Local Heroes Past: John Perry
By HAROLD BLAINE
Reprinted from the March 12, 1970 issue of The Liberal
Running a drug stores in Maple and Kleinburg is probably a much more prosaic life than dodging shrapnel and enemy fighters over Germany. And it's probably less interesting in many ways than presiding as reeve over Vaughan Township Council. But this is the life that suits John Perry, DSO, DFC, Phm. B., age 48 and resident on Kleinburg Golf Course Road.
Certainly one of York County's most successful political pharmacist - businessmen, Mr. Perry was born on a King Township farm between Nobleton and Schomberg, and grew up on land originally homesteaded by his forebears. Mr. Perry opened and operated five stores in Vaughan and King Townships during the past 20 years.
He probably would never have been a pharmacist if it hadn't been for World War II he says.
As a youth of 18 in 1939 he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. little knowing that he was to survive one of the armed forces' most hazardous jobs right through to V-J Day.
The boy John Perry attended Linton Public School, Schomberg's Continuation School and Aurora High School, and remembers when the schools had classes instead of grades.
In the air force he trained in Ontario. Nova Scotia and Quebec. He was a pilot instructor for two years in Canada, and then was posted overseas to a station near Cambridge, England, as a Pathfinder pilot.
The Pathfinders were the specially trained pilots who arrived over the target area ahead of the bombers, stayed over the target to keep it marked with flares all during a raid, and then photographed the results of the bombing when the raid was over.
They were prime targets for the enemy and spent more time than other aircraft over dangerous territory.
Mr. Perry remembers when the Pathfinder Squadron was visited by the King and Queen, and he remembers accompanying Winston Churchill on an inspection tour and visit to the messes. Sir Winston also had Mr. Perry and a fellow officer up to Parliament for refreshments. He remembers Sir Winston coming out of the House to greet them. At first Churchill looked very tired, and even his ears and bow tie seemed to droop. But then over refreshments he seemed to change completely, joked and was bright and fresh as could be. He was the kind of person whose feelings showed completely in his face, says Mr. Perry.
Having finished his stint with the Pathfinders, pharmacist-to-be Perry was moved to the Senior Officers' Staff College at Armour Heights, Toronto, and then took command of a Transport Squadron at Trenton. He retired from the air force the day after V-J Day as squadron leader and holder of the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross. However, he continued to serve in the RCAF Reserve until 1951. He decided to quit flying because he thought it would be silly to get himself killed in some runway accident after surviving the hazards of war. There's still the same accident hazard in peacetime flying for the reserve, and there were several fellow survivors of the war who lost their lives later, he says.
After the war John Perry had a new outlook and decided to take advantage of education opportunities provided for veterans. "When I was a boy it was a matter of whether you had enough money to go to university," he says. He was a pharmacy apprentice at Henderson's Drug Store in Woodbridge. Finishing in 1947 and graduating from the University of Toronto Class of 1949.
In 1950 at Woodbridge Mr. Perry and June Campbell were married. She is daughter of Brigadier Colin Campbell, a former Ontario Cabinet Minister and federal member of Parliament from Sault Ste. Marie. June trained as a professional designer of women's clothes in New York and has kept up a part time interest in this work since their marriage.
Mr. Perry's public and business careers both started together.
He was elected in 1950 to a one-year term on Woodbridge Village Council. Still serving his term on Woodbridge Council, he moved to Maple to open his first drug store and was elected to Vaughan Township Council in 1951. After serving two terms of one year on Vaughan Council, Mr. Perry retired from public office for two years. He then ran for reeve of Vaughan and served in this post for four one year terms. He opened a drug store in King City, in 1953 and in Nobleton in 1956. In 1961 Perry's Variety Store was opened in Kleinberg. He later closed his first store in Maple and opened a new one in the Maple Plaza.
June and John Perry have an 11-year-old son William and are still as busy as they want to be with community activities. He is a former warden of St. Stephen's Anglican Church and family member of the Maple Lions Club. June teaches Sunday school and helps out in the cancer society, among other things. They like to skate, toboggan, ski and curl, but there isn't much time for sports when you're a druggist and have only one day off a week, he says.
Until recently Mr. Perry hadn't been west of Ontario, even though he had been to England during the war and visited Europe since. He is often in demand as an after dinner speaker and three years ago was invited to Edmonton to be guest speaker at the first Pathfinder reunion in the West.
Just for now that was enough excitement for John Perry DSO, DFC, Phm. B. Every day now you'll find him behind the counter in his Maple Plaza store, quite happy to have traded his reeve's gavel and pilot's stick for a druggist's spatula.