Geo, the name he prefers, sits in a coffee shop on a rainy afternoon as streetcars clang along outside. He is 64. He arrived at Madonna Manor, the Catholic orphanage he is now suing, in August of 1967, as a ward of Louisiana, age seven.
“My childhood was horrific,” he says matter-of-factly. “My father was an abusive alcoholic, my mother diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Madonna Manor was a place where dysfunctional parents dumped their children. My mom was subject to electroshock therapy and thorazine. She lost a baby. She had a psychotic breakdown and was placed in a mental hospital. The state took me over.”
Thin, bearded, redolent of nicotine, he holds a sketchbook of his works.
He enjoys the fellowship of a drawing class once a week, sketching figures of live models. Alcoholics Anonymous helps too, he says, adding: “I have been sober since May 30 and intend to go a long way sober.”
Existing on a disability check and earnings from his sporadic art sales, Geo lives on one side of the shotgun-style house where he grew up. His brother, a survivor of the same orphanage, lives on the other side. Neither man has children.
Madonna Manor and its sister facility, Hope Haven, occupy Spanish mission-style buildings on opposite sides of Barataria Boulevard in the New Orleans suburb of Marrero.
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