Fire+and+Ice

Robert Frost Bio
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Early years  ** Robert Frost, circa 1910 Robert Frost was born in [|San Francisco, California] to journalist, William Prescott Frost, Jr. and Isabelle Moodie. [|[1]] His mother, was of [|Scottish] descent, and his father, a descendant of colonist Nicholas Frost from [|Tiverton, Devon], [|England] who had sailed to [|New Hampshire] in 1634 on the //Wolfrana//.[// [|citation needed] //] Frost's father was a teacher and later an editor of the //San Francisco Evening Bulletin// (later merged into the // [|San Francisco Examiner] //), and an unsuccessful candidate for the city tax collector. After his father's death in May 5, 1885, in due time the family moved across-country to [|Lawrence, Massachusetts] under the patronage of (Robert's grandfather) William Frost, Sr., who was an overseer at a New England mill. Frost graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892. [|[2]] Frost's mother joined the [|Swedenborgian] church and had him baptized in it, but he left it as an adult. Despite his later association with rural life, Frost grew up in the city, and published his first poem in his high school's magazine. He attended [|Dartmouth College] long enough to be accepted into the [|Theta Delta Chi] fraternity. Frost returned home to [|teach] and to work at various jobs including delivering newspapers and factory labor. He did not enjoy these jobs at all, feeling his true calling as a poet. **Adult years ** "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on" -- Robert Frost

This is the Mending wall at his [|Derry, New Hampshire] farm that he wrote his famous poem about     The Robert Frost Farm in [|Derry, New Hampshire] where he wrote many of his poems including Tree at my Window and Men ding Wall In 1894 he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly: An Elegy" (published in the November 8, 1894 edition of the //New York Independent//) for fifteen dollars. Proud of this accomplishment he proposed marriage to Elinor Miriam White, but she demurred, wanting to finish college (at [|St. Lawrence University] ) before they married. Frost then went on an excursion to the [|Great Dismal Swamp] in [|Virginia], and asked Elinor again upon his return. Having graduated she agreed, and they were married at [|Harvard University] [// [|citation needed] //], where he attended liberal arts studies for two years. He did well at Harvard, but left to support his growing family. Grandfather Frost had, shortly before his death, purchased a farm for the young couple in [|Derry, New Hampshire] ; and Robert worked the farm for nine years, while writing early in the mornings and producing many of the poems that would later become famous. Ultimately his farming proved unsuccessful and he returned to education as an English teacher, at [|Pinkerton Academy] from 1906 to 1911, then at the New Hampshire Normal School (now [|Plymouth State University] ) in [|Plymouth, New Hampshire]. In 1912 Frost sailed with his family to [|Great Britain], living first in [|Glasgow] before settling in [|Beaconsfield] outside [|London]. His first book of poetry, //A Boy's Will//, was published the next year. In England he made some important acquaintances, including [|Edward Thomas] (a member of the group known as the [|Dymock Poets] ), [|T.E. Hulme], and [|Ezra Pound]. Pound would become the first American to write a (favorable) review of Frost's work. Surrounded by his peers, Frost wrote some of his best work while in England. As World War I began, Frost returned to America in 1915. He bought a farm in [|Franconia, New Hampshire], where he launched a career of writing, teaching, and lecturing. This family homestead served as the Frosts' summer home until 1938, and is maintained today as 'The Frost Place', a museum and poetry conference site at Franconia. During the years 1916–20, 1923–24, and 1927–1938, Frost taught English at [|Amherst College], Massachusetts, notably encouraging his students to account for the sounds of the human voice in their writing. For forty-two years, from 1921 to 1963, Frost spent almost every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of [|Middlebury College], at the mountain campus at [|Ripton, Vermont]. He is credited as a major influence upon the development of the school and its writing programs; the [|Bread Loaf Writers' Conference] gained renown during Frost's tenure there.[// [|citation needed] //] The college now owns and maintains his former Ripton farmstead as a national historic site near the Bread Loaf campus. In 1921 Frost accepted a fellowship teaching post at the [|University of Michigan], [|Ann Arbor] , where he resided until 1927; while there he was awarded a lifetime appointment at the University as a Fellow in Letters. [|[3]] The Robert Frost Ann Arbor home is now situated at [|The Henry Ford] Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Frost returned to Amherst in 1927. In 1940 he bought a 5-acre (2.0 ha) plot in South Miami, Florida, naming it //Pencil Pines//; he spent his winters there for the rest of his life. [|[4]] [|Harvard] 's 1965 alumni directory indicates Frost received an honorary degree there. He also received honorary degrees from [|Bates College] and from [|Oxford] and [|Cambridge] universities; and he was the first person to receive two honorary degrees from [|Dartmouth College]. During his lifetime the Robert Frost Middle School in [|Fairfax, Virginia], and the main library of [|Amherst College] were named after him. Frost was 86 when he spoke and performed a reading of his poetry at the inauguration of [|President John F. Kennedy] on [|January 20], [|1961]. Some two years later, on January 29, 1963, he died, in Boston, of complications from prostate surgery. He was buried at the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont. His epitaph reads, "I had a lover's quarrel with the world." Frost's poems are critiqued in the "Anthology of Modern American Poetry", [|Oxford University Press], where it is mentioned that behind a sometimes charmingly familiar and rural façade, Frost's poetry frequently presents pessimistic and menacing undertones which often are not recognized nor analyzed. [|[5]] One of the original collections of Frost materials, to which he himself contributed, is found in the Special Collections department of the Jones Library in [|Amherst, Massachusetts]. The collection consists of approximately twelve thousand items, including original manuscript poems and letters, correspondence, and photographs, as well as audio and visual recordings. [|[6]] **Personal life ** Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. His father died of [|tuberculosis] in 1885, when Frost was 11, leaving the family with just $8. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, Frost had to commit his younger sister, Jeanie, to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from [|depression], and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression. [|[3]] Elinor and Robert Frost had six children: son Elliot (1896–1904, died of [|cholera] ), daughter Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983), son Carol (1902–1940, committed suicide), daughter Irma (1903–1967), daughter Marjorie (1905–1934, died as a result of [|puerperal fever] after childbirth), and daughter Elinor Bettina (died three days after birth in 1907). Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed [|breast cancer] in 1937, and died of [|heart failure] in 1938. [|[3]]