ABSTRACT
At the Poetry Bookshop opening in January 1913, in addition to F S. Flint, Robert struck up an acquaintance with Mary Wilson Gardner, the wife of Ernest Arthur Gardner, an archaeology professor at University College, and their eldest daughter, Phyllis. It was this chance acquaintance that led the Frosts to Scotland in late August, importuned by the Gardners to join them at the holiday resort of Kingsbarns, a small seaport town near St. Andrews. The literary tradition kept alive through education by poetry in the Frost household had been passed down from Robert's mother, Isabelle (Belle) Moodie. Isabelle Moodie was born in 1844 in Leith, the seaport town of Edinburgh; her father was a sea captain who went down with his ship in a storm at sea shortly after his daughter was born. When Robert and Mary Gardner first met in the Poetry Bookshop, the possibility of traveling to Scotland was not discussed.
