Bob and Lee Woodruff began their marriage knowing that Bob wanted to travel the world. As he advanced in his career, the consequences of his TV work became more apparent to both Bob and Lee. The traumatic brain injury that Bob received while reporting in Iraq changed their lives. They are an example of what it means to stay by one another "in sickness and in health."
Here's information about their marriage, children, and more.
4/27/07: Bob Woodruff left for his first overseas reporting assignment since his traumatic injuries in Iraq in January 2006.
Bob Woodruff: c.1961, in Michigan.
Lee McConaughy: Lee is a New York native.
Bob and Lee started dating in New York in the summer of 1986. Bob proposed in early summer 1988 after learning that he would be teaching law to Chinese students in Beijing.
In talking about going to China so soon after their wedding, Lee has said, "That pretty much set the tone for the rest of our life."
Source: Philadelphia Daily News
Wedding Date:
Three months after Bob proposed, Lee and Bob had their wedding on September 11, 1988 in a beautiful stone chapel, Helen Hughes Memorial Chapel, in Silver Bay, New York.The ceremony was performed by Rev. Lee Van Sickle, a United Methodist minister. Source: NY Times
Bob and Lee have four children. Together they dealt with the stillborn birth of their third child.
- Macklin (Mack)Robert Woodruff: Born in 1991.
- Cathryn Woodruff: Born in 1994.
- Twins, Nora Woodruff and Claire Woodruff: Born in 2000.
Bob: Prior to becoming an award winning television journalist, Woodruff was a corporate lawyer. He joined ABC as a correspondent in 1996. With Elizabeth Vargas, he became co-anchor of ABC's World News Tonight on January 3, 2006. Bob Woodruff is fluent in Mandarine Chinese.
Lee: Lee worked as an account supervisor for a public relations agency before they married. Later she worked with an American marketing firm in Beijing.
In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing
by Lee and Bob Woodruff
Lee is now a public relations executive and a freelance writer.
Education:
Bob received his BA from Colgate University in 1983 and his law degree, JD, from the University Michigan in 1987.Lee received her BA degree from Colgate University in 1982.
In the first 17 years of their marriage, Bob and Lee lived in nine places. She describes their first home together in Beijing as, "One tiny concrete room, no hot water, concrete floors and live chickens in the hallways. It was Peace Corps living and yet it was the most liberating year of our lives."
Source: On the Front Lines, the Colgate Scene, May 2002
Lee and Bob currently reside north of New York in Westchester County, New York.
According to a site about Silver Bay Road, Bob and Lee also own a white frame cottage on the top of a hill that was built in 1898 in the Adirondacks.
2/27/07: Bob Woodruff is back on ABC News with a report about his own recovery from brain injury and how military members with brain injury are treated.
Source: Bob Woodruff: To Iraq and Back
3/16/2006: ABC News announced that "Bob is up and about, regularly talking and joking with Lee, the children, other family members and — yes — watching the news." Bob has left the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD., and will be recovering in a facility closer to his family.
Source: CNN.com
2/23/2006: Doctors are slowly bringing Bob Woodruff out of sedation. They are impressed by his physical strength. Bob has responded to his wife and children's presence at the hospital. Read full update on his health.
1/29/2006: Although he was wearing body armor, a helmet, and ballistic eye protection, Bob Woodruff, along with Canadian cameraman Doug Vogt, received serious head injuries, wounds to his upper body, and several broken ribs in a roadside bomb attack near Taji.
He had surgery at a U.S. military field hospital in Iraq and was later transported to U.S. medical facilities in Landstuhl, Germany where he was listed as being in stable condition.
Quotes About Love and Marriage:
Lee and Bob: "And there are no perfect spouses either, just those who love each other enough to standy by 'for better or worse.' Don't be fooled: that kind of endurance is, perhaps, the greatest expression of love."Source: In an Instant, page 288.
Bob: "Lee and I have shared so many experiences. We have been tested by life, perhaps more than others we know. but we have lived it as well, full throttle. I could not have chosen a woman more perfect for me, and after eighteen years of marriage, I remain in awe of her."
Source: In an Instant, page 282.
Lee Woodruff, about being a correspondent's wife: "Now, more than ever, we have much in common with military wives in times of war. We are charged with learning how to be single mothers with a paycheck. Foreign correspondents' wives must do what they have always done: shoulder the burden of being both mother and father and blot out the very real chance their husbands might not return."
Source: On the Front Lines, the Colgate Scene, May 2002
Producer Vinnie Malhotra, about the Woodruffs: "What strikes me is, they have four kids, they've been married a long time, but they would be on the phone and I could have easily believed he was talking to his girlfriend. They have that kind of jokey, flirtatious conversation. It's wonderful. You can tell that they're so much in love."
Source: Behind Enemy Lines, the Colgate Scene, May 2002
