Marcella Bridges

Marcella Nan Jordan, the little girl born on January 17th 1934 to Murphy and Verda Jordan in Toledo Ohio, would grow up to lead an extraordinary life filled with great adventure, true love and deep faith.
The summer after her freshman year at Mary Manse College, the northern city girl made a trip in 1952 with her best friend, Dolores (Barber) Bridges to rural Mississippi. There she met and immediately melted the heart of a young man, Warren Bridges, who would later become her husband of nearly 60 years.

While at Mary Manse, Marcella became a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a predominantly African-American sorority dedicated to public service. Marcella was a natural born leader and extremely sharp, two qualities that led her to be elected by her sorority sisters as the president of the Toledo City Chapter.

After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in education, she began her career teaching grade school children in her hometown of Toledo. During the time when Warren was in the Army and stationed in Chicago, they continued to date and their love grew stronger. One day after mass, Warren proposed to her in Toledo at Good Shepherd Church before the Virgin Mary. She accepted and they were married in 1961 at Good Shepherd Church, their ever-present bond of strong faith and love witnessed by a host of family and friends. Shortly after, she moved to Detroit with her husband.

In 1966 Warren and Marcella joined Precious Blood church, now St. Peter Claver Catholic Community. She not only lovingly raised five children within this church community, but also spent countless hours over the next 55 years serving her parish in vital leadership roles. Early on she was a member and the President of both the Parish Council and School Board. In the later years she served as a parish Elder providing wisdom and historical perspective. She had a unique combination of qualities that included being extremely thoughtful, an excellent communicator, a strong leader, exceptionally committed to her faith and widely respected. Marcella truly was a stabilizing gift to the parish over the course of its many changes. Throughout, she was fully immersed in all aspects of parish life. She served as a scout den mother, lector, choir member, and organizer for several activities focused on raising money for the Church and School. It was not uncommon to see her working BINGO nights, the concession stand at a school basketball game or coordinating the acquisition and placement of flower decorations for the Church on Christmas and Easter. She managed all this while devotedly tending to her family and teaching her first grade students. As if all that weren’t enough, she also managed to return to college to earn a Master’s degree in education at the age of 62 from Wayne State University.

After she retired from nearly 50 years of teaching, Marcella and Warren took several adventurous trips including a five month cruise around the world on the fabulous Princess Cruise Line in 2009. During that trip they explored the magnificent wonders of God’s blue and green earth. The hundreds of pictures from that 5 month cruise clearly show what a joyful time they both had.

But, if you really wanted to see Marcella’s face light up, all you had to do was watch her with a great-grandbaby or grandbaby in her arms. The love, kindness, care and compassion in her voice, in her face, and in her actions spoke volumes about her character in those moments.

As is the natural course of things, her great-grandbabies became toddlers, her grandbabies entered young adulthood, her children entered middle-age, and she moved ever closer towards Heaven’s door. On February 22nd, 2021 at 8:38am, Marcella peacefully stepped over that threshold and entered the House of the Lord where she now dwells with Him and all those who share the faith in eternal peace, joy and love.
Having joined her father Murphy Jordan, mother Verda Jordan and sister Eunice Williams who preceded her in death, she now leaves her descendants to keep her memory alive.

To honor and fondly remember a life well-lived, she leaves her loving husband Warren Bridges, and five children Gregory Bridges, Catherine Johnson (Allen), Michael M. Bridges (Renita), Mary Radford (DaMon), and Marie Rusher (Raymond). To help carry her legacy of love, respect and service to community into the future, she leaves eleven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren whom she absolutely adored starting with Kalonji Johnson, Moeisha Johnson, Nzinga Johnson, Taharqa Johnson, Marcus Radford, Breezy Rusher, Isolyn Radford, Danielle Radford, Madison Bridges, Michael W. Bridges, James Rusher, Zaiden Johnson and Ari’elle Johnson. Also adding to the collective memory of her life are nieces and nephews Tom Bridges, Ka’Ran Bridges, Mark Bridges, Jocelyn Broemmelsiek and Audrianne Bridges-Skipper.