Thomy Lafon

Lafon, Thomy  was born a free person of color in New Orleans on 28 December, 1810; died in New Orleans 22 December 1893. His mother was Modest Foucher Lafon, a free woman of color born in Louisiana of a slave mother. His father was Pierre Laralde Lafon, a Frenchman who deserted the family when Thomy was still a boy. A bachelor, Thomy shared his home with his widowed sister, Alice Bodin.

Thomy was largely self-educated. In 1842, he was listed in the New Orleans City Directory as a merchant, on 387 Rampart Street. From 1868 until his death in 1893, he was a highly regarded, successful real estate broker who lived in a very unpretentious house at 242 Ursulines Street. Thomy Lafon is primarily known not for the fortune he amassed during his lifetime, but for his open-hands, color-blind philanthropies.

During his life, Lafon established the Lafon Orphan Boys' Asylum and the Home for Aged Colored Men and Women. He gave liberally to other charitable and religious organizations and to numerous destitute individuals. Mr. Lafon made large contributions to the American Anti-Slavery Society, the Underground Railroad, the Catholic Institute for the Care of Orphans, the Louisiana Asylum, the Eye/Ear/Nose/and Throat Hospital, New Orleans University, Southern University, Straight University, the Shakespeare Alms Home, the Societé des Jeunes Amis, Charity Hospital (for the benefit of the ambulance service), the Religious Order of the Holy Family, the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Lafon Old Folks Home.

Thomy Lafon died on December 22, 1893 in New Orleans and was buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3. Right after his death the Louisiana State Legislature voted to honor him in memoriam despite the racial discrimination that was so virulent at the time. He was the first black person to be so honored by any State in the Union.

Fifteen months before Thomy Lafon died, a local newspaper contained the following statement about him: “To the glory of his memory and the enrichment of society the ‘wealthy old colored man’ gave with love and affection several major gifts and numerous minor ones to care for the poor of all races.” Mr. Lafon lived in his own world rid of color lines, and his vision of serving the needs of his native New Orleans lives on through Odyssey House Louisiana.

(Adapted from the Odyssey House web page).

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