Sheinelle Jones found grace on the streets of Philadelphia. She is returning to her hometown to talk about motherhood

Philadelphians and avid Today watchers sensed something was wrong last spring when Sheinelle Jones — Mike Jerrick’s bubbly and beloved former Good Day Philadelphia co-host — disappeared from the morning anchor chair.

NBC was tight-lipped about her absence, only saying that Jones was on hiatus because of a family issue. But there was chatter in Philadelphia’s sister circles: Jones needed our prayers.

We soon learned why.

On May 18 2025, Uche Ojeh, Jones’ high school sweetheart and husband for 17 years, died from a brain tumor known as glioblastoma leaving the newswoman and mom of three a young widow. Ojeh was known throughout Philadelphia’s social and running circles for his gregarious personality and competitive spirit.

In his death, he left Jones one last grit-filled gift: The push to keep working on her dream. Before her husband’s grim diagnosis in 2024, Jones started writing a book featuring content from interviews with celebrity moms featured on her recurring Today segment, “Through Mom’s Eyes.”

Among the dozens of moms spotlighted were Cynthia Germanotta, Lady Gaga’s mom; Denise Jonas, the Jonas Brothers’ mom; Vijaya Lakshmi, Padma Lakshmi’s mom; and Alma Wahlberg, Donnie and Mark Wahlberg’s mom.

“Uche was determined that I work on this book,” Jones said to The Inquirer. “He was insistent that I finish.”

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Random House, will release Through Mom’s Eyes: Simple Wisdom From Mothers Who Raised Extraordinary Humans, on Tuesday. Jones will be in conversation with Fox 29’s Mike Jerrick Thursday at a sold-out Montgomery Auditorium at the Parkway Central Free Library, as part of its Author Events Series. The Library will host overflow guests in a second auditorium.

Thursday’s visit marks Jones’ second to her hometown promoting Through Mom’s Eyes.

“If my life was a movie, Philly is one of its main characters,” she said. “It’s where my journey of motherhood began.”

“Through Mom’s Eyes,” the segment, debuted on Today in 2018 with an interview with Sonya Curry, Steph Curry’s mom. Jones first thought about turning the series into a book in early 2020 when vocal surgery forced her to put aside her morning show chit-chat.

It took shape during the pandemic.

“There was so much I couldn’t put into three minutes,” she said. “Especially things about grace and resilience. I wanted to share it with the class. Then, Uche said, ‘You should write it’.”

She began journaling what she learned from the moms, and about herself, after each interview. Taking it “one mom at a time,” she said.

The advice nestled in the pages of the hot pink floral collection of essays in Through Mom’s Eyes is not cute, it’s real.

Oracene Price — Venus and Serena Williams’ mother — tells Jones how she insisted that her girls have strong bonds. Those connections have carried on in the face of loss: Price’s eldest daughter, Yetunde, was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2003.

NBA star Kevin Durant’s mother, Wanda’s message to mothers: don’t lose yourself in caring for your children. “When they leave, you will be left with you, and, sometimes she’s a woman you don’t know,” Durant told Jones.

Kaye McConaughey, Matthew McConaughey’s feisty 87-year-old mom, who married her sons’ father three times, is a stickler for routine and good behavior.

“She taught me discipline was not a dirty word as long as its wrapped in love,“ Jones said.

Through Mom’s Eyes boils down to this: Even when life gets tough, motherhood doesn’t stop.

Interspersed between the moms’ stories is the memoir Jones didn’t plan to write. “Navigating faith, grit, sibling rivalry, divorce, blended families … that was my intention,” Jones said.

Jones — now the seasoned mother of Kayin, 16; and twins Clara Josephine and Uche, 13 — fearlessly weaved in her own fears and motherhood aspirations in between the advice from the celebrity moms. In each essay, she reveals an evolution. In the chapter dedicated to Lady Gaga’s mom, we see her go from a mother afraid to leave her children home during work trips to the mother that tells new moms to “Stop the guilt.”

Jones, 47, was born at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital to Sheila Kinnard and now-retired Pennsylvania District Court Judge C. Darnell Jones. She lived with her family in a high-rise apartment building on Ben Franklin Parkway before her parents divorced in the late 1970s and she moved back to her mother’s hometown of Wichita, Kansas.

Kinnard remarried, but divorced again when Jones was still in elementary school.

“Being a child of divorce, twice,” Jones said. “I have a soft spot in my heart for single mothers.”

She was in seventh grade when she bragged to her “Grandmama” Josephine Brown — who Today show viewers know as her best buddy — on the way home from school. Jones told Brown that she got out of Honors English because there was just too much homework. Grandmama turned the car around, took Jones back to school, and made the administrators enroll her back in the class.

“It’s not a big leap to say that Honors English was a stepping stone toward discovering my passion and the career I have in media today,” Jones wrote in a chapter about the importance of listening to your children and identifying their talents.

She also shares details about her miscarriage, and the elation and anxiety of young motherhood. It is evident in the way she writes about pulling over on the Ben Franklin Parkway as a frazzled, overwhelmed mom of three young children. She turned off her car, put her head on the steering wheel, unable to go any further.

“I was listening to William McDowell on gospel radio,” Jones said. “And it changed me. In that moment, I thought, ‘OK, God. I can take a deep breath. I loosened my grip. It helped me.”

Jones found grace on a Philadelphia street.

When Jones started Through Mom’s Eyes, she was married. She wasn’t the perfect mom, but she thought the hard times were behind her.

It was scheduled to be released last spring, weeks before she would lose her husband. She pushed the release back.

She needed to heal, recenter, write a new foreword.

“I couldn’t have a book about motherhood and not acknowledge the biggest pain of my motherhood … of my life,” Jones said in a steady, unwavering voice.

Life hasn’t stopped life-ing.

Jones’ Grandmama died on New Year’s Eve, seven months after her husband.

“She’d seen the essay. She read it. She liked it,” Jones said. “We were supposed to go on book tour together …”

In January, she became the official co-host of Today’s fourth hour, “Today with Jenna and Sheinelle.” She plans to continue “Through Mom’s Eyes,” and hopes to nail down Questlove’s and recent Academy Award winner Michael B. Jordan’s moms.

“He started his Oscar speech with, ‘Hi Mom’,” Jones said about Jordan. “That’s how I started my book!”

At the end of each chapter, Jones includes a short section called, “Mama Said” where celebrity children reflect on their mother’s cherished advice.

One nugget is from Jones’ co-worker Savannah Guthrie about her mother Nancy, whose disappearance three months ago still grips the nation.

“One thing I learned from my mother is selflessness,” Savannah Guthrie shared with Jones.

Nothing is promised — especially when it comes to motherhood.

“I’m so honored we get to celebrate Nancy Guthrie,” Jones said. “There are so many instances where this book pours back into me, reminding me of my blessings and the importance of grace.”

Sheinelle Jones will appear in conversation at the Parkway Central Free Library with Mike Jerrick. Thursday, April 16. Montgomery Auditorium is sold out. The Library has opened a rush line that they ask you to register for and pay $5 at the door to sit in an overflow auditorium. For more info: Parkway Central Free Library,