Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the 46th president of the United States, was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, Biden has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James.
Biden's father had once led an affluent life, but suffered financial setbacks soon after Biden was born, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents. Beginning in 1953, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in Mayfield, Delaware. Biden's father later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle. At Archmere Academy, the later 46th president Joe Biden himself was class president of his junior and senior high school classes, and graduated from Archmere in 1961. At the University of Delaware, Biden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science.
In 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter, a student at Syracuse University. They had three children: Beau, Robert Hunter, and Naomi Christina "Amy". In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor degree from the university's College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85 students. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969 and practiced as a lawyer before running for political office. On December 18, 1972, Biden's wife and daughter died in a car crash. He came close to resigning from the U.S. Senate, to which he had recently been elected for the first time that year. Nearly five years later, Biden married Jill Jacobs—they have one daughter together, Ashley. Early life and education Heritage and childhood
Biden was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden née Finnegan (1917–2010) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr (1915–2002). He was the first of four siblings in a Catholic family, with a sister, Valerie (1945), and two brothers, James (1949) and Francis (1953), following. Biden's mother was of Irish descent, with roots variously attributed to County Louth or County Londonderry, while his father had English, French, and Irish ancestry. His maternal great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt, was a Pennsylvania state senator. His maternal grandfather was a graduate of Santa Clara University in California, where he was "an acclaimed quarterback" before returning to Scranton to work for local oil and gas companies, then as a newspaper librarian for the remainder of his career.
Biden's father led an affluent lifestyle as a young adult, "sailing yachts off the New England coast, riding to the hounds, driving fast cars, flying airplanes" while working as an executive for, and experiencing the largess of, the Sheen Company. The Sheen Company was founded and owned by Bill Sheen, Biden's paternal great-uncle. Bill Sheen had invented a material that he then manufactured as lining for cemetery vaults. He subsequently secured a number of US government contracts to make water-tight sealant for merchant marine ships during World War II and renamed the family business to Sheen Armor Company. Early in Biden's life, the family relocated to a "four-bedroom Dutch colonial in a Boston suburb, with plenty of money and perks to fly back to Scranton to visit the Finnegans whenever they wanted" so that Joe Sr. could run Sheen Company's branch office in Boston; Biden's sister, Valerie was born there in 1945. Joe Sr. and his cousin, Bill Sheen Jr., were close friends.
After the war was over, the business failed, and several attempts by Biden Sr. and Sheen Jr. to start a business together faltered. Jean Biden took their children back to Scranton in 1948, and Biden Sr. soon followed. For several years, the family had to live with Biden's maternal grandparents, the Finnegans. Biden Jr. attended St. Paul's School, a Catholic primary school in Scranton. He made several lifelong friends in Scranton, who describe "file drawers full of memories" of childhood antics and escapades. When the Scranton area fell into economic decline during the 1950s, Biden's father could not find steady work.
In 1953, the Biden family moved into an apartment in Claymont, Delaware. The next year, the Bidens relocated to the Village of Arden, an art colony. The year after that, they moved to Mayfield, a neighborhood in Wilmington, Delaware. Joe Biden Sr. became a successful used car salesman, and the family's circumstances were middle class.Almanac of American Politics 2008, p. 364. Biden Jr. attended two more Catholic primary schools: Holy Rosary School in Claymont and then St. Helena's Elementary School in Wilmington. At several times during his youth, Biden considered becoming a priest.
High school
Biden attended the Archmere Academy in Claymont where he was a standout halfback/wide receiver on the high school football team. Scoring ten touchdowns, he helped lead a perennially losing team to an undefeated season in his senior year. His coach, who would be inducted into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame, subsequently said of Biden, "He was a skinny kid, but he was one of the best pass receivers I had in 16 years as a coach." Biden played as an outfielder on the school's baseball team as well, becoming a starter in his senior year albeit batting in the bottom half of the order.
