The Rev. Suzanne Black

The Rev. Suzanne Black, parish minister, educator of the disadvantaged, lifelong musician, and devoted dog lover, died on 10 February 2014 at the age of 71 after a brief illness.

Suzanne is remembered as one who “helped the underdog,” and even prior to ministry, she was steadily engaged in education and pastoral care, first teaching high school French in Chicago and then moving to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to become the head houseparent at a home for emotionally disturbed teenagers.

As a college student, she was bedfast for many months due to a serious spinal injury suffered during a rock-climbing outing. Despite several surgeries and physical therapy, she was dependent on leg braces and crutches for most of her working life. Nevertheless, Suzanne spent several summers traveling across Europe, “not letting this impairment of function interfere with living life fully,” recalls her sister, Judy. A seminary colleague remembers walking up “Holy Hill” with her: “I never quite made it up the hill without stopping. But . . . even on crutches and in her Birkenstocks [Suzanne] could beat me. She was still an athlete at the age of 45.” In retirement, knee surgeries failed to improve her mobility, and she became more dependent on what she called, with characteristic optimism and determination, her “power chair,” and repeatedly insisted that it was not an “electric chair!”

Suzanne had a lifelong love of music, beginning with piano lessons in her childhood, continuing with high-school choir and musical theater, then guitar and folk singing in her “hippie” period, and ending with karaoke in her retirement. She always had several dogs as pets, and considered the dogs to be family. At her wedding to Gary Murphy on 12 August 2000, Suzanne’s two dogs were “attendants,” coming down the aisle wearing bows in procession with their human companions.

Susan (Susie, Suzanne, Suze) Trappe Black was born 28 August 1942 in Alexandria, West Virginia, to Winston Edward Black and Virginia Trappe (Price) Black and grew up in Urbana, Illinois. She attended Mt. Holyoke College from 1960 to 1963 before transferring to the University of Illinois, where she earned a B.A. in 1965 and a M.A. in 1967. Around 1975, after several years of conventional life and work in the familiarity of the Midwest, Suzanne headed out to the open skies of Montana in a purple van with a companion, Sam Farmer, to live communally with another couple and their children. She earned a bit of income there sewing and embroidering peasant blouses and other clothing. With the ending of that communal life, she soon returned to the helping professions, working as a special education teacher and education department supervisor at the Boulder River School and Hospital in Boulder, Montana, where she met and married co-worker, Dean Dougherty. Suzanne became active in nearby Helena’s Big Sky UU Fellowship, and eventually went off to Starr King School for the Ministry, earning her M.Div. there in 1990. Her marriage to Dean ended in divorce.

Returning to Montana, Ms. Black was ordained to Unitarian Universalist ministry on 24 May 1992 by joint action of the UU congregations of Helena, Billings, Bozeman, Idaho Falls, and Missoula in the tiny and evocatively-named town of Pray, Montana. She served interim ministries at the UU Congregation of York, Penn (1992-93) and the UU Fellowship of Fayetteville, Ark (1993-94), and an extension ministry at the UU Congregation of Las Vegas, Nevada (1994-97). In 1997 she was called as parish minister to the UU Church of South County (now “Tapestry”) in Mission Viejo, Calif, serving there until 2000, when she moved to a final interim ministry at St. Paul’s Universalist Church of Little Falls, NY (2000-01). In retirement, she and her new husband Gary returned to the desert they loved in southwest Arizona. They called themselves “snowbirds” and enjoyed traveling.

Committed strongly to the Unitarian Universalist Association’s work in anti-racism, the Rev. Ms. Black served as co-leader of the UUA’s Beyond Categorical Thinking Workshop in 1993 and as co-organizer of the UUA’s Building a Jubilee World Workshop in 1996. In the Pacific Southwest District chapter of the UUMA, she was a co-planner of three collegial retreats (1997-2000) and served as the chapter’s vice president (1999-2000).

Family and friends gathered for a meal of remembrance on 22 February 2014 in Bloomington, Illinois — the area of Suzanne’s childhood. Another informal memorial gathering was held in the Tyson RV Park clubhouse of her Quarzite, Arizona, housing community on February 28. Her sister recalled Suzanne as “passionate about people, her connections with people, and maintaining those connections.” She “knew how to put a good spin on things and look at [life] in a positive way.”

Suzanne’s second husband Gary died in 2010. She is survived by her sister, Judith May; brother, Theodore Black; nephews, Andrew May and Brian May; and niece, Ginny Black.

Memorial donations may be made to Starr King School for the Ministry, 2441 Le Conte Ave, Berkeley, Calif. 94709, to your area companion pet rescue shelter, or to a charity of your choice.

Notes of condolences may be sent to Judy May, Box 2100 RR 1, Corner Brook, Newfoundland, A2H 2N2 Canada.