Memorial Service

David Orson Tolman, 72, of Princeton died Monday, November 23, 2015. A Memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m., Saturday, February 13, 2016 at The Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, 40 Vandeventer Avenue, Princeton.

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Jeanette K. Muser

Jeanette Marie Krueger Muser of Rocky Hill, New Jersey passed away on January 25, 2016. She was born on November 16, 1940 in Vienna, Austria of American parents. Her father, Dr. Frederick James Krueger, served in the U.S. Public Health Service and was assigned to Europe between 1939 and 1941. Her mother, Dora Jeanette Martin Krueger, was born in Richland County, Wisconsin. After several assignments the family settled in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin in 1951.

Jeanette graduated form Wauwatosa High School in 1958 and continued her education at the University of Wisconsin — Madison. She earned a BA degree in Secondary Education in 1962 and an MA degree in history in 1965. Jeanette married Franz Josef Moehn in 1962 and their first child, Frederick Josef, was born in Madison in 1964. A year later, Jeanette and her family moved to Princeton. In 1967, Jeanette received a Fulbright fellowship for a year in Germany. Her second child, Juliette Marie, was born in Princeton in 1968, after the family returned to the United States.

Shortly after the birth of her second child, Jeanette and her family moved to Pennington. Jeanette earned an MA degree from Rutgers University in Library Science in 1971. She was hired in 1972 to develop a library in the new West Windsor — Plainsboro High School. During her 23-year career as the high school librarian she wrote several journal articles, presented workshops at conferences, and influenced countless high school students as they learned how to do research and successfully navigate all types of media for learning.

Jeanette and Franz were divorced in 1982, and after both of her children had finished high school, Jeanette married Rainer Karl Martin Muser in 1987. The newlyweds moved to Rocky Hill the same year.

After 23 years at West Windsor — Plainsboro High School, Jeanette retired in 1995. She then pursued volunteer work offering her library and history skills to several projects including the Rocky Hill Heritage Project, the newsletter Rocky Hill Remembers, and the Images of America series book Rocky Hill, Kingston, and Griggstown (Arcadia, 1998). Her years of dedication to local history earned her an award in 2002 from the Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission.

Jeanette’s passion for local history led her to serve on the Rocky Hill Planning Board, volunteer for the committee that secured the Millstone River Valley National Scenic Byway, and to publish a booklet entitled 1783: General George Washington’s Departure from Military Service.

Jeanette was also considered the family historian, taking that duty over from an elderly maternal aunt. She self-published a newsletter called Big Bluestem in a nod to her beloved home state of Wisconsin and as a tribute to the family’s ancestors. Jeanette joined the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Daughters of the American Revolution. As her last personal project, she wrote the story of her family’s ancestry.

Surviving her are her husband Rainer Muser and her two children, Frederick Josef Moehn of New York and Juliette Moehn Brown of Seattle. She was “Nana” to her beloved four grandchildren Martin Arturo Josef Moehn-Aguayo, Madeline Shea Brown, Josefina Marie Moehn-Aguayo, and Naomi Cristina Moehn-Aguayo.

A community gathering to honor Jeanette’s memory was  held on January 28, 2016 at the First Reformed Church of Rocky Hill from 4 to 6 p.m. A private family memorial service will be held in the spring. Jeanette will be buried with her parents in Wisconsin. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Mary Jacobs Memorial Library Foundation or to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

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William Brower

William Brower, 89, a retired professor of speech communications at Princeton Theological Seminary, died Wednesday, January 20, 2016, in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was born in 1926. Brower lived in the Princeton area for 55 years, and in 2009 moved to Piqua, Ohio, and shared residence with Blount Springs, Alabama.

His mother, an opera singer, and his father, a trial lawyer and Alabama state senator, both encouraged him to become an actor. When William was eight, the family moved to New York, where his father served as Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. In his school years, Brower continued to aim for a career in acting. During World War II, he joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and enrolled at the University of Virginia, where he received both his undergraduate degree and his U.S. Navy commission in the fall of 1945. He was stationed until late 1946 in the Philippines, serving as a commander of amphibious vessels operating out of bases in Batangas, Manila, and Subic Bay.

In 1946, Brower began a career as a professional actor and worked in several Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. In the 1950s, his career extended to television, and he appeared on such major programs as Studio One, The Ford Theatre Hour, Kraft Theatre, Nash Airflyte Theatre, and The Big Story. William earned his graduate degree at Teachers College of Columbia University in 1952 and two years later accepted an offer to teach at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he taught courses in speech and oral interpretation and directed numerous plays, retiring in 1993. Brower was called back as a visiting lecturer and taught until 2008, an active span of 54 years, one of the longest in the history of the institution.

One of Brower’s tasks at the Seminary was to hear and give critiques of students’ sermons. A colleague, knowing of Brower’s unorthodox religious views, once remarked, “Brower, in the history of the church, many times has one preacher preached to thousands of heretics, but your career is the first example of thousands of preachers preaching to the same heretic!” Brower gave many concert readings of short stories and was known for his interpretations of poetry, especially the works of Robert Frost.

William was predeceased by his parents, Walter Scott and Elizabeth (Jordan) Brower; his wife of 59 years, Elaine (Yuenger) Brower; and one brother. Survivors include his wife Noralie McCoy Brower; three sons, Walter (Elizabeth Nicholls) of Birmingham; Dana of Boulder, Colorado; and Raymond (Julia Farrall) of Denver; two stepdaughters, Shawna (James) Hite of Brentwood, Tennessee; and Raena (John Scott) Sherrill of Nashville; and two grandchildren, Lucy and Charles.