John Updike

John Hoyer Updike was born March 18, 1932 to Linda Grace Updike and Wesley Russell Updike in Reading, Pennsylvania. Wesley Updike was originally from New Jersey where he worked as a telephone splicer and was laid off from his job during the depression. Wesley Updike met his wife Linda Updike in New Jersey. After Wesley Updike was laid off in New Jersey they moved to Shillington, Pennsylvania where Linda Updike was from. Wesley Updike became a teacher at the local High School. ("Updike,John 413). John Updike started to attend public schools in Shillington in 1936; he continued to attend schools in Shillington until 1950. In 1945 his family moved to an 80-acre farmhouse in Plowville, Pennsylvania eleven miles from Shillington. In 1950 John Updike graduated president and co-valedictorian from Shillington High School. During the summer he worked as a copy boy for the Reading Eagle. As a copy boy, he wrote a few feature stories for the newspaper ("Updike,John 414). That fall he began to attend Harvard and started writing for the Harvard Lampoon a funny magazine where he was later elected the president of the magazine. On June 26, 1953 he married his wife Mary E, Pennington a fine arts major from Radcliffe, she was two years older than John Updike. In 1954 he wrote his senior paper on Robert Herrick, who was a 17th century poet. That summer he graduated from Harvard summa cum laude (Yerkes, James 4/2/00). The next fall John Updike moves to England on a Knox Fellowship where he enrolled in the fine arts at Oxford. At Oxford he met Katharine White and she offers him a job on the staff of The New Yorker.

That summer he returned to his wife, and their first child Elizabeth was born April 1, 1955. He moved his family to Manhattan where he began his work at The New Yorker. 1957 son David was born and he left the staff of The New Yorker to concentrate on his own writing. May 14 1959 son Michael was born. December 15, 1960 his last child Miranda was born. In 1962 John Updike began teaching at Harvard. On April 1, 1964 elected to the American Academy of Arts at 32, he was the youngest member ever elected. In 1976 he filed for divorce and was granted. He moved in with Martha Bernhard and her three sons. He married Martha on September 30 of that year.