Robert E. Matthews, retired financial manager and Celebration Church member

Robert E. Matthews, a retired financial manager who had been an active member of Celebration Church, died July 6 of complications of an infection at Alive Assisted Living in Ellicott City. The Columbia resident was 92.

Robert Eugene Matthews, the son of Gladys Matthews, a homemaker, was born in Philadelphia. When he was 19 months old, his father left the family, who then moved to Alexandria, Va., where he was raised by his mother and maternal grandfather, William Wanzer, a maintenance worker.

For a brief period, the family moved to Florida during the Great Depression, where his mother looked for steady work and Mr. Matthews dropped out of school to help support his family.

They returned to Alexandria, where Mr. Matthews attended the segregated Park Gray High School, where he lettered in football, baseball and basketball. After graduating from high school in 1946, he began his college studies at what is now Morgan State University, where he played varsity football.

While at Morgan, he was a member of the Army ROTC program and was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. After graduation in 1950, he enlisted in the Army and served as a staff sergeant in Germany until being discharged in 1952.

From 1952 to 1959, he worked as a Baltimore police officer, spending five years with the vice squad. Subsequently, he worked for the Parole and Probation Department for several years, and then for the Community Action Agency.

In the mid-1970s, Mr. Matthews attended the University of Maryland, from which he earned a master’s degree in social work. He then joined the Morgan faculty and while there met the former Carolotta Wilkins, whom he married in 1974. She died in 2008.

After leaving Morgan, he worked for a decade with the state Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, retiring in 1982.

Mr. Matthews established Primerica Investment Services, which helped new investors with financial management strategies. After retiring in 2009, he gave the business to a nephew who continues to operate the business, family members said.

He joined Long Ranch Church of God, which is now Celebration Church in Columbia, where he became an active member. He served as head of the senior ministry, was a deacon and a member of the security ministry.

Funeral services were held July 19 at March Funeral Home West.

He is survived by two sons, Derrick Matthews of Tanzania and Kevin Matthews of Greensboro, N.C.; a daughter Yvette Matthews of Durham, N.C.; a stepson, Wayne Calvin Jones of Columbia; a stepdaughter, Sheila Jordan of Falling Waters, W.Va.; nine grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. An earlier marriage to the former LaMoyne Mason ended in divorce.