Author: Duane Fickeisen

Cornelis Bakker

The Rev. Cornelis “Neil” Johannes Bakker, parish minister, world traveler, WW II veteran, lover of sports cars and opera, and a talented photographer and stained glass artist, died on August 10, 2014 at the age of 97.

Cornelis Johannes Bakker was born in Amsterdam on May 29, 1917 to Hendrik Bakker and Dina Bakker, but emigrated to the U.S. at age eight with his parents. He served in the US Army as a Tank Commander from 1941 to 1946 and continued with the Army Reserves after the war, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. He went on to earn a B.A. from George Washington University in 1949 and a M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School in 1960.

Mr. Bakker was ordained to the ministry in 1963 by the First Unitarian Society of Gardner, MA. He served as a Protestant chaplain to the Gardner State Hospital from 1963 to 1977, and concurrently, minister to the First Unitarian Society of Gardner, MA from 1963 to 1979. He then served as minister to the First Universalist Church of Providence, RI from 1979 to his retirement in 1990. He was named Minister Emeritus of the First Unitarian Society of Gardner in 1984, and Minister Emeritus of the First Unitarian Church of Providence in 1990.

Neil Bakker was committed to both the larger UU movement and the local communities in which he ministered. He served as president and vice president of the Central Massachusetts District of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and served on the district’s board, evaluation committee, and appraisal committee. He also served as member and president of the North Atlantic Interdistrict Council of the UUA; the nominating committee and board of the Ballou-Channing District of the UUA; and the MA Council of Churches. He held membership with the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association; co-founded the Gardner-Athol Area Mental Health Association, and actively served the American Red Cross, United Way of America, the Doolittle Home, the Human Rights Committee, the CG Jung Center, the Netopian Club, and the Krishnamurti Society.

Neil is survived by his wife of 57 years, Melba Ann Bakker, who describes him as a “wonderful father” and a lover of people and laughter. “It didn’t matter who the person was; Neil treated all people equally and lovingly.” Other survivors are a daughter, Stephanie A. Bakker, a sister, Henrietta Weiting, and numerous nieces and nephews.

A memorial service was held on Sunday, September 14th, at the First Unitarian Church of Providence, RI. Memorial donations are encouraged to the First Unitarian Church of Providence, RI, 1 Benevolent St, Providence, RI 02906, to Hamilton House, 276 Angell St, Providence, RI 02906, or to the VNA Hospice of Rhode Island, 475 Kilvert Street, Warwick, RI, 02886.

Janet Bowering

The Reverend Dr. Janet “Jan” Bowering, parish minister, religious educator, UU historian, peace and justice activist, devoted minister’s wife, loving mother and grandmother, doll collector, and world traveler, died peacefully on July 17, 2014, surrounded by her family, at the Merrimack Valley Hospice House, in Haverhill, MA; she was 83 years old.

The Rev. Ms. Bowering served congregations in the roles of part-time and full-time minister, and religious education director. For more than a decade, she set aside her own calling and offered her professional skills as a volunteer in her husband’s congregations and within groups serving the larger UU movement. She was passionate about religious education and actively ministered to young people in her own congregations and in the larger UU movement. With her husband and children, she spent many summers at UU camps and institutes, directing work projects and leading youth programs. Equally committed to her community, she worked to establish both a temporary shelter for the homeless and a program to provide a food kitchen for the hungry. Another of her passions was to see new places, and she made use of her vacation and sabbatical time to travel the world.

Janet found particular inspiration in the life and pioneering work of the Rev. Olympia Brown. She was known far and wide for her dramatic portrayal of Olympia Brown’s life and ideas, a presentation that she offered more than forty times. (At the time of this writing, a video record of one such performance was available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1guc91OFx8w).

Ms. Bowering was also a mentor to seminarians. The Rev. Holly Baylies, who served an internship at the Haverhill UU Church in 1990, recalls that Jan “taught me the truth about ministry, which was not to be found in the books I had read or the courses taken, but within the mere joy and optimism she expressed in the living of her life, in her service to others. No matter whom she encountered and how grumpy, annoying or difficult the person or circumstance may have been, she always found the right words and somehow, the beauty inherent in each and every individual she encountered. Her sense of the worth and dignity of every person was at the core of her teachings and her living.” Janet summarized this attitude in her conviction that “The church is people. It is not a body of belief, a set of principles, or an impressive structure of stone, wood, and glass.”

