Metairie Manor gardens honor Thomas Perkins Sr.

   The new gardens at Metairie Manor were doused with a very potent fertilizer – holy water – during their June 4 dedication to the memory of Thomas Perkins Sr., who served for 31 years as the first executive director of Christopher Homes.
   “He would have loved this garden, and like his family, he would be happy and proud to be remembered in this way,” said Lornell Parks, Perkins’ son-in law, addressing Metairie Manor residents and staff at a lunchtime prayer service at which the gardens and other building upgrades were blessed by Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
   Perkins, who was named to the housing post by Archbishop Philip Hannan in 1970, retired in 2001, leaving a legacy of affordable and community-based residences for the elderly and the physically challenged at 14 locations across the metro area.

   “We were gardeners. He did the shoveling,” said the late director’s widow, Joyce Perkins, who flew from her post-Katrina home in Columbia, Md., for the event. Perkins recalled how she and her husband enjoyed planting flowers – primarily roses – at their former home in Pontchartrain Park.
   “He’d be happy; he’d be pleased,” said Perkins of the peaceful spot honoring her late spouse. “But he would give all the credit to the people he worked with. That’s how he was.”
   The patio-style gardens, located to the rear of Metairie Manor’s York Street entrance, feature swings, benches, potted plants, a gazebo, paved walking paths and a large covered area that allows residents to enjoy the spot in hot or inclement weather. Among the most striking features are several raised, planting beds that facilitate “stand-up” gardening, and a memorial plaque embossed with Perkins’ image.

Easy on backs, knees

   Mary Ann Vincent, a Metairie Manor resident since 2004, said the green space finally has enabled her to resume a pastime that dates from her childhood. The beds under her care, sprouting Creole tomatoes, green onions, basil, okra, zucchini, “burp-less” cucumbers, green beans, bell peppers, dwarf fig trees, sunflowers and geraniums, attract a steady stream of admirers, both winged and human.
   “My grandmother came (to New Orleans) from Sicily when she was 12, and she grew vegetables in her backyard off of Thalia and Annunciation (streets). She had the cucuzza pumpkins and the pole beans, and chickens to fertilize the garden,” Vincent said, adding her appreciation for Metairie Manor’s elevated planting beds.
   “It’s wonderful because I can’t get down on my hands and knees and garden like I used to,” she said. “(The beds are at) a good level, and you don’t have any trouble bending, stooping or kneeling.”
   Before the dedication ceremony, Deacon Dennis Adams, Christopher Homes’ current executive director, looked back at the agency founded by Archbishop Hannan in 1966 to create housing in a city still reeling from Hurricane Betsy.

Dignified housing for all

   In his typical management style, Archbishop Hannan would identify a pressing need and delegate it to the most capable person he could find, Deacon Adams said. Josephite Father Eugene McManus, then the chairman of Christopher Homes’ board of directors, nominated Perkins, a New Orleans native and educator whom Father Eugene had known as a colleague at St. Augustine High.
   “Tom recognized that the most important dimension in housing is the human element,” Deacon Adams said. “These are not apartment buildings (of) merely brick and mortar; they’re homes.”
   Deacon Adams said the template of community living Perkins created went on to be copied across the country by other faith-based organizations, including the Baptist, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches and the Volunteers of America.
   Today, Christopher Homes manages 16 apartment complexes containing nearly 2,000 apartment units. Its ongoing construction and renovation work, which includes the “Metairie IV” addition at Metairie Manor, represents an investment of $60 million, Deacon Adams said. Additional groundbreakings – at Villa St. Maurice in the Lower 9th Ward and Villa Additions in Slidell – are set for fall 2013 and spring 2014, respectively.

‘Building up God’s kingdom’

   Archbishop Aymond, who as a young priest celebrated Masses at Metairie Manor and worked with Thomas Perkins when he was auxiliary bishop, called his late friend and colleague “a man of God” who viewed his housing work as a vocation.
   “For him it was truly a ministry; it was the Lord’s work,” the archbishop recalled. “As he used to say, as he was building all of these buildings and facilities so that the elderly could call them home, ‘We’re just building up God’s kingdom.’
    “Tom, to you we say thank you, because your handprints and your heart prints are here at Metairie Manor and at many other homes throughout the archdiocese,” Archbishop Aymond said. “If it were not for your dedication, your faith and your example, we wouldn’t be here today.”
   Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected]