Year of Birth: 1885
Date of Death: June, 1989
Interment Source:
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
NO HEADSTONE
Burial in historic cemetery is all he asks.
Perry Boone doesn't ask for much out of life because he doesn't think there's a whole lot more of it left for him.
Born in Corpus Christi in 1884, he will be 105 in October. "All I want is to be buried in Old Bayview Cemetery. That’s where my mother and father are buried," he said. Martin Boone died in 1920, his wife, Laura, in 1925.
The fact that Old Bayview Cemetery is a historic site and that it has been closed for new burials for years doesn't impress Perry. The last exception to the rule was a burial in 1983. "My father bought a family plot there. All of his family is buried there. That's where I'm going to be buried.
"The tombstones are there by the steps off Waco Street," he says. However, vandals have carried away some of the stones. Among them, apparently are the Boone family stones. Road improvements have removed the steps.
“I've been paying a funeral home for years for my burying, I've paid them $800 and it still ain't enough". Mrs. Aubrey Booker, widow of his cousin and his sole surviving relative, says the cost originally quoted has increased since Boone started paying. There will be no problem getting county assistance for him. He is sort of a living historical marker. His parents drove the Lichtenstein family surrey here from Indianola when it was devastated by a hurricane in 1875, nine years before Boone was born.
He was a waiter when the Nueces Hotel opened in 1912, and got to know nearly everyone in town. He was a deputy sheriff briefly. As a longshoreman he caught the first line from the first ship to enter the local port when it opened in 1926. He was one of the organizers of the Negro Longshoremen's Union.
Perry Boone doesn't do much any more. He plays Bingo and dominoes, but mostly he just sits with his own thoughts. "Poor circulation in my legs put me in this wheelchair," he says. He won't wear a hearing aid or false teeth. Cataracts were removed but he does not see well.
"I don't know why I lived so long. I don't even think about it," he said. "And why are people interested in what I eat? I eat what I want when I want it. All those people who told me I wasn't eating right are dead."
The City Park Department, which cares for the cemetery, says there is no problem so long as state burial requirements are met. County Human Services says there is no problem, so long as the money required does not exceed that usually spent to assist indigents. The funeral home sees no problem with the financing or opening the grave.
So Perry Boone's only request will be honored. Still, there is no guarantee he is going to need a burial plot any time soon.
by Bill Walraven
Caller-Times Staff Writer
Source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Community Life and People, Thursday, May 18, 1989, p. 1, c. 2-4
Research by: Monsignor Michael A. Howell
Transcribed by: Kathryn H. Martin, member Coastal Bend Genealogical Society
PERRY BOONE
BURIAL WISH TO BE GRANTED
by Edmund S. Tijerina
Staff Writer
Perry Boone will get his final wish.
All the 104 year old man asked for during his final years was to be buried in Old Bayview cemetery. Boone, of Corpus Christi, died yesterday in a local nursing home.
According to Maxwell P. Dunne funeral Service, Inc., which is handling Boone’s funeral arrangements, that’s where he will be buried.
The cemetery – now an historic site – is also where his mother and father were buried years ago. Martin Boone died in 1920, his wife Laura, in 1925.
His parents drove the Lichtenstein family surrey here form Indianola when that town was destroyed by a hurricane in 1875, nine years before Boone was born. The Lichtenstein family owned and operated department stores in Corpus Christi for decades.
Boone was a waiter when the Nueces Hotel opened in 1912, and was briefly a deputy sheriff. As a longshoreman he caught the first line from the first ship to enter the local port when it opened in 1926. He was one of the organizers of the Negro Longshoremen's Union.
In a Caller-Times interview last month, Boone said he didn't care that the cemetery had been closed for years to new burials.
The last exception was in 1983. “My father bought a family plot there,†Boone said. “All his family is buried there. That's where I’m going to be buried.â€
There are no immediate survivors.
Source: Corpus Christi Caller Times, June 21, 1989, page 11D, col. 1
Research by: Msgr. Michael A. Howell
Transcription by: Geraldine D. McGloin, Nueces County Historical Commission