They met as young adults in Sanilac County before spending close to seven decades together.

Then, just hours apart on News Years Day, they each died of natural causes.

“We just theorized my dad said, ‘I’ve got to go, but I’m not going without her,’” Bart Perry said of his parents, Robert and Janet Perry. “So, they left the same day.”

And that’s the way they always were, family members said.

Ranae Perry, who’d been their only daughter of five kids, called them “two peas in a pod” — Janet the “horse nut,” Robert the builder, and both of them givers.

Born a year apart in Buel Township, the couple married in March 1953, remaining in the Croswell area until their deaths Wednesday. He was 84, and she 85.

The Perrys had volunteered on local fair boards and attended the local Methodist church. Robert Perry, or Bob, according to their obituary, started work on the family farm before venturing into entrepreneurship in constructing two manufactured home communities. Janet and Ranae both worked with him in the office, while two of their sons worked outside.

Janet was also a 4-H leader, and the two bonded early over selling horses and horse trailers. Bart said the latter was how they met.

“They were good, honest, hard-working, local folk that met in high school because Dad had a horse trailer and my mom needed a horse taken to the saddle club in Sandusky,” he said Thursday. “She inquired about getting a ride and it turned into a relationship that lasted.”

Work that was all in the family

Ranae Perry said her mother’s love of horses also turned her into a “horse nut.” She recalled growing up on Kilgore Road, where her father would later build his first trailer park and where they sold horses and horse trailers.

The family worked on the farm, and she said, “We always knew. The boys didn’t play sports.” But trail-riding up north, showing and going to horse shows, she said she was there “all the time with my mom.”

“I said to my mom one day, ‘You blessed me with the horse bug.’ I can’t get rid of it,” Ranae said. “I give lessons — that’s what she used to do.”

She also remembers her father’s long-budding love for his communities, particularly the blue prints he kept rolled up and hidden when, as a child, she’d come for a kiss goodnight.

The first came at Country Hill Pines in 1983. Buel Hill Estates came in 1992, and that’s where Janet and Ranae Perry shared time working in the office.

Bart Perry said his father Bob was a “handshake deal” kind of guy.

“He loved immensely to build these communities,” he said. “Then, we had a big job in keeping them running.”

Two parents who ‘had each other’s backs’

Although the mobile home communities had become a family business, Bart said it was one his father also gave up when his mother got sick three years ago with dementia.

Instead, he said Bob went to work as Janet’s caretaker.

“He did that until he fell sick in July,” Bart Perry said. On Wednesday, Bob Perry died shortly before 11 a.m.

“It was unbelievable, I held my dad for his last breaths,” Bart said. “I knew my mother was having trouble after her hip surgery in the hospital. (But) it looked like everything was going to be (alright).”

Janet Perry passed four hours later.

“They both went peacefully,” Bart said. “No better way to go. Dad always said he’d like to go in his sleep.”

Ranae said her parents donated their time to people both in public and in their communities — two hearts “that gave and gave and gave.” It’s something now, she said, that she takes comfort in since they died Wednesday.

Funeral services for the couple are set for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 7, at the Croswell United Methodist Church. Friends may call from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday and 2 to 9 p.m. Monday at the Pomeroy Funeral Home in Croswell and from 10 to 11 a.m. Tuesday at the church.

Ranae Perry said they will be taken to the cemetery by horse and wagon.

Together, like in everything else.

“I think that’s why the good Lord took them the way he did. I wouldn’t make it through this without knowing,” she said. “… (My dad) just grabbed her, took her to a better and higher place. They had each other’s backs.”

Jackie Smith is the local government reporter for the Times Herald. Have questions or a story idea? Contact her at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.