Former town moderator, town volunteer
Charles Perkins. (Courtesy photo)
Charles A. Perkins, 94, of Groton Harvard Road, Ayer, formerly of Harvard, died at Apple Valley Nursing Home in Ayer Wedensday, October 10. He was born in Westminster March 15, 1913, son of the late Charles F. and Emily (Holmes) Perkins, and was the husband for 41 years of the late Rose MacLellan.
A longtime resident of Harvard, Charlie attended the seventh and eighth grade at the Harvard Elementary School and graduated in a class of five from Bromfield Academy in Harvard in 1931. He received his BS degree in civil engineering from Northeastern University in 1936 and worked in a shop at New England Structural Steel in 1936 and 1937.
In the latter part of 1938, Mr. Perkins accepted a job as a “rodman” in a survey field crew at the Quabbin Reservoir. In spite of his title as rodman, he worked as a transit man for a year and then was placed in another party laying out roads across the dam, at $120 a month. Things looked pretty bleak in 1940 with the war going on, and as the last one hired at Quabbin, he was the first one laid off when the dam was completed.
Mr. Perkins immediately went to Quonset Point, R.I and got a job as a junior engineer. Some three to four weeks later he had most of the boys at Quabbin working at Quonset. Because of the war, engineers were needed to build a naval base and facilities.
In the fall of 1945, with the war over, he resigned from the naval engineering facility and purchased the firm of Parker, Bateman and Chase of Clinton from the only surviving member of the firm, Frederic W. Bateman, and started the Charles A. Perkins Engineering Co., Inc., which he continued to operate until his retirement in 1979.
Mr. Perkins belonged to Central Massachusetts Association of Civil Engineers and Land Surveyors, Society of American Military Engineers, and the Massachusetts Society of Professional Engineers.
After his first wife died in 1979, he married Ruth Bowmar Badger in 1985. In 1992 they moved from Harvard to Plymouth to further enjoy his retirement and spend more time on his boat. In 1997, they moved to Ayer to be near their family
“Charlie,” as he was known to friends, served two terms on the Harvard School Committee, two terms on the Harvard Water Department, was town moderator for several town meetings, served on the Board of Appeals, and was instrumental in the acquisition of the Hildreth House for the town.
He was active in the Harvard schools, was a former trustee of the Bromfield Trust, and a member of the Harvard Unitarian Church. He was a member of the Harvard Lions Club and in November of 1993 received the Melvin Jones Fellowship Award, the high honor conferred by the Lions Club International Foundation. He was also a member of the Sixty Plus Club of Harvard, and a former commodore of the Plymouth Yacht Club, of which he was a member for 40 years.
His survivors include his wife Ruth (Bowmar) (Badger) Perkins of Ayer, a daughter, Janet P. Thompson of Winchendon, her daughter Jennifer Thompson and her children Sarah and Justin Gaudet; a brother, Edgar F. Perkins of Sterling, and a sister, Ethel Kinsman of Terryvill, Conn.; three stepsons, David Badger of Littleton, Donald Badger of Chelmsford, and Brian Badger of Groton; five step-grandchildren and four step-great-grandchildren. He was also the brother of the late Paul Perkins and Blanche Waterman.
Funeral services were held at the Badger Funeral Home in Littleton Monday, October 15. Burial was at Bellevue Cemetery in Harvard.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be made to Harvard Ambulance, 40 Ayer Road, Harvard, MA 01451 or to Ayer Fire & Ambulance Assn., C/O Chief Pedrazzi, 1 West Main St. Ayer 01432, for the purchase of a defibrillator for the Ayer High School. For more information visit www.badgerfuneral.com.
