Hans Tiefel„ B.D. | M.A., PhD

I have never written to my class mates. But this month I am turning 80. Assuming that religionists may not all attain biblical longevity, it’s now or never. I stayed on at Yale for a Ph.D. in religious ethics, wrote a dissertation comparing Luther and Barth on gospel/law, started teaching in 1966 at the College of Idaho (in the vain hope of moving eventually to the West Coast), lost my job after 8 years despite tenure and promotion for “financial exigency” (not, really not, for “moral turpitude”), lived on an NEH fellowship in Boston for a year, and took a job at William and Mary in religion/ethics in 1975.

 

After graduation in 1963, I married the woman I had shown off on campus (where she was warned about me repeatedly). Rosemarie and I had two children, Valeska and Alexander, before I took steps to prevent the Lord from blessing us again (I was teaching ecology and ethics at the time). Rosemarie taught kindergarten but had to quit eventually after her breast cancer returned. I had avowed cure; she insisted on remission. She died in January of 2006. I had retired a year before and stayed in Williamsburg, VA. Since then I have remarried. Janna Fitzgerald, the widow of a college friend of mine, who was more or less Roman Catholic, and I were married by a Jesuit priest (whom I assured that if we had children, we would raise them Catholic). Remaining childless in her second marriage, Janna joined me in my Lutheran church (ELCA).

 

Surprisingly often I think back gratefully about my YDS years and deem it fitting to regard that time as providential grace. I have thanked a few of the faculty. Belatedly, I thank you, my fellow students, as well.