Deborah Hill Gary, Philadelphia businesswoman, historic preservationist, and board member of the Leon H. Sullivan Charitable Trust, has died at 69

Deborah Hill Gary, a Philadelphia businesswoman and historic preservation activist who helped launch the Friends of the Tanner House and the Society to Preserve Philadelphia African American Assets, died of cancer on Sunday, Oct. 13, at Fox Chase Cancer Center, her family said.

Ms. Gary grew up in Philadelphia, graduated from Girls High School, and earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Hampton University in Hampton, Va. She served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, working as a communications and information systems officer, before leaving the service at the rank of major. She also earned a master’s degree in information science from George Washington University.

After the Air Force, she worked another 14 years in the Washington area as a civilian computer scientist and systems engineer for the Defense Information Systems Agency in the Department of Defense. In Virginia, in 1992, she also opened a children’s bookstore, Color Book Gallery.

When she returned to Philadelphia in 2008, she reopened her children’s bookstore on Germantown Avenue, as a division of her company, DHEx Enterprises. After closing the bookstore in 2016, she focused on DHEx Enterprises, which provides retail products and services, and began operating as Tip Tap Copy & Business Center, at 6553 Germantown Ave., in 2019.

Ms. Gary became very active at Zion Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, the church she had attended as a child.

She was on the church’s technology committee and was always pushing for the church to use modern-day technology, said Ronald J. Harper, a member of Zion Baptist’s board of trustees.

“She was the first person to bring greater attention to the importance of providing STEM training to the church members,” Harper said. “She was very influential, and the church members respected her and worked with her on various projects.”

Ms. Gary joined the board of trustees of the Leon H. Sullivan Charitable Trust in September 2016, said Mable Ellis Welborn, the trust’s chair.

She created the Sullivan Scholarships for students and was also responsible for establishing grants “for entrepreneurs who needed a little help moving their mountains,” Welborn said.

Welborn added that Ms. Gary did a lot of research about the historic works of the late Rev. Sullivan, the iconic and longtime pastor of Zion Baptist Church, for whom the trust is named. She was instrumental in gaining the installation of two Pennsylvania state historical markers honoring him, one at Sullivan Progress Plaza shopping center, on Broad Street near Jefferson Street in 2016, and the other near the church entrance on Broad and Venango Streets in 2017.

» READ MORE: First black-owned shopping center gets historical marker

Welborn praised Ms. Gary’s dedication to sharing the history of Black people. Another church member said she put on annual history programs at the church. She also conducted a Lion of Zion — Rev. Leon H. Sullivan Bus Tour.

“Deborah personified the idea of the [saying], ’If you don’t pass your history along, it will be passed over,’” Welborn said. She said the Sullivan Trust will institute a Deborah Hill Gary Scholarship in her honor.

In addition to helping secure the two historical markers, Ms. Gary turned her interest in history to preserving historic institutions and homes in Philadelphia. She cofounded the Society to Preserve Philadelphia African American Assets (SPPAAA).

As part of that work, Ms. Gary and others in SPPAAA became unofficial stewards of the old Byberry Township African American Burial Ground in Northeast Philadelphia.

“The graveyard was established by the Friends Meeting in 1780 as ‘The Burying Place for All Free Negroes or People of Color within Byberry,’” The Inquirer reported in 2023.

In 2021, Ms. Gary joined with community members to advocate to preserve the historic Henry O. Tanner House in North Philadelphia. She was a founding member of Friends of the Tanner House, which has since become a non-profit heritage stewardship organization.

» READ MORE: Once ‘the center of the Black intellectual community in Philadelphia,’ the Henry O. Tanner House could be demolished

“Working across multiple organizations, Ms. Deborah’s longtime advocacy in Philadelphia for the protection and preservation of Black heritage sites has left us a blueprint for the decades of work ahead,” Christopher R. Rogers, board president and CEO of the Friends of the Tanner House, said in a statement.

“The Friends of the Tanner House is committed to continue the mission she set forth, as well as supporting the ongoing work of the Society to Preserve Philadelphia’s African American Assets.”

Deborah Hill Gary was born in Philadelphia on May 14, 1955, to Samuel Hill, who worked in construction, and Pauline Hill, a teacher. She was the fourth of five children — four daughters and one son. Her parents each moved to Philadelphia from the South.

“She was a mentor, a big sister, an adviser, and a supporter of education,” said Darnita Nahl , Ms. Gary’s youngest sibling. “I looked up to her.”

Nahl said Ms. Gary made sure to teach her family about business and helped them learn about investments and the stock market.

“She was a teacher to everybody,” she said. “If she knew it, she shared it with us, with the neighbors, with everybody.”

In addition to historic preservation organizations and the Sullivan Charitable Trust, Ms. Gary was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.; a board member of the Mount Airy Business Improvement District; on the advisory board of the ACES Veterans Museum; a member and former vice president of the 6300 Germantown Avenue Business Alliance; and the former national public relations chair of Blacks in Government, which served some 8,000 members.

In addition to her sister Darnita Nahl, Ms. Gary is survived by two other sisters, her brother, more than 20 nieces and nephews, and a host of other relatives and friends.

A funeral service was held Saturday, Oct. 19, at Zion Baptist Church, 3600 N. Broad St. The burial was private.