The Reverend Dr. Ray Manker—parish minister, passionate civil libertarian, defender of freedom and equality—died on 16 December 2018, aged 93, after a lengthy decline. With his spouse Gretchen, Ray was instrumental in securing land and founding two wilderness camps for UU families and young people: Camp de Benneville Pines in the San Bernardino mountains of California and the Sierra Ancha Wilderness Retreat in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest.
Ray was active in an astonishing range of UU and social justice causes: defending targets of McCarthyism, marching at Selma, draft and abortion counseling, an early officiant at same-sex weddings, civil disobedience against nuclear testing, and much more. He received multiple awards for service in these activities and was recognized by Starr King School with an honorary S.T.D. in 1974.
Raymond George Manker was born on 6 April 1925 in Santa Monica CA to the Rev’d Charles C. G. Manker and Annie Marie Fehn. He earned a B.A. in 1945 from the College of Mines and Metallurgy (now University of Texas at El Paso) and then studied for Quaker ministry at The College of the Bible (now Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky), all the while developing unitarian leanings as he completed his B.D. in 1948.
Mr. Manker was ordained to Unitarian ministry on 13 July 1948 by Pilgrim Church (Congregational-Unitarian) in El Paso TX, where his father was pastor. In August 1949 he traveled with his father to Boston, where both were received simultaneously into ministerial fellowship with the American Unitarian Association.
After a year at the First Unitarian Church in Toledo OH (1949-50), he followed calls to the First Parish in Wayland MA (1950-55), the UU Church of Riverside CA (1955-63), and finally the UU Congregation of Phoenix AZ, serving there from 1963 until retirement in 1990, when the Phoenix congregation named him minister emeritus.
Ray is survived by his wife Gretchen, children Katherine, Raymond Jr., Susan, and David, four grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and several nieces, nephews and cousins.