Eugene Field Essay

Eugene Field was born September 2, 1850 at 634 South Broadway in Saint Louis to Roswell M. and Frances Reed Field. Eugene had one brother, Roswell, who was a year younger than him. He also had a sister, but she died soon after her birth. Roswell and Eugene were very close brothers but completely different. Eugene took after his mother and Roswell took after their father. Eugene hated studying and also hated the dark While Roswell loved studying and being in the dark. In 1856, the two boys’ mother died when they were five and six. Thier father sent them away to live with their cousin, Mary French, in Massachusetts. Eugene wrote his first poem there at the age of nine. At the age of fifteen, Eugene was sent away to a boarding school in Massachusetts. There were only five boys in the school. Eugene loved playing tricks against the master with the other boys. After the boarding school, he went on to William’s College in Massachusetts. At the age of nineteen, while he attended the college, his father died so he dropped out eight months later. After that, he attended Knox College, but dropped out after a year. Finally, he went to the University of Missouri, where his brother was currently studying.
After she turned 16, Eugene married her. Together, they had eight children. Sadly, two died as babies and another died as a little boy. The remaining five, however, grew up and had long lives of their own. Eugene had many jobs while married. He worked for many newspapers until the Chicago Daily News offered him a job there. He decided to take it and wrote a humorous column named “Sharps and Flats”. His home was in Chicago and was near to the intersection of N. Claredon and W. Hutchinson in the neighborhood now called Buena