Riley Perry was born around 1887–1888 in South Carolina, where both of his parents were also born. By 1930, he was living in Goulds Quarters, Precinct 68, in Dade County, Florida, where he owned a modest home valued at $150 (approximately $2,399 today) and worked as a self-employed farmer on a tomato farm. Though he had not attended school, he was literate and spoke English. Riley married Gertrude Boone on August 22, 1929, in Broward County. This was his second marriage, his first having occurred at age 21. In their 1930 household were Gertrude, his wife born in Florida in 1893; his brother Archie Perry; and his niece and nephew, Virgie and Fredie Chislom, both school-aged and born in Florida. By then, Riley did not own a radio and lived on a farm. Previously, in 1927, he had lived in Homestead, in the Redland area of Miami-Dade. He passed away in 1939 in Dade County at about age 42. Gertrude, widowed by 1940, worked as a cook for a private employer in Miami Beach, earning $260 that year. She later resided in Coral Gables and, by 1950, was no longer able to work. Gertrude died on December 13, 1985, at the age of 92 in Dade County.
