Jack Severns, 89
Our beloved father, Jack Severns, died peacefully on April 7, 2020, in Tacoma, Washington, surrounded by his children and his wife.
A devoted Methodist minister, environmentalist, massage therapist, vocalist, family man, fisherman and friend, he leaves a legacy of healing and love that ripples outward to all who knew him.
He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on May 25, 1930, and was raised in El Paso, Texas. His parents separated when he was 11 years old and he did not see his father again until adulthood. His mother supported the family and raised him and his two brothers. A sickly kid with a difficult and financially strained home life, Jack developed a compassionate, gentle and courageous spirit that served him and all those who came in contact with him throughout his life. His younger brother credits him with supplanting the father who was absent during his youth.
A poem that he wrote when he was 7 years old suggests a gifted intellect and highlights his early interest in God and the environment – two themes that contoured his life’s journey. Despite missing several years of school due to illnesses including polio, Jack became the high school Texas State Champion in extemporaneous speech. A gifted baritone, he was chosen to sing in an adult Barbershop Quartet while still in high school. After graduation he attended Texas Western College for two years and finished his Bachelor of Science in Fishery Biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. It was there, at a campus Methodist fellowship, that he met his first wife, Mary Royce (deceased Oct. 28, 2019). They dated long-distance because Jack was called up for service at Fort Bliss, Texas, shortly before the end of the Korean War. The couple married on Dec. 23, 1954, in Ithaca while he was on Christmas leave from the Army.
They made their home in Dallas, Texas, so he could attend Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Their first child, Robin, was born there in 1956. Upon graduation, the couple moved to Belt, Montana, where Jack was ordained as a Methodist minister by the Yellowstone Methodist Conference. He had a “four-point charge,” meaning that he was responsible for four congregations – Belt, Sand Coulee, Monarch and Neihart – and held services in each one. Children Jennifer and Tim were born while the couple lived in Belt. When asked why he left Dallas, Jack said that the Texas heat wave of 1956 was as close to hell as he ever wanted to be. And besides, Montana had spectacular fishing!
In 1961, Jack was assigned to Epworth Methodist Church in Kalispell where, among other activities, the family learned to ski. Five years later, they moved to Grace United Methodist Church in Billings. There the family bought an Army surplus rubber raft and took to the rivers nearby.
Although he supported our military veterans, Jack advocated for peace most of his adult life and preached that message from the pulpit. Amidst controversy, he left the local church ministry in 1969 and became the chaplain at Montana Deaconess Hospital (now Benefis) where he spent the next 20 years. In 1990, he and Mary divorced amicably, and Jack began training in Portland to be a massage therapist.
He ministered to parishioners in Dutton and Brady while developing his massage therapy practice in Great Falls during the 90s.
In 2002, he married an old friend and fellow Methodist minister, Muriel Miller (deceased 2015). They made their home in Kent, Washington, where they advocated strongly for LGBTQ rights both within and outside the church.
In late 2012, he moved into retirement living at Wesley Homes in Des Moines, Washington. Widowed for three years, he married Beverly Belcher, his neighbor at Wesley Homes, on May 26, 2018. They comforted and helped each other as he became increasingly frail.
He remained in independent living until Jan. 2020 when he became seriously ill and moved to the WH nursing facility. He returned to hospital on March 27 and remained there until he moved to hospice on March 31.
Following a lovely “Zoom” meeting on April 4, where friends and family gathered online to tell him many of the wonderful things they remembered about him, he died peacefully with his children and wife by his side. We want all to know that he felt well-loved by those who were present and those present “in spirit.”
He is survived by his loving partner, Beverly; his children, Robin (Dennis Walker), Jennifer (Craig Eisenbarth), and Tim (Andrea Severns), and six grandchildren; his younger brother, Jim Severns of Alexandria, Virginia; and five great-nieces and nephews. His older brother, Frank, his first wife, Mary Royce Severns and his second wife, Muriel Smock Miller, preceded him in death. He is also survived by Muriel’s six living children, Kim, Apryl, Jaimy, Bayley, Kedron and Todd, and their kids, his step-grandchildren, to whom he meant a lot.
Memorials may be made to the Montana Wilderness Society, Wounded Veterans Relief Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, or The Wesley Homes Employee Fund in Des Moines, Washington. You may also honor our dad by choosing kindness and compassion, being mindful of and careful about your environmental impact, and finding joy and community in this sacred dance called life.
A Caring Bridge website has been established for us to share our memories and to communicate dates for upcoming memorials:
https://caringbridge.org