Early Life
Niedecker was born on Black Hawk Island near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin to Theresa (Daisy) Kunz and Henry Niedecker and lived most of her life in rural isolation. She grew up surrounded by the sights and sounds of the river until she moved to Fort Atkinson to attend school. This world of birds, trees, water and marsh was to inform her poetry for the rest of her life. On graduating from high school in 1922, she went to Beloit College to study literature but left after two years because her father was no longer able to pay her tuition. She devoted herself to caring for her ailing deaf mother, who was deeply depressed by her husband's flagrant affair with a neighbor woman. Niedecker married Frank Hartwig in 1928 but this relationship lasted only two years. Hartwig's fledgling road construction business foundered during the onset of the Great Depression while Lorine lost her job at the Fort Atkinson Library. The two separated in 1930 but were not legally divorced until 1942.
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