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June 30, 1988
NANCY SENNOTT, 61, HOUSING ACTIVIST IN MANTUA, POWELTON NEIGHBORHOODS
Donna St. George, Inquirer Staff Writer
Nancy Butler Sennott, 61, a Philadelphia housing activist who was a leader in the rehabilitation of more than 100 homes in Mantua and Powelton and recently helped establish a residence for homeless women, died Sunday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Described as a warm, giving woman committed to helping the disadvantaged, Mrs. Sennott spent the last 30 years as both a volunteer and public administrator who tried to make a difference in the way people lived.
A mother of four children and a foster mother to three more, Mrs. Sennott became involved in community work shortly after moving to Philadelphia in 1948 with her husband, John, a social worker.
The Sennotts lived in Southwark, in what is now Queen Village, and Mrs. Sennott became a Sunday school teacher and president of the McCall Home and School Association.
Soon after the couple moved to Powelton in 1956, Mrs. Sennott's involvement intensified.
The once-properous West Philadelphia neighborhood was in a state of decline. Many houses were dilapidated, some abandoned. Together with other residents, Mrs. Sennott worked with the Powelton Village Development Associates Inc., a civic group that sold stock and notes to fund redevelopment.
During 12 years as president of the group, Mrs. Sennott helped the group in rehabilitating about 50 apartment buildings. She earlier served as zoning chairman and later planning chairman of the Powelton Neighbors Association.
At the same time, she began marching.
Always a proponent of racial integration, Mrs. Senott joined picket lines in Chester and outside Girard College as protesters demanded integration.
When, during those years, the Philadelphia Anti-Poverty Action Commission (PAAC) was created, Mrs. Sennott was elected to its affiliated community council in her neighborhood and was later asked to run the program's area office, overseeing a variety of social programs and a staff of 17.
"She was there to help you, no matter what race or creed you were," said Pauline Jackson, who worked with Mrs. Sennott at PAAC for more than 10 years. ''She always went beyond the call of duty."
In her work, Mrs. Sennott - bespectacled, with short brown hair and a warm and friendly, but serious, approach - also found great satisfaction. She was eager to do more. She began attending the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School at night.
In the mid-1960s, Mrs. Sennott divorced and remarried, and she and her new husband, Robert C. Folwell, moved to Mantua. There, she became involved in a similar rehabilitation effort, serving as a board member of Friends Housing Inc., later to become Mantua Gardens Inc.
"She was a big help and an inspiration," said Esther Mitchell, a fellow board member. "Anything we asked her, she would do."
After graduating from college, Mrs. Sennott was promoted to a position as a grants manager at PAAC, and she later helped run a program that winterized more than 10,000 low-income homes throughout Philadelphia.
After leaving the agency in 1981, Mrs. Sennott had a brief whirl with politics, volunteering for the 1982 re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. William H. Gray 3d. At the same time, she was working as a fund-raising consultant with a firm started by her husband, Folwell-Sennott Associates.
The last three years brought Mrs. Sennott back to city housing programs. She became executive director of the Friends Guild Rehabilitation Program Inc., which operates three complexes for needy, handicapped and elderly residents.
"She was a woman who was very concerned about the needs of all of our tenants," said Craig Smith, president of the corporation. "Her primary concerns were for the tenants. She bent over backwards to help them."
Under Mrs. Sennott's administration, the corporation moved into new territory - from managing property to new development.
Several months ago, the agency opened the city's newest shelter, the 23- unit Sarah Allen residence for homeless women, which is the first part of what is to become a $15-million, low-income housing development at 41st and Parrish Streets.
Energetic and well-organized, Mrs. Sennott did make time for other interests. She was a gardener, with a backyard vegetable plot and indoor light gardens. A Phillies fan, she enjoyed televised games, and kept score as she watched.
She also cooked elaborate meat and potato dishes, using herbs from her garden, and was an avid reader, with about 400 volumes of science fiction.
She was a graduate of the master's program in public administration at Drexel University.
Besides her husband, Robert C. Folwell, surviving are her sons, John B., Stephen C. and Paul; daughter, Rebecca, and three grandchildren.
A memorial service is to be held at 2 p.m. July 10 at the Friends Meetinghouse, 15th and Cherry Streets.
The family asks that contributions be made to the Sarah Allen SRO, in care of the Friends Guild Rehabilitation Program, 1221 Fairmount Ave., Philadelphia 19123.
Copyright (c) 1988 The Philadelphia Inquirer, reprinted with permission
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