 In accordance with his mother's wishes, his father dispersed their children among relatives.Calvin Jr. was adopted by his aunt and uncle, Titus and Vlurma Byrd, who changed his name to Robert Carlyle Byrd and raised him in the coal-mining region of southern West Virginia, primarily in the coal town of Stotesbury, West Virginia.Byrd was valedictorian of his 1934 graduating class at Mark Twain High School.