Richard Joseph Lerro: January 2013

Rick Lerro died January 20, in Tyler, Texas, with family members by his side. The World War II veteran was preparing for his 95^th birthday at the time of his death. He witnessed most of the 20^th century, surviving perils in childhood and in war, brushing history in 1963, and “seeing half the world” on an 8^th grade education.

As a young boy he spent several years in an orphanage near Philadelphia. His grandmother, Justina Camarrota Lerro, found him and raised him in a family-owned butcher shop at 1024 South 9^th Street in Philadelphia’s Little Italy neighborhood. He attended Our Lady of Good Counsel School, completing the 8^th grade, and helped his uncles sell vegetables from carts in front of the butcher shop.

He married Caroline Fusco at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in 1939 and had a son in 1941 while working at the Pennsylvania Shipyards.

During World War II Lerro served on a destroyer in the U.S. Navy’s Construction Battalion, the Sea Bees. He was stationed in the Philippines, Japan, and finally in Attu, Alaska, where he would occasionally wave to Soviet submariners who surfaced off the coastline to lie on deck sunning themselves.

He remained in the Navy Reserves, visiting Boston, Cuba, and Italy. Later in life he would say, “By the time I was 40 I had seen half the world.”

After the Navy, while serving as a Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy in Houston, he met another young divorcee, Myrtle Lee Metcalf. He liked Italian operas. She preferred country music. They wed in 1955 and moved to Dallas where they had a son in 1958. Myrtle launched the Household Employment Agency and Rick worked as a maintenance man for Standard Brands Foods and St. Regis Paper Company. He remained a part-time butcher throughout his adult life.

In the early 1960s the Lerros were featured in Life magazine when their pet alligators got loose and roamed their Dallas neighborhood. Dallas soon passed an exotic pets ordinance.

In 1963 he and his wife were interviewed by FBI agents following the Kennedy assassination after agents discovered that the Lerros were close friends and business associates of Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. While in prison Ruby corresponded with the Lerros, once writing that his murder of Oswald was a spur of the moment decision and not pre-meditated.

In 1968 Lerro was diagnosed with colorectal cancer which was surgically removed and never returned.

Lerro’s first marriage to Caroline Fusco ended in divorce, however, the two remained friends until her death.

Richard Joseph Lerro is preceded in death by his wife of 52 years, Myrtle Lerro. He is survived by sons Richard Joseph Lerro, Jr. and his wife Judy of West Palm Beach, Fla., and Richard Marcus Lerro and his spouse Terrence Onderick of Washington, D.C., his granddaughter and caretaker, Jackie Cannon and her husband Kyle of Tyler, Texas. His surviving grandchildren are Robert Lerro and his wife Cheryl, and Julie Williams and husband Lawrence of Florida, Stephen Lerro and wife Phylis of Tennessee, and Ashley David Harmon and wife Rachel of Texas. Great grandchildren include Jonathan Cannon, Michael Cannon, Karl Cannon, Mason Harmon, Jacob Harmon, Ashlyn Harmon, Billie Lerro, Tyler Williams, Brianna Williams, Aaron Lerro, Corey Lerro, Sarah Lerro, Collin Lerro, and Kathryn Lerro. Great-great grandchildren include Siearra Cannon and Cauline Cannon, and surviving his son-in-law is Jerry Powell of San Augustine.

A private wake is planned for the residents and staff of Providence Park Rehabilitation Center in Tyler. A private funeral mass is planned at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Chandler, Texas.