Biographical Essay1897�930: From Chicago to CaliforniaEdward Flanders Robb Ricketts was born on May 14, 1897, in Chicago, Illinois, to Abbott Ricketts and Alice Beverly Flanders Ricketts. His father was a native of Owensville, Kentucky, and his mother, of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Frances Strong, Ricketts younger sister, kept a journal about their family, revealing that most of their paternal relatives were ministers, while many in their mother family were storekeepers. ot a really poor person on either side of the familys far as I can tell,�she writes in her notebook. onder what is the matter with our branch of the family in this generation�(Strong 1). The family lived on the modest income Abbot Ricketts made as a salesman. As a child, Ed Ricketts did not excel in sports or physical activities but as, from birth, a child of intelligence and rare charm. [ . . . ] He began speaking very young and was using whole but simple sentences before he was a year old�(Strong 1). He was a good child and a protective older brother to his sister, Frances, born in 1899, and brother, Thayer, born in 1902. Their mother, Alice, who worried about their welfare in a rough section of Chicago, kept them relatively sheltered in their neighborhood as children. e spent [many] hours at home in pre-school days with our noses pressed against the window pane looking out,�Frances writes. ome passersby were daily important events to us�(2). All became avid readers. Ed Ricketts recalls in a letter to Harcourt, Brace and Co., t the age of six, I was ruined for any ordinary activities when an uncle who should have known better gave me some natural history curios and an old zoology textbook. Here I saw for the rst time those magic and incorrect words oral insects� (August 31, 1942). And so began his fascination with the ittle animals,�as he called them, that continued throughout his life. At the age of seven, Ricketts began attending Ryerson Public School. Frances reminisces: