Mark-Shafer-Obituary

Mark Shafer

Denver, Colorado

1916 - 2012

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Denver, Colorado

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Mark Shafer, an international businessman and life-long activist for peace and social justice, died at home at age 96 following a brief illness. He was a 1937 graduate of Yale University, where he established the Shafer Family Scholarships for underprivileged students. He served in the Army Air...

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I met Mark in August of 1983, on a month long peace mission to the Soviet Union. The Volga River Peace Cruise was sponsored by Promoting Enduring Peace. Mark was a gentle, soft-spoken man with a deep commitment to citizen diplomacy and peace work.

The members of Promoting Enduring Peace are deeply grateful for the participation of Mark Shafer in its activities over many decades. To recognize his contributions, Promoting Enduring Peace has established the annual Mark Shafer Lecture, which since 2013 has featured distinguished speakers and authors explaining the importance of bringing the peace movement and the environmental movement together.

Uma Leubov Chernoff aka J. Shafer

Our Dad drew up through his roots of kindness and generosity his inspiration to leave a mark of goodness on this world. He spread his limbs wide reaching for light, sheltering and nourishing, enjoying people. He took pleasure meeting newness, people and ideas. He took hold of this life and ate it up, with gusto, tanto gusto, with pizzazz.
He was bold and brash and beautiful and arrogant. He was exacting and demanding. Universally. He loved to hold and wield power, to reap dominion and for...

P.S. Actually, I meant "Meals on *Heels*" program, not Meals on Wheels! I used to walk all over Brooklyn Heights with Mr. Shafer.

I met Mark while volunteering for the Meals on Wheels program in Brooklyn Heights in 1997. I was still in college and spending a summer doing an unpaid internship in Brooklyn. We got to be friends; he and Lilian invited me into their home, where we shared many a meal and conversation. They were so warm and welcoming and generous, and those evenings in their home remain some of my best memories of that summer. After I went back to college, we kept in touch, and we remained in touch through...

He was like a mighty old oak tree sheltering so many along with his children and family whom he wanted, most of all, to love each other. His kindness and generosity extended to everyone he met. His purpose was to leave a better world behind him. He was my Dad.

Even with his death, my father Mark Shafer, remains an example of what it means to live a life committed to the betterment of our troubled world. I miss his presence enormously. Alan Shafer