From an early age, Biden had been afflicted by a severe stutter, which often brought teasing from other children and embarrassment with teachers. Excelling in sports was especially important to Biden as it gave him a way of gaining social acceptance despite his speech issue. While not a major participant in the ongoing civil rights movement, he did walk out of a restaurant that refused to serve a football teammate of his who was black. Academically, Biden was a 'B' (above-average) student at Archmere, was considered a natural leader among his classmates, and was elected class president during his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961.
College Biden attended the University of Delaware in Newark, where he was more interested in sports and socializing than in studying, although his classmates were impressed by his cramming abilities. He played halfback with the "Blue Chicks" freshman football team (at the time, freshmen were not eligible to play varsity sports). However, when he got a poor 1.9 grade point average for the semester, his parents told him that he had to give up football to concentrate on his classes. He continued to get mostly "C" and "D" grades for his next two semesters. His grades then began to improve, but never became especially good. He wanted to return to the football field, and by the spring practices of his junior year he thought he was about to earn a starting spot as a defensive back on the varsity for that fall.
In 1964, while on spring break in the Bahamas, he met and began dating Neilia Hunter, who was from an affluent background in Skaneateles, New York, and attended Syracuse University. He told her that he aimed to become a senator by the age of 30 and then president. Reprinted in He dropped his plan to play for the varsity football team, enabling him to spend more time visiting out of state with her. He earned his bachelor's in 1965 from the University of Delaware, with a double major in history and political science and a minor in English. He had a "C" average overall for his four years, graduating with a class rank of 506 out of 688.
Law school
Biden then entered the Syracuse University College of Law, chosen in part because it would put him near Neilia Hunter. He received a half scholarship based on financial need with some additional assistance based on academics. By his own description, he found law school to be "the biggest bore in the world" and he said he pulled many all-nighters to get by. He relied on the notes of other students for classes that he skipped as well as help from Neilia Hunter in studying. He participated in football and rugby at the collegiate club level and ran for class president, losing by one vote to future financial marketplace executive William J. Brodsky. To date, Brodsky is the only person to ever beat Biden in a head-to-head election.
During his first year there, Biden submitted a fifteen-page paper for a legal methods course that was found to have contained academic plagiarism of five pages of a recently published article in the Fordham Law Review. A report from the law school faculty said that Biden should be failed in the course as a result; in response, Biden said the copying was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation. Such mistakes were not uncommon among first-year students still learning the requirements of attribution. Biden was permitted to retake the course after receiving a failing "F" grade, which was subsequently dropped from his record.
Overall, evaluations from Biden's professors were mixed, but Biden's grades were such that he was consistently near the bottom of his class the entire time he was in the school. One professor later said that Biden had done very well in a legislation course and that "I had the impression this was a young man who was going to do well and go a long way," while another professor later said of Biden, "He was one of the great successes after law school, but not in law school. It happens all the time." Biden received his Juris Doctor in 1968, graduating 76th of 85 in his class. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Other experiences Negative impressions of drinking alcohol in the Biden and Finnegan families and in the neighborhood led to Biden becoming a teetotaler. Having suffered from stuttering through much of his childhood and into his twenties, he has said that he finally overcame it by spending many hours reciting poetry in front of a mirror.
During the early 1960s, Biden participated in a demonstration against the last remaining segregated theater in Wilmington. Some sources have also described Biden participating in a protest while he was still in high school, against the Towne Theatre.
During the summer of 1962, while in college, Biden worked as the only white lifeguard at a swimming pool in a black neighborhood of Wilmington, an experience which he later credited with expanding his thinking regarding racial issues. Later in life, Biden repeatedly told a story that, while working at the pool, he confronted a man nicknamed "Corn Pop", the leader of a gang called the Romans, persuading the man to walk away from a potential fight by apologizing to him. While considered outlandish or bizarre by some commentators, various lifelong Delawareans and contemporary newspaper articles confirmed the broad outlines of Biden's story, identifying his antagonist as a man named William "Corn Pop" Morris.
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