Father George A. Wilkinson Jr., a priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington for more than 20 years who was a widower and father of 12 before he joined the seminary, died April 16 at the family residence in Avenue, Maryland. He was 89 years old.

Father Wilkinson decided to enter the priesthood about 10 months after the death of his wife, Mary Anne. The couple had been married for 38 years when Mary Anne succumbed to breast cancer in 1996.

In a 2001 interview with the Catholic Standard prior to his ordination, he said his decision to enter the priesthood came about while on retreat at the Loyola Retreat House in Faulkner, Maryland. “I was praying to God what do with my life now that I lost my best friend,” he recalled in that interview. “And it was just ‘boom!’ the answer was right there.”

George Albert Wilkinson was born Sept. 9, 1933 in Washington, D.C. to George Albert Wilkinson Sr. and Lillian (Hayden) Wilkinson. He attended the Campus School at The Catholic University of America and St. John’s College High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Georgetown University prior to joining the U.S. Army. While stationed at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, he took law classes at night at Boston College.

In 1957, he married Mary Anne Reilly, his high school sweetheart. The couple met at a CYO-sponsored dance. In his 2001 interview with the Catholic Standard, Father Wilkinson said that before they were married, Mary Anne considered entering a convent and he had considered the priesthood, but “it was God’s own will we married.”

After his discharge from the Army, he attended night school at CUA’s Columbus School of Law while holding a variety of jobs in the private and public sector. After earning his law degree, he served at several law firms in the Washington area before founding his own law firm in 1972. Prior to the joining the seminary, Father Wilkinson was a senior law partner for 25 years in his own Hyattsville-based law firm, Wilkinson and Zapp. He was a member of the District of Columbia and Maryland State Bars.

“Even while running a small business and supporting his ever-growing family, he made the time to serve as president of elementary and middle school PTA’s and was an active member of the College Park Rotary Club for many years,” said Father Wilkinson’s son, James.

Father Wilkinson was ordained to the Permanent Diaconate on May 20, 2000. After seminary studies at Pope John XXIII Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts, he was ordained a priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington at The Cathedral of Matthew the Apostle on June 9, 2001.

James Wilkinson said that because his father received the Sacrament of the Sick as a teenager during a serious bout with typhoid, Father Wilkinson – with his ordination– had received all seven sacraments of the Catholic Church during his lifetime.

In his 2001 interview with the Catholic Standard, Father Wilkinson said “I am a very blessed man. I am the luckiest man in the world. God has treated me good. I had the best friend of my life for 38 years, and now I am going to be a priest.”

As an ordination gift to their father, the Wilkinson children presented him with an engraved chalice. Welded to the chalice were the wedding rings George and Mary Ann exchanged in 1957. “Each day when I say Mass and lift that chalice, I will remember my married life and my best friend,” Father Wilkinson said of that gift.

After his ordination, Father Wilkinson was first assigned as parochial vicar at Sacred Heart Parish in La Plata, Maryland, and then in 2003 as parochial vicar at St. Andrew the Apostle Parish in Silver Spring, Maryland. In 2005, he was appointed parochial administrator of Holy Redeemer Parish in College Park, Maryland and as pastor there in 2006.

“He often joked that he helped people with the law when he was a lawyer, and as a priest he helped people with a higher law,” James Wilkinson said. “As a lawyer and then a priest, he saw it all, knew what to say, and what the proper mindset was to approach a problem.”

He retired on July 6, 2012, and then served for a year and a half in the Diocese of Tucson on an Apache Reservation at San Carlos and in service to a parish there.

James Wilkinson joked that after ministering to Native Americans in Arizona, his father “then traveled extensively to take advantage of free lodging among the diaspora of his family, and eventually settled in St. Mary’s County.”

Calling his father “a devout Catholic,” James Wilkinson noted that “the final Mass he (Father Wilkinson) attended was the Mass of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. He was called home by the Lord on the Sunday of Divine Mercy.”

In addition to his parents and his wife, Father Wilkinson was preceded in death by his sister, Eleanor “Louise” Keegan.

He is survived by seven daughters: Anne Rajagopalan (Shrin) of Raleigh, North Carolina, Mary Regina “Jean” Wilkinson (Keith) of Warrenton, Virginia, Kathleen Carmody (Brennan) of Glen Allen, Virginia, Rose Crunkleton (Joe) of Owings, Maryland, Bernadette Wilkinson of Tucson, Arizona, Rebecca Wilkinson (Joy) of Oceanside, California, and Megan Wilkinson of San Francisco, California; five sons: Thomas Wilkinson (Jennifer) of Avenue, Maryland, George Wilkinson III (Jen) of Bellingham, Washington, James Wilkinson II (Nipa) of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, John Wilkinson (Violet) of Colonial Beach, Virginia, and Daniel Wilkinson of Temple Hills, Maryland; two sisters: Joan Craft (Gary) of Bradenton, Florida and Susan Burgoyne (Jerry) of Prescott, Arizona; one sister-in-law: Maureen Owens of Henderson, Nevada; 29 grandchildren, and two great grandchildren and another on the way.

A vigil will be held on Friday, April 21, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Holy Redeemer Church in College Park. A prayer service will be held at 3 p.m. and a Vigil Mass will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m. A second viewing will be held there on Saturday, April 22, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., followed by a Mass of Christian Burial celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr.

Interment will follow at Sacred Heart Cemetery, Bushwood, Maryland.

The family asks consideration of memorial contributions to: St. Joseph’s Indian School; or Holy Angels Church; or Holy Redeemer Church and School.