Dr. Jill Biden biography: 13 things about Joe Biden’s wife

Dr. Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden is an American educator and author. She is the wife of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, the mother of Ashley Blazer Biden and the stepmother of Hunter Biden and the late Beau Biden.

Born in Hammonton, New Jersey, USA to Donald Carl Jacobs and Bonny Jean Godfrey Jacobs, Jill has four younger sister namely Jan Jacobs, Bonny Jacobs, Kelly Jacobs and Kim Jacobs. They spent most of their childhood in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

Donald, who was of Italian descent, was a bank teller and U.S. Navy signalman during World War II. Bonny, who was of English and Scottish descent, was a homemaker.

Both Donald and Bonny identified themselves as agnostic realists. On the other hand, Jill attended Sunday services at a Presbyterian church with her grandmother.

Jill is the first ever first lady of the U.S. of Italian descent. Here are 13 more things about her:

1. In 1966, she worked as a waitress in Ocean City on the Jersey Shore in New Jersey.
2. In 1969, she graduated from Upper Moreland High School in Willow Grove.
3. In February 1970, she married former college football player Bill Stevenson. They separated in 1974 and a civil divorce was granted in May 1975.
4. In 1975, she met Joe on a blind date set up by his brother Frank Biden, who had known her from college. In the same year, she graduated from the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, USA with a bachelor’s degree in English. Before her graduation, she took a year off and worked as a model for a local agency in Wilmington, Delaware.
5. Joe proposed to her five times before she agreed to marry him. On June 17, 1977, they got married at the Chapel at the United Nations in New York City, New York, USA.
6. She received a Master of Education with a specialty in reading from West Chester State College in Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1981, a Master of Arts in English from Villanova University in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania in 1987 and a Doctor of Education in educational leadership from the University of Delaware in 2007.
7. From 1993 to 2008, she was an instructor at the Delaware Technical and Community College‘s campuses in Stanton, Delaware and Wilmington. She taught English composition and remedial writing.
8. As an adjunct professor, she started teaching two English courses at the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) in January 2009. She held a permanent position as an associate professor in 2011. For the first time, she was forced to take a leave of absence from the college for the spring 2020 semester so that she could be on Joe’s 2020 presidential campaign trail full-time.
9. Simon & Schuster published her children’s books “Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops” in 2012 and “Joey: The Story of Joe Biden” in 2020.
10. In 2019, Flatiron Books published her memoir “Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself.”
11. In May 2022, she and Joe visited Ukrainian woman and children refugees in Romania and Slovakia.
12. On June 3, 2023, she turned 72. In July 2023, she visited Paris, France to give a speech to mark the official return of the U.S. to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
13. In an interview on MSNBC that aired on January 11, 2024, she said, “I think what they are doing to Hunter is cruel and I’m really proud of how Hunter has rebuilt his life after addiction.”