Talk:George Perle

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My name is Deborah Kahn. George Perle is my uncle, my mother's brother. I wanted to share a bit of family history. I know it cannot be used in the article, as it won't be properly sourced, but I thought it would be good to get it out there, nevertheless.

My grandparents were Joseph and Manya Perlmutter. They were married in Odessa, Russia. My great-grandmother (Manya's mother) was named Devorah Sanders. I don't know her husband's first name or her maiden name. The family legend is that she was the daughter of a famous Rabbi. Manya was rebellious and attracted by the revolutionary currents of the time. She is supposed to have audited university classes. During the 1905 pogroms, the family survived because their landlady painted a cross on their door. Manya volunteered to help with the injured after the pogroms. I don't know how Joseph met Manya. He was a painter, interiors and exteriors. Manya didn't particularly like him, apparently. Devorah insisted on the marriage when she was dying of stomach cancer, apparently because Joseph had promised to take Manya to America. After Devorah's death, many people turned up at her funeral, telling stories of how she had quietly helped them out when things were difficult. One minor musical thread: one of Manya's brothers was a musician. Their father disapproved and disowned him.

Joseph had a very difficult childhood. His father was a cantor (music again), but apparently a grumpy, unpleasant person and the story is that it was an unhappy marriage. When Joseph was eight his father was injured by a falling brick and Joe had to end his education and go to work to help support the family.

The marriage probably took place around 1910 or 1911. They left for America in 1914 with a daughter who was, I think, three years old. She died on the ship, leaving Manya heartbroken. The immigration officer told Joseph that they would be smart to change the family name from Perlmutter. Someone chose Perlman.

George was born in 1915, Rose in 1917 (?) and my mother in 1918. The family lived in Chicago, until my mother, Nina, was 5 years old, but I'm not sure when they moved from the east. I think my mother was born in Chicago. Manya wanted to raise her children in the country, so they saved up their money and bought a farm in northern Indiana not too far from LaPorte. Manya and the children moved out to the farm, while Joseph stayed in the city and continued to paint. The story is that he worked mostly for the big hotels, who repainted the guest rooms on a regular schedule.

Someone in the family realized very early on that George had musical talent and he was started on piano lessons when he was about 4 years old. I think his teacher was a cousin. Manya wanted to make sure that George received the support he needed, unlike her brother who was thwarted and rejected for pursuing music. Manya managed to buy a piano for the farm house and to make sure that George had lessons. By the time he was a teenager he was giving piano lessons.

George wasn't a farm type. While his sisters were outside gardening and helping with the chores, he spent his days at the piano, exploring music. The children attended a local school and then a consolidated high school. Manya and Joseph were both atheists and raised their children sans religious beliefs. In spite of this, and their Jewish background, the three musical Perlman children were all expected to accompany Christmas carols at school. Rose learned violin and Nina piano.

When the Depression hit, Joseph's work dried up and he moved out to the farm full-time. It was a never-ending struggle to survive. They raised as much food as they could to feed themselves and sold whatever could be sold to pay at least the interest on the mortgage. The farm had chickens and cows. They started with horses for farm work and then changed to a tractor. One cash crop was eggs. Another was cucumbers, sold to a local cannery for picklig. They also sold food to the summer people who had cottages in Michigan City.

Jewish visitors from Chicago turned up so regularly that Manya insisted they had to start paying room and board.

Manya and Joseph's marriage, never very happy, dissolved when the kids were teenagers. Joseph returned to Chicago and Manya remarried the long-time "hired man", Alex. It was around this time that George moved to Chicago and started his college studies.

According to my mother, George played piano in bars to earn money. He hated this.

Anyway, there are a few family memories, for whatever they are worth, probably not much :) Doybia (talk) 14:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doybia (talk • contribs) 14:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Works

Re: "Swift differentiates between Perle's 'free' or 'intuitive', tone-centered, and twelve-tone modal music.[5] He lists Perle's tone-centered compositions:"

Why we can't we just have a list of Perle's music? 06:10, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Entanglement of two references

Two references in this article became entangled, because both of were named the same (<ref name="Times">). I am about to make a series of edits to fix this; the following is a detailed explanation of the problem, and an overview of what I will do to fix it. A January 24, 2009 New York Times obit of George Perle, by Allan Kozinn, first appeared in this Wikipedia article on May 6, 2009 and was modified, on August 6, 2010, to support information at five locations in the article. At that time, the Kozinn obit was cited in the article once as a full-fledged reference and four times as <ref name="Times"/>. Then, on July 1, 2014, a May 11, 2014 New York Times article by Vivien Schweitzer appeared, with the same name, "Times", which resulted in an error message on the Kozinn obit reference, and resulted in information which was supported by the Schweitzer article having a footnote which led to to Kozinn obit reference. From this point forward, the two references were entangled. Then, on January 30, 2016, the name="Times" designation was removed from the Kozinn obit reference, removing the error message from this reference, but causing four locations with <ref name="Times"/> to be mistakenly associated with the 2014 Schweitzer article, rather than with the 2009 Kozinn obit as originally intended. I will first place a slightly revised reference to the Kozinn obit (named "NYTimes-2009-01-24") at the first location in the article where information is supported by this obit, then place <ref name="NYTimes-2009-01-24"> citations at the other locations which are supported by this obit, then do likewise for the Schweitzer article (using the name "NYTimes-2014-05-11") for that reference. CWBoast (talk) 16:29, 8 December 2017 (UTC)