Yale Divinity School

Notes from 2008

Since the last report, Neil Topliffe ’66 M.Div. finished his communications work with the UCC Insurance Board in April and quickly thereafter was asked to help out the Disciples Church Extension general unit with their communication needs. Again it is a short-term part-time position helping them in the transition of finding a new marketing director. All this is in addition to Neil’s quarter time responsibilities as Minister for Communication at Geist Christian Church in Indianapolis, IN (www.geistchristian.org). He and Sandy continue to enjoy regular trips to visit their 2-year-old granddaughter in Michigan. The newest venture has been using a video webcam to see and talk with young Harper. A webcam experience with a 2 year old reminds Neil of mimicking monkeys at the zoo!

Bert Keller, STM '66

My one year's spiritual adventure at YDS propelled me to three years of seminary teaching in the Congo, where I rushed into terrain angels would have feared to tread, teaching New Testament Studies, Greek, and Social Ethics to future leaders of Congo Protestant churches. I returned to Charleston, South Carolina, to develop a campus ministry on multiple campuses with the Presbyterian Church. Campus ministry mutated into a full-time faculty role at the Medical University of South Carolina in bioethics and the medical humanities, from which institution I retired in 2006 after a wild ride of 34 years through the amazing unfolding of bioethics. I am now in my 35th year as senior pastor of Circular Congregational Church, UCC, in downtown Charleston, and the evolution and witness of this church has been at least as dramatic as the development of bioethics. My wife Lucille and I have raised three sons and she continues to teach theater in a local high school. We plan to retire in a couple of years.

Dot Kwok

I just returned to Florida from my twice-a-year sojourn to Hong Kong, China. In China, 5 million children, women and men are homeless, schoolless, foodless, and clean waterless due to a devastating earthquake on May 12, 2008. The People's Liberation Army is performing miracles every day, along with other supporters: gingerly pulling out a pregnant women (the baby is doing fine), controlling the quake lakes and creating tent schools. I also, visited the Kowloon Mosque in Hong Kong, twice this time, to renew my vows to be a Buddhist-Christian-Muslim and to pray for all Muslims, the Moderates ones as well as the Liberal ones and Extremists. (Love your neighbor as yourself!)
 

Susan Sonnenday Vogel

This spring, I completed my ministry at Saint Paul School of Theology after 33 years—somehow saying it that way seems more descriptive than "retiring." As everyone has testified, life during so-called retirement quickly fills with a myriad of treasures. The sending forth chapel service was a rich array of poetry, dance (one of the gifts I still enjoy contributing in worship), and music that spanned a spectrum from classical to spirituals to Bob Marley and U2. It reflected what I found to be a significant contribution of my last years at Saint Paul—helping to create a welcoming space in worship and formation for a wide array of well-crafted experiences from many theological perspectives.

I like to say that I have moved to the center of my life those things that I have been doing around the edges. One focus is a ministry with homeless and near-homeless persons in the Westport area of Kansas City called Neighbor to Neighbor. It was the last ministry with which my husband, Stuart, worked before his death. The director is a gifted man with whom Stuart worked for many years in a similar ministry, so it feels as if this is where I am called to be. I find myself doing a great deal of organizational work, including fund-raising. I am also doing editing for several friends, and I anticipate coming to a place where I can do more writing. A couple of my friends who are judicatory leaders have suggested that I work with some of their student pastors and also provide support for other clergy in challenging situations. That is familiar territory.

Mia and Connor, our grandchildren, are close by, so I feel blessed to be able to delight in my time with them. My life is full and good. I feel sadness that Stuart is not here so we could share these years. And I give thanks for close-by family and friends who become family.

Nancy ’66 M.A.R and Gates Vrooman ’67 B.D. retired in 2004—Gates from 38 years of pastoral ministry, Nancy from 28 years as a math teacher at various high schools and a community college. Since then, they have worked in a Christian Ministry in the National Parks for four months at Crater Lake, OR, moved from Illinois to Hillsborough, NC—a 5-minute walk from one of their daughters and her family—bicycled through the Cotswolds of England, hiked for two weeks in Cornwall along England's southern coast, participated in five Elderhostels, and hiked/climbed their first 14'er near Leadville, CO. Gates visits the prison, mentors pastors, tutors third graders, teaches and takes classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke, and workout at the gym. Nancy volunteers at a local food pantry, tutors and trains tutors, guides groups at the North Carolina Botanical Garden, plays badminton, does water aerobics and takes classes, too.

