Paula Lee (nee Jones) Bognanni, age 91, of Lutherville, Maryland passed away on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. She was the beloved wife of Mario C. Bognanni, Jr. for 58 years and a devoted mother to Brooke A. Bognanni.

Paula Lee Jones Bognanni ("Paula Leaf") was born on January 19, 1932, in West Baltimore, Maryland. The daughter of Catherine Clarke Jones Routson and Joseph Lee Jones, she was raised by her grandmother Amelia, and Catherine and Eugene Routson. When she was thirteen, she welcomed her baby brother, Blaine. Around this time, she also befriended Dottie Lacey Feeley, who would remain her dearest friend for almost eighty years, and who would become her daughter's Godmother. Growing up, she loved her Shirley Temple doll, "Meet Me in St. Louis," jitterbugging, ice skates, hot dogs, and napoleon pastries. A Western High School graduate, Paula also attended the Johns Hopkins University in the evenings. In 1965 on Thanksgiving Day, she married her husband of 58 years, Mario C. Bognanni, Jr, and in 1974, they welcomed their only child, Brooke Amalee-Page Bognanni. Becoming a mother in her forties, Paula liked to brag about her "change-of-life miracle baby." When asked about her greatest achievement, her answer was always, "Brooke." They were not only mother and daughter, but best friends.

She worked as a bookkeeper most of her life, at Poor Bowen Bartlett and Kennedy Insurance where she met two of her life-long friends, Mary Hedeman and Lucia Cedrone. She went on to work at WBAL-TV, John Lampe Advertising, W.B. Doner Advertising Agency, and Bognanni Advertising.

As an involved stay-at-home mom, she enjoyed crocheting; cooking; crosswords; sudoku and jigsaw puzzles; writing poetry; and watching the Orioles, Colts, and Jeopardy. She also loved listening to the radio, playing the piano, and music. Paula was a woman of strong Faith and was a true patriot. She loved visiting the beach and Ocean Pines. A "math person," she just remarkably finished her taxes at 91.

Her motivation and light in recent years was her parakeets: Bindi Lane, Buddy, George, and Kelly Bean, and now she is where "happy little blue birds fly." Known for her red-auburn hair, her favorite color blue, and her love of hearts, she was…funny, generous, strong, brave, and resilient. We love her "always, everywhere."

The family will receive friends at Peaceful Alternatives, P.A., 2325 York Road, Timonium, Maryland 21093 on Monday, April 10 from 2-4 and 6-8 PM where a funeral service officiated by Rev. Dr. Jarrett T. Wicklein will be held on Tuesday, April 11 beginning at 11 AM. Interment will follow at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens.

Mama, You Tell Me If I Don't Miss it When it's Gone,

I Never Really Loved It

~for my mother

She's on the back porch again, brown eyes like mine

(like her father's she hardly knew),

gazing out across a screen of crepe myrtles

nearly out of pink bloom, at something I cannot see--

a retrospective film in color, though I see in black-and-white.

She is watching the 1930s,

the jacks-and-ball child with sepia Judy Garland hair

Ajax-scrubbing coal dust

from the white marble steps of Brice Street in

West Baltimore, immortalized by an Aubrey Bodine lens.

She is watching the 1940s,

a budding patriot lining the April tracks

hand over hand with her grandfather, hat over heart,

for a glimpse of President Roosevelt's flag-draped sarcophagus

carried by a Marine-starred steely funeral train.

She is watching the 1950s

from Broadway, in the balcony of The King and I

with two life-long friends, all three in navy sailor suits,

captured dogeared now on the refrigerator,

her world yawning awake.

She is watching the 1960s,

where she might've been a cocktail bunny,

the perfect pin-up in green satin, but instead wore

a scalloped-edged wedding suit

of white velvet with ivory peau de soie heels.

She is watching the 1970s

with her pink "miracle baby" in the rocker,

singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

over the Sony radio, and Bing's Goodnight Sweetheart:

Dreams enfold you, in each arm I'll hold you…

She is watching the 1980s

teaching lessons from a new rocket-silver Honda Accord,

asking the quiet child from school,

Do you understand what happened today?

as the Challenger meteored into a fiery Y in the sky.

She is watching the 1990s

from her meager windmill-tiled delft kitchen

with a twittering blue bird on her shoulder,

making a ham last for a week of meals and

maneuvering numbers that rob Peter to pay Paul.

And she watches the New Millennium,

enviable, without trepidation,

those brown eyes forming blue rings of Saturn,

bent fingers crocheting an alphabet blanket

for the baby's baby that never came.

Now, across the forget-me-nots yard of film reel,

the wraith of her grandmother, Amelia, stirs fragrant root beer

in a wooden barrel on the back steps--

the upright piano she played by ear for the paper boy,

(left behind in the move because

there was no one to hoist it up the basement steps)

chimes a cuckoo clock melody:

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home--

and her spectral cousin Barry, carrying history in a sack on his back,

is calling her, "Honey."

Despite her January birth sign, she is a sheep:

and you are on the right, Mama

and so am I.

And I will miss the film

when it runs out.

~Brooke Bognanni

*Parable of the sheep on the right side of God are the ones who are saved