Diana Ross, the daughter of Ernestine (née Moten) (January 27, 1916 – October 9, 1984), a schoolteacher, and Fred Ross, Sr. (July 4, 1920 – November 21, 2007), a former United States Army soldier, was born at Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. Ross said she didn't see her father until he returned from the service. Much has been made of whether her actual first name ends in an "a" or an "e." According to Miss Ross, her mother actually named her "Diane". A clerical error resulted in her name being cited as "Diana" on her birth certificate. Her high school yearbook lists her first name as "Diana". At The Supremes' first Copacabana engagement in 1965, she introduced herself to the audience as "Diane." Later that year, according to his autobiography, "To Be Loved", Berry Gordy suggested Ross begin introducing herself as "Diana".
After living at 635 Belmont Avenue in Detroit's North End for several years, Ross's family settled on St. Antoine Street in the Brewster-Douglass housing projects on Diana's fourteenth birthday in 1958. Ross aspired to be a fashion designer, and studied design, millinery, pattern-making and seamstress skills while attending Cass Technical High School, a four-year college preparatory magnet school, in downtown Detroit. She was a majorette, on the school's swim team, studied cosmetology in the evenings & modeling(via a loan from former neighbor, William "Smokey" Robinson)on the weekends. In her late teens, Ross worked at Hudson's Department Store where, it was claimed in biographies, that she was the first black employee "allowed outside the kitchen". Ross graduated in January 1962, one semester earlier than her classmates. Ross' parents had a difficult marriage and separated when Ross was still in her teens.
