“He Lifted People Up”

That’s what Mattie Hatcher Long (pictured) and others said about the Rev. Dr. Curtis Cofield at his jam-packed funeral.

Cofield, a pioneer in helping the homeless and people with AIDS, was getting ready to attend an out-of-town conference of Baptist ministers’ wives with his wife of 60 years, Elsie Watson Cofield, when he fell down the stairs in his home and died from his injuries.

That says a lot about the man who was memorialized in a three-and-a-half hour service on Wednesday at the church he built — Immanuel Baptist on Chapel Street — and whose parishioners he served for more than 30 years.

I met the Cofields in the early 1990s, when, as a reporter, I covered some of the controversies erupting in the local AIDS community and the founding by Elsie Cofield of AIDS Interfaith Network (AIN). Her husband had been among the first members of the black clergy to minister to people with AIDS, who were considered untouchables in the 1980s. Taking a break from full-time journalism in the mid-1990s, I served on the board of AIN for six years and worked closely with Mrs. C, as we all called her. My impression of the couple is that they were both shining lights in the New Haven community and beyond, and each generously illuminated the other, increasing the light they shed on the seemingly intractable problems of hunger, homelessness, and AIDS. It was a true and loving partnership . Given their vitality, energy and drive, I’m sure we all expected that partnership to continue for years to come.

Speakers at the funeral commented on that 60-year partnership – some with humor, as when Bishop Theodore Brooks said he learned to keep his wife by his side after observing that Rev. Cofield was always seen with Elsie. Curtis apparently said that guaranteed that their path would be one of righteousness.

Then Janie Charles Holmes, president of the International Association of Ministers’ Wives and Ministers’ Widows, spoke. It was to the group’s conference that the Cofields were headed when the accident occurred.

“We know how much Dr. Cofield loved his wife,” Holmes said, ​“for he was an honorary member of our association. There was not a conference, not a convention, that he wasn’t there to pay tribute to his wife, and to give me words of encouragement. I would not leave his presence without him saying, ​‘Janie, look after Elsie.’” She promised that she, personally, and the association, would be there to support her. Click here for more of her tribute.

For her part, Elsie (pictured sitting between her son and daughter), though devastated by the sudden loss of her life partner, managed to write a touching poetic tribute that appeared in the funeral’s program. After the service, she leaned heavily for support on her son, Curtis.

The Rev. Samuel Ross-Lee, who succeeded Cofield in the pulpit of Immanuel Baptist, said, ​“I knew Dr. Cofield before I met him. He and Sister Cofield were my teachers’ teachers, my mentors’ mentors.” He said many of those students now lead major Baptist churches all over the country.

Ross-Lee (pictured after the service) reminisced about the construction of the current imposing edifice and how it didn’t sit well with some New Haveners that a black man should be so uppity to think he could accomplish such a lofty goal back in the 1960s. ​“Every time his critics threw a brick at him to block his vision or halt his progress, he caught it and used it to build the building.”

Ross-Lee demonstrated his impressive preaching style with a litany in honor of Rev. Cofield that began, ​“He lived with dignity,” and ended, ​“he died in dignity, and now he lives in eternity.” Click here to listen to it all.

Good works and good words were Cofield’s legacy. Mattie Hatcher Long (pictured above), a retired music educator from Hamden, was one of the many hundreds who came to pay their respects. She noted all the institutions the couple had started – a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, and AIDS Interfaith Network. She said of Elsie and Curtis, ​“They were made for this community. We have lost a person who cannot be replaced. Even after retirement, he was still serving churches as interims (interim minister). And I think he had planned to serve a church in Hamden in April…this month.” Rev. Cofield had just turned 82.