Augustine Warner Janeway Rhodes, 86, mother and volunteer

Services are to be Saturday, Oct. 17, for Augustine Warner Janeway Rhodes, 86, formerly of Villanova, a mother and volunteer, who died Saturday, Aug. 22, of cancer at the Quadrangle in Haverford.

Known as Tina, Mrs. Rhodes had houses in Bradenton Fla., and Princeton and Cape May, N.J., but her family's life really revolved around their home in Villanova.

She was born in Phoenixville, the daughter of Augustine Smith and Helen Gulick Janeway. As a child, she moved with her family to Washington, Harrisburg, and Ventnor, N.J., as her father accepted leadership positions in government service, including as commanding officer of the Pennsylvania National Guard and executive director of the Pennsylvania General State Authority.

Mrs. Rhodes graduated from the Oldfields School in Glencoe, Md., in 1946, and spent a postgraduate year at the Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont, before attending the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. After graduating in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in English, Mrs. Rhodes worked as an editor at Curtis Publishing in Philadelphia.

In 1952, she married William McKinney at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont. They had a son. McKinney died in an auto accident in 1956. Two years later, on St. Valentine's Day, she married Dr. William Harker Rhodes, a pioneer in the field of veterinary radiology, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Oaks. Rhodes adopted the McKinneys' son, and the couple had four more children.

Mrs. Rhodes was very active in musical theater as a young woman. With her sister Julia Janeway Sibley she cowrote a number of musicals that were performed by the Main Line Music Crafters.

In the 1980s, she painted portraits in watercolors. During her later years, she wrote a screenplay, Dinner With Henry van Dyke. He was an early 20th-century American clergyman, poet, and educator.

She had a zest for all things equestrian, said her family in a remembrance. At various times, she rode horseback, judged dressage competitions, and served as commentator for the crowds during tournaments at the Jackson Hole Polo Club. She foxhunted with the Radnor Hunt Club.

"All the kids had equestrian training," said her son Elliot Jason Rhodes.

She loved to sail and play bridge while vacationing at Cape May, where she was a member of the Corinthian Yacht Club.

A devout Christian, Mrs. Rhodes studied Old Testament Greek and Latin and took graduate courses in divinity at Duke University. While living in Tucson, Ariz., she volunteered at the Casa de los Ninos, caring for abused children. She also offered informal ministry to inmates at the local penitentiary.

Her son said she didn't hesitate to approach the prison's most notorious characters, saying they were serving their time and should be given a chance to redeem themselves.

She had friends of all religious denominations.

"Her quality of spirit is easily seen in the many religious, humanitarian, and environmental charities to which she routinely and generously contributed," her son said.

Dr. Rhodes, from whom she was divorced, died in 2010. Her sister died in 1972.

Besides her son Elliot, Mrs. Rhodes is survived by sons Gus, Chris, and Sandy; a daughter, Anne Amos; seven grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; a sister; and a total of five nieces and nephews.

Memorial services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 126 Black Rock Rd., Oaks. Burial was private.

bcook@phillynews.com

610-313-8102