Alfred graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

When his father, Frank Sutherland PERKINS I, was deployed to Columbus, New Mexico, for General Pershing's punitive expeditions, he sent young Alfred a post-card of Las Cruces. Alfred kept this post-card, and eventually moved to Las Cruces, inspired largely by the post-card. He worked as an engineer at White Sands Missile Range, and first lived in a house on Main Street, where he ran a museum with artifacts of dubious provenance, and upon which the Denison Building now stands, before settling with his wife Ruth Antoinette Josephine ARTH at 322 Linda Vista.

Herbert Warner DANA, Adeline Rogers PERKINS, Alfred Manchester PERKINS (above), Frank Sutherland PERKINS II (below), Ethel Bradlee MANCHESTER