Early Life
Gideon was born in Hannibal, Missouri, on August 30, 1910, and his father (Charles Roscoe Gideon) died when he was three. His mother was Virginia Gregory Gideon. Gideon quit school after eighth grade and ran away from home, living as a homeless drifter. By the time he was sixteen, Gideon had begun compiling a petty crime profile.
Gideon spent a year in a reformatory for burglary before finding work at a shoe factory. At age 18, he was arrested in Missouri and charged with robbery, burglary, and larceny. Gideon was sentenced to 10 years but released after three, in 1932, just as the Great Depression was beginning.
Gideon spent most of the next three decades in poverty. He served some more prison terms at Leavenworth, Kansas for stealing government property; in Missouri for stealing, larceny and escape; and in Texas for theft.
Between his prison terms Gideon was married four times. The first one ended quickly, but the fourth to a woman named Ruth Ada Babineaux (in October, 1955) lasted. They settled in Orange, Texas, in the mid-1950s, and Gideon found irregular work as a tugboat laborer and bartender until he was bedridden by tuberculosis for 3 years.
In addition to three children that Ruth already had, Gideon and Ruth had three children, born in 1956, 1957 and 1959: the first two in Orange, the third after he had moved to Panama City, Florida. The six children later were taken away by welfare authorities. Gideon started working as an electrician in Florida, but began gambling for money because of his low wages. Gideon did not serve any more time in jail until 1961.
Read more about this topic: Clarence Earl Gideon
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