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Eula English passes at 91

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Eula and MLK (50520)
Eula and MLK

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday at Harrison-Ross Mortuary for Eula Mae Jordan English, the wife of pioneering attorney Herman A. English. She died of cancer on Nov. 13 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center surrounded by family. She was 91.

Harrison-Ross is located at 4601 S. Crenshaw Blvd. in Los Angeles

For more than 30 years beginning in the 1950s, English and her husband were a power couple of L.A.’s elite Black society. The college sweethearts met at Tillotson College in Austin, Texas, and married in December 1941. After moving to the City of Angels in 1944, she began additional studies at Pepperdine University and the Metropolitan School of Business  (now Los Angeles Trade Technical College).

The “good woman” behind the man, English, an accountant, helped build her husband’s law practice and expansion into several business, including the English Square No. 1, located at 8500 S. Broadway and English Square No. 2 Banquet Hall and Cultural Center.

During its heyday, No. 1 encompassed more than 20 Black-owned businesses in South Los Angeles. English Square No. 2 in Compton was one of the first banquet halls and convention auditoriums owned and operated by African Americans in the country.

English met and socialized with the rich and famous, celebrities, politicians, city leaders, dignitaries, professional athletes and the local gliteratti of the day, including several presidents—John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon—and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mayor Tom Bradley, golfer Charlie Sifford and NFL player Jim Brown.

English was also a woman of service as a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Heroines of Jericho, the Wives of the Bench and Bar, and for many years, the Bon Amici Club.

A devoted Christian, English began her spiritual journey at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Galveston, Texas where she was baptized at the age of 13. In Los Angeles, she was an active member of several churches through the years, but she last worshipped at Ward A.M.E. Church under the Revs. Norman D. Copeland and Taurus Mayhand.

Born to Willie Matterson Jordan and Jessie Mae Clark on September 6, 1922 in Brazoria, Texas, she was the third of four children. She is survived by her brother, Emmit Jordan of Texas and two children—Herman A. English Jr. of Texas and district attorney Brenda English of Los Angeles; plus five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

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