Deceased December 27, 2022
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In Memory
At 93, Kingsley succumbed to pneumonia in the Greater Baltimore Medical Center on Dec. 27, 2022. He grew up in Toronto and graduated from Taft in 1946. At Amherst, he was a member of Kappa Theta and received a degree in the classics.
In 1951, Kingsley began a life of service—Marine Corps officer, Episcopal church rector, visiting college professor and leadership on many Towson, Md., town boards. Between 1951 and 1953, he was in the Marines at San Diego, later going to Naval Chaplaincy School. When a rector, he called on more than 70 families grieving over a Vietnam loss. And he also counseled conscientious objectors.
In 1956, Kingsley graduated from the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary. He joined Trinity Episcopal Church in Towson as assistant rector, becoming rector in 1969. When he retired from Trinity in 2005, he had been there a total of 49 years. One communicant said, “His sermons made me think and were an appeal to the heart.” Another said, “Kingsley was a committed priest and a consummate teacher.”
Kingsley’s community involvement ranged from a professorship at Goucher College to a chaplaincy at Towson University. He was also a Towson YMCA board member, a founder of Historic Towson Inc. and president of the School Board Nominating Convention.
In retirement, Kingsley filled in at local churches, became the historian for the Episcopal Diocese and wrote essays on local church colonial racism. He spent summers on Lake Eaton in the Adirondacks.
Our sympathy is extended to his wife of 71 years, Mary Lee “Breezy”; daughters Kimberly Anne Nichols, Gwendolen Post and Bonnie Smith; son David Smith; six granddaughters; and 10 great-grandchildren.
John Priesing ’50