William Ross MacKaye

1934 - 2023

MacKaye

William Ross MacKaye

Reporter, Journalist, Editor

Born June 1, 1934 in New York City, died August 21, 2023 at Yale New Haven Hospital after suffering a fall in his summer home in Guilford, Connecticut. He was 89 years old.

The only child of writers Milton "Mac" MacKaye and Dorothy Cameron Disney, Bill spent most of his life in Washington, DC, attending Oyster Elementary School and Sidwell Friends, (Class of '51). He graduated Harvard University in 1955, after which he attended General Theological Seminary in New York City for one year.

He began his career as a journalist at the Minneapolis Star, and then for the Houston Chronicle, covering the White House. Bill was on assignment in Dallas, just behind President Kennedy's motorcade when the president was assassinated. He subsequently covered the Johnson White House traveling widely with the press pool.

In 1966 Bill was hired by the Washington Post and served as editor of the Religion section. A religious scholar, he produced and edited articles about the culture of spiritual practice worldwide, as well as the political machinations of organized churches.

He was granted a John S. Knight fellowship at Stanford University in 1974, after which he shifted from the Religion section at the Washington Post to Associate Editor at the Post Magazine. He also edited the Washington Post crossword puzzle for a number of years. After Bill left the Washington Post in 1986 he worked as a freelance writer and was founding editor of In Trust Magazine

That all dutifully listed, Bill was known for more than his curriculum vitae. He was an interesting person who was authentically interested in others. He was a caring, deeply concerned friend and mentor, cherished by different communities for his boundless empathy and support for individual people. He gave of himself to all sorts of people, listening with compassion to people in need �" the spiritually impoverished, the financially precarious - and still had time for the rich and healthy.

He read poetry, cooked with abandon, delighted in art, and laughed plenty, even in seemingly desperate situations.

A product and proponent of agape love, Bill manifested in his daily practice the credo "Celebrate Life", a term coined in the 1970s by the church he attended for more than 60 years, St. Stephen & the Incarnation, where his lifelong commitment to social justice merged with his religious beliefs.

Bill was married to Mary Anne Garner MacKaye for 48 years. They had five children, all of whom were encouraged to create their owns paths to follow. He was a reliable support to all of them, even when he needed support of his own.

In his last years, Bill was writing a memoir. He explained that the chapters and stories would be arranged in the manner that one prepares a bouquet of wildflowers, disparate and distinct, yet in natural concert with one another. Bill's wander in life's green pastures and dark valleys gave him much to work with and he was still collecting to the end. From his hospital bed, one of the last things he requested was that someone gather a few handfuls of Queen Anne's Lace and Joe Pye Weed that bloom, uncultured, along the roadside. These sat in a Mason jar on the sill of his hospital room window, and he recalled with his children some of the times of his life.

He is survived by his children, Katie MacKaye, Susannah MacKaye (Kirstin Lindquist), Ian MacKaye (Amy Farina) Alec MacKaye (Lely Constantinople) and Amanda MacKaye (Allen Beland) and four grand children.

A memorial service, open to all, will be held at 10:30 a.m. September 30, at St. Stephen &the Incarnation Church 1525 Newton St. N.W. Washington, DC 20010.

Bill asked that in lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Loaves and Fishes program www.loavesandfishesdc.org and/or St. Stephen's Church (www.saintstephensdc.org)