The Life of Robert Frost
...ly moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Frost did very well in school and shared valedictorian honors with Elinor White, his future wife. Frost was so intelligent, that he passed Harvard’s entrance exams, but didn’t have the money to attend. He instead attended Dartmouth College, but left after a semester. He then attended Harvard to study classical poetry. He eventually dropped out to pursue a variety of jobs including teaching at his mother’s private school and working in a textile mill (Angyal 12) Then in 1895, he and Elinor married. Their life was strained by a lot of tragedies. They lost many of their children. Elinor and Frost had many happy years together, despite their troubles. Then in 1938, Elinor had a serious heart attack and died soon after. Elinor’s death sent Frost into a spiraling depression. He was so saddened, that he collapsed and was not able to attend her cremation. He was emotionally unstable for years and never remarried. Robert Frost died on January 29, 1963 of prostate and bladder cancer. He was 88 years old. Frost’s fame didn’t come overnight. He had to work for it. Since his poetry didn’t earn him a salary to raise a family, he had to take up poultry farming in order to support his wife and children. In 1903, he visited New York City to interest editors in his poetry but he was unsuccessful. In 1912, Frost moved his family to England to focus on poetry. Throughout the years he maintained a job as part-time college teacher and poet-in-residence for various colleges. Frost was well known in the government. He received commendations by the Senate on his 75th and 85th birthdays. In 1961, he read “The Gift Outright” at the inauguration of President Kennedy. He was supposed to read another poem that he had written specially for the inauguration but he couldn’t read it with the sun glare. He visited Moscow in 1962 with the Secretary of Interior, Stewart L. Udall, where he met and talked to Premier Khrushchev. He read “Mending Wall” while there (Bloom 5). Frost published many poems during his lifetime. He wrote most of his poems in modern poetry. The first poem he ever...