Reese Witherspoon was born at the former Southern Baptist Hospital (now the Ochsner Baptist Medical Center) in New Orleans, Louisiana, where her parents were living while her father was a student at Tulane University medical school. Her father, John Witherspoon, is a Georgia-born otolaryngologist who previously served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army reserves. Her mother, Betty (née Reese), is from Harriman, Tennessee, has a Ph.D. in pediatric nursing, and works as a professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University. Reese Witherspoon has claimed to be a descendant of Scottish-born John Witherspoon, the sixth president of Princeton University and a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence. Because Witherspoon's father worked for the U.S. military in Wiesbaden, West Germany, she lived there for four years as a child. After returning to the U.S., she spent her childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. Although her parents are Catholic, she was raised as an Episcopalian. Witherspoon was selected as a fashion model for a florist's television advertisements at age seven, which motivated her to take acting lessons. At age eleven she took first place in the Ten-State Talent Fair. Reese Witherspoon received good grades in school; she loved reading and considered herself "a big dork who read loads of books." On mentioning her love for books, she said, "I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything." Witherspoon attended middle school at Harding Academy and graduated from the all-girls' Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee, during which time she was a cheerleader. She attended Stanford University as an English literature major. After completing one year of studies, she left Stanford to pursue an acting career.
