Category: Obituary: H

The Reverend Dan Higgins—military officer and chaplain, beloved parish minister,  community servant and activist—died on 9 June 2017 at the age of 90.

Daniel Greeley Higgins Jr. was born in Easton, Maryland, on 27 February 1927 to 
 parents Anna and Dan Higgins. After high school Dan served in the army (1944-46) and 
 was graduated with a B.A. in political science by the University of Maryland in 1951. 
 He went on to Temple University (PA), earning an S.T.B in 1954.

With what he called a “religious instinct” since childhood, Dan preached his first sermon at his family’s Methodist church at age 15. After Methodist ordination in 1955, he returned to army service as a chaplain in post-war Korea (1956-59), followed by brief parish service in Methodist churches.

In the early 1960s the Rev’d Mr. Higgins sought UU affiliation, returned to Temple University for an S.T.M. in 1965, and was settled (1965-69) as associate minister to (and ordained a second time by) the First Parish in Lexington, MA. In 1969 he took a call to Lubbock, TX, but left in 1972 to work as BAWA’s programming director (Black and White Alternative/Action, UU). In 1975 Dan was called to the First Parish in Malden, MA, serving there until formal retirement in 1987, when he was named Minister Emeritus. Meanwhile he completed study for a D.Min. at Meadville Lombard Theological School in 1977.

Post-retirement, Dan moved back to the Chesapeake Bay, began pulpit and pastoral work at local UU congregations in Easton and Salisbury (MD) and helped start a new congregation—UUs of the Chester River (MD). A former president of that congregation remembers him as “the most unassuming person, perhaps the most humble person I have ever known. But his presence and dignity immediately filled a room.”

Dan is survived by children Daniel G. Higgins III, Cynthia Westlake, Ann Spicer, and Kim Clark, four grandchildren, and a great-grandson.

The Rev. Kenneth R. Hutchinson, 95, died April 21, 2005. He served congregations in Edwards, NY; La Crescenta, Pasadena, and Santa Monica, CA; Brattleboro, VT; Dexter, ME; and Cincinnati, OH. Upon his retirement in 1979, the UU Church of the Verdugo Hills in La Crescenta named him minister emeritus. He is survived by his son Stanley of Temecula, CA, and a daughter, Kimberley. He was predeceased by his wife, Pearl Knott Hutchinson, in 2004.

The Rev. Dr. James D. Hunt, 79, died January 12, 2011. He was a graduate of Tufts, Boston and Syracuse Universities. His first career was as a Universalist minister. The parts of being a minister he liked the best were studying and preaching. This led him to pursue a second career in teaching. He was a professor of ethics and religion at Shaw University, Raleigh, NC for nearly 30 years. His first major publication was a comparison of the lives of Martin Luther King and Mohandas K. Gandhi. He went on to write about the early life of Gandhi, an interest which culminated in the publication of four books. Jim had a passion for fairness and justice. He worked with Amnesty International, ACLU, Witness for Peace, Peace Action, CITCA, People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, and CORE. A devoted family man, Jim found time to enjoy cycling, reading, hiking, folk dancing, playing the recorder, singing and traveling. He is survived by his wife, his children, their partners and grandchildren.

Carolyn Chance Howlett, 89, widow of the Rev. Duncan Howlett, died Sept. 29, 2004 in Fryeburg, ME. She was one of only three females in her class at Yale Law School in 1938. She practiced law in New York City until she married. She was the first woman president of the International Association for Religious Freedom, making a number of trips including communist countries in Eastern Europe. She was honored for this with an honorary doctorate from the University of Chicago. She was active in community affairs in Center Lovell, ME. Her husband of 60 years died in 2003. She is survived by a brother, R. Robinson Chance; four children, Susan Hasty of Portland, ME; Albert of Falls Church, VA, Richard of Burke, VA, and Carolyn ‘Lynn’ Korth of Center Lovell, ME; 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

The Rev. Dr. Charles A. Howe, 88, died August 10, 2010. He earned an AB in chemistry at UNC, Chapel Hill. He served in the US Marine Corps, then returned to UNC to earn his MA & PhD in chemistry. He worked for Merck and then taught at Clarkson College in Potsdam, NY. There the Howes became active members of the Universalist Church in Canton, NY. He went on to earn his BDiv at Meadville Lombard, which later awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity. He served churches in TX, NY, NC. He was named minister emeritus by the Wilmington, NC church. He was interim minister for churches in VA, NY and FL. After his retirement, he was a member of the Chapel Hill and Raleigh, NC congregations. He served on the Commission on Appraisal and was a member of the UU Historical Society. He wrote a number of books, including The Larger Faith: A Short History of American Universalism. He was a lifelong advocate for social justice. He is survived by his wife, Ann Howe, his children, Judith Louise Howe and Marjorie Ann Howe Chenery (and their spouses) and David Darrow Howe and four granddaughters.

