Friend Stephen Barber Davidson
Stephen Barber Davidson died in Toulouse, France on November 15, 2003. He was born on April 23, 1943 in Aurora, Illinois, the son of Robert Otto Davidson and Alice Barber Davidson. He left the Midwest for Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, then for Yale University where he graduated summa cum laude in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he received a Fulbright scholarship to Montpellier, France. He returned to Yale to pursue graduate work and received a grant to study in Paris at the Ecole Normale Superieure where he completed his doctoral thesis on Rabelais. For ten years, he taught French and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota.
A gifted artist, he chose to follow his interest in art and architectural preservation, and trained as a professional art restorer at the International Center for Restoration in Rome. He worked in that capacity both in Europe and North America.
A deep and intense spirituality guided his life. Through the American Friends Service Committee, he worked as a volunteer in mental institutions while in college. This direct involvement with the Religious Society of Friends was a defining experience. He attended the Lake Harriet Quaker Meeting in Minneapolis, and upon moving to Cumberland County, Pennsylvania became a member of Menallen Friends Meeting in Biglerville. In 1984, he was one of the founding members of the Carlisle Friends Meeting. His wisdom, indefatigable travels, visits between Friends Meetings, and his capacity to listen, made him an active member of Baltimore Yearly Meeting where he clerked several committees.
His ministry had an international dimension as well. He was an active participant in the Societe Religieuse des Amis, Assemblee de France where he organized and coordinated regional worship groups throughout southwest France and Spain. Committed to service and justice, he was active in several international peace organizations, among them Church and Peace and Pax Christi, and was the American representative of ACAT (Association of Christians Against Torture).
At home, he was an involved member of the Carlisle community. He served on the boards of the Carlisle Area religious Council, Project SHARE, Cumberland Valley Habitat for Humanity, and he gave time to prison ministry and the Samaritan Fellowship.
He was a loving and tender husband and father and a faithful and compassionate friend. An erudite scholar, a theologian, an artist, and a tree farmer, he walked simply and humbly in the world. He is survived by his wife, Sylvie G. Davidson, his two daughters, Sarah and Sophie Davidson, his step-mother, Pauline Davidson, his sister, Margaret Davidson-Vazansky and his brother Bruce Davidson.
He was not that Light, but the witness of that Light. John 1:8
