Category: Obituary: S

Robert Taliaferro Sorrells, spouse of the Reverend Dillman Baker Sorrells, died 2 May 2021 at age 88, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years. Born in New York City in 1932, Bob attended Staunton Military Academy in Virginia and then Vanderbilt University, which was interrupted for service in the U.S. Army. He returned to earn a degree in History and a Masters in English Literature from Vanderbilt. He subsequently earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Bob was a faculty member at Murray State University, Clemson University, and the University of Arkansas before leaving academia to focus on his writing. He published several books, including a book of short stories, The Blacktop Champion of Icky Honey, and a book of essays called On Breaking One’s Pencil. He was awarded a PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Award, and his work was often anthologized, including in The Best American Short Stories. Though he was primarily a fiction writer, Bob often said that a history he wrote of the Clemson University Experimental Forest was among the works of which he was most proud.

A long-time fan of the Atlanta Braves, he enjoyed listening to baseball on the radio, and wrote a short story about missing Hank Aaron’s 715^th  home run. He was also a great fan of the Clemson soccer team. He loved to walk for exercise and could often be seen striding briskly along the roads of Clemson.

Bob was a Unitarian Universalist for most of his adult life, and an early member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Clemson. A great enthusiast of music, he sang for many years in the UU choir and created Gifts of Music, a series that aired on South Carolina Public Radio.

Bob is survived by his children Walter Arl Sorrells and Ruth Lindsey Sorrells, both of Atlanta; his grandson Jake Alfred Robert Sorrells of New Orleans; and by his loving wife of 59 years, the Rev. Dillman Baker Sorrells of Clemson.

The Reverend Dr. Elizabeth Strong—impassioned religious educator, pastoral counselor, parish minister, and lifelong disciple and scholar of Universalism—died on 20 March 2021, aged 80-3⁄4.

In UU circles Liz Strong was widely known for her work in curriculum development, her personal presence with irrepressible energy, and her many awards. Ministerial colleagues Carol Taylor and Carol Haag wrote that with Liz’s death “Unitarian Universalism and liberal religious education lost a shining star.”

Elizabeth May Strong was born a third generation Universalist to Ashley Walter Strong and Marie Elizabeth Miller Strong on 17 June 1940 in Cooperstown, New York. Their church was central to family life. When Liz was asked—at age eight—what she believed, her answer was quick: “I believe God is love. Jesus is a teacher and friend. People are inherently good. There is truth I know and more that I will know. Service is required of me to live my faith, and in the end all will be well.” At age 13 she began teaching church school at the Old Stone Universalist Church in Schuyler Lake NY.

Liz earned a B.A. in liberal arts from Syracuse University (NY) in 1962. In the 1970s both her parents died, her marriage failed, and she underwent extensive back surgery, with a neck-to-hips body cast. Amid these losses and challenges, the indomitable Ms. Strong, now a single working mother of four children, completed her M.S. degree in elementary education and was named Director of Religious Education at Rochester’s First Unitarian Church. She was centrally active with others in developing the ordination track by which the UUA acknowledged a Ministry of Religious Education. In October 1983 she was ordained by her Rochester congregation and forthwith called as Minister of Religious Education.

In 1988, the Rev’d Ms. Strong accepted a call to the May Memorial UU Society in Syracuse (NY) as Minister of Religious Education. She completed a D.Min. program at Meadville Lombard in 2000. In 2001 she left May Memorial for a seven-year stint as RE Program Consultant for the Massachusetts Bay District. Liz took formal retirement from full-time work in 2008 but went on to her first and only service in parish ministry (2008–2013) as a part-time consulting minister to the First Parish Church of Ashby UU (MA), where she was named minister emerita in 2013 and continued to preach frequently as a pulpit guest into the final years of her life.

At her death Liz was survived by brother John Strong, sister Barbara Strong Vertucci, sons David and Douglas Taylor, daughters Shari Taylor–Lascano and Kathleen Taylor-Wallen, ten grandchildren, and many cousins, nieces, and nephews.

An online memorial service was held on 8 May 2021. Memorial donations are encouraged to Planned Parenthood, or to the UUA. Notes of condolence may be sent to: Rev. Douglas Taylor, 19 Hodge Ave, Binghamton NY 13901.

The Rev. Shermie L. Schafer died on February 23, 2021 at the age of 78.

Shermie is survived by her sisters, Sue Medley and June Schafer, and their children; her stepson, Kai McLaughlin; her German Shepherd, Rika; and many friends. She was preceded in death by her parents, infant sister, and brother William L. Schafer.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the German Shepherd Rescue Indy or to PBS. UURMaPA will contribute $50 to the UUMA Endowment Fund in honor of our colleague’s ministry.

Notes of condolences may be sent to the family of Rev. Shermie Schafer, care of Neptune Society, 4825 East 96th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, 46240.

