Background
Perry was born in Havelock, New Brunswick, Canada on January 5, 1895.
Perry was born in Havelock, New Brunswick, Canada on January 5, 1895.
After a short period of teaching, she attended Acadia University and received a Bachelor of Surgery in Biology with honors in 1921.
Her early education was in a one-room school. She spent an additional 3 years teaching before being admitted to Radcliffe College, where she took coursework from Professor East. C. Jeffries and M. L. Fernald and received her Master of Arts in 1925.
In 1930, she received a fellowship for doctoral study under J. M. Greenman at Washington University in Saint Louis.
She completed her doctoral thesis on North American species of Verbena in 1933. She became a United States. citizen in 1938.
In the summer of 1929, she spent a month collecting plant specimens on Saint Paul Island (Nova Scotia) with Doctor Muriel V. Roscoe, leading to the production of a vascular flora of the island published in 1931. After finishing her Doctor of Philosophy she took temporary positions at University of Georgia and Sweet Briar College.
Upon being unable to locate permanent position in Canada, she was re-hired by Master of Laws Fernald as an assistant for Gray Herbarium at Harvard.
In 1936, East. Doctorate. Merrill had her transferred to the Arnold Arboretum to assist with organizing collections from New Guinea and other parts of the Pacific. Perry reached retirement age in 1960, but stayed on at Arnold Arboretum until 1964 to finish.