Bonnie D. Kutch, communications specialist and leader at Baltimore’s St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church, dies

Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun
·4 min read
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Bonnie D. Kutch, a communications specialist who was a leader at St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church, died of a heart attack Dec. 31 at her Catonsville home. She was 69.

“Bonnie was very warm, very insightful and very honest,” said Michael A. Sarbanes, senior warden at St. Bartholomew’s and a longtime friend. “They were all part of her peaceful traditions and spiritual depth, and were very important to her.”

Deirdre Mary “Didi” McElroy, has been a parishioner at the West Baltimore church for years and was a longtime friend of Ms. Kutch.

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“She was omnipresent at church,” Ms. McElroy said. “She brought wisdom, devotion and unanimity. She was an antidote to loneliness and was a role model for togetherness for everyone. She was a person who made us all better.”

Bonnie Denise Kutch, was born in Washington to Frederic Dennis Kutch, a White House staff motorcycle mechanic, and Sallie Mae Bryant Kutch, a homemaker.

Ms. Kutch’s father died shortly after her birth, and she, her mother and older sister moved to Westwood Avenue in Northwest Baltimore to be near family. Her mother then took a job at Westinghouse Electric Corp.

While a student at the old Northwestern High School, Ms. Kutch was a General Assembly student page in Annapolis.

“It’s so quiet here,” she said in a 1972 interview with the Evening Capital, when asked by a reporter about her reaction to Annapolis.

After graduating from Northwestern, she earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from what is now Loyola University Maryland, and then went to work as a laboratory technologist at the old Church Home and Hospital in East Baltimore.

She subsequently earned a master’s degree in business from Loyola, and a second master’s from Goucher College.

She worked in technology for the McCormick Spice Co. before taking a job in communications at T. Rowe Price, from which she retired in 2011.

But the central focus of Ms. Kutch’s life was her church work at St. Bartholomew’s.

“We celebrate the life of Bonnie D. Kutch, a woman in tech, a woman of great presence and generosity, a woman of peace and kindness,” Ms. McElroy wrote in an email. “Our entire parish at St. Bartholomew’s was gobsmacked by her passing.”

The two women met at the church and became close friends and “journey women in — CEEP — the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes, where we shared endowment governance,” Ms. McElroy wrote in an email.

“We served together as trustees of the funds committee, assisting the faithful and fiduciary management of our parish endowment. She was highly active in our hospitality committee, and the church’s ambassador to [Baltimore charity] My Brother’s Keeper.”

“She retired at 57 and then devoted herself to our church. She was intelligent and theologically geared to our goals,” Ms. McElroy said in a telephone interview.

“She brought wisdom to her work as a trustee. She asked questions and made us think and made us come to better decisions. She was about consensus. If we couldn’t reach a decision, Bonnie would say, ‘Let’s sleep on it and come back tomorrow,'” she said. “She was a disciple of accord.”

Ms. Kutch was known for being affable and her outsize personality.

“Bonnie could always meet people in a meaningful way,” Ms. McElroy said.

“She had a keen insight into people and the world. It was a beautiful combination,” Mr. Sarbanes said. “Everything she touched had insight and only got better, and she had insight into the city.”

“Ms. Kutch had a tremendous eye for detail, combined with a keen understanding of people, and a spiritual depth that enriched every interaction,” Mr. Sarbanes wrote in an email.

“I remember when we were setting up a loan fund to help neighbors purchase a home that they had been renting for several decades. Bonnie asked that the fund be a revolving fund so repayments would go to help someone else in the future,” he wrote.

“She also wanted to make sure that the neighbors who were benefitting from the fund also knew that as they paid back, they were becoming donors to help someone else in the community,” he wrote. “That insight into understanding of how to see a financial transaction as a tool for community-building and a way of empowering someone was classic Bonnie.”

On the day before she was stricken with a fatal heart attack, Ms. Kutch had attended a church gathering.

“They spent four or five hours talking about infinity and what Bonnie had to say was so profound,” Ms. McElroy said. “She was there and she was fine.”

Ms. Kutch was an excellent cook and adored her two cats.

In 2012, she told The Baltimore Sun that she had embraced Tai chi ch’uan and attended a class in Catonsville because it promoted “physical, mental and spiritual benefits.”

“We have a hole in our community,” Ms. McElroy said. “Bonnie was not unsung by us. We truly loved her and we will do better because of her wisdom. That is her legacy.”

A celebration-of-life service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at her church at 4711 Edmondson Ave.

She is survived by her sister, Barbara Jean Kutch-Reynolds, of East Baltimore. Her marriage ended in divorce.