Catherine D. Crouch; Singers’ Mother

Catherine Dorothea Crouch, the mother of Grammy-award winning gospel singers Andrae Crouch and Sandra Crouch and an active member of her husband’s San Fernando Valley church, has died at home in Pacoima. She was 74.

Mrs. Crouch died Monday of heart failure, Sandra Crouch said.

Born in Los Angeles, Mrs. Crouch grew up in Blythe and married Benjamin Crouch in 1939. As a young married couple, they ran two Crouch Cleaners operations and a restaurant in Los Angeles.

Mrs. Crouch attended Biola College for two years. In the 1950s and ‘60s, she worked as a licensed vocational nurse at Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar. She left nursing to became administrator of Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ in Pacoima, which her husband started in 1951.

Mrs. Crouch, who had traveled the United States performing missionary work with her husband, was a Bible teacher and head of the women’s advisory department at the church. She worked as church administrator until two years ago.

Andrae and Sandra, who are twins, started singing when they were 5 years old, Sandra Crouch said, and by the time they were 10, they were singing in prisons. “She always told us we could do anything,” she said. “She encouraged us to keep trying.” Andrae has won six Grammys, Sandra one.

In the late 1960s, Mrs. Crouch handled business matters pertaining to her children’s singing careers. She was active as an adviser all her life.

She was a member of a nondenominational group called Women’s Aglow in the San Fernando Valley.

Mrs. Crouch is survived by her husband of 52 years, Bishop Benjamin Crouch; two sons, Andrae of Woodland Hills and Benjamin Crouch Jr. of Sylmar; her daughter, Sandra, of Northridge; a brother, Walter Hodnett of Seattle; four sisters, Harriet Canister, Margaret Phillips, Emma Rivera and Minnie Anderson, all of Los Angeles, and three grandchildren.

Visitation is planned from 4 to 5 p.m. Monday at Rucker’s Mortuary, 12460 Van Nuys Blvd., Pacoima. A wake will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday at Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ, 13333 Vaughn St. Visitation will also be from 9 to 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, followed by a funeral at 11 a.m. at the church. Burial will be at Eternal Valley Mortuary, Newhall.

Donations may be made to the Catherine Crouch Memorial Fund, for a literacy program, at the church.