Virginia Joan Bennett was born at Mother Cabrini Hospital in New York City. She was raised in a Roman Catholic family,[citation needed] in suburban Bronxville, New York. Her parents were Virginia Joan (Stead) (1911–1976) and Harry Wiggin Bennett, Jr. (1907–1981), who was a graduate of Cornell University and advertising executive. Joan grew up with one younger sister, Candace "Candy," who was born in July 1938. She attended Manhattanville College (then a Sacred Heart college), in Purchase, New York. Manhattanville is also the alma mater of Rose Kennedy, her future mother-in-law, and Jean Kennedy Smith and Ethel Kennedy, her future sisters-in-law. In 1982 she received an MA in Education from Lesley College, now known as Lesley University.
