DOROTHY MAE MUMFORD ‘BONNIE’ SNYDER

BAR HARBOR – Dorothy Mae Mumford “Bonnie” Snyder, died peacefully Nov. 6, 2009, at home from complications of primary progressive aphasia. She was surrounded in love by family, hospice caregivers, and many, many friends. Dorothy Mae Mumford was born May 28, 1926, in Englewood, N.J., to Albert Russell Mumford and Cora Mary Holm Mumford, the youngest of three sisters. She grew up in Bogota, N.J., and graduated from Wellesley College in 1948, where she was instrumental in organizing a “round robin” among 20 classmates, which circulated for more than 50 years. In the year after graduation she studied as an apprentice teacher at Shady Hill School, Cambridge, Mass., and then taught at New Canaan Country School in Connecticut, 1949-1951. In June 1950, Bonnie met her future husband on the Samaria, a student ship bound for Europe. She was going with the experiment in international living to England and Ed was going to hitchhike across Europe with a Yale Law School buddy. Bonnie married Edward F. Snyder, June 16, 1951. She taught at Foote School, New Haven, Conn., before devoting full-time to raising a family of four children, Edith, William, Marjorie and Russell. In 1955, just after William was born, the family moved from Stamford, Conn., to the Washington, D.C., area. They lived in College Park, Md., for 35 years. During that period both Bonnie and Ed were active participants in the life and work of Religious Society of Friends – Quakers, Bonnie at Adelphi Friends Meeting and Ed with the Quaker lobby, the Friends Committee on National Legislation. As a young mother on hot summer days, Bonnie would organize various projects including painting the concrete front steps with water and paintbrushes. She helped raise numerous litters of shelties and guinea pigs, and organized curriculum and taught children at Adelphi Friends Meeting. Bonnie loved music and laughter. She often led family and friends in song. In her teens and early 20s she did ballroom dancing and jitterbugging, and folk dancing in her Quaker days. She played boogie-woogie and ragtime on the piano as her youngsters danced energetically around the living room. When all four children were in school, Bonnie began to lead parent discussion groups in the Prince Georges County (Md.) school system. This was interrupted by a family sojourn in Singapore, 1967-1969, where Ed represented American Friends Service Committee in Southeast Asia. While there, Bonnie taught third grade in the Singapore American School, where she broadened the curriculum by taking the class on various field trips to Singapore institutions. On return she found the Prince Georges County (Md.) school system under federal court ordered desegregation. From 1969 to 1977, she worked on an important federal program to assist parents and students in a variety of ways during the difficult transition process. From 1977 to 1980, she studied at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and received a Masters in Mental Health degree. On graduation she was selected to be the psychotherapist in the medical advisers office of Johns Hopkins University Hospital where she worked for 10 years until her retirement. In 1990, Bonnie and Ed retired to Bar Harbor, where she greatly enjoyed the beauties of Acadia National Park, hiking and walking the carriage roads. She was an active participant in Acadia Friends Meeting; Hospice of Hancock County, MDI League of Women Voters – later LWV Downeast; and Footloose Friends hiking group. Bonnie was dearly loved by her husband, children, grandchildren and friends. She devoted her life to supporting and nurturing them. She was a spiritual pioneer and mentor to many, reading widely, meditating, worshipping and exploring. Bonnie was a keen judge of humans and their foibles, yet she felt that accepting them as they were, rather than judging them, was the best way to support and encourage their growth. She deeply believed that challenges and adversity were to be used as opportunities for personal growth. She is best remembered for her love of life and of family and friends, her gentle caring presence, and her valuing of her spiritual life. She was predeceased by her parents; and her two older sisters, Edith and Anita. She is survived by her husband of 58 years, Ed; and their four children, Edith of Bar Harbor, married to Nick Lyman, William of Sunderland, Mass., married to Laura Muller, Marjorie of Hampden and her children, Roy and Sam and their father, Robert Donnelly, and Russell of Otter Creek and his children, Francis and Bonnie Mae and their mother, Ellen Finn. She is also survived by her brother-in-law, Ralph Snyder and his wife, Mary, of Belfast; and her sister-in-law, Mary Dow of Andover, Mass. A celebration of her life will be held 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 28, at Neighborhood House, Northeast Harbor, under the care of Acadia Friends Meeting. All are welcome.