[Dialogue] Fwd: Celebrating Kathleen Hamm Jones

[Timothy Wegner]

From: <aiseayew at netins.net>
Date: Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 7:57 PM
Subject: Celebrating Kathleen Hamm Jones

Tim, Please forward this to all OE and ICA lists. Thanks, Margaret Aiseayew

[image: KHJ-June-2010 copy.jpg]

*Kathleen H Jones Obituary    04/04/2021*





Reverend Kathleen H Jones who lived life as ‘An Unfolding Journey’ reached
her final destination when she died peacefully March 7. Since 2010, her
last earthly stop was in South Berwick, Maine. Upon her arrival, she
networked with the York Association of the UCC, explored interim calls, did
supply preaching, and maintained Quaker connections through New Hampshire
congregations. She merged her life-long love cooking and local community
life as a supporter of York Community Supported Agriculture, Common Ground,
and many Farmer’s Markets. She enthusiastically promoted natural, organic
produce which she incorporated into a wide variety of cuisines she had
encountered during her many global travels. This combined with an
impressive mastery of digital technology resulted in a recent e-Book *Cooking
for One, 6 Super Tools for Single-Person Homes or Small Kitchens.*

Kathleen started her life journey on January 29, 1944 in New Tripoli,
Pennsylvania as the first child of Willard B and Myrl L Hamm. Life on a
bilingual Pennsylvania German dairy and potato farm shaped her future by
exposing her to diverse cultures via interactions with Fresh Air youth from
New York City, an exchange farmer from India, and Puerto Rican and black
seasonal workers. As the 1961 Dairy Princess of Pennsylvania she travel
extensively representing the State’s largest and politically influential
agricultural industry.

Upon graduating as the 1961 Northwestern High School Valedictorian and
member of the National Honor Society, she enrolled at Hood College majoring
in Home Economics. As a senior she was chosen as an intern at the
Merrill-Palmer
Institute in Detroit the year it developed the philosophy and national
standards for the Head Start Program. It was there that she met and worked
with Pastor Nicholas Hood of Detroit’s Plymouth UCC. Her work with poor
urban youth and the 1968 riots spurred by the assassination of Martin
Luther King opened the road to ministry

Kathleen’s journey’s next stop became the Chicago Theological Seminary
(CTS) and extensive activities with local community outreach and immersion
in the social struggles over civil rights and the Vietnam War. She
graduated from CTS *magna cum laude *in 1969 and was ordained a UCC pastor
on Easter Sunday 1972. Her community activism in 1970 brought Kathleen to
full time work with the Ecumenical Institute and Institute of Cultural
Affairs (ICA). She was deeply involved as the ICA expanded from its Chicago
base to over 100 Houses in 30 countries delivering highly visible and
significant programs worldwide. The ICA programming generated resulted in
Kathleen’s move to live and work from 1980-1986 in Washington DC. There she
prepared for her next Journey by taking University taught Mandarin Chinese
courses.

Kathleen’s intellectual and spiritual curiosity was so raised that she set
on a journey to understand Christian concepts in the traditional Chinese
cultural contexts, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Working with ICA programs in
Taiwan, she immersed herself in full-time Mandarin language studies aided
by teaching and writing in numerous Chinese/English venues. One program
included interviews with scores of Westerners working in Chinese companies
wanting to understand the business implications of cross cultural
differences. That program sparked a new flame of curiosity, the light of
which drew her three and a half year stay in Taipei to an end in late 1990
and started her 15 year stop in Hong Kong.

Kathleen took on support and management roles at ICA regional headquarters
Hong Kong. Her cross cultural understandings allowed her to develop
cultural and market research expertise and skills. Starting as an
independent cultural researcher, she went on to be a principle in the Hong
Kong based Asian Commercial Research Limited (ACR Ltd.) consultancy. In her
travels to Chinese and Asian cultural centers, such as Beijing, Kashgar,
Urumqi, Angkor Wat, and others, Kathleen conducted focus group, market
surveys, training programs in effective research methods, and strategic
planning for multi-cultural boards of directors. Of course, her
intellectual curiosity synergistically led to more than passing interests
in Chinese cultural history, traditional Chinese music, contemporary
Chinese art, principles of Eastern medical modalities, and New Age energy
medicines.

In 2005, while continuing to do some training and consulting work for
Chinese and Hong Kong companies, Kathleen returned to her family farm home
in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania to help care for her aging father. Her
extensive face-to-face research skills and knowledge of the cultures of
small eastern and midwest communities led to extensive travel as a field
interviewer for LHK Partners Inc. Upon the death of her father and the
subsequent sale of the family farm, Kathleen moved to South Berwick, Maine.
There, until the day of her death, she enjoyed the richness of the
intellectual harvest from her spiritual, cultural, food, and alternative
healing, sharing these with her local friends and through her proficiency
and comfort in the globally connected digital world.  Her the ‘Unfolding
Journey’ was unique in how it was both a citizen of her local community and
the world.

Kathleen H Jones is survived by her brother Larry Hamm and sister-in-law
Susan from Cave Creek, AZ; three nephews (Brian Bachman, New Tripoli, PA;
Nicholas Hamm, Cornelius, NC; Matthew Hamm, Zionsville, IN). She was
preceded in death by her sister Renee Bachman. Kathleen’s final stop on her
earthly Journey will be to the family burial site at  the St. Peter's
Lynnville UCC Church
<https://www.facebook.com/stpeterslynnville/?hc_ref=ARSVVWgrWcDFr2UmfcX56qHWMKXsYxOAdBDP-4IO0NFwYGrWw9iD62FMZaqitSxSEj0&fref=nf&__xts__%255B0%255D=68.ARBriKGXw4In0_GQ8CvVzdzHGmoB6-xaGfNUXl4TyLA5s_pXKeqpCu8LuBsJsLyYVrxz6PgWcx_bGItOGrMuFtO9nu9UxHLBscKSLXBbfQqLiUF_H1iNDArmInObSEgAnqYdjhvufco9m0iCujusuEEL4w9KSFkkEWObx_kb14V_Nx8exYI_EB7YF44ri_QCl-cvyPcGHPm6j7hVp5FcbGTVwBQ5hE2wtm7CYkmUI--iUOThPNTekEf_q0_XBv4S2ot2fGGfzk0y2Vxyn_MATWieynsCbv5t03W8-17SPAnBjL4GzGorWQ&__tn__=kC-R>,
New Tripoli, PA.
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