Reverend Dr. Samuel H. Moffett

Dr. Samuel H. Moffett, a former professor at Princeton Seminary, died peacefully on Monday, February 9, 2015, at the Princeton Windrows retirement community. He was 98.

Dr. Moffett was an influential Christian missionary, an accomplished scholar of Christianity in Asia, and a beloved professor at schools in both Korea and North America.

Dr. Moffett was born in Pyongyang, Korea (now North Korea) in 1916 to Samuel Austin and Lucia Fish Moffett. Dr. Moffett’s father, the Reverend Dr. Samuel Austin Moffett, was a pioneer missionary to Korea, arriving there on his 26^th birthday in 1890 from Madison, Indiana. He married a missionary doctor, Alice Fish, in 1899. Two children, James and Charles, were born to them. Alice died of dysentery in 1912. In 1915 he married Alice’s first cousin, Lucia Fish. Three more sons were born, of whom Samuel Hugh Moffett was the first, followed by Howard and Tom. The boys used to insist that their father’s five sons were not half brothers but rather three-quarter brothers.

After attending elementary and high school in Korea, Dr. Moffett came to the United States to continue his education. He graduated summa cum laude from Wheaton College in 1938 with a classics major, received his BD from Princeton Seminary in 1942, and was awarded a PhD in religion from Yale University in 1945. In 1942 he married Elizabeth Tarrant, whom he had met while in school at Wheaton.

In 1947 Dr. Moffett moved to China and joined the faculty of Yenching University in Peking, and in 1949 he moved to the faculty of Nanking Theological Seminary in Nanking. In 1951 the communist Chinese government expelled Dr. Moffett from the country after a spurious trial. He returned to Princeton Seminary as a visiting lecturer from 1953–55. During his time in Princeton, his wife Elizabeth died tragically after a struggle with cancer.

Dr. Moffett moved to Korea in 1955 to serve as a missionary. In 1956 he married Eileen Flower, whom he had come to know while she was a student at Princeton Seminary in Christian Education. For the next fifty-eight years, Sam and Eileen Moffett would be partners not only in marriage but also in teaching, research, and a ministry of hospitality and encouragement.

Presbyterian Theological Seminary (now Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary) in Seoul, Korea, called Dr. Moffett to their faculty in 1959, and he carried out a long and distinguished teaching ministry there until 1981. He served as dean of the Graduate School from 1966–70 and as copresident of the school from 1970–1981. He was also the first director of the influential Asian Center for Theological Studies and Mission.

Princeton Seminary President J.I. McCord persuaded the Moffetts to move to Princeton in 1981. Dr. Moffett was installed as the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Ecumenics and Mission, a position in which he served with distinction until 1987. In their retirement years in Princeton, he and Eileen remained active in research and publishing and continued to offer support and resources for Christians all over the world.

Dr. Moffett wrote several important books, including a seminal history of mission work Where’er the Sun (Friendship Press 1953). His two-volume History of Christianity in Asia (vol. 1, Beginnings to 1500, HarperCollins, 1992, vol. 2, 1500–1900, Orbis Books, 2005) has become the standard work in the field.

The Moffetts joined several other former missionary colleagues on a weeklong historic visit to Pyongyang, in 1997 arranged by the Eugene Bell Foundation. It was Dr. Moffett’s first and only return to the place of his birth and upbringing.

Dr. Moffett served on countless boards during his life and held a number of important positions with organizations serving the church in Korea, North America, and around the globe. He is the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the prestigious Peony Medal awarded by the government of South Korea (1981). In 1977 Dr. Moffett was named a Distinguished Alumnus of Princeton Seminary. Eileen Moffett was recognized as a Distinguished Alumna in 1997, making the Moffetts the only couple in the Seminary’s history to have each received this honor.

Dr. Moffett’s voluminous letters and papers have been given to the Princeton Theological Seminary Library, which plans to digitize this important collection and make it available online to scholars and researchers all over the world.

Dr. Moffett is survived by his wife, Eileen, by his youngest brother, Thomas F. Moffett, of Louisville, Kentucky, by two sisters-in-law, Joanne Hackett (Paul) and Maridean Bennett (Bill), twenty-one nieces and nephews, many grand nieces and nephews, several great grand nieces and nephews, and numerous cousins, all of whom he delighted in. He was preceded in death by two older brothers, the Reverend James M. Moffett and the Reverend Charles H. Moffett, and a younger brother, Dr. Howard F. Moffett. James had been a Presbyterian pastor in the United States, Charles a missionary to India, and Howard a medical missionary to Korea for forty-six years.

A memorial service will be held at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey. The date and time will be announced soon. In lieu of flowers, gifts in honor of Dr. Moffett may be made to the Samuel H. and Eileen F. Moffett Scholarship Fund of the UP Foundation (P.O. Box 24441, Los Angeles, California 90024), or to the Princeton Theological Seminary Library Korea Room. The Korea Room celebrates the extraordinary relationship between Korean Christians and Princeton Seminary in which Dr. and Mrs. Moffett played such a key role.

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Betty Whelan Donovan

Betty Whelan Donovan, 94, died peacefully at her home on February 17, 2015. Born in Haddonfield, New Jersey, Betty was the daughter of Ralph and Marion Van Hart.

Betty graduated from Centenary College and worked for Life magazine in Philadelphia for several years prior to her marriage to Jim Whelan in 1944. In 1946, the couple moved to Princeton. Betty was chairman of the Volunteers at Princeton Hospital in the 1950s.

When Betty took up golf at the urging of her husband, she quickly became an avid and highly accomplished player. She was Ladies’ Club Champion at Springdale Golf Club for 15 years, played in two National Amateur Championships, was a founder and president of the Garden State Women’s Golf Association (whose tournament she won twice), and was the New Jersey State Seniors Champion. Betty was a member of Springdale Golf Club since 1947 and was the first woman on its Board of Governors.

