Elizabeth Edwards
From Free net encyclopedia
Mary Elizabeth Edwards (nee Anania) (born July 3, 1949, in Jacksonville, Florida) is a former attorney and the wife of John Edwards (former U.S. Senator from North Carolina and 2004 Democratic vice-presidential candidate). She was both an undergraduate and a graduate student in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She met John Edwards when they were both law students at the UNC Law School; they wed in 1977. The Edwards are the parents of four children: Catharine (or "Cate"), Wade, Emma Claire, and Jack. Wade died in a car accident in 1996.
In her career (she professionally kept her maiden name, Elizabeth Anania, until 1996, when after the death of her son and her retirement from her legal practice, she changed her name to Elizabeth Edwards), she began as a law clerk for a federal judge, then moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1978 to become an associate at the law firm of Harwell Barr Martin & Sloan. She moved to Raleigh in 1981 with John and son Wade to work at the law firm Merriman, Nicholls, and Crampton and has taught legal writing as an adjunct instructor at the law school of the University of North Carolina.
She spent some of her childhood going to school in Japan, where her father, a United States Navy U-2 pilot, was stationed.
During much of 2004, Elizabeth joined her husband and Democratic Presidential nominee Senator John Kerry on the nationwide campaign trail. On November 3, 2004, the day Kerry and Edwards conceded defeat in the 2004 US Presidential Election, Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer.