Bertram Cottingham Dedman

Mr. Bertram Cottingham Dedman, 90, retired prominent trial attorney, general counsel and resident of Nashville, died Friday, April 8, 2005 at Baptist Hospital. A memorial service will be conducted Monday at 11:00 a.m. at St. George's Episcopal Church, 4715 Harding Road, Nashville, with the Rev. Mark Wilson officiating. The family will visit with friends from 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the church. From 3:00 to 3:30 p.m. the family will visit with friends in the Parish Hall of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 311 West 7th Street, Columbia. Graveside services will be conducted at 4:00 p.m. at Rose Hill Cemetery in Columbia with The Rev. Michael Murphy officiating. Oakes & Nichols Funeral Directors are in charge of arrangements. The family would appreciate memorials made to St. John's Episcopal Church at Ashwood, in care of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 311 West 7th Street, Columbia, 38401. Notes of sympathy may be made to www.oakesandnichols.com. The Columbia native was the son of the late Bertram C. Dedman, Sr. and Mary Ella Fariss Dedman Auer. He was Valedictorian of his graduating class at Columbia Military Academy and a graduate of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee and George Washington University Law School in Washington, D. C. During World War II, he served in the U. S. Navy as a lieutenant, posted to Moscow, Archangel and Murmansk as an Assistant Naval Attache to the U.S.S.R. After the war, he was employed as a trial attorney by the U. S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Washington, D. C. and, subsequently, by Texaco, Inc. in Los Angeles. In 1955 he joined Insurance Company of North America in Philadelphia and remained there until 1980 when he retired as Vice President and General Counsel of the parent company, INA Corporation (now CIGNA). While living in Devon, Pennsylvania, he was a communicant of St. David's (Radnor) Episcopal Church and a member of Waynesborough Country Club and the Urban Club of Philadelphia. Mr. Dedman was a member of the American, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia and Tennessee Bar Associations.Following his retirement, he and his wife moved to Columbia and resided there until moving to Richland Place, a retirement community in Nashville. While living in Columbia, Mr. Dedman served as Senior Warden of the Vestry of St. Peter's Episcopal Church and as an overseer of St. John's Episcopal Church at Ashwood. H was a member of the Graymere Country Club in Columbia. While a resident of Nashville, he was a communicant of St. George's Episcopal Church. He is survived by his wife, Rainsford MacDowell Dedman of Nashville; two daughters, Rainsford D. (Theodore) Olson of Kirkland, Washington and Ella B. Dedman of Phoenix, Arizona; three grandchildren, Fariss McGee of Medina, Washington, Brooks Olson of Snoqualmie, Washington and Rainsford Yang of Phoenix, Arizona; and four great-grandchildren.