Editing Spiro Agnew (section)

===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}}