From the entrance of a historical past classroom at Palisades Constitution Excessive Faculty, Louvenia Jenkins, a poised retired principal, seemed out on the two dozen youngsters seated earlier than her and did one thing she virtually by no means does in public. She cried.
Jenkins is 98. She was one of many first — if not the primary — Black feminine householders in Pacific Palisades. She misplaced her house of 57 years in final yr’s Palisades fireplace.
The scholars, ages 16 to 18, had been displaced, too. Some misplaced their houses. All misplaced their fire-damaged college campus for a yr.
“In every of you,” she mentioned, her voice catching, “I see hope for our future.”
On a Friday in late Could, Jenkins visited the classroom of trainer Ed Sugden, whose Superior Placement African American Research college students had written dozens of letters to Jenkins after studying a narrative in The Occasions about her dropping her house.
Regardless of their 80-year age hole, Jenkins mentioned, they shared “a collective previous historical past,” a union solid by loss and recollections of a good looking seaside neighborhood endlessly scarred by flames.
As mayoral and gubernatorial candidates speak in regards to the fires to attain political factors, Jenkins’ go to with the scholars confirmed that the emotional work of therapeutic, grieving and transferring on is being led by common — however extraordinary — Californians desirous to encourage and help one another, removed from the limelight.
A house of 57 years
Jenkins purchased her three-bedroom home on Muskingum Avenue in 1967. She was an single, 39-year-old Black lady — and purchased her own residence in an period when many banks refused to lend ladies cash and not using a male co-signer.
Louvenia Jenkins’ house in Pacific Palisades was destroyed by the Palisades fireplace on Jan. 7, 2026. Jenkins, a longtime trainer and principal within the Los Angeles Unified Faculty District, lived there for 57 years.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
Jenkins spent most of her profession as a trainer and principal within the Los Angeles Unified Faculty District, retiring within the Nineties. She by no means married, she mentioned, as a result of she was “busy with life.”
Jenkins traveled the world — to Ghana, Switzerland, France, Spain, Mexico, the West Indies — and turned her house right into a gallery of worldwide artwork and keepsakes, in addition to her many tennis trophies.
All of it utterly burned. She resides now in a senior dwelling complicated in Culver Metropolis.
The varsity and the letters
The fireplace broken or destroyed about 30% of the Pali Excessive campus. The varsity operated on-line for a number of months, a attempting flashback to COVID-era distance studying. Then it moved into non permanent quarters in a former Sears constructing in Santa Monica, the place mother and father and college students expressed considerations about crowding, air flow and lack of inexperienced area.
The Palisades campus, with its expansive inexperienced garden and think about of the Santa Monica Mountains, reopened in January. Throughout their first week again, Sugden’s college students wrote to “Miss Lou.”
The letters, on colourful development paper, featured hand-drawn dolphins (the mascot for Pali Excessive), hearts, timber and homes, like those misplaced.
“You’re robust,” one pupil wrote. “You’re inspiring.”
Again within the classroom
Jenkins delighted in being again on the entrance of a classroom final month. She took attendance. And playfully teased a teenage boy for trying bored.
She gave them copies of poems she had written, about peasants working “with instruments of metal and a God-like will” and timber “giving silent recognition to their creator who bore their seeds and scattered them by way of the wind.” Quoting the poet Max Ehrmann, she instructed them to “go placidly amid the noise and haste.”
Louvenia Jenkins, photographed in her new house in Culver Metropolis on Feb. 18, 2025, after the Palisades fireplace burned her house of 57 years.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Occasions)
The scholars requested her favourite reminiscence of the Palisades. Most likely being a “grandparent reader” on the Palisades Department Library, which burned.
They requested what drew her there within the first place. She mentioned she had “all the time had an affinity for issues which are lovely. That’s nature. The water. Mountains.”
Combined feelings
Jenkins was joined by her pal and neighbor, Brigitte “Gigi” Neves, and her caregiver and pal, Josemara Lima, who drove her out of the Palisades because the flames superior. Even then, Lima mentioned, Jenkins didn’t cry.
Returning to the Palisades “will be very unhappy and really hopeful concurrently,” mentioned Neves, who misplaced her home. She has 10-year-old twins. One is unhappy to go to, specializing in what’s gone. The opposite likes coming again, seeing what has reopened. Neves is someplace in between.
Maylia Harinck, a 16-year-old from Brentwood, mentioned “it was a dark time” taking courses on the Sears, and that she was so completely happy to be again at her college.
“The primary time I drove right here after the fires,” she instructed Jenkins, “every little thing was gone. It was very miserable. However now, every little thing is beginning to construct up once more and it’s very good to see.”
Jenkins mentioned of the Palisades: ”It’s actually unhappy to know that we’re all in other places, doing various things. However we nonetheless have the fondness for the occasions that we have been collectively.”
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What else is happening
Commentary and opinions
This morning’s must-read
On your downtime
Egg tarts from Grace & Wheat Bakery in Alhambra.
(Brandon Ly / Los Angeles Occasions )
Going out
Staying in
Query of the day: What’s your favourite summer time seashore getaway?
E mail us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.comand your response would possibly seem within the publication this week.
And at last … the photograph of the day
Jill Ache, Aaron Rodgers and Ache’s canine Louie take a noon stroll down Hilldale Avenue in West Hollywood.
(Scott Strazzante / For The Occasions)
Immediately’s photograph is from Occasions contributor Scott Strazzante in West Hollywood, California’s most walkable metropolis.
Have a terrific day, from the Important California crew
Hailey Branson-Potts, workers reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, Quick Break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend author
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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