Personal Life
Wooden was born to Roxie Anna and Joshua Hugh Wooden. He had three brothers: Maurice, Daniel, and William. He had two sisters, one of whom died in infancy and was unnamed and another, Cordelia, who died from diphtheria at age 2.
Wooden met his future wife, Nellie (Nell) Riley, at a carnival in July 1926. They married in a small ceremony in Indianapolis in August 1932 and afterward attended a Mills Brothers concert at the Circle Theatre to celebrate. John and his wife had a son, James Hugh Wooden, and a daughter, Nancy Anne Muehlhausen. Nellie died on March 21, 1985 from cancer.
Wooden remained devoted to Nellie until his own death decades after hers. He kept to a monthly ritual — health permitting — on the 21st of every month, when he would visit her grave then write a love letter to her. After completing each letter, he placed it in an envelope and added it to a stack of similar letters that accumulated over the years on the pillow she slept on during their life together. Wooden only stopped writing the letters in the last months of his life due to failing eyesight.
In mourning Nellie's death, Wooden was comforted by his faith. He was a devout Christian, considering his beliefs more important to him than basketball: "I have always tried to make it clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior." Wooden's faith strongly influenced his life. He read the Bible daily and attended the First Christian Church. He said that he hoped his faith was apparent to others: "If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me."
Read more about this topic: John Wooden
Famous quotes containing the words personal life, personal and/or life:
“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To “see the light” too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Children’s lives are not shaped solely by their families or immediate surroundings at large. That is why we must avoid the false dichotomy that says only government or only family is responsible. . . . Personal values and national policies must both play a role.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton (20th century)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)