Editing Jan Peerce (section)

==Family life==
Jan Peerce was born Jacob Pincus Perelmuth<ref name="Clarke">{{Cite book|title=Pseudonyms|author=Joseph F. Clarke|publisher=BCA|date=1977|page=130}}</ref> (though his Hebrew gravestone gives his first name as יהושע, or Joshua, not Jacob), to a [[American Jews|Jewish]] family.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I0byBwAAQBAJ&q=peerce|first=John|last=Cones|title=Motion Picture Biographies: The Hollywood Spin on Historical Figures|pages=57|date=April 2015|publisher=Algora |isbn=9781628941166}}</ref> His parents, Levi (anglicized to Louis) and Henya Perelmuth, came from the village of [[:be:Вёска Гарадзец, Кобрынскі раён|Horodetz]], formerly in Poland, now Belarus.<ref name="GreatestCantors">Biographical sketch [http://greatestcantors.blogspot.com/search/label/Jan%20Peerce narrated by Jan's friend Isaac Stern]</ref> Their first child, a daughter, died in an epidemic. In 1903 they emigrated to America along with their second child, a boy named Mottel. A year later, on June 3, 1904, their third child, Jacob Pincus, was born in a [[cold water flat]] in the [[Lower East Side]], [[Manhattan]], [[New York (state)|New York]]. He was nicknamed "Pinky" by his neighborhood friends. When he was three years old, his older brother Mottel was killed in an accident as the boy hitched a ride on an ice wagon.<ref name="GreatestCantors" /> Jacob attended [[DeWitt Clinton High School]] and [[Columbia University]]. At his mother's urging he took violin lessons,<ref name="GreatestCantors" /> and gave public performances, including dance band work as Jack "Pinky" Pearl. Sometimes he also sang and it was soon discovered he was an exceptional lyric tenor.

Peerce became the brother-in-law of fellow American tenor [[Richard Tucker (tenor)|Richard Tucker]] when Sara Perelmuth, Peerce’s only sister, married Tucker, who was then a part-time cantor, in 1936. Jan remained on the Lower East Side until his 1930 marriage to Alice Kalmanovitz (1907–1994), a childhood friend to whom he was married for 54 years, until his death. He died at his home in [[New Rochelle, New York|New Rochelle]], New York on December 15, 1984 at the age of 80.<ref>[http://www.thedailynewrochelle.com/news/new-rochelledid-you-know-12 The Daily New Rochelle] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150103093022/http://www.thedailynewrochelle.com/news/new-rochelledid-you-know-12 |date=2015-01-03 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Jan Peerce - Opera Singer|url=http://projects.latimes.com/hollywood/star-walk/jan-peerce/|work=Hollywood Star Walk}}</ref> Peerce is interred at Mount Eden Cemetery in [[Valhalla, New York|Valhalla]], [[Westchester County]].