Rev. Otis E. Young 1931 – 2009

Biography

Otis and Rowena Young

A Life of Faith, Family, and Service

Otis Edgar Young (1931–2009) • Rowena May Kreger Young (1931–2014)

A family biography drawn from personal recollections, historical biographies, newspaper reporting, and the foreword to Reach Out and Live!

Two childhoods in Missouri

Otis Edgar Young was born on April 12, 1931, in a small house on a hill in Union, Missouri. Rowena May Kreger was born that same year, on November 30, in a small house in Niangua, Missouri. Their beginnings were modest, shaped by the Depression, the institutions of small-town life, and families that placed value on education and faith. Otis grew up in Zion Evangelical and Reformed Church in Union, part of the tradition that would later become the United Church of Christ. Rowena grew up Methodist. Neither could have known that their separate paths would converge in a college town and lead to a life together spanning more than five decades.

Rowena’s handwritten memories bring her early world into especially vivid focus. Her father was a teacher of mathematics, coached girls’ volleyball, and later served as a school principal and superintendent. Her mother also taught school. Rowena remembered her sister, Betty June; tornadoes; a first birthday party with bananas; and a childhood accident in which she burned both hands on a wood stove, the home’s only source of heat. She recalled a two-room cabin her father built on a farm, paper dolls that occupied half a room, and summers in Greeley, Colorado, while her father pursued his master’s degree. These were the particular, sometimes surprising details that stayed with her decades later.

The family moved repeatedly as work and wartime circumstances changed. Rowena attended school in Golden City, Missouri, and lived for periods in Urbana and Wheaton, Illinois. During World War II, with farm workers drafted, the family returned to farming. Her memories suggest both resilience and considerable adaptability: a father shifting between education and agriculture, and a daughter discovering that music would become an enduring part of her life.

Music, learning, and a meeting in Fulton

Otis graduated from high school in 1949 and went on to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where he studied philosophy and Greek, graduating in 1953. Rowena graduated from high school in 1950. She had already become an accomplished young singer, remembering high placements in Missouri state vocal competitions. She took voice lessons beginning in eighth grade and, in one memorable arrangement, traded eggs to pay for them. She also played the marimba, sang in school groups, and participated in musical performances.

Rowena attended William Woods College in Fulton, earning an associate degree in 1952. It was in Fulton, with Westminster and William Woods near one another, that she met Otis. In her notes she placed their meeting at a Kiwanis Club minstrel show: Otis was playing saxophone in the band, and Rowena was singing with a group of young women. They performed together in musicals, and she wrote that she knew on their first date that she would marry him. Before Otis acquired a pickup truck, they walked everywhere. Their Sunday dates could mean accompanying him as he preached in small country churches. Even their courtship intertwined music, humor, and the beginnings of ministry.

Rowena pursued further music studies, briefly attending the University of Colorado before returning to Missouri and graduating from Drury College in Springfield in 1954, with honors, in vocal and public-school music. She auditioned for an opera company in St. Louis and recalled passing three auditions. She also worked during a summer with the St. Louis Municipal Opera, participating in roughly a dozen shows. Her notes preserve an amusing near-miss: Otis wrote an account of their courtship for the radio program Bride and Groom; they were accepted but ultimately declined. Rowena never read what he had written.

Marriage and the first years of ministry

Otis and Rowena married in Springfield, Missouri, on September 5, 1954. He was pursuing theological studies at Yale Divinity School; she brought her own professional musical training and ambitions into their marriage. Rowena recalled teaching music at Hamden Hall, working as a paid soloist, and supervising music for elementary and junior-high schools while they lived in Connecticut. Otis also taught junior-high science for a time, an arrangement Rowena associated with a free apartment. He served as an assistant pastor in West Haven while studying at Yale. Otis graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1957.

In 1957 the couple moved to Markham, Illinois, where Otis, ordained that year, undertook the demanding task of organizing a new church. Rowena taught music in the early grades for approximately two years, helped direct choirs, and sang when needed. Their family began to grow: Krista was born April 14, 1958; Caris followed on May 16, 1961. In 1962 they moved to Webster Groves, Missouri, where Otis became minister of the Evangelical United Church of Christ. Their son Joel was born November 20, 1964.