Janet Hartzell was born on December 7, 1930, the only child of Allen Reiff Hartzell and Catharine May Weiser. She was a shy, artistic youngster who loved pets and other animals. With her father, she enjoyed gardening, growing food for the family, and composting. Influenced perhaps by her father, a chemistry professor at St. Lawrence University, Janet developed an interest in science. She created her own experiments, including one which nearly led to the accidental burning of her house. In her late teen years, she came under the mentoring influence of the Rev. Edna Bruner, who served the First Universalist Church, Canton, NY, from 1945 to 1950.

The summer after her high school graduation, Janet’s mother died suddenly; her father died nine months later.

While attending college, Janet felt a call to ministry. She earned a B.A. from St. Lawrence University in 1952 and continued on to seminary, where her future husband, Vinton Bowering, was a year ahead of her. Another classmate, David Pohl, recalls, “While the University had about 1,800 students, the theological school was a small community of about forty. It was inevitable then that Vin and Janet would meet there, [forming a relationship] that [eventually] became a marriage.” In 1953 Vinton completed his B.D from St. Lawrence Theological School and Janet, having studied with Angus MacLean, received the School’s certification as a religious educator. Jan and Vin were married at the First Universalist Church, Canton, New York, on September 5, 1953. After a short honeymoon, they moved to Abington, Mass, where Vinton had been called to the local Universalist congregation (now defunct). Janet continued her studies at Boston University, because, in her words, “Harvard Divinity School had not yet grasped the idea of educating women for the ministry!” The next year Vinton was called to the Outlaw’s Bridge Universalist Church, Seven Springs, North Carolina, where he and Janet were both ordained to the Universalist ministry on January 30, 1955, by the North Carolina Universalist Convention. Shortly thereafter, Janet began serving as part-time minister of the smaller, nearby Universalist Church of Kinston, NC.

The Bowerings’ time in the South, during some of the first steps toward racial desegregation, presented challenges that they readily accepted. In her ministerial odyssey, recalled:

“. . . one time we [Janet and Vinton] took the Seven Springs LRY group [Liberal Religious Youth] to hear [journalist and integration activist] Harry Golden speak in Kinston. We didn’t know, or we would have prepared the kids for non-segregated seating. Fortunately we arrived late, were ushered in to a lecture in progress and sat hastily wherever we could. Afterward we stopped for ice cream, two cars full of young people, and tried to sort out feelings. It was interesting that they mainly didn’t want their parents to know what happened lest they jeopardize their chances to “go places and do things with Mr. and Mrs. Bowrin’.”

The Rev. Ms. Bowering left the Kinston church in 1959, when Vinton was called to First Parish in Milford, Massachusetts. During this ministry and Vinton’s subsequent call to the First UU Society of Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1967, Janet turned her attention to an active, though unpaid, role assisting her husband in church growth, working in the church school, and preaching when Vinton was away. In this “sabbatical” from her own career, she and Vinton began raising their own children, and Janet worked as a substitute teacher in area schools. Shortly after her husband’s call to the Universalist Unitarian Church of Haverhill, Mass, in 1974, Janet was hired to serve alongside him as the Director of Religious Education; she continued in that position, while also serving as part-time minister at First Parish of Tyngsborough, Mass (1977-79).

In 1979, when the Rev. Vinton Bowering suffered a fatal heart attack, the Haverhill congregation received special permission to bypass a search process and call Janet as their minister. She entered upon that role while caring for her three children as a single parent, serving for seventeen years until her retirement in 1996, when she was named Minister Emerita. In 1997, the Rev. Ms. Bowering served briefly as a visiting minister at Adelaide’s Unitarian Church of South Australia. Her lifelong commitments to the UU movement were honored by Meadville Lombard Theological School with a D.D. in 1998.

Janet Bowering’s ministering reached far beyond the congregations she served, both locally and globally. In 1977 she offered use of the church to the Calvary Baptist Church of Haverhill, MA, after that church had suffered a devastating fire. She later offered her church basement as a shelter for the homeless, a service remaining in place for three years. One Christmas Eve, Janet hand made the candles for the service from wax she had scraped off the pavement during a trip to Warsaw during the Polish uprisings, at great risk to her own safety. In the year following her retirement, she joined a Justice Works team helping to rebuild burned out churches in the southern United States and was credited with single-handedly digging a sewer line for a project in Summerton, South Carolina.

