PERRY, RUFUS S July 1, 1945 age 19 Okinawa

Rufus S. PERRY  Jr. b. May 26, 1926 Ohio; d. July 1, 1945 Died of Wounds Okinawa   Pvt., 1000590 USMC 3^rd Bn, 29^th Mar. 6^th Div

Buried White Chapel Memorial Park, Troy, MI

Parents: Rufus  and Tabitha, both born in Kentucky. Father was a crane operator, auto shop.

The family had 8 children, with mother Tabitha pregnant every 2 years.  Rufus fell in the middle. They lived in a small house on 15128 Dolphin, in the Brightmoor neighborhood of Detroit, a roughly 4 sq. mile area on Detroit’s west side, south of my own neighborhood growing up. It was a planned community of cheap housing for immigrants from the southern U.S. who were migrating to Detroit pulled by the labor needs of the auto factories. Dolphin street was a literal melting pot of immigrants. Neighbors came from Italy, Latvia, Scotland, Austria, Poland, Canada, Ireland – all living in one block.

Brightmoor was always poor and now is another of Detroit’s blighted areas of vacant lots, overgrown grass. The Perry house is gone, so is their earlier home a few blocks away.

 Interesting is the history of Rufus’ resting place, White Chapel. Take the name literally. In 1960 they made the news when the cemetery dug up a WWI veteran who was Native American; his white wife was buried next to him. Cemetery rules required corpses to be 75% white. Plot owners “paid for the restriction” was the defense posed. Well, it was not against state law, even though Gov. Milliken tried to intercede. Others persons of note here for eternity are: Jimmy Hoffa’s wife Josephine, Lee Iacocca, Jack Kevorkian, Albert Kahn (did allow Jews, even though they had to build their own golf country clubs), Eero Saarinen.