Matt Groening - Early Life

Early Life

Groening was born on February 15, 1954 in Portland, Oregon, the middle of five children. His Norwegian-American mother, Margaret Ruth (née Wiggum), was once a teacher, and his German American father, Homer Philip Groening (December 30, 1919 – March 15, 1996), was a filmmaker, advertiser, writer and cartoonist. Homer, born in Main Centre, Saskatchewan, Canada, grew up in a Mennonite, Plautdietsch-speaking family. He has Dutch Mennonite ancestors, and the Dutch IPA transcription of his surname is .

Matt's grandfather Abram Groening was a professor at Tabor College, a Mennonite Brethren liberal arts college in Hillsboro, Kansas before moving to Albany College (now known as Lewis and Clark College) in Oregon in 1930.

Groening grew up in Portland, and attended Ainsworth Elementary School and Lincoln High School. From 1972 to 1977, Groening attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a liberal arts school that he described as "a hippie college, with no grades or required classes, that drew every weirdo in the Northwest." He served as the editor of the campus newspaper, The Cooper Point Journal, for which he also wrote articles and drew cartoons. He befriended fellow cartoonist Lynda Barry after discovering that she had written a fan letter to Joseph Heller, one of Groening's favorite authors, and had received a reply. Groening has credited Barry with being "probably biggest inspiration." He also cited the Disney animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians as what got him interested in cartoons, as well as Peanuts and its creator Charles M. Schulz as inspirations.