With sadness we share the news of the death of the Rev. Dr. David St. George.
In the Diocese of Newark, he served as Assistant Minister at Christ Church Short Hills, Rector at All Saints Millington and Rector St. Peter's Essex Fells. He also served on the Diocesan Budget Committee, Committee on Camp and Conference Center and Diocesan Planning Commission on Goals, Objectives and Aims.
A memorial service will be held at St. Peter’s Church, Essex Fells, New Jersey, on August 7, 2023, at 11am. In lieu of flowers, please consider contributing to the David St. George Outreach Endowment, which supports charities within the diocese. Checks should be made out to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 271 Roseland Avenue, Essex Fells, NJ 07021; memo: David St. George Outreach Endowment.
His children shared this obituary:
David St. George was a husband, a father, a grandfather, a World War II Navy veteran, an Episcopalian minister, a sailor, a pilot, a boxer, a golfer, a scuba diver, a woodworker, a crooner of 1940s pop hits, and, by his own account, the first surfer to brave the waters of Mantoloking, New Jersey. He spent his life in service to country, family, church, and community. He died peacefully in his bed on July 23, 2023, surrounded by his children. The cause was complications of old age. He was 98.
David was born in Montclair, New Jersey, on June 23, 1925, to Patricia and Leland St. George. He had an older sister, Patricia, and a younger sister, Madeline. The family lived in Verona, New Jersey, and ran a business selling household appliances. When the Great Depression struck, they lost the business and were evicted from their home, eventually landing in nearby Essex Fells. Leland took various odd jobs, including selling cockroach powder door to door. The hardship of this time forever informed David’s culinary tastes, which included butter-peanut butter-mayonnaise-salt-and-onion-on-white bread sandwiches.
David was dyslexic and struggled academically, repeating third grade. But he excelled in sports, especially in relay. In 1943, when he was a junior in high school, he dropped out and joined the Navy. Since he was only 17, he had to persuade his parents to sign his paperwork. They had not given him a middle name, so his dogtag read, “David None St. George.” After bootcamp in Milwaukee, he trained as a signalman, and late that year boarded an amphibious Landing Craft Infantry ship in Portland, Oregon, and set out for the South Pacific.
His ship went first to Guadalcanal, only recently wrested from Japanese forces, then made its way from island to island, finally joining the invasion of Peleilu, which turned into a grueling, months-long battle. During the war, David witnessed many horrible things, he later recalled, but there were also moments of sublimity. He remembered diving from the conning tower into a warm, crystalline sea, learning to ride a longboard on Waikiki Beach during liberty, and becoming so familiar with the stars of the southern sky, he said, that it was like looking around your bedroom. His ship went next to Tulagi, where it gathered with a massive fleet in anticipation of the invasion of Japan. But the invasion never came. After Japan surrendered, his ship was sent to Beijing, then Shanghai, then finally to the United States in late 1945. David arrived back at his family home in Essex Fells just days before Christmas.
After receiving an honorable discharge at the rank of quartermaster first class, he returned to high school, graduating when he was 21. He then went to the University of Pennsylvania on the GI Bill, captaining the track team and earning a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. He next earned a bachelor’s in divinity from the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then a masters in divinity from the Princeton Seminary, and finally doctor of divinity from Drew University. He shed his dyslexia along the way.
While he was in seminary, he met Judith Alexander, an aspiring writer studying at Smith College. They went on seven dates and decided to get married. They lived as caretakers in Cambridge’s Longfellow House, which served as George Washington’s headquarters during the Revolutionary War. Within a couple years, they had their first son, Peter. The family moved to eastern Oregon, where David served as preacher for three churches and took odd jobs logging, bucking hay, and herding sheep.
After four years in Oregon, the family, which now included son Jim, returned to New Jersey, where Phil and Sarah were born. David worked at Christ Church in Short Hills, New Jersey, for seven years. While there, he learned to pilot a small plane, much to his wife’s dismay. He worked at All Saints Episcopal Church in nearby Millington for another seven years before finally landing as rector of Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church in Essex Fells, where he spent the next 25 years. It was the same church he’d attended as a boy, and where his parents are now interred.
Along with his work at the church, David volunteered widely, including with the Essex Fells fire department. Since the station was near St. Peter’s, David frequently got to drive the fire truck, often while still wearing his clerical garb. He retired from St. Peter’s in 1990. A few years later, he and Judy moved to Old Lyme, Connecticut. Judy, who had become a prolific author, continued to write books, and David served as president of the Old Lyme Country Club, sailed his boat, Moor Beyond, on the Connecticut River, and worked in his woodshop, a sawdusty warren filled with an incredible and impractical array of antique tools, where he could often be heard whistling old Frank Sinatra tunes.
In 2013, David and Judy moved to Seabury Active Life Plan Community in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Judy died in 2015. They had been married 61 years. David is also preceded in death by his parents and sisters. He is survived by Peter, Jim, Phil, and Sarah, and his five grandchildren, Zach St. George, Emily Piekenbrock, Chance St. George, Hannah Piekenbrock, and Ted St. George.
Good and gracious God, the light of the faithful and shepherd of souls, you sent your servant David to be a priest in your Church to feed your sheep with your word and to guide them by his example; give us the grace to keep the faith he taught and to follow in his footsteps. We entrust him into your unfailing mystery of Love and Hope through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
