

He tried to avoid stuttering by playing out conversations in advance in his head, practicing speaking while holding pebbles in his mouth, and memorizing paragraphs instead of reading them aloud from textbooks in class.ĭuring his junior and senior years at Archmere Academy, a Catholic prep school, he was elected class president but was crestfallen when school administrators blocked him from running for student body president because he had received too many demerits. Classmates mockingly called him “ Dash,” likening his staccato to Morse code, and “Bye-Bye,” on account of his attempt to say his last name. The three Biden boys shared one bedroom with their uncle, Edward Blewitt Finnegan, whom they affectionately called “Boo-Boo,” so nicknamed because he stuttered the four of them piled into two sets of bunk beds.Īs a child, Biden had a debilitating stutter. The family lived in a 3-bed, 1½-half-bath tract house. When “Joey” was 10, the Biden family moved to Wilmington, Delaware, after his father got a job selling cars.
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Joe biden vice president to who series#
He spent his childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where his father struggled to find a steady job after a series of business setbacks. and Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan, who is closer than he has ever been to achieving his lifelong ambition. What do voters need to know about the man who just pulled off one of the most improbable political comebacks ever? (Read POLITICO’s compilation of key facts about Bernie Sanders.) Culled from books, extensive media coverage and the archives of POLITICO Magazine, this is a quick primer on the life of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the eldest of four children born to Joseph Sr.
