Trudy A. James, 86, MRE, interfaith hospital chaplain, AIDS worker, end-of-life advocate, and much more, died Sunday, October 20, at her home in Seattle, surrounded by her family.

Trudy was born in a small town in the middle of Kansas on August 6, 1938, the first child of Adolf Gier and Gertrude (Witte) Gier. She surprised everyone by receiving a prestigious scholarship to the University of Kansas, which led to a BA with honors in English. She had two adventurous summers working in San Francisco, before attending Union Theological Seminary in the middle of New York City, where she received a master's in religious education. She moved to Edinboro, PA, in the 1960s, where she had four children with former husband (now deceased) Arthur Rathbun, and where she was very involved with the civil rights movement and working with high-need urban youth.

After moving back to Kansas with her family in 1974, she raised her children on small farms, sold real estate, did church youth work, and more, before getting divorced. She then made the bold move to take a pastoral care internship at the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock in 1989. As a newly trained chaplain from Kansas, she knew nothing about AIDS, a fearful, stigmatized disease, but learned fast from the eight AIDS patients she served that year. At the end of her internship, she applied for a new half-time position in Arkansas as director of the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), a four-state experiment funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and designed to see if people in churches could become part of the solution to AIDS hysteria in the South, via the creation of CareTeams helping people with AIDS.

She continued with this important work from 1989 to 1997, growing RAIN Arkansas until it covered the whole state, serving over 500 male and female CarePartners with AIDS, who, with the love and support from their CareTeams, talked openly about their own deaths, lived longer, and died more peacefully. She also traveled to ten other states to begin and support the CareTeam model, and was honored by President Clinton at the White House for her work with AIDS patients in 1993.

Trudy moved to Seattle in 1997 to be closer to her first grandchild, Kaiser. There she continued her work with the AIDS CareTeam program as part of the Seattle Multifaith AIDS Agency. She trained 70 such teams in the Puget Sound area, in addition working as a chaplain at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. She also began having her renowned fundraising events, which were a lovely combination of learning, celebrating, eating, and drinking.

When she "retired," she used what she learned from her work to see if others could become comfortable talking openly about death and planning for a good ending, and started an organization called Heartwork, initiating a program of four-session, community-based, end-of-life planning workshops called "A Gift for Yourself and Your Loved Ones." She went on to convene Grief and Loss groups in senior housing, facilitated three-day Aging Wisely Together retreats for women at Whidbey Institute, and spent years pioneering end-of-life work, along with training other facilitators to lead related workshops.

Trudy spent two years producing the film Speaking of Dying, which grew out of her experiences with more than 60 end-of-life groups (over 600 participants) and her desire to ensure that everyone knows a peaceful ending is possible. She screened the film throughout the Puget Sound area, and in Palm Springs, northwest Arkansas, Minneapolis, and other locations, and continued offering one-on-one support for individuals, couples, and family members dealing with illness, grief, loss, and the end of life up until days before her own death.
She was on the advisory board for End of Life Washington; gathered signatures for Washington's Death with Dignity law, passed in 2008; and received the 2020 Janet G. Newell Award for Community Service in 2020, presented by Companis, and the 2020 Inspire Positive Aging Award for her advocacy and activism, as well as other such honors.

But she received her greatest reward in helping others, in her work with AIDS and end-of-life issues , and in working closely with friends and colleagues.

Throughout her life, Trudy loved to travel, visiting the United Kingdom multiple times (with family, and also to talk about the AIDS CareTeam model), taking an inspirational trip to Thailand and Bali, and crisscrossing the US to talk about AIDS and end-of-life planning. She had a special connection to Italy, being deeply inspired by and feeling a spiritual kinship with St. Francis, and visited Assisi and other parts of the country numerous times.

One of Trudy's greatest joys in life was spending time with her grandchildren Kaiser and Coen, playing games, putting on holiday plays, cooking for them, and having long conversations with them. She also enjoyed doing art projects, baking, and watching movies with her "self-appointed" grandchild Tara Kankesh. She adored a good Aperol Spritz and a well-made tiramisu, and always kept her commitment to mind, body, heart, and spirit wholeness.

Trudy is preceded in death by her parents, brother Richard, and infant daughter Juliann. She is survived by daughters Holly DeMaranville (and grandsons Kaiser and Coen DeMaranville) and Jill Rathbun (Jonathan Davis), son A.J. Rathbun (Natalie Fuller and granddog Ainsley), brother Henry Gier, sister-in-law Kathy Gier, their children and grandchildren, sister-in-law Nancy Gier and her children, and many wonderful friends.

A celebration of Trudy's life will be held in the spring.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Trudy's name may be can be made to End of Life Washington by visiting her page at https://support.endoflifewa.org/a/trudy-james or by mail at 1600-B SW Dash Point Road #1272, Federal Way, WA 98023, or to Bailey-Boushay House by visiting its website http://www.baileyboushay.org and clicking "Donate," by phone at (877) 277-1025, or by mail to the Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Foundation at P.O. Box 1930, MS: D1-MF, Seattle, WA 98111.