Living In An Abandoned Gas Station

Fascinating Life of Kyrsten Lea Sinema (/ˈkɪərstən ˈsɪnəmə/ KEER-stən SIN-ə-mə; born July 12, 1976)[1] is an American politician, lawyer, and former social worker who served from 2019 to 2025 as a United States senator from Arizona. A former member of the Democratic Party, Sinema became an independent in December 2022.; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrsten_Sinema#Career Early life and education Sinema was born in Tucson, Arizona,[8][9] on July 12, 1976,[10] to Marilyn (Wiley) and Dan Sinema.[11][12] She has an older brother and younger sister.[13][14] Her father was an attorney. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and her mother, who had custody of the children, remarried. With her siblings, mother, and stepfather, Sinema moved to DeFuniak Springs, Florida, a small town on the Panhandle.[14] Although she later became the only religiously unaffiliated member of the U.S. Senate,[15] Sinema was raised as a Mormon (LDS Church).[16] Sinema has said that when her stepfather lost his job and the bank foreclosed on their home, the family lived for three years in an abandoned gas station[17] and that for two years they had no toilet or electricity while living there.[18] She later recalled: "My stepdad built a bunkbed for me and my sister. We separated our bunkbed from the kitchen with one of those big chalkboards on rollers. I knew that was weird. A chalkboard shouldn't be a wall. A kitchen should have running water."[18] According to journalist Jonathan Martin in The New York Times, Sinema has given "contradictory answers about her early life," and her mother and stepfather have filed court documents saying they had made monthly payments for gas, electricity, and phone bills, even though Sinema had said they had been "without running water or electricity".[19] Asked whether she had embellished details from her childhood, Sinema said, "I've shared what I remember from my childhood. I know what I lived through."[19]