In Memory of Bob Creal

Robert Creal, the first President of Genesis of Ann Arbor, passed away on December 25, 2025, survived by his wife Patty Creal and his children.

Genesis joins Temple Beth Emeth and St. Clare's Church in extending profound condolences to his family. His passing is a great loss to our community. May his memory be a blessing. A funeral service held at St. Clare's on Sunday, January 4, 2026, filled the sanctuary to overflow capacity with friends, family, and congregants.

Genesis board member and past president James Downward here shares his personal reflection on Bob's leadership leading to the founding of Genesis.

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Back in November 1971, when my wife Judie and I first joined St. Clare’s, there was no Genesis, but Temple Beth Emeth had begun renting our facility to hold their services. After Bob Creal was elected as St. Clare’s Senior Warden in January 1974, the relationship between the two congregations had worked so well that the leadership of the two congregations began discussing possibilities for joint ownership of our facility. As one can imagine, there were many discussions about this during St. Clare’s coffee hours every Sunday. As these negotiations proceeded, Bob, a lawyer, agreed to draft the agreement and the bylaws for this unprecedented new entity.

I got to know Bob in the many coffee hour discussions we had about the agreement he wrote which include both an amazing preamble and a comprehensive set of bylaws which would be needed to create a new type partnership. Through Genesis, we would create a partnership that would allow our two congregations to jointly own our worship facilities as equals.

Bob circulated the agreement and bylaws for us all to read. I expressed concerns that parts of those bylaws might not be sufficient to hold us together when things got rough the way they someday might. I was a freshly minted scientist with no experience in contract or real estate law, but Bob listened carefully to my concerns and then proceeded to rewrite parts of the bylaws to ensure that any future dissolution process would be not only financially harder to accomplish, but economically fair to both congregations. In retrospect, these changes may have dissuaded Genesis from making hasty decisions when things got rocky in the past.

When Genesis was finally officially born on December 23, 1974, Bob Creal became Genesis’ first president. Throughout his life, he remained a fierce advocate for Genesis, and the words he wrote in the preamble to the Genesis agreement have become part of my life:

Although the world has always been torn by distrust, suspicion, waste, prejudice and the threat of economic upheaval and war, its citizens are today becoming more aware of the absolute need to trust, conserve, believe, give and love if we and our heirs are to survive as the children of God. Both the Temple and St. Clare believe that by jointly owning and sharing the same facilities for their various worship and non-worship activities, they are demonstrating that out of their act of faith and trust can be found a significant mutuality of understanding.

I will be forever grateful for the opportunity I had to work with Bob Creal, whose vision for our congregations’ future together, became a foundational part of my life.