William C. McConnell, the son of George Arthur and Myrtle Louise Shaw McConnell, was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, 12 February 1917. One of six children, McConnell had an older and a younger brother, as well as three sisters, two older and one younger. They grew up in the ethnically mixed east side of Vancouver. Both parents were avid readers and created an atmosphere in which books and music were valued. McConnell's father was a hospital administrator who was born in Dublin and educated in Europe before immigrating to Canada. McConnell's mother was a registered nurse, whom he remembers as "the only person I knew who actually practised her Christianity." She was a fourth-generation Canadian, her father being one of the first settlers in Burnaby and its first reeve.

McConnell attended Lord Selkirk Elementary and John Oliver Secondary schools. The Latin and French he acquired lay the basis for the...