10/14/2026
Today the Order remembers William Gatewood Sibley, OHC, who died on October 14, 2008:
William Sibley was born February 19, 1934, in Newport News, and grew up in Hampton, Virginia. He graduated from high school at Augusta Military Academy in Fort Defiance, Virginia and attended the University of the South but failed to graduate. He served in the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army for two years, worked in the insurance industry and then for six years as assistant cashier at the Citizens Rapid Transit Company in Hampton.
William was baptized and confirmed in St. Paul's Church, Newport News, where he was active from childhood. In college he was an officer of the National Canterbury Association. He continued active in the church as a youth worker and lay reader and in the Church's work for racial justice and ecumenism. He had come into contact with the Order first through Fr. Gunn, Rector of Grace Church, Newport News in the early 1940's, and then at Sewanee. He joined the Order in 1967 and was a postulant under Fr. Stevens. He was life professed on September 11, 1971.
After life profession he was stationed at West Park, working in temporary projects and as Guest Master. He was sent to Mount Calvary in 1972 and became the founding Prior of St.
Dominic's, later Incarnation, Priory in Berkeley. He was at Mount Calvary from 1976 until 1981, when he served briefly at Holy Redeemer Priory, Nassau. Later that year he became Prior of Holy Cross Priory, Toronto, where he served for nine years. During his time in Toronto the ministry of the Priory flourished, and William became a familiar figure in the Canadian Church.
William campaigned for Superior in 1990 and won on the first ballot. He changed most of the leadership of the community and moved the Superior's office to Mount Calvary, where it remained until the end of his second term, having been re-elected in 1996. Perhaps the community's most significant challenge in those years was a membership increasing in age and the beginning of a decline in the numbers of life professed. Holy Savior Priory, Tower Hill, South Carolina, was closed in 1991 and Absalom Jones Priory, Harlem in 1993. Despite auspicious beginnings, Philip Quaque Priory in Cape Coast, Ghana, was not a success and it was suspended in 1997.
But the notable achievement of William's term was the careful process leading to the establishment of Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa in 1998.
Although he could be abrupt and opinionated, especially about liturgy and politics, he was beloved by many in the Order for his pastoral approach: "he was always loyal, loyal to his word and to standing by others when they were troubled or in trouble," as Reginald Crenshaw said in the eulogy at his funeral.
After his term ended in 1999, William spent two sabbatical years in Berkeley, and then moved to Toronto, where he lived in senior housing at St. Hilda's House. He returned to West Park in 2005. In the fall of 2008, he developed a severe respiratory infection and died at Kingston Hospital.
