Tracey Gordon is my newest shero and quite possibly Philly’s next register of wills | Jenice Armstrong

Suddenly, Tracey Gordon is a hot commodity.

But as reported by Clout last week, she has been lying low since scoring a Democratic primary election upset last month and unseating 10-term incumbent Register of Wills Ronald R. Donatucci.

She had things to get to: her daughter’s graduation in New York City; a campaign staffer’s wedding in St. Louis; a doctor’s appointment about the pain in her toe. (It has a hairline fracture, possibly sustained during campaign season. Gordon will be in a surgical boot for the next four to six weeks.)

“I was exhausted,” she told me. “I’m still the nominee. I am not the register of wills, although I am assumed to be the register of wills. But I am only the Democratic nominee, and we won’t know whether or not I have an opponent as an independent until Aug. 1.”

That’s the explanation she gives for not making herself more available to journalists who have tried to interview her.

Donatucci, 71, has held the office since 1980, which is way too long. Luckily for Gordon, Republicans didn’t mount a challenger. So, unless an independent candidate emerges, as she indicated, Gordon will be Philly’s next register of wills. She would be the first African American and the first woman in the job.

That’s why Gordon is so in demand.

People want to know how she pulled off the upset of the entire election season. (She made the eradication of tangled titles a centerpiece of her campaign.)

There are also lingering questions about her campaign finances. Voters are curious what she thinks about a last-ditch effort by Register of Wills Office staffers to unionize. (She hasn’t met with them and is reserving judgment until she takes office.)

But most of all, people want to know more about Gordon herself.

Her father was Jamaa Fanaka, a successful filmmaker known for the 1979 movie Penitentiary, starring Leon Isaac Kennedy. Her mother is Elaine Coleman-Daniels, a former prison guard and Philadelphia police officer. Her parents divorced while Gordon was young. She grew up in West Philly.

A 1980 graduate of West Catholic Girls High, Gordon married and had four children, now ages 37 to 27. After her marriage soured, Gordon lived with her young children in a two-bedroom, government-subsidized apartment. She enrolled in Community College of Philadelphia and later Temple University, where she majored in risk management and insurance and graduated with honors.

In 1994, Gordon used leftover scholarship money for a down payment on a three-bedroom rowhouse at 65th and Windsor Streets near Cobbs Creek Park, where she also became a block captain.

By then, Gordon also was working as a senior worker compensation claims examiner for an insurance firm. She would later take on contract work, occasionally work as a substitute teacher, and also do business consulting.

Gordon went on to become a committee person as well as a community activist, “because I felt like the resources weren’t coming to my neighborhood in Southwest Philly.” She also was a regular who called in to local radio programs hosted by WHAT’s Mary Mason, among others. Thus her nickname, “Southwest Tracey.” When she was on the air, she would be identified as Tracey from Southwest.

Her introduction to big-city politics came in 2011, when Gordon ran unsuccessfully to fill a Council seat vacated by Anna Verna. Gordon served as a deputy city commissioner but was fired in 2014 for ethics violations — allegations that she denied — and fined $2,201. The experience didn’t sour her on politics. The following year, she ran unsuccessfully for city commissioner and also as an independent for a state House seat.

This past February, she was back at it, this time running for register of wills. Gordon had noticed that when she would inform residents about available homeowner assistance such as the Basic Systems Repair Program, they would respond that they were ineligible because the properties weren’t in their names. Tangled titles like these are a leading cause of displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods.

“I felt that the register of wills has a responsibility to educate people about the importance of making wills," Gordon said. "Because the reason why there are tangled titles is because there was not a will to transfer that wealth down.”

Challenging Donatucci at first appeared to be an uphill battle. Gordon said she got traction after an April column by Philadelphia Magazine’s Ernest Owens as well as promotional videos for which she paid $2,000.

She also shook a lot of hands.

“I took this from Michelle Obama. I would say, ‘I need you to vote for me, but I need you to call five people,’” Gordon recalled.

After she learned that her name would appear in the coveted No. 1 spot on the ballot, ahead of Retired Deputy Sheriff Jacque Whaumbush’s and Donatucci’s, Gordon began to believe she had a chance.

She lent herself $1,551. Against the odds, “Southwest Tracey” bucked the establishment and prevailed.

It’s quite a story. Here’s hoping that it will inspire low-income single mothers not to give up and to go for theirs, as Gordon did.