‘Every war is my war’

Ursula Tabor — a nurse, theologian and poet — died in December 2023 at age 88 in Albany, leaving a substantial gift to aid people displaced by genocide, war and crime.

Throughout her life, Tabor reacted viscerally to news of how warfare damages and displaces civilians.

“Every war is my war,” she once said.

Tabor was born in 1935 and grew up in Bisingen, a southern German town near the Swiss border. Her father, Hugo Maier, was mayor. She has fond memories up until age 4. The family lived on the upper floors of city hall and she had the run of the neighborhood.

But in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and threw Europe into violent chaos. “In a moment the carefree happy days of childhood became a thing of the past,” Tabor wrote more than six decades later in her doctoral dissertation.

Nazi officials pressed her father to set an example and sign up to fight. Commanders sent him to France and then to the brutal Russian front.

Her mother took on the role as Bisingen’s air raid marshal, getting messages about incoming attacks and sounding the sirens. Ursula and her younger brother would scurry to the basement.

One bomb hit close enough to cave in the cellar. No one was hurt, but after that the family slept in an underground bunker in the yard or in an old mine outside town with the rest of the citizens. Ursula recalled the awful smell as the mine had neither toilets nor showers.

Word came that Hugo was seriously injured in Russia. He was shipped back to Bisingen to perform civic duty, but was never the same. Meanwhile, Maria listened to radio broadcasts from outside Germany and became disillusioned with the Nazi cause. Family life felt damaged.

Young Ursula heard Hitler’s ranting voice on the radio and wondered why anyone would follow such a frightening man.

In 1945, as Allied forces approached Bisingen, Ursula and her brother escaped with their mother, riding in the back of an oxcart. She recalled gazing at the night sky as the primitive conveyance bumped along for 10 days.

The three slept in the woods and heard tremendous explosions. Maria asked her daughter, then 10, to go into a town alone to enquire about a place to stay, a scarcity in wartime Germany. The mother’s thinking was that no one could deny such a charming child. The plan worked, and Ursula found a workshop where the three of them could sleep on the floor.

For months, they hid during the day and foraged for food at night. That pattern kept up when the war ended and French troops occupied the area.

Allied soldiers arrested her father back in Bisingen. He was sent to a labor camp where Nazi ideas were dispelled. After his sentence was completed, the family finally was reunited. But Hugo was a dejected man.

Because her education had been interrupted, Ursula developed a deep hunger for learning after the war. She immediately finished her basic schooling and went to business college, followed by nursing school.

“Somehow, I wanted to help ease the world’s suffering,” she said in a video produced by friends years later.

After working in a local hospital, she was hired at a U.S. Army medical center not far away. It was there that she learned English and came to admire American values. She wanted to see the United States.

Despite her father’s objections, she booked passage on an ocean liner, expecting a short visit across the Atlantic. But once on board she felt so liberated that she suspected she might not return. She was 29.

Traveling by bus around the huge nation, Tabor nursed in Milwaukee, San Francisco and eventually Portland. She specialized in psychiatric care. And sure enough, she became a U.S. citizen.

For years, she was silent about her childhood and the confusing shame of having a father she loved but who fought for the Nazis. At a seminar one day in the 1970s, a peer excoriated her for the sins of her nation.

“I was forced to face for the first time with full consciousness this horror which took place in my country during my lifetime,” Tabor told the video makers. “It was that event that helped me get in touch with and do healing work on my own buried and utterly helpless rage and abiding grief over what I had witnessed and experienced during those early years.”

As part of her internal reconciliation, her drive for knowledge continued. In 1984, she obtained a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Oregon, then a master’s and PhD in theology and pastoral ministry.

It was in her 2003 doctoral dissertation that Tabor wrote the memorable line, “Every war is my war.” Her hope was that no one, especially children, would suffer the internal scars of battle.

“Sometimes I can barely stand it,” she explained to video makers, discussing ongoing conflict around the world. “It is very hard. There is no such thing as a good war. We are meant to love each other. And what we are doing is killing each other.”

She taught at Mount Angel Seminary until age 76 when she had to slow down because of heart surgery.

A member of St. Mary Church in Albany, she made deep connections with people throughout her life.

“Such a sweet soul,” recalls Kathy Dixon, who tended Ursula at a foot care clinic. “Seeing her every couple months and getting to visit with her was a highlight to my day.”

Tabor lived simply in an 800-square-foot house in Albany. It had a glorious garden with a confident and somewhat entitled cat named Odi on patrol.

Luce LaFleur of Salem met Tabor in 1979; LaFleur was a counselor and Tabor a psychiatric nurse. They became lifelong friends. LaFleur not only handled Tabor’s affairs and advocated for her in the last years but now looks after Odi, the beloved feline.

“What I remember most about her was her thirst for learning and being deeply religious,” said LaFleur, as Odi sat nearby purring.

When discussing what to do with Tabor’s earthly goods, the pair considered many options. But when the topic of helping refugees arose, Tabor lit up.

In addition to funds from the estate, Tabor left a house full of fine furniture to Catholic Charities. Her couches, chairs, tables and dressers are now in the homes of refugees in Oregon.

“She made friends anywhere she went,” said LaFleur, who recalls Tabor as independent, charmingly stubborn yet often profound.

Tabor wanted people who hear her story to become aware how important it is to love each other. In her later years, she brought the struggle of war to her prayer.

“When I speak to God, I say, ‘You are a loving father. I do not understand. So many good people have such a horrible experience. Life and death. God, why? Why?’” she says in the video. “What seems to come back to me is, ‘Well, child, your thoughts are not my thoughts.’ And I have to live with that. I do not understand God. Who does? Our brains are too little. And still I believe in God. Where else would I go?”

SEE THE VIDEO ABOUT URSULA TABOR: https://youtu.be/Ugjqm6lRWAg

PLANNED GIVING TO CATHOLIC CHARITES

To consider planned giving and joining the Catholic Charities Miraculum Society, go to https://www.catholiccharitiesoregon.org/services/volunteer/ways-to-give/planned-giving/, or email donations@ccoregon.org.