Metcalfe Park Elders is a series of profiles featuring elders living in Milwaukee’s Metcalfe Park neighborhood who share their personal stories, memories and vision for the future of their community.
For a long time, Ida Penix would not walk to the end of her block.
The corner of North 35th and West Wright streets was a reminder of a loss she still grieves: in July 2015, her daughter, Tracey L. Howard, was shot and killed while standing outside her home.
Neighbors – and later Milwaukee police – said gunfire erupted in a nearby alley when Howard was struck in the back of the head.
In the days after the shooting, neighbors, friends and family held a vigil on that corner. One neighbor told Penix they’d washed away the blood so she could attend without seeing it.
“Thank you,” Penix recalls saying. “I’m not going that way.”
She skipped the vigil. And after that, she took a longer route to get to West Center Street if needed and drove her car in and out of the end of the alley that leads onto West Meinecke Avenue.
The house at the end of the block where Penix’s daughter was killed is now gone – the lot on which it once sat is vacant, save for a sprinkling of litter.
But Penix, now 75, has remained in the same house, on the same block. She has no intention of leaving.
For more than 40 years, Metcalfe Park has been the center of her life – where she raised her children, built a small network of rental properties and became a constant presence in the community.
A life rooted in place
In the years since her daughter’s death, that same network – siblings, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and neighbors – has helped anchor her in place, even as the memory of that corner remains.
Originally from Mississippi, Penix’s family moved to Milwaukee when she was 6. She’s lived in Metcalfe Park since 1973.
The neighborhood was quieter then. There were only four or five Black families on either side of her block.
Slowly, older White residents started to move away, and Black families moved in.
“It was still a nice, quiet neighborhood, and years passed. Then we got the gunshots,” Penix said, “And it just went down from there.”
Through it all, Penix, has been an active part of the community.
For some time, her husband served as the president of the neighborhood association. Penix supported the work by walking the community with local officials, pointing out problem areas and helping distribute flyers.
At home and in the community
Inside Penix’s home, photos of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren fill the space – lining the walls, sitting atop accent tables and in photo albums piled high.
Family is always moving through her house. Children call. Grandchildren stop by. Great-grandchildren spend weekends with her.
“My children are my life,” she says. “I was there 100% and there was nothing we didn’t do.”
While raising her three children in the ’70s and ’80s, Penix led a Girl Scouts troop.
For about 15 years, her weeknights and weekends were filled with meetings, volleyball practices and events.
Penix continues to be a constant presence across generations.
She regularly recruits her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to help with block clean-ups. Sometimes neighbors join in, but most of the time, it’s just them.
She also takes her grandchildren to restaurants, the mall and wherever else they want to go.
When her husband travels, she hosts girls’ nights. And when birthdays come, she’s there with a cake.
The second eldest of ten, Penix and her seven surviving siblings are “real close,” as Penix puts it.
They all live in Milwaukee and constantly get together for dinners in the winter and cookouts in the summer.
But while constant interaction with her family sustains her, it’s also what makes the loss of her eldest daughter so enduring.
“It’s, uh, it’s always there,” Penix says of her grief. “You don’t get over it.”
To cope with the loss of Howard and others, Penix works with a therapist. It helps, she says, but hearing about homicides in the city brings the feelings back.
“I’ve never thought of leaving the neighborhood,” she says. “Why should I move? I’m in a central location. Transportation is right outside my door. The people in the neighborhood know me.”
“And I like it here.”
April Quevedo covers Metcalfe Park for the Journal Sentinel’s Neighborhood Dispatch. Contact: aquevedo@usatodayco.com.
Neighborhood Dispatch reporting is supported by Northwestern Mutual Foundation, Journal Foundation, Bader Philanthropies, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and reader contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visit jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.
The JS Community-Funded Journalism Project is administered by Local Media Foundation, tax ID #36-4427750, a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association, and EnMotive, a subsidiary of USA TODAY Co.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Metcalfe Park Elders: Ida Penix on grieving in place
Reporting by April Quevedo, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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