I graduated from Senn High School in 1980. Located on Chicago’s North Side, Senn is a fairly typical inner-city public high school, except for the fact that a lot of famous and semi-famous people graduated from there. Today let’s meet one that will tickle your intellect: Writer and editor William Maxwell, class of 1926.

Bill was born in 1908 in Lincoln, Illinois. In 1918. both Bill and his mother were victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic, Bill survived but his poor mother did not. Bill was raised by relatives until his father remarried and Bill moved in with him in Chicago, where he attended Senn. After high school Bill earned a BA at the University of Illinois and a Masters from Harvard.

Putting his big brains to work, Bill joined the staff of The New Yorker, serving as their fiction editor for thirty-nine years. He also wrote novels, short stories and essays.

Bill passed away in 2000, eight days after the death of his wife of 55 years, Emily.