OBIT: Thomas Rodney COFFMAN, Rev., 1944, formerly of Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library.
Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer.

Copyright 2007.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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THOMAS RODNEY COFFMAN

  Rev. Thomas Rodney Coffman, former pastor of the Church of the Brethren in 
Meyersdale and Somerset, died at his home in Pittsburgh, last Saturday evening, 
unexpectedly.  Although he had been in failing health for some time, his 
condition was not considered critical.
  He was a native of Washington County, Md., his father's farm, near Hagerstown, 
on which he was born, having been part of the Antietam battlefield, where one of 
the great battles of the Civil War was fought.
  Rev. Coffman was nearly 70 years old when he passed away.  He was an 
outstanding minister of the Church of the Brethren for many years.  The greater 
part of his ministry was in the Western District of Pennsylvania.  Before coming 
to Meyersdale as pastor of the Church of the Brethren, he had been pastor of the 
Greenfield Avenue Church in Pittsburgh for several years.
  He served the Meyersdale congregation very efficiently for twelve years from 
1917 until 1929 - when he went to Somerset where he was equally popular and 
successful as a pastor until his health began to fail and he and his good wife 
went to Pittsburgh to live in retirement with their only daughter, Elizabeth, 
wife of Prof. Orville Hittie, a native of Meyersdale, who has for many years 
been engaged in educational work in Pittsburgh and during the past year has been 
head instructor in the U.S. Naval school at Bedford Springs.
  Rev. Coffman is survived by his wife, a member of the pioneer Fahrney family 
of Hagerstown, for many years identified with a well known proprietary medicine 
business, and his daughter, Mrs. Hittie, and two grandchildren, twin children of 
Mr. and Mrs. Orville Hittie, six years old.
  A funeral service was held at the Hittie home in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, and the 
body was then taken to Hagerstown, Md., for interment Wednesday afternoon in his 
native soil.

Meyersdale Republican, April 13, 1944