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==Personal life==
[[File:1915 Babe Ruth and Helen Woodford (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|Ruth and his first wife, Helen Woodford, 1915]]
Ruth met [[Helen Woodford]] (1897–1929), by some accounts, in a coffee shop in [[Boston]], where she was a waitress. They married as teenagers on October 17, 1914.<ref>{{harvp|Creamer|1992|pp=84, 100}}</ref> Although Ruth later claimed to have been married in [[Elkton, Maryland]], records show that they were married at [[Saint Paul Catholic Church (Ellicott City, Maryland)|St. Paul's Catholic Church]] in [[Ellicott City, Maryland|Ellicott City]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Shoken |first=Fred |url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-elkton-marriage-20120103-story.html |title=Babe Ruth, Elkton, and the Battle of Waterloo |newspaper=The Baltimore Sun |date=January 3, 2012 |access-date=June 15, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023175304/http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-elkton-marriage-20120103-story.html |archive-date=October 23, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> They adopted a daughter, [[Dorothy Ruth Pirone|Dorothy]] (1921–1989), in 1921. Ruth and Helen separated around 1925 reportedly because of Ruth's repeated [[Adultery|infidelities]] and neglect.<ref>{{harvp|Creamer|1992|p=281}}</ref> They appeared in public as a couple for the last time during the 1926 World Series.<ref>{{harvp|Creamer|1992|p=336}}</ref> Helen died in January 1929 at age 31 in a fire in a house in [[Watertown, Massachusetts]] owned by Edward Kinder, a dentist with whom she had been living as "Mrs. Kinder". In her book, ''My Dad, the Babe'',<ref>{{Cite book |title=My Dad, The Babe: Growing up with an American Hero |last1=Pirone |first1=Dorothy |last2=Martens |first2=Chris |publisher=Quinlan Press |year=1988 |isbn=978-1-55770-031-5 |location=Boston |page=250 |oclc=17652057}}</ref> Dorothy claimed that she was Ruth's biological child by a mistress named Juanita Jennings.<ref name="Dorothy obit">{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/20/obituaries/dorothy-r-pirone-68-babe-ruth-s-daughter.html|title=Dorothy R. Pirone, 68, Babe Ruth's Daughter|work=The New York Times|date=May 20, 1989|access-date=May 21, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190404155119/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/20/obituaries/dorothy-r-pirone-68-babe-ruth-s-daughter.html|archive-date=April 4, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1980, Juanita, who was at the time very ill, admitted this to Dorothy and Dorothy's sister, Julia.<ref name=":1" />
On April 17, 1929, three months after the death of his first wife, Ruth married actress and model [[Claire Merritt Hodgson]] (1900–1976) and adopted her daughter Julia (1916–2019).<ref>{{cite news|last=Goldstein|first=Richard|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/obituaries/julia-ruth-stevens-dead-babe-ruth.html|title=Julia Ruth Stevens, Babe Ruth's Daughter, Dies at 102|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 9, 2019|access-date=March 11, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190310163514/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/obituaries/julia-ruth-stevens-dead-babe-ruth.html|archive-date=March 10, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> It was the second and final marriage for both parties.<ref>{{cite news |last=Wiessner |first=Christian |title=Baseball says goodbye as Yankee Stadium retired |date=September 22, 2008 |work=Reuters |publisher=[[Thomson Reuters]] |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-baseball-yankeestadium-idUSN1950865620080922 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120726025752/http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/09/22/us-baseball-yankeestadium-idUSN1950865620080922 |archive-date=July 26, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Peter|last=Kerasotis|title=Home, at the Other House That Ruth Built|date=March 10, 2014|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/sports/baseball/yankees-home-at-the-other-house-that-ruth-built.html|access-date=March 18, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140318061412/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/sports/baseball/yankees-home-at-the-other-house-that-ruth-built.html|archive-date=March 18, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> Claire, unlike Helen, was well-travelled and educated, and put structure into Ruth's life, like [[Miller Huggins]] did for him on the field.<ref name=":1" />
By one account, Julia and Dorothy were, through no fault of their own, the reason for the seven-year rift in Ruth's relationship with teammate Lou Gehrig. Sometime in 1932, during a conversation that she assumed was private, Gehrig's mother remarked, "It's a shame [Claire] doesn't dress Dorothy as nicely as she dresses her own daughter." When the comment got back to Ruth, he angrily told Gehrig to tell his mother to mind her own business. Gehrig, in turn, took offense at what he perceived as Ruth's comment about his mother. The two men reportedly never spoke off the field until they reconciled at Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, July 4, 1939, shortly after Gehrig's retirement from baseball.<ref>{{harvp|Creamer|1992|p=415}}</ref>
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