Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Charles PERRY
Charles Perry, 96, fund-raiser at his alma mater, Haverford
By Walter F. Naedele
Inquirer Staff Writer
As a Quaker, Charles Perry was proud of his conscientious-objector work during World War II.
He cut paths for power lines through the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 1942.
"In the middle of mosquito-infested Pocomoke Swamp in the summer of '43," said a son, Carl, Mr. Perry worked on a government irrigation project on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, said a son.
And for the last two years of the war, he worked as an orderly at the state hospital at Byberry in Philadelphia.
Mr. Perry grew up in the Quaker tradition, in which he made his life's work.
Mr. Perry, 96, of Westerly, R.I., a Haverford College administrator from 1954 to 1979, died of an intestinal illness on Saturday, Dec. 4, at Westerly Hospital.
He was associate director of development at Haverford from 1954 to 1958 and then director of annual giving until 1979. His mother's father, Isaac Sharpless, had been president of Haverford from 1887 to 1917.
Born in Westerly, Mr. Perry graduated from the Westtown School in 1932 before earning a bachelor's degree in English literature at Haverford in 1936 and a master's degree in social work at Bryn Mawr College in 1938.
Between his college graduation and his wartime work, Mr. Perry was among government workers who gathered information for the first Providence, R.I., database of the Social Security Administration, his son said.
In the late 1940s, Mr. Perry began his Quaker career working in an outreach program at the Friends Neighborhood Guild, a settlement house and provider of social services in North Philadelphia.
At its 1973 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, the American Alumni Council gave Mr. Perry, on behalf of Haverford, a grand prize in the U.S. Steel Foundation Alumni Giving Incentive Competition. The award was for improvement and sustained performance based on the high percentage of alumni donors, his son said.
Since 1984, Haverford has offered an annual Perry Award for Exemplary Service in Fund-raising, a college spokeswoman said. In 1989, Mr. Perry and his wife moved to Haversham, a community in Westerly, where as a youngster he had raced small craft on Quonochontaug Pond.
Besides his son Carl, Mr. Perry is survived by sons David and Harvey II, five grandchildren, a stepgrandson, and three great-grandchildren. His wife of 67 years, Eleanor, died in February.
A memorial service was set for 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 5, at the Westerly Friends Meetinghouse, 57 Elm St.
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