There Went The Neighborhood - Audio Interview: Gina Perry

Sat, 08/10/2024 - 5:43pm

When: January 31, 2022

Gina Perry shares memories of her grandfather, Waltstine Perry, who was a custodian at Jones School. He lived in Ypsilanti and commuted to Jones School every day. Many former students remember Mr. Perry as an important role model.

More interviews are available in the There Went The Neighborhood Interview Archive.

Transcript

• [00:00:00] HEIDI MORSE: Today is January 31st, 2022. I'm Heidi Morse, an Archivist at the Ann Arbor District Library. I'm speaking with Gina Perry about Jones School and her grandfather, Mr. Perry, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Just to start off, could you please say and spell your name?
• [00:00:22] GINA PERRY: Gina, G-I-N-A. Perry is P as in Peter, E-R-R-Y.
• [00:00:31] HEIDI MORSE: If you don't mind just starting a little bit about yourself, when and where did you grow up?
• [00:00:37] GINA PERRY: I was born at the Ann Arbor hospital at the U of M. I grew up here in Ypsilanti and graduated from high school from Ypsilanti in 1982. I went to Washtenaw Community College. I went to Eastern Michigan University where I ended up getting my degree in occupational therapy. I also went to school in Fort Knox, Kentucky. At that time I was married. I ended up obtaining my associate's degree in accounting. I did travel abroad over to Germany, I lived there for three years with my ex husband. Now I came back to the states to help my mother with my grandmother before she passed away.
• [00:01:29] HEIDI MORSE: Do you know what brought your family to the Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti area?
• [00:01:35] GINA PERRY: Actually, regarding my grandfather, that had a lot of history to it because his parents were actually Canadians, both of them, his mother and father. They both were Canadians and they came over to the United States to work. My grandfather, Walstine Perry, was actually born in Detroit. That brought us here, and then not too far in proximity, that's how we ended up in Ypsilanti. I believe that had to do with a lot of the plants at the time, Ford Motor plants, which a lot of people migrated to the plants in the first place.
• [00:02:21] HEIDI MORSE: Part of the Ann Arbor District Library's goals right now is learning about the history of Jones school in Ann Arbor. We've spoken a bit about how your grandfather worked there at Jones School. Could you just tell us about him starting with his name and whatever you'd like to share?
• [00:02:42] GINA PERRY: His name is Waltstine Gilbert Perry. He is the youngest of four. He and his brothers were all born in Detroit, Michigan. I thought it was pretty ironic that the other three brothers had biblical names like Joseph, John, and James. Then we come with a Walstine, couldn't figure out how that came about, but I did learn later on through genealogy how it came about. They end up living with someone named Walter in the family, and that's how his name came about. I'll probably refer to him as granddad or grandpa throughout the interview because that's just the way I know. He also had a nickname with people. They called him Pud, like P-U-D, like pudding. He loved pudding. That's how he got the nickname of Pud. Tapioca, Banana, he just liked pudding. That's how he got the nickname of Pud.
• [00:03:51] HEIDI MORSE: How do you spell his first name?
• [00:03:53] GINA PERRY: Excuse me, hold on, I do apologize. I've been doing genealogy, so of course, it's spelled a thousand ways. It's Walstine. W-A-L-T-S-T-E-I-N [later corrected via email: Waltstine]. Apologize for that, I should know that.
• [00:04:30] HEIDI MORSE: W-A-L-T-S-T-E-I-N?
• [00:04:35] GINA PERRY: Yes. It's more like Walt Stine. The middle name is Gilbert, G-I-L-B-E-R-T.
• [00:04:51] HEIDI MORSE: What's one of your favorite memories or stories about your grandfather?
• [00:04:57] GINA PERRY: So many of them. I remember when we moved into our house from an area where there were more apartments, but they wasn't top level. They were all side-by-side, most of them. Once we moved into our new house, he would drive by and blow the horn and then we knew to come out to the house to get money from him or get snacks or treats from him. At that time, that was about 1972. He had had a stroke by then which left me, I think I was about six years old. It's not too many years. I don't remember my grandpa being without a stroke, but being very independent.
• [00:05:48] HEIDI MORSE: That's a good memory. You just heard the horn and you knew he was out there with treats or whatever it may be?
• [00:05:54] GINA PERRY: Yeah. Then as I got older, we made one bedroom a den at their house and he would have his ties in the closet. That was an electrical mobile type thing that if you wanted a certain tie, he would push the button and it'll come around until it would get to him. It was really weird now that you mention it, they weren't bow ties, they were ties that had to be tied. Evidently, he used to tie them or my grandmother ended up learning how to tie them for him. That was nice. Then he had a rotary pipe where he used to smoke pipes. I saw that on an old movie just recently that brought memories fresh to my mind.
• [00:06:41] HEIDI MORSE: He sounds like a well-dressed, classy guy.
• [00:06:45] GINA PERRY: He was. Very sharp.
• [00:06:49] HEIDI MORSE: Whereabouts did you live in Ypsilanti?
• [00:06:52] GINA PERRY: Actually, I lived in Ypsilanti on Mansfield. I walked to every school I went to: my elementary school, my middle school, and my high school, which was West Middle School, and then I walked to Ypsilanti High School. A lot of my friends and I would gather together at the corner and then we would continue to walk, whatever school we went to.
• [00:07:19] HEIDI MORSE: Did your grandfather live there as well and commuted to Jones School?
• [00:07:24] GINA PERRY: My grandfather lived on 570 First Ave. I still drive by there today. He would commute from there. Him and my grandmother, they had that house built there, which I thought was pretty great. During that time for an African American family to have a house actually built with a heated garage and a basement, I wouldn't say detached, but you would leave the house, go in the garage, to go to the basement. I thought that was pretty uniquely architect in that time.
