Lawrence Joseph Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. He was born to a nineteen year old single mother by the name of Florence Spellman. His absentee father was an Army Air Corps pilot who never married Florence. At the age of 9 months, he contracted pneumonia and Florence gave him to her uncle and aunt, Lillian and Louis Ellison, in Chicago for adoption. Lillian, his adoptive mother, was very supportive of Larry but his adoptive father Louis, was quite the contrary. He credits Lillian as one of the reasons he became a successful businessman. Larry Ellison enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after high school. He was awarded the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s
