The tip of Cedar shot from Catherine Street looking east in 1955, a few years before the founding of Cedar Park Neighbors. Photo from Phillyhistory.org

Family, friends and neighbors are celebrating the life of Gerald McHugh Sr., the 80-year resident of Cedar Park and a co-founder, more than 50 years ago, of the civic association Cedar Park Neighbors, who died last week.

A viewing for McHugh, who was 92, will be held at Saint Francis de Sales (4625 Springfield Ave.) this evening at 6 p.m. and again tomorrow (Friday) at 10 a.m.

The son of Irish immigrants, McHugh lived in the Cedar Park neighborhood for the first 80 years of his life. He operated a real estate business for many years out of a storefront office at 48th and Baltimore (now the  Gold Standard Cafe).

McHugh founded Cedar Park Neighbors in 1960 in part to help foster racial diversity and harmony in the neighborhood. Many white residents in Cedar Park and across Philadelphia fled the city for the suburbs in the 1960s and 70s. Cedar Park Neighbors remains a vital force in the civic life of residents in that part of West Philadelphia.

McHugh passed away in his daughter’s home in Cedar Park.

We are very sorry to report that a West Philly boy died on Saturday, two days after he was pulled from a swimming pool at Cobbs Creek Recreation Center (210 S. 63rd St.).

A lifeguard found 7-year-old Jabriel O’Connor underwater and unresponsive at about 1 p.m. Thursday. The lifeguard administered CPR and the boy was rushed to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was placed on life support. Four lifeguards were watching the pool.

Jabriel was at the public pool with a camp group of about 25 children and four counselors. Jabriel lived near the corner of Walnut and Melville Streets in the Spruce Hill section in an emergency shelter for homeless families, according to neighbors.

Mayor Michael Nutter issued a statement yesterday concerning the boy’s death:

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jabriel’s parents, family, friends, and all of the young people present at the Cobb’s Creek Recreation Center on Thursday as they grieve.  The City will continue to provide support services to Jabriel’s family, the camp staff, City employees and community members affected by this tragedy. It is my hope that they can find strength and comfort from the support of their loved ones and the entire Philadelphia community at this difficult time.”

A neighbor wrote in an e-mail that Jabriel lived nearby.

“This child is our neighbor at Melville and Walnut. So, so sad. Other kids from his house witnessed his drowning, just awful. Don’t know if anything can be done on a community level to help  his mom/family, but thought I would e-mail you just in case.”

We have contacted the agency that sponsored the camp for information about how community members could help Jabriel’s family. We’ll post any information we receive back.

The late Mott Green / Photo by Karen Kirchhoff.

When Mott Green founded the Grenada Chocolate Company Cooperative in 1999, it was his mission to not only make the “best chocolate in the world,” but also do so ethically and sustainably — “Tree to Bar,” as he put it.

The award-winning dark chocolate made by the small Hermitage, Grenada-based company is organic, produced by solar-power machinery built by Green’s hands. The operation is also a worker-owned coop, in business with small local cocoa farmers and as many as 50 factory workers, and offering employee shareholding and fair wages. It’s an ethical, sustainable model wholly in line with Green’s overarching personality the Washington-born, New York-raised activist dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1980s because he didn’t want to surrender to the confines of regular society. He spent much of his 20s squatting around West Philly and dedicating his time to homeless activism.

The work that Green, who died suddenly on June 1st at the age of 47 while working at his factory, committed his life to is also the subject of the 2012 documentary, Nothing Like Chocolate. Directed by Kum-Kum Bhavnani and narrated by Susan Sarandon, the film tells the stories of Green and Nelice Stewart, an independent cocoa farmer in Grenada, and how the Caribbean island “has become home to this revolutionary venture”—an organic, ethical chocolate made in a country where chocolate productions is often a “dirty industry,” said Bull Gervasi, produce & facilities manager of Mariposa Food Co-op, which was one of the first in Philadelphia to sell Green’s chocolate bars 10 years ago. Grenada Chocolate Company is sold online and in stores across Europe and the States, with a flagship store recently opened in the Caribbean country.  Continue Reading

We are very sad to report that Miki Takamori, the woman who was injured in the house fire on the 4600 block of Larchwood Avenue on Jan. 23, has passed away. Miki sustained serious injuries in the fire, including burns on 20-25 percent of her body, and a broken back and ribs from jumping out of the second floor window trying to escape the blaze, but was doing better in the last several weeks. She had made tremendous progress since the accident and was getting close to the time when she could be transferred to a rehabilitation center from the hospital, when on Monday, Apr. 3, she suddenly went into cardiac arrest, according to her friends.

