Charles Perry Allton

Funeral service for Charles "Perry" Allton will be 11 a.m., Thurs., April 7, at the Musgrove-Merriott-Smith Chapel with Pastor John Lay and Seth Schwarm officiating. Military honors will be presented by the U.S. Air Force. Visitation will be held at the funeral home Wed. 1-8 p.m., and family will greet friends 2-4 p.m.

Perry died Sun., April 3, 2011, at the Claremore Veterans Center at the age of 88.

The son of Charles Joseph and Pearl Jane (Henson) Allton was born Sept. 9, 1922, in Dewey. Perry graduated from Claremore High School in 1940, and that same year entered the U.S. Army in the Army Medical Corps serving as an NCO in ETO in World War II. He held commissions as an officer in both the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force following WWII, and was assigned to Germany during the Berlin Airlift and Korea in that war. After leaving the service he was an executive with Spartan Aircraft, managed citrus growing and sales interests in Florida, and became an internationally know interior designer and decorator in San Francisco, CA, before returning to Claremore to live. Most recently Perry worked as a rural mail carrier. Perry was a charter member of Rogers County Historical Society, member of National Historical Society, Cherokee National Historical Society, charter member of Tulsa University Alumni Association, Associate member National Wildlife Federation and American Museum of Natural History, Past Commander of American Legion, Post 141, and Member of Five Civilized Tribes Museum. Perry was also a founding member of Rogers County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and Claremore Regional Representative for Tulsa Opera. Perry enjoyed arranging flowers, opera, and ballet. He was always "39"; and loved animals, his nieces, and nephews.

Perry is preceded in death by his parents, and sisters: Martha Sue Minnick, Wilma Lee Jones, and Hattie Mable "Puddie" Burd.