-1908: Theodore Huebner Roethke born to Otto and Helen in Saginaw, Michigan.
-1923: In February, his uncle, Charles commits suicide and in April
his father, Otto, dies of cancer.
-1925: Roethke goes to The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the
first of his family to attend a University.
-During college among his other activities Roethke takes summer
job at the Heinz pickle factory.
-1929: Roethke graduates from the UofM and enters the Michigan Law
School.
-1930: Roethke drops out of law school to pursue master’s in literature.
-In the fall he enters the Harvard Graduate School
-The financial strain of the Depression forces him to drop out
of school and take on a teaching position at Lafayette for four years.
While at Lafayette Roethke meets Mary Kunkel and they contemplate marriage
but never marry.
-Three of his poems are published in The Harp, a small magazine.
-1935: Roethke goes to Michigan State College.
-In November he has a the first in a series of mental breakdowns
-1936:Takes a teaching job at Pennsylvania State
-while at Penn State falls in love with a librarian, Kitty Stokes.
She encourages him to publish a book of his poetry.
-1941: Open House published
-1943: Leaves Penn State to teach at Bennington College where he has
a number of relationships, one of which with a student. He is nearly dismissed
and decides to leave.
-While at Bennington Roethke works to complete poems for a second
book.
-1945: Has another bout of depression and is admitted for shock treatment
in Albany.
-Receives a Guggenheim Fellowship which allows him to relax while
he continues work on his next book.
-1947: Returns to Penn State briefly in the spring but over the summer
accepts a position at the University of Washington.
-While in Seattle has a brief relationship with Jerry Lee Willis
in the English department.
-1948: The Lost Son and Other Poems published.
-1949: Returns to Saginaw to devote his time to his poetry
-Upon his return to Seattle after his summer in Saginaw Roethke
is admitted to a sanitarium due to the stress he placed on himself to complete
his third book.
-1950: Applies for and receives a second Guggenheim Fellowship.
-1951: Praise to the End! published
-1952: While in New York giving a poetry reading Roethke runs into
former Bennington student Beatrice O’Connell. Within a Month they are married.
-For their honeymoon the couple travels in Europe.
-In September they return to Washington.
-1953: The Waking, Poems is published which he worked on mainly while
in Europe.
-In November Roethke suffers a minor mental breakdown and then
three months later his mother dies.
-Weeks after his mother’s death Roethke is awarded the Pulitzer
Prize for The Waking.
-1956: resumes teaching at UofW after traveling in Europe again.
-1957: Is hospitalized for three months after showing signs of another
breakdown.
-The Exorcism is published
-1958: Returns to teaching after his recovery and in the fall publishes
Words for the Wind which receives the Bollingen Prize and the National
Book Award.
-1959: Suffers another breakdown and is admitted to a sanitarium in
Seattle.
-1960: Roethke and his wife go to New York so he can give readings
and then they continue on to Europe.
-1961: Roethke returns to the US for the publication of his collection
of children’s poems, I am! Says the Lamb.
-1962: Roethke is presented with an honorary Doctor of Letters from
the
University of Michigan.
-Gi8v4es a reading at the Seattle World’s Fair.
-Roethke finishes the first manuscript of The Far Field but never is
able to revise it because of his death. On August first he dies of a coronary
occlusion while swimming in a friend’s pool. Roethke is buried with his
mother and father in Oakwood Cemetery in Saginaw.