Services Set For Moorestown Quaker Who Had Rich, Fulfilling Life

John Lowry Cope died peacefully at his home in Moorestown, NJ, with family at his bedside, on September 14, 2019, at the age of 72. He is survived by his wife and best friend of more than 50 years Linda Sutker Cope; their children Joshua, Indira, Juliana, and Michael and their spouses Molly Hamlin Cope, Ernesto Flores, Ethan Gamache, and Catherine Cronin respectively; and grandchildren Zachary Cope and his partner Sally Warm, Jacob Cope, Whit Flores, Richard Cope, Maeve Cope, Nina Gamache, and Áine Cope. Loving brother of Diana (deceased), Robert and his wife Judy Cope, and Elizabeth and her husband Tom McAndrew.

Born on September 3, 1947, in Atlantic City, NJ, he was the son of the late Walter Harvey Cope and Marjorie Lowry Cope, both members of the Religious Society of Friends. Uncle of Rachel Cope Tarvin (Luke), Tyler Cope, Rebecca Cope, Dylan McAndrew, Hannah McAndrew, Peter Cashwell (Kelly), David Cashwell (Pamela), Megan Lea Sutker Hackman (Chad), Colin Sutker (Andrea), Gordon Sutker (Yael) and grand-uncle to Ian Cashwell (Adriana), Dixon Cashwell, Benjamin Cashwell, Samuel Cashwell, Harrison Hackman, Evelyn Hackman, Arlo Sutker, Ruby Lee Sutker, Liam Sutker, and Marjorie Tarvin. Cousin and friend of many more than can be listed here.

In spite of dying not far from where he was born, John lived a storied life. A lifelong Quaker, John met Linda in Beaufort, SC, in 1967 while he was performing Alternative Service at Penn Center on nearby St Helena Island. Married in 1968, John and Linda embarked on a series of adventures—including establishing a Quaker commune, The Family of Peace in Philadelphia; and later hitchhiking across the country with baby Joshua after hiking the Long Trail with Joshua while Linda was also pregnant with Indira—before eventually settling into the farm in Moorestown near Riverton where John had grown up. Here they raised their four children.

Even with the demands of a young family, John remained committed to working for a better world, raising funds and awareness of the need for emergency relief for the newly independent country of Bangladesh. To the surprise of his family, John also joined the board of Medford Leas, was secretary of the Moorestown Rotary Club, Clerk of Westfield Friends Meeting, and later Clerk of the Meeting Trustees, serving all organizations with great satisfaction.

Always skilled at building and making, John worked as a carpenter and later as a general contractor for Walter Cope Builders, first working for his father Walt, then forming a family business together with his father and brother Rob. He enjoyed many years of working, taking quiet satisfaction in difficult jobs well done. One of his favorite jobs was working on his friend Isaiah Zagar’s Magic Gardens in Philadelphia.

For many years, John was a member of the Gurdjieff Foundation of Pennsylvania. John also wrote and made art throughout his life, recently having his first poem published. John was forever making and inventing beautiful and useful things for those he loved, everything from a sleeping porch to a spider web for his children to wooden blocks and boxes for his grandchildren and more elaborate items, including an as-yet-to-be-built corner cabinet for his sister Elizabeth.

John attended Westfield Friends School and Moorestown High School, graduating in 1965. He dropped out of NYU and later got kicked off Temple’s campus after apparently turning in homework when he was auditing a class in which he never enrolled.

As Linda says, “I don’t want to put him up on a huge pedestal but you could say John cultivated the opposite attitude.” Those who knew and loved him will recognize this “opposite attitude.” Once, when visiting his cousin Stuart Lennox in Los Angeles, he came across a spread of food. He filled a plate, sat at a table, and started to eat. He claimed that it was only later that he realized that the food was meant for the team of people working on a movie set. It would not occur to him to apologize, or to think about why there might be free food set out in Los Angeles. Instead, he finished his plate of food, figuring it wasn’t his fault that no one told him that the food was not meant for him. There are other perhaps less obvious examples of this attitude. For instance, it was not unusual during a particularly violent thunder or snow storm for John to pack his family into the car to go see some movie or to run off on an urgent errand at the hardware store.

John had a constant curiosity about the wider world that meant he read constantly and traveled widely. Even during his many years of health challenges, he continued to forge on, visiting Israel, Ireland, London, Alaska, and even traveling solo to Vancouver in 2018 to visit cousins.

For his family and friends, the memories of John are all around—in the many beautiful and practical things he built and created; in the meals he prepared for loved ones (cooking was a joy he discovered in his later years and he was an adventurous and ambitious chef); in the sharing of stories and the playing of games around the fireplace at Pocono, where he enjoyed so many happy times with his family and especially his adored grandchildren. Being Papa John and Granddaddy was a role he relished and he had an amazing ability to connect with his grandchildren and be an active presence in their lives. Not one to ever complain, John’s only expressed regret was his inability to be in or on the water with an LVAD in the last two years of his life, as he had loved to windsurf, sail, canoe, and swim for so much of his life.

John was a quiet man, but he always looked people in the eye while listening attentively. He was generous with his knowledge and his time, even if not effusive in his words. He reminds us how important it is to live with intention and love, to be present for those we love, and how cultivating an opposite attitude can be a useful skill in life.

One of John’s dying wishes was for his body to be donated to science. Having always allowed medical students to be a part of his years of medical treatment, he continued this generosity in death, following in the path of his father and grandmother Grace Lowry who had also donated their bodies to science.

Linda and family are grateful for the care of so many friends, loved ones, and professionals over the years. They extend thanks to Deborah Heart and Lung Center, Robert Wood Johnson LVAD & Heart Transplant Center in New Jersey, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia for the care they gave John; and a special thanks to Vitas Hospice and Anatomy Gifts Registry, who made John’s wish to donate his body possible.

A Quaker memorial service will be held on Saturday, October 19, 2pm at Westfield Friends Meeting House, 2201 Riverton Rd, Cinnaminson, NJ 08077.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations are made in John’s memory to Westfield Friends School (https://www.westfieldfriends.org/apps/pages/annual-fund) or to any charity of your choice. John had many connections to Westfield as an alum, father, grandfather, and uncle of alumni in addition to serving on the School Committee/Board of Westfield Friends Meeting for many years.