Jill Biden: Not your average First Lady

Dr. Jill Biden is a First Lady who has, in many ways, redefined the role of the First Lady in the White House.

Joe Biden's wife certainly has broken away from the relative seclusion of her predecessor.

With a focus on compassion, healing, and love, she has shown that she is quite different than Melania Trump.

In his acceptance speech after winning the November 2020 elections, the President-elect had already indicated that his wife, Jill Tracy Biden, was very important to his career. "I am the husband of Jill Biden," he had said.

Jill Biden is a community college professor with a doctoral degree in education. Biden added in his celebratory speech that it was “a great day for America’s educators. You’re going to have one of your own in the White House, and Jill is going to make a great First Lady.”

Jill Biden, unlike the women who came before her, didn't give up her old job after arriving at the White House. She continued to work as a college professor in English while fulfilling her duties as the President's wife.

The First Lady has professional training in university teaching, with two master’s degrees and a doctorate in Education.

Dr. Biden already did this while her husband was Vice President of the United States. As former First Lady Michelle Obama said at the time, “she spent all day grading papers.”

Born in Hammonton, New Jersey, in 1951, Jill Jacobs met Joe Biden in 1975. She was working as a professor and had just divorced her first husband.

Biden had been a widower for three years after the death of his first wife Neilia in a car accident. Their daughter Naomi had also passed away in that tragic event.

They say Joe Biden proposed to Jill on as many as five occasions. However, Jill Biden was slow to say “I do.”

Photo: @drbiden / Instagram

Finally, she accepted his proposal in 1977 and that same year they got married. Joe Biden was 35 years old at the time, and Jill 26.

Coming from a middle-class family in Philadelphia and the eldest of four sisters, Jill Biden carved out a life for herself in which everything she achieved would be by her own efforts. “I wanted my own money as well as my own identity and career,” she told The New York Times in 2008.

Photo: @drbiden / Instagram

Together with Joe Biden, she has had a daughter, Ashley Biden, born in June 1981.

Photo: @drbiden / Instagram

She also became the stepmother of Biden's other two children, Beau and Hunter, whose mother had passed away in a car accident.

In 2009, as Joe Biden became Vice President with Barack Obama, she became the Second Lady of the United States.

Jill Biden kept a lower profile in the White House than her predecessors. She never left her job as an English professor and participated in few rallies and public events.

Those closest to the new First Lady claim that she is a shy woman who initially doubted her political role as the wife of a politician.

However, over the years Jill Biden has gained self-confidence and become a prominent person at the side of her husband.

Her public appearances, in addition to her own in support of her husband's candidacy, have often been with Michelle Obama.

Together with the former First Lady, Jill Biden organized events related to education, as well as those to support US military troops. An example was their special broadcast of The Voice for military families. She even sang!

Jill Biden is so committed to the future of education that, to obtain her doctorate in 2007, she wrote a doctoral thesis on the importance of reducing school drop-out rates and trying to retain young people in schools. She is a strong advocate of public education.

Jill Biden is a founding member of the NGO 'Biden Breast Health Initiative', the co-founder of the Book Buddies program, and a partner in the NGO 'Delaware Boots on the Ground'.

In 2010, Biden experienced one of her most tragic episodes with the death of Joe Biden's mother, Jean Finnegan Biden. They had a close relationship.

In 2015 Joseph Robinette, or 'Beau,' the son of Joe Biden and raised by Jill Biden since his childhood, passed away at the age of 46. The cause of death was a brain tumor. The loss devastated the family.

Like her husband, Jill Biden has always been a devout Catholic. In the picture, she and Joe Biden meet Pope Francis.

However, Jill Biden confessed that for four years and after the death of her stepson Beau Biden she almost lost faith.

The pain of her loss caused her to stop praying and going to church. Little by little, and with the passage of time, she reconnected with her faith.

According to some chroniclers, her role in choosing Kamala Harris as Joe Biden's running mate was decisive.

When Harris's nomination was made public, she tweeted to the vice president's husband, lawyer Douglas Emhoff, “Are you ready, Doug?”

Jill Biden has written two books so far. One is for children: 'Don't Forget, God Bless Our Troops.' The other one is autobiographical: 'Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself'.

On more than one occasion, the press has both criticized and praised her wardrobe. Compared to Michelle Obama or Melania Trump, Jill Biden's style is considered “discreet and elegant.” She often reuses dresses and suits, advocating a sustainable fashion world without waste.

Which First Lady is an example for Jill Biden? It's Eleanor Roosevelt, she has said on more than one occasion.

As a First Lady, Jill Biden seems to have made more of an impact than she did as a Second Lady. An expert in education, she is making her voice heard about American schooling and the care for its children and students.