Personal Life and Education
Dayton was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Gwendolen May (née Brandt) and Bruce Bliss Dayton; he is a great-grandson of businessman George Dayton. Dayton grew up in Long Lake, Minnesota and attended The Blake School in Minneapolis, where he graduated from in 1965. In 1969, Dayton graduated cum laude from Yale University. While there Dayton played goalie for the varsity hockey team and joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, whose membership at the time included George W. Bush.
After college, Dayton was a teacher in New York City for two years, and then worked as the chief financial officer of a social service agency in Boston, Massachusetts. Dayton served as a legislative aide to Senator Walter Mondale.
Dayton married Alida Rockefeller Messinger, sister of U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, in 1978; they divorced in 1986. Dayton and his second wife, Janice Haarstick, divorced in 1999. Dayton has two sons from his first marriage. He is a recovering alcoholic and has been treated for mild depression. Dayton revealed this information on his own initiative, saying he felt "people have the right to know."
Read more about this topic: Mark Dayton
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