The Rev. Holly Baylies recalls that Jan’s “sense of social justice was strong, unflappable, and at times even comical, as this diminutive, white haired, little old lady, once packed a suitcase full of condoms to take to Romania to protest the lack of birth control practices. Detained by Romanian customs, she somehow managed to keep out of jail by convincing the authorities that she was a harmless minister, and was just following her conscience. Surprisingly, they let her go, condoms and all.”

Ms. Bowering was active in many UU organizations and activities. Prior to Unitarian and Universalist consolidation, she chaired the Camps Study and Evaluation Committee, a joint effort of Universalist and Unitarian women’s groups. She served the Mass Bay Chapter of the UUMA as senior Good Offices team member, Nominating Committee member, and Fall Conference planning committee member; the UU Historical Society as board member and president; the UU Society for Ministerial Relief as First Vice President; the Church of the Larger Fellowship as board member and executive committee member; the UU Women’s Heritage Society as President; and the Continental Board of the UU Women’s Federation. She was the first female member of the ministerial study group, The Fraters of the Wayside Inn, and also held membership with the Cedar Hill Study Group, the Unitarian Universalist Retired Ministers and Partners Association, and the UUA Professional Support Services Committee. She enthusiastically supported and promoted the Clara Barton Camp for over fifty years and served as chair of the Clara Barton Birthplace Committee.

Janet valued her Universalist roots, and found it important to preserve the Universalist legacy. She served the Board of the Universalist Heritage Foundation, the Massachusetts Association of Universalist Women, and the Massachusetts Universalist Convention.

An avid traveler, Janet loved to explore new places and meet new people. She collected foreign dolls, purchased during her travels and given to her by friends and family; Jan could tell the story of each of the more than 100 dolls in the collection, explaining the doll’s origin, its unique meaning, and the reason it had been selected. Jan was also an amateur potter, painter, and naturalist; and she relished time spent with her family at their summer house in rural Maine.

Jan’s family remembers her as “extremely inquisitive,” and “very practical.” One of her daughters, Diana Bowering, describes how her mother was quick to take action upon hearing of a problem, and lived with a mentality of “let’s not talk about it, let’s get down there and do something about it.” Jan was known as extremely hard working and “wasn’t one to sit around.” Diana reports that even after her mother had been hospitalized and was suffering from a wandering mind, Jan said of the hospital stay, “In theory, I don’t think this is the best use of my time.”

Holly Baylies offered these words at Janet’s memorial service: “I could never get over Jan’s bubbly and joyful outlook as she faced each new day, with that indomitable smile that never faded, looking for the good to be found, no matter what she might be facing. I was always in awe of her ability to rush into each day as if was a treat to be alive, and her ability to hold onto all that was good, always truly seeking out the best in people.”

Jan’s surviving family members include children, Dawn Jordan, Diana Bowering, and Alan Bowering, granddaughter, Laura Morley, and great-grandson, William Morley.

A memorial gathering was held on 26 July 2014 in Haverhill. A Celebration of Life took place on 20 September 2014 at the UU Church of Haverhill. A marvelous collection of photos of Janet may be seen at http://driscollfuneralhome.tributes.com/obituary/photos/Rev.-Janet-H.-Bowering-101528418.

Memorial donations are encouraged to The Clara Barton Camp, P.O. Box 356 North Oxford, MA 01537 (www.bartoncenter.org); Ferry Beach Park Association, 5 Morris Avenue, Saco, ME 04072 (www.ferrybeach.org); or Merrimack Valley Hospice of Home Health Foundation, Attn: Tammy Stott, 360 Merrimack Street, Building 9, Lawrence, MA 01843 (www.homehealthfoundation.org).

Dorothy Boroush

The Rev. Dorothy S. Boroush, parish minister and passionate activist for women’s rights, died on June 14, 2014 at the age of 88 in Englewood, Colorado, at the home of her daughter Gretchen, surrounded by flowers, family, and friends.

Dorothy was born on October 3, 1925, in Tiffin, Ohio, to George Alfred Stinchcomb and Ruth Elise Brand Stinchcomb. She was graduated with a B.A. in Theater from the State University of Ohio in 1977 and went on to attain an M. Div. from Chicago Theological Seminary in 1980.

