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James H. Goode Sr., 79, operator of car repair business

He was a loyal supporter of his brother, W. Wilson Goode Sr.

NOBODY PICKED on Wilson Goode when he was a kid when his big brother was around.

James Goode, three years older than the future Philadelphia mayor, didn't shy away from a fight, especially when it came to protecting his younger brother.

"I was not a fighter," Wilson Goode said. "He took care of me."

James Henry Goode Sr., who grew up with Wilson, three other brothers and two sisters picking cotton and tobacco on a sharecropping farm in Seaboard, N.C., longtime operator of an auto-repair business in Southwest Philadelphia and a devoted supporter of his brother's political ambitions, died Sunday. He was 79.

W. Wilson Goode Sr., Philadelphia's first black mayor, said James was the hardest worker of the Goode brothers on the farm.

"He could pick the most cotton and worked the hardest in the fields," Wilson Goode said. "He was big and strong."

When the Goode family moved to Philadelphia, James and his brother Aaron joined the Sherman Box Co. James was employed there for 20 years.

But he always nursed a desire to work on cars.

"He loved tinkering with cars and developed a strong desire to own his own car-repair business," Wilson Goode said.

He eventually fulfilled his dream by opening an auto-repair business at 58th Street and Florence Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia.

"He just loved working on cars," his brother said. "There were those who would take their cars nowhere else."

James ran his business until he suffered a stroke in August 2000, which ended his working career at age 65.

"He was very mechanically talented," his brother said. "And even though he had only an eighth-grade education, he had an amazingly keen business mind."

When Wilson Goode ran for mayor in 1983, James was a strong booster and organized friends to put up posters and do whatever was necessary for his brother's victory over Frank Rizzo, the former mayor, in the primary, and John Egan in the general election.

James repeated the work for his brother in the 1987 election when Wilson again defeated Rizzo.

"He was a very strong supporter and a good friend," said Wilson Goode, now a Baptist minister.

James was born the fourth of seven children of Albert and Rozelar Goode in Seaboard. At age 12, he was baptized in the Jordan Pond of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Seaboard.

After arriving in Philadelphia, mother Rozelar took James, Wilson, Aaron and brother Edward to the First Baptist Church of Paschall and informed them that they were joining that church.

James married Hilda Freeman and they had five children. He married Dorothy Pressley on Oct. 24, 1980. She encouraged him to rekindle his lagging church activity by joining Community Bible Tabernacle in Wynnefield.

"Although regarded as a quiet, pensive man, James would really perk up at the smell of a good home-cooked meal and discussions of driving on the highway at high speeds, and cars," said Wilson Goode, who now runs Amachi, which works with children of incarcerated parents.

Besides his wife, James is survived by two sons, James "Sweetie" Goode and Richard "Yum" Goode; two daughters, Annabelle "Bell" Goode and Rosemary "Roe" Goode; his four brothers - Wilson, Alvestus, Aaron Lee and Edward; 14 grandchildren; and 21 great-grandchildren.

Services: 6 p.m. Sunday at First Baptist Church of Paschall, 2220 S. 71st St. Friends may call at 4 p.m.