Obituary of Mary C Bounds

Mary Cordelia Bounds, (nee Howard), passed away peacefully in her sleep on Saturday, January 13, 2018 in West Cape May, NJ at the same location where she was born on 19 December 1913, 104 years earlier.  She was the only daughter of Ottier M. and Mary C. Howard, and the younger sister of two brothers, Weaver and Ottier Howard who both predeceased her.

As one might imagine, education was a very important element In Cordelia’s family. Her older brother, Weaver, a neurosurgeon, was a graduate of NYU Medical School, and her brother Ottier was a state- licensed Master Electrician. Cordelia skipped several grades in elementary school, and by the time she was 11 years old she was a freshman at Cape May City High School. She graduated as “First Honor Student”, (Valedictorian) of her high school class, was a freshman at Glassboro State College at age 15, and was a college graduate teaching school at age 18. She spent three years teaching first grade in Smithfield, North Carolina, before returning as a primary school teacher in her home town of Cape May, NJ.

At the age of 8, Cordelia asked her mother to allow her to take piano lessons. She was taught a classical curriculum, finished a six-year course of study in four years, and performed a graduation recital shortly after her 12th birthday. Her piano study laid the foundation for a lifetime of a love of music. She composed the music for the “Class Song” at her Glassboro College graduation. And in the days before “talkie” movies she provided the piano music that accompanied “silent” pictures at a local theatre.  Cordelia was the Organist and Choir Director at Bethel AME Church in Moorestown for over forty years.  Continuing well into her 90’s, she provided music for weekly singalongs at area nursing homes with The Tender, Inc. She also led evangelistic services at area nursing homes, complete with Bible studies and a “mini-sermonette.” Two years ago, she performed a Musical History concert at Brandywine Rehab Center in Moorestown attended by friends, residents, and Bethel Church members. She continued to play many songs from memory, including Christmas carols for her family as recently as December 2016.  

In 1941, Cordelia became the wife of Charles Alexander Bounds who lived in Moorestown, New Jersey. She continued to teach in Cape May, becoming a "week-end commuting wife." In 1942, when Charles was drafted into the Army and sent to Baer Field Air Base in Fort Wayne, Indiana, she remained in New Jersey. Shortly after the birth of their first child in 1943, Cordelia resigned from her teaching position and moved out to Fort Wayne where the family remained until returning to Moorestown in 1951. She returned to teaching and became a second-grade teacher in the Mt. Laurel School system where she served for a time as Acting Principal in Masonville, NJ. After returning to college to obtain a Master’s degree in Reading, she continued to serve in the classroom, and finally retired in 1983 as the School Reading Specialist at Mt. Laurel’s Fleetwood School after thirty years of dedicated service.

Cordelia was a tireless earthly missionary. Wherever or whenever there was a community or personal need, she could be found volunteering her time and treasure to better the lives of others. She served as a member and officer on many civic boards and organizations and was known for her selfless dedication to her church, her family, and her community.  As a young woman working with the USO, she orchestrated a concert by Paul Robeson in the Cape May community; as a Life Member of the NAACP she worked to register Black voters; as a Community Activist she was an early member of Moorestown Ecumenical Neighborhood Development, (MEND), to provide quality low-income housing; she was a founder in establishing a pre-school childcare program for Black children at the West End Community Center; she was a Den Mother for Moorestown’s first group of Black Cub Scouts; she was a faithful member and officer of Moorestown Church Women United; and a well-known Choir director at “Song Fests” throughout the AME Church’s First Episcopal District covering New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Cordelia inherited her father’s “green thumb”, (He was the caretaker for many years at the Emlen Physick Estate in Cape May). She could take any struggling seedling and nurse it into flourishing glory. While growing up in Cape May she became an avid swimmer and instilled in her children a love of long, languid days at the beach during summers spent at their Grandparents’ home in Cape May.

Cordelia was a woman of great faith. She was proud to share the source of her strength with anyone and insisted that that was what kept her going through the years.  Many times, before and after a medical crisis, she would declare her faith in God and tell the doctors and nurses that God had “never failed to bring her safely through”. 

Cordelia was the heart and soul of her extended and adoring family. She was their bedrock in times of calamity and their biggest cheerleader in times of jubilation. Her humility, humanity, and steadfast belief in finding the goodness in everyone will serve as a model for all to strive to emulate.  The world is a better and more beautiful place because of the lives that she enriched through her ministry of caring and self-sacrifice.

Cordelia was preceded in death by her husband of sixty-one years, Charles A. Bounds, Sr.,  and her eldest child, Catherine M. Bounds. She is survived by her three other children: Sharon L. Godfrey of Pennsauken, NJ; Charlotte E. Irving, (Ernest), Upper Marlboro, MD; and Charles A. Bounds, Jr., (Dorothy), of West Cape May, NJ. She also is survived by seven grandchildren, (Richard and Kevin Godfrey, Melissa and William Irving, Alexandra, Charles, III, and Christopher Bounds); six great-grandchildren; and a host of nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Burlington County Tender, Inc., 4501 Church Rd, Mt Laurel, NJ 08054.