Joe Biden and Neilia Hunter
Joe Biden's first marriage. Neilia Hunter was an American teacher and her husband's exact contemporary — both born in 1942. They had three children together: Beau, Hunter and Amy. Neilia died in 1972 in Hockessin, Delaware, the year Biden was first elected to the Senate. He later married Jill Biden, but the first family remained its own chapter: Beau and Hunter grew up public figures, and Neilia's name stands first in his marriage record.
How they met
Syracuse University is the one school that appears in both their records. Biden read law there after the University of Delaware; Neilia came out of the same lecture halls into a classroom of her own, as a teacher. What followed was a shared surname and three children within a few years.
The core tension
This pair is not about conflict but about a break. Biden's political career began in the very year his first family stopped existing in its former shape: 1972 is the year of his election and the year of her death. Everything he wrote afterwards, «Promises to Keep» included, was written by a man who already carried that date.
What connects them
- spouse:Neilia Hunter
- spouse:Joe Biden
- child:Hunter Biden
- child:Beau Biden
- child:Amy Biden
