I made it through, with a lot of support, and reconstructed my life and my family. His first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, died in a car crash in 1972, shortly after he was elected to Congress as a senator from Delaware. There was one exception to Joe's record for sliding by that first year. In his 2017 book, Promise Me, Dad, he wrote: “The pain seemed unbearable in the beginning, and it took me a long time to heal, but I did survive the punishing ordeal. And of course they would welcome friends and family to their home. He went on to explain how he was in Washington hiring staff for his new Senate role when he found out his wife and daughter had died. Bidens former wife, Neilia, was taking their. What has Joe Biden said about her death?Īt a 2015 commencement speech Mr Biden told students at Yale University: “Six weeks after my election, my whole world was altered forever.” Neilia and Naomi were tragically killed in a car crash in 1972, just a few days after Joe Biden was elected as the junior U.S. Joe Biden's first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, is mostly remembered for the car accident that killed her and the couple's baby daughter and enveloped her husband in a cloud of grief that has shaped. Mr Biden was sworn into the Senate in the hospital where they were recovering. Ms Hunter and the children were all taken to Wilmington General Hospital, but she and her daughter Naomi, who was just one year old, died upon arrival.īoth of the boys sustained serious injuries, but survived. She accidentally drove into the path of a tractor trailer, which struck the car. On 18 December 1972, a month after Mr Biden won the senate race, Ms Hunter was driving to collect a Christmas tree, along with their three children, in Hockessin, Delaware, near their home. Joe Biden married his second wife, Jill, in 1977 (Photo: AP) Neilia Hunter’s death

Joe bidens first wife child killed