At the start of January, as the ravages of a stroke and dialysis weakened their bodies, the brothers knew they needed to talk.
“We outta here next week,” one said. And they both agreed it was time to let go of their extraordinary lives.
The last surviving of 12 children born into a sprawling generation of the aptly named Branch family, the pair were shaped by a strong bond and shared experiences as Black Washingtonians, strong in their churches and communities, stars of their fishing and bowling clubs.
Born in a homestead just north of the D.C. border in 1930 and 1933, the brothers were raised in historic St. Phillips Baptist Church, where their father was an associate minister and their mother a deaconess.
The congregation held services in members’ homes — often in the Branch household — for a time when racial and economic shifts forced the church from the St. Phillips Hill area, a predominantly African American part of D.C. during Reconstruction — as the neighborhood became Whiter, wealthier and transformed into the Palisades.
The boys went to Armstrong High School in D.C., just as the school’s most famous alum, Duke Ellington, was shaping the sound of music in America.
Throughout school, Jimmy Branch worked at a cabinet and refinishing shop in Georgetown, where he was known for his work ethic and craftsmanship. He was just out of high school when three major things happened — he met the love of his life, Ann Waiters; his parents died; and he was drafted into the Army.
At that time, his youngest brother, “Dumpling,” was still a kid.
“His parents passed when he was just 13,” said Mark Branch, one of Paul’s four sons. “So before she was gone, his mama told the rest of her kids to take care of her youngest, to take care of her little dumpling.”
The Branch siblings all took turns parenting Paul “Dumpling” Branch, bestowing the love and discipline they learned from their parents.
“When they got tired of him being a knucklehead, they passed him on to the next sibling,” Mark Branch said of his father.
Jimmy Branch served in the Korean War and returned to D.C. in 1953, just as Dumpling was graduating from high school. He married Ann, they had three children, and he worked in the Naval Research Laboratory as a geological survey cartographic draftsman.
Meanwhile, Paul Branch took classes at Prince George’s Community College and became a machinist at the Naval Ordnance Lab in White Oak, Md. In 1957, he married Hazel Hill, and they had four children.
Big family gatherings. Picnics. Fishing trips. The Branch family was tight, its members always seeing one another on holidays.
And then life took a horrible turn. Ann Branch died in 1965, leaving her husband the single father of three children.
That tight circle of sibling bonds made a grim revolution, and the elder brother who helped raise the Branch kids after their mom died became the one who needed help.
And they stepped in, especially that youngest “little dumpling.”
Jimmy and Paul Branch were close, taking all their kids fishing on the banks of the Potomac River and to the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay where striped bass, croaker and perch run.
On Aug. 28, 1963, the brothers took the kids to the Reflecting Pool for the March on Washington. “I can still feel the excitement, the anticipation,” said one of the nieces, Patricia Jefferson, who remembered the crush of the crowd lifting her feet off the ground. “My uncles were there, holding our arms.”
Jimmy moved to a job at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was foreman of the campus refrigeration and air conditioning — something a little better for a single dad.
He was a generous and curious family fix-it man, guiding a niece through stove repairs over the phone, telling Karen Burrows, “You can do anything.” He repaired everyone’s air conditioners and kept up with technology, mastering FaceTime and Waze, and marveling at all the DIY videos on YouTube well into his 90s, Burrows said.
The brothers shared scouting and sports, coaching and leading together, the kids all flourishing.
Paul coached football and basketball, took the kids to museums and dreamed with them about space travel.
“We had a tightknit family,” Mark Branch said. “That’s what kept us together. Even when one of us was struggling.”
Jimmy deepened his involvement at St. Phillips, serving as an ordained deacon and Sunday school teacher. His booming tenor in the choir was unforgettable. “Closing your eyes, one would have thought at least four tenors were singing” whenever he was on the risers, one family member said.
In retirement, they always went fishing together. The members of the Bay-Lu Fishing Club were at the memorial service in force, gold patches with jumping fish on their blue blazers.
At the extravaganza that was the younger brother’s 90th birthday last October, they sat side-by-side in fat recliners, sharing a TV tray table of the plates their kids made for them, receiving scores of hugs and kisses from dozens of grands and great-grands.
That party was supposed to be at a fancy hotel at the Wharf. But their health was declining and it was safer to have it at a family home.
Dumpling died first, on Jan. 15.
Just 45 minutes later and miles away, his big brother followed.
“He must have known,” Mark Branch said.
On Thursday, their flag-draped caskets were side-by-side in a joint funeral at the First Baptist Church of Glenarden. The chairs were packed.
One of the speakers reminded the mourners that there was joy in the day.
“Usually, it’s a tragedy when you see multiple deaths,” said the Rev. William S. Berkeley Jr.
But in this case, two loving brothers who lived into their 90s, a church filled with friends and offspring?
“This is a victory.”
