Roger Clinton Sr.

Roger Miles Wister Clinton Sr. (July 23, 1908 – November 8, 1967) was an American car salesman. He was the father of Roger Clinton Jr. and first stepfather of U.S. president Bill Clinton having married Bill's mother Virginia in 1950 when Bill was 4. While Roger and Virginia Cassidy divorced in 1962 they were remarried again shortly after, with Bill adopting the Clinton surname.

Early life Roger Clinton was born in Yell County, Arkansas, the son of Allen W. Clinton (August 26, 1880 – June 14, 1965) and Eula Cornwell (May 29, 1882 – October 10, 1975). Clinton was an owner of the local Buick dealership that he ran with his brother and a friend, Earl T. Ricks. He was later described by Bill Clinton as "a handsome, hell-raising, twice-divorced man from Hot Springs, Arkansas". Roger Clinton and his family lived at the south end of Hope. Eventually Clinton sold the Buick dealership and moved, with his family, to a farm a few miles west of Hot Springs. After a year or so on the farm, around 1955, they moved into Hot Springs. In 1956, he and Virginia had their only child, Roger Clinton Jr., in Hot Springs.

Roger Sr. and Virginia divorced in 1962, but remarried a few months later, after which his stepson took the surname Clinton at the Garland County Courthouse. Though Bill loved his stepfather, Roger's alcoholism, gambling, and subsequent abuse of his family would lead to Bill's intervening on numerous occasions with physical force, Clinton was eventually reconciled with his stepson when Bill drove down from Georgetown over several weekends to visit him at the Duke Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, after he became ill; this was a journey of some . Bill would eventually forgive Roger for his abusive actions as a stepfather. After a period in the hospital, he asked to come home to die. Roger Clinton died of cancer aged 59 in 1967.