In Webster Groves, Rowena continued singing in the church and choir and contributing to congregational life while raising three children. Otis also developed an interest in broadcasting, serving for five years as host and master of ceremonies of the television program Sunday Morning in the St. Louis area. By this stage, the couple’s life had developed a familiar rhythm: the public demands of ministry, Rowena’s music and service, and the everyday work of family life.

New York and the call to Lincoln

In 1969 the family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, as Otis became General Secretary of the Division of Church Extension and Evangelism for the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, based in New York City. His work involved developing new churches and experimental ministries across the country. It was an influential national position, but it meant extensive travel. Rowena wrote that she felt lost for a time without a church community of her own. She sold Avon door to door and later worked as a church secretary. Her account reveals the personal costs that can accompany a minister’s career: each move required her to rebuild friendships, routines, and opportunities.

When First-Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, sought a new senior minister, Otis initially resisted another family move. The Lincoln Journal Star later recounted how a family road trip changed matters. On the way from California to Wisconsin, their car broke down near Ogallala. First-Plymouth parishioners helped the Youngs reach Lincoln, brought groceries, and assisted them while the car was repaired. The family stayed at the Villager Motel for about a week. That unexpected hospitality helped persuade Otis to accept the call.

Otis became First-Plymouth’s senior minister in January 1972. In a newspaper interview on his arrival, he described his three years in national church administration as a lesson in where ministry truly happened: “the local church is the base.” He also joked about becoming a Cornhusker football fan after learning that the position came with access to two Nebraska football tickets. The remark was characteristic of a man who could approach serious commitments without surrendering his sense of fun.

Building a church that reached beyond its walls

First-Plymouth was struggling with declining membership when Otis arrived. Over the following decades it became one of Lincoln’s most prominent congregations and one of the largest United Church of Christ churches in the country. Historical accounts differ somewhat in their measurements and dates: one biography records growth from about 1,200 to 3,500 members and average weekend attendance from 250 to more than 900; the 2009 newspaper tribute describes membership growing to about 3,200. Across the accounts, the transformation is unmistakable.

Otis’s approach combined clear, carefully structured worship, a searching intellectual faith, and a belief that church should be open to people with different experiences and views. In his foreword to Otis’s book Reach Out and Live!, his successor Jim Keck wrote that, while other congregations struggled, Otis kept worship purposeful and built a church attentive to its wider community. Keck described his theology as a blend of traditional piety and progressive thought, commitment and doubt, seriousness and joy. He also admired Otis’s optimism, entrepreneurial instincts, and ability to make difficult leadership decisions without losing his humanity.

Those convictions were sometimes tested. In 1981 First-Plymouth hosted a performance by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus despite objections from some church supporters. The Lincoln Journal Star later reported that Otis defended the decision rather than allowing threatened donations to determine the congregation’s welcome. Friends remembered his willingness to cross boundaries, listen to people who disagreed, and stand up for those who might otherwise be excluded. One friend summarized his essential outlook in four words: “He believed in everyone.”

He brought the same sensibility to community life. Biographical records list service with Doane College, the Lincoln Cancer Center, Friendship Home, Voices for Children, the Red Cross, health and civic organizations, and other local and national bodies. He served on Doane’s board of trustees for 37 years. In 1994 he received the Faith and Freedom Award, recognizing his religious broadcasting, public service, and communication of ethical ideas. His contributions reached well beyond the walls of First-Plymouth.

A ministry through books, radio, and television

Otis understood that a church could reach people who might never enter its sanctuary. He was an avid reader who, according to the Journal Star, read about two books a week. Beginning around 1975 he presented book reviews on public television, later moving to radio. His long-running All About Books discussions with Charles Stephen became familiar to listeners, eventually airing on Nebraska public radio. Their different reading tastes and shared enjoyment of mysteries gave the program a lively character. On the morning of his death, Otis had been planning to record a year-end books segment.

