Category: Obituary: M

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.

Judith Margaret (Manwell) Moore, 82, social worker, and widow of the Rev. Christopher Moore, died in Northampton, MA on December 16, 2016.

Judy grew up in Plattsburgh, NY.  Graduating from Oberlin College in 1956, she taught English for three years in Taiwan, then took her  MSW at the University of Chicago. She made a career as a social worker with children and families at the Salvation Army.

A birthright Unitarian, she joined First Unitarian in Chicago, where she would meet and marry the Rev. Christopher Moore, founder of the famed Chicago Children’s Choir. After his death in 1987, she volunteered for a time with Prof. Ron Engel at Meadville-Lombard. There she discovered a year-long program which took her around the world in 1994-95 with a group of much younger students, studying environmental issues.

Judy’s heart was always in New England, where her family had roots. Inspired by a quest to reduce her environmental footprint, she teamed with her son and only child, Jonathan, a skilled carpenter as well as artist and musician, to build an energy efficient earth-berm house set into the hills of Cummington, MA, in her beloved Berkshires, where she retired.

Very much an individualist, Judy could be cantankerous, yet she was always a people person, keeping in close touch with friends across the country as well as family and neighbors. She is survived by Jonathan, his wife Julie, foster son Paul Robertson, and grandsons Christopher (7) and Esai (1), as well as a younger brother, David, of Plattsburgh. Condolences may be sent to Jonathan and Julie Weismoore at 50 South Maple Street, Bellingham MA 02019.

A memorial service was held at the Village Church in Cummington on January 28, 2016.  Another will be held at First Unitarian in Chicago on Saturday, May 27, 2017, in conjunction with the gala 60^th anniversary of the Choir.

The Reverend Suzanne Marsh, aged 55—parish minister, social activist, community leader, and interfaith advocate—died unexpectedly on 24 June 2016 after a heart attack, fall, and head injury from which she never regained consciousness.

Suzanne walked her talk, holding numerous volunteer positions before and during professional ministry. In her last pastorate (Church of the Desert, Rancho Mirage, CA), she was quickly recognized by interfaith colleagues as bringing “a unique perspective and contagious energy.” The Rev’d Kevin Johnson, a UCC minister in Palm Springs, praised her as “an out lesbian leading a major religious body in the Coachella Valley. That’s not small potatoes.”

Suzanne M. Marsh was born on 25 October 1960 to Betty and Neil Marsh. She was graduated from Laurel (Maryland) High School in 1978, earned a B.S. in business administration in 1985, and then had a successful career of more than 20 years with major accounting firms. In the early 2000s, Suzanne heard a call to ministry, completed work for her M.Div. at the

Pacific School of Religion in 2007, and was ordained in 2009 by the First Unitarian Church of San Jose, CA. She served UU churches in Pennsylvania and Idaho before her call to Rancho Mirage. She is survived by her partner and spouse of nearly 40 years, Nancy Pless, her mother Betty Gersh, and by numerous siblings, children, and others. A Celebration of Life on 27 August 2016 at her church in Rancho Mirage was led by the Rev’d Lindi Ramsden, Suzanne’s former minister.

Memorial donations are encouraged to organizations that Suzanne supported: the UU Justice Ministry of CA and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

The Reverend Jeanne Mills, for whom parish ministry was a late calling after a rich and multi-faceted life as an educator, environmental activist, and archivist, died on 2 February 2016 at the age of 73.

Frances Jeanne Melis was born 18 October 1942 to Francis Kenneth Melis and Frances Inez Esson Melis. She earned a B.A. from Bucknell University in 1963 and an M.Ed. from Columbia University in 1965. She taught English in South America (1965-

1967) as a Peace Corps volunteer, earned an MBA from Simmons College in 1983, and an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School in 1997. Jeanne was ordained in 1997 by the Second Congregational Society (UU) in Nantucket (Mass) and spent the next thirteen years serving interim ministries in Nashville (Tenn), Midland (Mich), Tulsa (Okla), Chicago, Houston, Huntington and Schenectady (New York), Eugene (Oregon), and Savannah (Georgia), retiring from the parish in 2010.

