African-American woman Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. Her birth name is Loretta Pleasant. After her mother Eliza passed away during the birth of her tenth child, her father moved his ten children to another part of the state where they were all dispersed among relatives. Henrietta "Hennie" was raised by her grandfather, Tommy Lacks. She married her cousin David Lacks, and their first child was born when Henrietta was 14 years old.
Henrietta Lacks passed away in 1951 due to a cancerous tumor in her cervix. It was the cells from her cervix that lead George Otto Gey to research and discover the HeLa cell line.
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