Maria Glover

María Pía Arumi Glover

Maria Arumí Glover, 63, passed away on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, at home in Durham, surrounded by her loving family. Maria was born in Ecuador and, with her beloved parents, Martha Cordero and Fernando Arumi, came to North Carolina in the days of Camelot. A beautiful immigrant family, full of poise and promise, arriving not by boat at Ellis Island, but by plane through Miami to RDU. The Carolina blue skies, warm sun, and even warmer people immediately made the triangle the Arumi family's forever home.

Maria graduated from Northern Durham High School in 1980, when 4th parking lot was still gravel and Maria drove her Carolina blue Ford Mustang like she was Daisy Duke.

Maria studied to earn her U.S. citizenship and took her oath at the Federal courthouse in Greensboro when she was a freshman at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. María lived and worked in Greensboro for many years, then moved to Hotlanta for a few years before making her way back to Durham, where she raised her sweet babies, Justin and Christopher Glover, of Durham.

From a young age, it was clear that María had a calling - it was to always be calling someone. No one could talk on the phone like María, other than her mother and Evelyn McNary of Durham, who has been everything to the Arumi family since they became neighbors in the late 1960s. Together with María's ability to remember everyone's name and to play games infinitely, her phone calling abilities made a job at Project Access of Durham County the best career that María could have picked. María naturally created a network of caring people who not only became her friends, but also were like magic coins from Mario (one of María's many favorites) becoming gateways for services for patients in María's advocacy. Some seek riches; María sought the richness of community and she found it. María's friends were her joy.

Maria was genuinely one of the loveliest people to walk this earth. She could, and did, talk to anyone, and virtually everyone who met Maria could, and did, count themselves as her friend. Maria had a smile that was larger than life and her kisses on your forehead truly had healing powers. María was planning a second career as an "Air Granny" for airlines to offer traveling parents a loving, helping hand (think Air Marshall but before the problems start). Alas, she will need to leave that to others as she is now up to other things with the matriarchs and holding babies in another realm.

Maria is survived by her loving sons, Justin Glover and Christopher Glover; sister Cristina Arumi and brother-in-love Michael Yuffee (of Bethesda, MD); Aunt Susana Cordero and uncle Andres Troya (of Raleigh); aunts Miriam Cordero (of Cuenca), Lupe Cordero (of Quito); nephews and nieces Ezra Alexander (of Chicago), Pia Alexander (of Hanover, NH), Berret Yuffee (of New York), Zack Yuffee (of Tuscaloosa, AL), Robbie Yuffee (of Bethesda); so many cousins (everywhere); and the family we chose, the McNarys (of Durham).

It was María's wish to be cremated and for her family to take her to the beach in the summer and to the mountains in the fall. Please share your thoughts and memories with the family as we gather Thursday evening at Clement's in Durham and any other time. Remember María Pía so that she will never leave us.