Each year, the Board of UURMaPA honors a volunteer who has made an extraordinary contribution to our organization, working behind the scenes during their retirement years. This year’s deserving honoree is Duane Fickeisen.
Duane retired from settled parish ministry in 2011 and has served UURMaPA as webmaster since the fall of 2012. With characteristic grace, patience, and good humor, Duane has kept the site’s information portal current through transitions over the years.
In addition, responding to the evolving personal needs of both ministers and partners, Duane founded two much-appreciated peer groups –- one supporting caregivers and another for those experiencing grief.
Congratulations to Duane Fickeisen, recipient of the UURMaPA Unsung Hero Award for 2022.
TheRev. Robert “Rob” L. Eller-Isaacs died on July 23, 2022, at the age of 70.
Rob is survived by his spouse, the Rev. Janne Eller-Isaacs; children and their spouses: Jonah A. Eller-Isaacs; Jessie Eller-Isaacs, spouse Andy Anderson-Furgeson; Hannah and Tim Franco-Isaacs; and grandchildren: Lewis Eller-Furgeson, Mira Eller-Furgeson, and Levi Franco-Isaacs. He is also survived by his sister and brother-in-law: Jane and Alan Fantel. Equally important is his chosen family within the Unitarian Universalist faith community.
The Rev. Mark Peters Ward died on July 13, 2022, at the age of 68, of a sudden cardiac event while visiting family. Beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother, minister and friend, he touched many people’s lives who now share the shock and sorrow of his sudden death. A gifted writer and minister, with a deeply generous soul, Mark conveyed hope for the world, courage to live fully, and open-hearted curiosity for each new day. Mark’s generous presence encouraged others to feel at home in their own being.
Mark is survived by his spouse: Debbie; daughters: Anna, Erica, and Meredith; son-in-law: Langdon; grandchildren: Eliza and Lucille; and siblings: Keith, Terry, and Lisa.
A memorial service to celebrate his life will be held at 3 p.m. on Friday, July 29, 2022, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville, 1 Edwin Pl., Asheville, NC 28801. The memorial will also be live-streamed on YouTube at this link: https://youtu.be/XdFdsXIWCRE. The church’s website (uuasheville.org) will also show the link.
Betty Maloney died Feb. 2, 2022 when, although fully vaccinated, she succumbed to COVID. She was the widow of Rev. Thomas J. Maloney.
She was born June 8, 1923, in Boston MA, to Walter and Elizabeth (Zepfler) Gartner. She attended Needham schools. Betty’s childhood summers were spent at her grandfather’s beach cottage in Minot on Boston’s south shore. Her fondest memories later in life were of Minot. She was a graduate of Middlebury College VT, with a major in economics; received an M.A. in Economics from Columbia University; and later an M.A. in Education from Southern Illinois University.
She married fellow Needham High graduate Thomas J. Maloney in 1948, a man possessed with Wanderlust. Tom completed degrees from Northeastern; the University of Colorado in Boulder; a Divinity degree from Harvard; and a PhD in Sociology/Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis. In the year that Tom and Betty spent in Boulder, they became active in the Unitarian Fellowship (the first fellowship chartered by the American Unitarian Association) and welcomed their first daughter, Susan. Daughter Greta was born in Massachusetts; Lisa, was born in Davenport IA; and son Thomas Jefferson was born in Quincy IL.
Tom served ministries in Davenport IA; Quincy IL; and Boulder CO. He also taught Anthropology and sociology in Boulder; in Las Vegas NM; at Southern Illinois University; and started the Anthropology Dept. at Ripon College WI.
In Boulder, beyond raising four children, Betty was active in the League of Women Voters, Shares In the Future (anti-nuclear weapons), and library services to Boulder County. She helped obtain funding for a bookmobile and volunteered with the librarian. She was president of the League of Women Voters. In 1967 the family moved to Ripon, WI, where Betty was a fifth- grade teacher. In Edwardsville IL, she worked as a reading tutor.
In Edwardsville Betty really came into her own in community service: the Human Relations Commission, the Edwardsville Township Community Improvements Corporation, and the Historic Preservation Commission. Maloney counted the months of her service in Edwardsville with bricks from demolished buildings. “Oh, dear,” she would say, “this was a three brick month!”
She helped to create the N.O. Nelson Historic District, the Goshen Preservation Alliance, and Friends of the Edwardsville Public Library. She administered the Community Development & Rehabilitation Fund and oversaw surplus food programs for Edwardsville Township. She worked tirelessly for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and debated Phyllis Schlafly on the issue. She received the NAACP Award, the Women’s Award, and the Jefferson Award for Distinguished Public Service in the St. Louis area.
In 2005 her husband Tom, “the light of her life, left her.” In 2013 she moved to Balfour in Louisville to be closer to daughter Greta. In 2016, due to increasing dementia, Betty moved to The Academy at Bella Vista. In 2019 Betty lost her eyesight to glaucoma but remained engaged in the world. She was a trivia champion at Bella Vista, a lifelong gardener, an artist, and very interested in genealogy. For years she sent individually painted holiday cards and cards with pressed flowers. As family historian, she compiled numerous books on branches of her family.