A more complete obituary will be forthcoming after biographical research has been completed.

The Rev. Bertrand H. Steeves died on September 18, 2020 at the age of 94.

He is survived by his wife, Maxine (Hertel) Steeves; his children Jonathan Steeves and children, Stephanie, Samantha, and Justin and their mother Debra (Baikewicz) Steeves; his daughter Kathryn Steeves and her husband, Stephen, and their children, Nathaniel and Jacob; his son Christopher Steeves and husband Thomas Brewer.

A memorial service was planned to be held on Nov. 20, 2021 at 2:00 pm at the First Religious Society Unitarian Universalist, Newburyport, MA. The service will be in person.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the First Religious Society Unitarian Universalist, of Newburyport, MA, where Bertrand served as minister from 1956-1991, and Link House, which he helped found. UURMaPA will contribute $50 to the UUMA Endowment Fund in honor of our colleague’s ministry.

Notes of condolences may be sent to the family of Rev. Bertrand H. Steeves in care of the First Religious Society Unitarian Universalist, of Newbury, MA.

A more complete obituary will be forthcoming after biographical research has been completed.

The Rev. Dr. Glen Snowden died on June 21, 2020, at the age of 87.

The Rev. Robert “Bob” L. Schaibly died on November 11, 2019, at the age of 77.

The Reverend Bob Schaibly—whose life path was deeply shaped by Unitarian Universalism, by participation in the 1965 Selma march in his senior year of college, and by a mid-life embrace of Buddhist practice—died on 11 November 2019, aged 77, of complications from a more than 30-year battle with throat cancer.

Bob found his interest in Buddhism to be transformatively deepened in 1988 when Thich Nhất Hanh came to speak at the Houston (TX) church where Bob was serving. Already in the early stages of cancer therapy, Bob recalled that “Thầy,” as he was familiarly called, “saw the still-desperate look in my eyes as I was struggling to recover from radiation treatment. His personal message for me was that being was an important practice, since most people find their self-worth in doing.” On returning from his first retreat with Thầy the next year, Bob founded the Houston Zen Community and then supported the development of the Houston Sangha. In 1992 he was invited by Thầy to come to Plum Village, to receive the lamp transmission, and to be ordained as a Dharma teacher, whereupon he was given the name “True Deliverance.”

Buddhist teaching continued as a major focus of ministry for Bob after retiring from parish ministry and moving to Oregon. He became active in Portland’s First Unitarian Church, a weekly Sangha, and a Buddhist men’s group. Bob’s husband, Steven Storla, having heard many of Bob’s sermons and Dharma talks, described him as “a wonderful and powerful speaker.” In the memory of his friends in the Buddhist community, Bob touched many lives, and he is remembered for his kind, inspiring, and compassionate demeanor, [as he] continued to share his wisdom by his loving presence. Despite many years of health challenges and limitations, he consistently taught how to meet suffering with equanimity. Bob shared his true self—all of his humanity—by being transparent and vulnerable, and by being open to the “full catastrophe” when it arose.

Robert Lloyd Schaibly was born on 16 August 1942 in Lansing MI, to Robert Lloyd Schaibly, Sr. and Dorothy Strieter Schaibly, who raised him in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. During college years at Michigan State University, he discovered a more liberating tradition at Lansing’s UU church, and in his senior year answered Martin Luther King’s call to Selma. “It changed Bob’s life to see religious institutions witnessing for justice and changing lives,” recalls his husband, and that was perhaps an important early experience in his call to ministry.

After graduation with a B.A. in humanities in 1965, Bob moved to San Francisco, joined the UU congregation there, and soon took a position as the church’s administrator. Turned down by Starr King School for the Ministry but encouraged by his minister, Harry Scholefield, to apply to Harvard, Bob moved east and completed work for his M.Div. at Harvard Divinity School in 1971. 

Mr. Schaibly’s first parish call was to the Beverly Unitarian Church in Chicago IL, where he was ordained in 1971 and continued to serve until 1979. In those years he served at times on the Planning Council of the Lake Geneva Summer Assembly, and at a summer gathering there he met, and later married, Elinor Berke. Their marriage ended amicably some years later, while she went on to pursue her own career in UU ministry.

The Rev’d Mr. Schaibly moved on to a briefer pastorate (1979–82) at the UU Church of Concord NH and then accepted a call to the First Unitarian Church of Houston TX. There he served as senior minister for two decades (1982–2002), during which that church was the first in Texas to become a sanctuary congregation for Central American refugees and to start a support group for gay and lesbian teenagers. In his public ministry to the Houston area, Mr. Schaibly spoke at multiple rallies against the death penalty, for abortion rights, for the right to die, and for marriage equality. In 1985, when the first UU LGBT convocation was held in Houston, Bob met Steven Storla. In 1991, they made their life commitment to each other at that year’s convocation in San Francisco.

