(Photo credit: Instagram)
The Levert family has certainly gone through a number of tragedies over the past few years. And now we sadly report that another death has struck the family. Martha Levert, the mother of late, great singer Gerald Levert and brother Sean Levert has reportedly died. The news came via an Instagram post from Gerald’s daughter and Martha’s granddaughter, Carlysia Levert.
Her post read:
“Heaven gained another Angel this morning… Granny, I love you. I will miss you. I thank God I got to talk to you a week ago… and I thank him for all of our memories that I will forever cherish… you get to be reunited with both of your sons my daddy and uncle Sean… and We gained another Angel! #RIPGrandmaMartha please keep my family in your prayers.”
(Photo credit: @carlysialevert instagram)
Martha and legendary O’Jays singer Eddie Levert were married in 1966. Together they had sons Eddie and Sean, and daughter Kandice. Martha was described in Eddie Levert’s book with Gerald, I Got Your Back, in the following way: “She’s petite, and soft, and exudes the spirit and resilience of a woman six feet tall.” She and Eddie later divorced and he remarried, wedding Raquel Capelton.
Martha’s cause of death hasn’t been revealed but family and friends have confirmed her death.
As a mom, Martha faced every parent’s worst nightmare more than a decade ago, losing son Gerald in 2006 and Sean in 2008.
Eddie, was heartbroken too and shares first-hand what he went through:
“God. That’s how I made it through. Losing my boys was not an easy thing. But there’s always that thing that says, ‘God never puts anything on you that you can’t handle,’ and ‘everything has a reason.’ And it was never in my power to stop that from happening, because I would’ve given anything and everything. That being said, that was a very dark place for me because I had started … to do this. I originally had this idea before Gerald and them did Levert, because that was really my name and he stole it! I told him, I said, ‘Gerald I’m gonna start off, I’m gonna get me a band and put it together ‘cause I wanna do some little things a little bit different than what the O’Jays do. I can never change the way I sound, so it’s gonna always sound like me and the O’Jays, but I can always do things that come from my heart.’”
“But when Gerald and Sean passed away,” Eddie continued. “I wanted to really blame myself because I felt like it was some things I could’ve kept them from seeing that I did in my life, as a father. You know what I’m saying? People say,…
…‘You’re a great dad,’ and all of that, but I’m a person, too, you know? I never had nothing, and coming out of Canton, Ohio, I’d never quite been exposed to the life of an entertainer so a couple times when I got the hit records it was all gravy and all good and all of that. And I used to take them on the road with me, because it was my wife’s chance to get her break. I’d take the kids for the summer and she’d be able to get off into her ministry as being one of Jehovah’s witnesses. She was a great woman; she just had a rotten man. You know? And I can speak of that guy as being a rotten man because he didn’t know what he had and he didn’t know who he was or what he should’ve been doing. It was ignorance. I had to learn.”
(Photo credit: Instagram)
Today we’re sending our prayers to the Levert family.
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