Imogene Gordon was born January 2, 1937, in Seminole County, Oklahoma to Clifford L. Gabriel, and Beatrice Posey Gabriel. Two girls were born of this union. She attended Lima Grade School and Douglass High School where she excelled. Her teachers routinely nominated her and her sister to attend Langston University for Oklahoma State interscholastic meetings, where both daughters excelled.
Imogene lived in Lima, Oklahoma until the age of 18 when she married Frank Gordon. While many of her relatives migrated to California to work during the harvesting of cotton and produce. Her uncle Otis Posey invited Frank to move to Denver in 1955, where the construction industry was booming. After having their first of four children, Carma, the family moved to Denver, CO until her passing. Imogene had a heart for making the lives of others better and she became a nursing assistant at General Rose Hospital. She began attending school to become a LPN, but later said she needed to be at home for her children. And that she did. She made sure her children ate breakfast before they left home for the day, and when they returned from school the aroma of dinner would hit you in the face when you walked in the door. But the children had to wait until it was supper time, and just eat a snack and do their homework. She was an excellent cook and one would think she graduated from a culinary school. Truth be known she learned from her mother and her aunts. Her family and her sister’s family would often have alternating Sunday meals together as well as Holidays and other special occasions, and her homemade refrigerator rolls would melt in your mouth, and were always a big hit. Imogene was a generous person. When the children’s friends would visit and it was close to dinner time, she would tell them to ask their mother if they could eat with them. Another sign of her generosity was while the family was eating, you could see through the living room window someone walking up to the door. Imogene would instruct one of the children to “Go in there and get another plate.” By the time the visitor made it inside, they were expected to sit down in front of the empty plate and eat.
Imogene was baptized at the age of 11 at First Baptist Church in Lima Oklahoma. Her only church home in Denver was the Mount Gilead Baptist church under then Pastor Acen L. Philips, which later became The House Worship Center under Pastor Del T. Phillips. Early on she sang alto in the Senior Choir, but most of the time at church she was a fervent Deaconess. until her failing health prohibited her from attending. She was one of the ‘Mothers of the Church.’ Imogene raised all four of her children in the church as well as each of her grandchildren that she raised.
Imogene is survived by her sister, Palma Gabriel Thomas, her four children, Carma L. Gordon, Lovett, Leland Keith Gordon, Frank W. Gordon, Jr. and Bonita Gordon. Ten grandchildren, Thirteen Great grandchildren, and Two Great Great Grandchildren, and a plethora of nieces, nephews, and cousins. Imogene has moved to a better place, where there are streets paved with gold.
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