EXPOSED: The Tragic Truck Accident that Killed Joe Biden’s First Wife and Daughter
The president’s life was upended following his election to the U.S. Senate in 1972 when his wife Neilia Biden and infant daughter died.
joe biden and neilia biden stand next to each other and smile, amy biden as a baby looks at the camera
It was love at first sight for Joe Biden. The University of Delaware junior had taken a spring break trip to the Bahamas and sneaked into an exclusive beach resort, where he came upon Syracuse University senior Neilia Hunter sunbathing by a pool.
“When she turned toward me, I could see she had a beautiful smile and gorgeous green eyes,” he wrote in his memoir Promises to Keep. “She was lit by the unforgiving journey of a full afternoon sun, and I couldn’t see a single flaw.”
Joe found Neilia to be warm, bright, and refreshingly down to earth, unbothered by his modest upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware.
And as their relationship progressed, her well-to-do parents overcame any misgivings about his politics—he’s a Democrat, they were Republican—and religious faith—he’s Catholic, they were Presbyterian.
As such, the August 1966 wedding between Joe and Neilia appeared to be just an early milestone in their storybook romance, no one knowing their union would end in tragedy less than six-and-a-half years later.