Lucy (Cotter) DuComb

May 24, 1916 - Dec. 7, 1999

Lucy DuComb, 83, died on Tuesday, December 7, while visiting Arizona. Lucy was born in South Bend, Ind. on May 24, 1916. The older daughter of Lillian Whitman Cotter and John Cotter, she attended Marquette Elementary and St. Mary's Academy. She graduated from South Bend Central High School in 1934.

As a young woman Lucy attended Indiana University and worked, first at Bendix and then at The Associates Lucy was a beloved mother and grandmother and an adored friend. She was a good old girl. She loved her children and her grandchildren and she used to teach that neighborhoods were like home. "You have to take care of your neighborhood with as much energy as you take care of your house." she would say. "And you have to bloom where you are planted."

Lucy liked to bake chocolate chip cookies and eat steak. She liked to drink coffee and smoke a cigarette with The South Bend Tribune. no matter what time of day it was delivered. Lucy liked South Bend and Diamond Lake. She liked to plant impatiens in May and to mow grass in July and to rake leaves in October. She liked to take long walks and to vote Republican and to read historical romance novels and to work crossword puzzles. She taught three generations of children on Carlton Drive In Cassopolis to play gin rummy. Lucy was not religious but she was kind. and her kindness blessed lives and set an example for others for over eighty years.

She is survived by her older son, Robert James DuComb, of Cassopolis, Mich.: granddaughters. Darby DuComb-Festor of Seattle, Wash., and Dana DuComb of Chandler, Ariz.: grandsons, Chad and Doug DuComb of Mishawaka, Ind.: and two great grandsons, Tanner and Tyler.

She was preceded in death by her son Dale in 1997.

In 1930 she bumped into Jim DuComb in the hallway at Central High School and he became her passion and life's work. "If I had any will-power," she used to say, "I might have resisted the first temptation that came along." They married on March 17, 1941. Jim DuComb died in 1984. She joins him now.

Friends who want to remember Lucy are asked to make donations to The DuComb Center Project of St. Joseph County, 1017 E. Madison St., South Bend. IN 46617

Sources: Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com and FindAGrave.com

12/24/2025 EJS

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/273580873/lucy-azelia-ducomb