recalls the Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, president of Starr King School from 1990 to 2014. “As he did for so many people, Gordon’s friendship, compassion, and counsel steadied me and nurtured my development. His theological depth was inspiring and his acerbic wit rescued me from many moments of despair!”

Gordon McKeeman’s influence on the shape and vision of Unitarian Universalist ministry endures with towering stature and gentle presence.

Gordon is survived by his wife of 69 years, Phyllis; sons, Bruce, Glenn, and Randall; four grandchildren; and sister, Gloria King. A memorial service was conducted by the Rev. Dr. Carol Hepokoski on December 29, 2013, at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Rochester, Minnesota.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the McKeeman Fund at Starr King, or to a charity of donor’s choice.

Jean Devine McGehee, 80, passed away on May 31, 2008 in Bluefield, WV. Born in Birmingham, AL, she was the daughter of George Joseph Devine and Pearl Casey. A graduate of Wilson College with a master’s degree from Jacksonville University, she was a lifelong teacher and college professor of English and an avid student of language. She was preceded in death by her husband of 44 years, the Rev. Charles White McGehee. Survivors include two sons, McGregor Scott McGehee of Boston, Mass., and Charles Stuart McGehee in Bluefield; three grandchildren. Dudley Memorial Mortuary of Bluefield, was in charge of arrangements.

The Rev. Dr. Ronald Michael Mazur, 78, died on January 17, 2013. He was 78 years old. Rev. Mazur was born in Boston, MA on May 14, 1934 to Bronislawa (Mikonowicz) and Michael Mazur. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Boston University in 1955. He went on to attain a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School in 1959. In 1986 he earned a Doctor of Education from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

Ordained at the First Parish Church in Stow, MA in 1959, Rev. Mazur served as its minister from 1959-1964. From 1964-1965, he took a break from parish ministry and became the Executive Director of the Unitarian Christian Fellowship. From 1965-1970, he served as minister of The First Church of Salem, MA; and from 1968-1970 as chaplain of Salem State College. He served as the interim minister of the First Universalist Church of Essex, MA from 1971-1972, and then went on to serve as minister of the First Congregational Parish, Unitarian in Petersham, MA from 1973-1977; the Unitarian Universalist Society of the Daytona Beach Area in Ormond Beach, FL from 1990-1997; and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of St. Augustine, FL from 1998-2002. From 2002-2013, he served as community minister to the Ormond Beach, FL area.

His years as a minister made Rev. Mazur keenly aware of ethical and social issues in human sexuality. He became a certified sex educator and lectured and hosted seminars and workshops at a variety of institutions. He worked in private practice, specializing in sex counseling with both individuals and couples. From 1972-1989, he was coordinator and principal trainer of the Peer Sexuality Education Program as well as adjunct faculty member, Division of Public Health, School of Health Sciences, at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

During his career as a sexual health educator, Rev. Mazur wrote articles for publications ranging from Redbook to The American Journal of Public Health. With his wife, Sharon, he also self-published a monthly newsletter called Sexual Health and Relationships(SHAR). On the subject of human sexuality, Rev. Mazur wrote several books: Commonsense Sex: A Basis for Discussion and Reappraisal (Beacon Press, 1968); The New Intimacy: Open Ended Marriage and Alternative Lifestyles (Beacon Press, 1973); and About Your Sexuality: A Multimedia Sex Education Curriculum (Beacon Press, 1971). Rev. Mazur also served on the development team of the UUA’s About Your Sexuality curriculum for a number of years.

Rev. Mazur enjoyed boating, fishing, golf, tennis, music, reading and travel, and he developed several websites related to his fields of interest. During his retirement years, he wrote and published three more books:  Free Jesus; Liberate America (iUniverse, 2003); Christianity As Fairy Tale (iUniverse, 2006); and Mystery of the Jesus Family (2009).

