Robert Louis DeBarge, Sr.

Robert Louis DeBarge, Sr. from Cicero, Illinois, served in the United States Armed Forces and was of French and English descent.Robert DeBarge's grandfather, Arthur DeBarge, immigrated from France. Robert met Etterlene Abney , who is African American, in Detroit, Michigan, in the early 1950s. They married in 1953, at 21 and 17 years old, respectively, settling in a predominantly black section of Detroit, where they had ten children. In 1972, the DeBarges moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Etterlene's brother, Bishop William Charles Abney, Jr., pastored Bethel Pentecostal Church. Etterlene divorced Robert DeBarge sometime in 1974 after 21 years of marriage. The children claimed their father sexually and physically abused several of them, which the father denied. Etterlene later married a second time to George Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican.