The Reverend Bob Slater—parish minister, beloved husband and father, student of psychic phenomena—died on 28 April 2017, aged 89.
As a college student, pleasure and skill in ballroom dancing led Bob to support himself with part-time teaching at an Arthur Murray Dance Studio, where he met fellow dance teacher Robin Holzbach. In 1950 Bob took what he deemed “the most important and wonderful step” of his life by marrying Robin. They continued dancing through 65 years of marriage until her death in 2015. (See below.)
Bob pursued a near-lifelong interest in paranormal and psychic phenomena. He was active in the Edgar Cayce Association and was a founding member of the UU Psi Symposium.
Robert Stephen Slater was born on 16 January 1928 in Pasadena, Maryland. After high school, Coast Guard service, and a college degree in 1951, he went on to earn an S.T.B at Harvard Divinity School in 1955. Shorter ministries in Pittsburgh (PA) and Westford (MA) were followed by a call in 1968 to the UU Church of Greater Lynn (MA), where served for 22 years and was named Minister Emeritus in 1990.
For his own obituary, Bob wrote that “all experiences in life offer opportunities for growth in the ways of love of all people and things, that the selfless example of Jesus is the way, and that life is continuous, not ending with the death of the physical body.”
Memorial donations are encouraged to the UU Church of Greater Lynn, earmarked for the restoration and maintenance of their courtyard garden.