Her sister Darleen remembers Jeanne as “a woman of great energy and interests who could accomplish much.” Family and friends remember her as an inspiring, caring and free-spirited person. Fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Stephen Sheppard remembers, “Jeanne was the best of us. Giving, caring, unselfish. Her good, positive, energy became part of us all from the moment she came into our lives so many years ago. We miss her already.”
Jeanne is survived by two brothers, two sisters, two daughters, a grandson, and several nieces and nephews. A memorial service was held at the United Church of Dorset, Vermont, 5 March 2016. Memorial donations are encouraged to the Natural Resources Defense Council or the Knox County Humane Society in Rockland, Maine.

Ann Marie Haggerty MacPherson, 89, wife of the Rev. Dr. Robert H. MacPherson, died at Trinity View Retirement Center, Arden, North Carolina on December 29. 2015.

She was born June 12, 1926 to Alice Lang and Dr. George Dewey Haggerty, in Cleveland, Ohio. Educated in the Cleveland schools, she enrolled in the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio and was graduated in the Class of 1947. She won an MA in literature and composition from Western Reserve University, Cleveland, in 1948. She taught four years at Rocky River, Ohio High School.

Ann was married July 1949 to the Rev. Dr. Robert H. MacPherson. They had two children, Robert Owen MacPherson, deceased 2005, and Ralph Lang MacPherson, Fairview, NC. There are five grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Mrs. MacPherson earned teaching certificates in Ohio, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Florida and North Carolina. She taught in all these states. She was on the faculty of AC Reynolds Middle School for seventeen years. She is a member of the NC Retired Teachers and of the National Education Association. Her interest in art led her to be a docent at the Asheville Art Museum. With her husband, she joined the Unitarian Universalist Church, Asheville, now Unitarian Universalist Congregation, in 1971. She served on various committees and was Co-Chair of the Building Dedication in October 1972.

A memorial service was planned for. Sunday, January 10, 2015 at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville.

Notes of condolence may be sent to the Rev. Robert MacPherson, 2533 Hendersonville Road, #309, Arden NC 28704-9580.

The Reverend Matthew McNaught — pastor, teacher, scholar, and religious pilgrim — died on 23 August 2015, aged 77.

Matthew absorbed a love of spirituality and liturgy from his grandmother, and later he preached on “the strangely formative influence of his early childhood where the singing of simple hymns created a lasting effect on [my] life and adult experience.” But he found the dour theology of Scottish Presbyterians rather less appealing. Restlessness led him first to England, to priesthood in the Anglican Church, and then to America, where he found his final professional home in Unitarian Universalist ministry. The Rev. John Manwell remembers him as “always a gracious colleague [with] a reputation both for faithful pastoral ministry and for thoughtful scholarship.”

Love of his native Scotland never left Matthew. Shortly after arriving in America, Matthew found his new city of Pittsburgh to have “a lot in common” with his native Glasgow: “Lots of steel, lots of character, lots of Presbyterians and some perfectly beautiful hills around the city.” Members of the Towson UU Church fondly recall the Scotland tour that Matthew led for them. His Scottish roots were remembered at his memorial service at the Towson church with the traditional “Skye Board Song.”

Mr. McNaught was passionate about adult religious education, and he helped build strong and vibrant programs within the congregations that he served. In the late 1990s, he lectured at John Hopkins University on “The History of Liberal Protestantism,” and on “The Interface of Religion and Psychology.” He also led seminars on “The Quest of the Historical Jesus” and “The Theology of Soren Kierkegaard,” among many others.

Matthew McDonald McNaught was born in Glasgow on 15 November 1937. After military service, during which he joined the Anglican Church, he took a B.A. at Oxford University in 1962 and a Diploma in Theology from Wells Theological College in 1964, receiving ordination the same year. He served two Anglican parishes over the next few years, meanwhile earning an M.A. from Oxford in 1967. Now married to Anna Bennett, whom he had met as an American student in Glasgow, he moved with her to Pennsylvania and served briefly (1969-71?) as rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in the Fields in Gibsonia (near Pittsburgh) as well as on the Board of Examining Chaplains of the Pittsburgh diocese, ironically all the while “struggling with his vocation” and eventually renouncing his Anglican orders.