Karl-Christoph Epting lives in Karlsbad, Germany and teaches at the University of Leipzig where he is engaged in a small “Institut fur Diasporawissenschaft." “The theme, `diaspora’ is an essential one. We have to discover the importance of that anew as theologians. And we have to reflect and to search what diaspora means as the basis for the Christian faith. At this time I try to find out what should be pointed to.” “My time at Yale Divinity School (1964-66) was a very important time for my development as theologian and pastor. I am always thankful for these years and the friendships I have received.”

Bob Tiller recently retired from his position as Deputy Director for Public Policy and Advocacy with the National Council on Aging, where he did both direct lobbying of Congress and building the organization’s grassroots lobbying capacity.   His 29 years in public policy advocacy included stints in the government relations departments of American Baptist Churches USA, Bread for the World, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and Physicians for Social Responsibility.  Prior work included an inner-city pastorate and a community development position with the Mayor’s Office, both in New York City.  In retirement Bob plans to expand his involvement in several areas of interest – political campaigns, writing letters to the editor, solving crossword puzzles, playing softball, growing tomatoes, and attending Washington Nationals’ games.  He hopes to do some volunteer projects and some occasional consulting work.  And the huge stacks of old stuff in the attic are begging for his attention.  Bob’s wife Elaine remains in her position as Director of Bereavement Care at Montgomery Hospice in Montgomery County, Maryland, for a while longer.  They have two sons and three grandchildren, with a fourth expected in September.  They will continue to reside in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Frank Denton

Following graduation, I was an associate pastor for three years in Stratford, CT.  Followed by 12 years as associate executive director of the Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport. During that time I was the part-time chaplain at the Bridgeport Correctional Center and director of the Council's Community Outside Opportunities Program (CO-OP) which was established to provide a range of services for ex-offenders.

Next was 15 years as a United Methodist pastor in Monroe, CT, then 10 years at the Community Church in Pound Ridge, NY.  All have been vital, meaningful, enriching experiences.  Music, CROP Hunger Walks, and Habitat for Humanity have been important in each place.

Charlene, my wife of 38 years, and I have two adult children:  Janet, a Presbyterian clergy in Salem, VA, and Richard, a tuba player with the Coast Guard Band. 

We retired in 2006 and live in Gales Ferry, CT, near our son and his family. Volunteer activities such as keeping up with our grandson, Bible study, choir, mission trips, Habitat for Humanity, CROP Walks are still part of our schedule.

Jon Dalton currently serves as Associate Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Hardee Center for Leadership and Ethics at Florida State University, Tallahassee. He also edits an on-line journal, the Journal of College and Character. He and his wife, Bev, have two children, Stacy and Jonathan, and they all love running. "I got my start running the hills around YDS and Sleeping Giant!"

Notes from 2007

David W. Abbott ’66 B.D. ’68 S.T.M. was ordained in October '68 as a Presbyterian minister. His S.T.M. thesis was on Role Playing. In 1994 he began part-time in the church and part-time doing therapy with a relatively unknown form of role playing, Scenario Role Play. He obtained a doctorate in counseling psychology and has a part time practice as a licensed professional counselor and licensed master social worker. He has retired from the ministry after serving in many part-time positions and as interim minister. Currently David is a Professional Fellow, teaching in Pastoral Counseling at the Detroit, MI extension of Ashland University Theological School. He has published a book, Scenario Role Play (Author House, 2005). David and wife Karen, a librarian, have two children and two grandchildren. Always a lover of the uncivilized parts of God's creation, David built a canoe which he and Karen have used to go to the U.S. and Canadian wilderness to enjoy—among other things— the calls of the loon, the owl, and the wolves. The Abbots have appreciated the prayers of many for their youngest granddaughter, who spent six months of her first year in the hospital (apparently successfully), fighting leukemia.

