David Stroh
David once wrote, “My career has had a consistent inner theme and purpose — a calling, perhaps — that has been with me while being a university chaplain, an urban planner, and a county attorney Fairfax, Va.”
After his theological degrees at Yale Divinity School, where he was heavily involved in urban poverty issues in neighborhoods, and after becoming ordained in the UCC, he became a university chaplain at Drew and Vanderbilt universities. While fighting the racial divides in our country by organizing students and participating himself with them in marches in Selma and Montgomery, including “Bloody Sunday” in 1965, he heard Dr. King calling all Americans to look beyond the moment and solve the structural problems which perpetuate poverty and racism through urban zoning, housing, and development. He then left university chaplaincy to acquire the additional skills he needed with a master of city planning degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
In the next decade he worked as an urban planner, primarily in obtaining financing for affordable housing with national law firms in Washington, D.C. In 1973 he began working for the long-range Comprehensive Planning Department of Fairfax County, and later for the Environment and Policy Division of that office.
In 1982 he acquired a J.D. degree from. Georgetown University Law School to manage the legal cases surrounding affordable housing and land use and was a county attorney for the Redevelopment and Housing Authority of Fairfax County.
He was preceded in death by his parents Walter Stroh and Betty Sampson Stroh, but his parting is deeply mourned by a large family: his brother Stephen F. Stroh and Susan Hoffman Stroh, and his sister Deborah Stroh Tezich and Greg Tezich and their families. He was married to Carol Vines Moss and they had two daughters, Sarah Stroh Jeppesen and Christine Stroh Reddy. His grandchildren are Dylan and Asa Franchak, and Alexandra, Ravi and Vikram Reddy.
After divorce he was married to Susan Mockenhaupt, who died in 2009. He was married again in 2013 to Jane Chowning von Maltzahn. His stepchildren through her are Philip von Maltzahn and Stephanie Slates, Geoffrey von Maltzahn and Maxine Sharkey Giammo, and Julia von Maltzahn. His step-grandchildren are Felix and Norris von Maltzahn; Eva Orion, Leo, Wolf and Zelda von Maltzahn; and Valentina and Carlos Rangel.
David was born in Boulder, Colo., spent most of his career in Fairfax County, Va., and lived in Lincoln the last year of his life, dying in hospice in Wayland. He spent a year at Exeter University in England and enjoyed a lifetime of holidays in Devon.
The family give thanks to the communities of St. Anne’s-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Lincoln and Christ Church Episcopal in Andover where he was treasurer, and to our neighbors and friends in Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Special thanks to our priest the Rev. Garrett Yates and Dr. Philip Saylor and his cancer team at Mass. General Brigham in Boston for their expert care for ten years during his bout with cancer. David volunteered for a year of experimental treatment to benefit others.
Family and friends will gather to honor and remember David for his memorial service on Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 11:00am at St. Anne’s-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Lincoln.
Keep us all, O Lord, so awake in our calling,
So deep in service to you in the world,
So aware of our neighbors’ sufferings
That at the last day we may sleep in thy peace
and wake into thy glory, majesty and love,
Where time has vanished,
and joy shall shine in the dawn of your new day. Amen.
Donations in his name may be made to: St. Anne’s-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, 147 Concord Rd., P.O. Box 6, Lincoln, MA 01773; Doctors Without Borders, P.O. Box 5030, Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030; or ACLU, 125 Broad St., 18th floor, New York, NY 10004; or to a civil rights or environmental cause of your choosing. Arrangements are under the care of Concord Funeral Home, which provided this obituary. Click here to write in his online guest book.