Robert Timothy Yeager

Robert Timothy “Tim” Yeager, age 73, died Tuesday, April 2, 2024, while undergoing treatment for recently-diagnosed cancer.

Tim was born Aug. 24, 1950, in Charles City, Iowa, to Robert Benjamin and Bernadine Ann Yeager (Thompson). While attending high school he played trumpet in the school band and was the Sports Reporter for the Charles City Press, Editor of the school newspaper, an Eagle Scout, a camp counselor, as well as a swimming Instructor.

Tim narrowly avoided getting swept up in a tornado which hit his hometown in 1968 because he skipped pipe organ practice at the church that day. After the tornado, he spent several summers traveling across the United States with his family collecting dental equipment they delivered to rural villages in Mexico, where his father provided free dental care.

After receiving both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Iowa, Tim was admitted to the bar in 1978. He began his long life of service as a Legal Aid attorney providing free legal services to the poor. Tim proudly served as the District Organizer of the Iowa/Nebraska Chapter of the Communist Party USA throughout the late 1970s until 1989 when he moved briefly to New Jersey and then settled in Chicago in search of new ways to serve the cause of justice. He became a union representative for his Midwestern Legal Aid colleagues. In 1991, Tim joined the National Organization of Legal Services Workers, UAW Local 2320 as organizer, then became staff counsel, and then finally Financial Secretary in 2002. He remained active in the Party in the Chicago area for years, always organizing for change by building coalitions.

Tim married his first wife, Suzan Erem, in 1987. They honeymooned in his beloved German Democratic Republic where he had attended the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1973. He attended the May Day Parade where GDR President Erich Honecker gave him a salute from the procession as Tim stood in the crowd of thousands.

Tim’s daughter Ayshe was born in 1992 in Oak Park, Illinois. Tim and Suzan divorced 5 years later. In early 1998, Tim met Caroline Moores at the Ridgeland stop on the Green Line train and they married one year later in the garden of their new home.

Tim read for Holy Orders and was ordained an Episcopal priest through Grace Church in Oak Park in 2011. At his ceremony, his union brothers and sisters sang the labor movement anthem, “Solidarity Forever,” in a moving tribute to his commitment to social justice and his faith. In 2012, Tim became the Priest-in-Charge at St. Andrew’s Church on the West side of Chicago.

In 2014, it was time for Tim to move with Caroline back to her home country the UK, where he took up the Church of England post of vicar at St. George’s Church, Westcombe Park. He was instrumental in taking St. George’s to its first Pride Parade in 2020. He developed The Galilee Course; an international project so beloved that it was extended to a monthly discussion, which is still running today. In 2019, he received a Civic Award for Services to the Community of Greenwich in recognition of his selfless and compassionate work.

After Tim’s retirement, he and Caroline moved first to St. Alban’s, and then to Waltham Abbey. Tim became a volunteer priest at the Abbey Church and continued his work in making the Church of England more progressive.

Tim took advantage of his new home and enjoyed exploring the British Isles, traveling around Scotland, including to Orkney, and the Hebrides where he discovered a love for the Callanish Standing Stones and the Ring of Brodgar, both Neolithic sites of ritual. In 2017, Tim and Caroline traveled to Germany to discover the Yeager-Thompson family house and farm where Tim’s great-great-grandparents lived before moving to Iowa. In 2023, Tim returned to Berlin once more and revisited some of his favorite sites there.

Tim was well-known for his musical accompaniment at demonstrations, banquets, and church services on the piano, pipe organ, bagpipes, and accordion, the latter of which he admitted learning early in life to become a “babe magnet.”

Tim is preceded in death by his parents, Robert “Bob” Yeager and Bernadine Yeager, and his nephew William Moores.

Tim is survived by his wife Caroline Moores, daughter Ayshe Yeager, brother Dan (Jeanine) Yeager, nieces Hanna Yeager and Hillary Yeager-Davis (Kylar Davis), brother-in-law Philip (Tracy) Moores, and nephew Alexander Moores.

A funeral service will be held in the United Kingdom at 11 a.m. on April 20, 2024, at the Abbey Church, Waltham Abbey, preceded by a procession and vigil beginning at 5 p.m. the evening before.

A celebration of life will be held in the United States in the Chicago area later this year.

Visit timyeager.muchloved.com for more details on the funeral and memorial services, and to post memories and condolences. Information on livestreaming the service will also be posted on this site.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to causes that honor Tim’s passion for justice. Among those are:

• Oxfam Gaza Crisis Fund – https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/current-emergencies/gaza-crisis-appeal/

• Medicin Sans Frontieres – https://www.msf.org/donate

• Onebodyonefaith – https://www.onebodyonefaith.org.uk/