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When Joe Biden received a letter from his relatives living in Nagpur since 1873
Not only Tamil Nadu’s daughter Kamala Harris with her love for dosas has Indian roots, but the President-elect Joe Biden has roots in India too, in the ‘orange city’.
During his maiden visit to India in 2013, US President-elect Joe Biden had mentioned that he has distant relatives living in Mumbai. In 2015 in Washington, he reiterated that after becoming a Senator in 1972, he had received a letter from one of the Bidens in India and learned that his “great, great, great, great, great grandfather” George Biden was a captain in the East India Trading company and after retirement, decided to settle in India and married an Indian woman.
Now that 77-year-old Democrat leader Biden is set to take oath as the 46th US President in January 2021 along with vice president-elect Kamala Harris who is the first South Asian woman to become the vice president of USA, everyone is interested to know about Biden’s distant relatives in India.
The letter that Biden had received in 1972 was written by Nagpur-based Leslie Biden, whose grandchildren stay in Nagpur, and claim that their family has been living there since 1873. Leslie Biden was based in Nagpur and was the manager of the Bharat Lodge and Hostel, and Bharat Cafe in Nagpur, before he died in 1983. While reading the ‘Illustrated Weekly of India’ weekly issue of March 28-April 4, 1981, Leslie came across an article about the then US senator Joe Biden and decided to write a letter to the senator.
“Leslie got in touch with Joe Biden through a letter sent on April 15, 1981. Joe Biden replied to Leslie through a letter dated May 30, 1981, said he was pleased after getting the letter from India and also discussed about the Bidens’ genealogy,” Leslie’s granddaughter Sonia Biden Francis, a Nagpur- based psychologist, told PTI.
She added that Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election has made ‘Bidens in Nagpur and everywhere’ elated. Leslie Biden’s descendants live in Nagpur, Mumbai, the US, Australia and New Zealand.
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Sonia Biden’s elder brother Ian Biden, a former seafarer in the merchant navy, who also stays in Nagpur, said Leslie and Joe Biden shared information regarding a common ancestor John Biden and his wife Anne Beaumont.
“Leslie and Joe Biden thanked each other for corresponding and committed to continue corresponding with each other. However, Leslie Biden’s health worsened and he died in 1983 at Nagpur. Leslie’s wife was unable to pursue the family tree further,” said Leslie’s granddaughter Rowena, who also lives in Nagpur.
The Biden family showed the letters that they claimed were part of the correspondence between Leslie and Joe Biden. Asked if the ‘other Bidens’ would attend Joe Biden’s inauguration in January, the family members said they are extending their best wishes to the President-elect Joe Biden.
So, it is not only Tamil Nadu’s daughter Kamala Harris with her love for dosas who has Indian roots. The President-elect Joe Biden has roots in India too, in the ‘orange city’.
(with agency inputs)
