Mom was clothes designer, writer

Inez Allison Lewis loved designing clothes so much as a child, she took a pair of her father's trousers and cut them up to make doll dresses.

"She'd later laugh and tell us she wondered how she thought she could get away with it without her father realizing his trousers were missing," said daughter Shawn D. Lewis, a Detroit News staff writer.

Mrs. Lewis' design talents became well-known across Metro Detroit. She began assembling a select clientele of customers and often presented fashion shows locally, including at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Mrs. Lewis died Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit following a lengthy illness. She was 87.

A skilled artist, she also hand-painted designs on furniture and painted murals on bulletin boards for her former husband's classrooms in Detroit Public Schools, where he taught.

Mrs. Lewis, a Pershing High School graduate who attended Wayne State University, was most proud of being published.

She was an avid reader, teaching Shawn and another daughter, Mimi Lewis, to read at age 3, and studiously followed current events. She began writing opinion pieces in her 70s. Several were published in The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.

One such column in The News, "An Open Letter to Tiger Woods, Be True to Your Diverse Heritage," caught the attention of DePaul University professor David A. Jolliffe. He wrote to The News, requesting permission to use it in a textbook he was writing on teaching college students how to write.

Mrs. Lewis' opinion piece now appears in the college text "Inquiry and Genre: Writing to Learn in College." In the work, Jolliffe shows students how to write an open letter, taking apart each paragraph of her article.

"She was the epitome of love and generosity," Mimi Lewis said. "She once gave the gloves off her hands to a person who had no gloves while walking home in a snowstorm …"

Besides her daughters, other survivors include a brother, Kenneth Allison, and numerous nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by six siblings and her former husband, Samuel Lewis.

Services will be private.