Tusco M. Perkins
(A biographical sketch from a Chester Times or Delaware County Daily Times newspaper clipping, "Know Your Police" from the collection of John C. "Snakes" Boyle, contributed by his granddaughters, Jane Boyle & Patty Boyle.)
Mississippi was the birthplace of Patrolman Tusco Maurice Perkins of the Chester Police Department, on May 1, 1923, in Vicksburg.
And had it not been for the outbreak of World War II Perkins might be a mechanical engineer in Mississippi today. Here is how circumstances changed his life.
Perkins did well in high school in Mississippi, and was no slouch at sports, particularly boxing. He enrolled at Wilberforce University, Xenia, O., in the mechanical engineering department.
But in 1943 he returned to his home state and enlisted in the United States Marines.
After boot training at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Perkins went overseas to the Asiatic Theater where he was a gunnery sergeant in the 7th Separate Infantry Battalion, of the 4th Marine Division. After three years, at the end as an acting sergeant, Perkins was separated from the service.
He was employed by the U.S. Postal Department as a clerk in the Vicksburg Post Office until an economy move cost him his job.
Tusco Perkins' brother, E. O. Harris, formerly of Cleveland, had been in Chester for sometime, operating his drug store at 3rd and Edwards. He wrote to Tusco to come east and take a job clerking in the store until he could get adjusted.
Patrolman Perkins did just that. He came to Chester, and liked the city so well that he married Naomi C. Harmon and the couple set up housekeeping not too long ago at 452 Yarnall st.
Then Perkins took the examinations for the police force, and was appointed on Dec. 29, 1952.
Today he is in the prowl car business, covering the city from Flower to Penn street in Capt. Howard H. Winfree's platoon. Patrolman Perkins reports that he and Naomi have no children, "but we will very soon."
[Obituary]
