Editing Charles Addams (section)

==Early life==
Addams was born in [[Westfield, New Jersey]]. He was the son of Grace M. (née Spear; 1879–1943) and Charles Huey Addams (1873–1932), a [[piano]] company executive who had studied to be an [[architect]].<ref name="nytimespace" /> Known as "something of a rascal around the neighborhood," as childhood friends recalled,<ref name="maslin" /> Addams was distantly related to U.S. presidents [[John Adams]] and [[John Quincy Adams]], despite the different spellings of their last names, and was a first cousin twice removed to noted social reformer [[Jane Addams]].<ref name="maslin" />{{sfn|Davis|2006|p=23}}

Addams would enjoy the Presbyterian Cemetery on Mountain Avenue in Westfield as a child, where – according to author and Addams expert Ron MacCloskey – he would wonder what it was like to be dead.<ref name="maccloskey" /> In the cartoons, his ghoulish creations lived on Cemetery Ridge with a dreadful view.

A house on Elm Street and another on Dudley Avenue – into which police once caught him breaking and entering – are said to be the inspiration for the Addams Family mansion in his cartoons. [[College Hall (University of Pennsylvania)|College Hall]], the oldest building on the current campus of the [[University of Pennsylvania]], where Addams studied, was also an inspiration for the mansion.<ref>{{cite web|title= Virtual Tour of Penn's Campus: College Hall|url=http://www.upenn.edu/admissions/tour/tourstop.php?stop%3D1 |access-date=June 4, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100606051702/http://www.upenn.edu/admissions/tour/tourstop.php?stop=1 |archive-date=June 6, 2010 }}</ref> One friend said of him: "His sense of humor was a little different from everybody else's." He was also artistically inclined, "drawing with a happy vengeance", according to a biographer.<ref name="maslin" />
[[File:Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall.jpg|thumb|Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall, University of Pennsylvania]]
[[File:Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall Gate.jpg|thumb|Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall Gate showing Thing from The Addams Family]]
His father encouraged him to draw, and Addams did cartoons for the [[Westfield High School (New Jersey)|Westfield High School]] yearbook, ''Weathervane''.<ref name="nytimespace" /><ref name="maccloskey" /> He attended [[Colgate University]] in 1929 and 1930. At the corners of West Kendrick and Maple Avenues in [[Hamilton (village), New York|Hamilton]], is another home, and myth, that may have inspired the Addams Family house.<ref>{{cite web|title= battle to save Hamilton home.|url= http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/7308496/battle_to_save_hamilton_home|access-date= May 1, 2018|archive-date= July 8, 2018|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180708191701/http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/7308496/battle_to_save_hamilton_home|url-status= dead}}</ref> He also attended the University of Pennsylvania in 1930 and 1931. He then studied at the [[Grand Central School of Art]] in [[New York City]] in 1931 and 1932.<ref name="nytimespace" /><ref name="maccloskey" />