For as long as President-elect Joe Biden has served in public office (his 48-year-long political career began in the Senate and, starting January 20th, will culminate in the Oval Office), he has dealt with family tragedy.
In December 1972, just a few weeks after Biden won the Delaware Senate election, his wife Neilia and their 1-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident. Their sons Beau and Hunter, who were just 3 and 2 years old at the time, survived, and their father took his oath of office at the hospital where they were recovering.
In 2015, Biden suffered another loss of a beloved family member: that of his eldest son Beau, who passed away from brain cancer at age 46. “Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known,” Biden, then the Vice President, said in a statement.
It really is no secret that Beau was Biden’s favorite son. He had most closely followed in his father’s footsteps into a career in service, serving as the attorney general of Delaware, and, at the time of his death, preparing for a run for governor. And unlike his brother Hunter, Beau lived a fairly scandal-free life. He was a major presence on the campaign trails in 2008 and 2012, when his father ran as President Barack Obama’s running mate.
Five years after his death, Beau’s memory lives on. On the 2020 presidential campaign trail, Biden Sr. used his experiences with grief to connect more deeply with voters and often talked about Beau in speeches. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris spoke of her friendship with Beau (more on that below) and on the last night of the Democratic National Convention in August, a video montage of Beau’s life and career accomplishments featured prominently. “Beau is with me every single day. If he was here tonight, he would remind me ‘just be who you are.’ I’m a better person because of him.” Biden tweeted after the tribute aired.Five years after his death, Beau’s memory lives on. On the 2020 presidential campaign trail, Biden Sr. used his experiences with grief to connect more deeply with voters and often talked about Beau in speeches. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris spoke of her friendship with Beau (more on that below) and on the last night of the Democratic National Convention in August, a video montage of Beau’s life and career accomplishments featured prominently. “Beau is with me every single day. If he was here tonight, he would remind me ‘just be who you are.’ I’m a better person because of him.” Biden tweeted after the tribute aired.
Beau Biden worked in Kosovo after the 1998-1999 war, helping to train local prosecutors and judges for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The former Delaware attorney general died in 2015 of cancer aged 46.
“Beau’s work in Kosovo was heartfelt; he fell in love with the country,” President Biden said in a pre-recorded video message played during the ceremony in Pristina on Sunday.
“Beau could see what you could do, Beau could see even then the future that was possible for your proud country. The future that Kosovo had so long been denied,” Biden said.
In 2016 Biden, then vice president, unveiled a memorial to his son in Kosovo. A road leading to Camp Bondsteel, home to the 700 American soldiers who still help maintain the fragile peace in Kosovo, was also named after Beau Biden.
Naming streets after U.S. officials has become something of a tradition in Kosovo, whose population is mainly ethnic Albanian, and which considers the United States its savior for its support of a 1999 bombing campaign that deprived Serbia of control of Kosovo.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008 with Western backing, but Serbia still refuses to recognize it and considers it part of its territory.
“What the United States and the American people have done for our country, for our freedom, for our right to exist, goes beyond any partnership currently witnessed in the world. Mr. President, Kosovo is your home too,” said Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani while presenting the award.
Throughout his 2010 and 2013 health episodes, Beau Biden continued serving as Delaware’s attorney general, a position to which he was first elected in 2006. A Democrat like his father, he served for two terms, and announced in 2014 he wouldn’t seek another four years in office as he prepared a run for governor.
Beau Biden is the second of Joe Biden’s children to precede their father in death; the vice president’s 1-year-old daughter Naomi was killed in a Christmastime car accident in 1972. The crash also took the life of Joe Biden’s first wife, Neilia, who was Beau’s mother.
Beau Biden was 2 years old when his mother was killed in the crash. He and his younger brother Hunter were injured but survived the accident, which occurred when a truck careened into the car the family was riding in.
Joe Biden was sworn in as senator at his sons’ hospital bedside a few weeks later, and according to the 1988 political biography “What It Takes,” by Richard Ben Cramer, the first-term lawmaker threw himself headlong into single parenthood.
“Joe was the parent. Period. No confusion,” Cramer wrote. “Joe didn’t want anybody else raising his kids, thanks. He was there every night, every weekend. They had stories at bedtime, games of catch on the lawn, outings, trips, places to go.”
Beau and Hunter encouraged their father to remarry, and in 1977 Jill Jacobs, now Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, became their stepmother.
“My mom came along – I have two moms now – who came along in 1977 and rebuilt our family, and helped my dad rebuild our family,” Beau Biden told CNN in 2012. “She’s an incredible mother.”
Beau Biden grew up in Delaware and graduated from the same Catholic high school as his father. He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania and attended law school at Syracuse University.
A prosecutor and a politician. Biden: “Inflation is a worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq… Excuse me the war in Ukraine. I’m thinking of Iraq because that’s where my son died.”
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