Thankfully, Pastor Cope was different.
She turned bitterness into fuel for her love of children, especially those less fortunate who live in Hamilton’s North End neighborhood.
“She put this neighborhood before anything,” said Pastor Stephanie Brown, who added Cope adopted her as “a spiritual” daughter. “It was her heart. She loved them. God laid this ministry on her heart years ago.”
Now that ministry has been passed to Brown.
Cope died last weekend. She was 82.
When Hamilton Mayor Pat Moeller, who worked on several projects with Cope, heard about her passing he told someone: “Heaven has another angel.”
She was ordained in 1998 and in 2000 she opened Kelly’s House of Love, an outreach ministry at the corner of Seventh and Heaton streets. It’s named in memory of an abuse victim who ended her life in her mid-20s by putting a bullet through her heart.
Kelly’s caters to children ages 6 to 18, featuring activities such as crafts, singing, dancing, basketball, junior police academy, face painting, animal balloons and puppets.
Moeller said the ministry is “a safe haven” for young people and a place where Cope offered advice and wisdom.
“The neighborhood has lost a jewel,” Brown said. “She was an advocate for the police, the homeless and the kids across the street. She wanted them to have hope for the future.”
One of her proudest moments came in 2009 when a playground was built across from Kelly’s. The park is called Greenwood Avenue Park, but Cope preferred Angelic Park because “God gave it to me,” she once said.
When it came to policing the park, Cope was the top cop.
“If you’re drinking or doing drugs around my kids, I will run them out of there,” Cope once said about the park. “I’m not a bit afraid to go over there, and if I have to jerk them by the hair or collar, I will.”
Cope also ran a nursing home ministry, jail ministry, street ministry and women’s ministry. She lived her life as a servant. When her phone rang, regardless of the hour, she answered. Whatever the person on the other end of the phone wanted, Cope delivered.
She was known to drop off groceries at the home of someone struggling financially or buying a McDonald’s meal for a homeless person, Brown said.
“She was a pillar of the community and a staple here in the North End,” Brown said.
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