In 2002, with his preaching voice much weakened by throat cancer and radiation treatment, the Rev’d Mr. Schaibly took early retirement at age 60, and the Houston congregation named him Minister Emeritus. He and Steven relocated to Portland OR, where Bob came briefly out of parish retirement to serve an interim ministry (2005–06) at the UU Community Church of Washington County (Hillsboro OR). It was in 2015, on the 24th anniversary of their mutual commitment, that Bob and Steven were finally married in a ceremony conducted by the Rev’d Bill Sinkford.

In the wider UU movement, Mr. Schaibly served on the boards of the UUA’s Southwest District, the Houston Area UU Ministers, and the UU Service Committee, and on the Emerson Centennial Celebration Committee of the UU Historical Society. He was active with the UUA’s Office of Gay & Lesbian Concerns. He was a member of the UUA Affirmative Action Task Force, served as president the UUMA’s Southwest chapter, and was a founder and chair of the New England Students for the UU Ministry. He was the theme speaker at Star Island’s “Life on a Star Family Week” in 1983. The Rev’d Mr. Schaibly saw many of his sermons published in The UU World and the Church of the Larger Fellowship’s monthly newsletter, Quest.

During his three parish settlements and beyond, Mr. Schaibly was supportive of or active with the Child and Family Services of New Hampshire, a food pantry program, a day center for the homeless, Amnesty International, and People for the American Way. He was president of the New Hampshire chapter of the ACLU (1980–1982), a community representative for the University of Houston Animal Research Committee, a board member of the Houston ACLU and the AIDS Foundation of Houston, and a theme speaker for the American Cancer Society of Texas. He chaired a local mental health council and an ecumenical ministerial fellowship.

At his death, Bob Schaibly was survived by his husband, Steven R. Storla; a sister, Rebecca Davidson; two brothers, Ben and Bill; and many nieces and nephews. Donations in Bob’s memory are encouraged to the Endowment Funds of the First Unitarian Church of Portland (firstunitarianportland.org/foundation) or the First UU Church of Houston (firstuu.org/donate). Memorial services were held at both congregations

The Rev. Edward “Ed” Searl died on July 28, 2019, at the age of 71.

Ed is survived by his wife of 51 years, Ellie Searl; his daughter Katie Bodnar; his brother Clint Searl; and his two grandchildren Brett and Bridget Bodnar. He was predeceased by his parents, Clinton and Mary Walter Searl.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Edward Searl Memorial Fund at the Unitarian Church of Hindsdale, 11 West Maple Avenue St., Hinsdale, IL 60521. UURMaPA will contribute $50 to the UUMA Endowment Fund in honor of our colleague’s ministry.

A memorial service will take place in September at the Unitarian Church of Hinsdale, 11 West Maple Avenue, Hinsdale, IL 60521 (date and time to be decided).

Notes of condolence may be sent to Ellie Searl at 7300 Johnson Farm Lane, Apt. 102, Chadds Ford, PA 19317.

A more complete obituary will be forthcoming after biographical research has been completed.

Kurt Schekel, widower of the Reverend Marcia Schekel, died on April 7, 2019. No further obituary is expected.

The Reverend Dr. Alan Seaburg—sometime parish minister, poet, and historiographer, whose archival and bibliographic knowledge assisted hundreds of researchers at the Harvard Divinity Library over the years—died on  22 July 2018 at the age of 86.

Alan Leslie Seaburg was born on 28 February 1932 in Medford, MA to Nils Henry and Eva (Gerrard) Seaburg. From Tufts University (MA) he received a B.A. in 1954 and a B.D. in 1957. He was ordained on September 15 of that year by the First Universalist Church in Medford (MA), where he served an interim ministry (1958–59) while studying for an M.S. at Simmons College (MA, 1959).

The Rev’d Mr. Seaburg worked as a librarian at the Crane Theological School of Tufts University (1959–65) before returning to the parish in a shared ministry with Kenneth Patton at the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston (1965–68).

Then, after two years at the UUA (1968–70), he moved on to what would become his most significant vocation as Curator of Manuscripts at Harvard Divinity School’s Andover- Harvard Theological Library (1970–95). At retirement he was named Curator of Manuscripts, Emeritus, and in 1999 Meadville Lombard Theological School awarded him a D.D. honoris causa.

Alan was a prolific writer, with pieces appearing in The New York Times, Amherst Review, Hawaii Review, and Commonweal. He published five books of poetry and was for many years poetry editor of the nature journal Snowy Egret. He also authored or co-authored more than half a dozen small histories, mostly on New England subjects.

Alan is survived by daughters Carolyn Joy Bell and Ann Leslie Seaburg, two granddaughters, and two nephews. Memorial contributions are encouraged in honor of Alan’s brother, to the “Carl G. Seaburg Scholarship Fund” at Meadville Lombard Theological School, Development Office: 610 South Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605.