Cordelia Taylor, who transformed not only her community but elder care in Milwaukee, dies at 88

Demetra Lock had operated her own nonprofit, Community Cry, Inc., for six years when she began to doubt whether she was making a difference.

But then Lock met Cordelia Taylor in 2020. Lock and Taylor, a longtime community activist, both worked in the 53206 ZIP code, an area with high incarceration rates. Taylor’s nonprofit, Family House, provided a place for seniors to age gracefully and in dignity.

Taylor offered sage advice that resonates with Lock to this day.

“I had all these little doubts in my mind. Am I doing the right thing? Am I too old? Is my fight in vain? Is it really being effective,” Lock, 61, said. “That was my question.”

Taylor’s answer to Lock was yes — her organization, which provides food, clothing, mentorship, a prison ministry and a youth cotillion, was needed.

“She helped me to hold onto my passion because it is going to be life-changing for others. She gave me that push,” said Lock, who co-pastors The Open Door Christian Worship Center Inc., with her husband, Kenneth Lock Sr.

That push helped Lock to later open an online school, called the We Care Learning Center, offering free tutoring and GED classes.

Lock remembered Taylor as a friend and mentor. Taylor died Aug. 29, two days after her 88th birthday.

“I’m gonna miss our talks,” Lock said.

The impact Taylor had on Lock and others she encountered is immeasurable. Lock, like Taylor, started her nonprofit later in life. Lock was 53. Taylor founded Family House at 60. Both faced pushback for being older women trying to raise families and run a nonprofit.

“She was a mom of eight, and I’m a mom of 12 and people tell us that we can’t do stuff like that,” Lock said. “But when you have the love for community, it is not only for your family, it is for others.”

That love for community led Taylor to open Family House, says daughters Valerie Jackson, 67, and Dinah Taylor, 64. As a nursing home administrator, their mother became frustrated with the care the elderly received in traditional nursing facilities.

“A lot of people were falling through cracks in the inner city,” Jackson said. “Some were living in abandoned housing. They were just wondering lost and she did not like that.”

One day, Cordelia came home with an idea sketched on a napkin for what would become Family House. She wanted to create a facility that offered a home-like setting where seniors could stay, regardless of race or ability to pay.

When Family House opened in 1989, the home where their parents raised their eight children became the facility’s home. Eventually, their parents moved from the suburbs to be closer to the facility.

“That’s how it became Family House. It was our family home,” Jackson said of the house, at 3269 N. 11th St.

Family House grew not only in mission but in size. The facility went from that one house to six, spanning nearly half a block. Other programs included an after-school study program, youth karate classes, a computer room and a gang resistance program.

Cordelia Taylor operated Family House for 28 years.

“We didn’t look at Family House as a business," Dinah Taylor said. "We looked at it as a ministry to help people who couldn’t help themselves. That is what kept us going for so long."

Over the years, Cordelia Taylor's efforts received accolades from Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life Award, to America’s Awards, known as the “Nobel Prizes for Goodness” to the Common Council’s Living Legacy Awards. She also received an honorary doctorate from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

The sisters said learned a lot from their mother and what they said was her giving and caring spirit. That spirit is what led Cordelia Taylor into the nursing profession. She first started as a candy striper, eventually went to school to become a licensed practical nurse and then earned a bachelor's degree in nursing before becoming an administrator.

“Through her drive, I went back to school and got my degree,” Dinah Taylor said. “I have a master’s in theology right now because of her push and her power to keep going.”

Jackson learned the value of hard work and humility.

“You do good for good’s sake,” she said. “You don’t necessarily do it to get gratification for those around you. You do it because you know it is right.”

Doing what’s right propelled their mother to join Milwaukee’s civil rights struggle, too.

Cordelia Taylor and her husband, James Taylor Sr., moved from the south to the city, seeking better jobs at age 17. But Cordelia found herself marching with Father James Groppi to end school segregation and for better housing in 1966. Valerie Jackson remembers attending the Freedom Schools, set up as an alternative for Milwaukee Public Schools to force the district to desegregate the schools.

“I remember the Caucasian people standing out there, looking at us, pointing and being mean,” Jackson said.

But it was in healing from the tragic death of her father in 1947 at the hands of two white men that Cordelia Taylor learned the power of forgiveness and looking beyond race, color, creed, nationality or orientation to see the humanness of people.

“Everybody walking this earth has a heart, a mind and a soul. That’s the part she connected with,” Valerie Jackson said of her mother. “Her foundation was formed doing that type of work. She saw the value in making change and making life better for everybody.”

Services will be held Saturday, Sept. 9, at Wisconsin Memorial Park Chapel of the Chimes, 13235 W. Capitol Dr., Brookfield. Visitation is from 1 to 2 p.m., followed by funeral services at 2 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Cordelia Taylor, who transformed Milwaukee elder care, dies at 88