Charles H. Percy
Charles Harting Percy (September 27, 1919 – September 17, 2011),[4] also known as Chuck Percy, was an American businessman and politician. He was president of the Bell & Howell Corporation from 1949 to 1964, and served as a Republican U.S. senator from Illinois from 1967 until 1985, following a defeat to Paul Simon. He was mentioned as a Republican presidential hopeful from 1968 through 1988. During his Senate career, Percy concentrated on business and foreign relations.[5]
Charles H. Percy
September 17, 2011 (aged 91)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Oak Hill Cemetery
Washington, D.C., U.S.
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Jeanne Valerie Dickerson(m. 1943; died 1947)
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Loraine Diane Guyer(m. 1950)
5, including Sharon
1943–1945
Early life and education[edit]
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 Elizabeth Harting.[6] His father, an Alabama native descended from illustrious colonial-era Mississippians and 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 of the powerful Herndon family of Virginia.[7][8] Elizabeth Harting was a daughter of Phineas Fredrick Harting and Belle Aschenbach.[9]
The family moved to Chicago when Percy was an infant. As a child, he had entrepreneurial energy and held 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, and worked his way through college with several part-time jobs. He completed his degree in economics in 1941, and was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.[1][6]
Business career[edit]
Percy started at Bell & Howell in 1938 as an apprentice and sales trainee while he was still in college. In 1939 he worked at Crowell Collier.
He returned to Bell & Howell in 1941 to work full-time after graduating from the University of Chicago. Astute at business, within a year he was appointed a director of the company. Percy served three years in the United States Navy during World War II and returned to the company in 1945.[3]
In 1949, the Jaycees named Percy one of the "Outstanding Young Men in America", along with Gerald R. Ford Jr., of Michigan, future U.S. president, and John Ben Shepperd, future Texas attorney general.[10]
After Joseph McNabb died in 1949, Percy was made the president of Bell & Howell. He was instrumental in leading the company during a period of financial success and growth.[11] During his leadership, Percy expanded Bell & Howell, raising revenues 32-fold and the number of employees 12-fold, and listing the company on the New York Stock Exchange. While continuing to manufacture movie cameras and movie and sound projectors for military, commercial, and home use, in the late 1940s the company diversified into the production of microfilm. It later entered the rapidly expanding markets of information services as well.
Marriage and family[edit]
Percy was a Christian Scientist.[6] During World War II, he married Jeanne Valerie Dickerson. They had twin daughters, Valerie and Sharon (born 1944) and a son Roger (born 1946). After Jeanne Percy's death in 1947, Percy married Loraine Diane Guyer in 1950. They had two children: Gail (born 1953) and Mark (born 1955).
One of his twin daughters, Valerie Percy, was murdered at age 21 in her bedroom in the family home in Kenilworth, Illinois, near Chicago, during his senatorial campaign in September 1966.[33] She had been beaten and stabbed to death in her bed while the family was in residence. Although her stepmother allegedly briefly glimpsed the killer, and considerable resources were devoted to solving the crime, the identity of the murderer remains unknown.[6] The wife of a first responder physician to the scene stated in 2016 that her late husband, Dr. Robert Hohf, felt that "the crime scene had been cleaned up" by the time he arrived to the Percy home early on the morning of September 18, 1966.[34]
In 1967 her twin sister Sharon Percy married John D. Rockefeller IV.[6] He became a politician and was later elected Democratic governor of West Virginia (1977–1985). He served as a United States senator for West Virginia from 1985 until 2015.
Percy remained active after leaving political office but suffered from Alzheimer's disease in later years.[35] He died on September 17, 2011, at the Washington Home and Community Hospice in Washington, D.C.[6][13] He was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[36]
