Alma Johnson Powell, the wife of deceased former Secretary of State Colin Powell, has passed away, CNN reported. “(Powell) was the grounding force of our family,” the couple’s three children said in a statement provided to the news outlet.
“During childhoods marked by constant moving to new homes, we always felt secure, because home was wherever she stood. She was an exemplary role model for us and for the world. She served our country, alongside our father, with intelligence and grace. We will miss her terribly but take comfort in the fact that she had a life so well-lived and is reunited with our father.”
Alma was 86, and she and her husband married in 1962. The Powells became romantically involved after meeting on a blind date a year before marriage. Powell, who was a four-star general and the first Black Secretary of State in U.S. history, was deployed to Vietnam four months after they tied the knot.
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Alma was separated from her late husband as a result, and she described those years as “the defining experience of my life.” “Part of who I am is because of my career as a military wife. I think of the military as family,” Alma said in a previous interview.
“During the course of our young lives, he was often away. … So, like many military spouses today, you’re essentially a single parent. Your job was to make a home wherever you were. Home was where we were as a family, wherever that was.”
Alma attended Boston’s Emerson College and studied speech pathology and audiology. She was a member of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and also part of President Barack Obama’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, CNN reported.
Alma’s husband was a highly decorated soldier who went from combat duty in Vietnam to becoming the first Black national security adviser during the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He was also a trusted military adviser to several U.S. politicians and helped shape American foreign policy. But he admitted that his legacy was damaged following his defense of an Iraq invasion that was based on faulty information.
