Edmund W. Perry, Jr.'s Obituary
Edmund Warren Perry, Jr., age 56, passed away on June 17, 2019 at his home in Memphis after a short battle with cancer.Warren was a generous spirit, warm, funny, intelligent, and deeply passionate about art, literature, and history. He held graduate degrees in medieval literature and creative writing from the University of Memphis and in playwriting from the Catholic University of America. He grew up in Memphis, Tennessee and in Southaven, Mississippi. Warren began working part-time at the planetarium of the Pink Palace Museum in 1981 while simultaneously attending classes toward a degree in English and American literature at Memphis State University, the beginning his life-long pursuit of both literature and museums. He met his wife, Shannon, when they were installing paintings at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis; they were married in December 1996. A few years later, they moved together to Washington, DC, where they lived for almost fifteen years. Their only child, Jeanne Lynn, was born there in 2012. The Perry family returned to Tennessee (Knoxville) in 2014 and moved back to Memphis in 2017.Warren was a writer of both creative and nonfiction work and a museum professional with expertise in American history, popular culture, and literature. Since October 2018, he had been Programs Administrator for the Pink Palace Family of Museums, managing exhibitions, collections, the planetarium, the CTI giant screen theater, Lichterman Nature Center, the historic properties (Mallory-Neely and Magevney houses), and the Coon Creek fossil site. In the last thirty-eight years, Warren delivered planetarium talks, installed hundreds of pieces of artwork from museums all over the world, curated exhibitions, and gave over forty lectures at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Civil War Museum, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Kyoto University, and many major American museums including the Gibbes and the Michener. His publications include Echoes of Elvis (Rowman and Littlefield/Smithsonian Scholarly Press, 2012, winner of the 2013 Smithsonian Secretary’s research prize) Swift to My Wounded: Walt Whitman and the Civil War (Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery Press, 2010), and he was a co-author of the book Elvis 1956: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer, which accompanied the Smithsonian traveling exhibition Elvis at 21 on its international tour from 2010 to 2014. Elvis 1956 received Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Bronze award for adult nonfiction/music writing in 2009. Warren also contributed to and co-edited the forthcoming Doom with a View: Historical and Cultural Contexts of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant 1952-2017, a collection of essays to be published by Fulcrum Press in 2019. His plays have been staged with Yellow Taxi Productions (2006, Manchester, NH), the Strawberry One Act Festival (2006, 2007, 2008, NY), the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival (2004, NY), the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival (2003-2007, Washington DC), the National Portrait Gallery’s “Cultures in Motion” project (2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, Washington DC), and the Voices of the South Memphis Fringe Festival (2018). In August 2006, he received the award for Best Director at the Strawberry One Act Festival where “The Sitters” was nominated for every award in the program.Warren has also taught at the University of Memphis, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the University of Mary Washington, and The Catholic University of America, including courses in literature, drama, writing, and art history. He has worked for museums across the United States, including the Pink Palace Museum, WONDERS: the Memphis International Cultural Series, the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, the Knoxville Museum of Art, the American Museum of Science and Energy, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.He is survived by his wife Shannon Kennedy Perry and daughter Jeanne Lynn Perry, as well as his parents, Edmund Warren Perry, Sr. and Martha Perry, his brother Patrick Perry and sister-in-law Jennifer Perry, his sister Carrie Sue McClain and brother-in-law Jim McClain, nieces Jenna and Hannah McClain, and many aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who loved him and will miss him deeply.A memorial service will be held at the CTI Theater of the Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central Avenue, on August 8 at 5:30 PM. Memorial contributions may be sent to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (stjude.org) or the Pink Palace Family of Museums (memphismuseums.org).
What’s your fondest memory of Edmund?
What’s a lesson you learned from Edmund?
Share a story where Edmund's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Edmund you’ll never forget.
How did Edmund make you smile?