New Orleans Couple Wed in Jackson
“…. concrete evidence that there is hope left amid the despair” (and love in the hearts of so many people, especially one Bob Ford):
The story begins on Valentine’s Day, 2004, when Joseph Kirsh asked his longtime girlfriend Tenisha Williams to marry him. The New Orleans couple planned an Aug. 28 wedding in their hometown.
Then Katrina came roaring toward them.
“We had to leave town,” Kirsh said.
They ended up in Jackson, sleeping on the concrete floor of the coliseum, profoundly depressed and wondering when they’d ever be able to get married.
“We lost everything,” Kirsh, 34, said.
Williams, 28, shared their story with Red Cross volunteers at the shelter. Word got around to Ford, a local golf course owner and caterer who had been in charge of feeding the more than 1,000 people housed at the coliseum.
“I said, ‘Let’s make it happen,’ ” Ford said.
And so they did. Businesses donated flowers, wedding cakes, dresses and just about everything else you’d need to put on a fancy wedding in a shelter. They also got a huge honeymoon suite at the Luckett Lodge in Brandon.
“It started this big,” said the Rev. Yamily Bass-Choate, holding her fingers an inch apart. Then she spread her arms wide. “It ended up this big.”
Hundreds of people showed up for the ceremony, which went off perfectly after a two-hour delay blamed on minor logistical problems.
The wedding party strolled down an aisle fitted with a “red carpet” made of paper and sat in folding metal chairs along with family, friends and fellow hurricane evacuees.
“This service,” said the Rev. Horace Coates, “is not about them. It’s about this community here at the coliseum, this shelter that has been provided by the grace of God.”
“We still don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow,” said Tenisha. “Except at the shelter.”
The couple did not know it yet, but Ford, who had rescued them from the side of the road last week when their truck broke down, had a surprise for them.
He said he planned on letting them stay in a cabin of his on the Sanctuary Golf Club and offering them permanent jobs.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” Ford said.
