Marriage and Family
While teaching at Howard University in 1928, Bunche met Ruth Harris, who took a class from him. They married June 23, 1930. The couple had three children: Joan Harris Bunche (b. 1931), Jane Johnson Bunche (b. 1933) (later married to Burton Pierce), and Ralph J. Bunche, Jr. (b. 1943). At the time of his death, Bunche was survived by his wife, daughter Joan, son Ralph and three Pierce grandchildren. His wife later enjoyed three additional grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.
On October 9, 1966, their daughter Jane Bunche Pierce fell or jumped from the roof of her Riverdale, Bronx apartment building; her death was believed to be suicide. She left no note. She was married to Burton Pierce, a Cornell University alumnus who was a labor relations executive, and they had three children. Their apartment was on the first floor of the building.
Read more about this topic: Ralph Bunche
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or family:
“In mid-life the man wants to see how irresistible he still is to younger women. How they turn their hearts to stone and more or less commit a murder of their marriage I just don’t know, but they do.”
—Patricia Neal (b. 1926)
“The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.”
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