The Rev. Paul E. Langpaap; Devoted Care To Trinity Gardens, Parishioners

Snowdrops in January, tulips in May, giant yellow pom-pom chrysanthemums in November and shrubs clipped to perfection year 'round.

If the grounds of Trinity Episcopal Church Rectory are a Garden of Eden, they have the Rev. Canon Paul Euvrard Langpaap to thank.

And if thousands of parishioners throughout Western Washington have had their spiritual lives cultivated with the same care, they can also thank that San Francisco-born minister.

Father Langpaap, who died of an abdominal aneurysm Tuesday at age 75, treated everything and everyone with down-to-earth practicality.

His garden - and his bonsai collection at his Queen Anne Hill home - was in apple-pie order, fed by the compost heap he also kept.

And although patrician in bearing - Father Langpaap loved doing all God's work, whatever form it took.

Pearl LaRonde, his longtime assistant, said, "He was always compassionate with the staff and interested in what was going on in our lives. He was thrifty but was there if anybody needed help - financial or otherwise. And it was always done very quietly."

Father Langpaap served as archdeacon of the Diocese of Olympia from 1983 to 1989. For 27 years before that, he was at Seattle's Trinity Church, and also served as archdeacon of the Seattle Metropolitan Area.

Beginning in the 1960s, he served the commission charged with revising the Book of Common Prayer, the guide to the Episcopal Church's worship services.

And on one of Father Langpaap's world travels, said friend and tour escort Mark Gralia, the priest was asked to be the archbishop of Canterbury's chaplain at the cornerstone laying in St. George's College, Jerusalem.

He always knew the liturgy and insisted on the proper way to do things, said LaRonde. "But he also saw the lighter side."

Father Paul amused himself spare evenings by doing needlework. Or having a heated argument with a friend about news of the day, over a spot of single-malt scotch in the den where hung a coat-of-arms bestowed on a titled ancestor in Napoleon's era.

A favorite practice before his sermon was to gather the children on the chancel steps and give them their own five-minute sermon.

"Some of those people are adults now, with their own children," said Gralia. "The memory of that special attention is one of the things they've carried all their life."

Father Paul is survived by his sister Eleanor Langpaap, San Francisco, who attended a memorial service yesterday at Trinity Church.

Memorials are suggested to Trinity Church Endowment Fund, or Diocese of Olympia Trust for the Endowment of Mission Ministries.