Elizabeth Edwards

Biography

Elizabeth Edwards is an author and advocate for universal health care. Her husband is former U.S. Sen. John Edwards.

Early Life and Education

Mary Elizabeth Anania was born July 3, 1949, in Jacksonville, Fla. As the daughter of a Navy pilot, she lived all over the United States as well as in Japan.

Family 

She met John Edwards when they were both students at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1974.

They were married July 30, 1977.

She worked in the N.C. Attorney General's office and later for the Raleigh law firm Merriman, Nicholls, and Crampton. She worked part-time after the birth of her children Wade and Cate.

On April 4, 1996, Wade was killed in a freak automobile accident, when a gust of wind flipped over his Jeep Cherokee on Interstate 40. Edwards then quit her job.

In 1998, Elizabeth Edwards gave birth to daughter Emma Claire; and in 2000, to son Jack.

Political Career

She often served as the informal political adviser to her husband during his one-term in the U.S. Senate and presidential runs in 2004 and 2008. 

She joined the nonprofit Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, as a senior fellow in April of 2008. She helps maintain a blog called The Wonk Room for the center's Web site, ThinkProgress.

In 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and in 2007 she announced she was being treated for a recurrence.

In 2006, she published a book called "Saving Graces," about her response to the death of her son and her diagnosis.

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