Obituary of David Edward Coventry

David Coventry was born in England in 1945 to Pamela Brown Coventry, a homemaker and former WWII codebreaker and Gilbert Coventry, an actor turned film producer. He was the oldest of four siblings and is survived by two of them, Michael and Diana. As a schoolboy in Maidenhead, Berkshire, David attended the Sir William Borlase school and enjoyed what he described as an ideal English countryside life: playing rugby, going down to the pub on a Friday night, and working in the local record store. It was in this record store where he developed his life-long love of rock and roll music. Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and particularly Elvis Presley delighted him; he loved to share that delight with his family by blasting the oldies on Sunday mornings. 

As a young man beginning his career in London David worked for a subsidiary of Unilever and was transferred to Nigeria where he lived for two years doing marketing for Phillip Morris. Back in the UK David went to his first Scientology lecture and became a Scientologist, a philosophy from which he garnered great satisfaction and to which he remained devoted until the end of his life. 

In 1977 he met Barbara Pandolfi, an Italian-American violinist from New York City, and they were married. In the subsequent years, Barbara and David had their first two children, Chloe and Christopher, and moved from England to Philadelphia, where they worked at the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential as teacher and administrator respectively, and had their third child, Nicholas. In 1985 the family moved from Pennsylvania to Santa Barbara, California, where they would settle for the next 35 years. 

David worked in finance and investments, advising teachers on their retirement, and he was lucky enough to do a job he loved. A consummate people person, David enjoyed talking to and helping his clients, many of whom became friends over the years. His inclination was to speak to people, friend or stranger, and learn about them; he was curious about others and the world. He was outgoing, a man who had a snippet of song for every occasion, and a joke for every waitress. 

A loyal person, David kept up his friendships across the Atlantic for his whole life and visited regularly. One of his deep pleasures in the last years of his life was going out to breakfast with his close friend Phil and talking about everything – “setting the world to rights,” as they called it. He spent many happy moments with his dear sister Diana, who had also moved to Santa Barbara, and with his nephews and nieces.

As Papa to six grandchildren, David could be child-like in the best ways, and his games, jokes and time spent with them was immensely joyful. At the center of his life was his beloved wife Barbara, to whom he was married to for 46 years, his three children, and those six grandchildren, Theo, Everett, Ethan, Florence, Esme and Elliot, all of whom survive him. 

David was dearly loved by us all and we wish him well in his new adventures.

A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday March 16, 2024 at McDermott-Crockett Mortuary Chapel, 2020 Chapala St. Santa Barbara, CA 93105