Mae West
Early life

Mary Jane West was born in either the Greenpoint or Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn on August 17, 1893, before New York City was consolidated. She was delivered at home by an aunt who was a midwife. She was the eldest surviving child of Mathilde Delker (originally "Doelger" and later Americanized to "Delker" or "Dilker") West, a corset and fashion model, and John Patrick "Battlin' Jack" West, a prizefighter who later worked as a "special policeman" and created his own private investigations agency. Her German-born mother, who went by the nicknames "Tillie" and "Matilda", had emigrated from Bavaria in 1886 with her five siblings and their parents, Christiana (née Brüning) and Jakob Doelger. Her paternal grandmother after whom she was named, Mary Jane (née Copley), was of Irish descent. Her paternal grandfather, John Edwin West, was of English and Scottish descent.

West's parents married in Brooklyn on January 18, 1889, to the pleasure of the groom's parents and the displeasure of the bride's, and raised their children as Protestants. Her eldest sister, Katie, died in infancy. Her remaining siblings were a sister named Mildred Katherine "Beverly" West and a brother named John Edwin West II (sometimes inaccurately called "John Edwin West, Jr."). During her childhood, the family moved to various parts of Woodhaven, Queens, as well as the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn. At Neir's Social Hall in Woodhaven, West supposedly first performed professionally.
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