Introduction
Deborah Messing (née Shiling) is the first wife of American senator and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.
Deborah Messing was born Deborah Shiling in 1944 in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Moses Shiling, was the chief doctor of pulmonary diseases at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.
For several years, she worked as a buyer for the Hunger Mountain Coop, a '20,000 square foot community-owned natural foods cooperative' in Montpelier, Vermont.
Marriage to Bernie Sanders
Messing and Sanders met in 1963 while attending the University of Chicago. The two volunteered for several months on the Israeli kibbutz Sha'ar HaAmakim before getting married on September 6, 1964. The ceremony was held at the garden of her parents' home in Baltimore. Shortly after the marriage, Messing and Sanders moved to Middlesex, a small hamlet on the outskirts of Montpelier, Vermont.
The marriage ended in a divorce, after 18 months, in 1966. The couple didn't have any children together.
After the divorce, Sanders dated Susan Campbell Mott, with whom he had a son, Levi Sanders (his only biological child,) in 1969. In 1988, Sanders married his second wife Jane O'Meara Sanders, née Driscoll.
Messing lives in Montpelier, Vermont with her current husband Bob, whom she describes as 'a poet slash logger slash philosopher'. A supporter of Sanders, Messing told Daily Mail, "All I can say is I believe in Bernie Sanders and I am a strong supporter."