William Abbott Yon

William Abbott Yon of Chelsea, Alabama died April 5, 2016 as he wanted to – in his own bed in his own home, with his family around him, after a long weekend of visiting with his many many loving friends. He was 85 years old.

Bill is survived by three of his children, Catherine Yon McCleskey and her husband Steve of Talladega, Alabama, Andrew and his wife Roxanne of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Stephen and his wife Jan of Lexington, Kentucky, along with their two children Jesse Masters Yon and Isabel Abbott Yon. Bill was preceded in death by his wife Lib and daughter Betsy, his brother Ted and sister Claire in her childhood, and his parents Ted and Catherine.

Born March 17, 1931 in Knoxville, Tennessee, Bill had modest athletic ability and a sharp intellect, which he deployed throughout his life in unconventional ways. After the Yons moved to College Park, Georgia, Bill attended the Georgia Military Academy, entering as a sergeant and graduating as a private first class. He was an avid Georgia Tech football and Atlanta Crackers baseball fan, and his love of the Ramblin’ Wreck and the Atlanta Braves lasted all of his days, as did his love of tennis, culminating in years of fun on his hand-made red clay tennis court in Chelsea.

Bill attended Emory University in Atlanta, majoring unofficially in ping pong and bridge, general humanities according to Emory. The best thing about college was meeting Lib McPheeters, a sophomore at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, whom he married in June 1954 after his middle year at Virginia Theological Seminary. He loved seminary, making a lifetime’s worth of friends and professional colleagues.

Bill was ordained in June 1955 and his first posting was to St. Alban’s Church in Elberton, Georgia, where he became involved in an inter-denominational group of clergy dealing with issues of race and social justice. In 1960, Bill accepted a call to serve in the Diocese of North Carolina as Director of Youth Work, moving to Raleigh. From the frying pan, Bill and Lib and their three kids moved into the fire – Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, where Bill became Director of Christian Education for the Diocese of Alabama. He transitioned to freelance consulting and held a variety of positions including Executive Director of the Association for Creative Change, and played roles in other organizations such as Leadership Training Institute, Alabama Training Network, Episcopal Urban Caucus, etc. In his second and last job as a parish priest, Bill served as rector of the Church of the Transfiguration from 1975 until 1983.

Bill’s career to this point can be summed up by the titles of the file boxes on his office shelves – Group Development & Team Building, Leadership, Organization Development, Power & Systems, Laboratory Training … Stewardship. Bill’s role in the creation of the Alabama Plan was perhaps his signature professional achievement.

In 1973, Bill and Lib and their four kids had moved to the woods of Chelsea, Alabama as a result of a life planning exercise five years earlier. A trip to South Africa in 1975 planted the seeds of an idea that lead to another major life change. In Namibia from 1985 until 1989, they developed a pre-ordination training program, graduating twelve men that became pillars of the Anglican Church in Namibia. Bill was a friend to, and supporter of, Namibia the rest of his life, returning for a visit with Lib in 1997, and again in 2008.

As the Namibia adventure wound down, life planning skills were employed once again to land a job as administrative assistant to the bishop in Alabama, where Bill worked until retirement in 1997. These were good years of Contrarian gatherings, reconnecting with old friends, spring training baseball, and deeper immersion in the life of St. Francis Church. Lib and Betsy died in 2002, and St. Francis provided cherished support to Bill during those difficult times and well beyond. In his final years, Bill preached the occasional sermon, relished his men’s prayer breakfasts, composed his autobiography, watched the Braves, enjoyed movies with dear friends, and hosted a multitude of gatherings at his $75,000 dream house in Chelsea.

Bill was a good father, a good friend, a mentor to many, and will be missed. An undated and unsigned letter in Bill’s old correspondence file sums him up well: “If you ever go to a conference and you see this giant hairy beautiful outrageous crazy man – and he asks you a riddle – hang on, because your life is fixing to get changed.”

A visitation is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. Friday, April 8, 2016 at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Indian Springs Village, and the funeral will be at St. Francis on Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 2 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, Bill requested that donations be made to the St. Francis Memorial Garden or to the Elizabeth McPheeters Yon Fund for Namibia at the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama.