Regina Perkins

Regina Perkins was born August 13, 1921, to immigrant parents Isaac and Sally Reegler in Richmond Hill, Long Island, New York. She died Thursday, January 18, 2018, in Oceanside, California. Ginny was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmother, and a capable and virtuous woman who through her example and by her actions improved the lives of others. She endured the loss of her husband, Norman, whom she married n 1948 and remained in marriage to until his death in 2010 at 94. She also lived through the losses of her three beloved sisters – Bertha, Dorothy, and Diana, and her beloved brother Harold. She is survived by her daughter, Patricia Belinda Perkins of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and her son, Mark Howard Perkins of Dallas, Texas, and by five grandchildren --–David and Stephen Adelson, Lisa Brown, Ben Perkins, and Eden Henson-- and five great grandchildren. Ginny lived the exemplary life of a first generation American, with the sound values of those who saw their way through both the Great Depression and World War II. She was brought as an infant to Los Angeles, where her father earned a living as a tailor. Her Orthodox mother, Sally, took her on the streetcar as a child to the far edges of the city, to work as an extra in studio films – which she remembered primarily because it was the first time in her life she had ever eaten a ham sandwich, forbidden in her household. Her formal education ended with Belmont High School near downtown Los Angeles. She then went to work for the Department of Water and Power, living at home and helping support her family. Believing it was most important to support the war effort, she joined the service as a clerk-typist. Among her well-organized papers is her Honorable Discharge from the United States Marine Corps, where she was noted to have earned a Good Conduct Medal as Private First Class and to have been paid $39.45 on the date of her discharge, January 11, 1946. The years after her marriage to Norman in 1948 were not only devoted to raising two children and to the lives of her extended family. A book lover who continued to read one or two books a week into her nineties, Ginny worked for over a decade in the public libraries in Los Angeles County. She also volunteered for causes that mattered, including the Westchester Mental Health Guild and serving multiple terms as President of her local chapter of Hadassah, an American Jewish women’s organization. In the 1990s Ginny and Norm moved to Oceanside, where she greatly enjoyed the company of many wonderful friends in the Ocean Hills community. She was a skillful bridge player, exercised daily, took care in healthy eating, enjoyed live theater and movies, and in general reaped the blessings of a good life. She particularly appreciated her friend Jeanne Greene. In the years since Norman’s death, as her own health declined and with the loss of so many friends, she indeed saw her own death approaching as a friend, and did not dread it. In these last years, Ginny and her children were particularly grateful for the loving and capable companionship and caretaking provided by Teresa Markovitz, Alma Button, Margarita Guevara, and, in the last weeks, Maria Delgado. All of them are angels. Appreciated as well was the wisdom and service of hospice. Ginny still lives on earth in the acts of goodness she performed and in the hearts of those who cherish her memory. She can also be remembered with a donation in her memory to Temple Etz Rimon, 2020 Chestnut Avenue, Carlsbad, CA 92008,or via templeetzrimon.org. Her funeral will be graveside at Eternal Hills Cemetery in Oceanside, California on Wednesday, January 25, at 2:00 PM.

Arrangements under the direction of Eternal Hills Memorial Park, Mortuary and Crematory, Oceanside, CA.