Paul Sarbanes - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

Paul Sarbanes was born on Maryland's Eastern Shore in the city of Salisbury to Greek parents, Matina (née Tsigounis) and Spyros P. Sarbanes, who had emigrated from Laconia, Greece and owned a Salisbury restaurant.

A graduate of Wicomico High School in Salisbury, Maryland, Sarbanes attended Princeton University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1954. As a senior he received the Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, Princeton's highest undergraduate honor. He also was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship that brought him to Balliol College of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, graduating with a First Class degree in 1957. Sarbanes then returned to the United States and attended Harvard Law School.

After graduating in 1960, he clerked for Federal Judge Morris A. Soper before entering private practice with two Baltimore, Maryland law firms. In June 1960, Sarbanes married Christine Dunbar of Brighton, England; they have three children (John Sarbanes, Michael Anthony Sarbanes, and Janet Matina Sarbanes) and seven grandchildren. Christine Sarbanes died of cancer on March 22, 2009. Sarbanes holds the highest lay office in the Greek Orthodox Church, "Order of St. Andrew, Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate" and is a member of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Baltimore.

His son, John Sarbanes, won the general election for Maryland's 3rd congressional district in 2006, the district that Paul Sarbanes represented prior to his election as senator.