August 29th, 2012 
AT2W Staff 
Gospel Music Industry Loses Gospel Artists From Life to Death
Willa Ward Royster, sister of Clara Ward and original member of the Clara Ward Singers died this month at the age of 92.The Ward Singers began as a trio consisting of Mother Gertrude Ward and sisters Clara and Willa Ward in 1931. The Ward Singers would began touring nationally in 1943 and in later years would add the likes of Marion Williams, Henrietta Waddy, Kitty Parham, Esther Ford and Frances Steadman. Willa Ward chronicled her life and times with the group in her autobiography, How I Got Over in 1997. Source
Gladys Beamon Gregory, a member of the famed Little Lucy Smith Singers, died on August 12.
Gregory was born in Chicago in 1925 and she was a member of the original Lucy Smith Trio from All Nations Pentecostal Church on Chicago’s South Side, whose founder and pastor, Elder Lucy Smith, was the first African American minister in Chicago to broadcast her worship services over the radio.
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