Early Life
Pitts was born in East Palestine, Ohio on June 13, 1921. He was the only child of Howard Earl ("Doc") Pitts (1889–1951), a veterinarian from Marietta, Ohio, who fought in France with the Expeditionary Forces during WWI. Before returning to the States, Doc married Denyse Dinin in Decize. When Jesse (named after Jess Willard, the boxer) was 7, his parents separated and he went to France with his mother. He did not see his father again until a summer vacation in 1937 where he met his numerous cousins in Marietta, Ohio.
Pitts developed an early interest in politics in France and, at age 15, joined the communist party and distributed leaflets. At 16, French police turned him back from the Spanish frontier as he sought to join the Spanish Civil War.
Read more about this topic: Jesse R. Pitts
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Both Eliot and Pound condense; their best verse is weighted—Pound’s, with sensual experience primarily, and Eliot’s with beliefs. Where the mind’s life is concerned the senses produce images, and beliefs produce dramatic cries. The condensation is important.”
—R.P. Blackmur (1904–1965)