In 1963, Sanders and Deborah Shiling Messing, whom he met in college, volunteered for several months on the Israeli kibbutz Sha'ar HaAmakim. They married in 1964 and bought a summer home in Vermont; they had no children and divorced in 1966.[28][391][392][14] His son (and only biological child), Levi Sanders, was born in 1969 to then-girlfriend Susan Campbell Mott.[26]
On May 28, 1988, Sanders married Jane O'Meara Driscoll (née Mary Jane O'Meara), who later became president of Burlington College, in Burlington, Vermont.[393] The day after their wedding, the couple visited the Soviet Union as part of an official delegation in his capacity as mayor.[394][395] They own a row house in Capitol Hill, a house in Burlington's New North End neighborhood, and a lakefront summer home in North Hero.[396][397][398][399] He considers Jane's three children—Dave Driscoll (born 1975), Carina Driscoll (born 1974), and Heather Titus (née Driscoll; 1971)—to be his own.[28][25] He also has seven grandchildren,[400] three (including one who was adopted) through his son Levi and four through his stepchildren.[401]
Sanders's elder brother, Larry, lives in England;[402] he was a