Above: Eunice LaFate at her Wilmington gallery.
Eunice LaFate’s letter from Joe Biden, then a U.S. Senator.
A letter from President Joe Biden about the May 1993 cover of Out & About Magazine was featured in a July 23 story in The New York Times.
For the story, Times writer Steven Kurutz interviewed several Wilmington residents, including Mayor Mike Purzycki, to get their take on Biden’s bowing out of the presidential race (“In Wilmington, They Like ‘Delaware Joe.’ But They’re Glad He Quit.”).
Among those interviewed was noted local artist Eunice LaFate, who has operated an eponymous gallery at 227 Market Street since 2015. Over the years, LaFate has supplied art for three O&A covers, including that May ’93 issue. That cover prompted a three-paragraph letter praising her work from then-Senator Joe Biden, who extolled LaFate’s “many talents” and noted “how lucky we are” that she shares those talents with the community
Eunice LaFate’s May 1993 cover for Out & About.
The 77-year-old LaFate, a long-time champion for human rights, says she first met Biden in 1990, when she won one of her many civic awards. She said she was “blown away” three years later when she received his letter about the cover.
A long-time Biden fan, she told the Times that she stood in line for five hours at the church to express her condolences when his son Beau died in 2015. “. . . I mentioned to him I am going through grief myself,” the Times quoted her. “The man took time out to console me. It was just, what should I say, so moving.”
Born and raised in Jamaica, LaFate notes that Kamala Harris has Jamaican heritage and says she is “so positive it’s not funny” regarding the vice president’s chances in the November election.
