Author: Duane Fickeisen

Phyllis W. Dunlap, 85, wife of the Rev. Lewis Dunlap, died December 12, 2015 in Denver, CO. She was diagnosed with ALS in March 2015, then had a stroke at the end of November.

Phyllis May Wheeler was born in Palo Alto, CA on September 17, 1930 to Oliver and Ethel (Raymond) Wheeler. She graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1948, marrying William Dolan in 1952. They had four children. Bill was a geophysicist with a mining company, and his work took them all over the world; for a time they lived in Cyprus and later Canada, eventually retiring in Denver. The couple divorced in 1980.

After her divorce, she attained an AA degree in Medical Technology from Red Rocks Community College in Colorado, and began working as an X-ray technician for a dentist.You can also learn about the Georgetown dental assistant course here and can pursue your dream career. Subsequently she volunteered at the American Cancer Society’s Thrift Shop, providing a positive presence there. At home she liked to sew and make clothes for her family.

Phyllis and her second husband, the Reverend Lewis Dunlap attended First Universalist Society in Denver without meeting each other for years. Eventually sitting next to each other at a Sunday Lunch Bunch event, they conversed and began dating, marrying in 1989. They bonded over the game of bridge, continuing to play duplicate and regular bridge throughout their marriage. Phyllis opened their home to a weekly Thursday night bridge game that survives her death.

She liked to travel and once joined Lew when his choir toured Russia and the Scandinavian countries. Back in the States they enjoyed camping, first in tents and then in a fifth-wheel rig.

She enjoyed English mysteries and loved to read them at home and at her family cabin on Silver Lake in Northern Colorado. (She was a child when her family built the place, tenting there while they built the cabin.) The family was there this past August for what they thought might be her last visit there. They now treasure that visit.

Lew remembers her as a highly intelligent woman affected by dyslexia, a calm and soothing presence, and “the most companionable woman in my life.”

She is survived by her husband, her sister Jean Whitley, four children, one grandson, and a host of friends.

A memorial service was held Monday, February 8, 2016 at First Universalist Church of Denver. Condolences may be sent to Lew Dunlap, 2021 S. Dayton Ct., Denver, CO 80247.

Robert Cameron Duncan, 71, husband of the Rev. Lucinda Duncan, died October 21, 2013 at his home in Concord, MA. After beginning his career as a teacher in the Lincoln (MA) public schools, Bob was hired by the Fenn School in Concord as teacher, coach, head of the Lower School, and assistant headmaster for 29 years.

A native of Concord, he graduated from Lawrence University in Wisconsin, and from Tufts University with a M.Ed. Bob and Lucinda also served as a Peace Corps volunteers, building one-room schools in rural Honduras.

Bob was a lifelong sailor, who relished summers on sailboats off the coast of Maine. He loved serving as the Fenn School “band aide” and marching alongside the Fenn School Marching Band in Concord’s annual Patriots Day Parade.

Bob wrote the last edition of The Cruising Guide to the New England Coast, following several decades of authorship by his father and grandfather. Bob earned his captain’s license and for many years assisted his father and later his son, Alec, in taking passengers for hire aboard their 32-foot Friendship sloop, “Eastward,” in Boothbay Harbor.

He is survived by his wife, Lucinda; his twin brother, William Duncan and sister-in-law, Lizbeth, of Burke, VA; brother, John Duncan (Carol), of Charlotte, NC; sons, Roger Duncan (Martina), of Bath, ME; Ritch Duncan (Rachel), of New York City; and Alec Duncan of Denver, CO. He is also survived by two granddaughters.

Condolences may be sent to Lucinda Duncan, 76 Upland Road, Concord, MA 01742.

