Purnell B. Oden Sr., a retired mortician who taught mortuary science at the Community College of Baltimore County, died of kidney failure Nov. 30 at Loch Raven Veterans Hospice. He was 84 and lived in Pumphrey.
Born in Ferndale, he was the son of William and Geanette Oden. He was a 1947 graduate of Wiley H. Bates High School in Annapolis. He served in the Army in Germany and boxed while in the service.
He was a 1955 graduate of the American Academy of Embalming and Mortuary Research in New York City.
He was licensed in Maryland in 1956 and owned a funeral home on Druid Hill Avenue from 1976 to 1988. He was a past president of the Funeral Directors and Morticians Association of Maryland.
He began teaching embalming at what was then Catonsville Community College in 1973. Family members said he taught 600 students until 1987, when he stopped teaching after suffering a stroke.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the Metropolitan United Methodist Church, 548 Queenstown Road in Severn.
Survivors include three sons, Anthony Cromartie of Baltimore, Purnell B. Oden Jr. of Glen Burnie and Bryant Oden of Randallstown; three daughters, Ruby Jacobs of Baltimore, and Angela Oden and Marsha Oden, both of Pumphrey; a brother, Roscoe Oden, and a sister, Odessa Fleming, both of Ferndale; 12 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. A son, Van Hammack, died this year. A daughter, Barbara Moore, died in 2011. Another daughter, Sonia Oden, died in 2012. His wife of 39 years, Ethel Cromartie Oden, died in 2004.