Rev. Dr. Percy Linwood "Lin" Urban, former 45-year resident of Swarthmore, passed away on Friday, January 29, 2021 at The Quadrangle, a Sunrise Senior Living Community in Haverford, PA due to Parkinson's disease.

Lin was a loving and thoughtful husband, father, grandfather, professor, clergyman, peacemaker, servant of the poor and dispossessed, author, gardener, historian, crossword puzzle aficionado, and master of satire, dry humor, and plain speak. His deep, abiding faith helped him face the challenges life gave him with acceptance, grace, and hope.  Patience, humor, and a long-term commitment to the less fortunate were overarching themes for his life.

Lin was born on April 12, 1924 in Philadelphia, PA to Percy Linwood Urban and Mary Robinson Hodge Urban. The eldest of three children, he spent his childhood in the farming community of North Haven, CT, where his father was Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church and later Dean of Berkeley Divinity School.  His exuberant family included numerous clergypersons and theologians and loved to get together for family reunions, to render the family song, expand the family scrapbook, and so on.  Lin was devoted to his siblings (Margaret and Bayard) and loved to recount their escapades and adventures and to poke fun at the foibles of his larger family.

After graduating from Choate in 1942, Lin earned an A.B. in philosophy at Princeton University in 1946.  Shortly thereafter, he went on to earn bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in sacred theology at the General Theological Seminary in New York City.  In 1951, he married Ann (Nancy) Frances Coward, a close college friend of his sister, at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, PA.  Lin and Nancy spent their early married life in Manhattan and Yonkers while Lin continued his studies at The General, also serving as priest-in-charge at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Chelsea, then an underserved community, and later as chaplain at the Leake and Watts Foundation children's home for severely disturbed orphan boys in Yonkers.  He was tickled years later to encounter one of the former residents of Leake and Watts on the plaza outside the Swarthmore College library, there to apply for a job as an assistant professor.

While in New York City, Lin and Nancy had their first two children, Catherine and Joan.  The sudden, unexpected death of Cathy in 1957 agonized the family and the Leake and Watts community.  Lin went on to finish his studies and was offered that spring a teaching job at Swarthmore College, something he always credited to his remarkable memory.   Waylaid en route to the college by a flat tire, Lin arrived in reasonable time because he remembered a short-cut his parents had taken almost 25 years earlier.  This so impressed the interviewers that they thought they ought to hire him.  David and Ann were born in Swarthmore, and Lin and Nancy lived a long and happy life there raising the children and participating as active members of Trinity Episcopal Church.

Lin was passionate about academic study and loved to teach and to help students subject their beliefs to rational thought and rigorous fact-finding and find ways to carry their beliefs with consistency into the world around them.  One student remembers that Lin taught him how to argue, while another remembers "his wry humor, his gentle digs, and a largesse of faith that is almost unique to him."  Lin was founder of the Department of Religion and served on numerous committees at the college.  Some have observed that no faculty member chaired more crisis committees there than he.   When a group of students took over the Admissions Office in spring of 1969, demanding a change in admissions policy, Lin was asked to chair the faculty meetings as well as the joint committee of students and faculty that was formed to address the students' concerns.   Classes were shut down for a few weeks, during which period the young college president died of a heart attack.  The committee ultimately endorsed several of the students' demands and  its efforts were said to have "played a major role in defusing the explosive situation." Later, Lin was chair of the faculty grievance committee when it reviewed and challenged a tenure decision that had rocked the campus.

Lin helped establish and remained for decades a prime mover in Partners in Ministry at the college, an organization founded with the support of local Protestant churches and the Friends Meeting to bring a Protestant chaplain, a position later broadened to Director of Religious and Spiritual Life, to the campus.  He retired in 1992 as the Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor Emeritus of Religion and is the author of two books: The Power of God , edited with Douglas N. Walton and A Short History of Christian Thought .

The family reunions had been suspended for over two decades due to the old age of many of the participants.  Lin played the chief role in resurrecting the tradition and in organizing the first several reunions, since then held every five years.

In 2002, Lin and Nancy moved to Quadrangle, where Lin remained immersed in Partners in Ministry and the study of religion and for many years coordinated the weekly lecture series for Quadrangle residents.

Lin remained active throughout his life in the Episcopal Church Diocese of Pennsylvania, serving on many committees and as a temporary pastor as needed at local churches. He was Dean of the Delaware County Deanery for the Diocese of Pennsylvania for six years during his retirement.

Lin is preceded in death by two children, Catherine Jacobs Urban and Richard Urban, his parents, and his two siblings Margaret Urban Johnson and Hugh Bayard Urban.  He is survived by his wife Ann Coward Urban; children Margaret Joan Urban, Swarthmore, PA, David Linwood Urban (Molly), Shaker Heights, OH, and Ann Crenshaw Urban (Mark Glen), Winston-Salem, NC; and grandchildren James Linwood Urban (Courtney Mazur), Daniel Asher Urban, Nathaniel David Clark Urban, and Emma Louise Glen.

A memorial service will be held at a later date.