The former first couple first came across each other during a blind date in March 1975 after being set up by Joe’s brother.
“I was a senior, and I had been dating guys in jeans and clogs and T-shirts. He came to the door, and he had a sport coat and loafers, and I thought, ‘God, this is never going to work, not in a million years.’ He was nine years older than I am! But we really hit it off,” Jill told Vogue. “I went upstairs and called my mother at 1:00 a.m. and said, ‘Mom, I finally met a gentleman.'”
Both Joe and Jill had been married to other people before their first meeting.
Joe’s late first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, died in a 1972 car crash that also killed their third child, Naomi Biden. They also shared sons Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015, and Hunter.
Meanwhile, Jill was married to businessman William “Bill” Stevenson from 1970 to 1975.
According to the educator, she embraced Joe’s sons as her own when they began dating.
“When Joe worked late, I would go over to make dinner and keep them company,” she wrote in her memoir Where the Light Enters. “I would help pick them up from school sometimes, or we’d pass an evening watching TV. We started to build our own relationship separate from their dad.”