Jim Warren was the first husband of Elizabeth Warren, who kicked off her presidential bid officially on February 9, at a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Jim and Elizabeth were married in 1968, and divorced 10 years later in 1978. During that time, they had two children, and Warren put herself through law school and worked from home as a lawyer while she raised her two children.
Jim Warren died in 2003, and Warren is now remarried to Bruce Mann. They have been together for 35 years.
Here’s what you need to know about Warren’s first marriage:
1. Jim & Elizabeth Warren Were Married When She Was 19 Years Old, & She Gave up a Scholarship to College to Be With Him
Jim Warren
According to her book, A Fighting Chance, Warren first dated Jim when she was 13 years old and he was 17 years old. They broke up, but then rekindled their romance later on, and when he asked her to marry him when she was 19 years old, she accepted. Warren wrote in her book, “I was amazed — amazed and grateful — that he had chosen me. I said yes in a nanosecond.”
Following the acceptance of his proposal, Warren gave up her full-ride scholarship to George Washington University, and finished her undergraduate career as a student at the University of Houston, where she lived with Jim.
2. Jim Was a NASA Mathematician, & Eventually Co-Founded a DNA Testing Company
According to a Boston Globe profile of Warren in 2012, Jim first worked for IBM. He was an employee of the company for 25 years, then became a subcontractor for NASA, working first in New Jersey, then in Texas. Warren followed him to Texas, getting a job at the University of Houston Law Center.
According to The Washington Examiner, Jim was brought on to NASA for a specific project called “The Warren Project” to design an algorithm to help NASA make its first genetic comparisons. The Washington Examiner also notes that Jim was later a board member of FamilyTreeDNA, which he co-founded in 2000.
Notably, Jim’s company, FamilyTreeDNA, is still one of the major vendors of genetic testing kits like 23andMe and Ancestry.
3. Warren Has Previously Said That She Doesn’t Blame Jim for Their Divorce
Warren has said in multiple interviews that she does not blame Jim for their divorce. To The Boston Globe in 2012, Warren said that Jim was “not a bad guy.” She continued, “If I wanted to do something as crazy as go to law school, then it was on me to figure out how to do that and still manage our home and our child.”
She added of their divorce, “[Jim and I] never really fought and never really had hard words; it just didn’t work.”
Warren continued, “I can’t imagine anybody putting up with me over long periods. It’s why I can never be cranky about Jim. I get it. Bruce not only puts up with me, God bless him, he seems to enjoy me.”
Warren’s second husband, Bruce Mann, told The Globe that he likes being the second husband, which he referred to as “H2,” because “You will look great in comparison.”
4. Jim & Elizabeth Had Two Children Together, Amelia & Alexander, Who Are Now in Their 40s
Amelia Warren Tyagi
During their ten years of marriage, Jim and Elizabeth had two children together, Amelia and Alexander. Amelia, whose full name is Amelia Warren Tyagi, is now in her late 40s and is an author as well as the founder of Business Talent Group. Tyagi notably co-authored a book with her mother titled The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Families Are Going Broke.
As for Alexander Warren, he is a computer specialist who married his wife in 2013, per The Globe. The publication notes that he has designed and maintained his mother’s research databases in the past, but he does not comment publicly on his mother’s political career.
Alexander lives in California with his wife, as does Amelia with her husband, Sushil, according to The Boston Globe. In one of the rare instances where she publicly spoke about her son, Warren told a humorous tale to The Globe about how he still wasn’t potty-trained at three years old. She said, “If Amelia had been more like Alex about potty training, my life would have taken a very different turn.”
5. Warren Is Now Married to Bruce Mann; They Have Been Together for 35 Years
Bruce Mann and Warren were married in 1980, and are both professors of law, though Warren has since left the academic world for the political one. They live in Cambridge together, where Mann teaches at Harvard Law School.
According to The Boston Globe, Mann and Warren met before her divorce was finalized, at a law conference in Florida. Mann said of the meeting, “I saw this woman talking to someone, and I was just captivated. I just walked right over. She barely noticed me. It took a couple of days.”
Warren added, “You had good legs.”
Mann is the Carl F. Schipper, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvad Law School, according to his faculty bio page. He specializes in American Legal History, Property, and Trusts ad Estates.
In an Instagram post in July, 2017, Warren shared the anniversary gift her husband gave to her, which was equal parts practical and intimate: a newly organized hallway closet.
Warren wrote, “Back when I proposed to Bruce, I knew he was pretty special. But through decades of ups and downs – kids, dogs, moves, living in separate cities, deaths in the family, and on and on – he’s turned out to be even more special than I originally thought. He even hangs a shelf on occasions like this. I’m a very lucky woman.”