Roberta McCain
mother of John McCain

Roberta Wright McCain (February 7, 1912 – October 12, 2020) was an American socialite and oil heiress. She was the wife of Admiral John S. McCain Jr., with whom she had three children including U.S. Senator John S. McCain III and stage actor and journalist Joe McCain. McCain was active in the Navy Wives Clubs and her Capitol Hill home was a popular salon for lawmakers and politicians. In 2007 and 2008, she actively campaigned in support of her son John during his presidential bid.
Early life
Roberta Wright and her identical twin sister, Rowena Fay (died August 6, 2011), were born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on February 7, 1912. She had three additional siblings: Archibald Kidwell Wright, Martha Nadine Wright (married to Bert Andrews) and Alexander Franklin Wright. Their parents were Archibald Grahee Wright, a Los Angeles oil wildcatter, and Myrtle Mae Wright (née Fletcher). Her father became a stay-at-home dad after gaining wealth from the oil industry and the family traveled constantly, with trips every summer during August. They settled in Los Angeles and she was primarily raised there.
Marriage and family
On January 21, 1933, Wright eloped in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, with John S. McCain Jr., a U.S. naval ensign who would later become a four-star admiral.
“Roberta McCain” enters the record as mother of John McCain. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Roberta, McCain and mother can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Roberta McCain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.