Veronica Copp

Veronica Fliegel Copp passed away peacefully on August 24, 2019. There will be a memorial service in October to honor her life.

Veronica was born in Germany on April 5, 1921, and immigrated to Canada with her family at the age of two. In 1928 the family emigrated from Canada to the United States. She graduated from the Kahler School of Nursing in 1942 and completed her BS degree in public health at the University of Minnesota in 1948. In 1953, she married Jim Copp in Madison, Wisconsin, where Jim received his PhD in sociology. From there, Veronica and Jim moved to Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Virginia before settling in College Station, Texas, in 1972.

Veronica was a loving mother to her five children, an engaged grandmother to her seven grandchildren, and an excited great-grandmother to her four great-grandchildren. A registered nurse, she worked in a variety of settings over the years, including over 20 years at the student health center on the Texas A&M University campus. Following her retirement from Texas A&M, Veronica worked as a volunteer nurse at Health for All in Bryan. She loved to hike, camp, and explore with her family. She was always ready for an adventure (she learned how to snorkle in Hawaii at age 83) and loved traveling throughout the United States and internationally. She also enjoyed listening to operas, birding, gardening, sewing, reading, and baking bread.

Veronica was passionate and opinionated. She enjoyed talking about politics and social issues. Veronica and Jim cared strongly about LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and the rights of immigrants and minorities. During their long association with the Texas A&M community, they were especially welcoming to international students. At Thanksgiving, their house was often full of family members and students from around the world. Veronica valued her family above all else, but her definition of family was broader than her nuclear and extended family. She loved many people from diverse walks of life and continued to make new friends up until the end of her life.

Veronica was preceded in death by her parents and all but one of her five siblings as well as by her beloved husband, Jim.

Veronica is survived by her five children and their spouses: her daughter Chris and son-in-law Terry in Pennsylvania, her son John and daughter-in-law Peggy in California, her daughter Karen and son-in-law Steve in Iowa, her daughter Sarah and son-in-law Humberto in New Jersey, and her daughter Martha and son-in-law Jeff in Tennessee. She has a surviving sister, Margaret, in Ohio. She is also survived by all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with whom, as with her own children, she shared her love for and respect of the natural world.

If you wish to make a donation in Veronica's memory, please consider the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (birds.cornell.edu), Friends of Chamber Music in Bryan-College Station (communitychamberconcerts.org), or Health for All (hlth4all.org).