Florez Kathy Sledge, 79; her daughters were Sister Sledge

Florez Kathy Sledge, 79, mother and business manager of Philadelphia's sensational Sister Sledge, whose Grammy-winning "We Are Family" became a mantra for togetherness, died of a stroke May 17 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix. Mrs. Sledge had lived in West Philadelphia before moving to Phoenix 10 years ago.

Born Florez Kathy Williams, the eldest daughter of an opera singer, she left Youngstown, Ohio, after high school. She immediately began singing and dancing in Harlem clubs and played bit parts in movies, said daughter Kathy Lightfoot.

She had a daughter, Norma Carol Blackmon, before marrying Edwin Sledge in 1954. The couple moved to West Philadelphia and had four daughters, each one year apart, before divorcing in the mid-1960s.

Mrs. Sledge's four younger daughters began singing at churches and civic events as children.

"We were always singing. We sang when we jumped rope, we sang when we played jacks," Lightfoot said. "Our mother and grandmother taught us four-part harmony and encouraged us."

Mrs. Sledge, who worked three jobs to support her family, told her daughters they had been gifted. "She read our palms and made us feel special, through good times and bad," Lightfoot said.

Mrs. Sledge was a firm disciplinarian, but fun.

"It was like having Mary Poppins as a mother," her daughters said. "She dressed us up and took us for rides through pretty neighborhoods and said someday we would live in houses like that."

"She had a way of making us enjoy life," Lightfoot said. "She was a beautiful woman and our driving force. My grandmother always said you could not buy class. My mother had class."

Debra DeBruine, Joni Sledge, Kim Allen and Kathy's singing career took off before they finished high school. While on the road singing, their mother was always there. "She was the perfect backstage mom - she was brilliant," they said.

Mrs. Sledge stressed education even more than singing. The family toured the states in a bus. Mrs. Sledge was always there "to make sure other people around us behaved," Lightfoot said. She hired tutors and each daughter graduated from high school and eventually earned bachelor's degrees from Temple University.

Sister Sledge released its first album, Circle of Love, in 1974. The group's popularity exploded in 1979 with the release of the breakthrough album We Are Family. The song became a worldwide family anthem and was adopted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979, the year they won the World Series.

In the 1980s, the sisters married and had children.

Mrs. Sledge's eldest daughter, Norma Carol, who teaches school in Philadelphia, filled in if one was on maternity leave. "Dick Clark called Carol 'the closet sister,' " Lightfoot said.

In the mid-1980s, Mrs. Sledge stopped managing the group and earned a Realtors license at Temple University. She moved to Arizona where she continued to encourage young people to earn an education and stay out of trouble, her family said.

"Mother was with us when we last performed group at a Katrina benefit," her daughters said. "But, we also sang spirituals for her around her hospital bed."

In addition to her daughters, Mrs. Sledge is survived by 15 grandchildren; three sisters and a brother.

A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Salem Baptist Church of Jenkintown, 610 Summit Ave. Burial will be in Ivy Hill Cemetery, 1201 Easton Rd. A memorial service will be held June 2 in Phoenix.