Norman Perkins

Norman Perkins was born January 20, 1916, in Chicago, Illinois. He died Sunday morning, August 22, 2010, in Oceanside, California. Norman was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a good and dutiful man. He is survived by his wife, Regina, whom he married in 1948 and remained in marriage to for 62 years, until his death at 94. He is also survived by his daughter, Patricia Belinda Perkins of Baden, Pennsylvania, and his son, Mark Howard Perkins of Dallas, Texas, and by five grandchildren -- David, Stephen and Lisa Adelson and Ben and Eden Perkins. In an ordinary American life he managed to help his family survive the Great Depression by selling newspapers from the stand he built on a snowy Chicago street corner; he took violin lessons within earshot of the sound of gunfire from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre; he joined the US Army and served in World War II, reaching the rank of sergeant. Moving to Los Angeles after the war, he worked in a gas station, drove a laundry truck, was fired for union organizing, sold peanut brittle on Sundays on Lincoln Boulevard, peddled Baldwin pianos, and eventually became a manufacturer’s representative in home furnishings—the career he maintained and which sustained his family, affording him the pleasures of a home, a daily newspaper, and the sound of Vin Scully’s voice from the earpiece attached to the transistor radio carrying the Dodger game, along with many evenings at the LA Coliseum and later Chavez Ravine. In 1994, Norman and Ginny moved from Los Angeles to Oceanside, where he enjoyed playing the golf course at Ocean Hills and earned more than one “hole in one” plaque. He was a devoted golfer and a casual bowler into his nineties. He was inconsolable when the state of California refused to re-issue a driver’s license to him after his 91th birthday; those of us who had been his passenger when he was 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 knew that his driving skills actually had not changed that much over his 75 years behind various wheels, but the kids in control of the Department of Motor Vehicles were unwilling to have him on the road. He is on a different road entirely now, and those of us who love him wish his spirit a speedy journey. He still lives on earth in the many acts of goodness he performed and in the hearts of all who cherish his memory. Norman’s funeral will be graveside at Eternal Hills Cemetery in Oceanside, California on Wednesday, August 25 at 10:30 AM.

Arrangements under the direction of Eternal Hills Memorial Park, Mortuary and Crematory, Oceanside, CA.