On February 20, 1933, the late Ollie Taylor and the late Onie Bradford Taylor gave birth to Eula Mae Taylor Clay in Big Cove, Alabama. She departed this life peacefully on Saturday, November 11, 2023, at Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama.
Mother Eula Clay was the youngest of four girls (Beatrice, Estella, and Virginia). Because her father was a sharecropper, Eula and her sisters had to walk a far distance to school. When she was in the second grade, her father moved the family to Chattanooga, Tennessee. She attended James A. Henry School, which was across the street from the apartment complex in which she lived. Mother Clay enjoyed how everything in Chattanooga was nearby for her. She did not have to walk a great distance to school, and the neighborhood grocery store was beneath her family’s apartment. During her family’s time in the city, her father worked at a power plant. They lived in Chattanooga for four years before returning to Alabama, due to her grandfather wanting help with sharecropping. When they moved back, she, along with her sisters, had to return to walking long distances to get to school, and her father became a sharecropper again. She attended Gurley School, which had only one teacher for sixth through ninth grade. After Gurley School, she attended Council Training in Huntsville, Alabama until she graduated in May of 1951. She always spoke about how during her senior year of high school, she told her father she could no longer help with share cropping because she would not be able to graduate if she could not attend her classes full-time. Her father told all his friends, “Eula cannot help with sharecropping, or she will not graduate from high school.” He was behind her one hundred percent. She would often say, “Only if I had told him that when I was in the tenth grade or I could have been studying the assignments, even if I was unable to attend due to helping with sharecropping.”
In August of 1951, she attended Alabama A&M University and majored in Secondary Education. At the age of nineteen years old, she married Lafayette Clay Sr. on September 27, 1952. They would stay married for sixty-nine years until his death. To this union, she and Lafayette would give birth to five children named Varick Theron, Reginald, Lafayette Jr., Kimberly Meloria, and Timothy Leonard. Unfortunately, Timothy died in a car accident at twenty-seven years old. She always had the attitude, when given lemons, to make lemonade when faced with life’s persecutions. Because of his death, the Timothy Leonard Clay Scholarship was created in honor of his life. The book scholarship so far has raised close to $20,000 to assist young men and women of Pentecostal Lighthouse Church to attend college.
For twenty-four years of her and Lafayette’s marriage, she would travel with him because he worked in the U.S. Army. While her husband was stationed in Germany three times, Georgia, Kansas, and South Carolina, she stayed home and raised her five little children. She would always give them words of wisdom on whatever they faced in life. She was a strong advocate for education. I would say that is why she chose Secondary Education as her major her Freshman year of college.
After her husband retired from the military in 1974 and moved back to Gurley, Alabama, she joined Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Big Cove, Alabama under the leadership of Reverend Walter Kelley, who was her childhood classmate. She was back home amongst her childhood friends and relatives.
In 1977, while visiting her sisters (who all live in Louisville, Kentucky now), she went to church with her sister, Estella, who was a member of Greater Bethel. Under Bishop Stewart’s leadership, she was baptized in Jesus’ Name. She said, “I cannot leave Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church without speaking to my Pastor Walter Kelly and longtime friend to tell him I am leaving the church to partner with Pentecostal Lighthouse Church.” That, she said, was one of the hardest conversations she ever had to face. In 1980, she would join Pentecostal Lighthouse Church in Huntsville, Alabama under the leadership of Bishop Johnny Burrell. At Pentecostal Lighthouse Church, she worked on the Usher Board, was a teacher for the Sunday school, helped with Precept Ministry with Sister Craig, and was the President of the Mother Board until her death. She attended Pentecostal Lighthouse faithfully for over forty years until she died unexpectedly on November 11, 2023. She had already picked out her outfit to wear for the Veterans Day Celebration that was to take place on November 12, 2023.
Eula was preceded in death by her husband, Lafayette Clay Sr., her son Timothy Leonard Clay and her sisters Beatrice Stewart, Estella Cross, and Virginia Cross.
She leaves to cherish her memories, three sons, Varick Clay (Mina), Reginald Clay (Cheryl) from Richmond Virginia, Lafayette Jr. Clay (Deborah). One daughter Kimberly Yarbrough (John); Three sister-in-laws, Evelyn Hardin (Alfred, deceased), Coreen Hardin (Jethro, deceased) and Deloris Burgess (Jasper); Two brother-in-laws, Rudolph Williams (Patricia) and Clifton Williams (Doris); Fourteen grandchildren, nineteen great-grandchildren, numerous nieces, nephews, and other relatives and friends.
Funeral service will be announced later.
