OUR COMMUNITY MOTHER HAS TRANSITIONED
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
Westside Gazette
There are some people whose passing cannot simply be announced.
Their lives are too deeply woven into the fabric of a community. Their fingerprints are on too many lives. Their love has reached too many families. And the space they occupied cannot simply be filled by someone else.
Ms. Ethel “Pearl” Maloney was one of those people.
With her transition, our community has lost more than a beloved elder, civic servant, sorority sister, mother, and friend.
We have lost one of our community mothers, a matriarch whose presence helped hold generations together.
One voice from the community perhaps captured the magnitude of this loss best:
Those words describe a woman whose influence cannot be measured simply by the positions she held or the organizations to which she belonged.
Her life must be measured in people. In the young person she encouraged. The family she comforted. The sister she embraced. The elder she remembered. The organization she strengthened.
And the generations of people throughout Broward County who came to know, respect, and love her simply as “Pearl.”
Sisterhood Was Service
For Ms. Pearl, sisterhood was never merely about membership. It was another avenue through which she could serve.
Her commitment to Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated was demonstrated through years of leadership and community involvement. She served as president of the Zeta Rho Omega Chapter in Fort Lauderdale from 1998 through 2001, adding her leadership to the oldest graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha in Broward County.
Her commitment to sisterhood and community service extended to the Fort Lauderdale Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, where the bonds of friendship were joined with a commitment to service and improving the lives of others.
Whether through Alpha Kappa Alpha, The Links, her church, civic involvement, or simply one-on-one relationships with people who needed her, Ms. Pearl understood that belonging to a community came with an obligation to serve it.
For her, leadership wasn’t simply sitting at the head of a table. It was making certain somebody else had a seat.
Service wasn’t something reserved for a program, luncheon, banquet, or special occasion.
Service was a way of life.
From the Cradle to the Centenarian
There is something extraordinary about living long enough and loving deeply enough to touch multiple generations of the same families.
Ms. Pearl possessed that gift. Children became adults. Adults became parents. Parents became grandparents. And through those changing seasons of life, Ms. Pearl was still there.
That is why describing her influence as reaching “from the cradle to centenarians” is so fitting.
She understood something that seems increasingly rare: a community becomes stronger when its generations remain connected.
Our elders carry history. Our adults carry responsibility. Our young people carry possibility.
Ms. Pearl helped connect all three.
She represented a generation of Black women who did not need social media followers to have influence. Their networks were built through churches, sororities, civic organizations, neighborhoods, schools, telephone calls, kitchen tables, hospital visits, homegoing services, celebrations and countless acts of kindness that were never photographed or publicly recognized.
Yet those acts-built community.
She Mothered a Community
The word matriarch is sometimes used too casually. For Ethel Pearl Maloney, it fits. A true matriarch does more than grow older.
She pours herself into others.
She becomes a keeper of stories, relationships, and traditions. She remembers where people came from while reminding younger generations that they have a responsibility to those coming behind them.
She recognizes when someone needs encouragement without waiting to be asked.
And she understands that motherhood can extend far beyond one’s biological children.
That may be one of Ms. Pearl’s greatest legacies.
Throughout this community are people who may not have shared her bloodline but nevertheless experienced her motherly love.
She was mother, aunt, grandmother, sister, mentor, counselor, encourager and friend.
That is why this loss feels so personal to so many.
A Void That Cannot Simply Be Filled
When an institution loses a leader, another leader can be elected.
When an organization loses an officer, another officer can be appointed.
But when a community loses a mother, there is no election to replace her.
There is simply a chair that feels different because she is no longer sitting in it.
A telephone that will no longer ring with her voice on the other end.
A community gathering where people instinctively look toward the place where she would normally be.
And there are memories — enough memories to span generations.
Perhaps the greatest tribute to Ethel Pearl Maloney, however, will not be found only in what we say about her now.
It will be found in what we do because she lived.
If she encouraged young people, we must encourage them. If she cared for our elders, we must care for them.
If she believed in sisterhood, we must strengthen it.
If she showed up for her community, we must show up.
And if she opened doors for others, we must refuse to allow those doors to close behind us.
That is how matriarchs live beyond their years.
They live through the people they touched, the lessons they taught, the traditions they protected and the seeds of service they planted.
Today, we mourn. But we also give thanks. Thanks for the years. Thanks for the wisdom. Thanks for the laughter. Thanks for the sisterhood. Thanks for the service.
And most of all, thanks for sharing Ms. Ethel “Pearl” Maloney with an entire community that came to know her as one of its own.
Her transition has created a tremendous void, but her footprints remain.
Our community mother has transitioned, but the generations she touched will carry her legacy forward.
Rest well, Ms. Pearl.
You mothered a community.
Homegoing Celebration
The community will gather to celebrate the life and legacy of Ms. Ethel “Pearl” Maloney on Saturday, September 12, 2026, at 12 noon at New Mount Olive Baptist Church, 400 N.W. 9th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The wake will be held Friday, September 11, at Roy Mizell & Kurtz Funeral Home. Public viewing will begin at 5 p.m.
From 6 to 7 p.m., memorial services will honor Ms. Pearl’s extraordinary life of sisterhood and service, including tributes from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated and the Fort Lauderdale Chapter of The Links, Incorporated.
It will be an opportunity for family, sorority sisters, Links sisters, friends, and a grateful community to say farewell to a woman whose life reached across organizations, neighborhoods, families, and generations.
Ethel “Pearl” Maloney wasn’t simply a member of this community.
She helped mother it.