Early life and career of Bill Clinton Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. He was the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918–1946), a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley: 1923–1994). His parents had married on September 4, 1943, but this union later proved to be bigamous, as Blythe had never divorced his third wife and was therefore still married to her. Soon after Bill was born, Virginia traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana to study nursing. She left her
Ernest Blythe was born to a Church of Ireland and unionist family in the townland of Magheraliskmisk, Maghaberry, County Antrim, in 1889, the son of James Blythe, a farmer, and Agnes Thompson. He was educated locally, at Maghaberry Cross Roads primary school. At the age of fifteen he started working as a clerk in the Department of Agriculture in Dublin. Seán O'Casey invited Blythe to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which Blythe accepted. He was 18 at the time. He also joined Conradh na Gaeilge, where his first Irish teacher was Sinéad Flanagan, the future wife of Éamon de Valera. He was