Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco, California on March 26, 1874. His father, William Prescott Frost, was a native of New England, and his mother, Isabelle Moodie Frost, was a Scotswoman who emigrated from Edinburgh. She went to school in Columbus, Ohio, and became a schoolteacher. Isabelle and William met while teaching in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Robert Frost was named, by his father, after the South's distinguished general, Robert E. Lee.
Frost descended from a puritanic line from Maine and New Hampshire farmers, Revolutionary war soldiers, and public servants. William Frost hated New England and only stayed there until he graduated from Harvard College, with honors, in 1872. Afterwards, he headed to Pennsylvania where he met his wife and they moved on to the Golden Gate City.
William Prescott Frost died of tuberculosis, in 1885, in San Francisco, when Robert was only eleven years old. In his will William left a request that his remains be taken back to his homeland, New England, for burial.
Robert Frost
English: The Robert Frost Cabin in Ripton, Vermont...
Robert FrostFrost, his mother, and sister, Jeanie, traveled across the continent to New England. The family settled in Salem, New Hampshire because they didn't have enough money to travel back home. While in Salem, Mrs. Frost made a living as a grammar school teacher which her children attended.
Frost disliked studying and didn't read by himself until twelve years old suddenly became interested in learning while at high school. Frost attended Lawerence High School where he graduated as valedictorian and class poet in 1892. Then he enrolled at Dartmouth College, as freshmen but soon left insisting that he had had enough of scholarship.
After leaving college, Frost tried various different ways to earn a living. He worked in mills in Lawerence, was a newspaper reporter, and taught school. Frost sold his first poem, The Butterfly...