In a remembrance of her husband, Sharon Dorfman wrote:

“The Ron I cherished was brilliant, passionate, exuberant, authentic, creative, generous, courageous, persistent, unconventional, and non-conformist. He was a compassionate listener and true friend. Ron was a visionary and champion of social justice, speaking his truth eloquently and striving to shape, in some small way, a better world. He lived his faith.”

Rev. Mazur is survived by his wife, Sharon Dorfman; daughter, MJ Mazur; son Nathan Mazur; sister, Marianne Damigella; and his loyal rescue pup, Jazmyn.

At Rev. Mazur’s request, there was no funeral or memorial service.

Notes of condolence may be sent to Sharon Dorfman at 1436 Sunningdale Lane, Ormond Beach, FL 32174.

Rosemary Matson, 97, widow of the Rev. Howard Matson, died Sept. 27, 2014, at her home in Carmel, CA. She was a feminist, humanist and UU leader. She championed human rights, civil liberties and international peace.

Born September 20, 1917, in Geneva, Iowa, Rosemary grew up there and in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where she graduated from high school in 1936. In the late 1930s she attended Omaha University (now University of Nebraska, Omaha) and the University of California at Berkeley. At Berkeley she had her first experience as an activist, becoming an organizer for the Culinary Workers Union and joining a strike for higher wages for waitresses.

During the early 1940s, Rosemary lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she protested discrimination against African Americans. She continued her activism after moving to Chicago in 1943, volunteering in the city’s first interracial recreation center. At one time she owned and operating a bookstore in Chicago’s Near North Side.

In the early 1950s, Rosemary moved to Hawaii, where she was a community organizer for plantation workers and dockworkers and helped start a Honolulu chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Rosemary became an active Unitarian in Hawaii, embracing our commitment to social justice and interfaith dialogue. In 1952, she co-founded and served as first president of the First Unitarian Fellowship (now Church) of Honolulu. Early parishioners included Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, who took their grandson Barack Obama to the church’s Sunday school in the 1970s.
In 1955, Rosemary returned to Berkeley to work for the Pacific Coast Unitarian Council. She met the Rev. Howard Matson, a minister at the San Francisco First Unitarian Church. They married in 1957.

In 1962, Rosemary joined the staff of the Starr King School for the Ministry, a Unitarian seminary in Berkeley. She worked at Starr King until 1978, first as a fundraiser, then as an administrator. At Starr King, she became a passionate advocate for women in the ministry. She played a key role in winning approval of the Women and Religion Resolution at the 1977 UUA General Assembly in Ithaca, New York. The resolution called for UUs to examine the extent to which their religious beliefs influenced sex-role stereotypes and to “avoid sexist assumptions and language.” She later helped rid the denomination of sexist practices and promoted related rethinking of theology. Her motto: “We do not want a piece of the pie. It is still a patriarchal pie. We want to change the recipe.”

Active in United Nations organizations, she participated in international conferences on women in Copenhagen in 1980 and Nairobi in 1985. A committed pacifist, she co-founded a US-Soviet peace group in 1980 and helped organize and lead more than two dozen citizen diplomacy trips to the Soviet Union.

Both Rosemary and her husband Howard, who died in 1993, were dedicated proponents of human rights. Howard participated in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both Matsons worked closely with Cesar Chavez and other activists to promote farm worker rights. Chavez lived incognito at the couple’s Carmel Valley home for several months in 1970.

The Matsons received Monterey County ACLU’s Ralph B. Atkinson award for championing civil liberties: Howard in 1980, Rosemary in 1984. Rosemary received many other honors for her work for social justice, humanism, feminism, and international peace. In 2011, the Starr King School for the Ministry awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

The Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard University, holds an extensive collection of Rosemary’s writings and research materials, documenting her involvement with UU groups and other organizations.

In addition to many devoted friends and admirers, Rosemary is survived by a brother, two nieces, seven nephews, and numerous grand nieces and nephews. Notes of remembrance may go to her nephew, Sam Thompson, 920 East Bay Dr. NE, #3D-102, Olympia, WA  98506. Thanks to Sam for providing UURMaPA with this obituary.