Perry, Carmen

Carmen Perry was born in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico, the daughter of a Spanish mother and German father. Her family fled to San Antonio, Texas at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. She attended Our Lady of the Lake University, where she received a bachelor of arts degree. After college, she taught at John Page Junior High School. She left that position to work for the United States Office of Censorship during World War Two; Perry, who spoke French, Spanish, German, and Catalan, supervised 90 employees in the operation.

Following that position, Perry began her work in libraries, first in the San Antonio Public Library, where she organized the art and music department in the main library and the Landa branch. Before coming to the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), Perry worked in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo, the Archives and Rare Books Department at St. Mary's University, and the Documentary Research Center at San Antonio's San Jose Mission. When she began at UTSA in 1974, she was the Library's first Special Collections Librarian. She held this position from 1974 until her retirement in 1981.

She was named a fellow by the Texas State Historical Association subsequent to the 1975 publication of With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution, her translation of the De la Peña diary ( La Rebelión de Texas ). Other books she wrote, translated, or contributed to include Impossible Dream by the Rio Grande: A Documented Chronicle of the Establishment and Annihilation of San Jose de Palafox (St. Mary's University Press, 1971), Gentilz: Artist of the Old Southwest (University of Texas Press, 1974), and Charles Ramsdell's San Antonio: A Historical and Pictorial Guide (University of Texas Press, 1979).