Hiram Thorpe and Charlotte Vieux were the celebrities parents of the late American athlete and Olympic gold medalist James Francis Thorpe who was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics.
Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics (one in classic pentathlon and the other in decathlon). He also played football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball.
Though he lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the contemporary amateurism rules.
30 years after his death in 1983, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals with replicas, after ruling that the decision to strip him of his medals fell outside of the required 30 days.
Who are Jim Thorpe’s parents? Meet late Hiram Thorpe and Charlotte Vieux
Thorpe was born into a Christian religious home. His parents were both Roman Catholic. He is the son of Hiram Thorpe and Charlotte Vieux.
Hiram and Charlotte are both of mixed-race ancestry. Hiram had an Irish father and a Sac and Fox Indian mother, and Charlotte had a French father and a Potawatomi mother, a descendant of Chief Louis Vieux.
Both couples met some years back before they eventually got married in 1880. The two were very happy together and they were blessed with four children all boys and a twin Jim Thorpe and his brother Charlie Thorpe, and the other two George Thorpe and Edward Thorpe.
Charlotte is a Potawatomi, was born in 1861 in what is now Kansas and lived for 40 years, and died on November 17, 1901, in Indian Territory, United States. She died of childbirth complications.
Hiram on the other hand, was born in 1852 and lived for 52 years and passed away on April 24, 1904, in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma map. He died from gangrene poisoning after being wounded in a hunting accident.
Both couples are white and hold American nationality.
