Mary E. Green Bumstead

Sun­bury Native

Mary E. Green Bumstead

Mary E. Green Bum­stead, 101, wife of the late Augus­tine Drum­mond Bum­stead, passed away July 18, 2012 at Vil­lage on the Isle, Venice, Florida, Mary’s home from 1998.

Mary was born on April 21, 1911, in Sun­bury to Vatchel Met­calf Green and Mona Whet­sel Green of Wal­nut Hill Farm. Mary attended Sun­bury High School and grad­u­ated from Ohio North­ern Uni­ver­sity with a degree in edu­ca­tion in 1931.

Mary Green mar­ried Augus­tine (Gus) Bum­stead in 1936. They were hap­pily mar­ried for 31 years, resid­ing in Oak­wood in Day­ton until Gus’ death in 1967.

Mary was pre­ceded in death by her daugh­ter Rebecca Bum­stead Gor­man in 1998.

Mary is sur­vived by her daugh­ter Vic­to­ria Bum­stead of New York City, son-in-law Fran­cis Gor­man of Attle­boro and Cape Cod, Mass­a­chu­setts, and her extended fam­ily, the Under­woods — Anne, Charles, Edward and families.

For 100 years, Mary Bum­stead cel­e­brated with love, joy, zest, and a pos­i­tive atti­tude every per­son and day in her life through teach­ing, Peace Corps, vol­un­teer­ing, and fun adventures.

• Teach­ing: Mary’s life­long com­mit­ment to teach­ing began in her home­town as a first grade teacher at Sun­bury Ele­men­tary for five years. After mov­ing to Day­ton, Mary taught first grade at Har­man Ele­men­tary in Oak­wood for 22 years.

• Honor: Mary Bum­stead was elected to the Edu­ca­tion Hall of Honor, Oak­wood, Ohio, by stu­dents for the won­der­ful dif­fer­ence her teach­ing and car­ing atti­tude made in their lives. A stu­dent wrote: “Mrs. Bum­stead cre­ated a first grade full of joy, dis­cov­ery and creativity.”

• Peace Corps: At the age of 67, wid­owed, Mary ful­filled a goal to join the Peace Corps, serv­ing as a read­ing spe­cial­ist for two years in Liberia, West Africa. She lived in a mud and brick hut. In her class­room, 15 stu­dents had to share one pen­cil. When Mary returned to the United States, she gave 150 lec­tures on her Peace Corps ser­vice, donat­ing lec­ture fees to the Liber­ian school for books and pen­cils. Mary’s best gift: a pic­ture of her Liber­ian class with each stu­dent hold­ing their own pencil.

• Award: Cer­tifi­cate of Appre­ci­a­tion to Mary Bum­stead from the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion in Liberia for her mer­i­to­ri­ous teach­ing services.

• Vol­un­teer­ing: Mary had an unstop­pable enthu­si­asm for help­ing oth­ers, includ­ing through: Lit­er­acy Vol­un­teers of Amer­ica, Venice Florida Chap­ter. Mary taught Eng­lish to peo­ple study­ing to become U.S. cit­i­zens. A fam­ily she helped, par­ents and daugh­ter, are now suc­cess­ful U.S. cit­i­zens and attended Mary’s 100th birth­day party as hon­ored guests.

ZetaTau Alpha Venice Florida, Divi­sion of National Soror­ity. Mary par­tic­i­pated in many Zeta char­i­ta­ble projects and spear­headed col­lect­ing stamps for “Food Around the World”.

Award: ZTA Out­stand­ing Alum­nae Award “in recog­ni­tion of Mary Bumstead’s work as an edu­ca­tor and her sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in over­com­ing illit­er­acy in the world.”

• Adven­tures: Mary led not only a life of ser­vice, but of adven­ture. In her 80’s and 90’s, after her Africa assign­ment, Mary took up para­chute jump­ing, scuba div­ing, jet-skiing, hot-air bal­loon­ing and enjoyed her 1972 “mus­cle car” Cut­lass convertible.

Funeral Ser­vices for Mary will be held at 2 p.m. on Mon­day, July 30, at the DeVore-Snyder Funeral Home, Ohio 3 at 61, Sun­bury, with Pas­tor Brian Smith officiating.

Inter­ment will fol­low in the Sun­bury Memo­r­ial Park.

Con­do­lences may be expressed at < www.snyderfuneralhomes.com >.

Dona­tions in Mary Bumstead’s honor are wel­come to the following:

Ohio North­ern Uni­ver­sity, Advance­ment Office, 525 South Main Street, Ada, Ohio 45810

Vil­lage on the Isle, Advance­ment Office, 920 Tami­ami Trail South, Venice, Florida 34285

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.