Category: Obituary: Z

Jean Zoerheide, age 99, the surviving spouse of the Reverend Robert Zoerheide, died 11 August 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland.  She was born Jean Kenyon Spaulding on 1 April 1919 and married Robert in 1937. They remained together until his death in 2003. During their 66 years, he owned a butcher shop with his brother, earned a Batchelor’s degree from Western Michigan College and an MDiv from Meadville Lombard Theology School.  Jean maintained the home and raised their four children while Bob worked for USC with Japanese American internees during WWII and with Czechoslovakian Unitarians after the war. 

They returned to the U.S., where he served churches in Peterborough, New Hampshire, Syracuse, New York, and Bethesda, Maryland before being called to First Unitarian Church in Baltimore in 1978.

Jean became active with the UU Women’s Federation and helped to draft and promote The Women and Religion Resolution which was passed by General Assembly in 1977. In 1978, Jean was appointed to the Continental Women and Religion Committee, and in 1979 she was one of the organizers of the first conference, titled “Beyond This Time,” which produced manuals of worship services, workshop ideas, and educational sessions to work on implementing the 1977 resolution within Unitarian Universalism. At the Women and Religion Convocation on Feminist Theology in 1980, she was one of the eight women who brought water to the first Water Ritual.

After their retirement, Jean and Bob became Caring Contact people in the Joseph Priestley district for UURMaPA. Jean continued in that role for a couple years after Bob’s death in 2003.

In addition to her husband, Jean was predeceased by their daughter, Robyn Reklitis, who died in 1996. She was survived by three of her children, Todd K Zoerheide of Brewer, Maine: Mark E Zoerheide of Alum Bank, Pennsylvania; Vickie J Dykes, who has since also died in December 2020; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The Reverend Jack Zoerheide—parish minister and social justice activist—died on 2 March 2018, aged 93.

Throughout his ministry the Rev’d Mr. Zoerheide was a staunch civil rights advocate. In 1964 he traveled to Williamstown, NC, to join in protests and wrote about his experience of 48 hours in jail after being arrested for attempting to be served at a segregated restaurant with a group of people of color.

Jack Daniel Zoerheide was born on 27 June 1924 in Kent City, Michigan, to Grace and Frank Zoerheide, and grew up on a subsistence farm near Grand Rapids. After enlistment in the U.S. Navy in 1942, Jack saw active service (1943–44) as a lieutenant in the Asian Pacific Theatre. The GI Bill supported his study at Harvard Divinity School, where he earned his ministerial degree in 1950.

Mr. Zoerheide was ordained on 22 April 1951 by the Arlington Street Church in Boston. Over the next 37 years his parish career took him to Second Parish in Hingham, MA (1952–57), First Parish in Needham, MA (1957–69), Winchester, MA, Unitarian Society (1969–79), Keene, NH, UU Church (1979–81), All Souls Church in Braintree, MA(1981–82), UU Church of Fort Myers, FL (1982–84), and finally UU Church of Tarpon Springs, FL (1984–89).

While in his first settlement, on 22 Aug 1953, he married Marie Annette Sandberg, an artist and model, who remained his life partner until her death on 24 June 2010. At his death, Jack was survived by children Laina, Dean, Brian, Greg and Julie, 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Marie A. Zoerheide, 88, wife of the Rev. Jack D. Zoerheide, died June 24, 2010, in Windsor, VT. The couple served congregations in Keene, NH; Braintree, MA; Ft. Myers, FL; and Tarpon Springs, FL. She is survived by her husband.