Obituary of Stephen Hoff Thiermann

Stephen Thiermann (1916-2015), a resident of State College, and a leading peace and social change activist who served with the American Friends Service Committee for 35 years, has died at age 98. A lifelong Quaker, Thiermann was the director of the International Affairs Division of the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia from 1972 to 1978. In addition, Stephen served as Director of Quaker Conferences and Seminars for diplomats in Geneva from 1968 to 1972 and later as Quaker Representative at the UN in New York during the early 1980’s, where he helped create The National Committee on US-China relations, a public interest agency that helped lay the groundwork for an official US rapproachment with China. At the UN, he served as Chair of the Non-Governmental Committee on Human Rights and privately hosted numerous off-the-record gatherings for diplomats from contentious nations to encourage forthright exchanges designed to avoid future conflict and violence. Prior to his international work, he served for twenty years as the Director of the AFSC’s San Francisco office, which oversaw Quaker service efforts in California. A graduate of Haverford College and The University of Wisconsin Law School, he was the recipient of numerous awards, including the “The Haverford Award” in 1975 for his contributions to international reconciliation and disarmament. Stephen was the author of three books: Welcome to the World (1968), a history of the AFSC’s groundbreaking work in California on the frontiers of social change, and Across the Divide: Peacemaking in a Time of Cold War, chronicling Quaker international efforts to end Cold War rivalries. His third book, Always Loving, is a memoir describing his wife Mildred Hunter’s childhood, marriage and spiritual life His membership in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) included Friends Meetings in State College, where he lived happily for the past 25 years, and Swarthmore, PA, and in Palo Alto, California, Geneva, Switzerland. With his mother, he helped start the Milwaukee Friends Meeting. He is predeceased by his wife Mildred, the longtime Admissions Secretary at Pendle Hill Study Center outside Philadelphia, and is survived by four children, Susan Giddings of Ben Lomond, Jennifer Sheridan of Chicago, Emily Doub of Santa Cruz and Carl Thiermann of Berkeley, seven grandsons, and one great-grandson. Contributions in his memory may be made to the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia or to the Pendle Hill Study Center. www.kochfuneralhome.com