The Life of Robert Frost

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26th, 1874. He was the son of journalist, William Prescott Frost JR. and Isabelle Moodie.  Frost’s father was a teacher and later an editor of the “San Francisco Evening Bulletin”. Robert Frost’s father died on May 5^th, 1885. In result of his father’s death, the Frost family moved across the country to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Robert Frost graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892. Frost grew up in the city, and had his first poem published in his high school’s magazine. Robert Frost later attended Dartmouth College long enough to be accepted into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. Frost returned home to teach, while working various jobs, these jobs included delivering newspapers and working in a factory. Frost knew he didn’t want to do these jobs, what he really wanted was to write poetry. In 1894, Robert Frost sold his first poem “My Butterfly: An Elegy”, it was published in the November 8^th, 1894 edition of the New York Independent for fifteen dollars. Robert Frost was so proud of this accomplishment that he proposed marriage to Elinor Miriam White, but she turned him down because she wanted to finish college before they married. During that time Frost went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, and asked Elinor again when he returned. Elinor had graduated so she agreed to marry him. They got married at Harvard University, where Frost attended liberal arts studies for two years. They had six children together Elliott, Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie, and Elinor Bettina. From 1921 to 1963, Frost spent almost every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Load School of English of Middlebury College located at the mountain campus in Ripton, Vermont. Frost is credited as a major influence upon the development of the school and its writing programs. On January 29, 1963, Frost unfortunately died.