Deacon Elwood “Sugar Boy” Srowro survived brain surgery but never made it home — because Covid-19 took over.
Srowro — a beloved church deacon, father, brother, husband, and friend to fellow recovering addicts, known as a rock and humble “servant leader” — entered the hospital on March 28, according to his wife, Gloria Srowro.
“He had a seizure. They found a mass on his brain,” Srowro said.
“They checked him for Covid before the surgery. It was negative. They did the surgery. Brain surgery. Four days later they said: You can go home. He was excited about going home.”
But first the hospital did another Covid-19 test. This one came back positive. He remained in the hospital.
His condition worsened until, on April 28, he died at the age of 64.
Friends and relatives plan to gather in their cars outside the Elks Club at 87 Webster St. at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Line-up will begin at 9:10 a.m. The caravan will head to Howard K. Hill Funeral Home for a drive-by viewing to pay respects to Srowro from a safe distance amid the pandemic. Then the family will hold a much smaller, private socially distanced funeral service.
There will be much to say about a man who lived a meaningful life that touched so many others.
Srowro was around a lot of people from the start. The son of Agatha Gray and a truck driver named Elwood Gray, he grew up in a household with 16 siblings and stepsiblings in West Rock’s Rockview Circle public-housing development, aka “Out The Way.”
“Because it was so many kids, we always had to share,” recalled Jacqueline Gray, Srowro’s youngest sibling. Elwood, as the eldest, was in charge of divvying up gifts. “One time my father bought these little radios. There were only six radios. Because I was the youngest I always got the leftovers.” That day Elwood saw the sad “look on my face” and made sure I got one” — an approach he took to her his whole life.
“You’d think I was his oldest sister, with respect he gave me. He is one of the faithfulest people I’ve known,” Jacqueline said.
Elwood attended New Haven’s public schools, then enlisted in the Army. He returned home with an honorable discharge and began a 15-year stint working in the Northeast Graphics printing shop.
He wrestled with addiction. More than 30 years ago he went clean. He has stayed clean ever since — and remained active in helping others wrestling similar demons.
He went on to work at the Veterans Administration Hospital. He started out in maintenance. When he retired in 2019 after 23 years, he was working in the operating room helping prepare people for surgery.
Srowro, center, with daughter Lakishia and wife Gloria.
He and his family began attending Mount Bethel Missionary Baptist Church on Webster Street. There, too, he worked his way up as a volunteer. He began sweeping floors and shoveling the walk for the seniors. He became the chairman of deacons and the pastor’s armor bearer. He literally held the pastor up when the occasion called for it.
“He and his family came in. He wasn’t looking for titles. He wasn’t looking for fanfare,” recalled Veronica Douglas-Givan, who grew up in the church. “I just remember him grabbing the broom and just doing it. Nobody asked him. I remember him seeing something that needed to be done and just did it.”
Years later, as an adult, Douglas-Givan began worship at a church in Bridgeport. Her mother remained a Mount Bethel congregant. Her mother developed Alzheimer’s. Veronica, who was caring for her along with her own young son, felt torn about bringing her to church every week or continuing to attend her newfound spiritual home.
Deacon Srowro solved her dilemma. “Myself or pastor, one of us will get her there,” she remembered him saying. Sure enough, “every Sunday morning after I made breakfast and got her dressed, I would call him and he would make sure” she got to church.
One of his daughters, Lakishia Srowro, grew up wrestling with health problems. She had a heart condition. She dislocated her knee. When she was in the hospital, her dad would come to her room after work and “sleep in a chair right by me,” she recalled. “He’s always been that strong person when we were weak. He encouraged everybody.”
In later years, as his mother aged and his sister Jacqueline assumed care for her in Waterbury, Srowro faithfully showed up every Monday and Wednesday to visit.
After Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005, doctors at the VA asked for volunteers to join them down South to help care for the victims.
Srowro came home to tell Gloria he had signed up.
“You’re leaving your family?” she asked him.
“No, I’m going to serve,” he responded.
“But it’s dangerous,” she protested.
To which he responded: “But that’s my job.”
From left, brothers Anthony “Tony” Gray, Douglas Gray, Elwood Srowro, Vencent “Roger” Gray.
When Covid-19 ravaged him in the hospital, and his loved ones couldn’t visit him, Douglas-Givan gave him a call.
His voice was still strong when she reached him, she recalled.
“I’m fighting, sis,” he told her. “Don’t worry about me.”
Besides his wife Gloria, mother Agatha, and daughter Lakishia, Elwood Srowro is survived by daughter Tanisha Evans; siblings Patricia Brown, Linda Gray, Vencent “Roger” Gray, Douglas Gray, Anthony, Jacqueline Gray, Darlene “Shubby” Gray, Harry “Sunny” Gray, and David Pearson; grandchildren Jamali Ford, Gianni Vereen, Dairwood “BJ” Vereen, and Marcus Bailey.
The family included this collage in the funeral program to mark the football team to which Srowro was also faithful.