Dwight Heald PERKINS
Lucy Adeline FITCH

Husband:  Dwight Heald PERKINS
Birth:  26 Mar 1867, Memphis, Shelby Co., Tennessee 
Death:  2 Nov 1941, Lordsburg, Hidalgo Co., New Mexico     (obituary)
Burial:  Nov 1941, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois
Father:  Marland Leslie PERKINS
Mother:  Marion HEALD

Marriage:    18 Aug 1891, Boston, Suffolk Co., Massachusetts

Wife:  Lucy Adeline FITCH
Birth:  12 Jul 1865, Maples, Allen Co., Indiana 
Death:  18 Mar 1937, Pasadena, Los Angeles Co., California 
Burial:  Mar 1937, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois 
Father:  Appleton Howe FITCH 
Mother:  Elizabeth Harriet BENNETT 

Children:
1. Eleanor Ellis PERKINS, b: 21 Sep 1893, Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois
                                          d: 6 Feb 1969, Austin, Travis Co., Texas       (obituary)
2. Lawrence Bradford PERKINS, b: 12 Feb 1907, Evanston, Cook Co., Illinois
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Notes:

1900 Federal Census Data (T623_0285, Page 217B), Chicago Ward 32, Cook Co., Illinois,
                                                                                      Enumeration District: 995, Enumeration Date: 6-Jun-1900, Family #136

1910 Federal Census Data (T624_0240, Page 239B), Evanston Ward 6, Cook Co., Illinois,
                                                                                      Enumeration District: 107, Enumeration Date: 26-Apr-1910, Family #297

1920 Federal Census Data (T625_0358, Page 206A), Evanston Ward 6, Cook Co., Illinois,
                                                                                      Enumeration District: 83, Enumeration Date: 13-Jan-1920, Family #276

1930 Federal Census Data (T626_0500, Page 143A), Evanston Ward 6, Cook Co., Illinois,
                                                                                      Enumeration District: 2185, Enumeration Date: Apr-1930, Family #429

From the Southwest Museum Archaeologist:
     Dwight Heald Perkins (March 26, 1867 - November 2, 1941) was an American architect and planner.
     Perkins was born in Memphis, Tennessee and moved to Chicago with his family at age 4. His mother was widowed a few years after his family completed their move.
     Perkins attended only 3 months of high school, having to find work to help support his family. He worked initially at the Chicago Stockyards and later at the architectural firms Wheelock & Clay and for a few months for Frederick Schock. He was accepted to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1885. A family friend, Mrs. Charles Hitchcock, helped finance his education there.
     He studied at MIT for two years and was so skilled that he was invited to serve as an instructor for a third year. Also while in Boston, he met Lucy Fitch, who would become his wife on August 18, 1891.
     Perkins left Boston in late 1888. In January 1889 he interviewed at Burnham & Root in Chicago and was employed in early February of that year. He remained for 5 years, gradually assuming more and more responsibility. He left at the end of 1893 to form his own firm.
     On January 1, 1894, he opened the office after receiving his first major commission, with help from Daniel Burnham, the Stevens Point, Wisconsin Normal School. In 1894 he was commissioned to design a new building for the Steinway Piano company. This building bore little resemblance to the work he would do later, often in the style which became known as "Prairie School" of architecture.
     Perkins was appointed the Chief Architect for the Chicago Board of Education by Mayor Edward F. Dunne in 1905. His five-year service in this role ended when he was accused of incompetence, inefficiency, and insubordination and was dismissed following a trial in which only the insubordination charge was upheld. However, it is generally accepted that the true reason for his firing was that he refused to bow down to the demands of the corrupt members of the Board of Education who insisted that he give contracts to their cronies.
     Perkins had maintained a private practice with John L. Hamilton in addition to his service on the board. In 1911, with the addition of William K. Fellows, the firm of Perkins, Fellows, & Hamilton opened with offices in Chicago's loop. Perkins left the firm in c.1929 and joined what became Perkins, Chatten, and Hammond, which he left in 1933.
     Perkins died in Lordsburg, New Mexico, in 1941 of a cerebral hemorrhage while traveling to his winter home in Pasadena, California.
     Other works by Dwight Perkins firm include the Lincoln Park Zoo Lion House, the Alfred Nobel School, and many other residential homes.

      Lucy Fitch Perkins (July 12, 1865-March 18, 1937), American writer of children's books, was best remembered for her Twins series of storybooks that ranged in setting among different cultures and times.
     Lucy Fitch attended the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston (1883­86). She worked as an illustrator for the Prang Educational Company in Boston for a year and then taught for four years in the School of Fine Arts of the newly opened Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. In 1891 she married Dwight H. Perkins, with whom she settled in Chicago. She worked as an illustrator for the Chicago office of the Prang firm, painted murals in schoolrooms, taught art, and lectured. In 1906 she published her first book, The Goose Girl, a collection of rhymes for children. A Book of Joys: A Story of a New England Summer appeared the following year.
     With The Dutch Twins (1911), Perkins began a series of geographical and historical storybooks that proved enormously popular. Humorous, unpedantic, and illustrated in her own whimsical style, the Twins series extended to 26 volumes, including Irish Twins (1913), Belgian Twins (1917), Italian Twins (1920), Filipino Twins (1923), Pioneer Twins (1927), Indian Twins (1930), Spanish Twins (1934), and Chinese Twins (1935). In all, those books sold more than two million copies and were translated into several foreign languages. Perkins's other books include Cornelia (1919), Robin Hood (1923), and Mr. Chick (1926). Dutch Twins and Little Brother, on which she was at work at her death, was completed by her son and daughter and published in 1938.    
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