Who Is John Glenn’s Wife, Annie Castor? Why Astronaut’s Partner Who Used To Stutter Is A Hero, Too

Former astronaut John Glenn was touted as an American hero, but his wife, Annie Castor, is considered a hero, too. For half a century she struggled with stuttering. At the age of 53, she entered a program to help her speak fluidly.

While Glenn was a hero to the rest of the country, Annie was a hero to Glenn after he saw her overcome her disability. “I saw Annie’s perseverance and strength through the years and it just made me admire her and love her even more,” Glenn once wrote about his wife, according to a CNN article from 2012. “I don’t know if I would have had the courage.”

Annie’s stuttering was categorized as an “85-percent” disability. That means, when she went to talk, she was unable to speak 85 percent of the time.

She was teased at school by classmates. “I can remember some very painful experiences -- especially the ridicule,” she once wrote, according to CNN.

But not from Glenn. They literally grew up in the same playpen together in New Concord, Ohio. He always saw past her stutter and they married April 6, 1943.

As an adult, her disability scared her. “Can you imagine living in the modern world and being afraid to use the telephone? ‘Hello’ used to be so hard for me to say,” she once wrote. “I worried that my children would be injured and need a doctor. Could I somehow find the words to get the information across on the phone?”

Her stutter wouldn’t disable Annie, now 97, forever. She found a doctor in 1973 who helped her speak without anxious bursts. Her stutter was depicted in the 2015 television series, “The Astronaut Wives Club.”

Glenn became a national icon when he became the third American to enter space and the first to orbit the Earth in 1962. He circled the Earth three times. Later in life, Glenn became a politician. He was a Democratic Ohio Senator for 24 years. In 1984, he ran for president briefly.

He died Thursday at James Cancer Hospital in Columbus at 95 years old. A cause of death has not yet been revealed.

By Thursday, Annie did not issue a statement about her husband’s death.

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