section_path: Early life, family, and education/Background and ancestry
section_name: Background and ancestry
paragraph_text: Background and ancestry
  
  Robert Francis Prevost was born on September 14, 1955, at Mercy Hospital in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, on the city's South Side. Prevost has two older brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph, and is of French, Italian, Spanish, and Louisiana Creole descent. His mother, Mildred Agnes Prevost (née Martínez), was born in Chicago into a mixed-race family from Louisiana. She worked as an educator and librarian, including at Mendel Catholic High School. His father, Louis Marius Prevost, was also a Chicago native, having grown up in Hyde Park. Louis's parents were immigrants from Italy and France. Louis Prevost was a United States Navy veteran of World War II who commanded an infantry landing craft in the Normandy landings and later participated in Operation Dragoon in southern France. Also an educator, he later became superintendent of Brookwood School District 167 in Glenwood, Illinois.