We rejoice that this urchin is now at rest in the arms of his known God who binds up the broken hearted and sets the captives free.
On August 29 we lost a dear member of our 1517 family. Our Senior Distinguished Fellow, Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, is now in the arms of his Savior. The 88-year-old German, born in Leipzig in 1936, is now an “Urchin at Rest”—urchin being the word he proudly used to label himself. An urchin is a mischievous young child often raggedly or poorly dressed. That’s what Uwe was as a small boy in war-torn Germany, and it’s the name he used for his series of memoirs recently published by 1517, including Urchin at War (2021) and Urchin on the Beat (2024). Sadly, he was only four chapters into his third volume, Urchin in Love, when he took his last breath.
I first met Uwe in the early 2000s when Dave Atkinson, now my fellow 1517 board member, invited him to California from St. Louis for a speaking engagement. That began a long series of connections which brought him permanently to Orange County, and eventually into his position at 1517.
My husband and I put together his official obituary from various bios written over the years. It is a stunning account when you connect all the parts of his life together. I was overwhelmed with what he had accomplished as an international journalist and then as a theologian after pursuing a master’s degree and Ph.D. in his 50s.
Uwe became my second dad. Having lost my birth father at age 22, he filled that gap tremendously. We had a mutual love of off-color humor, literature, music, world events, and, most importantly, our faith in the forgiveness of sins on account of Christ Jesus alone.
Do you remember that silly Dos Equis Beer commercial with “the most interesting man in the world”? The one that fostered hundreds of future memes? For me, that was Uwe, the most interesting man in the world. He was remarkable.
Here is why I loved him so—in no particular order of importance:
His love for Luther’s doctrine of vocation
He wrote and spoke extensively on this topic and was the first person to help me understand it, back when he settled in California and started the “League of Faithful Masks” (later absorbed into 1517). You might remember that Luther said we are “the masks of God” in our various callings. I wrote a piece for him on motherhood and how I came to understand vocation during the early years of our empty nest, expressing how serving my family should be my first priority and my most important “calling.” The old lament, “I wish I had known then what I know now,” weighed heavily on me as I put pen to paper for that piece. I was haunted by memories of being pressured—very nicely, of course—by my pastor and fellow parishioners to believe that genuine love and service to God could only be achieved by serving in the church, in “your ministry.” In my case, that false belief was stealing valuable time from that first and most important calling: being “Mom” in my family. Now I try to teach younger women what Uwe taught me.
His love for storytelling and his tremendous curiosity
These are critical qualities for a journalist, and he had them in spades. Over the many hours I spent with Uwe, a simple conversation would always turn into a story about a piece he had written while “on the beat.” The stories were legion, and in the roughly 20 years I knew him I thought I had heard them all. But even after 20 years new stories would surface and I’d soon be sitting on the edge of my seat. You will know from his bio/obit that he covered all the major world events of the latter half of the 20th century, including the raising of the Berlin Wall (1961) and then its fall (1989), the Kennedy assassination + Lee Harvey Oswald murder + Jack Ruby trial (1963), the Cuban missile crisis (1962), the Vietnam war (an embedded West German reporter from 1965–1969), and the list goes on.
But he loved to write human interest stories as well. He researched the family histories and then interviewed the vintners in the Loire Valley, Burgundy, Bordeaux, and more. He also had a rare private meeting/interview with the somewhat reclusive Enzo Ferrari. Once, upon telling him I was going to vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, he exclaimed, “I interviewed John Wayne there; he made me pasta! And later in the evening Ann-Margret showed up.” (Shout out to my fellow boomers who recognize the names.) Another time he casually mentioned how in May 1961—well before Beatlemania took hold—he had met the Beatles at Hamburg’s Top Ten Club, recounting how one of the boys had urinated from a balcony onto the floor below. Uwe couldn’t recall which Beatle relieved himself (though I’d say it was probably John, always the most irreverent Beatle and who, five years later, would say in an infamous interview, “we’re more popular than Jesus now”). Imagine that. Finally, Uwe would reminisce about the “twist” dance craze in the early 60s, and the time he and his first wife Gillian won a contest, twisting the night away. I informed him that I, too, had won a twist contest as a small girl at my father’s company picnic, walking away with a gas-powered model airplane as the grand prize.
His love for who the Bible calls “the least of these”
To Uwe every person had/has a story, whether rich, poor, battered, bruised, finely dressed, or in rags. He once told me of the time he traveled to the grotto of Massabielle, just outside Lourdes (France), to talk to people who were availing themselves of the alleged healing properties of the waters. He ended up being part of the crew carrying the disabled down the steps into the water. It affected him profoundly as he heard story after story of the pain and sometimes shame resulting from their injuries or disease. In the ensuing years, Uwe would know the pain of disease as he suffered greatly with an eventual diagnosis of lung cancer which got the best of him in the end. God blessed him in his last two years with a wonderful new wife, Karen von Renthe-Fink, a fellow German who was by his side till the end. She was a package deal bringing along two sons, two daughters, six grandchildren, and two great grandchildren who loved him dearly. A beautiful gift to a widowed, childless man in his eighties.
Lastly, on the first Sunday after Uwe’s death, my pastor was preaching on the Gospel reading of the day from Luke 14. At the end of his sermon, he spoke briefly about Uwe, specifically in reference to the wedding feast section of the reading (verse 8ff). He said Uwe would be that person at the wedding banquet who was sitting far away from the head table, toward the back of the banquet hall with the drunk uncle/annoying aunt. He wanted to be with the fellow urchins and the undesirables because they always have better stories. But in truth he knew the depth of his sin and the bottomless depth of God’s mercy and grace. It reminds me of a quote from Corrie ten Boom, who was imprisoned in Germany for harboring Jews in WWII:
“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.”
During one of his many recent hospital stays, Uwe told me of a moment when he sensed his maker’s strong presence assuring Uwe he was in God’s care and to not be afraid. Again, to quote Corrie ten Boom:
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
and
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”
Our dear Uwe knew this. And we rejoice that this urchin is now at rest in the arms of his known God who binds up the broken hearted and sets the captives free. I can imagine the stories now. They are undoubtedly glorious.
| 
