Tributes

William André Trevathan (known as André), 92, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died peacefully on April 15, 2024 from medical complications as a result of renal failure. In his final weeks and months, following the death of his wife Carol in September 2023, he spent time surrounded and visited by his family and friends from far and wide. André was born on November 6, 1931 in Little Rock, Arkansas to Martha (née Miller) and William Trevathan. He later moved with his parents to Paducah, Kentucky. Following the faith of his parents, he attended the University of the South, an Episcopalian university in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he first felt a calling for the priesthood. He also met his first wife, Sandra (née Davis) there, with whom he shared a love of all things Anglican, British and medieval. They married in 1952 and moved to New York where they had two sons, Stephen and Jeremy. André studied for the priesthood at General Theological Seminary in the city and later became a priest at St Luke’s Church in Greenwich Village. A vacation to Puerto Rico persuaded them both to move there in 1961. André served in various churches throughout the island during the course of his ministry there, including the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Bayamon and as the chaplain of the Episcopal Hospital of St Luke’s in Ponce. Over the years he developed his fluency in Spanish and a deep and life-long love for Puerto Rico, its people, and its culture. In 1967 André married his second wife Jenny (née Olivo), who’s vivacity and love of life and family was infectious, and they were blessed with a son, Francisco André (known as Andrecito). During the 1970s André’s awareness of the political inequities of Puerto Rico’s relationship with the US engendered a passion for liberation theology and for activism for the Independentista Movement. He was proud to have been arrested in 1979 on the naval beach of the island of Vieques, off the east coast of Puerto Rico, where he, a local Catholic bishop and a Methodist minister planned to conduct a quiet ecumenical service. Instead, they found themselves accused of an act of civil disobedience protesting the US naval occupation of Vieques, which resulted in imprisonment. André was to retain a passion for social justice and for the sometimes bizarre machinations of modern politics in the US throughout his life, tempered by a sense of humour that found fulfilment in Saturday Night Live’s satirical take on the week’s events. In 1985, André met Carol (née Altland), who was to become his third, much beloved wife, together with her two children by a previous marriage, Lisa and Tony. They met at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, where André served as priest and Carol served as music director and organist. They bonded over liturgical matters and their love of learning, books and poetry. They lived in Kentucky for two decades where they helped to establish a lively and thriving community at St John’s Episcopal Church in Murray and in Louisville, where André served his ministry in retirement at the cathedral there, before they moved and fully retired to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is a testament to the impact of André’s work as a priest that Dean Bradley of Christ Church Cathedral, Louisville, wrote after his death: ‘If, at the end of my life, my ministry has reached even a fraction of the people Father André's did with God's love and blessing, I will consider myself blessed’. Together in these later years André and Carol indulged in their love of church matters, art, their game group, and particularly travel and birding. While birding was Carol’s true passion, André was a more than willing accomplice and together they spent much of their retirement seeking to add to their life bird lists. Their crowning achievement in this regard was adding 200 new species to their life bird lists on a journey through the Amazon Rainforest. As well as this, their birding, cultural, educational and family adventures took them all over the world from southern Spain to the spires of Oxford, to ancestral Cornwall, Japan, Vietnam, Morocco and Mexico among many other epic journeys. Late in life André developed a passion, inherited from his mother, for researching family history, a passion which has passed on to younger generations of his family. He delighted in his five children and stepchildren, his four beloved nephews and nieces, his sixteen grandchildren and step grandchildren and, finally, his twelve great grandchildren who, many of them, as a result of rich and varied backgrounds and circumstances, are located across five of the world’s continents and speak myriad languages between them all. Despite the geographical distance, he loved them all unconditionally. André was a good and gentle man, who was intelligent and inquisitive about life with a splendidly wry and sometimes daffy sense of humour about the vagaries of the human condition, even as he approached death. He was a complex man who loved simple things; a humble man who had accomplished much to boast about. This worldly innocence imbued him with an element that some might call holy. André was preceded in death by his parents, William and Martha Trevathan, his beloved sister Sue O’Donnell and his step granddaughter Oefje Seguin. He is survived by his sons Stephen Trevathan, Jeremy (Paul) Trevathan and Francisco André (Nahomy) Trevathan; nephews Tim (Marie) O’Donnell, Paul (Alice) O’Donnell and George (Travis) O’Donnell; niece Jane O’Donnell; stepson Tony (Lori) Ortiz; stepdaughter Lisa (Charles) Yezbak; grandsons Sjoerd Seguin, Taofiq (Charlotte) Trevathan, Idries (Sarah) Trevathan, Muhsin Trevathan and Musa Trevathan; granddaughters Noumi Seguin, Sakina Trevathan, Alif Trevathan, Medina Trevathan, Safa Trevathan and Shaina Trevathan; step grandson Francisco Pacheco; step granddaughters Claire Yezbak, Isabella Ortiz, Cecilia Yezbak, and Sophia Ortiz; great grandsons, Adam Trevathan, Zakaria Trevathan, Mir Trevathan, Ravi Brinkman, Daan Seguin and Axel Garcia; great granddaughters Luna Seguin, Anissa Trevathan, Sophia Trevathan, Kenza Trevathan, Talia Trevathan and Anouk Seguin. A memorial service will be held on May 18, 2024 at 10.30 a.m. at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, 19 S. 38th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to St James School, 3217 West Clearfield Street, Philadelphia, PA 19132.

Tributes

William Trevathan

November 6, 1931 - April 15, 2024