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Of all these Midwestern states, Illinois is the most populous (10,437,000), the richest, the most diverse and the most influential. It is also the Midwestern state in which the Republican candidate for Governor is waging the most energetic campaign of all against what would seem to be—on paper—fairly long odds.
Urban Salesman. Percy got his energetic nature from his Chicago-born mother Elizabeth, who is 71, and who only recently gave up her bicycle.* She has not, however, forsaken the violin, which she has been playing arduously for more than 50 years. She still practices several hours a day, and while Chuck is campaigning, she likes to go with him to entertain the crowds with a rendition of Perpetual Motion or Maria Wiegenlied.
A chamber-music player of some talent, Elizabeth was touring the U.S. with a string quartet when she met Edward Percy in Pensacola, Fla. They got married, settled down there for a few years, and in 1920, six months after Chuck was born, moved to Rogers Park in Chicago. There Father Percy did well as a bank cashier, and Chuck soon learned the value of a buck. At age five, he began earning his first regular income by selling magazines, and not long afterward got his first accolade: a plaque honoring him for selling "more Country Gentlemans to city people than any other urban salesman in the United States."
On Relief. Then, in the best Alger tradition, adversity sprinkled spikes along the road to success. The Depression hit, and in 1931 Edward Percy lost his job when his employers' bank failed. "Living through those years," says Chuck, "was the best thing that ever happened to me. What had been fun before became a strong necessity." The Christian Scientist Percy family staved off despair with resolution borne by faith. Though Edward Percy found jobs here and there, the family had to go on relief. The welfare truck used to deliver food to the family through the alleyway behind the Percy house. "In fact," says Chuck, "it was the occasion when the truck dropped off an extra 100 lbs. of flour and sugar that put our family into the bakery business. I sold homemade cookies door-to-door and got up at 3:30 a.m. to deliver newspapers."
In the mid-'30s, luck rewarded pluck. Chuck's Christian Science Sunday-school teacher was Joseph McNabb, a benignly despotic sort of fellow who was president of a small movie-camera company, Bell & Howell. Through Chuck, McNabb came to know and like the Percy family, gave Edward a job (from which he retired, as office manager, at 73; he died at 75 in 1959). Chuck himself got a summer job at Bell & Howell, and it was there, under Joe McNabb's tutelage, that Chuck found his star.
McNabb's protege did himself proud not only in those summer jobs at Bell & Howell but also at the University of Chicago. An excellent swimmer, he became captain of the water-polo team; he was president of his fraternity and of the interfraternity council.