George S Pillsbury

After graduating early from Yale University in December 1942, Pillsbury enlisted in the Marines, serving as an officer in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, he returned to Minnesota and worked at the Pillsbury Co., rising to group vice president over a period of 24 years. Charlie and another son, George Pillsbury of Cambridge, Mass., said their father always said his best move was marrying Sally Whitney Pillsbury more than 65 years ago. She became his partner not just in marriage, but in business and philanthropy. He spent eight years on the Orono school board, succeeding his older brother, the late John Pillsbury Jr. In 1970, he was elected to the state Senate. He represented the Wayzata area for 12 years, focusing on government operations, tax policy, education and reproductive rights for women. Politically, Pillsbury followed his family into the Republican ranks. As state GOP finance chairman, he was an instigator of the 1976 party name change to Independent-Republican after the Watergate scandal. George Pillsbury also was active in the gubernatorial campaigns of his older brother, John Jr., and his brother-in-law, Wheelock Whitney, a generation ago. Much more recently, in 2008, he broke with the GOP to publicly support Barack Obama for president. He backed Independence Party candidate Tom Horner for governor in 2010. He and Sally have been significant patrons of numerous causes and organizations, including the Guthrie Theater, Planned Parenthood and Pillsbury United Communities, the nonprofit human service and arts organization that evolved from a settlement house established by his father and uncle. He was an active alumnus of St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., where his great-grandfather was mayor before emigrating to Minnesota. In addition to his wife, Sally, and sons Charles and George, he is survived by two daughters, Sarah of Los Angeles and Katharine of Newton, Mass., and 10 grandchildren. George Sturgis Pillsbury was a leader in Minnesota commerce, politics, civic and philanthropic life for more than a half-century. He was the great-grandson of 1880s Minneapolis Mayor George A. Pillsbury; the grandson of "Big Miller" Charles A. Pillsbury, the builder of the flour-milling Pillsbury Co.; and the great-nephew of Gov. John S. Pillsbury. His maternal great-grandfather was Civil War-era Gen. Samuel Sturgis, for whom Sturgis, S.D., is named. Pillsbury, a Republican who served in the Minnesota Senate from 1970 to 1982, was an independent thinker with a bipartisan streak. After graduating early from Yale University in December 1942, Pillsbury enlisted in the Marines, serving as an officer in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, he returned to Minnesota and worked at the Pillsbury Co., rising to group vice president over a period of 24 years. Charlie and another son, George Pillsbury of Cambridge, Mass., said their father always said his best move was marrying Sally Whitney Pillsbury more than 65 years ago. She became his partner not just in marriage, but in business and philanthropy. He spent eight years on the Orono school board, succeeding his older brother, the late John Pillsbury Jr. Pillsbury followed his family into the Republican ranks. As state GOP finance chairman, he was an instigator of the 1976 party name change to Independent-Republican after the Watergate scandal. George Pillsbury also was active in the gubernatorial campaigns of his older brother, John Jr., and his brother-in-law, Wheelock Whitney, a generation ago. Much more recently, in 2008, he broke with the GOP to publicly support Barack Obama for president. He and Sally have been significant patrons of numerous causes and organizations, including the Guthrie Theater, Planned Parenthood and Pillsbury United Communities, the nonprofit human service and arts organization that evolved from a settlement house established by his father and uncle. He was an active alumnus of St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., where his great-grandfather was mayor before emigrating to Minnesota. In addition to his wife, Sally, and sons Charles and George, he is survived by two daughters, Sarah of Los Angeles and Katharine of Newton, Mass., and 10 grandchildren.