The Rev. Richard F. Drinon, 76, died October 12, 2008. He had served the Hopedale Unitarian Parish in MA since 1998. A graduate of Tufts University, St. Lawrence University and Syracuse University, he also served UU churches in Palmer, MA; Saco, ME; Wausau, WI; Woodstock, VT; and Carlisle, MA. And he served as executive director for Ferry Beach. He spent several years traveling the world assisting in humanitarian and social action programs. He is survived by his daughter Sarah Drinon of Somerville, MA

Harriette W. Domas, 91, widow of Rev. Isaiah Jonathan Domas, died May 15, 2005 at an assisted living center in Ukiah, CA. She taught social work, including group work skills at Atlanta University. She also taught visual arts at the university level and had several paintings commissioned in Erie, PA. Her last job was as director of volunteers in a mental hospital in Tucson AZ; The couple served churches in North Adams, MA; Atlanta, GA; Erie, PA, and Lincoln, NE. An avid reader and writer, Harriette was living alone, studying Josephus’ History of the Jews and reading the New Yorker until age 85. She was very alert until the end of her life. Surviving are a daughter, Claudia Reed; two sisters, Deborah Gilman of Newton, MA, and Charlotte Selling of Tucson; a grandson and two great-granddaughters.

Bette J. Dom, 76, widow of the Rev. Jesse Dom, died unexpectedly August 10, 2008. She has been living for ten years in Freedom Village in Homewood, IL. She and her husband served churches in Monroe, WI; Fall River, MA; and Brooklyn, NY. She is survived by her brother and niece Elmer and Linda LaChapelle of Shaumburg, IL a nephew, five great nieces and nephews, and five great-great nieces and nephews.

The Rev. Robert T. “Bob” Dick, gentle parish minister, lifelong pacifist, advocate for racial justice, and active volunteer for community service in retirement, died peacefully and in comfort at age 97 on May 31, 2014, at the Doolittle Home in Foxboro, Mass, where he had resided since 1994.

Although he was a student at Tufts’ Crane School of Religion in the early 1940s, Mr. Dick waived his wartime theological exemption and served as a conscientious objector in Civilian Public Service units for four years in New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, working in forestry, on ward duty in mental hospitals, and as a subject in experiments in nutrition, high altitude, heat, and dehydration at the University of Rochester Medical School in New York. In later years he edited a booklet, Guinea Pigs for Peace: The Story of C.P.S. 115-R (1943–1946), about those experiments.

Robert Tyrrell Dick was born in Stockton, Illinois, on 17 December 1916, one of six children of Joseph R. Dick and Alma Tyrrell Dick. After his mother’s death when he was seven, Bob was raised primarily by an older sister. He attended the local Universalist church as a child and later told his son Jeff that “if it were not for the encouragement and support of the ‘ladies of the Universalist church’ he would not have gone to college nor into the ministry.” He was graduated from Stockton High School in 1935, where his fellow students elected him senior class president and foresaw his future career, in the school yearbook, as “President of the United States.” After thirteen months in the Civilian Conservation Corps in Idaho and Oregon, Mr. Dick attended the University of Dubuque (Iowa) for a time before going on to earn an AB degree from Tufts University in 1942. While on the summer work crew at Ferry Beach in the late 1930s, he met fellow crew member Helen Hersey, also a Crane student at Tufts and the daughter of Universalist minister Harry Adams Hersey. In 1943 they were married in Helen’s home town of Danbury, Conn. After finishing his wartime service, Bob returned to ministerial study, receiving his BD degree from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School in 1948.

Over the next thirty-six years, Mr. Dick went on to serve Universalist and UU parishes in the East and Midwest, first at the Universalist Church (now United Church–UCC) of Bristol, New York (1948-51), where he was ordained, as he recalls, “to the Christian ministry” on September 19, 1948. After three years there, he moved to the First Universalist Church of Lyons, Ohio (1951-57) and then back east as associate minister to the Universalist Church of West Hartford, Conn. (1957-59). He returned to Ohio to serve a circuit of Universalist churches in Belpre, Frost, and Little Hocking (1959-64), and then headed east once again to the ministry of the Universalist Church of South Acton (now the First Parish Church of Stow and Acton), Massachusetts (1964-67). A yoked ministry to the Universalist churches of Springfield (now UU) and Chester Depot in Vermont (1967-76) was followed by a call to the UU Fellowship of Elkhart, Indiana, where he served until retirement in 1984 and was designated minister emeritus.

In support to ministerial colleagues and the wider UU movement, Mr. Dick served on the board of the UU Service Committee, as a Good Officer in the NH/VT chapter of the UUMA, and as advisor to the Erie Shore Federation of Religious Youth.

