Elsie Cofield.
A day before her funeral, the late Elsie Cofield will be laid in “repose” Friday afternoon on the first floor of City Hall from 4 to 7 p.m.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Mayor Toni Harp, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal are planning to attend and speak at around 4:45.
Cofield was a beloved figure in New Haven, most widely known as a pioneer in caring for people with AIDS and raising public awareness. She died last Thursday at the age of 92.
“A retired public school teacher, Cofield and her husband, the late Dr. Curtis Cofield, senior pastor of the Immanuel Baptist Church, co-founded the city’s AIDS Interfaith Network at a time when HIV/AIDS was new, stigmatized, and its patients were said to be untouchable,” read a City Hall press release announcing Friday’s viewing.
The funeral takes place Saturday at Immanuel Baptist Church: viewing from 9 to 10 a.m., funeral service from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Interment will take place at the Beaverdale cemetery across from Southern Connecticut State University.
Click on or download the above sound file to hear Cofield’s daughter Judge Curtissa Cofield discuss her mother’s life Tuesday on WNHH radio’s “The Show” hosted by Michelle Turner.
“Your mom, Turner told her, “did not waste a minute of her 92 years.”
And click on the above sound file to hear Mayor Toni Harp remember Cofield, during an appearnce Monday on WNHH’s “Dateline New Haven.” That segment begins at around 1:45 in the file.
“The thing that struck me most about Elsie Cofield was how she managed to find something positive and productive to do at every stage in her life,” Harp said. “She started her work with AIDS after she retired from being a public school teacher. She taught hundreds if not thousands of young people. If that was not enough, she started a movement that helped us understand how we have to love people who are afflicted with AIDS. So many people were afraid of it. She hugged every person she knew who was afflicted. She demonstrated her Christian love.”
