Tom Rodgers was born in 1960, the fourth child of Barbara and Thomas E. Rodgers. Tom’s childhood was spent in the Great Plains in Glasgow, Montana. He is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe. Tom’s paternal grandfather, Thomas Vincent Rodgers, emigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1913 and fought with the Allies in World War I. After returning to Montana, he married Alice Kramer of Ennis, Montana, and ran a sheep ranch near Miles City, Montana. Alice Kramer Rodgers, Tom’s paternal grandmother was of German and Irish decent, though her family had been in the United States since the late 1760s. Alice’s grandparents on both sides of her family moved to Montana near the end of the 19th Century.