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Eula Clotelle McCoy

Mrs. Eula Clotelle McCoy (pronounced "U-la" and "Clo-tell") was born in Abbeville, South Carolina on May 10, 1917. She is the fourth of seven children of Rufus and Ethel Bradley Searles and was raised in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. In 1935, she graduated from Coatesville High School. A year later, she married the late Reverend William M. McCoy, Sr. and this union lasted for 63 years. She had three children—two sons, Reverend William M. McCoy, Jr. and Dr. Reginald. V.S. McCoy, MD and a daughter, Sandra McCoy (deceased)—and is grandmother of six, and great-grandmother of six. Mrs. McCoy worked at Bell Telephone Company, in retail for several years, and assisted her husband with running Twin Oaks Grocery, the only black-owned store of its kind during the 1940s in Chester, Pennsylvania.

At the age of 92, Mrs. McCoy continues actively sewing, a talent she has had for most of her life. Through the years, she has taken up quilting, sewing, and needlework and is an active twenty-year member of the Homemaker's Country Quilters of Creamery, Pennsylvania. Mrs. McCoy enjoys stitching quilts for family members and also for sick children at the Ronald McDonald House. Throughout her life Mrs. E. Clotelle McCoy has been actively involved in church ministries including Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church of Twin Oaks, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Ministers Wives & Widows Organization, and is deaconess emeritus at Grace Baptist Church of Germantown.

—Submitted by Dawn McCoy (grand-daughter)
   President and CEO, Flourish Leadership Group