Green Ridge Roots

Catherine Eugenia Finnegan was born July 7, 1917, in Scranton. Her family called her Jean. Her father, Ambrose Joseph Finnegan, worked as an advertising salesman and later as a librarian for the Scranton Tribune. Her mother, Geraldine Catherine Blewitt, came from a prominent local family—her father, Edward Blewitt, had served as Scranton’s city engineer and as a Pennsylvania state senator representing the 22nd District.

The Finnegans traced their roots to County Louth, Ireland, near the border with Northern Ireland. Jean’s great-grandfather, Owen Finnegan, had emigrated from the port of Newry, County Down, around 1849 during the Great Famine. Through her mother, Jean also claimed County Mayo ancestry.

Jean had four brothers: Gerald, Edward, Ambrose Jr., and John. The family lived in Scranton’s Green Ridge neighborhood, a residential area on the city’s north side.

Marriage and Early Family Life

Jean married Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. on May 30, 1941, in Scranton. She was 23 years old. Her husband, born in Baltimore, had come to Scranton for work. They had four children: Joseph Jr. (born November 20, 1942, at St. Mary’s Hospital in South Scranton), Valerie, James, and Francis.

The war years brought tragedy. In May 1944, Jean’s brother Ambrose Jr.—known as “Uncle Bosie” to the Biden children—was killed when his Army Air Forces transport plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean off New Guinea. The aircraft’s engines failed at low altitude, and the plane went down hard. His body was never recovered.

The House on North Washington Avenue

By 1947, when Joseph Biden Sr. faced financial difficulties, the young family moved in with Jean’s parents at 2446 North Washington Avenue in Green Ridge. Ambrose Finnegan had purchased the property in August 1945 for $6,250.

The extended family lived together in that house until 1953, when Joseph Sr. secured employment in Delaware and the Bidens relocated to Claymont. Young Joe was ten years old when they left Scranton.

Jean’s mother Geraldine had died in 1949. Her father Ambrose died in 1957 at St. Mary’s Hospital in Scranton.

Raising a Boy Who Stuttered

Joe Biden developed a severe stutter in early childhood. The condition made him a target for bullying at school—classmates mocked him, and at least one teacher compelled him to read aloud in class, then ridiculed his speech.

Jean’s response was direct and unwavering. She told her son the stutter existed because he was so bright his thoughts came faster than his mouth could manage. When a nun called him “Mr. Buh-buh-buh Biden” in front of his classmates, Jean marched back to the school and confronted the teacher: “If you ever do that again, I’m going to come back and knock your bonnet right off your head.”

She drilled certain principles into her children. “Nobody is better than you,” she told them. “When you get knocked down, just get up.” Biden later wrote that this was “the first principle of life, the foundational principle—get up.” The family adopted it as their motto.

The Biden Standard

Jean established what her children called “the Biden standard”—a set of expectations about character, loyalty, and conduct. She taught them never to be intimidated by power, wealth, or social standing. Failure was inevitable in everyone’s life, she said, but giving up was unforgivable.

Friends of the family remembered Jean as intensely devoted to her children. Tom Bell, one of Joe’s childhood friends, described her as “a very engaged mother” who knew everything about her kids—where they were, what they were doing, what they were thinking.

Jean stood five feet two inches tall. Her son later described her as having “a backbone like a ramrod” and noted that “you didn’t screw with Jean Finnegan Biden.”

Later Years

Jean lived with her son’s family at their home in Greenville, Delaware, occupying a carriage house on the property. When Joe Biden was inaugurated as Vice President in January 2009, she chose not to relocate to Washington.

She appeared on stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver after her son accepted the vice presidential nomination—the extended Biden family gathered around her as the crowd cheered.

Death

Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden died on January 8, 2010, at her son’s home in Wilmington. She was 92 years old and had been in hospice care. The family surrounded her at the end.

Her funeral Mass was held at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Wilmington. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attended, along with former President Bill Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and several cabinet members who flew up from Washington on Air Force One.

Vice President Biden delivered the eulogy. He called his mother “a remarkable woman” who was “heroic in her ideals but solid in her expectations.” She had taught her children that “every man’s your equal and every man deserves respect.”

Jean Biden was buried at Saint Joseph on the Brandywine Cemetery in Greenville, Delaware. Her husband Joseph Sr., who had died in 2002 after 61 years of marriage, rests beside her.