I was very saddened to learn of the death on December 1st of Chris Jackovitz, a longtime Perry Hall community activist. Chris passed away at Oak Crest Village after a long struggle with dementia.
Chris was a former educator, homemaker, and a devoted wife, mother and grandmother. But she was also an extraordinarily involved community activist, helping to establish the Woman’s Club of Perry Hall.
I got to know her in the late 1990s when the Perry Hall Improvement Association wanted to celebrate our community’s 225th anniversary in 2000. The PHIA worked with the Woman’s Club and the Perry Hall Business and Professional Association to create a Millennium Committee. In 2000, with Chris Jackovitz’s support, we implemented a series of projects, including a concert featuring the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, new community signs at Perry Hall’s borders, tree planting along Belair Road, and a Perry Hall Halloween Parade.
But perhaps Chris Jackovitz’s most enduring contribution was her work to preserve the Perry Hall Mansion. Meeting at her house on Richlyn Drive, several of us plotted strategy to save this historic landmark, which was purchased by Baltimore County in 2001.
Chris Jackovitz was an extraordinary woman. You can read her obituary here. Many new Perry Hall residents have probably never heard her name, but her work over five decades left an enduring imprint on our community.