To live a life of a servant

Co-founder of St. Tammany West Habitat for Humanity, Emily Diamond, dies at 89

Published: Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 4:43 PM     Updated: Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 4:50 PM

By Jim Derry, The Times-Picayune NOLA.com

 

Emily Glossbrenner Diamond, a civil rights activist and co-founder of Louisiana's first Habitat for Humanity chapter in Covington, died Friday in Robbinsville, N.C. She was 89.

Emily Diamond

Best known for her work with Habitat, Ms. Diamond volunteered much of her time to community service. She also was a co-founder and later secretary and treasurer for the Community Relations Council of Covington, which worked to better relations between black and white people during the 1960s and 1970s.
With Ms. Diamond's assistance, the council formed its own credit union which served to assist low-income families in securing loans for housing. She managed the credit union from its opening in 1969 until 1985.
"She saw the inequities in housing and education and economics (in the mid-to-late 1960s), and she just threw herself into the black community." said one of her seven children, David Diamond. "That's where she rebuilt herself."
After a trip to Americus, Ga., to meet Habitat founder Millard Fuller, she became the driving force to open the nation's 10th affiliate and first in Louisiana in 1981. According to St. Tammany West Habitat's president and chief executive officer, Jeffery St. Romain, that chapter has built 202 homes for those in need in the area.
Today, Habitat has more than 1,500 affiliates in the United States and about 550 more internationally.
Ms. Diamond continued to volunteer in the Covington commmunity until about three years ago. She spent most of the late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s working at Faith Bible Church in Covington, in large part assisting those in a drug rehabilitation program.
"I admired her very much," said Pat Clanton, who served on the Covington City Council from 1987-95 and 2003-07. "I can only say that Emily Diamond was a lovely, gentle, wonderful person, and she gave of her time freely to people in need. I think that she had the admiration of many our community.
"Everything that Emily did, it seemed to me, she did it in a quiet and gentle way. ... She was so gracious, and she drew people to her without even trying to."
She was a native of Indianapolis and attended Swarthmore (Pa.) College and Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. A resident of Covington since 1959, Ms. Diamond was a receptionist and secretary at St. Paul's School from 1964 to 1967, taught third grade at Rosenwald Elementary in Covington in 1967 and taught kindergarten in Madisonville from 1970 to 1975.
After becoming ill in 2008, she moved to Robbinsville to live with her daughter, Kathryn Lynch.
"We were raised believing the same thing my mom believed: that one person can make a difference in the world," David Diamond said. "She firmly believed in the amazing and the absolute value of every human being on the earth. That's what I take from her."
Ms. Diamond's survivors include Lynch and David Diamond, along with five other children: Daniel, Susan, Jessie, Stanley and Jed Diamond. She also had 17 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
A time and date for a memorial service has not been determined.