Danny Greene - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

John Henry Greene, born in Cleveland, Ohio, and Irene Cecelia Fallon, born in Pennsylvania, were a young couple who married in Cleveland. Their fathers, Daniel John Greene and Patrick John Fallon, were born in Cleveland, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, respectively. A popular local Cleveland legend tells that Danny J. Greene was the son of Irish Catholic immigrants, but his parents were native-born in the United States. His ancestors on both sides were ethnic Irish.

Daniel was born in Cleveland. Three days after the birth, his mother Irene died. He was called "Baby Greene" until after his mother was buried. His father named the boy Daniel after his own father. Drinking heavily, John Greene lost his job as a salesman for Fuller Brush. He moved in temporarily with his father, a newspaper printer, who had also been recently widowed. Unable to provide for Daniel, his father placed the boy in Parmadale, a Roman Catholic orphanage in Parma, Ohio, three miles outside Cleveland.

In 1939 Daniel's father began dating a nurse and married her. They started their own family and brought Daniel home. At age six, he resented his stepmother and ran away on several occasions. His paternal grandfather took the boy in, and Daniel lived with him and an aunt for the rest of his childhood. When his father died in 1959, the newspaper obituary listed his children from his second marriage, but did not mention Daniel.

At St. Jerome Catholic School, Daniel Greene developed a great fondness for the nuns and priests. He developed a lasting friendship with some of his teachers and served as an altar boy. An athletic boy, he excelled at baseball and was an all-star basketball player. Although Greene was a poor student, the nuns at St. Jerome let him play sports because he was valuable for the team. Greene attended St. Ignatius High School. In frequent fights with Italian-American students, children of more recent immigrants' struggling for place, Daniel developed an intense dislike for Italians that lasted his entire life. After being expelled from Saint Ignatius, he transferred to Collinwood High School, where he excelled in athletics. A Boy Scout for a short time, he was kicked out of his troop. He was expelled from Collinwood High School due to excessive tardiness, which he claimed was caused by the bullying of fellow students.