Doria Loyce Ragland (born September 2, 1956)[1][a] is the mother of Meghan Markle and the ex-wife of American retired television lighting director and director of photography Thomas Markle Sr.. Ragland holds a degree in social work and is a former makeup artist and yoga instructor.
Early life
Doria Ragland was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to nurse Jeanette Arnold (1929–2000) and her second husband Alvin Azell Ragland (1929–2011),[3] an antiques dealer who sold items at flea markets.[4] Ragland's maternal grandparents, James and Nettie Arnold, respectively worked as a bellhop and an elevator operator at the Hotel St. Regis on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.[3][5][6] Her parents moved to Los Angeles when Ragland was a baby[3] and later divorced. In 1983, her father married kindergarten teacher Ava Burrow,[7] who is near to Ragland's age; the two remained close after that marriage also ended in divorce.[8] Ragland has two older maternal half-siblings, Joseph (known as "JJ"; 1949–2021) and Saundra Johnson (born 1952), and a younger paternal half-brother, Alvin Joffrey Ragland.[9]
Various contemporary records state that the Ragland family descend from Richard "Dick" Ragland, born into slavery c.1792 in Chatham County, North Carolina; his son, Stephen Ragland (1848-1926) of Jonesboro in Georgia, lived long enough to experience the abolition of slavery in 1865. The family's Ragland surname came from slave-owner William Ragland, a Methodist planter and land speculator who had emigrated during the eighteenth century from Cornwall, England, to North America.[10][11] Doria's daughter Meghan Markle has claimed that a genealogy test revealed that she is 43% Nigerian.[12]
Career and education
After leaving Fairfax High School,[4] Ragland worked as a temporary assistant makeup artist on the set of the television show General Hospital where she met future ex-husband Thomas Markle, Sr. [13] She worked as a travel agent and owned a small business.[14] After divorcing Markle, Ragland completed her undergraduate degree, a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.[4] In 2011, she earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Southern California.[15] After passing California's licensing examination in 2015, she was employed as a social worker for three years at the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services Clinic in Culver City.[16][17][18][19] Ragland has also worked as a yoga instructor.[20] In 2020, it was reported that she would teach a jewelry making course at Santa Monica College.[21] In the same year, Ragland became CEO, CFO and secretary of a care home firm in Beverly Hills, called Loving Kindness Senior Care Management.[22]
^Morton, A. (April 12, 2018). Meghan: A Hollywood Princess(304 pages). Michael O'Mara Books, 2018. p. Chapter 2 – Growing up Markle. ISBN978-1782439653. Archived from the original on June 15, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018. She (Doria) also worked as a travel agent....
^Morris, Regan (September 27, 2017). "'Meghan who?' LA shrugs over Harry's hometown girlfriend". BBC News. Archived from the original on September 30, 2017. Retrieved November 28, 2017. But Markle's mother lives in the View Park-Windsor Hills neighborhood, one of the wealthiest primarily African-American areas in the US.
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