With brief study at Meadville Lombard Theological School, the Rev. Mr. McNaught received ministerial fellowship with the UUA in 1972 and began a year of interim parish service at the Redhill Universalist Church of Clinton, NC. Accepting a call the next year to the Community Church (UU) of New Orleans, he was ordained again, now under UU auspices, and continued as their minister until 1979. Subsequent calls led to ministries at the First Unitarian Church of Austin, Texas (1979-88) and the Towson UU Church, Lutherville, Maryland (1988-98). There he was named Minister Emeritus upon early retirement, after which he pursued interim ministries: the UU Church of Fort Lauderdale (1998-99); King’s Chapel in Boston (1999-2001); the Unitarian Society of Germantown (Philadelphia, 2001-02); the Unitarian Universalists of the Chester River (Chestertown, Maryland, 2002-04); and the UU Congregation of Sterling, Virginia (2005-07).

During his parish ministries Matthew McNaught served the UUA and UUMA in various capacities. He was program director of the Southwest UU Summer Institute in 1979; secretary of the Southwest UUMA chapter in 1981 and its president in 1982-83; member of the UUMA’s Committee on Continuing Education in 1988; and Minister in Residence at the 1993 Star Island Arts Conference. Community service included chaplaincy at the Orleans Parish Prison (1977-78) and the Bastrop Federal Corrections Institution (1983-86); Unit Chair of the League of Women Voters (1977-79); and Chair of the Community Advisory Councils for New Orleans Public Schools in 1979. In Maryland, Matthew served as President of the Maryland CRC and President of the Towson Ministers Association. He worked with Maryland Against Handguns and cofounded the Maryland Interfaith Conference on Affordable Housing.

Matthew outlived a son Douglas, who died of colon cancer. He is survived by his wife, Anna Bennett McNaught, and a son, Mark Bennett McNaught.

A memorial service was conducted by the Rev. Clare Petersberger at the Towson UU Church on 14 September 2015.

Memorial contributions are encouraged to Smile Train, an international children’s charity that offers cleft lip and palate surgery to children in developing countries. This charity has enabled doctors in 85+ developing countries to provide 100%-free surgery in their local communities.

Notes of condolence may be sent to Anna McNaught, 742 East Lake Ave, Baltimore, Maryland 21212; or to Mark McNaught, 15 Residence Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, 35000 Rennes, France.

 

The Rev. Donald W. Male, 86, died August 14, 2008, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. After a distinguished career in aerospace and defense, which included meeting Orville Wright and John F. Kennedy, he went on to serve the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tullahoma, TN for 25 years and was honored as minister emeritus upon retirement. He was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in 1977 and served in this position for ten years, the last two years as Secretary of the Board. His hobbies included canoeing and astronomy. Survivors include his wife, Sue Anderson Male of Murfeesboro, TN, three daughters, two step-children, his sister and brother. He also leaves three grandchildren and four step-grandchildren.

Susan Fromm Marshall, 86, widow of the Rev. Robert Marshall, died on June 28, 2008. She will be remembered for her remarkable intellect, wit and insight into the world around her. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1944, where she met her husband, Harold Fromm, whom she married in 1946. She later married the late Robert Marshall, longtime minister of Birmingham Unitarian Church. For many years, Sue managed the Bloomfield Hills branch of Recording for the Blind. Her lifelong passion for knowledge continued at the University of Michigan Dearborn where she attended classes as part of the Senior Scholars program. She is survived by two daughters and a son, seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

The Rev. Ric Masten, 78, died May 9, 2008 at his mountain home near Carmel, California. Dubbed a “troubadour minister,” he has been perhaps the only fellowshipped UU minister never to have graduated from seminary or college. He is perhaps best known for his hymn “Let It Be A Dance.” With his wife, Billie Barbara Masten, he toured the country giving concerts and he earned the distinction of preaching in more Unitarian Universalist churches – over five hundred in 49 states – than any other minister in history. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999 and chronicled his battle with the disease in a series of poems, books and blog entries, which expanded his ministry to a new community, cancer survivor groups. He is survived by his wife.

Dorothy MacPherson, 77, wife of the Rev. David H MacPherson, died Nov. 1, 2005. Refusing to accept the traditional role of the minister’s wife, she pursued careers as a lab technician for Borden; a custom-decorating accountant at J.C. Penney, and a geratric nurse’s aide for Upjohn. She posed as a renter to uncover discrimination in housing. David tells that when she wanted time with her minister husband, she would write herself into his appointment book. They resided in Silver Spring and Towson, MD; Richmond, VA; Laramie, WY; Brookfield, WI and State College, PA. They started two new churches. Surviving are her husband and three children: Duncan and Douglas MacPherson of Maryland, and Dianna of Ashland.