Violeta Chamorro - Personal Life

Personal Life

Chamorro was born in 1929 to a wealthy family in Rivas, a small city near the Nicaraguan border with Costa Rica. She was educated in private Catholic schools in Granada and Managua. Chamorro's parents wanted her to perfect her English and sent her to an American boarding school. She first attended Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, and then transferred to Blackstone College for Girls in Virginia. In June 1947, her father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and after her father's death she returned to Nicaragua, cutting her schooling in the United States short. She met Pedro Joaquín Chamorro in 1949 and they married in 1950, with whom she had five children. In 1952, Chamorro's husband, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, took over the anti-Somoza newspaper La Prensa and was frequently jailed for its content. She took over the newspaper after her husband's assassination on January 10, 1978.

Over the years, Chamorro's family has been split into feuding factions based upon political association. Two of her children, Pedro and Cristiana, worked at La Prensa, although Pedro left Nicaragua in 1984 to join the contras. Her other children were active Sandinistas; Claudia was ambassador to Costa Rica and Carlos became the editor of the FSLN daily newspaper Barricada. In spite of the conflicting political views of her children, Chamorro encouraged and hosted family dinners during which she insisted political affiliations were temporarily forgotten in the interest of family harmony.