Perry, Lilla S.

Lilla S. Perry was born in New England in 1882. She attended Cornell University from 1901 to 1904 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She then attended the New York School of Journalism while substitute teaching. In 1905 she married Everett Robbins Perry. In 1911, her husband became the city librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library and the family moved to California where Lilla taught piano. Lilla took an interest in Japanese prints and began collecting them and took a trip to Japan in the summer of 1936. Perry also collected Chinese snuff bottles and in 1960 she published her book Chinese snuff bottles: the adventures & studies of a collector. She is also the author of My friend Carl Sandburg: the biography of a friendship which was published in 1981 and edited by her son E. Caswell. The Perrys had five children: Richard (b. 1910), Edward Caswell (b. 1912), Norman Conrad (b.1916), Beatrice (b.1918) and Dorothy (Lilla's cousin's daughter who they adopted in 1927). Everett Perry died in 1933. Although she had been writing her journal most of her life, after her husband's death, Lilla began re-writing it in hopes to publish it as a means to generate income.

From the description of Journal of Lilla S. Perry, 1929-1970. (Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens). WorldCat record id: 566143092