Joseph L. Pera

Mr. Pera retired from the Buffalo Fire Department in 1979 after more than a 20-year career. Over the years, he was assigned at the now-closed Ganson Street firehouse in the city’s grain-milling district, as well as at firehouses at Plymouth and Jersey streets and Colvin and Linden avenues.

While working as a firefighter, he began a second career as a cement finisher in the late 1950s. As a member of cement finishers union, he worked on the Niagara Power Project and the Donovan State Office Building.

Family members said he was proud and enthusiastic about his second career and worked as an independent concrete contractor well into his 80s. In 1987, as a volunteer, he poured all the concrete for the Windermere Boulevard Elementary School community playground in Eggertsville.

Born in Pittston, Pa., Mr. Pera moved to the Lower West Side of Buffalo as a child.

As a mechanic in the Army Air Forces he was stationed at bases in San Antonio and in Homestead, Fla.

Surviving are his wife of 63 years, Josephine Rizzo Pera; a daughter, Michele Batt; and three sons, Joseph, Christopher and David.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at 10 a. m. today in St. Benedict’s Catholic Church, 1317 Eggert Road, at Main Street, Eggertsville.