Editing Eric Hoffer (section)

==Personal life==
Hoffer, who was an [[only child]], never married. He fathered a child with Lili Fabilli Osborne, named Eric Osborne, who was born in 1955 and raised by Lili Osborne and her husband, Selden Osborne.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.bgdailynews.com/features/book-review-longshoreman-philosopher-resurrects-hoffer/article_d82de3cc-d2e3-11e1-a82d-001a4bcf887a.html| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200805021018/https://www.bgdailynews.com/features/book-review-longshoreman-philosopher-resurrects-hoffer/article_d82de3cc-d2e3-11e1-a82d-001a4bcf887a.html| url-status = dead| archive-date = August 5, 2020| title = Longshoreman philosopher| date = July 22, 2012}}</ref> Lili Fabilli Osborne had become acquainted with Hoffer through her husband, a fellow longshoreman and acquaintance of Hoffer's. Despite this, Selden Osborne and Hoffer remained on good terms.<ref name="aei.org"/>

Hoffer referred to Eric Osborne as his son or [[godson]]. Lili Fabilli Osborne died in 2010 at the age of 93.  Prior to her death, Osborne was the [[executor]] of Hoffer's estate, and vigorously controlled the rights to his [[intellectual property]].

In his 2012 book ''Eric Hoffer: The Longshoreman Philosopher,'' journalist [[Tom Bethell]] revealed doubts about Hoffer's account of his early life. Although Hoffer claimed his parents were from [[Alsace-Lorraine]], Hoffer himself spoke with a pronounced [[Bavarian language|Bavarian]] accent.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bethell |first1=Tom |title=Eric Hoffer, Genius{{snd}}and Enigma |url=https://www.hoover.org/research/eric-hoffer-genius-and-enigma |website=[[Hoover Institution|Hoover.org]] |access-date=2019-05-11 |date=2012-04-06}}</ref> He claimed to have been born and raised in the [[The Bronx|Bronx]] but had no [[Bronx accent]]. His lover and executor Lili Fabilli stated that she always thought Hoffer was an immigrant. Her son, Eric Fabilli, said that Hoffer's life might have been comparable to that of [[B. Traven]] and considered hiring a genealogist to investigate Hoffer's early life, to which Hoffer reportedly replied, "Are you ''sure'' you want to know?" [[Pescadero, California|Pescadero]] land-owner Joe Gladstone, a family friend of the Fabillis who also knew Hoffer, said of Hoffer's account of his early life: "I don't believe a word of it." To this day, no one ever has claimed to have known Hoffer in his youth, and no records apparently exist of his parents, nor indeed of Hoffer himself until he was about forty, when his name appeared in a census.