Biden was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania,[6] to Catherine Eugenia Biden (née Finnegan)[7] and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr.[8] He was the first of four siblings in a Catholic family, with a sister and two brothers.[9] His mother was of Irish descent, with roots variously attributed to County Louth[10] or County Londonderry.[11][12] His paternal grandparents, Mary Elizabeth (Robinette) and Joseph H. Biden, an oil businessman from Baltimore, Maryland, were of English, French, and Irish ancestry.[12][13] His paternal third great-grandfather, William Biden, was born in Sussex, England, and immigrated to the United States. His maternal great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt,[14] was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate.[15]
Biden attended the Archmere Academy in Claymont[19] where he was a standout halfback/wide receiver on the high school football team; he helped lead a perennially losing team to an undefeated season in his senior year.[16][20] He played on the baseball team as well.[16] During these years, he participated in an anti-segregation sit-in at a Wilmington theatre
and he played halfback with the Blue Hens freshman football team.[20] In 1964,
On December 18, 1972, a few weeks after the election, Biden's wife and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware.[24]
But the accident that killed his wife and daughter left him filled with both anger and religious doubt: (and this was the trigger?)
in remembrance of his wife and daughter, Biden does not work on December 18, the anniversary of the accident
In 1975, Biden met Jill Tracy Jacobs, who grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, and would become a teacher in Delaware.