Personal Life
She was born in New York City in 1950, and raised in a musical household in which Delta blues, Broadway show tunes, Dixieland jazz, classical music, and folk music recordings were played around the clock. Her father, Merrill Laub, an exterminator by trade, had an encyclopedic knowledge of American film and theater and was also an avid collector and restorer of antiques. Her mother, Lili Laub, was a dance teacher who had performed with the Martha Graham group.
Snow grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey and graduated from Teaneck High School. She subsequently attended Shimer College in Mount Carroll, Illinois, but did not graduate.
As a student, she carried her prized Martin 000-18 acoustic guitar from club to club in Greenwich Village, playing and singing on amateur nights. Her stage name is a fictional advertising character created in the early 1900s for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad: Phoebe Snow was a young woman who appeared dressed all in white. Also, a DL&W passenger train called the Phoebe Snow ran from Hoboken to Buffalo between 1949 and 1960.
Snow was briefly married to Phil Kearns, and on December 10, 1975 she gave birth to a severely brain damaged daughter, Valerie Rose. Snow resolved not to institutionalize Valerie, and cared for her at home until Valerie died on March 19, 2007 at the age of 31. Snow's efforts to care for Valerie nearly ended her career. She continued to take voice lessons, and she studied opera informally.
Snow was Jewish and Buddhist.
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