• [00:07:59] HEIDI MORSE: What was your grandmother's name?
• [00:08:02] GINA PERRY: My step-grandmother, which is Fannie Mae Perry.
• [00:08:14] HEIDI MORSE: Did your grandfather share with you or other family members, any stories about working at Jones School that have come down to you?
• [00:08:25] GINA PERRY: Not really came to me. I tried to interview my mom recently. There wasn't many sharp memories there at that time. I know there was things that he may have shared with them about the kids. Not so much about how he was treated or if he was treated bad. We didn't get that impression that he was. We got the impression that he was more well-respected than probably the principal and the teachers there and anybody that may have had that educational background as opposed to someone that didn't have educational background as well.
• [00:09:11] HEIDI MORSE: Yes, several folks that we interviewed for this Jones School documentary project mentioned Mr. Perry as quite influential to them as a role model. Did you want to share any more about his work at Jones School or his interactions with students?
• [00:09:33] GINA PERRY: That one picture that I forwarded you, I was very proud to see that picture. Not only because he was sitting with a child, because he loved children, even in his own neighborhood all the kids knew him as Mr. Perry. But I was more pleased to see that picture because the interaction of little white boy with the older Black man, and they both were just so into each other for that moment. It seemed like the little boy was learning something and my grandfather was proud to teach something to him. I just, to me, with things going on today, it just really touched my heart that he cared for everybody no matter what their color was and he had plenty of friends of all creeds, and he loved to go back and forth to Canada. That's one of my favorite pictures. It would be great to know who that little boy is.
• [00:10:38] HEIDI MORSE: Yeah, absolutely. Those are great photos. Thank you for sharing them.
• [00:10:43] GINA PERRY: You're welcome.
• [00:10:53] HEIDI MORSE: It sounds like your family primarily would have attended Ypsilanti schools. For this project, we've been asking folks about how the era of desegregation and the closure of Jones School affected them and their families. Did you have anything to reflect on in the Ypsilanti context that you'd like to share?
• [00:11:18] GINA PERRY: I'm not aware of much went on. I believe I was trying to find out exactly if could find some pictures where he had retired because mom said that he received an award or something of that effect at his retirement. I was looking through every picture I could find, and I couldn't find that he received an award at his retirement. I tried to go online to see exactly when Jones School was closed because that let me know that he would've retired from Jones School and not from another school, as someone else tried to say he could have retired from another school, but calculating his age--
• [00:12:06] HEIDI MORSE: The closure was around 1964, '65.
• [00:12:06] GINA PERRY: Yes. I was born in '64. Therefore, I know he had retired long before then. He retired from Jones School.
• [00:12:22] HEIDI MORSE: Any idea when he started working there?
• [00:12:25] GINA PERRY: That I could not find either. That's the only job I heard he had. I'm not sure if he worked at one of the foundries or not. I never heard him mention that. I never saw that in his body appearance. And at Jones School, the way he dressed, just looking at him with that--what do you call it--with that broom, how he dressed so neat, even though he was a janitor, he took pride in his job and his work.
• [00:13:09] HEIDI MORSE: Absolutely. I'm trying to think of if there's any other specific information. I think that covers most of the details of his life that I was hoping you would be able to share with us. But if anything else comes to mind that you'd like to tell us about right now, please feel free.
• [00:13:39] GINA PERRY: I will. I know he did tell me at one time when he was like 12, which would have been in 1920s, he ended up being on his own. I think his brothers were older, come to find out his dad wasn't the nicest. I think once the older brothers left, he pretty much left on his own. Came to Ypsi and lived with a family. Their last name was Vic and they took him in as a teenager. That's where he got a lot of his support from, as far as growing into a young man in learning a lot of skills. That family took him in and I couldn't let that go without that being known that he was pretty much on his own at a young age until that family took him in and he was able to strive and live. Also his first wife, my grandmother, she ended up having tuberculosis, and was in an institution for three years. That's how him and his first wife were really separated because she had tuberculosis and they really couldn't be together any longer. The love of his life, they never were able to get back together because he had two younger kids at the time that needed a motherly touch. Grandad had to separate my dad and my uncle to have both the boys taken care of, which is very hard. Even though they were in close proximity. I still know my uncle and I still know my dad, they were close growing up. Also my grandpa lost his first child, which was a daughter at the age of three, which was his only daughter. That's why I feel like I was special to him, I was like his granddaughter that he spoiled and he was like my first love so I did want that to be known that his first love was my grandmother and they were separated. They both would always ask about each other until the day he died, until the day the first one died. He's been through a lot. I didn't know about this until after his death. I just know he did the best he could with what he had during that time and he did very well. I'm sorry to cry.
• [00:16:49] HEIDI MORSE: Don't worry about it.
• [00:16:50] GINA PERRY: It just means so much to me.
• [00:16:52] HEIDI MORSE: It's really emotional but important family history.
• [00:16:58] GINA PERRY: It means a lot that when I heard Jean tell me about the Jones School, that after all these years now from '91 of his death, that his life and legacy is still being looked at.