Relocation

Just before his birth in 1943, the 1940 US Census located Lawrence Bradford Perkins, Jr.'s, family residing at 2326 Pioneer Road in Evanston, IL. The house had a value of $9.500 at that date, slightly above the national average. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1940; Census Place: Evanston, Cook, Illinois; Roll: m-t0627-00779; Page: 18B; Enumeration District: 16-205, accessed 07/24/2025.)

In 1950, Perkins lived with his parents and four siblings at 2319 Lincoln Street in Evanston, IL, northwest of the Northwestern University campus. In addition, a "companion," Alma E. Dawell (born c. 1882 in IL), lived with the Perkins family. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Evanston, Cook, Illinois; Roll: 2545; Page: 11; Enumeration District: 107-72, accessed 07/24/2025.)

Both houses at 2326 Pioneer Road and 2319 Lincoln Street were located nearby to 7.5-acre Perkins Woods, a Cook County Forest Preserve that held some of the last forested land in the City of Evanston. At one time, wooded areas covered 40% of the State of IL, and this post-glacial "swamp morainic forest" supported red and white oak, ash, elm and other hardwood trees until well into the 19th century. Dwight Perkins, Lawrence Bradford Perkins, Jr.'s grandfather, campaigned to set aside remaining woodlands as the Cook County Forest Preserve, a county-owned agency founded in 1913.

Parents

Lawrence Bradford Perkins, Jr., was the son of the renowned architect Lawrence Bradford Perkins, Sr., (born 02/12/1907 in Evanston, IL-d. 12/03/1997 in Evanston, IL), co-founder of the highly influential architectural firm, Perkins and Will, founded in Chicago, IL, in 1935. His paternal grandfather, Dwight Perkins, was also a well-known architect.

His mother was Margery Isabella Blair (born 07/19/1907 in Buffalo, NY-d. 09/07/1981 in Evanston, IL), who graduated from Cornell University c. 1928. She was an Arts and Sciences student at Cornell and was very active in activities, including as president of her junior class. (See Cornell University, Cornellian Yearbook, 1927, p. 541.)