William Sloane Coffin
Biography Timeline: June 1, 1924, born, New York, New York, son of William, Sr., furniture store executive and Catherine (Butterfield); 1933, father dies; 1934, mother moves family to Carmel, California; family is assisted financially by his uncle Henry Sloane Coffin (who will eventually be president of Union Theological Seminary); 1938, practices piano for hours a day in Paris and studies with Mlle. Nadia Boulanger with a view to becoming a concert pianist; 1942, graduates from Phillips Academy; 1943, studies for one year at Yale University Music School; 1943-1947, serves in U.S. Army; 1949, BA, Yale University; 1949-1950, attends Union Theological Seminary; 1950-1953, works for Central Intelligence Agency on Russian affairs; 1956, BD, Yale Divinity School; ordained as Presbyterian minister; marries ballet dancer and actress Eva Rubenstein, daughter of pianist Arthur Rubenstein; with Eva, has three children, Amy, Alexander, and David; 1956-1957, acting chaplain, Phillips Academy; 1957-1958, chaplain, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; 1958, becomes chaplain, Yale University; 1961, helps establish first training programs for the Peace Corps; one of eleven Freedom Riders who ventures to Montgomery, Alabama to integrate bus transportation and restaurants; 1965, with John Bennett (of Union Theological Seminary) and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (of Jewish Theological Seminary) forms Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam; 1968, divorced from Eva; 1969, marries Harriet Harvey Gibney; 1975, resigns Yale chaplaincy; spends year traveling, resting and writing memoir; 1977, becomes senior minister, Riverside Church, New York City, 1978, establishes Riverside Church Disarmament Program; Christmas, 1979, among delegation to Tehran to visit hostages; 1980; divorced from Harriet; December 10, 1982, mother, Catherine Butterfield Coffin, dies; January 17, 1983, son Alexander dies; 1984, marries Virginia Randolph (ARandy@) Wilson; 1987, retires from Riverside; 1988-1993, head of Nuclear Freeze; in retirement lectures widely on themes of social justice and transformation of the church; 1999, suffers stroke; continues to lecture, preach, and write, publishing two of his most widely read books; April 12, 2006, dies peacefully at home, Strafford, Vermont; April 20, 2006, funeral held at Riverside Church, with Dr. James Forbes presiding, reflections by Cora Weiss, Bill Moyers, and Marian Wright Edelman, and eulogy by James Carroll; April 22, 2006, memorial service held at the United Church of Strafford, Strafford, Vermont; creamins buried in the Strafford Cemetery, with his headstone engraved with one of his signature maxims: “Amo Ergo Sum” (I Love Therefore I Am); May 27, 2006, public memorial service held at Yale University’s Bettell Chapel.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. was Ato the manor born@ in New York City, yet the arc of his life would lead him, willingly and gladly, to encounter all manner of human existence in a life of enthralling contrasts. He trained as a concert pianist, and he
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