Childhood
He was born in Buffalo, West Virginia on August 16, 1851, the fifth child of six born to Robert and Anna Harvey. His father, Robert Trigg Harvey, was a Virginian of Scottish and English ancestry, and his mother, who had Virginian ancestors traceable to colonial times, was descended from French ancestors who had long since peopled the territory around nearby Gallipolis, Ohio.
Almost nothing is known of William Harvey's childhood except that it was disturbed by conflict between the Unionist majority in his region and secessionist sympathizers, among whom were some of his paternal relatives. He had one sister who joined a convent and a brother who died under the command of Robert E. Lee in the American Civil War.
Read more about this topic: William Hope Harvey
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see
In simple childhood something of the base
On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,
That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. The days gone by
Return upon me almost from the dawn
Of life: the hiding-places of man’s power
Open; I would approach them, but they close.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)