The Rodham Family Biography

(NOTE: The Clinton campaign would not release the birth dates of all family members if an age is not indicated in a Bio, it was not available through alternate sources)

Hillary Rodham Clinton was born on October 26, 1947 and is the oldest of three children. Hugh Rodham, Hillary's father, died on April 7, 1993 at the age of 82. Her mother, Dorothy Rodham, lives in Little Rock.

The death of Hugh Rodham forced Hillary to take a very public break while she was working with her health care reform task force. President Clinton delivered the eulogy. Hugh Rodham was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to British immigrants and played football for Penn State University. He worked his way up in the textile business in New York and Chicago, eventually buying his own drapery company in Chicago.

A life long Republican, Hugh Rodham (according to Bill Clinton) never gave up hope that his son-in-law would join him in the Republican party and support a cut in the capital gains tax.

NAME: Dorothy Howell Rodham
RELATIONSHIP: Hillary Clinton's mother
AGE AT CONVENTION: N/A

BIO:

Hillary's mother, the former Dorothy Howell, grew up in a small California town and moved to Chicago in 1937. She was married in 1942 and never worked outside the home, although she did help with Bill Clinton's campaigns and her son Hugh's unsuccessful 1994 U.S. Senate bid. In 1987, she and her husband moved to Little Rock to be close to their daughter. She is considered intensely private and rarely speaks to the press. Little is known about her. (In fact, if you look her up in the index of Hillary Clinton's authorized biography, it says "See Virginia Kelley"--Bill Clinton's mother). She reportedly became much closer to her granddaughter Chelsea after the death of her husband in 1993 and has traveled with her daughter to Paris when the President had an official visit.

Hillary describes her mother as having a sense of humor, devotion to family and an immense sense of adventure. She told Glamour magazine in 1993 that she grew up in the "classic parenting situation where the mother is the encourage and the helper and the father brings the news from the outside world."

Source: Times-Picayune 11/24/94, Chicago Sun-Times 11/27/94, LA Times 4/8/93 (Dorothy and Hugh Sr.)

Hillary's brothers, Hugh and Anthony (Tony), both live is Coral Gables, Florida and shared an apartment for three years before Hugh married. Hugh is three years younger than Hillary, and Tony is seven years younger. They still see each other at least once a day. Both have helped out on Bill Clinton's campaigns, starting with his first bid for U.S. House in 1972 -- they were in charge of nailing up signs.)

Hugh and Tony Rodham embarrassed the First Family in early 1993 by asking corporate donors to pay for their inaugural parties. The brothers dropped the effort after it became public -- although they claimed they did not see anything wrong with what they were doing.

NAME: Hugh Rodham
RELATIONSHIP: Hillary Clinton's brother
AGE AT CONVENTION: N/A

BIO:

Hugh played second string quarterback on the football team at Penn State and graduated in 1972. He spent two years in the Peace Corps in Colombia. He took advanced degrees in education and law at the University of Arkansas, then moved to Miami to practice criminal law. He eventually became a public defender, working on the controversial drug court created by Janet Reno when she was Dade County state attorney. The court advocates treatment over jail time for drug addicts and Hugh Rodham helped develop an innovative approach to help people overcome drug addiction by way of acupuncture, counseling and frequent urine tests.

Hugh met his future wife, Maria Victoria Arias, a Cuban immigrant, when she was a college intern at the Miami public defender's office. They married in 1986, and Hugh moved out of the apartment he had shared with brother for three years. Hugh said in 1992 that he "loved" the apartment he shared with his brother, and unsuccessfully tried to convince his wife to move in after they married.

Hugh Rodham ran for the U.S. Senate in 1994, losing to incumbent Republican Connie Mack 70%-30%. Though President and Hillary Clinton campaigned for him, he didn't raise much money and received little help from Florida's Democratic establishment. He ran only one television ad, an anti-gun spot focused on the October 1994 attack on the White House, where Martin Duran fired two rounds at what Hugh's voice over called "my family." Hugh now has a liberal leaning talk radio show.

NAME: Tony Rodham
RELATIONSHIP: Hillary Clinton's brother
AGE AT CONVENTION: N/A

BIO:

Tony Rodham never excelled academically like Hillary or Hugh. He attended Iowa Wesleyan College and the University of Arkansas but never received a degree. He worked in Texas for a metal-marking equipment company and sold insurance in Chicago before joining Hugh in south Florida in 1983--where he worked as a process server and a private detective until 1992. He now works for the Democratic National Committee coordinating "constituency outreach."

On May 28, 1994 at a White House ceremony, Tony Rodham married Nicole Boxer, the daughter of Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. It was the first White House wedding since President Richard Nixon's daughter Tricia married Edward Cox in 1971.

Source: New York Times 2/18/94, People 12/14/92, Tampa Tribune 11/10/94 San Francisco Chronicle 3/19/94, Facts on File 1994(Hugh and Tony)

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