Cathedral Dean 1951–1978
Francis Bowes Sayre
Francis Bowes Sayre
Born in the White House in 1915, the grandson of President Woodrow Wilson (who is interred in the Cathedral), Dean Francis Bowes Sayre was elected the chief administrative officer of Washington National Cathedral in January 1951 at the age of 36, the youngest dean ever to serve the Cathedral. He served as a Navy chaplain during World War II, was assistant rector of Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and rector of St. Paul’s Church in Cleveland, Ohio, before coming to the Cathedral. As its iconographer, he invited the public to submit ideas for gargoyles, 12 of which were eventually carved in stone. His then-controversial decision to build the central Gloria in Excelsis tower before completing the nave was an insight that may well have made possible the completion of the Cathedral before the end of the century. An outstanding preacher, Dean Sayre spoke in his sermons of the mission of the Cathedral. “Cathedrals do not belong to a single generation,” he once said. “They are churches of history. They gather up the faith of a whole people and proclaim the goodly Providence which has welded that people together as they have hoped and suffered and believed across the centuries.”
Dean Sayre died on October 3, 2008; a funeral was held on October 25 at the Cathedral.
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