Betty is survived by her sister, Louise Birkhead of Slingerlands NY; daughters, Susan Thomae (Edmundo) of Mexico City; Greta Maloney (Bob Palaich) of Boulder CO; and Lisa Maloney Hahn (Dan Maloney Hahn) of Groton NY; her son, Tom (Jeff) Maloney (Lori) of Worden IL; seven grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.
The Rev. Dr. C. Leon Hopper, whose deep institutional dedication to liberal religion and social justice undergirded a 39 year career that embraced parish ministry, local community service, leadership in national UU youth organization, ministerial education, and international interfaith work, died on June 19, 2016, aged 89, after many years of living with Parkinson’s disease.
As he moved out from local parish and community service to continental and international UU arenas over the years, the Rev. Mr. Hopper earned wide and beloved praise as a “minister to ministers.” He was long a dedicated supporter of the International Association for Religious Freedom. He served terms as a UUA trustee and as president of the continental UUMA, and was instrumental in conceiving and setting up the UUMA’s CENTER program (Continuing Education Network for Training, Enrichment, and Renewal).
Unable to attend the pivotal Selma march, Mr. Hopper later spent two weeks in Selma living with a young black Presbyterian minister, working on voting rights and registration, participating in rallies, and allying himself with other movement ministers and leaders.
In local community service during his parish settlements, Leon helped establish the human service agency, Jeffco Support Inc. (now the Action Center) in Jefferson County CO. Later, in the Seattle area, he served as board member and president for the East King Council of Health and Human Services, president of Eastside Human Services Council, board member of Eastside Domestic Violence Program, and board member of the Center for Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence (now King County Sexual Assault Resource Center).
For his extensive and tireless devotion to these and other causes, the Rev. Mr. Hopper received two honorary doctorates: a 1981 D.D. from Meadville Lombard and a 1993 S.T.D. from Starr King School.
Charles Leon Hopper, Jr., was born on February 21, 1927 to Charles Leon and Ethol [sic] Peterson Hopper. During his teen years as a Boy Scout, Leon developed a love of the outdoors, and his introverted character was nurtured by the solitude and immersion in nature that he found working as a fire lookout in the Cascade Range. After graduation from Seattle’s Roosevelt High School and 18 months of service in the Navy, he returned to the Pacific Northwest for undergraduate study.
While there, he attended Seattle’s University Unitarian Church and participated in the Channing Club youth group, where he met his future wife, Dorothy, and first heard a call to the ministry. In 1951, he received his B.A. from the University of Washington, he and Dorothy were married, and they headed off for Leon’s ministerial study at Harvard Divinity School, where he completed his S.T.B. in 1954.
Mr. Hopper’s parish service began in 1953, while still a seminarian, at the First Congregational Parish, Unitarian, of Petersham MA, where he was ordained the next year. He moved to Boston in 1957 to become Executive Director for the newly formed Liberal Religious Youth (LRY).
Drawn back to the parish, he accepted a call to the Jefferson Unitarian Church of Golden CO, serving there for the 13 years (1963–76). Some years later the congregation named their sanctuary in honor of his service there. Returning to Boston in 1976, the Rev. Mr. Hopper took an appointment as the UUA’s first Ministerial Education Director, a role he held for five years. In 1981, he accepted a call to East Shore Unitarian Church of Bellevue WA, and spent 11 years there before retiring from parish ministry in 1992 as their Minister Emeritus.
Leon was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2002, and the next year he and Dorothy moved into Horizon House Retirement Community in Seattle, where tiered care would be available when needed. Never one to take illness as an excuse for idleness, Leon served at Horizon House on the Residents’ Council, chaired its Committee on Committees, and co-chaired the Hospitality and Opera Committees with Dorothy.
With mobility becoming more severely limited, Leon stayed connected with colleagues, friends, family, and the wider world through letters, emails, and visitors. He cherished friends who came regularly to read to him and help with email correspondence.
Leon was held in high esteem worldwide for his sincere collegiality, gentle honesty, and infectious optimism, which sustained many colleagues through difficult times both in their ministries and personal lives. He was truly surprised to learn of the far-reaching effect he had on people’s lives. In hearing letters of his profoundly positive impact, he would shake his head in humbled amazement, saying, “I never imagined.”
Leon is survived by his wife of 65 years, Dorothy; daughters, Sheridan Botts and Rachel Tucker; son, Chuck Hopper; and five grandchildren. His life was honored and memorialized on July 26, 2016, at the East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue WA, in a service co-led by his colleagues, the Rev. Barbara ten Hove and the Rev. Elaine Peresluha.
Notes of condolences may be sent to Dorothy Hopper, 900 University Street, Horizon House, 4C, Seattle WA 98101, or to clhopperjr@aol.com.
