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The Advertiser. Lafayette, Louisiana. 1994, 1995, and 1996.
Acadiana Diary, Jim Bradshaw. August 7, 1994.
Original Printed Version of This Article
I’ve always liked four-o’clock flowers, so that probably part of why I like what Kevin Donahoe of Metairie is doing. He hopes the little pink, yellow and white flowers planted in his back yard will blossom into a cure for cancer.
About a month after his father’s death in April from lung cancer, Donahoe started harvesting four-o’clock seeds, his father’s favorite flower. He sent the seeds to every postmaster and governor in the country to plant as a reminder of his father’s struggle with the deadly disease. The idea bloomed. Almost immediately, postmasters and the governor’s wives began writing to Donahoe asking for more seeds to plant in memory of other cancer patients. So far, seeds have been planted in about 100 cities.
I was really just doing this as tribute to dad and a present for my mom on dad’s birthday, which I got such an enormous response, I knew something bigger was possible. He’s designed $25 and $10 four-o’clock certificates and seed packages for purchase. The money from the packages will be donated to organizations fighting cancer. Beyond that, Kevin thinks scattering of four-o’clock seeds will give cancer patients hope that a cure will be found. “When my father would return home from chemotherapy treatments, he would ask me to help him to the backyard to see his four-o’clock plants,” Kevin remembers. “The plants bloomed one week after he died and now they are blooming in the urns of his grave.”
Gardening in Acadiana. Ann Justice. August 19, 1995.
This is Kevin P. Donahoe’s second annual Four-o’clocks Across America campaign that began last year when the Metairie resident gave away four-o’clock seeds from the family garden In memory of his father, according to an article in the Times-Picayune. Jim Donahoe was a longshoreman, poet, and gardener who died of cancer in April 1994, just before his beloved plants began opening their blooms for the summer.
In the weeks following his father’s death, Donahoe began picking pea-sized seeds off the plants and filling his pockets, feeling they were somehow sacred because his father loved them so. Then he got this idea about spreading them to others, sending the packets to postmasters throughout the U.S., then to the “first families” of all 50 states, then to the White House.
The packets were accompanied by an appeal from Donahoe the seeds be planted in his father’s memory. Within a few months, they had been planted in 150 cities and at the White House. Back home, 5,000 members of the Louisiana Garden Club Federation also planted seeds across the state.
Acadiana Close-Up. Jim Bradshaw. July 28, 1996.
I lost my dad to cancer many years ago and have never lived anywhere where I haven’t planted four-o’clock flowers. Maybe that’s why Kevin Donahoe’s project to remember his dad has struck such a sympathetic chord with me.
Jim Donahoe was a longshoreman, poet, and an avid gardener who cultivated four-o’clocks at his Metairie home. He died in April 1994 just before his beloved plants began blooming for the summer. But today they are blooming all over the world, in his memory and as a symbol of the hope that one day we will find a cure for cancer.
Kevin is responsible for spreading the seeds around the world. In the weeks following his father’s death, Kevin began picking the pea-sized seeds off the plants and filling his pockets with them, hoping that they would somehow help him keep alive the memory of his dad. Then he got the idea of sharing them with others, because he wanted the sun always to be shining somewhere on his dad’s plants.
He sent seeds
first to the governors of each of the states, Then postal workers picked up
the causes and spread them even further across the U.S. Now Kevin has sent seeds
to every U.S. Ambassador worldwide, to royal families around the globe, and
to 200 other world leaders. So the scions of Jim Donahoe’s four-o’clocks are
blooming at embassies and royal residences from Albania to Zambia and hundreds
of plants between.
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Four-O'clocks
Around the World©, 1994 - 2005 New Orleans, Louisiana U.S.A.
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