Diane Bailey - Who Was Mister Rogers?

Fred Rogers was born on March 20, 1928, into a wealthy family in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, not far from the city of Pittsburgh. His father, James, owned a factory that made bricks for furnaces. His mother, Nancy, took care of the family.

They were loving and attentive parents, and they taught Fred to be kind to other people. Nancy volunteered at the local hospital and knitted sweaters for soldiers. James would leave pennies on peoples windowsills. He liked to imagine their faces when they found them.

The Great Depression began in 1929. After the stock market crashed on October 29 of that year, many businesses were ruined. Ordinary people lost their homes and life savings when banks were forced to close. By 1933, a few short years later, one in every four Americans was out of work.

The Great Depression lasted for ten years and was one of the worst financial disasters in modern history.

Near the end of the Depression, when Fred was eleven, his parents adopted a baby girl, Nancy Elaine. (They called her Laney.) Until Laney came along, though, Fred was an only child. Without a brother or sister, he was always looking for ways to have fun by himself.

To make up for not having many real-life friends, he created pretend ones. He used paper bags or old socks to make puppets. He gave them different names and voices, and they all had their own personalities. As long as Fred had his puppets, he didnt get too lonely. He always had someone to talk to!

He also talked through his music. He loved to play songs on the piano to express himself. I was always able to cry or laugh or say I was angry through the tips of my fingers on the piano, he said.

He had begun playing the piano when he was five. A few years later, his grandmother offered to buy him a piano. She said he could pick out whichever one he wanted. Fred chose a grand piano. It was one of the fanciest, most expensive pianos in the store. His grandmother had not expected to spend that much money! But shed made Fred a promise, and she kept it.

Fred sometimes had trouble fitting in with other kids. He was shy and chubby, and he got sick a lot. He had terrible allergies, and if there was a cold going around, Fred always seemed to catch it! Sometimes his mother wouldnt even let him leave the house. Fred was stuck indoors while everyone else was outside playing.

His family was wealthier than most people in Latrobe, and some kids were annoyed by that. The Rogerses even hired a driver to take Fred to school each day. Sometimes Fred asked the driver to drop him off a block away so he could walk up to the building with everyone else. But he still knew he was different.

Fred did have a good friend in George Allen. George was an African American boy whose mother had worked as a housekeeper for the Rogers family. After she died, Freds mother invited George to live with their family. George was quite a bit older than Fred, and Fred looked up to him like a big brother. In those days it wasnt common for white people to be friends with black people, but Fred didnt care. He saw George as his friend, no matter what other people thought.