Herman L Hoeh: Salute to a Pioneer (article - Origin of Nations

Herman L Hoeh. A salute to a Worldwide Church of God pioneer
predated HWA’s booklet. He asked who wrote it and I told him the author was Louis Talbot.
He replied that he used to listen to him on the radio during the 1940’s, and wanted to know if
he and any good insights as to their meaning. I answered that he did. Anyway this shows
that he was open-minded toward new ideas.
My wife and I feel privileged to have known Herman L. Hoeh. He was a genuinely
caring, remarkable and multi-faceted individual. Our lives were enriched by his, and he will
be missed.
Robert Macdonald
Missouri
December 27, 2004
From John Hopkinson (given at the public memorial on November 27th)
Mrs. Hoeh, and family, Pastor Holm, distinguished guests, friends, brethren.
Mrs. Hoeh, I am deeply sensitive of the great honour of addressing such an audience, in
such a location, upon so momentous an occasion. Even now, he reaches from beyond the
veil to afford to me one more gift.
With the passing of Herman Hoeh, who, more than anyone except Mr. Armstrong, influenced
the Church of God of our times, the last great teacher, an Era closes.
On graduation in 1967, he invited me to work for him. It was my privilege to serve him with
respect, amazement, and growing awe, as he opened a whole new world to me, Managing
sixty college departments, editing the PT, working with the press, dealing with Professors of
Archaeology at UCLA, the Bronze Boy at the Getty, bringing Israeli Generals as guest
speakers, Jean-Pierre Hallet, the one-handed Belgian who championed the Efe Pygmy, in
the Ituri forest, Edward Teller, the father of the H-bomb, Leopold, King of the Belgians, and
his display and priceless photographs, getting Crimond for the new blue hymnal for HWA
himself, at his request, lunching with a rabbi’s son, and having him suddenly recognize we
were eating kosher, when he had ordered lobster, rare book dealers, Blackwell’s of Oxford,
Zeitlin, Vanya Volkoff and Adelheid von Hohenlohe, Dead Sea Scrolls at Huntington Library
actually touching and translating books 400 years old when I was born, and many exciting
and wonderful things.
His teaching and writing are distributed around the whole world. The impact is unknowable.
To me, he was unfailingly courteous and kind. He modelled humility and generosity to all
around him, which I saw at first hand in the most sensitive manner. Even from beyond the
veil, he reached back and presented to a last gift – to speak in his honour.
In his poem, “Let us now praise Famous Men,” Rudyard Kipling couches tribute and honour
in words more condign than my own. I commend it to readers of these tributes.
A College dedicated to preparing young men to be sent out administering, surveying,
encompassing history’s only global Empire. The instruments; chain, staff, theodolite, an
intimate knowledge of triangles. ‘Servant of the Staff and Chain’ refer to the Survey of India,
from 1816 to 1843 by George Everest. He could not know when he commenced at Mean
Sea Level at Cape Comorin, that, walking over the whole sub-continent, in surveying each
mountain, that, 2500 miles to the north, he would identify the highest peak in the world at
29,029ft .
Sir George stood before kings, bearing gifts of knowledge, to the precise square yard, of
each kingdom to its ruler. Today we measure position and altitude with lasers, GPS
satellites and computers. Difference then and now: Only 6 ft.
Herman Hoeh, likewise, could not know the heights to which he would ascend would be.
Fittingly, he also visited the palace in Nepal, in the high Himalaya, as an Ambassador.
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