Early Life and Education
Charles Harting Percy was born in Pensacola, the seat of Escambia County in far northwestern Florida, the son of Edward H. Percy and the former Elisabeth Harting. His father, an Alabama native descended from Virginians, was at various times an automobile salesman and bank cashier. His Illinois-born mother was a concert violinist. Edward was a son of Charles Brown Percy and Helen Leila Herndon, from the powerful Herndon family of Virginia. Elizabeth Harting was a daughter of Phineas Fredrick Harting and Belle Aschenbach.
The family moved to Chicago when Percy was an infant. As a child, he was notable for his entrepreneurial energy, and often held several jobs while attending school. In the mid-1930s, his pluck brought him to the attention of his Sunday school teacher, Joseph McNabb, the president of Bell & Howell, then a small camera company.
Percy completed high school at New Trier High School. He entered the University of Chicago on a half tuition scholarship. He completed his degree in economics in 1941.
Read more about this topic: Charles H. Percy
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“We passed the Children’s Bureau bill calculated to prevent children from being employed too early in factories.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)