Victor M Peruzzi

Victor Mario Peruzzi came into this world on December 5, 1934. He left it on October 2, 2025, some 90 years later. A good, long run. Yet still not nearly long enough for those who were fortunate enough to have him grace their lives. Vic was a devoted husband, often stipulating to his comely daughters that their mom was still the hottest woman on God’s green earth. He was a loving father, grandfather, and great grandfather. To many who knew him (not just his family), he was the axis upon which their world turned, with his generosity, earthy decency, and perpetual good humor. Whether he was laughing with you or at you — he had a unique talent for doing both simultaneously — he always threw his arm around everyone, and brought them in on the joke. Vic was a life force, and everyone in his orbit knew it.

Born in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, to Italian immigrants Oliva and Joseph Peruzzi, Vic only spoke Italian until he attended school. He retained patchy Italian all his life, particularly the swear words, while perfecting his English — his active and curious mind forever needing the stimulation of crossword puzzles, which he always completed on Sunday mornings when he should’ve been in church. (Vic loved God, but he and God had an understanding that Vic wouldn’t be getting overly religious about it.)

He became the first and only member of his immediate family to graduate college — from the University of Pittsburgh with a civil engineering degree. A degree he financed by hook or crook. When shy of tuition to complete his last semester, he went walking through farm fields to contemplate his predicament, found an abandoned tractor complete with brass fittings, and took a sledge hammer to it, knocking down his tuition piece by piece, selling the scrap metal.

In the early 1960s, Vic moved to Washington D.C. to take a job at the United States Patent Office. (While becoming a semi-professional volleyball player for fun in his spare time.) He always had his head in his own inventions, from aluminum siding lifts to the Record-Go-Round. He worked there for seven years, until he became a co-founder of the business, Victor Stanley, with his partner, Stan Skalka, manufacturing everything from park benches to wooden trash can receptacles — still seen to this day at a park or boardwalk near you. He then left Victor Stanley, and in 1971, started his own home-building business with his brother, Dean (whom he called his “right arm” — Dean was a mechanical genius who could fix anything, while Vic had the vision to acquire property and see all the business angles, though he himself enjoyed digging holes and doing physical labor right up until his retirement.) Vic built his own house in Dunkirk, Maryland, in which he raised three children. The very house where he left this earthly plane, in the same pool room where he gleefully used to smoke his son-in-laws in nine-ball matches. He took his last breath surrounded by his family, doubtless feeling the love. Because not a single one of them could revere a family patriarch any more than they already did.

Vic is survived by his wife, Pat Peruzzi, his children Laura Peruzzi Logan (Eddie) and Alana Labash (Matt), his grandchildren Adria Sexton (Jeb), Luke Labash and Dean Labash, Nikki Anderson (Matthew) and Jennifer Jankowski (Jordan), his great grandchildren Elin, Reagan, Brooks, Jack, and Juliette. Vic was predeceased by his daughter Rosanne Peruzzi, his parents Joe and Oliva Peruzzi, his brother Joseph (Dean) Peruzzi, and sisters Anne Falbo and Natalie Sterrett.

Services will be held Monday, October 13 at Lee Funeral Home, at 8200 Jennifer Lane, Owings, Md. 20736. Visitation: 10 am-12 pm. Funeral Service:12 PM at the Lee Funeral Home chapel. Burial to follow at Southern Memorial Gardens, Dunkirk, Md.