As Joe Biden was named as the 46th President of the United States, no one was more proud of him than his wife Jill.
The new First Lady is a dedicated English teacher and met Joe on a blind date when she was at college, and they wed in 1977.
The couple hit it off straight away, but Jill wasn’t sure about jumping into marriage with Joe right away.
In fact, she said no when he got down on one knee and asked her to be his wife – four times.
Luckily, Joe didn’t give up, and she said yes when he asked for a fifth time.
The couple tied the knot in 1977, two years after their first date.
She already had a date planned for the night they were due to meet up, but a very confident Joe told her to cancel it so they could go out.
They went out for dinner and to see a film, and ended up seeing each other three nights in a row.
Jill wasn’t put off by the nine year age gap, and liked how mature he was compared to the guys she had dated in college.
In an interview with Vogue magazine, she said: “I was a senior, and I had been dating guys in jeans and clogs and T-shirts, he came to the door and he had a sport coat and loafers, and I thought: “God, this is never going to work, not in a million years.” He was nine years older than I am!
“But we went out to see A Man and a Woman at the movie theatre in Philadelphia, and we really hit it off.”
Jill had been married before meeting Joe, and wed her first husband Bill Stevenson when she was just 18.
She was divorced by the time she turned 24, so she wanted to make sure her Joe was The One.
Joe’s first wife Neilia and the couple’s daughter Neilia died in a car accident three years before he met Jill.
Their sons, Beau and Hunter, survived the crash.
Jill wanted to be completely sure her marriage to Joe would last so the boys didn’t lose a second mother figure.
In her 2019 memoir, Where the Light Enters, Jill explains that she was also concerned about losing her career and her own identity.
She wrote: “I knew that no matter how much I tried, there would be so much I could not control.
“If I have Joe my whole heart, he had the power to break it.
“I was launching my career and planning for graduate school – and then I had staff calling to schedule dates with my boyfriend around his insane Senate schedule.
“I was being pulled in so many directions.”
But when it came to the fifth proposal, things were different.
Joe went to Jill’s flat on his way to the airport in 1977 and said: “Look, I’ve been as patient as I know how to be but this has got my Irish up. Either you decide to marry me or that’s it, I’m out. I’m not asking again.”
He added: “I’m too much in love with you to just be friends.”
He then left, flying to South Africa for political duties, and he finally got the ‘yes’ he wanted later that night.
They married at the United Nations chapel in 1977, taking Joe’s sons Beau and Hunter on their honeymoon.
In his autobiography, Joe said: “She gave me back my life. She made me start to think my family might be whole again.”
They welcomed a daughter together, Ashley, in 1981.
(Image: Getty Images North America)
But when Joe was named Vice President in Barack Obama’s administration and Jill took on the role as Second Lady, she refused to give up her career.
She continued her job as professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College, saying “Being a teacher is not what I do but who I am”.
She has four degrees – a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees and a doctorate of education.
However she took a break from her impressive career in April last year to support her husband on the campaign trail.
But she said that she intends to go back to teaching English if Joe won the White House.
Jill’s clothes has been a big talking point during the campaign trail, and her love of bright colours and vibrant outfits has made her a hit with fashion lovers.
A key example is her Stuart Weitzman knee-high boots, which have the word ‘VOTE’ written down the side.
