Family and Personal Life
Herman Cain was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Lenora Davis Cain, a cleaning woman and domestic worker, and Luther Cain, Jr., who was raised on a farm and worked as a barber and janitor, as well as a chauffeur for Coca-Cola Company president Robert W. Woodruff. Cain has said that as he was growing up, his family was "poor but happy." Cain related that his mother taught him about her belief that "success was not a function of what you start out with materially, but what you start out with spiritually". His father worked three jobs to own his own home – something he achieved during Cain's childhood – and to see his two sons graduate.
Cain grew up on the west side of Atlanta, Georgia, attending school and Rev. Cameron M. Alexander's Antioch Baptist Church North in the neighborhood now known as The Bluff. Eventually Cain's father saved enough money and the family moved to a modest brick home on Albert Street in the Collier Heights neighborhood. He attended Archer (public) High School, graduating in 1963.
Cain married Gloria Cain (née Etchison), of Atlanta, soon after her graduation from Morris Brown College in 1968. His wife of 43 years is a homemaker, with experience as a teacher and a librarian. The couple have two children and three grandchildren.
In 2006, Cain was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer in his colon and metastases to his liver and given a 30-percent chance of survival. Cain underwent surgery and chemotherapy following the diagnosis, and has since reported that he is in remission.
Disclosures filed during his campaign in 2011 categorized Cain's wealth as of that time as being between $2.9 to $6.6 million, with Cain's income for both 2010 and 2011 combined being between $1.1 to $2.1 million.
Cain also serves as an associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta, which he joined at the age of 10. The church is part of the National Baptist Convention and is politically liberal and theologically conservative; the church's senior pastor, Rev. Cameron M. Alexander, does not share Cain's political philosophy.
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