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Shrivers fought in the French and Indian War and the Revolution; Sargent's grandfather rode as a teen-ager with Jeb Stuart in the Confederate cavalry. Shriver was reared in Maryland, a devout Catholic and hard-core Democrat. There was a fair amount of money from the family grain mill, built in Union Mills, Md., in 1797, and from a canning business. The son of a Baltimore bank vice president, Sargent prepped at Canterbury School, New Milford, Conn., went on to Yale, graduating cum laude in 1938, got his law degree three years later. While he was still in school, his father went broke during the Depression, and Shriver recalls: "I've always sent money home. I've had to earn my own way."
During his Yale years, Shriver distinguished himself by becoming editor of the Yale Daily News and defining himself as "Christian, Aristotelian, optimist and American." He lived in Germany during a couple of summers while he was a Yalie, and came home with a deep fear of war: "I remember in Germany and France going to church on Sunday and noticing that there were no men in church between the ages of 30 and 50. They were all dead—killed in other wars." Shaken, he returned to his senior year in law school, helped start Yale's America First chapter ("I thought it would be beneficial to our people"). But when isolationism became a dead issue, he was an early volunteer for the Navy's V-7 program.
Athletics & Art. Shriver fought the war on a submarine (he still wears the submarine service dolphin in his coat lapel). His first postwar job was writing for Newsweek. Then, at a cocktail party in 1946, he met tawny-haired Eunice Kennedy, and they had a couple of dates. Nothing serious—but Shriver did meet Old Joe Kennedy. When Joe learned of Shriver's journalistic interest, he asked him to look at some diaries written in Spain during the Civil War by the late Joseph Kennedy Jr. to see if they were publishable. Shriver read them, said frankly that they weren't. But Joe Kennedy was impressed with handsome, trim (6 ft., 174 Ibs.) Sarge Shriver, and offered him a job as his fulltime personal representative at the Chicago Merchandise Mart.
Eventually, Shriver was made assistant general manager—a kind of all-round vice president involved in sales, promotion, advertising. He married the boss's daughter in 1953 after six years of off-again-on-again courtship. Says Shriver: "She's a hard person to sell—tough as her father." They settled down in a 14-room duplex in Chicago, produced three bright-eyed kids (Robert Sargent III, 9; Maria, 7; and Timothy, 3). Shriver got deeply involved in civic affairs—as a good Kennedy in-law would—including five years on the Chicago board of education. He resigned from the Merchandise Mart, got a generous separation settlement from his father-in-law, took his Peace Corps position for a dollar a year.
The Shrivers now rent a 14-room farm home on 30 acres in Rockville, Md. They entertain visiting firemen and corpsmen with vigorous hours of softball, touch football and swimming. Shriver is a good tennis player, easily beats Bobby, who is the Kennedy clan's best. He is also an art connoisseur, has a diversified personal collection including Salvador Dali, Kenzo Okada, Miró.