Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, CA. Even the distance, Lawrence, MA had claimed him as one of ours. The reason? After the death of his father on May 5, 1885, the family moved across the country to Lawrence, Massachusetts, under the patronage of Robert’s grandfather, William Frost, Sr., who was an overseer at a New England mill.
Young Frost went to Lawrence schools graduating from Lawrence High in 1892. While at the school, he published his first poem in his high school’s magazine. In December 19, 1895, he married Elinor Miriam White in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Although his work was initially published in England before it was published in America, he is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.
His grandfather purchased a farm for him and Elinor in Derry, New Hampshire; Frost 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 the field of education as an English teacher at New Hampshire’s Pinkerton Academy from 1906 to 1911, then at the New Hampshire Normal School (now Plymouth State University) in Plymouth, New Hampshire.
Frost received an honorary degree there. Although he never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees, including ones from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities, and was the only person to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, the Robert L. Frost School and the Robert Frost Fountain across Lawrence City Hall in Massachusetts, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him.
Frost was 86 when he read his well-known poem “The Gift Outright” at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961, establishing a tradition.
He died on January 29, 1963, in Boston, MA. On January 31, 1963, he was buried at Old Bennington Cemetery, Bennington, Vermont.
Knowing that New Hampshire had just paid a big tribute to Robert Frost, José Ayala, producer of La Movida on WCEC 1490 AM, a diverse morning show, went to the Lawrence Public Library to find out if anything had been organized there. To his surprise, the young clerk at the front desk didn’t know who Robert Frost was. After checking with Louise Sandberg, somebody who knows the Library inside and out as well as Lawrence history by memory, she admitted not having any events to honor Frost at the library at this time.
Contrary to Lawrence, Frost has been remembered in many places, especially in New Hampshire, according to Ayala. We also agree with him that Lawrence must promote Frost, especially in the schools, so the new generation being formed in the classrooms will grow up aware of the values of the ones who came before them.
