Hot Springs High School, although a segregated all-white school, stood heads above most public schools in Arkansas. In this small community, Bill was widely recognized as a young man of rare talent and ambition. But while his mother went to the racetracks on Sunday, Bill attended church, principally to hear the music he loved. The fun of gambling dens and mineral spas competed for Bill's attention with Baptist churches and politics. He played saxophone in a high school band and especially loved the gospel music of his Baptist faith. As a teenager, Bill excelled in school and showed a passion for politics. (She later divorced Roger Clinton when Bill was fifteen, only to remarry him quickly thereafter.) Again, Clinton had to intervene between two adults engaged in violent arguments. The family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, a bustling resort town an hour away. In 1950, Bill's mother married Roger Clinton, a car dealer and abusive alcoholic. Bill later remembered loving both women during that time of his life but feeling torn between them as a young mediator of their arguments. It was during those periods that his grandmother, a temperamental and strong-willed disciplinarian, tried to shape her grandson's character-and taught him to be a very early reader. His mother, a vivacious and fun-loving free spirit, was often away from home taking nursing classes in New Orleans. Raised in the home of his grandmother, Edith Cassidy, Bill's early years were dominated by two strong women, who often competed for his attention. His father, William Jefferson Blythe, had died in an auto accident several months before his mother, Virginia Cassidy Blythe, gave birth to the future President. William Jefferson Clinton spent the first six years of his life in Hope, Arkansas, where he was born on August 19, 1946.
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