The Rev. Stephen Davies Howard, 78, died July 15, 2009, in hospice care, following a brief illness. Born in western Massachusetts, he was educated at American International College and Harvard Divinity School. He served churches in MA, then worked as an interim consultant for more than 18 UU churches. He was recently honored by the UUA for his 50 years of service. Stephen delivered his last sermon to his congregation in Palmer, MA on June 21, Father’s Day. His family says he was an avid reader, writer and outdoor enthusiast. He enjoyed local libraries, bookstores, and loved the beauty of the local countryside. Throughout his years, he enjoyed hiking with his dogs at Highland Pond, Notch Mountain, and the Warwick Swamp. He was inspired by reading the writings of Thoreau, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson. An ardent football fan, he followed Greenfield High School, local college and Patriots games. More than anything else, he said he loved having time with his grandchildren. He is survived by his wife, Ann, to whom he was married for 50 years, their three children, Catherine Howard Nicholas, Elisabeth Davies Howard, Matthew Anson Howard and his wife, by five grandchildren, and his brother and sister-in-law, and a nephew and a niece.

The Rev. Dr. William “Bill” Houff, dedicated parish minister, activist against war and racism, devoted husband, and lover of the farming life and land from his youth, died, aged 85, on 26 January 2014 in hospice care at the Rockwood South Hill retirement facility in Spokane where he and his late wife, Patty, had lived for several years.

Growing up in very modest circumstances on a Shenandoah Valley farm during the Great Depression, Bill could remember his boyhood allowance of one penny a month and the coming of electricity to his family’s farm as a memorable event. In a very conservative religious environment, he recalled that there was little display of family affection or emotion and that his father was “a man of few words.” At his graduation from an unaccredited high school, Bill began driving a local school bus, having no clear sense of direction for his life. But when he heard by chance about a state-wide competition for a four-year chemistry scholarship at the College of William & Mary in “far away” Williamsburg, a native curiosity and a sense of adventure led him to enter . . . and to win! Against the hope of his parents that he would inherit the farm, they reluctantly helped him pack up his modest belongings in the family Hudson and drove him 160 miles to his new college home. Bill plaintively recalled that the moment when his parents said goodbye and headed their Hudson west back across the Blue Ridge to their farm was the moment when he became an “orphan.” Years later he spoke to a future ministerial colleague of the pain he still felt for the despair of his parents, who were sure that their son’s adult religious path had doomed his soul to eternal hell.

Even after breaking away from his austere boyhood environment, moving on through eighteen years of study and work in the field of chemistry, and finally serving thirty-five years in Unitarian Universalist parish ministry, Bill never lost the sense of deep connection to the land and to the life of self-sufficient independence. When the opportunity came in his forties to recover some of his childhood pleasure in farming and carpentry, Bill acquired acreage near Spokane, which he named “Still Point Farm,” and on which he constructed, by his own hands, a main house and several other outbuildings—work and ownership in which he took great pride and joy.

William Harper Houff was born on 27 April 1928 near the village of New Hope, Virginia, the only son of Harper P. Houff and Anna Elizabeth Wilberger. He took a B.S. in chemistry with Phi Beta Kappa honors from the College of William and Mary in 1950, earning living expenses by working all four years as a waiter at the Travis House, one of the colonial-style restaurants operated by Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. Despite a strong academic record, he always said he learned more in his Travis House experience than in his college course work. A brief marriage during his undergraduate years ended when his wife Lucille returned to the New Hope area with their infant son, Konrad, never more to be a part of Bill’s life. Mr. Houff went on to Michigan State University for graduate study in chemistry, earning an M.S. in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1955. In Michigan he met and married Donna Hall, who became the mother of his second and third sons, Gregory and Robert.

Eschewing an academic career for the better-paying corporate world, Dr. Houff stayed on in Michigan for a first job out of school, but then took a new position in Albany, New York, where, driving around one day, he chanced upon a “Wayside Pulpit” sign in front of the local Unitarian church. Intrigued by its liberal message, after having had no church involvement since leaving home ten years earlier, he made some Sunday morning visits, quickly joined, and soon became an active lay leader. By the early 1960s, he had moved on to a research job with Shell Oil in the San Francisco Bay Area and to membership in the Mount Diablo UU church in Walnut Creek, where the ministerial leadership of the Rev. Aron Gilmartin and the proximity of a UU seminary led him toward serious interest in parish ministry. Mr. Houff earned his B.D. from Starr King School for the Ministry in 1964. Meanwhile his marriage to Donna ended in divorce.

