Rev. Robert VerSteeg

1930 - 2015

(News story) BOWLING GREEN - The Rev. Robert John VerSteeg, a United Methodist pastor who also was an actor, director, and teacher of theater, died Sept. 6 at Heritage Corner Health Care Campus. He was 85.

He lived in the facility about a year and underwent hospice care there. He had developed pneumonia in August, his son Jac said.

He arrived in Bowling Green to be pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church, retiring in 1999 after five years. He was at Oak Hills United Methodist in Cincinnati from 1986 to 1994.

He was at Ada United Methodist from 1982-86, preceded by two years at Point Place United Methodist, where Pastor VerSteeg began a Christian dinner theater, and two years in Peebles, Ohio.

"He was a captivating person to watch," his son said. "He was funny and dramatic, when it called for it. He did very much enjoy the preaching and the contact with people. Like a lot of ministers, he really was in it to help individual people and offer them comfort and hope."

Though Pastor VerSteeg once guided a theater group with a specialty in improvisational performance, his sermons were anything but.

"He wanted 20 minutes, and he wanted it to be a really good 20 minutes," his son said. "He would write it and rewrite it, and then he would practice."

The Rev. Helen Dukes, a retired United Methodist pastor, said: "He definitely was a scholar."

Pastor VerSteeg was a former president of the Bowling Green Ministerial Association, and led a weekly ecumenical clergy study.

"He made people feel comfortable and welcomed," Pastor Dukes said.

His daughter, Cassandra "Sandi" Mitchell, was murdered in 1997, and after joining a bereavement group, Pastor VerSteeg wrote a one-act play to serve as a kind of drama therapy for himself and others. On his daughter's birthday, he went to pediatric hospital wards to hand out stuffed animals as a way of remembering her.

"At the end, he considered it his mission to help people who were dealing with the kind of grief he felt," Pastor VerSteeg's son said.

He was born July 7, 1930, in Oradell, N.J., to Edna and the Rev. John VerSteeg, a Methodist minister. He graduated from high school in Lima, Ohio, and received a bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan University. He was a graduate of Garrett Theological Seminary. He received a master's degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Theater was an abiding interest, and he taught at Louisberg College in Louisberg, N.C., and at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Pastor VerSteeg directed plays, staged one-man shows, and appeared in a BBC historical drama.

"He was a born performer," his son said.

He was formerly married to Sally Youngblood Creel.

Surviving are his wife, Donna, whom he married June 22, 1977; sons, Jac and Russ VerSteeg, and four grandchildren.

Memorial services will be at 1 p.m. today in Trinity United Methodist Church, Bowling Green, Arrangements are by the Dunn Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to the scholarship fund at University of North Carolina Raleigh named for his late daughter, Cassandra Lee VerSteeg Mitchell.

This story was written by Blade Staff Writer Mark Zaborney. Contact him at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.