Miki’s funeral will take place on Saturday, Apr 13 at the Unitarian Society of Germantown:

April 13 (Saturday) at 2:00 p.m.
Unitarian Society of Germantown
6511 Lincoln Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19119

We are very sad to report that Oliver “Ali” Robinson, a longtime activist and community organizer in the city, died on Monday. He was 64.

Back when he was a little boy growing up in Southwest Philadelphia, scrambling through the pews of Mount Zion Baptist Church, Oliver Robinson was simply known as “Ollie.”

As the youngest of five, he worked hard to live up to the examples set by his older brothers, especially the late state Sen. Hardy Williams, who would go on to have a pioneering legal and political career that included a run for mayor in 1971 that would inspire other African Americans to seek public office.

Robinson worked to apply the teachings of his mother, Frances “Mom” Williams, renowned for championing “the people’s business.” And as the Civil Rights Movement evolved from sit-ins and picket signs to more confrontational politics, “Ollie” became known as “Ali.”

“He was a stalwart in our family and our organizational structure, a fellow civil rights warrior,” said state Sen. Anthony “Hardy” Williams, Robinson’s nephew. “But I realized it was more important to him to be my uncle than anything else.”

Family members say Robinson watched “Mom” Frances counsel and speak out for neighbors in need, which helped spark his interest in social justice.

Robinson graduated from West Philadelphia High School in 1967 and went on to attend Howard University.

He joined the 1971 mayoral campaign against Frank Rizzo his big brother Hardy waged that shook up party politics. Robinson worked on a variety of campaigns, including the elections of Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. in the 1980s and state Rep. Jordan Harris just last year.

“He was an architect. Even before there were computers, Ali was the best Election Day statistician in the city,” said Lynette Brown-Sow, who worked as teen on the Hardy Williams mayoral campaign. “He had a gift.”

Robinson also worked at the Crisis Intervention Network, where he was part of the team that led one of the most effective youth violence intervention programs in the city’s history. He co-founded the People’s Institute, which helped provide services to young people. He also applied his skills as a community organizer for Model Cities of North Philadelphia and remained an active member of the Kingsessing Community Association.

Working from a philosophy that an informed people are an engaged people, he founded and published the Southwest News, which published uplifting stories by and about neighbors.

In 1992, the Rendell Administration honored Robinson with the Philadelphia Pride Award.

“He gave a lot to the community, but at the end of the day, he was still a dad and a granddad,” said his daughter, Kya Kamil Robinson.

Robinson is survived by his other daughter, Afrika Mona Strong; his brothers, Jimmy Williams, Freddie Williams and Teddy Williams; his sister, Barbara Williams; his grandchildren, Alexus and Ervon Schultz Jr. and several of nieces, nephews, cousins and other loving friends.

A viewing will be held Friday from 9 to 11 a.m. at Mount Zion Baptist Church, 1411 S. 50th St. Funeral services will immediately follow. Internment will be at the West Laurel Hill Cemetery, 225 Belmont Ave. in Bala Cynwyd.
 

Sr. Francis (photo from The Religious of the Assumption website).

Sister Francis Joseph was the “peace pilgrim.” Grace Kelly was among her students. She entered the convent at the age of 33 and traveled the world, but is known to many St. Francis de Sales students as the nun who taught peace.

Sr. Francis died last Thursday. She was 93.

Born Rachel Scarpello in Germantown, Sr. Francis served as the first lay principal of the Catholic school Ravenhill Academy in East Falls, which Kelly attended in the 1940s. Sr. Francis taught at Ravenhill for 12 years before she decided to join the order Religious of the Assumption and their convent at 1001 S. 47th St., across the street from St. Francis de Sales.

Sr. Francis on her 90th birthday in 2009.

You may have seen Sr. Francis sitting on the convent porch or you might have helped her across the street as she leaned on her cane.

“I make friends through that cane,” she told a reporter from The Catholic Standard and Times newspaper for an article marking her 90th birthday in 2009.

What you probably didn’t know is that after graduating from Chestnut Hill College she worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That was before she became a nun. During her long career with the Assumption Sisters, Sr. Francis worked in Paris, Osaka and Manilla, where she was instrumental in building housing for the poor. She was one of the first women to attend Gregorian University in Rome.

In recent years at the St. Francis de Sales School she became known as the “peace pilgrim,” stopping by classes and teaching students about peace through stories. Sr. Francis also had a long relationship with Saint Joseph’s University, where an outreach lecture series she started 30 years ago was named after her in 2011.

Funeral services will be held Tuesday, March 5 at 10 a.m. at St. Francis de Sales (47th and Springfield).

– Mike Lyons