While most people think of Benjamin Franklin as the man whom stood out side holding a kite with a key on the end of it to test the effects of lighting or as one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, he was also a man with a very interesting personal story. He was born in Boston and worked at his brother’s printer shop. At the very young age of seventeen he left and headed for Philadelphia. He arrived with little money but was able to land a job at a printing shop where he worked for one year before the governor offered to help Franklin set up his own printing shop. He left behind the young girl that he had fallen in love with.
Franklin left for London once there he fought out there was no money to buy the printing press that was needed and not even any money for him to return home. Unfortunately, the mother of his young love found a new suitor for her and they were married while Franklin was in London. He was final able to return two years later. By this time husband that his young love had married was found out to be married to another women in Europe and had ran off with the girl’s money and left a lot of debt with her as well.
Franklin had an illegitimate child and he and his young love finally reunited. They had a young boy that died from smallpox and after also having a daughter he left of London and stayed there for many years even resisting the pleases of his wife to return home. He finally returned home three months after his wife’s death. He then found please in the love of his grandson that reminded him of his deceased son, whom he took control of the seven year ago and left for France and did not return him for nine years. Franklin lived an unusual life.
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While reading this article has been very informative in to the different works of Benjamin Franklin it was even more insightful to the person that he was. I have always thought of Franklin as an important four father and scientist but did not realize that he had a hand into all kinds of issues. I also had not ever heard of his personal life. While I not sure that he treated his wife harsh or that he did or did not love her I find it strange the way he left her for long periods of time and the way he wrote about her. Though they had been in love years earlier the two went down different paths. Deborah was married to another man that spent her money that was given at her marriage and ran up debts and left. Only to find out later that he had been married to another woman in Europe.
Franklin had a child out of wedlock and the mother did not want the child, so Franklin and Deborah wed and took the child. The couple had a son together that died of smallpox. Franklin believed in what we can today a vaccine for smallpox. Their son never got the vaccine and dies from smallpox. They also had a daughter for whom Franklin left with Deborah even after questioning her abilities in mothering and even her lack of tending the paper shop after not writing down the type and price of a paper that a customer bought. The strangest part is when he was in London and did not return until after her death.
Was he upset over the death of their son from smallpox? Did he blame her for his death? Or did he just not know how to deal with his death? I would like to think that it was because he did not know how to deal with his son’s death. Why would he leave for some long if he questioned her lack of taking care of certain issues? While the article has given me, some insist to who Franklin was in his personal life it has also raised some questions that may never be answered. This does remind us that even people from the past are not what we imagine them to be. That history is something that we should learn from not repeat. Without the writings from previous generations we would repeat these some mistakes. Franklin was an incredible person but also had a strange personal life.
