While studying there, Biden met his future wife, Neilia Hunter, on the beach in Nassau during spring break. He joined the University of Delaware in 1961, where he led protests against segregation and was the president of his freshman class. Read more: Joe Biden's policies: the President's views on Covid, immigration and foreign policy Wives and childrenĪt school, Biden considered joining the priesthood but, under his mother’s instruction, decided to go to college first before embarking on that path. He has referred to his struggle with stuttering as “the single most defining thing in my life”. According to Biden, his mother, a devout Catholic who always told her son that his stutter wouldn’t hold him back in life, marched up to the school and told the nun: “If you ever speak to my son like that again, I’ll come back and rip that bonnet off your head.”īiden eventually got his stammer under control, with the help of speech therapy and practising to speak in front of a mirror at home. But worse, one of the nuns at his Catholic school, Archmere Academy, mocked him for it. Biden was close to his parents, and frequently credits their words of encouragement for his success.Īs a child, Biden had a stutter and his classmates nicknamed him Joe Impedimenta. Eventually the family went back to living with Jean’s parents in Scranton.įour years later, Biden Sr got a job cleaning boilers for a heating and air-conditioning company in Wilmington, Delaware and the family moved there when Biden was 10 – it became the state he calls home. Next, he attempted a crop-dusting enterprise – and again lost his cash. Biden Sr tried to set up a furniture store with a friend, only for the friend to apparently run off with their start-up money. This job was well-paid and gave Biden Sr a taste for the finer things in life. When Biden was still a baby, his father was given a job in his uncle’s booming wartime family business, Sheen Armor Company, and the family transferred to Boston in 1944. He and Valerie were particularly close she has said he is her “best friend”, while this year he told a South Carolina church gathering: “She’s been on my handlebar since she was three years old.” He was the eldest of four siblings, alongside sister Valerie (who would later become his campaign manager) and brothers James and Frank. Biden was raised as a Catholic, like many children in the area at the time. When Joe Biden was born, Scranton had a “distinctly hardscrabble, blue-collar working-class aura, largely of Irish, Italian and Polish roots,” according to Witcover’s book. Joe Biden vs Donald Trump's Oval Office.The couple moved in with Jean’s parents and, a year later, on November 20, 1942, the first of their four children was born – Joseph Robinette Biden Jr (who they nicknamed ‘Joey’). Jean was a “spunky Irish lass with a mind of her own,” according to Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption by Jules Witcover. Their son, Joseph Robinette Biden, was born in 1915 and went on to marry Catherine Eugenia ‘Jean’ Finnegan, who was born in 1917 in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrant parents. Joseph was in the oil business – he started off delivering kerosene and later became a salesman at the same company. Joe Biden’s grandfather, Joseph Harry Biden, was born in 1893 in Baltimore, Maryland, and married Mary Elizabeth Robinette, who was born in 1894, also in Maryland. To give a clearer picture of Joe Biden as he takes office as America's 46th President, we have delved into his past to uncover his upbringing and family history. Later, there were rumours linking Hunter to corrupt business dealings in China and Ukraine, causing Trump to go so far as to call the Bidens an “organised crime family”. Trump claimed Biden’s son Hunter was discharged from the military for cocaine use – a claim Biden denied. In speeches, he has time and time again referred to the influence of his mother and father in shaping him.ĭuring the US presidential race, it was often personal – just take the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden as an example. Over the years, Biden has made no secret that he is close to his family. "I would not be here without the love and tireless support of Jill, Hunter, Ashley, all of our grandchildren and their spouses, and all our family," he said. But he also, tellingly, spoke of the influence of his family. In his first speech as US President-elect, Joe Biden spoke of Obama, FDR and JFK.
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