Mother Coreania H. Carter Way (Queens)
Present name:None
Location:Northeast corner of 167th Street and Linden Boulevard
Honoree: Coreania Hayman Carter (1916-2014) taught at Daniel Payne College, in Alabama and Dunbar Middle School in Tucson Arizona. While an educator, she had a passion for music. Her fine lyric soprano voice won her role in the Broadway production of Porgy and Bess, with which she traveled extensively to over 45 countries. Afterwards, she starred as Cindy Lou in the opera Carmen Jones. In 1940, she met Rev. Julius Ceasar Carter and in 1945, they married. Despite her love for music, she retired from singing to assist her husband in ministry. In 1946, Rev. Carter rejoined active duty in the military. At that time, Mrs. Carter was directing the choir at Allen AME Church, Jamaica. At the urging of those members, Rev. Carter organized the Carter Community AME Church. Its first services were held in 1947 at the Crowe Funeral Home. Many of the members were professional musicians and performers. The church soon moved to a white frame building at its present location on Linden Blvd. That building was destroyed by fire in 1952, but in 1964, ground was broken for a new church and senior citizen complex on the same site. While Rev. Carter was away serving his country, Mrs. Carter held the church together, including buying bricks for the facing of the building and also jumping on oil trucks to bring oil to keep the church warm for service. Mrs. Carter was involved in many church ministries. She also was president of the AME Ministers Wives and Widows Alliance, president of the NY Interdenominational Association of Ministers Wives and Widows Alliance, and a life member of the AME Missionary Society and of the International Association of Missionaries. (Miller)
LL:2018/139