Pamela Milhouse McKeel, CTA worker turned child advocate, dead at 70

Whether L riders were trying to get to work or school or just to get through their day, Pamela Milhouse McKeel would greet them with humor and a bit of nurturing.

If someone was short a nickel, she’d fish out her own money to pay a fare.

When turnstile jumpers burst through, she’d crack, “Well, I’m glad you didn’t trip and break your neck.”

Her regular commuters sometimes brought her homemade treats or a fast-food burger.

“She’d end up giving it to the first homeless person who came along,” said her sister Ruby Jenkins.

After 26 years with the CTA, Ms. McKeel retired and moved to Springfield to earn a bachelor’s degree in child, family and community service from the University of Illinois, then worked as a children’s advocate for 12 years with Apostolic Youth and Family Services.

“She had to deal with families. Their children were taken from them for a reason — drugs, abuse,” said Tamela Baynes, the niece she considered a daughter after raising her since she was 6 months old. “She had to do counseling, go to court — if the kids were allowed to go back, or not go back. She had to do drug screening.”

At times, the young people she worked with would call her at home, saying they were ready to commit suicide, Baynes said. Ms. McKeel would drop what she was doing and try to soothe them, saying, “I’m going to meet you in the emergency room.” And she did.

Ms. McKeel, a Chatham resident, died Dec. 3 after a heart attack, according to Baynes. She was 70.

“She knew everybody’s birthday, and everyone else’s kids’ birthdays,” said her sister. “She’d be the leader at the family reunions,” even buying T-shirts for everyone. “She held this family together.”

Young Pamela spent her early years in an Ida B. Wells CHA high-rise. She learned to swim at Madden Park at 38th and Rhodes. Her father Wilber was a typesetter for the Railroad Retirement Board, and her mother Jeanette worked for Curtiss Candy, the maker of Butterfingers and Baby Ruths.

When she was in fourth grade, her family bought a home near 75th and Vernon. Ms. McKeel remembered the beauty of neighborhood parties in a Facebook post, saying, “Our block looked like heaven as the lights were strung from the houses to the trees.”

She went to Hirsch High School.

An early adopter, Ms. McKeel seemed to have a pager, laptop computer, cellphone and iPod before anyone else, said her nephew Wilbur Milhouse.

When she bought one of the first instant cameras, she amazed her nieces and nephews by showing them how it dispensed photos, with images materializing seconds later like apparitions.

“Everybody would go ‘ooooh,’ ” her sister said.

Sometimes, she’d round up her nieces, nephews and their friends and drive them on adventures to Lake Geneva, according to her nephew, who said that, thanks to that, “Countless individuals call her mom.”

If there was a dispute, “She’d say, ‘C’mon, give me this hug, and we’re going to move forward,’ ” Baynes said.

Ms. McKeel also worked for years at the Saving Grace bookstore at Apostolic Church of God, 63rd and Dorchester.

In her 60s, she decided to try living in California. She loved the mountains and nice weather but returned home to care for her stepmother Leatrice Milhouse, relatives said.

She was married twice, each marriage ending in divorce.

Her family said Ms. McKeel loved stepping and made great cornbread, greens and catfish. She liked to watch “Scandal” and “How to Get Away with Murder” and reality shows like “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and “Love & Hip Hop” and enjoyed the music of Anita Baker, Toni Braxton and Luther Vandross through all his transformations. “It didn’t matter if he was Big Luther or Little Luther,” Tamela Baynes said.

She is also survived by her brother Will, sisters Yvonne Pickett, Alexis Sterling and Diane Saverson, three grandchildren and a great-grandson. Services have been held.

Every morning, she and her sister Ruby would call each other to start their day with this prayer:

“Another day, Lord.

You have blessed us to witness a day that we’ve never seen before

And we will never see it again.

This is the day you have made for us to be grateful, to rejoice and be glad in it.

Now walk before us today, Lord, and make crooked ways that wait for us straight

And then strengthen us and give us courage for whatever this day may bring for us.

Long as you’re in it with us

Bring it on.”