Zachariah Ralph Hallock was born in Riverhead, Eastern L.I., NY, the 11th Zachariah Hallock in his ancestry.
His happy childhood in Suffolk County, NY, included 18 1st cousins. He served six years in the Navy, most as an electronic technician on the U.S.S. Diablo, a nuclear-armed submarine.
His first wife, Judi Nagle, took horseback-riding lessons in his grandfather’s Westhampton barn. After his Naval service, they began their 47-year married life, starting out at the Brooklyn Polytechnic, now part of NYU. He earned his B.S. degree in Physics, and then his graduate degrees in Physical Oceanography at the U. of Miami’s Rosenstiel School, all within the 1970s.
Zack, Judi, and their two young children moved to Long Beach, MS, near Gulfport. He joined the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office at the Stennis Space Center (SSC). He planned and conducted surveys in areas of Naval interest there. In 1981, he transferred within the SSC to the Oceanography Div. of the Naval Research Lab. (NRL, then NORDA).
While Zack was serving with distinction in his federal career, he also created Judi’s horse farms. Zack did all the mechanical, electrical, and repair work on their farms.
In 2004, Zack retired from the NRL and moved to Efland, NC, where he and Judi built two more barns, and Judi and daughter Debbie enjoyed working with their horses. After his retirement from NRL, he continued his research as an NRL contractor, productive until the end of his life. He published over 30 research papers in oceanographic journals. Dr. Hallock was a Member of the American Geophysical Union and Sigma Xi and was internationally recognized in the field of Physical Oceanography. He was also a student of Zen Buddhism, a member of the Chapel Hill Zen Center, a Tai Chi practitioner, and an active parishioner of the Unitarian Universalist Congre-gation of Hillsborough, NC.
His first wife Judi passed away in 2013. He remarried a close, long-time family friend, Mary Greene, in 2016, who with his adult children was at his side when he died. He had been diagnosed with MDS and then AML just five months earlier. Zack was quite a character who wore his pig-manure-covered boots on research cruises to the chagrin of his ship mates, resisted and never owned a smart phone, and once paid over $5 for a cup of tea in Yokosuka, Japan, in the 1990s, which he was never allowed to forget. Besides his loving wife Mary Greene Hallock, Zack’s family mourning his loss include his son Zachariah Peter “Zeb” Hallock (wife Amanda and grandson Zachariah “Darwin” Hallock, the 13th Zachariah H.); daughter Deborah Hallock Gunter (husband Matt and granddaughters Emma, Cecilia, and Zoe); sister Suzie Hallock Hehn of Toms River, NJ; half-brother David Thilberg of Hampton Bays, NY, and step-brother Jeffrey Thilberg of Mesquite, NV. Zack’s parents were Zachariah R. Hallock, Jr., and Doris Culver Hallock Thilberg, and the vivid memory of his brother Peter will remain with us always. We also will keenly miss Zack and all the kinds of help he gave us. Donations in lieu of flowers are encouraged to the UU Congregation of Hillsborough, P.O. Box 275 (27278-0275), which Zack also supported.
Staff Writer on Jul 25, 2023