Gretchen and Edward B. Anderson ’59 B.A., ’66 M.Div. are retired and living in Nantucket, MA where he is doing occasional teaching on Nantucket and occasional lecturing in off-island places like Umbrian. As retirement neared, and inspired by The Best of Davie Napier with his enthusiasm and energy, the Andersons decided to go back to school in preparation for doing things they had always wanted to do.. 

Judy (Johnson) Burnham ’66 M.A.R. retired after working in education as a Presbyterian Church Educator and also in cooperative preschool and public school settings, the last with special education kindergartners. She is an elder at her church and heads up their Christian Education program as well as getting involved in community action such as working for affordable housing in the Bay Area in California.  She also volunteers in Spirit Care Ministry, playing piano for worship services in three convalescent hospitals.  Spare time is spent playing golf with her husband, watercolor painting, and visiting a combined 5 children and their families, including 5 grandchildren.  She still treasures her YDS education and the challenge to be a life-long learner in the journey of faith. 

Donald Frey ’66 B.D. has been teaching at Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC, for 34 years, in the economics department, with no current plans to retire. At the college he served a term as chairman of his department, and also helped to organize and coordinate an interdisciplinary urban studies minor. He has taught courses ranging from labor economics to economics and ethics. His published recent research has been about the historical development of ideas on economic morality. Donald and his wife Linda have been married 39 years and have two married sons, one a physicist and the other, after three years in the Peace Corps, working on a doctorate in forestry at NC State. Both Donald and Linda do a lot of choral singing in their free time. In recent years they have been active members of the Moravian church, which has a significant presence in Winston-Salem.

Joe Hajdu ’66 B.D. retired in 2003 after 37 years as a United Methodist pastor in western Pennsylvania, mostly in the Pittsburgh area.  Joe and his wife Cathie now live in a Pittsburgh suburb and are actively involved at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, a unique, diverse congregation with a wide array of ministries.  He is coordinator for a contemplative prayer group there and has other involvements in spiritual formation.  He also has gone on several mission trips to South Dakota and Mississippi.  Together they enjoy biking on Pennsylvania's beautiful trails and traveling to Oregon as often as they can to visit their two-year-old granddaughter.

Herbert J. Hedstrom ’66 M.Div. retired in 2005 after 39 years in parish ministry with the Evangelical Covenant Church. His first pastorate was on the west side of Chicago; from there he was in Glenview, IL for 23 years and finished in Elgin, IL.  He remains active in denominational ministries.  He and his wife Louise ’66 M.S.N., a retired professor of nursing, have been traveling, mostly to see kids and grandkids, and taking care of long-delayed household projects.  Their daughter Beth ’88 B.A. is an editor and lives in Takoma Park, MD with her husband and their twins.  Their on Mark, a high school physics teacher, is spending the year in Cairo with his archeologist wife Dar and their son.  Their Son Matthew and his wife Sarah are in Princeton, NJ, where he has a one year post-doc fellowship.

Homer D. (Butch) Henderson ’66 M.Div. is now retired after having served the last 20 years as Senior Pastor of the Claremont United Church of Christ, Claremont, CA.  He continues to serve the larger community as chair of the nationally recognized Claremont Youth and Family Master Plan, www.YMPUpdate.com, an appointment made by the Claremont City Council and Unified District School Board.

Dorothy McMahon Kwok ’66 M.A.R. is a substitute teacher in Florida and regularly returns to Hong Kong to see her relatives and friends. She attends both an African American Methodist Church and a Unitarian Universalist Church as well as her home Shum Oi Church in Hong Kong. She has been experimenting with a modified Islamic Ramadan to keep in touch with Muslim friends.

Robert Loesch '66 B.D. has been serving a full-time pastorate at Zion's United Church of Christ of Taborton of Sand Lake, NY since June 2006. It is located 15 miles east of Albany and Troy, NY.  Although full time, the feeling is one of partial retirement because the church and parsonage are located in the forest at 1440 feet above sea level on a mountain with beautiful lakes and streams.  The church sponsors workshops and seminars on environmental awareness.  The church membership includes 16 language groups. Previously, Bob worked for thirteen years full time in the management of adults with developmental disabilities and mental illness in western Massachusetts while serving as interim and supply pastor for several churches. Upon graduation from YDS, he worked and lived 17 years in Connecticut and then 23 years in Massachusetts, serving more than nine UCC parishes.  He has traveled in 51 nations, often sharing his observations with the wider community. He has particular passions about ecumenical and interfaith relations, environmental consciousness, and openness for people of all diversities and disabilities, and peace and justice witness. He is divorced and the father of four adult children who have created three grandchildren. He serves as class agent for the YDS class of '66. Bob welcomes visits or contacts from classmates.

