In Memoriam - Zella Talbot

Zella Talbot taught in the HKIS High School history and humanities program from 1983-2022. Zella grew up in Hong Kong as a Eurasian and attended Maryknoll Convent school in her early years. She finished high school in Eugene, Oregon and then attended the University of Oregon where she completed a bachelor’s degree in teaching social studies and then went on to earn a master’s degree in Special Education.

Zella was hired in the summer of 1983 to teach in the HKIS High School history department. In the early years of her career, she was also naturally drawn to supporting service activities, taking students to visit Vietnamese refugee camps in Hong Kong. In 1996, she along with her husband Marty Schmidt worked with principal Jim Handrich to replace the Day of Giving with the more regular Service on Saturday program, which today (in its renamed form of “Seeds of Service”) remains an important component of the HKIS extracurricular program. Zella also pioneered the Kolkata service Interim in 1994, which was a deeply impactful experience for many students and teachers over many years at HKIS. In 1998 Zella began the Interact charity fashion show, which she poured extraordinary amounts of time into as a part-time teacher in order to donate large sums of money to deserving service agencies in Hong Kong and in other areas of Asia.

In 2003, Zella and Marty brought these community service initiatives into the curriculum in the Humanities I in Action course, combining Zella’s two loves of history and service into a single course, marrying intellectual discovery with social conscience education. Every year from 2001-2019 she organized and led trips to the Foshan orphanage in China as part of the course curriculum. Zella also supported Marty’s human care job-sharing with the Lutheran Church for 15 years, taking service groups from HKIS and the Church of all Nations to church partner organizations in China, Macau, and Vietnam. The most long-lasting impact of these trips was the Ember scholarship program in southern China that enabled more than 600 underprivileged students to receive a high school education.

At her funeral in August, students and teachers from five decades came to remember her love, compassion, humor, and commitment to service. She loved her students, her family, and those who struggled in communities near and far. Her legacy lives on in her raising up of the next generation of service leaders in Hong Kong, which was evident at the funeral.

We as the HKIS community celebrated her forty years of service to the HKIS community, especially the love she brought to her students and fellow teachers. Her husband Marty and her children Christa and Micah, are proud of the life she led and the values she represented. The sacrifices she made for them and for people in Hong Kong will live on in her presence they sense all over Hong Kong and in the lives they now lead.

For more about Zella's touching memorial service and gathering at HKIS, please read the eulogy and message to HKIS faculty.