His most ambitious broadcasting initiative was a television ministry for First-Plymouth. In September 1984 he publicly proposed statewide distribution of an edited worship service and a production capability that could serve other mainline churches. He argued that television audiences should encounter a wider range of Christian perspectives, including programming that welcomed questioning and thought. The proposal required significant investment and congregational approval. By 1987, the church had launched Reach Out and Live, extending its weekly ministry across Nebraska and neighboring regions. A 2009 newspaper account reported a weekly audience exceeding 12,000.

The title Reach Out and Live! would also become the title of a collection of Otis’s sermons, published near the end of his life. Its first printing sold out, according to the Journal Star. In the book’s foreword, Jim Keck did more than praise his predecessor’s preaching. He described how Otis deliberately prepared him to succeed as senior minister, then offered something beyond professional support: friendship.

Rowena’s own life in Lincoln

The public record naturally devotes more space to Otis, but Rowena’s notes make clear that she was never simply a background figure. She had trained as a singer, worked as a music educator, and performed professionally. Over the years she sang in church choirs, appeared as a soloist, participated in women’s groups, led exercise sessions, and took adult-education courses. She carried the experience of numerous moves and the responsibility of raising three children while Otis’s ministry expanded.

In Lincoln she also wanted, in her own words, something to do “separate from church & Otis” and to find her “own identity.” She applied for a cosmetics position at Hovland-Swanson but was instead offered work in a gift shop after her application attracted attention. She worked there for approximately 18 years, eventually buying the shop and owning it for about six years. It was a distinct professional chapter, one built on her own effort and relationships. Her note that she gave considerable merchandise to family members offers a small, affectionate glimpse of how business and family overlapped.

The Youngs shared a love of music, social life, and community. The 2009 newspaper tribute also alludes to their enjoyment of dancing, though the surviving clipping is cut off before the full account can be recovered. Their partnership was not a story of identical interests or interchangeable roles. It was a marriage between two talented people who followed a common path while making room—sometimes with difficulty—for separate identities.

The man remembered

Otis retired from the senior ministry at First-Plymouth in 2006 after approximately fifty years in ministry. He had spent roughly 35 years leading the Lincoln congregation. Retirement did not mean withdrawal: he continued reading, broadcasting, and taking part in the life of the community.

His family and friends remembered not only a gifted preacher but a man who practiced what he said. The Journal Star recounted that he preferred to give his children responsibility rather than simply impose rules. Instead of declaring a curfew, he would ask what time they thought it reasonable to come home. His daughter Krista recalled that being late then felt like breaking a promise to oneself. Parishioners described his calm presence in moments of fear and grief. One widow remembered his counsel that her task was simply to love her sons and allow herself to be loved. Others recalled his reassurance during a late-night hospital baptism and his message of hope after September 11, 2001.

Otis died on December 10, 2009, at age 78, after a heart attack. He had been clearing snow from his driveway before a planned radio recording. The December 12 Journal Star tribute described a city and congregation mourning a minister, reader, teacher, and friend. Rowena, his wife of 55 years, survived him, as did Krista, Caris, Joel, and nine grandchildren. Rowena died on July 2, 2014.

A shared legacy

The arc of their lives runs from two small Missouri houses to a large and welcoming congregation in Nebraska. Otis brought to that journey a belief in the possibilities of people and institutions; Rowena brought musical artistry, resilience, practical energy, and a determination to remain herself amid the demands of family and ministry. Together they built a home through repeated moves, raised three children, and participated in communities whose memories of them endured long after they left.

What makes their story memorable is not only the growth of First-Plymouth, the reach of television and radio, or the honors Otis received. It is the combination of public accomplishment and ordinary human moments: Rowena trading eggs for voice lessons; Otis playing saxophone when they met; the young couple walking on dates; the family stranded on a Nebraska highway; a minister laughing about football tickets; a woman deciding that she needed work and an identity of her own. In those details, the larger themes of faith, family, service, love, and independence become personal.

Source notes and editorial cautions