Meta and Marcus (Mark) Meckstroth ’66 M.Div. celebrated their forty-fourth wedding anniversary in August 2007. Since 1976, they have lived in State College, PA, where Mark served Faith United Church of Christ and then worked for Pennsylvania State University until retirement in 2002. Meta is a retired elementary school teacher. The Meckstroths are active in their church and community. Their travel log for 2006 included connecting with ancestral roots and their religious communities in Switzerland, Alsace, and northern Germany. They have two daughters and five grandchildren, four boys and a girl.

Mark Henry Miller ’66 B.D. and his wife, Diane, have moved to Dallas, TX, and Mark retired mid-year. The move was job related for Diane but they now have the benefit of being closer to children and grandchildren. Diane's son, Jason, lives in Austin and Mark’s son, Andrew, in San Antonio.  Jason and wife Teela are parents of twin boys, Jackson and Aiden.  Andrew, will be married mid-September and he's asked his father to dust off the robe and remember the wedding covenant ceremony. Mark’s primary time now is to seek publication of his second book of pastoral epistles, Cast Your Nets, and plough forward on his current murder/mystery novel, Preacher's Luck that has to do with ministry and fishing. Prior to retirement Mark was interim conference minister of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the UCC, Seattle, WA where he and Diane loved fly-casting in Washington, Colorado and Montana. Over the decades he served churches in Colorado, Oregon, Ohio and Illinois, with the last pastorate at St. Peter's UCC in Elmhurst, IL.  In 1997 be became the Conference Minister of the South Central Conference with offices and residence in Austin, TX.  The conference includes 90 UCC congregations in Texas and Louisiana and the Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, MS.

Dick Riseling ’62 B.A. ’66 B.D. has been an organic, horse-powered farmer and employee of the State University of New York for 28 years. He retired in 1995 to farm and now works full-time as a social advocate for social and environmental justice at Apple Pond Farm and Renewable Energy Education Center, www.applepondfarm.com.

Sue and Phil Smith ’66 B.D. went from YDS to Berlin Germany as Disciples of Christ fraternal workers for 3 years where Phil was on staff at Evangelishche Kirche der Union. Phil has served three congregations in northeast Ohio, Shaker Heights (Disciples of Christ}, Warren, and currently in Akron.  Both of the latter have been ecumenical with membership in the International Council of Community Churches.  Along the way Smith has been part of leading projects to build a senior citizens high-rise in Shaker, write a grant proposal to the Lilly Foundation for a pastors peer group program in Akron, and lead the merger of two congregations who have struggled in membership building.  The Smiths are parents of two children and grandparents of four grandchildren.

Bill and Mary Ann McLellan Stroker ’66 M.A.R. continue to enjoy retirement. They celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this year (2007) with a trip to Australia and New Zealand. Last year they visited France, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, and Botswana. Their adult daughter, Katherine, lives with her husband in Philadelphia.

Bob Tiller ’66 B.D., ’67 M.U.S. went on to get a Master of Urban Studies degree from Yale before he and spouse Elaine Cremer Tiller ’67 B.D. moved to New York City where Bob served as pastor for five years. He became deeply involved in community activities and in the Clergy Consultation on Abortion. Leaving parish ministry, he worked for the Office of the Mayor of New York City for several years, mostly in improving the delivery of services to communities. The next move was to Washington D.C. to work in the American Baptist Office of Government Relations. Since 1996 he has been director of government relations at several nonprofit organizations, including Bread for the World and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Currently he works full time in public policy and advocacy for the National Council on Aging, with no definite plans to retire. As moderator of his church he teamed with the pastor to lead the congregations in joining the Alliance of Baptists. He and his wife Elaine, a counselor currently directing a large hospice bereavement program, have two children and three grandchildren. The highlight of this summer was a pilgrimage with his two sons to Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame induction.

