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Robert K. Nace ’45

A picture of Robert Nace

Robert K. Nace ’45, August 31, 2008, from natural causes, in Peterborough, Pennsylvania. Robert attended Reed and Franklin & Marshall Academy (College), from which he received a BA in philosophy in 1944. He earned a BD from Union Theological Seminary—studies with theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich prepared him for career ministry in the United Church of Christ, for which he was ordained in 1949. He also attended the Washington School of Psychiatry in Washington, D.C., and Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania, from which he received a DD. Robert worked first as a psychiatric chaplain at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He served as parish pastor at Abbey Reformed Church, in Huntington, Pennsylvania, and at Zion's Reformed Church in Greenville, Pennsylvania; he retired in 1990. Robert was a pioneer in the development of Parish Clinical Pastoral Education program. Additionally, he was active in civic groups, and supported civil rights and feminist and gay rights—he saw humankind as one family. “I am dismayed at what I perceive to be the mean-spirited elitism and subtle racism of the loudest voice in politics today,” he told the college. In retirement, he was interim pastor for churches in Arizona, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Pennsylvania, and enjoyed his hobby as an apiarist. Survivors include his wife, Ruth Carbaugh Nace; a son and four daughters; nine grandchildren; and his sister, Rebecca Nace Koch ’48. His sister, Margaret Nace Mitter ’43, and brother, George W. Nace ’43, also attended Reed.

Appeared in Reed magazine: February 2009