Catherine Calvert Eaton (née Melville, 1926 - 2016) is the mother of Selina Meyer, the 45th and 47th President of the United States.
Biography[]
Born and raised in Darien, Connecticut, Eaton attended the Foxcroft School and Smith College, though she left before graduating.
Her father, Howard Hamlin Melville, was a successful stockbroker and partner at the investment bank First Boston who also claimed to be a distant relation of the writer Herman Melville. Her mother, Caroline, raised money for local causes including the Darien Library and was a vice president of the Connecticut Junior League.
After making her debut at the Junior Assembly, Eaton entered into a first, brief marriage to Prince Guido Vespucci which ended in divorce. She married Gordon Dunn Eaton, a financier who was a junior associate at her father's bank, in 1962. A leveraged buyout pioneer, Eaton and his wife settled at Bentcrest, a 1400 acre gentleman's farm in Centreville, Maryland where they raised racehorses and rare fancy-breed hens. Their daughter and only child, Selina, was born in 1967. Selina Meyer would later describe her mother, known as "Mee-Maw" as "the person who probably taught me the most about the real meaning of gratitude."
Widowed in 1979, Eaton spent the later years of her life in a large house in Chevy Chase, MD absorbed in a variety of pursuits including playing bridge, showing Toy Pomeranian dogs, and spending time with her beloved granddaughter Catherine Meyer.
On November 18, 2016, Eaton died after suffering from a stroke.