Remembering Betty Perry: A Life of Love, Service, and Sacrifice

Today we celebrate the life of Betty Perry, who passed away on September 24, 2024. In her honor, I am re-posting an article I wrote about Betty and Win Perry in 2018, chronicling the early years of their 66-year marriage. Betty’s loss to our community and to her husband is beyond words. Here are a few humble words about their courtship and the partnership that is a wonderful model for us all.

The Perrys at their wedding in 1958 and while receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Historical Society of the Nyacks in 2022.

Win and Betty Perry: A Lifelong Partnership

England first brought Win and Betty Perry together. In September 1957, they went to a student cooperative meeting at the University of California at Berkeley. Win spent the summer cycling through England, Scotland, and Wales. Betty’s father taught Air Force dependents in England. A friend of Betty’s introduced them. The next day, they went for a walk…and for 66 years, they were together so often in Nyack that the friend dubbed them his favorite off-track betting couple: Bet and Win.

Win & Betty at Berkeley

Winston Churchill Perry, Win’s father, was named after a famous American author of the day (not the prime minister of England) who spent his summers in Nyack and played checkers in Win’s grandfather’s shop in Upper Nyack. Win, meanwhile, had graduated from Yale and joined the Navy as an ROTC student after graduation. Navy boats were a far cry from the Lightning sailboats he had loved to command growing up in Nyack. On his first day aboard, he injured his knee on a ladder and retired from the service for good. He had always loved architecture and decided to start over and get a second degree. Having never been out west, he applied to Berkeley, was accepted, and headed west.

Betty and Win Perry in 1958. Photo from the Perry family archives.

Betty Pinneo (an Americanization of the French Pineau family) was born in Oklahoma but grew up in the Bay Area of ​​California. Her family moved to San Francisco to take advantage of shipyard work during World War II. She remembers rollerblading down the steep Bay Area hills, clinging to telephone poles at the bottom. Betty spent her high school years in Berkeley, near the UC campus, where she ended up in college.

Win and Betty’s courtship progressed quickly. After they met, they spent much of their time together, including dinners with Betty’s mother, who had moved to El Sobrante, north of Berkeley, near the San Rafael Bridge. That December, Win proposed. He didn’t have a ring, so he tied a red ribbon around her ring finger.

Marriage, New York Honeymoon, and Summer in Nyack

The Perrys were married on June 14, 1958, in Berkeley. Win’s parents had given them a choice of wedding presents: either they would come to California for the wedding, or the kids could get a car. Ever practical, they chose the car. Of course, the car was in Nyack. They flew east, honeymooned in a small blue trailer in Montauk, and then moved in with Win’s uncle, Charlie, at 319 N. Broadway in Upper Nyack. Little did they know that it would become their home for more than 60 years.

Betty and Win were a team. They worked together to get room and board in the summer of 1958, painting Charlie’s great-grandfather’s house. They also built a roof over the pool patio at the house just south of the elementary school. But it wasn’t all work. They took a sailboat up the Hudson River and it took them two days to get to West Point. The river was incredibly hot and windless. Betty wasn’t thrilled about sailing, especially on the way back when a big storm pushed them downstream so fast that they made it to Nyack in two hours.

Perry’s return to Berkeley

The newlyweds returned to Berkeley via Florida, New Orleans, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Yellowstone National Park, all in a week, camping along the way and replacing a universal joint in a car that had burned up while climbing Pike’s Peak. They rented an apartment in Berkeley near campus. They soon found a new apartment with a cottage garden where the children could live. Susie, their first child, was born the day after Betty’s last final exam of the year.

Graduating brought big decisions. Where to live? They both loved Berkeley. It was home for Betty. Win loved the intellectual life at Berkeley, where he listened to lectures by Frank Lloyd Wright and Buckminster Fuller. “He loved the geodesic domes,” Betty said. Berkeley was quiet and diverse, with many natural attractions. But Berkeley was already crowded with architects, and Win had roots in Nyack—he was, after all, the seventh generation of Perrys in Nyack. So they decided to move back east.

The Perrys call Nyack their home.

To Betty, Nyack was a little small, but it could also feel like a little slice of Berkeley. Nyack was on a hillside, the Hudson River replaced San Francisco Bay, and instead of sunsets over the water, they watched sunrises over the water. From the beginning, Nyack’s history thrilled her. She spoke reverently of the house that Edward Hopper had used as a model for a painting, Seven in the morning., which can be seen from their porch. Nyack was also diverse and had a liberal element common to Berkeley. “If the world’s problems are going to be solved, the solution is going to start in Nyack,” Win said.

Friendships grew quickly as the family grew, and they enjoyed the company of more people than they could count—people like the Wexlers and the Theriens across the street and the Haderses, children’s book authors and illustrators from Grandview and former residents of California’s Bay Area.

A life of social service

Betty did not work outside the home until their four children were in school, although she helped create a free preschool and then the Nyack HeadStart program, and was a strong friend to the Nyack Library. After 10 years working in Nyack schools, she began a 20-year career as a school librarian in Tuckahoe.

Win commuted into town for two years, riding together to the Tarrytown train station. When Win started working in Nyack, he rode his bike to work. The Perrys quickly became a familiar part of the Nyack scene. Their contributions to the community are almost too numerous to list. They were instrumental in founding the Historical Society of the Nyacks, renovating the Edward Hopper House, starting Head Start in Nyack, renovating the John Green House, and more.

Perry’s Legacy

In 2018, when asked about the keys to a long-lasting marriage, they cited happiness, great children, being patient with each other during disagreements, and minimizing financial worries by living within your means.

We will remember seeing Win in her bucket hat, working in her yard, or Betty volunteering at the Nyack Library Local History Room. We most likely found them together. Their love of interesting people and Nyack history will stay with us forever.

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Mike Hays lived in Nyacks for 38 years. He worked for McGraw-Hill Education in New York for many years. Hoh serves as president of the Nyacks Historical Society and vice president of the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center. Mcame to Bernie Richey, he enjoys cycling and winters in Florida. You can follow him on Instagram as UpperNyackMike.

Editor’s Note: This article is sponsored by Sun River Health. Sun River Health is a network of 43 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) that provide primary, dental, pediatric, obstetrical and behavioral health care to more than 245,000 patients annually.