The Rev. Rozell Gilmore died on May 10. He was 79.
Public viewing is Wednesday is from 4 -7 p.m. at Terry Family Funeral Home; public viewing on Thursday is from 9:30 – 10:30 a.m. prior to the service at Central Lutheran Church. The funeral service is Thursday at 10:30 am at Central Lutheran Church, with memorial service, Monday, May 24 at 6 p.m. at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church.Rozell Pearsey Gilmore was born in Baxley, Appling County, Georgia, on Feb. 15, 1931, to the late William (Wilma) Pearsey and Doshie Williams Gilmore. At an early age his last name was changed to Gilmore by his stepfather who adopted him.
Rev. Gilmore grew up in loving and supportive extended family. The saying: "It takes a village to raise a child" was a true experience for him. He spent his first seventeen years in his village community of Baxley. The village included his great grandma who was born into slavery, his grandmother, who was the first generation born after slavery, and his mother and her siblings, who made up the fourth generation of Jack and Mariah Summerall, who were enslaved in Appling County until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
As the oldest male child in his family, he had the responsibility to work with his dad and mom to earn income for the family's survival. He gladly accepted his responsibility and, beginning at the age of 13 to 21, he continued working to assist them.
His family relocated to Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1947. In December, after the harvesting of turpentine was completed, he joined his family. Immediately upon arriving in Daytona, he found a job and continued to work until the school season began in August, 1948. He graduated from Campbell Street High School in 1950, and continued working. In June, 1951, after being drafted by the US Army, he accepted an invitation to join the U.S. Air Force. He received his basic training in Texas and was transferred to Portland Air Force Base. His overseas service was at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage Alaska. While serving in the US Air Force, Rev. Gilmore met and married Beatrice Leola Cannon on May 31, 1952. They are the parents of four children: LaVeta, Mary, Anthony and Reuben. In May, 1955, he was honorably discharged.
In 1956, after his discharge from the Air Force, he became a serious entrepreneur in both the profit and non-profit businesses. He purchased the Citizen's Fountain and Lunch Restaurant, located on N. Williams Avenue and Russell Street (the Urban League Building) and later in 1975 he built Rozells fast food on MLK and Ainsworth (current site of Popeyes). While managing Citizen's, he took advantage of the GI Bill to attend Cascade College (the present location of PCC, Cascade campus). After graduating from Cascade College in 1963, he sold the Citizen's Restaurant and began working as a juvenile group worker for Multnomah County.
During the summer of 1965, he resigned his position as a group worker and began a four year tour of duty as a soldier in the "War on Poverty" program. His first job was that of a vocational counselor at the Timber Lake Jobs Corp Center in Estacada, Ore. In 1966, he resigned that position and returned to Portland to establish the office of Jobs Counseling and Placement that enabled African Americans to confront and defeat the racist hiring policies that kept them from obtaining decent and good salaried jobs. After a year of leadership in that office, the Albina Citizen's War on Poverty Board appointed him to the position of Executive Director of the Albina Neighborhood Service Center. The center was located on NE. Stanton Street, next door to Immaculate Heart Catholic Church. While serving as Executive Director, he facilitated the publishing of a community news paper: The Oregon Advance Times. The Advance Times enjoyed a wide circulation throughout the state of Oregon. It also had a Friday evening news report on OPB Radio.
Rev. Gilmore considered the War on Poverty program to be the most positive, historic experience for the Black and White disadvantaged population in his lifetime. It was the first time since reconstruction that African Americans could dream of a better future. And he, along with other dedicated Albina citizens, tried to do their best to enable African Americans in Portland to strive and make a difference.
At the end of 1968, he resigned from his position as executive director, to become the full-time senior pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Portland, Ore., where he had been serving as the part-time pastor.
Serving in pastoral positions became his primary occupation from 1968 to his retirement in 1998. In 1972, he resigned the pastorate at Berean and spent a year at Emanuel Hospital, serving as a chaplain intern. While serving as an intern, he was offered and accepted the position to serve as Director of Minority Students Affairs, at Concordia University in Portland. While serving in that capacity, he was offered and accepted a scholarship to attend Concordia Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He began his seminary studies in 1979 and completed them in 1982.
That same year, he was ordained and certified as a Lutheran pastor, in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. He accepted his first pastoral call to Our Savior Lutheran Church in Miami, Fla.; his second to Resurrection Lutheran Church, in Chicago; his third, to the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, in Seattle and in 1989, to serve as a missionary pastor in Portland for Lutheran Inner-City Ministries.
As a missionary pastor, Rev. Gilmore was blessed with the resources to build a multi-purpose building that was a place for worship and for a variety of community activities. Some of those activities included a child care center (now, Albina Head Start), weekly police-community meetings, a Civil Air Patrol unit, a food and clothing distribution center and many other community activities. The center programs helped many low income children and their families in the Albina community, and beyond.
After retirement in June, 1998, Rev. Gilmore accepted a call to serve as a short term missionary on the Island of Jamaica from June - August. He considered it a special blessing to have the opportunity to serve his Jamaican brothers and sisters, and learn of their struggles as descendents of slaves. After returning to Portland, he served as preacher for several congregations, including some in the Albina Community. He also enjoyed attending family reunions in Baxley, Ga. and writing the history of the Jack Summerall family, his large extended family dating back to 1843.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Beatrice; children (spouses), LaVeta (Steven), Mary (Wisson), Anthony (Petra) and Reuben (Teri); his grandchildren, Gabriel, LeAnne (Kristian), Kadzo, Michael (Sarah), Nuru, Rose, Benjamin, Xavier; step-grandchildren, Ryan, Ian, Skyler; God-grandchildren, Oquendo and Maria; great-grandchildren, Xavier; sisters, Marian Gilmore (WA), Coreen Howard, (GA), Wilma Jean, (GA), Carlean Copeland, (FL), Verdine Dilligard, (Fl), Denice Pearsey, (GA); brother, James Daniels (FL) and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.
He was preceded in death by his sisters: Dannie Burgess, Vera Ballard, Mattie Baker, Ann T. Gilmore and brothers: Lynn and Troy Gilmore and Rev. Joseph A. Gilmore.
