Perhaps husbands do not normally write obituaries but I am going to attempt this. Maria Elizabeth DenBoer (neé Bulgarella), lamb of God, died on June 4, 2018, from some vicious type of gastric/stomach carcinoma (don’t be fooled--the Devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour). She had been hospitalized for 14 days and died relatively peacefully in her sleep.
Maria was born on September 15, 1954, in Athens, Georgia but lived almost all of her life in Grand Rapids and Grandville, Michigan. She was a woman of great warmth and optimism, always caring for the welfare of others, especially all those downtrodden by one thing or another, and she especially cared for and loved her family members.
She was also a woman of many accomplishments: a B.A. from Calvin College, a Veterinary Technology degree from Michigan State University, an M.A. from Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, and an on-line certificate in ornithology from The Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology. She worked as a copyeditor for over 30 years for some of the most prestigious university presses in the world, including Princeton University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, the University of Notre Dame Press, the University of Illinois Press, the University of London, Louisiana State University Press, and the University of Georgia Press among others. She also edited locally for Eerdmans Publishing and Baker Book House.
She knew Hebrew, ancient Greek, and Latin and was able to translate all of these languages as well as fluently read them. She sometimes read Homer to me and could read the New Testament in Greek and the Old Testament in Hebrew. She co-authored and translated a book of poems by the medieval monk Fortunatus with James DenBoer that was published in 2003 I believe.
She also managed to complete three River Bank runs and was an avid runner her whole life. None of the above would one ever have known from talking to her. She was humble to a fault and lived to serve her church and Christ. She was a member of St. Pius X of Grandville, Michigan, for many years and served on just about every church committee one could think of: as a lector, as a person that called and sent cards to the sick and lonely, and particularly as a member of the flower (environmental) committee for the church. She loved the latter and wanted the church to always look its best for special occasions. She also tended the outdoor garden in front of the church on 40th Street where one can still see the work she did with its beautiful flowers. She loved her church family as fiercely as her own family.
She is survived by her twin sister Margaret Bulgarella, her younger sister Marilyn Brannen, brother-in-law Malcolm Brannen, niece Carrie Brannen, nephew Christopher (Tiffany) Brannen, sisters-in-law Helen DenBoer and Marjorie Decker of Florida and brother-in-law James Den Boer of Sacramento, her dear but not blood-related brother Craig Saurman, stepsons David Eliot and Travis Yeats DenBoer, aunts and uncles, too many friends to number, her two cat-children Mattie and Delia, and by her husband David Carl DenBoer, a loutish person who loved her and took care of her as best he could although undeserving of her.
I once asked this highly educated woman (especially in theology) what her belief system really came down to and she told me without thinking more than a second that “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” That was so like her.
Finally I need to mention her passion and utter love for all living creatures, cats and birds particularly, chipmunks, squirrels, deer, any living thing. I know they mourn for her now as all of you do and I do. In all of God’s green and sometimes black earth no one will miss her more than I do and no one will try harder to live up to her gentle legacy of giving and gentleness to all living things.
Any memorial donations can be made to the St. Pius the X Food Pantry or on-line at The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in her name, but I’d rather just have you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and cherish all the birds of the air than give money.
Keep her always in your hearts. I know I will. No person more deserving has ever entered Jesus’s arms.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.18