Who were Donald Trump’s parents? What he’s shared about his upbringing

President-elect Donald John Trump was born June 14, 1946, to parents Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump.

Fred Trump, who died in June 1999, worked as a real estate developer while Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, who died about a year later in August 2000, worked with different charities near Queens, New York, where they resided. They married in 1936 and had five children together.

Donald Trump wrote about his mother and father in his 1987 book, "Trump: The Art of the Deal," co-authored by Tony Schwartz, and dedicated the book to them.

"The most important influence on me, growing up, was my father, Fred Trump. I learned a lot from him," he wrote. "I learned about toughness in a very tough business, I learned about motivating people, and I learned about competence and efficiency: get in, get it done, get it done right, and get out."

He later added, "We had a very traditional family. My father was the power and the breadwinner, and my mother was the perfect housewife."

Donald Trump said his mother took care of the children and also "cooked and cleaned and darned socks and did charity work at the local hospital."

Read on to learn what else Donald Trump has written and said about his parents and upbringing.

Who was Donald Trump's dad? Fred Trump died on June 25, 1999 at the age of 93 after being hospitalized for pneumonia.

The patriarch of the Trump family was the son of German immigrant Friedrich Trump, NBC News reported , who traveled from Germany to the U.S. in 1885 at the age of 16. Friedrich Trump, a restaurant owner, later returned to Germany and met and wed his wife, Elisabeth, a seamstress, before they both traveled to New York together.

Their son, Fred Trump, first became involved in the real estate business at 19, according to the Associated Press . He initially started selling single-family homes before moving on to high–rises.

In "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump characterized his father's business as "building rent-controlled and rent-stabilizing housing in Brooklyn and Queens."

After graduating from Wharton Business School, Donald Trump wrote in "The Art of the Deal" that he worked for his father's company, then encouraged its expansion into Manhattan.

In his obituary, the AP quoted Fred Trump as saying of Donald Trump, "I gave Donald free rein. He has great vision and everything he touches seems to turn to gold. ... Donald is the smartest person I know.''

Despite admiring his father, he also explained in "The Art of the Deal" why he wanted to break out from the real estate business and move into other ventures.

"The real reason I wanted out of my father's business — more important than the fact that it was physically rough and financially tough — was that I had loftier dreams and visions. And there was no way to implement them building housing in the outer boroughs," Donald Trump said.

In 1991, Fred Trump purchased $3.5 million in chips at one of his son's Atlantic City casinos, which he did not intend to gamble with, to help pay off Donald Trump's debts, the AP reported. (The casino resort later admitted that it had violated state gaming laws by accepting the loan and paid a $30,000 penalty .)

Donald Trump said his father maintained the same working conditions throughout his career. "My father still works out of a small, modest back office on Avenue Z in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, in a building he put up in 1948. It's simply never occurred to him to move," he wrote in the book.

Who was Donald Trump's mom? Mary Anne MacLeod Trump died on August 7, 2000 at the age of 88. The Associated Press described her as a philanthropist in her obituary and said she was born on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.

She first encountered Fred Trump during a trip to New York City in the 1930s, the AP reported, and they tied the knot in 1936 before building a home together in the Jamaica Estates section of Queens.

While Donald Trump spent most of the "Growing Up" chapter of his book reflecting on his father's impact on his childhood, he did note that he inherited his "showmanship" from his mother.

"She always had a flair for the dramatic and the grand," he said. "She was a very traditional housewife, but she also had a sense of the world beyond her. I still remember my mother, who is Scottish by birth, sitting in front of the television set to watch Queen Elizabeth's coronation and not budging for an entire day."

He recalled his mother being enamored by the regality while his father seemed unimpressed.

Donald Trump continued, "I also remember my father that day, pacing around impatiently. 'For Christ's sake, Mary,' he'd say. 'Enough is enough, turn it off. They're all a bunch of con artists.' My mother didn't even look up. They were total opposites in that sense. My mother loves splendor and magnificence, while my father, who is very down-to-earth, gets excited only by competence and efficiency."

Fred and Mary Trump were married for 63 years Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump were married for 63 years. They shared five children.

Fred Trump Jr. died in 1981 at the age of 42 after struggling with alcoholism. "It's very sad, because he was a wonderful guy who never quite found himself. In many ways he had it all, but the pressures of our particular family were not for him. I only wish I had realized this sooner," Donald Trump wrote in "The Art of the Deal." He told The Washington Post in 2019 that he regretted putting pressure on his brother to join the business instead of encouraging him to pursue his dreams of becoming a pilot.

Robert Trump, a businessman, died in 2020. "I think it must be hard to have me for a brother but he's never said anything about it and we're very close," Donald Trump previously said in his book. "Robert gets along with almost everyone, which is great for me since I sometimes have to be the bad guy."

Maryanne Trump Barry, who died in 2023 , was a federal appellate judge in Philadelphia. In "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump wrote of his sister: "She followed my mother's path at first, marrying and staying at home while her son grew up. But she also inherited a lot of my father's drive and ambition, and when her son David became a teenager, she went back to school, to study law."

Elizabeth Trump Grau, Donald Trump's other sister, is living and worked as an executive at Chase Bank Manhattan, per her mother's obituary. Donald Trump described her as "kind and bright but less ambitious" in "The Art of the Deal."

Reflecting on how his parents raised five children in "The Art of the Deal," Donald Trump wrote, "We lived in a large house, but we never thought of ourselves as rich kids. We were brought up to know the value of a dollar and to appreciate the importance of hard work."

He described his parents as having "no pretensions."