1939

Edward Francis Paschke, Jr., is born June 22 at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Chicago, the second son of Waldrine and Edward Stanley Paschke; his brother, Richard is two years his senior. The Catholic family resides in a middle-class neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago (near Central Park and Diversey), where Edward Stanley drives a bakery truck.

1944-48

His father serves with the U.S. occupation forces in Germany following World War II; Paschke is fascinated by the Thurberesque cartoons decorating the letters his father mails home. On his father's return home, father and son work together crafting small objects in clay and wood; remembered especially is a crËche decorated with colored lights. The family moves a half-mile north, near Belmont and Milwaukee avenues. Paschke attends public school. He is particularly awed by Walt Disney's film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and sends a collection of his cartoons to the Disney Studios; they respond with an encouraging letter of rejection: he is "too young."

1948-50

The family moves to a 160-acre farm in Lyndon Station, Wisconsin, population four hundred (approximately ten miles north of the Wisconsin Dells). Only four acres are used for raising crops, chickens, and turkeys; Paschke's father is employed building a dam on the Wisconsin River. Paschke feels "different" from the other children in his rural school.

1950-53

The family returns to Chicago and resides with Paschke's grandmother and uncles. He watches wrestling matches on television; the painting Red Ball (1971), depicting the Italian fighter "Little Flower," recalls this exposure. Paschke's parents buy a house near the intersection of Addison Street and Harlem Avenue; Paschke attends the local public school. His father and uncles construct a house in Mount Prospect; it remains unsold, so Paschke's father buys it himself and moves his family to the suburbs in the early spring of 1953. Paschke finishes eighth grade in the city.

1953-57

As a student at Arlington Heights High School, Paschke struggles through academic classes but excels in art and athletics. Although he does not play on the school team, he creates a highly praised series of cartoon strips on football players. Personally, he longs for tough and sophisticated urban surroundings. He engages in minor acts of delinquency; the breaking of a food store's plate-glass window results in a job bagging groceries to compensate for damages. Upon graduation from high school, he takes a job with a wrapping-paper factory in Bellwood. Paschke is intrigued by the flamboyant dress and "macho" conversations in Spanish of the Latino factory workers. He plays on their baseball team as pitcher.