Ordained to the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 1964, the newly Rev. Mr. Houff served the UU Fellowship of Redwood City, California, from 1964 to 1968, the UU Church of Shoreline, Washington, from 1968-1973, and then the UU Church of Spokane, Washington, in his longest settlement from 1973 to 1988, during which the congregation’s membership doubled. It was in Spokane that Bill finally met his soul mate, Patricia “Patty” Meagher McTigue, to whom he was married for more than thirty-five years until her death in 2012. In retirement, Bill and Patty enjoyed world travel.

Leaving the Spokane congregation as Minister Emeritus at age sixty, Mr. Houff moved on to a series of interim ministries at the First UU Church of Winnipeg, Manitoba (1988-89), the UU Church of Greensboro in Jamestown, North Carolina (1989-90), the UU Congregation of Asheville, North Carolina (1990-91), the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, British Columbia (1991-93) and the University Unitarian Church of Seattle, Washington (1997-99), having along the way qualified himself as an Accredited Interim Minister in 1992.

Mr. Houff was also active with the wider Unitarian Universalist network and with his colleagues in the UUMA. In 1964-65 he served as president of the Bay Area Ministers Association and as chair of the Pacific Central District Personnel Committee, and from 1967 to 1970 he chaired the Student Affairs Committee at Starr King School. In the early 1970s he served as the Ministerial Settlement Representative for the Pacific Northwest District, in which role he so impressed the ministerial search committee of the Spokane church that, at their request, he resigned that position to become their candidate for the Spokane pulpit.

In his Spokane ministry, he began preaching about spiritual growth and mysticism in what he called a “theological metamorphosis”—not abandoning but expanding his earlier scientific humanism—a journey on which he became a frequent workshop leader for ministerial colleagues and laypeople over the years. It was as a theme speaker for the Eliot Institute in 1984 with the title “Through the Eye of the Needle: Toward Oneness” that he began thinking about putting these insights into writing. The resulting book, Infinity in Your Hand: A Guide for the Spiritually Curious (Melior Publications, 1989), was republished under the UUA’s Skinner House imprint in 1990 and was widely used for adult study in UU congregations.

Bill Houff had a deep and long-standing commitment to social justice, which he in time came to see in a profoundly spiritual perspective. Early in his ministry he joined a huge turnout of Unitarian Universalist ministers in traveling to Alabama for the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. Later he marched in a San Francisco protest of the Vietnam War and the use of napalm on Vietnamese civilians. In 1984, at the Spokane church, Bill delivered a sermon titled, “Silent Holocaust,” in which he described life-threatening negligence in the nuclear industry. The sermon served as a catalyst for his founding and leadership of the Hanford Education Action League (HEAL), a grassroots nuclear concern group, focused especially on dangerous practices at the nearby Hanford nuclear facility.

In later years, Bill and Patty were both active in community activities and Bill was honored for his service as a volunteer chaplain for Hospice of Spokane. For a time they shared a home with Patty’s mother, making it possible for her to live out her years, to the age of nearly 100, in the daily embrace of family.

The Rev. Marvin Evans, a long-time friend, offers this perspective:

“Bill at the Unitarian Church of Spokane and Bill at the Still Point Farm were in a very real sense not the same Bill Houff. When he spoke from the pulpit at the church and when he spoke at the feed store in Newport, you were experiencing two very different versions of William Harper Houff. These two versions blended together made for one of the most interesting people I have ever known.”

Bill Houff is survived by sons Konrad Crist, and Gregory and Robert Houff, by grandchildren Torin, Marina, and Trevor, and by several stepchildren, one of whom, Patty’s daughter Kathleen McTigue, is also a UU minister. Bill was preceded in death by his parents, his sister Anna Lee, and his wife, Patty.

A memorial service for the Rev. Dr. William Houff was celebrated on February 12, 2014, at the Unitarian Church of Spokane. Memorial gifts may be made to the Inland Northwest Land Trust, 33 W. Main Ave. Spokane, Wash, 99201-1017. Notes of condolence may be sent in care of Greg Houff, 1002 Golden Hills Drive, Cheney, Wash. 99004.

[Editor’s note — Some of the material in this obituary is drawn from a memoir written by the Rev. Marvin D. Evans, one of Bill Houff’s closest and longest-time friends. Mr. Evans’ full memoir may be found at this link.]

Patricia Ann (McTigue) Houff, 81, died on September 16, 2012. Patty was born September 24, 1930. She was a life-long resident of Spokane, born as the first of three children to Mary and Tom Meagher. A graduate of Lewis and Clark High School and Stanford University, she worked as a fundraiser for Eastern Washington State College and as a residential realtor.

Patty was a persistent advocate for civic engagement and environmental preservation. She was active for many years with the League of Women Voters, the Spokane Mountaineers, the Spokane Unitarian Universalist Church, the Peace and Justice Action League and the Inland Northwest Land Trust, as well as many other civic associations. For nearly thirty years she was an active volunteer with the Dishman Hills Conservancy, and one of her proudest accomplishments was assisting in the creation of the “Dream Trail” in preservation of the Dishman Hills.