Neil Topliffe ’66 B.D. was a local pastor in Fremont, MI for two years following YDS before serving in general ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in various areas of communication over the following 31 years. He became Senior Associate Minister at Geist Christian Church, Indianapolis, IN in 2000. Geist Christian is a dynamic and growing congregation of 1400 members that is about to add a second campus to its ministry. Neil moved to semi-retirement in 2006, and now serves part-time as Minister for Communications. He also has been communications consultant for the United Church of Christ Insurance Board. His wife Sandy retired from teaching in 2003. In 2006 they became first-time grandparents. Recent travel has included trips to visit daughters, spouses and granddaughter in Michigan and Virginia in addition to trips to the Colorado Rockies, Hawaii, and Texas, which have filled in the year. 

Gary Torens ’66 B.D. was ordained on July 1, 1966, in his home church Fremont Presbyterian Church, Fremont, NE.  He went back there the first Sunday in August, 2006 to celebrate his 40 year anniversary.  From 1966-72 he served as an associate pastor in an urban, black church in Cincinnati. He earned his D.Min. at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, where he also worked in a developmental project in parish revitalization and served one year on the administrative staff and as Adjunct Faculty in the D.Min. program. In 1975 Torens was called as Associate Executive for Personnel in the Synod of the Northeast (all of New York, New England, and New Jersey, 22 presbyteries in all). In 1979 he began 20 years of service as Executive Presbyter in East Iowa Presbytery (85 churches in the Southeast corner of Iowa). In 1999, he was called to the Presbyterian national staff as Coordinator of Governing Body Relations where he continues. His first wife, Jeanne passed away in 1997, but Gary remarried in 1999. Together he and his wife have four children, and four grandchildren.  

Gaynl Trotter (Stouffer) ’66 M.A.R. has worked in a small Los Angeles church in a low income project, helped developed Black resources, trained hundreds of lay people, worked on the United Methodist Church Conference staff in children’s ministry, worked in a tall steeple church on Wilshire Blvd. with persons of 30 different native languages, taught in local church Sunday Schools and Conference Lab Schools, convened 30 different peace and justice groups, worked with Joy and Davie Napier on many social/political issues, organized Claremont to welcome the Great Peace March, marched on Washington against nuclear weapons, been arrested at the Nevada Test site twice and presently lives in Ripon, CA, where her 97 year-old mother still lives in her home. Trotter has been a community activist and is helping the local Congregational Church where she grew up change from a fundamentalist church to an open, accepting one.  Gaynl and her minister husband of 34 years love to camp in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains, enjoy great music and theater in L.A. and San Francisco and have traveled extensively in Europe and Asia.  They have one daughter and one granddaughter.

Dick Vogel ’66 B.D. has been Executive Pastor for 6 years at St. James United Methodist Church, Kansas City, MO. It is a 2,500 member church that is 97% African American. Dick preaches quarterly and teaches Bible Study groups. Prior to this present position, he had an insurance and financial service business for 20 years after serving 10 years as director of a regional mental health association. Dick and his wife of 32 years, Tracy Smith, have two grandchildren. Dick’s surviving son is an attorney in Kansas City and his daughter just graduated from medical school.

Susan Sonnenday Vogel '66 B.D. has been on staff at Saint Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, MO, since 1975 in many roles, primarily Dean of Students and then Executive Vice President.  Currently she is working in formation and worship as Dean of the Chapel with reduced responsibilities to two days a week.  Susan's and her first husband Dick's son Mark died in 1990 in an automobile accident.  "I have never been more thankful that Dick and I have been able to remain friends.  Our entire family has sustained one another through the years."  That was one important part in a book Susan wrote, And Then Mark Died: Letters of Grief, Love, and Faith (Abingdon, 2003). Subsequently she wrote one volume in an adult curriculum series, FaithQuestions, on “What About Divine Healing?” (Abingdon, 2004). Stuart Whitney, her husband of 21 years, passed away in 2005. He was also a United Methodist minister who developed a remarkable ministry with homeless guests in Kansas City. Susan enjoys having even more time with her delightful grandchildren who live in Kansas City.