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   Wendell Willkie had prominent, but not prosperous parents, who were lawyers in the small central Indiana town of Elwood. From his parents, Willkie inherited a strong work ethic. Whenever he wasn't in school, Willkie was busy performing household chores or working at part-time jobs. For the most comprehensive description of Willkie's childhood, refer to the excellent biography by Ellsworth Barnard, from which much of this information is taken.

   Of Willkie's parents, Herman and Henrietta, much more is known about Herman Willkie. Born in Germany in 1857, Herman came to the United States with his family in 1861. He eventually put himself through Fort Wayne College and moved to Milford, Indiana, where he met Henrietta. The couple married in 1885 and moved to Elwood in 1888 when Herman was offered the job as Superintendent of Schools. While Herman Willkie carried out his school duties (he also taught classes), he studied law and was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1890.

Willkie';s childhood home, corner of North A and 19th Streets, Elwood, Ind.

   After setting out his shingle in Elwood, Herman Willkie soon became known for taking on unpopular clients such as saloon-keepers. He even managed the business affairs of the madam of a popular brothel in the nearby town of Anderson. Herman Willkie was evidently quite able to separate his professional life from his personal life, as he was also known as a very religious man who championed temperance and vigorously denounced sin. (Barnard says that there was no drinking, smoking, dancing or card-playing allowed in the Willkie house.) Beginning in 1922, Herman Willkie served two terms as Elwood's City Attorney, and throughout the 1920s he was very active in a campaign against the Ku Klux Klan.

   In his law practice, Herman Willkie took on many disadvantaged clients and he seemed to prefer arguing the side of the underdog rather than the privileged. Thus, he represented the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Plate Workers when they went on strike in July 1909. The issue in Elwood was a management effort to establish an open shop policy at the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, Elwood's largest employer. The company brought in strike-breaking workers from the eastern states, who were harassed by union members and their families. No serious physical violence erupted, however, and the workers'; struggle was carried on through the legal system by Herman Willkie, who successfully blocked a management request for an injunction against picketing. Wendell Willkie assisted his father during the strike (see below), which many biographers believe was an important episode in his development. The strike eventually ended with a slow return to the factory by workers who did not have the financial resources to withstand a protracted strike.

   Wendell Willkie's mother, Henrietta, was a late bloomer, probably due to the hardship of giving birth to and raising six children in the late 1800s. Born Henrietta Trisch, she was by all accounts a very independent woman, both in thought and behavior. (She was reportedly the first woman in Elwood to smoke in public.) She was a dominant figure in the Willkie household, but her interests were not really in cooking, cleaning and other traditional maternal roles. Together with her husband, she accumulated between five and six thousand books for their private library. She was also very active in soliciting funds for establishing a town library and acted as its first permanent secretary after it was built.

   Henrietta Willkie began her law career after the birth of Edward, her fifth child. It is unclear how she obtained her legal knowledge, but it may have been through extension courses from the University of Chicago. In any case, in those days one did not have to be a law school graduate in order to practice law and Henrietta was admitted to the bar in Indiana in 1897, one of the first women ever to do so. Henrietta Willkie became a law partner with her husband, and won at least one case in which he was the opposing attorney.

   Lewis Wendell Willkie was born February 18, 1892, in his parents' house in Elwood. His first name was rarely used, instead his parents and five brothers and sisters called him Wendell, or more often, "Wen." This is part of the reason why Willkie never bothered to correct a U.S. Army clerical error in 1917 that transposed his first and middle names. From that point on, Willkie went by the name Wendell Lewis Willkie, an ordering he preferred.

   Although his parents were fairly well off, they required all their children to work at whatever outside jobs they could find. While living in Elwood, Willkie worked as a delivery boy for the town's bakery, as a helper for a local junk dealer, as a produce clerk in a grocery store and, during the summer before the strike, as a mill assistant at the tin plate factory.

Willkie at Culver Military Academy [ ENLARGED PHOTO ]

   In his first year at Elwood's high school, Willkie did little to distinguish himself academically, instead he seemed to have spent much of his energy playing pranks and getting into trouble with the administration. He was suspended from school on at least one occasion. Later, however, he showed signs of settling down and in fact did quite well on the school's debate team, and, in his senior year, Willkie was elected class president. This change of direction might have come about during the summer following his freshman year, which was spent at Culver Military Academy.

   Following a summer's work out west, Wendell returned to Elwood in August 1909 in the midst of the tin worker';s strike. Wendell assisted his father in representing the workers, and accompanied his father to Chicago to seek the advice of prominent defense attorney Clarence Darrow. Darrow said he would take over as the union's legal representative, but for a fee of $20,000 plus $1,000 for each day spent in court. The union could not afford this, and Herman Willkie continued to represent the union at $25 per day. Darrow did tell the Willkies that he thought they were doing a good job on the case, and he was reportedly also very impressed by Wendell's enthusiasm and ability.

   Wendell Willkie grew up in a large family, the fourth of six children. The Willkie children, from oldest to youngest, were Julia, Robert, Fred, Wendell, Edward and Charlotte. By every account, all the Willkie children were very outgoing, which was most likely the result of having to compete with each other for their parents'; attention. All the Willkie children received encouragement from their parents to develop their full intellectual potential.

Elwood High School, circa 1913

   The Willkie children put their extensive in-home library to good use, and they reportedly startled their teachers with their great knowledge of Shakespeare, Homer, Bacon, Galileo, Virgil, the Bible, and other classical works and authors. The many rigorous and sometimes raucous debates that took place around the family dining room table no doubt helped Wendell develop the considerable oratorical skills that would serve him so well throughout his legal and political career.

   One trait that all the Willkie children seemed to have inherited from their parents was independence, both in thought and deed. By adopting unpopular and often unorthodox positions on public matters, the Willkie parents gave their children real-world lessons on the importance of standing up for one's beliefs, no matter what the consequences and no matter how many enemies may result from it. This independence, and even stubbornness, is quite evident in Wendell's later efforts to reform the Republican Party despite the negative political consequences it brought upon him.

   For most children, parents are the first and strongest role models, and it's clear that Wendell Willkie's parents strongly influenced his development. Like both of his parents, Wendell hated to be idle, and he attacked with gusto every project that he tackled. He truly inherited his parents'; immigrant work ethic. Wendell also had a great deal of respect for his father's legal abilities; his brother Robert said that Wendell always consulted with their father on important legal cases. In his efforts in the 1940s to support the civil rights movement, Wendell was perhaps carrying on his father's 1920s crusade against the Ku Klux Klan.

   Wendell Willkie also developed a deep-seated appreciation for the power of ideas, no doubt gained in part by reading many of the volumes in the Willkie private library. One cannot read Wendell Willkie's two books and many articles and speeches without reaching the conclusion that these were written by a man who was motivated by ideas and ideals instead of political expediency.

CHILDHOOD

YOUNG ADULT

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Original content Copyright  ©  by Timothy D. Walker    Your  comments  are appreciated
Willkie button courtesy of  Stephen Cresswell    Elwood photos courtesy of the  City of Elwood
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