Tenisha Mallett

Tenisha Mallett was a 21-year-old woman from the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. Public records and contemporary news accounts place her at home in a tight residential block on North Leamington and in the surrounding community where neighbors knew one another and families lived close by.

Although formal public obituary notices matching her name and the exact date of death were not found in available funeral-home or family-published records, contemporary reporting confirms Tenisha’s identity and the date she died: February 11, 2017. She was among young people whose everyday lives and relationships were woven into the neighborhoods they grew up in — family members, friends, neighbors — and her loss was felt by those circles.

What remains in the public record are the simple, human facts: Tenisha was 21, lived in Austin, and belonged to a generation of Chicago residents who spent their days and evenings in the company of friends and family on familiar blocks. Those verified details do not capture the whole of a life — the private hopes, the laughter, the small acts of care — but they do affirm that Tenisha was a real person with people who cared about her.

This remembrance is written with respect for the limits of public information: no attempt is made to invent personal stories or attributes beyond what reliable sources show. Tenisha’s life mattered to those who knew her, and this page honors that fact by giving space to her name, age, neighborhood, and the recognition that a young life ended far too soon. For anyone who loved Tenisha, her memory lives in family remembrances, the neighborhood streets she knew, and the quiet ways people keep someone’s presence with them after they are gone.