Warren's Coleman family ties bind, blossom

colemans provide stability in SW warren neighborhood

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Since her nine children were small, Juanita Coleman has preached the importance of independence and education.

Those traits have served the Coleman children well because despite growing up in one of the poorest areas of Warren, all nine have a college education, most of them a bachelor’s degree.

During their free time from school, the eight girls and one boy stayed almost exclusively on what family members call the “Coleman Compound” on Maple Street Southwest. The “compound” protected the Coleman children from negative influences, such as drugs and violence, Juanita Coleman says.

Juanita’s independent mindset also extended to romantic relationships. She told her daughters to stay single, even though she and her husband, David, were married 58 years. David died in March at age 78.

Southwest Warren was a growing area with a modern new Western Reserve High School when the Coleman children were small 45 years ago, but it had declined by the time the youngest children had grown into adulthood. All nine children graduated from Western Reserve.

Drug dealing, violence and blight have been commonplace not far from the Coleman residence in recent years. Pockets of peace and quiet remain, like the several homes on Maple Street where Juanita and several of her children still live.

Rhonda Bennett of Hoyt Street Southeast, president of the Southwest Neighborhood Association, said the Colemans are a stabilizing influence on the neighborhood, having stayed there for so many years.

“They are a family you want to be part of, and they welcome you,” Bennett said, adding that she went to school with several of the Colemans, and they all “excelled in school.”

Juanita Coleman remembers watching “The Phil Donahue Show” on television in the 1970s and being concerned enough about negative influences to take advice on child-rearing from the show, which said: “You’ve got to keep the threat in them.”

“I would put the threat in them,” she said of what she told her children before leaving for the afternoon shift at Packard Electric. The Coleman children would be alone for about an hour until their father came home from work at Downtown Motors, where he was a mechanic for 44 years.

In the 1970s, Juanita was starting to see the negative influence drugs was having on the community, including Packard Electric, where she worked for 30 years.

She was also the interrogator, a fact her children find amusing today when they get together for frequent family gatherings at the Coleman residence.

When Juanita met one of her children’s friends, she would ask his or her name, who his or her parents were and where they worked.

She also felt privacy was a luxury her children couldn’t afford. She removed the doors from the bedrooms of the Coleman children.

“You know how they go in their room and close the door?” That didn’t happen in the Coleman residence, she said.

When the Coleman children and nearly 200 other family members arrived for a Coleman family get-together at the residence last weekend, some of the children talked about Juanita’s strict ways.

“There was very strict discipline,” Vonnie Coleman, 51, of Warren, the third-oldest daughter, said of how her house was different from families she knew.

“We’re from the old school — rule with an iron fist. We were brought up to listen. We were responsible when we were young, taught to be independent. Don’t follow the pack.”

Vonnie, who earned a nursing degree and works at Valley Care Trumbull Memorial Hospital as nutrition-service supervisor, said her mother preached to “stay independent. Never rely on anyone for anything.”

That didn’t stop the Coleman children from having friends, but it stopped them from letting friends influence them to make bad choices, Vonnie said.

“Most of our friends went to college. They’re workers,” Vonnie said.

Jacqueline Coleman, 48, of Dayton, a 22-year military veteran who also has a master’s degree in business administration, says the Coleman children were unusual in the amount of time they spent with one another.

“We always had to do everything together,” she said.

David Coleman taught his children about saving money. “He would say, ‘Pay your bills and then pay yourself,’” Vonnie said.

Juanita worked as many hours as possible at Packard Electric because she knew it would help her children get a good education.

“Today they laugh” at how strict she was, she said of her children.

“I never had to go to the police department. Never. That’s because I had the threat in them,” Juanita said. “I would go at them rough when I’d go at them. If I had any trouble at the school, I went to the school.”

Mary Frances Coleman, 44, of Warren, who works locally for the state, earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal-justice studies from Youngstown State University this spring.

Her graduation was one of four the Coleman family celebrated at last weekend’s get-together.

Mary Frances says the bond the nine siblings forged growing up remains strong.

“On the weekends, we all sit under this tent. We’re close,” she said from the backyard of the Coleman home. “We take trips together at least once a year. We all try to come home.”

Mary Coleman, 47, of Houston, who has worked as a Houston police officer for 21 years and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, said she thinks the academic achievements of the older girls, Brenda and Vonnie, caused the younger girls to strive to keep up.

“We competed with each other,” Mary said.

Brenda, 50, of Warren, who works at GM Lordstown, said grandparents, aunts and uncles who were educated professionals in Mississippi had a lot to do with the Coleman family’s educational and family traditions.

The youngest Coleman daughter, Shenita Lawson, 39, is working in the Ohio governor’s office in Columbus.

Among the other graduations the Coleman family celebrated last week was that of Joseph Clark, 24, of Youngstown, son of Deborah Clark, 52, one of the older Coleman daughters. Joseph earned a law degree at The Ohio State University this spring as well as a master’s degree in public policy and management. He graduated from The Rayen School in 2004.

Joseph began working last week as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., for the Battelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit applied science and technology company.

The family also celebrated the graduation of Jamal Coleman, 18, from Harding High School, who will be living with his father, David Coleman, 37, in Orlando, Fla., this fall and attending Full Sail University to study music production.

Jamal is the grandson of oldest Coleman daughter, Ophelia, 53, who works at Trumbull Memorial Hospital. Jamal got inspiration from the oldest of the Coleman children, Maurice Moore, 58, of Warren, a musician.

One of Jamal’s cousins, Michael Coleman-Nelson of Houston, whose mother is one of the younger Coleman daughters, Mary D. Coleman, says his graduation from high school this spring demonstrated to him the value the Coleman family places on education.

“I graduated from high school, and half of [my aunts] came to watch me graduate,” he said. The other half attended Jamal’s graduation.

Michael will attend the University of Texas at San Antonio this fall.