June 17, 2003|BY A SUN STAFF WRITER
John Salvatore Persico, a civil engineer who helped build the chapel at Goucher College and other area buildings, died Thursday from complications of Alzheimer's disease at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. He was 68.
Born in Baltimore, Mr. Persico attended McDonogh School in Owings Mills, then an all-male military academy. He was one of only a handful in the graduating class of 1952 to earn membership in the "Dirty Dozen," the name given to those who completed all 12 years of schooling at McDonogh.
In 1957, Mr. Persico earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He then spent three years in the Army at Fort Bliss, Texas, learning the operation of surface-to-air missiles such as the Nike Hercules.
He returned to Maryland in 1960 and with his father, Pietro, a Sicilian immigrant and stonemason, formed the building firm P. Persico & Son.
The elder Persico had done the masonry work on Goucher College's Van Meter Hall, numerous stone bridges along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and estates in the Greenspring Valley area for luminaries such as opera singer Rosa Ponselle.
One of the first projects the pair embarked on after joining forces would also be their most memorable: Goucher's Haebler Memorial Chapel, completed in 1962 with buff-colored Butler stone quarried from Baltimore County, the same material the elder Mr. Persico had used on Van Meter Hall.
The men called the building one of their favorites, said John Persico's son, J. Christopher Persico of Severna Park. "The chapel was the last bit of great old stone craftsmanship," he said.
The Building Congress and Exchange of Baltimore awarded Mr. Persico and his father a craftsmanship award for the chapel. Later, the pair won the award for their efforts on St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Perry Hall and the administration building at then-Essex Community College. In 1977, Mr. Persico was elected president of the building trade group.
When he wasn't building, Mr. Persico was often boating. He was a member of the Baltimore Yacht Club and Sue Island Power Squadron. Although he could be taciturn and a stickler for precision, friends and family members said, one of his former boats, Big Hugger, summed up the other side of the 6-foot-1, 250-pound man.
"He was a good father, a good friend and a good guy," said William G. Shinnick of Parma, Ohio, a McDonogh classmate and lifelong friend.
Mr. Persico sold the building company in 1986, according to his son, and secured a job as a senior engineer for the state of Maryland.
By 1992, the first signs of Alzheimer's disease appeared. The disease soon forced him to leave his job and move to the Oak Crest Village retirement community.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10:30 a.m. today at the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity, 20 E. Ridgely Road, Timonium.
In addition to his son, Mr. Persico is survived by a daughter, Cheryl C. Brown of Phoenix; another son, Peter J. Persico of Glastonbury, Conn.; and a sister, Joan Aberts of Forest Hill.
Mr. Persico's 1962 marriage to the former Bonnye L. Phipps ended in divorce.
His family plans to sprinkle his ashes tomorrow into the Chesapeake Bay off the bow of his most recent boat, a 42-foot Post sportfishing vessel named Catch of the Day.
