The Rev. Arthur D. Wilmot, parish minister, opponent of the nuclear arms race, and lifelong advocate for peace and justice, died at his home in Corvallis, Oregon on August 6, 2013, aged 75, after a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Devoted to the worth and equality of all people and the right of each person to seek his/her own truth, Art strove to make these principles realities in everyone’s life. Actively supporting equal rights for women, he worked against sexism and racism as well as anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred. He was active in the civil rights movement, involved with the march in Selma, Alabama, and with promotion of voter registration in Mississippi, and looked back on this time feeling greatly honored to have met Martin Luther King, Jr., and C.T. Vivian.
Arthur Dean Wilmot, the only child of Dean Arthur Wilmot and Evelyn Cecil (Getty) Wilmot, was born on August 17, 1937, in Port Angeles, Washington, where his love of golf began while caddying for his father. Later, when the family moved to a home on the Cedar River southeast of Seattle, Art developed a passion for fly fishing. After graduation from Seattle’s Franklin High School and while a student at the University of Washington, he was attending a local Presbyterian church whose conservative minister preached one morning about the theological failings of the nearby Unitarian church. Art decided to hear for himself and found that he agreed with the Unitarians more than with the Presbyterians. Meanwhile, in 1956 and still in college, Art married Jean Kroenlein, with whom he had three children. After taking a B.A. in 1959, he went off to Tufts University, earning his B.D. (later M.Div.) there in 1962.
Beginning professional ministry in 1962 with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Chico, California, and ordained there on February 17, 1963, Mr. Wilmot served that congregation until 1968, followed by a three-year ministry at the First Unitarian Church of Victoria, B.C. Art and Jean divorced in 1971, and over the next eight years he turned to a counseling ministry, first in the addiction field, then with families, and finally as a crisis counselor with the Police Department in London, Ontario, whither he had moved with his three children. It was there in 1975 that he met and married Heather Stevens. Mr. Wilmot returned to parish ministry in 1979 with one-year terms of service successively at the UU Fellowship of Corvallis, Oregon, and the UU Congregation of Binghamton, New York, and then a permanent call back to the Corvallis Fellowship in 1981.
Soon after Art’s return to Corvallis, he began a deep and lasting friendship with Art Morgan, a Disciples minister, who recalled a Corvallis clergy meeting at which a Presbyterian colleague referred to the two of them as “the liberal Arts.” The label stuck, and they would occasionally use it to sign joint letters to the editor of the local paper. This “other Art” recalled Art Wilmot’s laughter and humor, the giant picture of Michael Jordan on his wall, and his one-time passion in earlier years for cigars and Cadillacs.
The Rev. Mr. Wilmot served in Corvallis for fifteen years until retirement in 1996 and was then named Minister Emeritus. With a keen sense of how congregations shape ministers, told his Corvallis parishioners in a farewell sermon (May, 1996) that “because of you, I shall never be the same.” His nearby colleague in Salem, Rick Davis, recalled Art’s exemplary service as a Good Officer for the PNWD-UUMA chapter and his “sly sense of humor.” In retirement he said, “Now I know why they call these the ‘golden years’—it takes a lot of gold to retire.”
Art Morgan remembered their last meeting at a service at the Corvallis Fellowship: “When I saw Heather wheeling him in, I came from the podium to share a warm greeting. He couldn’t speak, due to advanced Parkinson’s, but there was joy and friendship in our meeting. I heard someone whisper, ‘There are the liberal Arts.’” By way of blessing on Art’s death, the “other Art’ wrote: “May the Great Spirit of honest heretics and infamous liberals be with us all.”
Art Wilmot is survived by his wife of 38 years, Heather Stevens, three children, Pamela Condick, Deana McNee (both of Kitchener, Ontario) and Jon A. Wilmot (of Corvallis), 15 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. His life was remembered and celebrated in a memorial service on September 15, 2013, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis.
Notes of condolence may be sent to Heather Wilmot, c/o Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis, 2945 Northwest Circle Boulevard, Corvallis, Oregon, 97330.