Wallace Edward Coleman Jr.

Born Wallace Edward Coleman, Jr. to Wallace E. and Ruth Coleman in Washington, D.C., Nov. 5, 1930. He is preceded by Wallace E. Coleman Sr., Ruth Coleman, Mary Phillips and Frank W. Coleman. He is survived by his four children, Roxane J. Glenn, Wallace E Coleman,III, Charles A. Coleman and Wanda

J. Jackson also sister-in-law Helen Suydan, and 15 grandchildren, 18 great

grandchildren and 4 great great grandchildren.

While attending Dunbar High School in Washington, DC, he met the future Mrs. Joan G. (Suydan) Coleman in 1947 then graduated and joined the DC National Guard in 1949 as Private Coleman. At the beginning of the Korean conflict, September 1950, his guard unit was activated and sent to Camp Mc Coy, Wisconsin, for training where he was promoted to Sargent First Class,The he next year he married Joan G. Suydan. Barney, as he was known, continued with the National Guard until 1975. During his career in the National Guard he attended Officer’s Candidate School at Fort Riley Kansas, where an allotted a number of National Guardsman were selected for special Officers training. After going through a battery of tests, Barney was selected to represent the District of Columbia. He then graduated and was

promoted to Second Lieutenant, moved up through the ranks retired with the rank of Major in 1975.

While in the guard he worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade, Maryland where he retired after 36 years of service. It should be noted that he was active in Field Archery for 10 years taking the NSA archery championship in 1957 and well as Field Captain in Mohican Bowman Archery Club, the only all black field archery club in the United States. The next chapter of his life began 1987 when he and Joan moved to San Antonio, Texas, when married for 57 years, Joan lost her battle with pancreatic

cancer in 2010.He was a member of Prince of Peace Catholic Church where he spent 15 years in the Rosary Guild and St. Vincent DePaul Meals-on-wheels. He was also a member of the church bowling league, he was an avid bowler for 26 yrs.and recently shooting pool at the Doris Griffin One-Stop Senior Center winning the pool championship in 2018. In recent years he retired from church activities but still attended Sunday Mass at Prince of Peace Church.