Karen Sue Perkins

Karen Sue (Holmes) Perkins, 77, died June 1, 2017 of Alzheimer’s, which took her words and memories, but never her sense of humor or delight either in people or her world. She was never angry or in pain. She knew family members until her last moments, before passing away peacefully at a nursing home in Coppell.

Visitation will be held at Moore Funeral Home in Arlington from 2:00 to 5:00 pm on Sunday, 25 June 2017, which would have been Mom’s 78th birthday. A public Memorial Service at the Women’s Center of Tarrant County, 1723 Hemphill St, Fort Worth TX 76110, will be held at a later date, followed by a private inurnment at Moore Memorial Gardens. In lieu of flowers, our family asks that donations be made to continue Mom’s life’s work through a gift to the Karen Perkins Memorial Fund in The Women’s Center of Tarrant County Foundation.

A visionary community leader, ardent feminist, committed educator, eloquent word-weaver, daring entrepreneur, mentor, mother, and friend, Karen was born June 25, 1939 in Floydada TX to Mildred Orsburn Holmes and Roy A. Holmes. Karen graduated near the top of her class at Grand Prairie High School in 1957. Karen arrived in Fort Worth as a Texas Christian University student, and graduated from TCU in 1961 with a degree in English Literature. That year she married Frank Perkins, with whom she would have two children, Laura and John.

Mom taught at TCU through the 1960s, then joined the faculty of Texas Wesleyan College, where she taught from 1973-1978. While Mom loved opening students’ minds to the beautiful language of Milton and Shakespeare, at the same time she was restless, feeling that she was called to be more than a college English professor, but not knowing to what, exactly.

Mom had always been a feminist. As the Women’s Movement gained strength across America in the 1970s, Mom found a new friend group of exciting, intelligent, “ornery” women, who advocated for women’s issues and women’s rights. Mom and other local feminist women met around our living room table, brainstorming about “displaced homemakers;” middle-aged women with children who had been homemakers, but who suddenly had to become breadwinners after a divorce.

As the idea for a new nonprofit slowly began to take shape, it was clear that it needed a leader to make it go – someone with eloquence, passion, persistence, vision, and determination – and everyone was looking at Mom. So - in 1979, despite having no background at all in the nonprofit world but having the strong support of family and friends, Mom left her successful teaching career and found her destiny as Executive Director of the Women’s Center of Tarrant County. “Goodbye Shakespeare, hello what’s next!” she said.

Over the next 25 years, Karen devoted her considerable talents to serving women and families at the Women’s Center while being engaged at home. Whether by exposing students to literature, raising her own children, pulling families out of poverty and hopelessness, mentoring other women, helping victims recover from sexual or intimate-partner violence, whenever Karen was asked to serve, she said, “Yes!”

Karen served on local, state and national boards and commissions. She traveled the USA making speeches, using the power of her ideas and words to inspire action and change. She marched for women’s rights, access to healthcare, equal pay for equal work, and always did everything she could for women and families with passion and humor. She was a co-founder of the Fort Worth Women’s Policy Forum, which keeps the conversation on women’s issues going.

When Mom retired from the Women’s Center, it had grown from a handful of volunteers in three borrowed offices to dozens of employees in a spacious campus on Hemphill St. By giving all of herself every day with both hands, Mom grew the Women’s Center’s into one of the most comprehensive rape crisis and victim services programs in the country, a leader in employment programs for poor people, and a constant source of support for women and families in crisis and transition.

In the years following her retirement, Mom continued to inspire and drive new program ideas at the Women’s Center. Mom’s personal experience transitioning from independence to growing dependence inspired new Women’s Center initiatives to counsel and support seniors in a variety of ways. Women’s Center programming now serves women, men and children of all ages in Tarrant County with compassion and a strong focus on healing and the individual needs of each client.

After her accomplished and highly-decorated life as a community leader, what mattered most to Mom as she looked back over her professional life was that her vision and abilities, joined with the talent and dedication of others, made a positive difference in the lives of Women’s Center clients and their families forever. Karen always said that her “legacy is not the Women’s Center building, but is instead in all the people that came through these doors broken or in crisis, and who left better.” Mom wrote those words in 2005, and of course she got them absolutely right:

On the day in February 2012 that Mom moved to Garland, she came to the Women’s Center one last time to say goodbye. On the way out, a former-client-turned-volunteer who got help from the Women’s Center years after Mom retired nevertheless recognized Mom in the parking lot. She stopped Mom, and tearfully told her how the Women’s Center had saved her life and the lives of her children. Now this former client felt personally driven to return the same hope, help, and support to new Women’s Center clients. As we drove away Mom said, “That’s all I wanted to do. Save a woman, save a family, save the world. Over and over, of course!”

Karen is survived by her daughter Laura Perkins Cox, her son-in-law Stephen Cox, and her granddaughters Miranda Cox and Sarah Cox, all of Garland. Karen was preceded in death by her parents Mildred O. and Roy A. Holmes, her husband Frank Perkins, their son John Perkins, and her beloved fellow Good Pasture Fairy and Cow Person Diva, Mary Apple. Mom leaves behind many dear friends, especially her devoted friend and former fiancé Sam Sherrard of Mesa AZ, her best friend in life Loralee Pohl, her “other daughter Laura” Laura Hilgart, her deeply cherished friend Deborah Caddy of Fort Worth, and her later-life guardian angels Gilbert Levin, Judy Gallups, Firdoushi Rahman, and John Wilson. To all of her other great friends and colleagues too numerous to mention: Mom treasured all of you and appreciated each of you.