18 May 1946 – 1 April 2024

On the first of April 2024, Uncha (Kang) Zoebisch joined the Lord for a late Easter celebration. She was born in Gangwon Province, Korea on the 18th of May 1946. Her Father, Kang, Chang won was a Korean National Railway Station Master in what became North Korea after the Political Division of the Korean Peninsula following WWII. When the Korean War broke out, the family became refugees and fled south. All of the family members survived being displaced by the Korean War and eventually returned to their family home in CheongSon, a small village North of DongDuChon (a town many Army veterans stationed at Camp Casey would be familiar with). 

She is survived by her husband of 42 years, Jerry, one elder brother (Kang, Sung Nam), and three sisters, Kang, Young Suk, Kang, Un Sook, and Kang, Young Cha, all of whom still reside in Korea, as well as a son, James, who is serving in the Air Force in Texas, and two step-daughters, Aileen in Georgia and Karen in Texas.

After graduating High School in 1965, she went to work in a clothing factory where she lived in a dormitory with many other female workers. Deciding she wanted more to life, she went to school to learn to drive an automobile. After graduating from the four-month school where she learned to drive and do basic maintenance on cars, she earned Female Driver’s License number 10. She then went to work as a Taxi Driver in Seoul. While working, she went to night school to learn to read, write and speak English. When the owner of the company died, the company was sold and Uncha was eventually hired as a Chauffer for a wealthy Korean family. Several years later, a childhood friend invited her to be a part of her wedding to an American Serviceman. At the reception, the bride introduced her to the man who would eventually become her husband. At the time, Jerry was a friend of the Groom and a single parent stationed at Osan Air Base, Korea. The pair hit it off and after a year of a long-distance relationship, the couple married on April 2, 1982.

The Newlyweds moved to Kwangju Korea where her husband was newly assigned as the enlisted site commander of an Air Force LORAN Navigation Transmitter site. Following completion of that assignment, Uncha accompanied her husband to Florida. There she trained as a Bartender and was eventually hired at the Beni-Hana Japanese Restaurant in Miami. Following a transfer to Lubbock, Texas, she used her training to be hired at a restaurant near the campus of Texas Tech University. Their son was born at nearby Reese AFB. Uncha became a US Citizen while in Lubbock. The family was transferred back to Korea in 1986 and all enjoyed attending ten events at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. After leaving Korea in 1989, the family eventually settled in Colorado Springs in the summer of 1990 following her husband’s retirement from the Air Force.

Uncha was a member of the Stratmoor Hills Methodist Church beginning in 1990. She sang in the church choir, maintained the floral arrangements for the church and baked and decorated cakes for many persons and events. She was an avid gardener, raising a variety of vegetables every growing season. In addition, she and her husband were world travelers, visiting Germany twice while their youngest daughter was stationed there. They also toured the Holy Land, visiting Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. While in Israel, she and her husband took the opportunity to be re-baptized in the Jordan River. Other International travels took them to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and a return to Korea when all five siblings were reunited for her brother’s 70th Birthday.

Uncha suffered Kidney failure in 1993. She received a Kidney transplant in September of 1996. Unfortunately, that Kidney failed in May of 2021. Following nearly three years of Dialysis, she received another Kidney transplant in February of 2024. That Transplant was successful and Uncha was quite happy at the prospect of the independence that the successful transplant promised. However, three days after the transplant, she began to suffer medical complications that included infections in her throat and stomach, a blood clot that caused swelling on the right side of her body, covid, and eventually pneumonia. The complications overwhelmed her, both physically and emotionally. Entered into Home Hospice at her request, Uncha passed peacefully and comfortable in the company of her Husband and Eldest Daughter on the evening of April first.

At her request, Uncha has been cremated and her cremains have been placed in the columbarium at Pikes Peak National Cemetery. There was no funeral, but a celebration of life memorial service is being scheduled for sometime in the summer of 2024. For further information on that event, please contact her husband, Jerry, via e-mail at Coloradozee@msn.com with a subject line of “Memorial Service for Uncha”. 

Donations in her memory may be made in her name to the National Kidney Registry, or to the Advent Health Porter Foundation in Denver, Colorado.