He was one of 25 children. I was always curious if he reconnected with them once he made it as a boxer. Was it he out of contact with them for the rest of his life, did he try to support them, etc. Also, his mother. Obviously his father wasn't around too long but what about his mother? Did he support/reconnect with her post prison/boxing?
the way I heard it 2 dirt poor familys with an absent parent of 10 plus kids joined together. something simular heppened in joe louis's home also. kind of like the "brady bunch" without the cheese and wholesome fun..
Sorry for bumping the thread but I've always wondered what happened to his mom Helen. I know she was alive in '71. I know Tobe his dad died in '48 I believe but I found absolutely nothing on Helen. His wife Geraldine, died in '05.
Sonny, an adult-child, illiterate for many years, got pulled into low-grade mafia "enforcement", was hated by the police in most cities he lived in, used the only asset he really had: his fists in boxing, and then the nite of his greatest professional accomplishment (Heavyweight title), no one shows up to welcome him back to his home city after the Patterson victory. No wonder he really didn't give a chite from 1964 on.
I think Sonny was the only one that went to prison. And that’s where he learned to box. I think only about three of his actual siblings were boys, although there would have been more boys on the step fathers side of the family. A famous musician was somehow related to that end.
There was one very strange story about Liston rebuffing one of his brothers in, I think, the second Patterson camp. The speculation was that this brother was actually "Sonny Liston", and that Sonny was an older brother - in other words, that Sonny was older than he actually declared, that the reason he was so touchy about his birthdate was that he wasn't actually Sonny Liston - rather, he was Sonny Liston's older brother. That the birth certificate he carried was his younger brother's. Probably not true but it's a nice story.
Man, some of my threads get more love almost ten years after the fact than they did back when I actually first posted them. Helpful posters!