After graduation, Dorothy was ordained to the Unitarian Universalist Ministry by the First Unitarian Church of Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1980. Shortly thereafter, she was called to serve as minister to the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (now Emerson Church Unitarian Universalist) of Troy, Michigan, from 1980 to 1984. She then served as interim minister to the First Parish Church of Groton, Mass, from 1984 to 1985; the Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson, of Hudson, Mass, from 1985 to 1986; and the Unitarian Society of New Haven, CT, from 1986 to 1987. In 1987, she accepted the position of District Executive to the Ballou Channing District, serving 49 parishes in southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island until 1994.

She formally retired from ministry in 1995, but eventually regretted the “premature decision” and went on to serve as interim minister of the Foxborough Universalist Church in 1999. Dorothy also served as “minister-on-call” for a number of New England congregations, stepping in for other ministers who were ill or called away. She loved preaching at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown, MA, the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard, the Bell Street Chapel in Providence, RI and many others. She led Sunday worship services at the First Parish Church of Taunton, MA, from July 2009 to April 2012, while the congregation was without a settled minister.

Throughout her ministry, The Rev. Ms. Boroush dedicated time and service to numerous denominational organizations. She served on the Ohio-Meadville District’s Commissioned Lay Leaders Committee and the Holmes-Weatherly Award Panel. She served as Chair of the Michigan Extension Committee for two years, President of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association’s Michigan Chapter for two years, and Co-Chair of the Central Massachusetts’ Youth Adult Committee (YAC) for one year. She volunteered at the Doolittle Home of Foxboro, MA, and served on its board for a number of years.

Dorothy was a resolute advocate for women’s rights. Prior to entering the ministry, she worked as Director of Education and Public Relations for Pre-Term, a women’s health clinic in Cleveland, OH. She was a charter member of the National Organization for Women’s Cleveland Chapter, and served on the organization’s board and public relations committee. She served as member of the Cleveland Abortion Rights Action League; and member of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (now the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice).

Dorothy was very involved with the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Heritage Society (UUWHS). She served on the Society’s Board of Directors from June 1995 to June 2001. She was a contributor and editor to a series of short biographic descriptions of UU women, titled “Notable Universalist and Unitarian Women,” and was the editor of the last edition in 2000. She was actively involved with programs put on by the UUWHS and was involved with the development of UUWHS calendars. She sponsored, wrote, and edited the 2002 edition of this calendar that included Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman to be ordained in our liberal religious tradition.

The arts and creativity were powerful forces in Dorothy’s life. More than 15 years of her youth were dedicated to the formal study of piano and acting. She was a well-known actor and director in community theater throughout her life, much of it to critical acclaim. Her classical piano training was sufficient to consider a professional position per her instructors. She wrote poetry and in the 1970/80’s served as artistic director for the published poetry performance troupe, “Big Mama”. She also wrote, directed, and performed a one-act play about the life of the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, which was staged in a number of Unitarian Universalist churches, also to great acclaim for its historic educational and creative aspects pertinent to the UU tradition.

Until nearly the end of her life, at age 86, Dorothy was still acting minister at First Parish Church in Taunton, Mass., where congregants there remember her as “a woman of deep faith,” “dedicated,” “generous,” and “committed to the long-term health of the congregation.”

Dorothy’s family remembers her as a gardener, a collector of ‘spiritual rocks’, a lover of the color purple, a feminist, poetess, political activist, a bird and tomato lover. She was a singer of silly songs and crocheted works of art during meetings. Her mission was to leave this world in a better place.

Dorothy is survived by her daughter, Gretchen E. Boroush; her sons, Eric D. Boroush and Kurt A. Boroush; and granddaughter Janice E. Boroush as well as her brother Dr. Thomas G. Stinchcomb, and nephews James, William, David, and Dan Stinchcomb and their wonderful families.

A memorial service was held on September 13, 2014, at First Parish Bridgewater Unitarian Universalist Church.

Memorial donations are encouraged to the Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society, 27 Grove St., Scituate MA 02066.

Condolences may be sent to the family via Eric Boroush, #2 Gore St., Boston, MA 02120.

Suzanne Black

The Rev. Suzanne Black, parish minister, educator of the disadvantaged, lifelong musician, and devoted dog lover, died on 10 February 2014 at the age of 71 after a brief illness.

Suzanne is remembered as one who “helped the underdog,” and even prior to ministry, she was steadily engaged in education and pastoral care, first teaching high school French in Chicago and then moving to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to become the head houseparent at a home for emotionally disturbed teenagers.

