Steven Peter Sackin died on May 28 at the age of 75.
Steve was born on Feb. 4, 1950, in Kansas City to Marjorie and Eugene Sackin. He was the oldest of three with his brother, Ken, and sister, Nancy. He went to college and graduate school at the University of Missouri in Columbia where he studied child development and met his wife, Linda.
In Columbia, he worked as a social worker, led camps and built climbers with children out of rope and wood at head start schools in Central Missouri. He spent the majority of his life in Kansas City, where he worked for over 40 years at the Harry J. Epstein Company, a fourth-generation family wholesale tool store started by Steve’s grandfather, Harry J. Epstein, in 1933.
Steve loved climbing mountains in Colorado; canoeing in Missouri and Arkansas; riding his bike the eight miles to work almost every day in any season; hitchhiking; coaching his sons’ baseball teams; writing poetry; making treasure hunts for his children and grandchildren; and reading. He was a vegetarian and religious school teacher at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah, and was deeply inspired by one of his student’s comments: “God is the surprise in me.”
He and his wife began a garden in the parking lot at Congregation Kol Ami in Prairie Village, Kansas, with the children of their religious school. With the help of Kol Ami, they then founded Manheim Gardens on Troost.
He has published two books of poetry which you can purchase on the Harry J. Epstein Company website.
Steve is survived by his wife, Linda; his sons Jacob and Jori; and his grandchildren, Gabriel and Casey.
Steve’s life can be honored by making a donation to Manheim Gardens or reading his books of poetry. Here is one of his poems from his second book:
Red Rocks
Up on top by sunrise. Surprising cool breeze
for August in the desert comes from the West.
The sandy arid land below should be burnt brown,
but it’s pale green due recent rain. The sun
is just moving above the horizon. Shadows
cast by the mountains appear in the distant West.
A crow has something to say.
The pleasant wind continues.
Shadows are already halfway across the valley.
Roosters trumpet from a nearby farm.
Dogs argue. The sun has gone from red to yellow.
What is the source of loneliness? What does
the aching heart really need? Jacob is in India.
Jori in LA. Linda asleep at the hotel.
They are so deeply embedded like the roots
of the mountain; like the scrub
holding the shape of the desert.
Now they must all go free to find their own
mountains to climb, knowing there is some kind
of well here which they can always
come to drink.