Humble Beginnings in Hard Times
Billie Holiday was born as Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of an unmarried teenage couple: Sarah Julia “Sadie” Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Billie’s mother moved to Philadelphia at the age of 19, after being kicked out of her parents’ home in Baltimore, Maryland for getting pregnant.
Source: lagazettedhector.fr
Without support from her parents, Sadie asked her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, to take care of her newborn daughter and have her stay with her in Baltimore. Soon after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned Sadie to pursue a career in music as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Billie’s true father is debated. The birth certificate named her father as Frank DeViese, but she always insisted that he was Clarence Holiday, her mother’s childhood sweetheart.