OBITUARY
Darrell Winston Yeaney
November 29, 1931 – November 1, 2025
Darrell Winston Yeaney died November 1, 2025, near the end of a long planned family cruise down the Rhine River, with excursions in Switzerland, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
He was accompanied by his three children, Linda (Howard), Tim (Mary) & Jenny (Ti), and grandchildren David, Emily, Katie (Julian) & Julietta. He is also survived by granddaughter Eliana (JP), her two children, Ayla & Teo, David’s wife Nicole and their daughter Rayna.
Darrell was a fierce advocate for social justice and human rights his entire life. At 93 he continued to attend weekly vigils in Santa Cruz for the Palestine people in their struggle for independence from the Israeli military occupation, having been an active participant more than 15 years. He and Sue, his late wife, organized eleven trips to the Holy Land, meeting with peace activists in both Israel and Palestine. Earlier in his career as a campus minister he was active in the civil rights movement, teaching and demonstrating and was arrested in Mississippi for handing out leaflets promoting voting rights. As an ecumenical campus minister, he worked for the university communities of Emporia, Kansas, Santa Cruz, California and Iowa City, Iowa.
Darrell Winston Yeaney was born on November 29, 1931, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the second son of S. Lester Yeaney and Mildred Hilty Yeaney. He grew up in Penn Hills Pennsylvania, Darrell’s siblings Lester Allen, Elma Louise, and Jerry Dale predeceased him.
Following graduation from Penn High School, he attended and graduated from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, with a degree in Religion, Psychology and Philosophy. At Westminster, he met and became engaged to Sue Sidwell Brown. They married in the college chapel on August 29, 1952. In September 1953 Sue and Darrell moved to Pittsburgh where Darrell enrolled as a graduate student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and graduated in August 1956 with a master’s degree in sacred theology.
Upon graduation from Seminary, he and his wife Sue moved to Manhattan, Kansas where he was called to serve as the Pastor of the United Presbyterian Church, eventually organizing a new congregation and the brand-new church building of Trinity Pres. near the campus. His three children were born in Manhattan, Linda Sue, Timothy Dale and Jennifer Kay. They moved to Emporia Kansas in 1962, where he served the United Ministries in Higher Education as campus minister at the Emporia State Teachers College and College of Emporia.
The family moved to Boston Massachusetts in 1969 where Darrell enrolled in a PhD program in Social Ethics at Boston University (BU). He accepted a position as campus minister at the University of California in Santa Cruz in 1972, where he also finished his dissertation and received his PhD from BU. In 1986 Darrell and Sue moved to the University of Iowa, where, as the new Campus Minister, he also taught Professional Ethics at the graduate School of Dentistry.
Darrell retired in 1998 and in 2006 he and Sue moved back to California to Scotts Valley. He was an active member of Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Santa Cruz as a Parish Associate, organizing events, book clubs and participating in their homeless outreach in Santa Cruz and sister city program in El Salvador. The focus of his retirement was the enjoyment of his loving family and friends as well as being active with the Peace and Justice Task Force of the San Jose Presbytery, and Palestinian-Israel Action committee of The Resource Center for Non-Violence. His final trip to the Holy Land in 2013-14 was with the entire family of 3 children and their spouses, 5 grandchildren, and five close friends.
A celebration of life will be held at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Santa Cruz on March 21, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. A reception will follow. Darrell’s ashes will be spread alongside his wife Sue’s in the memorial garden at Trinity. The family suggests gifts to the Resource Center for Non-Violence or Friends of Sabeel in lieu of flowers. You can click on the links under Donations.