Clint Weimeister

Weimeister—Clint Weimeister, 72, on May 22, 2019, at home in Port Townsend, Wash. Clint was born on March 27, 1947, in Baltimore, Md., the only child of Margaret Klein and George Weimeister. At age six, he was hospitalized for months with polio, undergoing many operations and learning to walk again. Growing up Catholic in Arbutus, Md., he attended public school, becoming a student leader and serving on staff in high school with Maryland Leadership Workshops. He majored in math at Washington College, afterward joining Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and organizing communities for two years in Palm Beach County, Fla., where he forged valued African American connections. He married Roan Wildmare and returned to Baltimore. Active in the Movement for a New Society (MNS), he worked in a criminal justice pretrial release program. He and Roan later divorced, and he had a 12-year partnership with Ken Fremont-Smith. In 1985, he moved to Seattle and worked as a probation officer for the state, living the Quaker concern for those separated, punished, and restricted, never carrying a gun. Through MNS, he met Caroline Wildflower, and they married in 1988.

In applying to join University Meeting in Seattle, Wash., in 1993, he reviewed his convincement, commending to others what George Fox called an experimental approach to spiritual life and practice. He continued to live the Catholic message “God is Love”—also a Quaker message. In 2003, he and Caroline joined the RoseWind cohousing community in Port Townsend, Wash., and he transferred his membership to Port Townsend Meeting, serving as treasurer, recording clerk, presiding clerk, and clerk of many committees. Polio having made him sensitive to the stranger and the barriers for the “other,” he championed inclusion and welcome and reached out to newcomers. His dry wit and wry sense of humor leavened hard moments; his wisdom and integrity helped clarify difficult decisions; and his compassion and vision helped hold the way open. In 2014, as presiding clerk, he nurtured the renewal of a Peace and Social Concerns Committee, kept a valuable and informative record of minutes, and shepherded the process of buying and remodeling the meetinghouse.

Becoming a ham radio with Caroline (his call sign KG7WNM), he taught himself plumbing, watercolor painting, computer programming, electrical wiring, ukulele, and videotape production. He built websites for University and Port Townsend Meetings and supported these and other regional Quaker websites. His reading included the “God is Dead” idea, language analysis, math concepts, nonviolent activism, and games, and he traveled widely with Caroline working against nuclear weapons, racism, and climate change. Key to developing the pay-as-you-are-led financing for North Pacific Yearly Meeting, he was registrar for an annual session and for two Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns conferences.

He appreciated the ultimate mystery of which we all are a part, and his faith was complex, mysterious, and surprising: an ever-unfolding journey that even in his last days enabled him to experiment, discover, and grow. An unending witness to boundless grace, he met all with love, openness, and peace, and modeled a good way of living. Happy, calm, kind, creative, and honest, he lived with patience and verve in a body that didn’t work very well, making a difference through humor and gentleness. His eight-month cancer journey was his last journey with Caroline, and they felt blessed that chemotherapy enabled them to spend time together carefully wrapping up a life and allowed him to say goodbye to family and friends.

Clint leaves behind his wife, Caroline Wildflower; four children, Matt Weimeister, Salal Wildflower, Rachel Mortimer, and Alice Gray (their foster child); and four grandchildren.