Early and Family Life
Earnest Calkins was born to Mary Manville and William Clinton Calkins in Geneseo, Illinois. They moved soon after a few miles south to Galesburg, where his father became the city attorney for a short while. At age 6, a bout of measles left him “almost completely deaf”, although it was not recognized until he was 10. His teachers told him he could hear if he paid more attention. By age 14 he was fully deaf. His mother was a Baptist who forbade him to read fiction, even Arabian Nights and Jules Verne, but he read widely on a variety of subjects, devouring books with enthusiasm. He was exposed to printing at an early age, and was determined to become a printer himself.
After high school, his father secured him a position in a local printshop as a Printer's devil, and he worked 12 hours day for six months for no pay. When he finished his chores, he was allowed to set type for the patent medicine readers.
He attended Knox College and established a mediocre academic record, unable to hear almost anything in his classes. He did well at writing however, and in his senior year was elected editor-in-chief of the college newspaper, Coup d'État. He was then made editor of the college news published in the local paper every Thursday. He learned to master lip reading, although he said he got more from reading than from the classes. He barely graduated in 1891, after the faculty failed him in Geology, but the Trustees overruled them and allowed him to graduate.
Calkins married Angie C. Higgins (1863–1950) in 1904. They had no children.
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