Obituary of Jonathan August Davenport

If you build it, he will come - and walk off into the cornfield with his sons at his side and his wife sitting on the bleachers, marveling that a single snapshot could be so beautiful. So short-lived, and yet so enduring. That's pretty much the extraordinary life story of the Rev. Jonathan August Davenport of Ryland Heights, who in June took his family on a vacation to what he considered hallowed ground - the Iowa ball field where the movie "Field of Dreams" was filmed. "It was, like, everything magical that they say it is," his wife, Siri, said Monday. "I sat on the bleachers and watched Jon and the boys play on the field. They walked into the cornfield together." Less than two months later, on Saturday, the Rev. Davenport died from a form of bacterial pneumonia. He felt fine on the camping trip that included "Field of Dreams," then got severely ill quickly, leaving doctors at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Edgewood with few definitive answers. He was 36. After the trip with stops at the Wisconsin Dells and a Minnesota Twins baseball game in Minneapolis, "He said, "That was so good,'" said his wife of 12 years. Moments later, she fought tears as she recounted one of their last exchanges at his hospital bed. "I said, 'The boys are going to be OK.' Then he went on. He was a good, good man." He was pastor of Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church in Ryland Heights, and a former pastor of Campbellsburg/Sulfur United Methodist Church and assistant pastor of Utica United Methodist Church, Sterling Heights, Mich. Raised in Missouri and South Carolina, he grew up a huge baseball fan. One middle-of-the-night, when the young couple was living in Texas, he got caught up watching "Field on Dreams" and the next morning made a revelation to his wife: He wanted to join the ministry. "I was like, 'OK, you feeling OK?' " she said. He was. In fact, never better. His work in the ministry would take the family from Texas to Asbury, Ky., near Lexington. Then to Michigan. Then back to Kentucky, to Henry County. The family last year arrived in Northern Kentucky, with the Rev. Davenport taking the post at Pleasant Grove and the boys becoming active in Taylor Mill Boosters Baseball, with their dad as a coach. On the relatively small salary of a pastor, and with few weekends available, the Davenports had never been on a family vacation until June, when they packed up the pop-up trailer and headed first for Wisconsin. At the Twins game in Minneapolis, the boys got an official major-league baseball from a Twins coach. That was the ball they threw around with their dad on the legendary field in Dyersville, Iowa, Siri's home state. It was her idea to see the diamond where Kevin Costner's character chased a dream about carving a baseball field out of a cornfield for players past. "They want to be major-league players," Siri Davenport said of her sons. "One wants to be a pitcher, one wants to be a catcher." The Rev. Davenport's survivors include sons Seth Andrew Davenport and Jared Thomas Davenport, both of Ryland Heights; his father and stepmother, Tom and Sandy Davenport of Damascus, Va.; his mother and stepfather, Carol and Ron Deegan of Mount Vernon, Wash.; a brother, Ben Davenport of Richmond, Va.; and grandmother, Kathleen Bruce of Mission, Texas. Funeral services will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Christ United Methodist Church, Florence. Visitation will begin there at 1 p.m. Wednesday. Memorials are suggested to Taylor Mill Boosters Baseball, P.O. Box 613, Independence, Ky. 41051. Chambers and Grubbs Funeral Home, Independence, is handling arrangements.