Rosa L. Broadous, a community leader who was matriarch both of a prominent San Fernando Valley family with 10 children and of the Baptist church she co-founded with her husband in 1955, has died. She was 89.
Mother Broadous, as she was affectionately known, died Oct. 28 of complications related to old age at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, her family said.
Six of her children became Baptist ministers, fanning out into the community to make a difference just as their parents did from their longtime home in Pacoima.
In 2000, The Times named Broadous one of seven "Great Dames" who helped shape California. These were women who came of age at a time of limited expectations and found a way to acquire power anyway -- and use it for the greater good.
Although she started Calvary Baptist Church in Pacoima with her husband, the Rev. Hillery T. Broadous, she was not officially seen as a co-founder at first because a woman's role was to direct the choir, work with youth or entertain, Broadous told The Times in 2000.
But that was changing, she said, punctuating the observation with "Praise the Lord."
After the church was founded, many younger congregants who had recently left home began calling her "Mother Broadous," and the name stuck. Her role as "church mother" was recognized in a cornerstone of the church that her son, William, continued to pastor after her husband died in 1982.
Everywhere she went, she was called Mother Broadous, said Jose De Sosa, a former president of the Valley NAACP.
"She served just about every organization in the Valley in some capacity," he said. "Her background goes from civil rights to community to social organizations."
Her lengthy list of accomplishments includes helping to found the San Fernando Valley branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People; one of her sons, the Rev. Zedar Broadous, later served as its president.
As a board member of the Valley Interfaith Council, she left a legacy by "getting the black community involved with the organization," said Barry Smedberg, a former council president.
"She always seemed to have kindness and understanding," Smedberg said. "She had this kind of aura of righteousness about her."
Broadous also served on the board of the Northeast Valley Multipurpose Senior Center, now named for her daughter, the Rev. Alicia Broadous-Duncan, who was executive director of the center when she died in 2003.
