John Washington Fredette III
July 11, 1955 – July 16, 2026
Is he native to this realm? No,
his wide nature grew out of both worlds.
They more adeptly bend the willow’s branches
who have experience of the willow’s roots.
When you go to bed, don’t leave bread or milk
on the table: it attracts the dead—
But may he, this quiet conjurer, may he
beneath the mildness of the eyelid
mix their bright traces into every seen thing;
and may the magic of earthsmoke and rue
be as real for him as the clearest connection.
Nothing can mar for him the authentic image;
whether he wanders through houses or graves,
let him praise signet ring, gold necklace, jar.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnet VI
John moved through the world with an unusual combination of enthusiasm and discernment. He delighted in a place, an object, a work of art, a meal, a story. He noticed what others missed. He looked closely. He was curious about how things came to be, what made them beautiful, and what stories they carried.
John was gently fierce. He knew himself. He understood people and the complicated currents that moved beneath their words and actions, yet he remained open to the pleasures of the world. His awareness never hardened into cynicism. He could see the machinery and still participate in the moment; recognize the absurdity and still find something worth loving.
Not long after he underwent heart surgery, John was determined to travel for work. After an accident in the hospital left him with both ankles broken, he was still determined to make the trip. He was pushed through the airport in a wheelchair. Once he arrived, he navigated on crutches and entered those meetings with the energy and purpose of someone half his age. He didn’t let circumstance narrow his world.
That determination was inseparable from his curiosity. John wanted to be present. He wanted to see, to participate, to understand what was happening around him. He took in the spectacle without losing sight of what lay beneath it. He engaged with the world, even when it made engagement difficult.
His friendships did the same. They sparked conversations, introduced new worlds, challenged assumptions, and left people seeing things differently than before. One longtime friend remembered that John entered his life as a coworker and became a lasting friend who helped him become a better writer, a broader thinker, and a more understanding person.
John was, above all, a storyteller. He didn’t tell stories simply to entertain. He carried them with him: stories from childhood, things his mother had told him, encounters from work, moments that had stayed with him for years. He found the thread that connected them to whatever you were living through. A story about his own life could illuminate yours.
That was part of his generosity. John paid attention. He remembered things. He listened closely, noticed what mattered, and gave people his full attention. He had a way of making you feel that your story, too, was worth hearing.
John’s mother, Barbara, helped cultivate that instinct for discovery. From everything John carried forward from her, there was an intellectual curiosity and an elegance in the way she saw the world. He returned to her words throughout his life, carrying them with him as he looked for what was beautiful, unexpected, and worth knowing. She taught him to look closely, remain steadfastly curious, and find beauty in the world around him.
His love of art and culture was not an ornament to his life; it was one of the ways he understood it. At the University of Pittsburgh, he explored architecture, history, and the medieval and Renaissance worlds with the same curiosity that shaped his life afterward. He created a walking architectural tour of Oakland and completed one of the university’s first two concurrent undergraduate certificates in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Later, John moved from academia into communications and technology, but he never stopped thinking like a storyteller. He brought his eye for narrative, culture and people into his professional life and worked in corporate communications in North Carolina and beyond.
John collected and curated antiques, but even those words feel too small for what he did with them. He found objects and gave them a history. He lived with them, studied them, imagined where they belonged, and often knew what they could bring to a room before their future owners did. He kept more than he sold, but over time many of the things he collected found their way to the person meant to have them.
Sometimes it was as simple as a text with just an image: three copper bowls. You didn’t know you needed three copper bowls. John found them, thought of you, and soon he’d be at your door, delivering them as if he had only returned something that already belonged to you. He had an instinct for the things other people passed by. He could recognize beauty before anyone else had decided that something was beautiful, and he could make you see it too.
He loved paintings of women from every era. He looked at the way a woman posed, the way an artist saw her, and the space between the two. He looked for the life inside the painting.
He once had a model replica of Show Boat that he loved. He could not understand why no one else wanted it. That bewilderment captured something essential in John: he could see something in an object that had nothing to do with whether it was useful, fashionable, or wanted. He could see its story. He could see its possibility.
For more than forty years, John shared his life with Doug. Doug was his partner and, in the deepest sense, his soulmate. They built a life together shaped by love, friendship, art and the pleasures of discovering the world. Their three cats were their sons. John adored those cats and spoke of them with the seriousness and affection he brought to the people and things that mattered to him. They belonged to the life he made, and he belonged to theirs.
John leaves behind not simply memories, but the stories he gave to other people—the connections he made, the things he taught without preaching, the beauty he pointed out, and the moments when his way of seeing helped someone else see differently.
He is survived by his brother, Lawrence Fredette; his niece, Alyssa Fredette; and his nephew, Eric Fredette. He was predeceased by his husband, Douglass Sturdivant; his parents, John Fredette Jr. and Barbara Fredette; his nephew, Benjamin Fredette; and his sister-in-law, Aimee Fredette.
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