Path to Power
Jill Jacobs was born in Hammonton, N.J., the oldest of five sisters. She grew up in Montgomery County, Pa., where her father was a banker and her mother stayed home.
She spent much of her time in high school planning dances and working - she accepted her first job at age 15 because she said she wanted her own money.
Jacobs married soon after graduating from high school and quickly divorced. She told her mother she would never date again and turned her attention to her studies at the University of Delaware, where she earned her undergraduate degree.
Jacobs was a 24-year-old senior when then-Sen.
Joe Biden called to ask her on a date. He had first noticed Jill in a train ad about Wilmington parks for which she had posed as a favor to a friend. The Senator tracked down her phone number and called Jacobs the next day to ask her on a date.
She was reluctant to go, initially telling Biden she had plans. But
Joe Biden asked her to change them, explaining he was only available for one night. Jill agreed, but warned that she wasn’t impressed by his title.
She was, however, impressed that the Senator arrived in a suit and shook her hand when he left. She called her mother later that night to say she had been on a date with a “true gentleman.”
The Senator and Jacobs dated for nearly two years before Beau and Hunter, then seven and six, followed their father into the bathroom and told him he should propose to his girlfriend. He did, five times before Jill finally accepted. Jacobs told the
News Journal that she understood a marriage to Biden would include “Joe, the boys, and the state of Delaware…I had to take my time.”
The couple was married on June 17, 1977, at the U.N. chapel in New York City. Beau and Hunter came along on the honeymoon.
Jill Biden began teaching high school English, but took time off after she gave birth to daughter Ashley in 1981. She earned a master’s in education with a specialty in reading from West Chester University in 1981, and a master’s in English from Villanova University in 1987.
Biden returned to teaching in the late 1980s as a reading specialist. She also volunteered as a part-time educator at an adolescent psychiatric hospital.
She began teaching English composition and developmental writing courses at Delaware Community College in the early 90’s. Friends have said she is an incredibly hands-on teacher. She makes a point to meet with all of her students individually.
Biden earned her PhD in education from the University of Delaware in 2007. When she submitted her doctorate, she used her maiden name and wouldn’t allow her husband to watch her defend it because she didn’t want to “sway opinions.”
However,
Joe Biden did find a way to celebrate his wife’s accomplishments. When she returned home, she found signs in the driveway that read “Congratulations Dr. Jacobs-Biden” and “Dr. and Senator Biden live here.”
When Joe Biden first ran for president in 1988, Jill travelled with him to his events. She was more independent during his 2008 run, travelling frequently and speaking in front of large crowds.
Mrs. Biden continued to teach during her husband’s campaign, visiting Iowa and Nevada on the weekends. She told reporters she had mastered the art of changing clothes in tiny airplane bathrooms. She was a well-liked speaker. Richard Vague, a Philadelphia investor and longtime Biden supporter, told the
Philadelphia Inquirer that the future Second Lady has a knack for “finding people struggling to attract attention to have a question answered.”
After the Senator dropped out of the 2008 presidential contest, the Bidens returned to their life in Delaware. A few months later, when
Joe Biden picked Jill Biden up from a root canal appointment, he told her he had been asked to accept the Democratic nomination for vice president. Jill Biden said she was thrilled, telling her husband “you deserve this, and this is so wonderful.”
When
Joe Biden announced his nomination, he introduced his wife by saying “my wife, Jill, who you’ll meet soon, who’s drop-dead gorgeous. My wife, Jill, she also has a doctorate degree, which is a problem.” The statement drew fire from some women’s groups, who accused Biden of saying that his wife shouldn’t have a graduate degree.
Jill Biden continued teaching throughout the vice presidential campaign, missing only one class to attend Biden’s vice presidential debate. When
Barack Obama won the presidency, Biden’s colleagues decorated her office with photos of her husband.
Biden will probably continue to teach once she moves to Washington. Montgomery College, one of the largest community colleges in the D.C. area, has already extended an invitation. “We would love it,” Elizabeth Homan, a spokeswoman, told the
New York Times.
Biden says she will not give up her Delaware home. “In D.C., we’re so close that I would be lucky enough that we could take advantage of both places,” she told The
News Journal. She has said she is looking forward to sampling Washington’s Italian restaurants and the National Theater on Pennsylvania Avenue. She plans to fill No. 1 Observatory Circle, the vice president’s residences, with candles and plants.
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