Editing Spiro Agnew (section)

==Early life==

===Family background===
[[File:Post Office and City Hall, Baltimore, Maryland, circa 1907-1914 (cropped).jpg|thumb|alt=A post card showing a cityscape, from slightly after the turn of the 20th century|Downtown Baltimore around the time of Agnew's birth]]
Spiro Agnew's father was born Theophrastos Anagnostopoulos in about 1877, in the Greek town of [[Gargalianoi]], [[Messenia]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Athens rules out pressure by U.S.|date=October 10, 1971|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/10/archives/athen-rules-out-pressure-by-us-but-is-willing-to-discuss-its.html|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=January 28, 2018|archive-date=December 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171203013815/http://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/10/archives/athen-rules-out-pressure-by-us-but-is-willing-to-discuss-its.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Greek Americans: Struggle and Success|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FCIxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT149|first1=Peter C.|last1=Moskos|first2=Charles C.|last2=Moskos|year=2017|publisher=Routledge|others=With an introduction by Michael Dukakis|pages=118–119|isbn=978-1351516693}}</ref> The family may have been involved in olive growing and been impoverished during a crisis in the industry in the 1890s.{{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=7}} Anagnostopoulos emigrated to the United States in 1897{{sfn|Wepman|2001}} (some accounts say 1902){{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=7}}<ref name=NYTobit>{{cite news |title=Spiro T. Agnew, Ex-Vice President, Dies at 77 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/18/us/spiro-t-agnew-ex-vice-president-dies-at-77.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=September 18, 1996 |access-date=August 16, 2017 |archive-date=August 21, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170821165903/http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/18/us/spiro-t-agnew-ex-vice-president-dies-at-77.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and settled in [[Schenectady, New York]], where he changed his name to Theodore Agnew and opened a [[diner]].{{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=7}} A passionate self-educator, Agnew maintained a lifelong interest in philosophy; one family member recalled that "if he wasn't reading something to improve his mind, he wouldn't read."{{sfn|Witcover|1972|p=33}} Around 1908, he moved to Baltimore, where he purchased a restaurant. Here he met William Pollard, who was the city's [[Federal Meat Inspection Act|federal meat inspector]]. The two became friends; Pollard and his wife Margaret were regular customers of the restaurant. After Pollard died in April 1917, Agnew and Margaret Pollard began a courtship which led to their marriage on December 12, 1917. Spiro Agnew was born 11 months later, on November 9, 1918.{{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=7}}

Margaret Pollard, born Margaret Marian Akers in [[Bristol, Virginia]], in 1883, was the youngest in a family of 10 children.{{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=7}} As a young adult she moved to Washington, D.C., and found employment in various government offices before marrying Pollard and moving to Baltimore. The Pollards had one son, Roy, who was 10 years old when Pollard died.{{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=7}} After the marriage to Agnew in 1917 and Spiro's birth the following year, the new family settled in a small apartment at 226 West Madison Street, near downtown Baltimore.{{sfn|Witcover|1972|p=30}}

===Childhood, education, early career, and marriage===
[[File:Forest Park Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Maryland LCCN2012630129.tif|thumb|left|upright|alt=A short flight of stairs leads up to a red-brick civic building|The [[Enoch Pratt Free Library]] branch in the Forest Park neighborhood of Baltimore]]
In accordance with his mother's wishes, the infant Spiro was baptized as an [[Episcopalian]], rather than into the [[Greek Orthodox Church]] of his father. Nevertheless, Theodore was the dominant figure within the family, and a strong influence on his son. When in 1969, after his vice presidential inauguration, Baltimore's Greek community endowed a scholarship in Theodore Agnew's name, Spiro Agnew told the gathering: "I am proud to say that I grew up in the light of my father. My beliefs are his."{{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=8}}

During the early 1920s, the Agnews prospered. Theodore acquired a larger restaurant, the Piccadilly, and moved the family to a house in the [[Forest Park, Baltimore|Forest Park]] northwest section of the city, where Spiro attended Garrison Junior High School and later [[Forest Park High School (Baltimore, Maryland)|Forest Park High School]]. This period of affluence ended with the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929|crash of 1929]], and the restaurant closed. In 1931, the family's savings were wiped out when a local bank failed, forcing them to sell the house and move to a small apartment.{{sfn|Witcover|1972|p=36}} Agnew later recalled how his father responded to these misfortunes: "He just shrugged it off and went to work with his hands without complaint."{{sfn|Witcover|1972|p=34}} Theodore Agnew sold fruit and vegetables from a roadside stall, while the youthful Spiro helped the family's budget with part-time jobs, delivering groceries and distributing leaflets.{{sfn|Witcover|1972|p=36}} As he grew up, Spiro was increasingly influenced by his peers, and began to distance himself from his Greek background.{{sfn|Witcover|1972|p=35}} He refused his father's offer to pay for Greek language lessons, and preferred to be known by a nickname, "Ted".{{sfn|Coffey|2015|p=8}}

In February 1937, Agnew entered Johns Hopkins University at their new [[Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University|Homewood]] campus in north Baltimore as a chemistry major. After a few months, he found the pressure of the academic work increasingly stressful, and was distracted by the family's continuing financial problems and worries about the international situation, in which war seemed likely. In 1939 he decided that his future lay in law rather than chemistry, left Johns Hopkins and began night classes at the University of Baltimore School of Law. To support himself, he took a day job as an insurance clerk with the Maryland Casualty Company at their [[The Rotunda (Baltimore)|Rotunda building]] on 40th Street in [[Roland Park, Baltimore|Roland Park]].{{sfn|Witcover|1972|pp=37–38}}

During the three years Agnew spent at the company he rose to the position of assistant underwriter.{{sfn|Witcover|1972|pp=37–38}} At the office, he met a young filing clerk, [[Judy Agnew|Elinor Judefind]], known as "Judy". She had grown up in the same part of the city as Agnew, but the two had not previously met. They began dating, became engaged, and were married in Baltimore on May 27, 1942. They had four children;<ref name=Judith>{{cite news |title=Judy Agnew, Wife of Vice President, Dies at 91 |last=Martin |first=Douglas |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/us/judy-agnew-wife-of-vice-president-dies-at-91.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=June 27, 2012 |access-date=August 18, 2017 |archive-date=August 1, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170801170612/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/us/judy-agnew-wife-of-vice-president-dies-at-91.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Pamela Lee, James Rand, Susan Scott, and Elinor Kimberly.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838602,00.html |title=Nation: Running Mate's Mate |date=August 23, 1968 |magazine=Time |access-date=January 3, 2010 |archive-date=October 29, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101029070129/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838602,00.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>