Rev. Leroy Smith, 92, generous preacher

COMPETING FOR attention with Dick Clark could not have been an easy experience.

But Leroy Smith was not to be discouraged. He had a message to deliver, and the crowds of young people who gathered outside the Philadelphia Arena for Dick Clark's American Bandstand were going to hear it.

The Rev. Leroy Smith started his religious service as a street preacher, and the venue he chose to try to sell his message of faith was outside the Philadelphia Arena at 45th and Market streets, home to American Bandstand in the early 1960s.

How did he make out?

"He won many souls," said his daughter Antoinette Marie Jackson.

Leroy Smith, a Pentecostal minister who eventually moved his mission indoors, where he became a local legend for his programs for children and adults and a food ministry that kept his parishioners' bodies as well-fed as their souls, died Dec. 27. He was 92 and lived in Southwest Philadelphia.

His daughter said he was still preaching as recently as two years ago.

Leroy was pastor of Grace Chapel Pentecostal Church, which shares space in the Calvary Center for Culture and Community at 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia with Methodists, Mennonites and Jews, as well as several community organizations.

He was such a popular and nurturing figure in his church that parishioners called him "dad."

"He was always upbeat, always encouraging," his daughter said. "He always had something good to say."

His parishioners knew they would always get something to eat at Leroy's Sunday services. People who needed a ride to church could count on him for transportation.

Leroy Smith was born in Southwest Philadelphia to Sarah Smith. He was proud of the fact that he was born just a block from where Marian Anderson was born, and he became a lifelong fan of the African-American singer.

He attended public school and enlisted in the Navy during World War II. He served as an aviator instructor stateside and overseas.

He married the former Sally Musa Dennis on June 6, 1959.

Leroy was inspired to become a preacher after hearing the Rev. Charles Harrison Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ denomination, while Leroy was in the Navy stationed in Memphis.

Back home, he joined the Holy Temple Church of God in Christ founded by the Rev. Ozro Thurston Jones Sr., who succeeded Mason in the leadership of the denomination worldwide.

Leroy graduated from the Manna Bible Institute, and began his street ministry in the early '60s while Dick Clark was hosting American Bandstand, thronged daily by teenagers who danced before TV cameras. The program moved to Los Angeles in 1964.

Leroy founded Grace Chapel Pentecostal Church over a laundromat at 52nd Street and Haverford Avenue in 1963. From there, he moved to the Calvary Center, joining Calvary United Methodist Church, the West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship and Kol Tzedek Synagogue.

"We all got along wonderfully," his daughter said. "We would hold services in the afternoon so the others could have the morning.

"He took care of children, single mothers, single parents, and mentored other preachers. He gave them a chance to preach from his pulpit."

Of course, his church had a choir. One of his favorite hymns was "All the Way My Savior Leads Me:"

Though my weary steps may falter

And my soul athirst may be,

Gushing from the Rock before me,

Lo! A spring of joy I see.

His wife died in 2005. Besides his daughter, he is survived by three other daughters, Yvette Smith, Bernadette Lockridge and Lynette Musa Smith; two sons, John Leroy Smith and Andrew Peter Smith, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Services: Were Thursday. Burial was in Fernwood Cemetery.