Lillian Irene Poindexter

Lillian Irene (Sullivan) Poindexter was born to Pascal and Irene Sullivan on November 15, 1926 in Asheville, North Carolina.  Irene, or Lil, graduated from Stevens Lee High School.  She would often sing the school’s fight song and was exceptionally proud of being an alum.  Abandoning her dream of becoming a mortician and working with her Uncle James in his funeral home in Asheville, Irene came to Washington, D.C. in the late ‘40s to work at the then War Department.  She met and married Alvin Lloyd Poindexter and they had three children – Rosita Irene, Arletta Alvin, and Furman Robert.

Irene was a fashionista long before the word was coined.  After leaving the War Department she worked as a bookkeeper at several now defunct Washington D.C. department stores -- Morton’s (where she also modeled at their fashion shows with her daughters) and Haber’s.  She worked briefly as a “girl Friday” with the D.C. branch of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the ‘60s and after a couple of decades at the old Bell Atlantic/C&P Telephone Company (now Verizon) where she finished her working career.  Irene enjoyed several years of retirement before becoming ill in May, 2001.

After a long illness, Irene died peacefully at Larkin Chase Center on October 17, 2016.  She was predeceased by her husband, Alvin, and her siblings John, Anna, and Jessie.  Irene is survived by her three children; one son-in-law (Horace Stewart); seven grandchildren (Gerald, Ronald, Michael, Rosita and, Roger, Jewel and Maya); 19 great grandchildren; and 11 great, great grandchildren as well as numerous nieces and nephews.  Visitation will be at the Donaldson Funeral Home in Laurel, Maryland on Tuesday, October 25 from 11 until noon.  Interment will follow immediately at Maryland National Memorial Park.

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