In 1977, Betty was asked if she would be interested in starting a women’s golf team at Princeton University. Betty accepted the offer and became the coach for the first Women’s Golf Team in 1978. For the first match at Rutgers, she scraped together four golfers, who, according to Betty “met at Dillon Gym wearing cut-off jeans and sneakers. They loaded an assortment of clubs into my car, headed to New Brunswick — and won the match!” As a club sport, women’s golf was not financed by the University, so Betty organized the Friends of Women’s Golf to raise money to support the team. In 1979, the team not only won its match against Rutgers, but also took second place to Penn State in the Scarlet Knight Invitational at Rutgers. Betty soon increased the team roster from four players to eight, with increasingly talented players. She catalyzed the eventual elevation of the women’s team to varsity status in 1991. By 1995 the Princeton Women’s Varsity Golf Team had become one of the best teams in the Northeast with an ever increasing number of All-Ivy and All-ECAC Academic golfers.

After being widowed in 1982, Betty married Eddie Donovan in 1988. Together they wrote a book about Eddie’s career as a Princeton coach called My 55 Years at Princeton University.

In addition to being passionate about golf, Betty excelled as a watercolor painter. She was on the board of the Garden State Women’s Art Association and an active member of her local art group, Watercolorists Unlimited. Betty chaired the group’s art shows at Princeton Hospital for 14 years. Betty’s other great passions were surf fishing and the shore.

Betty had many life-long friends who shared her various interests and who will remember her for her strength and grace, her sense of fun and her unflappable nature.

She is survived by two nephews, Kirk Van Hart and John Van Hart, both of Roseland, Florida.

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Robert Virgil Smith

Robert Virgil Smith died peacefully at his home in Princeton on February 12, 2015. Born on February 28, 1920, in St. Charles, Iowa, he was the third son of John Guy and Veta Payne Smith. The family moved to Des Moines when he was in the sixth grade, and he graduated from Roosevelt High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science and Commerce degree in economics and business administration from the State University of Iowa in 1941. He continued his education at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1944. In 1945 Bob married his first wife, Rosalind “Posy” Walls, a recent graduate of Northwestern University, at the First Church in Evanston, Illinois. They moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where Bob was the pastor of Grace Methodist Church while he studied at Yale. He earned his Ph.D. in contemporary theology from Yale in 1953. Robert Smith started his teaching career at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1948. In 1952 he moved to Colgate University, in Hamilton, New York, where he had an extraordinary impact on students in his position as Chaplain and Professor of Philosophy and Religion.

In his thirty-six years at Colgate University, he taught courses in philosophy of religion, introduction to religion, contemporary Christian thought, and business ethics. He spent two sabbaticals studying at Mansfield College at Oxford University in England, in 1962 and 1967-68. He directed study groups in Great Britain and Africa and served as director of the Overseas Study Group Program at Colgate. In 1980 he was named to the Harry Emerson Fosdick Chair in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. The Colgate Alumni Corporation awarded him its Distinguished Teaching Award in 1987.

R. V. Smith was active in the National Association of Biblical Instructors, serving as President in 1961 and as chair of the Self-Study Committee that resulted in the founding of the American Academy of Religion. In 1970-71 he was director of planning for a center for Religion and Society of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1982-83 he served as chaplain for the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Dr. Smith maintained his standing as a United Methodist pastor for more than 45 years. In addition to serving as chaplain at Colgate, he served as summer minister for years at the Grindstone Island United Methodist Church in the Thousand Islands. He and his family spent summers living at the parsonage, and the family still maintains a cottage on the island.

R. V.’s first wife, Posy, died in 1978 after 33 years of marriage. Posy had her Ph.D. in English Literature from Syracuse University. In 1980 he married Joyce Louise Irwin, a scholar, author, organist, and musician with a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale. After R. V.’s retirement in 1988, he and Joyce lived in Oneida and Syracuse, New York, and Princeton, New Jersey. They also traveled the world, visiting such diverse places as Egypt, Pakistan, Burundi, and China, and living in Germany, the Netherlands, and England.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce Irwin, and his three children from his first marriage, Deborah Smith of Hamilton and Grindstone Island, New York, Brian Smith and his wife Carol Smith of Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Lisa Smith and her husband William Bowen of South Salem, New York. He is also survived by five grandchildren, Robert Bikwemu, Jeffrey Smith, Katherine Smith, J. T. Bowensmith, and Kinsey Bowensmith, his mother-in-law Dorothy Hemphill, and a niece, Sally Griffin.

A memorial service to celebrate the life of Robert Virgil Smith will be held at 11 a.m. on February 28, 2015, at Plainsboro Presbyterian Church. Another service will be planned in Hamilton, New York, in the spring. The family requests that donations in lieu of flowers be made to Grindstone Island United Methodist Church, Clayton, NY 13624, or to Colgate University, Gift Records, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346, to be directed to the Chaplain’s Office.

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Grace Constant

Grace Constant, 92, died peacefully on Monday, February 16, 2015. Born in Queens Village, New York, she was the daughter of the late Catherine and Emil Richter. For many years she and her husband Richard lived on Long Island, in Floral Park and then in Setauket, where they raised their family. In 1992 she moved to Princeton to be closer to family.

She loved music, animals, and gardening. Predeceased by her husband and her daughter Catherine Courage, she is survived by her son Thomas and his wife Emily; by daughter Susan Jennings and her husband Michael; as well as grandchildren Susan Hollister, Ariel Courage, Sarah and Andrew Jennings, and Peter and John Constant; and one great grandchild, Vivian Steele Hafetz.

Arrangements are under the direction of Mather-Hodge Funeral Home. Services will be private.