Patty was effective far beyond what her modesty admitted. She cultivated deep, enduring friendships; she was an exceptional mother and grandmother; and she was profoundly beloved.

Patty was married to James E. “Jim” McTigue for 21 years and the Rev. Dr. William “Bill” Houff for 36 years. She is survived by her husband, Bill Houff; her four children, Peggy McTigue, Kathleen McTIgue, Mike McTigue and Tom McTigue; sons-in-law David Miller and Nick Nyhart; three granddaughters, Hannah and Maris Nyhart and Annie McTigue; stepsons Greg and Rob Houff; her siblings Michael Meagher and Dr. Mary Meagher, sister-in-law Joan Meagher, niece Shannon Meagher and nephews Colin and Sean Meagher.

A Memorial Service in Patty’s honor was held on Friday, October 26, 2012, at 3:00pm at the Spokane Unitarian Universalist Church, 4340 W. Fort George Wright Drive, Spokane, WA 99224. Memorial gifts in Patty’s honor may be made to the Dishman Hills Conservancy for extension and preservation of the Dream Trail.

The Rev. Dr. Raymond Charles “Ray” Hopkins, a Universalist minister who worked tirelessly for Unitarian and Universalist consolidation and served the merged Unitarian Universalist movement in several capacities thereafter, died peacefully in his sleep, aged 93, at his home in Saco Maine, on April 21, 2013.

Deeply devoted to his liberal religious tradition and beyond, Ray Hopkins served on every merger-related committee from 1946 until AUA-UCA consolidation was finally formalized in 1961, when he was appointed executive vice president of the newly created Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), serving in that position until 1974. During these years he was heavily engaged in the anti-war, feminism, and civil right movements, and served briefly on the Executive Committee of the International Association for Religious Freedom in 1969. His work on consolidation and later tenure at the UUA offered him the opportunity to meet some of his heroes, including Albert Schweitzer, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Raymond Charles Hopkins was born in Danbury, CT on July 29, 1919 to Clarence and Mary Halstead Hopkins, and was raised in the Universalist church there. He began teaching Sunday school at age 15 and soon rose to local, statewide, and then national youth leadership positions. Drafted into the army as a conscientious objector in 1942 and honorably discharged with disability in 1944, Ray immediately began ministerial study at Tufts University. There he became a charter member of the Humiliati, a somewhat “maverick” but eventually influential group of Tufts students and recent alumni, who gathered in 1945 for study, fellowship, and Universalist renewal. Sometime after the group disbanded in 1954, Mr. Hopkins joined the Fraters of the Wayside Inn, an older study group of Universalist clergy on which the Humiliati had modeled their own organization.

Mr. Hopkins was graduated from Tufts with a B.A. in 1947 and S.T.B. in 1949. While still a student, he served ministries at Universalist churches in Canton (1944-45), Medford (1945-46), and Brockton, beginning the latter in 1946 and continuing on after graduation, where he was ordained in 1949 and served until 1961. In 1964, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by Starr King School for the Ministry.

Ray Hopkins began a new chapter in 1974, when he became executive director of the Ferry Beach Park Association in Saco, Maine, providing that center for retreat and renewal with skillful leadership for ten years. (The image at right was taken there in 2012.) The Rev. Mr. Hopkins also served as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Saco & Biddeford from 1975 to 1984. He was honored with the title of Minister Emeritus upon his retirement in 1984.

A memorial service was planned to be held in the summer of 2013 at Ferry Beach. In lieu of flowers, donations are encouraged to the Ferry Beach Park Association, 5 Morris Ave, Saco, Maine 04072.

Notes of condolence may be sent to Linda Hopkins at 8 Morris Ave., Saco, Maine 04072.

 The Rev. Barbara E. Hollerorth, 82, died April 14, 2009. A pastoral counselor and therapist, she studied sociology at the University of Iowa and University of Chicago before earning a master’s degree in theological studies from the Federated Theological Schools of the University of Chicago. She served with her husband, the Rev. Hugo J. Holleroth, as co-minister of education at the Union Church of Hinsdale, IL. She was serving the Lexington, MA church, when she created the well-known The Haunting House curriculum. She earned her D.Min.at Andover-Newton Theological School. She helped create the UU Pastoral Counseling Center of Greater Boston and became its first director. The Center provided a resource for UU ministers to refer parishioners for long-term therapy. She was a therapist at the Homophile Community Health Service and the Gender Identity Service. After retiring she studied photography and exhibited her work in the Boston area. Barbara is survived by her husband, and her daughters, Rachel Buerlen and Rebecca Hunter, and three grandchildren.