George Sessions Perry
Rockdale, Milam County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The son of Andrew and Laura Perry, George Sessions Perry was born May 5, 1910, in Rockdale. In 1933, he married Claire Hodges of Beaumont. Four years later, he published the first in a long line of fiction and non-fiction stories and novels, many of which were based on people and events from his growing-up years in Rockdale. As a World War II correspondent, he brought first-hand accounts of the war to readers of "The New Yorker" and "The Saturday Evening Post." Perry won several major awards, including the 1941 National Book Award, before his death in 1956-57.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Rockdale in 1910, George Sessions Perry drew on his small-town Texas boyhood for a celebrated body of fiction and nonfiction, winning the 1941 National Book Award. During World War II he reported firsthand from the front for The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post, bringing the war home to millions of American readers before his death in the mid-1950s.
Why it matters
Perry gave national literary voice to rural Texas life and stood among the war correspondents whose eyewitness reporting shaped how Americans understood World War II.
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Related people
- · George Sessions Perry
- · Claire Hodges
Themes & tags
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