Marie Lacy, Jerry’s mother, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, August 21, 1930. She was the youngest of five, three brothers and an oldest sister. Her mom, quiet as a Buddha, ran the household. She seemed to float about the house, connected to nothing and no one, especially her children.

Her dad, also a man of few words and even less display of affection, owned a shoe factory. Marie loved that factory. She swooned over the smell of shoe leather.

Her dad forbid her to go there during working hours. It wasn’t a place for girls, he said. So, she spent most of her time in the living room of their home, in the comfy overstuffed chair with the doilies on the arms and the stand alone ash tray by its side. She spun its spring loaded top around, sending the ashes flying.

A pall of smoke hung continuously in her house, with an accompanying smell of stale tobacco. Both mom and dad were smokers. Viceroys for dad, Camels for mom. Her brothers followed suit as each turned 14. Marie would have none of it.

She also detested her brothers. One time Tom shot a squirrel and hid it in her bed. She never screamed so loud. Another time David tied a cherry bomb around a frog and blew it up as well as his finger.

Mornings, their housekeeper served her grits with butter and maple syrup, then, early, she marched off to high school, out of the house before her brothers had even fallen out of bed.

“You know, Marie, your academic achievement is truly remarkable,” said her history teacher toward the end of her senior year. He leaned back in his swivel chair and motioned her to a nearby student desk.

“I work hard, Mr. Baxter.”

“Yes, you do. I think you have a gift, and I wouldn’t want to see you waste it. I’d like to write you a letter of recommendation for college.”

“Oh, I’m not going.”

Mr. Baxter took off his glasses and leaned forward. In a confidential tone of voice, he said, “Marie, you need to get out of here.”

“Where would I go?”

“What would you like to do?”

“Well, I’m supposed to get married and make fried chicken.”

He burst out laughing.

Marie said, “It is funny. I’m a terrible cook. I hate to cook. I admire my father’s shoe business.”

“Then that’s what you should do. Go to business school. Start a business. Get rich. This is America, land of opportunity.”

“You really think I could?”

“It’s a new world, Marie There’s no limit to our economic expansion, and why not get in on it.”

“I don’t know what my mother would think.”

“We’re talking about you.”

“Well…”

“You just tell me the school.”

“I would like that, Mr. Baxter,” she burst out. “Oh, I really would. I want to run my own business. I want to be a success.”

“Well, you know what Napoleon Hill says: ‘Whatever the mind can think and believe, it can achieve.’”

She graduated summa cum laude from Lynchburg College. Her guidance counselor encouraged her to apply to Columbia Business School for her masters.

So, while Tom, with a high school diploma, bought a gas station with the help of their dad, and David joined the Navy, and while her pregnant sister stole away to Texas with her boyfriend, Marie migrated to New York City, enrolled as one of the few women students, and earned an MBA.

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