Robert Frost’s Tragic Personal Life Teaches Us That Life Goes On
Even when it doesn’t seem like it will.
We know Robert Frost as the famous New England poet of rural life, behind household poems like “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, and “Fire and Ice”.
But what few people know is that Frost’s life was marred by personal tragedy— outliving four of his children as well as having his parents die young. His father died when he was 11 of tuberculosis his mother died of cancer. In 1920, he had to commit his younger sister, Jeanie, into a mental hospital. Nine years later, she passed away.
Both Robert Frost and his mother suffered from depression, and depression would run in the family. In 1947, his daughter, Irma was committed to a mental hospital. Elinor, Robert Frost’s wife, suffered from depression as well.
Frost and his wife had six children. Their first son, Elliot died of cholera at four years old. Another son, Carol, died in 1940 after he died by suicide. Another daughter, Marjorie, died at 29 after childbirth. Another daughter, Elinor Bettina died as an infant. Only Irma and another daughter, Lesley Frost Ballatine, would outlive him.