In 1986, Bob and Helen moved back to Springfield, Vermont, and joined the UU congregation there where he had earlier served as minister. Two years later, in 1988, on the 40th anniversary of his ordination, the Springfield congregation also named him their own Minister Emeritus. In retirement, Bob became active as a hospice volunteer and in the local work of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), was a member of Springfield’s Senior Center Advisory Board, and had a leading role in the formation of a Vermont Chapter of the United Nations Association of the USA, serving on its board.

In his steady and faithful concern for peace, racial justice, and many other progressive social causes, the Rev. Mr. Dick was a fifty-year member of the interfaith peace organization, Fellowship of Reconciliation, a life member of the NAACP, and a charter member of Common Cause. In 1981 he was honored with the Adin Ballou Peace Award of the Unitarian Universalist Peace Fellowship. His and Helen’s work for peace lighted a path for others. Sandy and John Zinn, for example, recalled that they “got to know Bob & Helen in Elkhart from their involvement in local peace efforts. We were not members of [the UU Fellowship of Elkhart] at the time, but it was partly from their witness that we later joined. They lived their beliefs.”

In 1994 Bob and Helen moved to the Doolittle Home in Foxboro, Mass, and joined the Foxboro Universalist Church (UU). Helen died in 2008 after 65 years of marriage, but Bob continued to enjoy visits at the Doolittle Home from groups of local children.

Bob is survived by sons Nathan Dick of Estes Park Colorado, and Jeffrey Taft-Dick of Springfield, Vermont, a daughter Noreen Redd of San Diego, and grandchildren Jonathan, Joya and Philip Taft-Dick.

In lieu of a formal memorial service, Robert Dick’s life was remembered and honored as part of the Elkhart Fellowship’s annual Founders Day service on October 5, 2014, conducted by their minster, the Rev. Amy Kulesza DeBeck.

Mr. Dick’s ashes are buried alongside those of his late wife Helen in the Ladies Union Cemetery, Stockton, Illinois. Memorial gifts are encouraged either to the Doolittle Home, 16 Bird St., Foxboro, Mass. 02035, or to the UURMaPA Endowment Fund, c/o Paul L’Herrou, treasurer, UU Retired Ministers and Partners Association, 38 Kimball Avenue, #12, Ipswich, Mass. 01938.

Helen Hersey Dick, 89, wife of the Rev. Robert T. Dick, died March 7, 2008 in Foxboro, MA. Her father was Universalist minister Harry Adams. She graduated from Jackson College (Tufts) and did graduate work at Crane. She was a leader for the Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, League of Women Voters, the NAACP, Food Co-ops, and to local UU churches which her husband served: Bristol NY; Lyons OH; West Hartford CT; Belpre OH; South Acton MA; Springfield and Chester Depot VT; Elkhart IN. Helen was an officer of the UU Peace Fellowship, and edited its newsletter. She served on the UURMaPA Board overseeing the Caring Network. In 1975, she was named Vermont Mother of the Year. Helen marched in Selma in 1965. In 1986 the UU Church of Springfield VT, named her minister emerita. She accompanied the Springfield Community Chorus and taught piano. She is survived by her husband of 65 years; two sons, Nathan Dick of Estes Park CO; and Jeffrey Taft-Dick of Niger, West Africa; a daughter, Noreen Redd of San Diego CA; and three grandchildren.

