Jaroslava Perkins

FARMINGDALE – Jaroslava Perkins, 92, passed on Aug. 18, 2023.

She was born Nov. 23, 1930 in Czechoslovakia and spent her early years living in Slovakia, Bosnia and Yugoslavia. Her family was evacuated in 1941 and they returned to Prague for the remainder of the war. She collected letters from families to deliver to prisoners in the concentration camps.

After the war they moved to Usti; she became active in scouting, graduated from graphic arts school, learned to ballroom dance, and began working in construction finance. In 1948, the Communists took over, banning all these activities.

With friends, she hiked into W. Germany, after being questioned by police they sent her to a DP camp in Murnau. She met her first husband here and had two children. They were sponsored by a church in Bangor to relocate and secured passage on a U.S. Navy boat. In 1959, they became U.S. citizens and she had her third child in 1965.

In 1979, she remarried and moved to Augusta where she lived until 2020. She was an avid square dancer, an active quilter and spent most of her adult life taking care of her two sons.

She was predeceased by her husband, Newell Perkins; daughter, Evie Gibson, and son, Donald Kolman.

She will be missed by her remaining family, son, Peter Kolman of Gardiner; sister, Eva Maresova of Czechia, son-in-law, Ed Gibson of Gorham N.H.; granddaughter, Cyndy Murphy and husband Rich of Bradford, Mass., grandson, Brian Gibson of Hawaii, and extended family in the U,S, and Czechia.

The funeral will be held Monday Sept. 11 at 12 p.m. in the Chapel at the Maine Veterans Cemetery, 163 Mt. Vernon Rd., Augusta.