Obituary of Eugene Victor Zacharias

Salem, Oregon – Eugene (Gene) Victor Zacharias, Jr., 83, died on Tuesday, September 10, 2019, after suffering with polio for much of his life. Gene was born August 9, 1936, in Freewater, Oregon, to Eugene V. Zacharias, Sr. and Martha (Schindler) Zacharias. Gene was 3 years old when he first contracted polio. He recalled recently that moment of discovering something terribly wrong occurred playing outside with his older brother Robert (Bob) Zacharias; when his mother called the boys into breakfast, “I couldn’t stand up,” Gene said. The local doctor refused to treat the toddler because the virus was so contagious. He warned Gene’s mother it wouldn’t matter anyway because the boy was likely to die. The family refused to accept the doctor’s dire prognosis. Gene’s mother and grandmother attended to the crippled toddler, taking care to protect Gene’s siblings from contracting polio which was raging across the US from that point in the early 1940s to its US peak impact in the 1950s. The World Health Organization estimated that in addition to the tens of thousands of US victims during this one decade up to 20 million people worldwide contracted the debilitating disease before a vaccine was developed that has nearly eradicate polio today. The last recorded case of polio in the U.S. was in 1979. Survivors, like Gene, who have dealt with the aftermath of polio include national leaders like President Franklin D. Roosevelt, actors Alan Alda and Mia Farrow, photojournalist Dorothea Lange, musicians Itzhak Perlman, Judy Collins, Neil Young, and writers Harry Crews and E. W. Swanton, who contracted the disease in a POW camp. After Gene was left crippled by the disease, a physical therapist in Medical Lake, Washington, rigged up a handmade cart to be pulled by an English Springer Spaniel as a means for the youngster to get around the farm. Gene eventually got additional medical help from the Shriners Hospital in Portland, Oregon, where he received several operations through his grade-school and into high-school years that enabled him to walk again, albeit with continued physical impairment. Gene graduated from Enterprise High School in 1954 and attended Eastern Oregon University and, later, Judson Baptist College while it was located in Portland, Oregon. On November 24, 1956, Gene married, Gwendolyn Thomas, at Ardenwald Congregational Church in Milwaukie, Oregon. The two were introduced by Gene’s mother who worked with Gwen at Wallowa Lake Lodge near Joseph, Oregon. Theirs was a love that would last a lifetime and would carry them into the headwaters of the Amazon jungle, where for many years they served the tribal peoples of Ecuador with Wycliffe Bible Translators/Summer Institute of Linguistics. As support staff, Gene was engaged in teaching indigenous tribes farm and timber management skills in a frantic effort to bridge the chasm between pre-historic culture and the 20th Century with the central goal of preserving their independent livelihoods on their own lands. In the late 1960s while Gene was working with the ‘Auca’ (now known as Waodani), a polio virus hit the tribe. For the first time Gene reported feeling blessed in being a polio victim, as he was uniquely suited to lead the Woadani victims through all the physical therapy routines he had learned years earlier in his own recovery at Shriners Hospital. Gene and Gwen continued in their faithful service to the Lord upon their return to Oregon. Gene pastored at Haines Baptist Church of Haines, Oregon, for 15 years before his retirement. He also shared his love of Jesus with 27 different congregations traveling throughout Oregon filling pulpits as a ‘substituting’ minister. Gene could not have a conversation without mentioning God’s boundless love for humanity. When he wasn’t preaching, Gene could often be found driving some sort of farm implement or working in the woods somewhere. His most prized possession, next to his Bible, was a John Deere Gator given to him by his brother Bob. Gene loved holding a grandchild in his lap and driving them around in that Gator. Gene is survived by his beloved wife, Gwen, daughter Gloria Zacharias Steele and her husband Bill Steele, all of Salem, son Timothy W. and his wife Karen of Redmond, Or., and son Mark V. of Baker City, Or. His siblings: brothers Bob of Joseph, William (Bill) of Oregon City, and John of Salem, along with his sister Patricia (Pat) of Salem. Also grieving Grandpa Gene are the eleven grandchildren, the eleven great-grandchildren, and the two more greats ‘enroute’ for whom he faithfully prayed for daily. A celebration of life is being planned for March 2020. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, you make a donation to Shriners or March of Dimes, and that you ensure your children and grandchildren are immunized. “I would not want anybody to deal with what I have,” Gene said. “It makes me want to cry to see these little ones that are being exposed to things no one would get if they would only be vaccinated.”