W. E. B. Griffin - Family Life

Family Life

Griffin's mother was Pennsylvania Dutch, a fact that motivated him to learn German and study at Marburg. Incidentally, one of Griffin's duties was delivering food to German general officers and their families, including the widow of would-be Hitler assassin Claus von Stauffenberg. His exposure to German military and civilian aristocracy doubtless supplied much of the inspiration for such Griffin creations as Oberst Graf von Greiffenberg, who appears in several of the Brotherhood of War novels.

Griffin's first wife, Emma Macalik Butterworth, was a ballet dancer and the author of As the Waltz Was Ending, a beautiful but sad memoir of her life growing up as a dancer in Vienna during World War II. Griffin is currently married to an Argentine wife, and has a stepson, Ignacio. The couple met while Griffin was duck-hunting in Argentina. They divide their time between Buenos Aires and the United States. Griffin also has a biological son, William E. Butterworth IV, who has co-written some books with his father. He has co-written six books in total, in three different novel series, Honor Bound, Men at War, and Badge of Honor. The two latest books in the "Badge of Honor" series are "The Traffickers" and "The Vigilantes".

Mrs. Griffin's father is a former Colonel in the Húsares de Pueyrredon; Griffin has mined his father-in-law and other Argentine contacts to develop Argentine and Argentine-American characters for several of his novels which have been set in South America.