John Pierpont Cobb

The Rev. John Pierpont Cobb, former rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Dayton, died on September 25, 2016, his 93rd birthday. Born in Chicago and raised in Winnetka, Illinois, the youngest of four siblings, Mr. Cobb graduated from New Trier High School and Harvard University. Like many in his generation, his education was interrupted by WW II, during which he served in North Africa, the Near East and Italy as an ambulance driver in the American Field Service. He saw prolonged front-line duty as the allied armies pushed their way north below Monte Cassino. After completing his tour of duty, he joined the US Navy as a hospital corpsman in 1944 and was stationed at Mare Island Naval Hospital in California, where he nursed quadruple amputees from the Pacific theater. This precocious experience of human suffering was to leave a life-long mark that he eventually managed to transform into a vocation for the ministry. Although he would have liked to continue graduate work in philosophy, Mr. Cobb was married with two young children by the time he finished Harvard and needed to be able to support his growing family. He and his wife, Ann, a native Californian, moved out to the San Francisco Bay area, where he worked successfully in business for many years, before attending the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. He was ordained to the diaconate in San Francisco in 1961 and to the priesthood in 1962 at Christ Church, Cincinnati, where he was serving as a curate. Rector of St. Mark’s, Dayton, for 32 years until his retirement at age 72, Mr. Cobb was also quietly active in civic life in Dayton. He worked with Halfway House to help released prisoners; with the Dayton public schools to tutor minority children with reading difficulties; and to fight discrimination in the access to housing and jobs. With his wife, Ann, a social worker with Montgomery County Children’s Services, he initiated volunteer work on a large scale amongst parishioners, creating the Home Sweet Home program which linked volunteers within the parish to single mothers needing help and mentoring. To this day, St. Mark’s remains linked through volunteer work to Care House, Dayton, of which his daughter, Libby Nicholson, is director. As a widower, Mr. Cobb shared his life in retirement in Gloucester, Massachusetts and many of his extensive world travels with his long-term companion, Mary Frear. His last year was spent in quiet dignity in the loving care of the staff of Deupree Cottages, an Episcopal Retirement Services facility in Cincinnati. Known as Father Cobb or Father John to many, he is survived by four of his five children; 12 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 456 Woodman Dr. on Saturday, October 8, 2016 at 11 AM. Condolences for the family can be made at www.tobiasfuneralhome.com