Every day, Thelma McCann Perkins sits next to photos of departed loved ones and talks to them.
There’s Father Tom, her cousin and godfather who was a priest. There’s her daughter, Ann Marie. And there’s her husband, Robert.
The one she cherishes the most is of her only sibling, her brother Jimmy.
“This is Jimmy. That’s my brother. He was killed in the Army,” she says while holding up his photo.
Jimmy McCann entered the Army to fight in World War II.
But he never got the chance. He was killed in August 1943 when a crane collapsed while his unit was trying to unload cargo from a ship off the coast of Iran.
Perkins was devastated.
“I only had one brother,” Perkins said. “That was my family.”
Perkins responded to her brother’s death by enlisting in the Women’s Army Corps.
“I thought I’d go in and finish what he left off at,” she said. “We were very close. We kept in touch all the time.”
During the remainder of the war, Perkins worked in the ear, nose and throat department of a Miami Beach Army center, where would-be soldiers reported for physicals.
“I had a very good life in the Army. I sometimes sit and think, you know, about it. I was proud of the service I gave. I figured I was doing a part my brother left off at,” Perkins said. “I was very proud of him. He was a very good soldier.”
A native of Ashley, Perkins thinks about her brother and other dead relatives every day after looking at the pictures.
“I say, ‘Good night everybody. God love you. God bless ya.’”
One photo is of her husband, whom she met while in the Army. He died in 1971 at age 54.
“He’s up in heaven now praying for a Happy Father’s Day,” Perkins said during the April 2 interview.
Perkins never remarried.
“She had some suitors, but she always said she had a good man who took care of her and she wasn’t taking care of anybody else,” Perkins’ daughter Peggy Fornitt said.
Perkins said she has a strong faith in God. She hopes to see her loved ones again some day.
But, for now, Perkins says she’s still feeling good.
“I’m in very good health. I go to bed every night and thank God for the day and for getting me through tomorrow,” she said. “I thank God every day for my family and friends. God bless them and give them thanks for all the good memories”
THELMA McCANN PERKINS, 95, OF FAIRVIEW TOWNSHIP
U.S. Army (WACs), Miami Beach Army Center
Medical department
Interview date: April 2, 2015
Perkins primarily was a homemaker, but did work for several years at Dana Perfumes in the Crestwood Industrial Park in Mountain Top until she retired at age 68. She and her late husband Robert, whom she met in the Army, had one son and two daughters. Perkins has five grandchildren.
One of Perkins’ neighbors in Fairview Township is another woman who served during World War II — Catherine “Kay” Baluta, a 92-year-old Navy veteran.
