The Rev. Nelson “Nick” Ralph Chamberlain, 64, died June 13, 2011, from complications from cancer at his home in Wiggins.
A brilliant man with a never-ending thirst for knowledge, Nick, devoted his life to following God’s will. Even near the end of his eight-month fight with lymphoma, he found the strength to preach and care for the congregation at Wiggins Community Church.
Nick, a college professor, pastor and fly fisherman, had a zeal for writing, authoring three books and dozens of articles, memoirs and plays.
He was born Aug. 19, 1946, in Auburn, N.Y., to Winifred Odell and Ralph Chamberlain. Nick was called to the ministry when he was just 7 at his grandmother’s church in Auburn, N.Y. Nick remembered peering out, unseen, from behind the pulpit at the people in the pews. Years later, he would take his place behind the pulpit.
After graduating from Batavia High School in 1965, he attended Houghton College in New York, earning a degree in English. He then attended Dallas Theological Seminary, where he met his wife, Rosana Montoya. They married May 18, 1970.
Prior to receiving his a master’s of theology, he also earned a master’s degree in English from the University of Texas at Arlington, paying his way and supporting his family by working odd jobs restoring homes and cleaning office buildings.
Nick pastored churches in Shattuck, Okla.; Brighton and Wiggins. Before that, he and Rosana worked at a children’s home in Waxahachie, Texas.
In his memoirs, Nick wrote that in all these places, he could see the “river of grace” that flowed through his life, from his childhood in New York’s Finger Lakes region to the ponds and streams where he found respite in fishing, even as he “fished for men,” as Jesus called his Disciples to do. That river, he wrote, empties finally “into the ocean of the vast, eternal love of God.”
Nick was preceded in death by his parents.
He is survived by his wife, Rosana, of Wiggins; daughters Jennifer Chamberlain, of Waxahachie, Texas; Tabitha Chamberlain, of Colorado Springs; and Emily Chamberlain, of Wiggins; and a sister, Nancy Chamberlain, of Belleville, Ontario, Canada.
He will be buried in a private ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. A memorial will be at Wiggins Community Church at a time to be announced. Flowers can be sent to the church at 423 Dickson St., Wiggins, Colo., 80654.
Nelson Ralph Chamberlain