Bill DeWolfe The Rev. Bill DeWolfe, long-time parish minister, UUA regional leader, steadfast activist for civil rights and justice, and devoted husband, father, and grandfather, died at age 87 on 29 October 2014, after suffering a heart attack earlier while watching the World Series. Bill DeWolfe was widely known, admired, and loved by colleagues, especially during his many years in district and interdistrict service. He was “a minister to ministers, always with a keen eye to what was needed to bring insight and healing,” said the Rev. Bill Hamilton-Holway. A younger colleague, seminarian Claire Curole, writes that she “will remember him for his sense of hope, humor and the historical perspective he brought to our visioning conversations.” William A. DeWolfe was born in Boston on 21 August 1927 to John Campbell Gordon DeWolfe and Miriam Elbridge Ford DeWolfe. After graduation from Medford high school, he enrolled at Tufts but deferred his study there for service in the U.S. Army (1945-1947). Returning to Tufts, Bill spent much of his summer time at the Universalist retreat center at Ferry Beach, where he met Barbara Louise Mosher of Bangor, also a Tufts student. They were married in 1949, and he was graduated with an AB in government in 1950. He went on for ministerial study at Harvard, served a student ministry at the Assinippi Universalist church, was ordained to Universalist ministry in 1952, and completed his STB from Harvard in 1953. The Rev. Mr. DeWolfe accepted parish settlements at the First Universalist Society of Wakefield, Mass (1953-1955), at First Parish Universalist of Stoughton, Mass (1956-1960), and then at the 16 Acres Unitarian Universalist Church of Springfield, Mass (1960-1964), meanwhile earning an M.Ed. from Springfield College in 1963. He went on to serve the First Unitarian Church of San Antonio (1964-1970) and then the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis (1970-1973). After these parish ministries, Mr. DeWolfe turned to administrative work as UUA Interdistrict Representative to the Eastern Great Lakes Area (1973-1985) and as District Executive for Central Massachusetts and the Connecticut Valley (1986-1992). The Rev. Art Severance, who served the San Antonio congregation (1991-2007), some years after Mr. DeWolfe’s tenure there, offered the following reminscence: Bill was one of my predecessors in San Antonio; he liked to say “the only one who left voluntarily.” … His favorite San Antonio story was a time when he was president of the local ACLU and went down to the local jail to get Austin-based Madalyn Murray O’Hair out on bond after she had been arrested for some local speech on atheism. Madalyn saw him coming, and said, “Oh, Bill, thank God you’re here. I was getting worried no one would bail me out.” Deeply devoted to the larger UU movement at many levels over the years, Bill DeWolfe first went to Ferry Beach at age 15, and later worked there as a crew member, staff member, and institute leader, as well as later at Star Island, Rowe, Lake Murray, and Ohio-Meadville Summer Institutes. He belonged to the Fraters of the Wayside Inn and the Cedar Hill Study Group, founded the Eastern Great Lakes Leadership School, served on the boards of the Connecticut Valley and Northern New England Districts, the UUMA, and as president of the Universalist Historical Society (1958-1964) and the UU Retired Ministers and Partners Association. In 2013 he received the Northern New England District UUA Leadership Award, given annually to one “who has contributed the most to the well-being and health of the District.” District president Sue Buckholz, in presenting the award, said, “When Bill’s name came up, that was the end of the discussion.” Mr. DeWolfe advocated for civil action and justice and was very devoted to Planned Parenthood. His Rotary Club membership led him to active local service in all the communities where his parish career took him. He was instrumental in the founding of the Texas American Civil Liberties Union and served on the ACLU’s national board of directors. After retirement to Maine, Bill and Barbara lived in Damariscotta where they were active members of the Rockland UU church, and later moved to Granite Hills Estates (retirement home) in Hollowell, becoming active in the Augusta UU church and in the Augusta Senior College. During these years, Bill did occasional guest preaching, especially at the Midcoast UU Fellowship at its former meeting location in Edgecomb. Bill enjoyed family trips and his wife, Barbara, fondly remembers camping throughout the United States with him and their young children. He was “a wonderful husband and father,” she wrote. “One of the things I appreciated about Bill was that even in the days before women’s lib, he was always urging me to follow my career as much as I wanted to. He would readily take care of the kids while I went off to work.” In later life he continued the pleasure of spending time with his children and grandchildren, and of following sports, particularly the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins. Bill DeWolfe is survived by his wife Barbara, sons Richard and Paul, grandchildren Reid, Jack, Abby, and Emily, and great grandchildren, Sebastian and Madeline. Another son, the Rev. Mark Mosher DeWolfe, died in 1988. A memorial service for Bill DeWolfe was held on 21 November 2014. at the UU Community Church of Augusta, Maine. Notes of condolences may be sent to Barbara DeWolfe, 4 Hickory Lane, Augusta, ME 04330. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts are encouraged to the Ferry Beach Park Association, 5 Morris Avenue, Saco, Maine 04072 or to the Unitarian Universalist Retired Ministers and Partners Assn., c/o Joel Weaver, Treasurer, 535 Gradyville Rd. Unit V212, Newtown Square, Penn. 19073.