 In 1912, Perri met Bessie Starkman, a Polish Jew who had immigrated to Canada circa 1900, while he lived as a boarder in her family home in The Ward, Toronto with her husband Harry Toben and their two children.Shortly after, Perri began an affair with Starkman, and when Perri got a job working on the Welland Canal in 1913, she left her husband and children to live, and begin a common-law relationship, with Perri in St. Catharines.When the Government of Canada cut funding to the Welland Canal project due to World War I, Perri became unemployed.