Peter Lougheed - Early Life

Early Life

Peter Lougheed was born in Calgary on July 26, 1928, the son of Edgar Donald Lougheed (1893–1951) and Edna Alexandria Bauld (1901–1972). His paternal grandfather was Sir James Lougheed, a successful lawyer, federal cabinet minister, and senator. Sir James accumulated a sizable fortune before his 1925 death, but the Great Depression wiped out much of it, and the first years of Peter's life were spent moving from one rented accommodation to another. He was educated at the Strathcona School for Boys, Earl Grey School, Rideau Park School, and the Central Collegiate Institute, all in Calgary. At the last of these, he proposed the formation of a students' union, and subsequently became its first president. He also excelled at sports, particularly football.

Upon graduating from Central Collegiate, Lougheed enrolled at the University of Alberta, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (in 1950 or 1951) and a Bachelor of Laws (in 1952). There, he played football for the University of Alberta Golden Bears and, in 1949 and 1950, the Edmonton Eskimos. He also served as president of the Students' Union in 1951–1952 and was a writer in the sports section for the Gateway, the University of Alberta student newspaper. While studying at the University of Alberta, he lived for a time in Rutherford House as a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. In 1952, he married Jeanne Rogers, whom he met during his schooling. Soon after the wedding, the couple went to Massachusetts, where Lougheed pursued a Master of Business Administration at Harvard University, which he earned in 1954. During this degree, he worked for a summer with Gulf Oil in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he witnessed an oil boom town after the oil ran out; political scientist Allan Tupper has suggested that Lougheed saw here a possible future of Alberta.

After Harvard, Lougheed had to make decisions about his career. He believed that people should avoid excessive specialization in favour of maximizing their diversity of experience. He anticipated spending time in business, law, and politics. In pursuit of the first, he took a management position with Mannix Corporation, a Canadian construction firm. Later, he left the company to establish a law practice. During the early sixties, he began to turn his attention towards politics.