Rodham was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Hugh Simpson Rodham (1879-1965) and Hannah Jones (1882-1952). His father was English, an immigrant from County Durham, while his mother was born in Pennsylvania, to Welsh immigrant parents one of which was from Merthyr Tydfil. Both were descended from lines of coal miners.
He briefly worked for his father"s employer, Scranton Lace Company, then freighthopped to Chicago without telling his parents.
Rodham attended Pennsylvania State University and was a third-string tight end for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education from the College of Education in 1935, at the height of the Great Depression.
He joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. Rodham found work there selling drapery fabrics around the Midwest, sending the money he made back home. In 1937, while Rodham was making a sales call at a textile company, he met Dorothy Emma Howell (1919–2011), who was applying for a job at that company.
Hugh Rodham enlisted in the United States Navy, where he became a Chief Petty Officer stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station, performing training duties for sailors headed for the Pacific Ocean theater of World World War World War II After the war, he began what was to prove to be a very successful career in the textile supply industry, starting with Rodrik Fabrics, a drapery fabric business located in Chicago"s famous Merchandise Mart building.
His company made drapes and window shades. Customers included offices, hotels, airlines, and theaters.
Rodham later opened a fabric print plant building on the North Side. He entered politics once.
Hoping to work his way into Richard J. Daley"s Democratic Party political machine in order to capitalize on a downtown investment he had made, he ran for Chicago alderman as a Democratic-leaning independent in 1947, but was decisively beaten by someone running on the regular Democratic line.
According to some family members, this episode led to his strong dislike of the Democratic Party for the rest of his life. The Rodhams had three children: Hillary (born 1947), Hugh (born 1950), and Tony (born 1954). In 1950, they moved to the more affluent Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois.
The family still maintained ties to Scranton: all three children were christened there, and they spent summers in a rural region that overlooks Lake Winola, located in Overfield Township in the nearby Pennsylvania Pocono Mountains, staying in a cottage that in 1921 Hugh and his father had built themselves.
Rodham was a staunch supporter of Barry Goldwater"s 1964 presidential campaign and remained a committed Republican until his death. Hugh Rodham died in Little Rock, Arkansas, on April 7, 1993, three weeks after suffering a stroke and less than three months after Bill Clinton"s inauguration as United States. president
Following a private memorial service in Little Rock attended by the Clintons, he was buried in the Washburn Street Cemetery, Scranton, Pennsylvania, in a private funeral also attended by the Clinton family.
