Frances Frost

by George J. Dance

Frances Frost (1905-1959). Courtesy Jane Badger Books.

Frances Mary Frost (August 3, 1905 - February 11, 1959) was an American poet, novelist, and children's writer, and the mother of poet Paul Blackburn.

Life

Frost was born in St. Albans, Vermont, to Susan (Keefe) and Amos Frost. The Frosts were a religious, working-class family, whose values are reflected in Frost's writing.

From 1923 to 1926 Frost attended Middlebury College, where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. After briefly working as a reporter in 1927, she attended the University of Vermont, where she also taught poetry, and from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1931.

Her 1st collection of poetry, Hemlock Wall, was published by Yale University Press 1929 in its Yale Series of Younger Poets.

Marriage and career

On April 4, 1926, Frost married William Gordon Blackburn of St. Albans. The couple had 2 children – Paul and Jean – but separated in 1929, after the birth of their daughter, leaving the children to be raised by her parents.

After graduating in 1931, Frost moved to New York City, where she married author Samuel Gailard Stoney of Charleston, South Carolina, on September 18, 1933. That marriage also ended in divorce. Following the breakup of her second marriage, Frost took permanent custody of her son, Paul, who lived with her in New York until joining the army in 1946.

In 1936 Frost published Innocent Summer, the first of 4 novels. Her novel, Yoke of Stars, became a bestseller. In the 1940s and 1950s she wrote and published more than a dozen children's books, while continuing to write poetry. Her writing appeared in the New York Herald Tribune, The New Yorker, Harper's, and Saturday Review.

She died in New York City of cancer in 1959,, aged 53.

Recognition

• 1929 Yale Younger Poets Award
• 1933 O. Henry Award for "The Heart Being Perished"
• 1933: Katharine Lee Bates Poetry Award
• 1933 Golden Rose Award, New England Poetry Society
• 1933/1934 Shelley Memorial Award, Poetry Society of America

Publications

Poetry

• Hemlock Wall. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press (Yale Series of Younger Poets) / London: Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1929; New York: AMS Press, 1971.
• Blue Harvest: Poems. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931.
• These Acres. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1932.
• Woman of This Earth. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.
• Road to America: New poems. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937.
• Mid Century. New York: Creative Age, 1946.
• The Rowdy Heart. Francestown, NH: Golden Quill, 1954.

Novels

• Innocent Summer. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936.
• Yoke of Stars. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939.
• Kate Trimingham. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1940.
• Village of Glass. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942.

Juvenile

Poetry

• Pool in the Meadow: Poems for young and old. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1933.
• Christmas in the Woods (illustrated by Aldren Auld Watson). New York: Harper & Row, 1942.
• The Little Whistler (illustrated by Roger Duvoisin). New York & London: McGraw-Hill / Whittlesey House, 1949.
• The Little Naturalist (illustrated by Kurt Werth). New York: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1959.
• Christmas is Shaped Like Stars. New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1948.

Fiction

• Uncle Snowball. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1940.
• Then Came Timothy (illustrated by Richard Bennett). New York & London: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1950.
• The Cat that Went to College. New York: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1951.
• Little Fox (illustrated by Morgan Dennis). New York: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1952.
• Rocket Away! New York & London: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1953.

Windy Foot series

• Fireworks for Windy Foot (illustrated by Lee Townsend). New York: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1956.
• Windy Foot at the County Fair (illustrated by Lee Townsend). New York & London: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1947.
• Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot (illustrated by Lee Townsend). New York & London: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1948.
• Maple Sugar for Windy Foot (illustrated by Lee Townsend). New York & London: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1950.

Translated

• Ilse Windmuller, The Little Donkey (illustrated by Oleg Zinger). New York: McGraw Hill / Whittlesey House, 1959.

Edited

• Legends of the United Nations. New York & London: McGraw-Hill / Whittlesey House, 1943.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

References

Her papers are held at University of California, San Diego, and Yale University.

External links

Poems

• "Valentine for Earth"

About

• Frost, Frances (1905-1959), Social Archive, University of Virginia
• Frances Frost, 1905-1959: Sketch of a Vermont poet at Vermont Women's History (.PDF)

Etc.

• The Register of Frances Fox Papers, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California at San Diego
• Frances Frost Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

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