54
DECEASED
1951
Lauriston Hazard McCagg
who lived a full
life as an adoptive
father, priest,
semi-professional
actor, and lover of
fine automobiles,
died on December
19, 2013, after a
long battle with
lung cancer.
Reverend McCagg took advantage of
Washington’s Death with Dignity Act,
seeking assistance to end his own life
with a prescription drug “cocktail.” He
announced his own death in an auto-
obituary timed for distribution after he
successfully executed his plan to die on
his own terms.
Born in New York City on January 23,
1934, to Edward King McCagg and Rosalind
Barnum McCagg, Reverend McCagg was
educated at Rippowam School in Bedford,
N.Y., before entering St. Paul’s as a Second
Former in the fall of 1946. He came from
a family of St. Paul’s graduates, including
his father, Edward McCagg of the Form
of 1920, and his grandfather, William H.
Barnum of the Form of 1901. At SPS, Rev-
erend McCagg participated in the Library
Association, Glee Club, Missionary Society,
Propylean Literary Society, Acolyte Guild,
and Choir. He also enjoyed rowing with Hal-
cyon, and playing football and ice hockey
with Delphian. He participated in theater
and played the piano. At graduation, he
was awarded the Howe Music Prize.
He went on to Yale, graduating with the
Class of 1955. He was a member of the
Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, a branch
of the Yale Glee Club. He sang with the
group in 1952 and managed the Yale Glee
Club from 1953 to 1955. His career included
work in a variety of fields, including ad-
vertising, architectural monitoring, sales,
and heavy construction management.
Reverend McCagg married Edlyn
(Cantwell) McCagg in February 1963 and
the couple adopted a son, Edward Cantwell
McCagg. The arrival of his son helped “Mr.”
McCagg make the decision to become
“Reverend” McCagg, saying that he felt he
should do something to make the world a
better place for his son.
In 1969, feeling that deeper calling, he
graduated from Episcopal Seminary in
Lexington, Ky. He was ordained as a deacon
that year and became a priest in 1970. He
served in parishes in Arkansas, Texas,
Oregon, and Washington, frequently for
little or no pay to assist congregations
in need.
In his auto-obituary, Reverend McCagg
listed events that were “personally signif-
icant in this old man’s life,” including his
embarrassment that he “goofed” the
Stanford-Binet IQ test in first grade by
missing a word problem involving apples.
In 1943, Reverend McCagg was enrolled
in a special Saturday music program at
Juilliard, which he hated because it limited
his time to play with friends. His first car,
purchased in 1949, was a 1924 American
LaFrance fire engine, bought at a junk
yard for $175. The vehicle was featured in
an article in
Parade
magazine. His car
collection eventually included a 1956
Rolls Royce and a 1938 Jaguar. He lived
in Hawaii for a while in the late 1950s,
quit a “career-type job” with Hawaiian
Dredging & Construction Co., and sailed
for a time aboard a 72-foot schooner.
Reverend and Mrs. McCagg, who pre-
deceased her husband in 1993, opened
their home to several “adoptive” sons.
The boys came from hard family situa-
tions or had fallen in with bad crowds.
All told, the couple helped 11 young men
get back on their feet. Reverend McCagg
wrote lovingly in his obituary of his 12
“sons” and of the 15 children who call
him Grandpa.
In his free time, Reverend McCagg en-
joyed acting with a semi-professional
troupe, most especially in his 1972 role
as Dylan Thomas in Sydney Michael’s
“Dylan.” He wrote about the
Arkansas
Gazette
’s review of the play, which
cautioned audience members not to be
concerned that the title role was being
acted by an Episcopal priest because
“the obscenities flow from his tongue as
if they are psalms.”
It was during a routine chest X-ray in
September of 2011 that doctors discov-
ered two spots on Reverend McCagg’s
lungs that turned out to be malignant. He
was given six months to live and, though
he declined chemotherapy as a treatment
option, he was proud to have beaten the
odds and determined to end life on his
own terms. He described in his obituary
his struggle to breathe, even with two
liters of oxygen pumping into his lungs
every minute, and his relief that he could
make a choice to end his suffering. “I have
reached the last significant turning point
of my life,” he wrote. “It’s called death.”
As a resident of Battle Ground, Wash.,
Reverend McCagg decided to take advan-
tage of the state’s Death with Dignity Act,
choosing to swallow 100 Seconal tablets
to accelerate a quick and painless death.
“The process is easy,” he wrote. “So
please don’t feel sad for me; I’m glad for
me. It beats the fool out of death by as-
phyxiation. And with those words, goodbye!
To one degree or another, each of you has
touched my life, has made it worth living,
and I thank you. And what I may have
done for some of you? The influence of
the pelican in the St Paul’s School emblem
has made it a cheerful endeavor. If I’m to
be remembered for anything significant,
it’s for John 15:13. That’s laying down a
life
, not a death. And, damn, I’ve enjoyed it!”