As a college student, she was bedfast for many months due to a serious spinal injury suffered during a rock-climbing outing. Despite several surgeries and physical therapy, she was dependent on leg braces and crutches for most of her working life. Nevertheless, Suzanne spent several summers traveling across Europe, “not letting this impairment of function interfere with living life fully,” recalls her sister, Judy. A seminary colleague remembers walking up “Holy Hill” with her: “I never quite made it up the hill without stopping. But . . . even on crutches and in her Birkenstocks [Suzanne] could beat me. She was still an athlete at the age of 45.” In retirement, knee surgeries failed to improve her mobility, and she became more dependent on what she called, with characteristic optimism and determination, her “power chair,” and repeatedly insisted that it was not an “electric chair!”

Suzanne had a lifelong love of music, beginning with piano lessons in her childhood, continuing with high-school choir and musical theater, then guitar and folk singing in her “hippie” period, and ending with karaoke in her retirement. She always had several dogs as pets, and considered the dogs to be family. At her wedding to Gary Murphy on 12 August 2000, Suzanne’s two dogs were “attendants,” coming down the aisle wearing bows in procession with their human companions.

Susan (Susie, Suzanne, Suze) Trappe Black was born 28 August 1942 in Alexandria, West Virginia, to Winston Edward Black and Virginia Trappe (Price) Black and grew up in Urbana, Illinois. She attended Mt. Holyoke College from 1960 to 1963 before transferring to the University of Illinois, where she earned a B.A. in 1965 and a M.A. in 1967. Around 1975, after several years of conventional life and work in the familiarity of the Midwest, Suzanne headed out to the open skies of Montana in a purple van with a companion, Sam Farmer, to live communally with another couple and their children. She earned a bit of income there sewing and embroidering peasant blouses and other clothing. With the ending of that communal life, she soon returned to the helping professions, working as a special education teacher and education department supervisor at the Boulder River School and Hospital in Boulder, Montana, where she met and married co-worker, Dean Dougherty. Suzanne became active in nearby Helena’s Big Sky UU Fellowship, and eventually went off to Starr King School for the Ministry, earning her M.Div. there in 1990. Her marriage to Dean ended in divorce.

Returning to Montana, Ms. Black was ordained to Unitarian Universalist ministry on 24 May 1992 by joint action of the UU congregations of Helena, Billings, Bozeman, Idaho Falls, and Missoula in the tiny and evocatively-named town of Pray, Montana. She served interim ministries at the UU Congregation of York, Penn (1992-93) and the UU Fellowship of Fayetteville, Ark (1993-94), and an extension ministry at the UU Congregation of Las Vegas, Nevada (1994-97). In 1997 she was called as parish minister to the UU Church of South County (now “Tapestry”) in Mission Viejo, Calif, serving there until 2000, when she moved to a final interim ministry at St. Paul’s Universalist Church of Little Falls, NY (2000-01). In retirement, she and her new husband Gary returned to the desert they loved in southwest Arizona. They called themselves “snowbirds” and enjoyed traveling.

Committed strongly to the Unitarian Universalist Association’s work in anti-racism, the Rev. Ms. Black served as co-leader of the UUA’s Beyond Categorical Thinking Workshop in 1993 and as co-organizer of the UUA’s Building a Jubilee World Workshop in 1996. In the Pacific Southwest District chapter of the UUMA, she was a co-planner of three collegial retreats (1997-2000) and served as the chapter’s vice president (1999-2000).

Family and friends gathered for a meal of remembrance on 22 February 2014 in Bloomington, Illinois — the area of Suzanne’s childhood. Another informal memorial gathering was held in the Tyson RV Park clubhouse of her Quarzite, Arizona, housing community on February 28. Her sister recalled Suzanne as “passionate about people, her connections with people, and maintaining those connections.” She “knew how to put a good spin on things and look at [life] in a positive way.”

Suzanne’s second husband Gary died in 2010. She is survived by her sister, Judith May; brother, Theodore Black; nephews, Andrew May and Brian May; and niece, Ginny Black.

Memorial donations may be made to Starr King School for the Ministry, 2441 Le Conte Ave, Berkeley, Calif. 94709, to your area companion pet rescue shelter, or to a charity of your choice.

Notes of condolences may be sent to Judy May, Box 2100 RR 1, Corner Brook, Newfoundland, A2H 2N2 Canada.