The Frank P. Piskor Collection of Robert Frost is primarily the gift of Dr. Frank Piskor, augmented by donations by Robert McCausland and Lesley Frost Ballantine. In addition to first editions of all Frost’s books and most of the secondary works about him, the collection has a large non-monograph section consisting of correspondence, newspaper and periodical articles, manuscript poems written by other poets on the occasion of Frost’s death, stamps, medals, photographs, drawings, records, and tapes relating to Robert Frost and his family, and to his friends, the poets Philip Booth and Edward Thomas.
Robert Frost in the 1950s.
Collection Overview
Frank Peter Piskor, president of St. Lawrence University from 1969-1981, first met Robert Frost at the Bread Loaf School of English while Dr. Piskor was a student at Middlebury College. The two became friends, and Piskor began to purchase the poet’s books, simply because he liked the poetry. In 1939, Piskor joined the staff of Syracuse University as a personnel counselor. There, Chancellor William Tolley, himself a great book collector, encouraged him to continue to refine and shape his random Frost purchases into a collection.
While he was serving as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculties at Syracuse University in the 1960s, Dr. Piskor was able to encourage the career of the poet Philip Booth, a protégé of Frost, thus forging another link in his friendship with Frost. When he came to St. Lawrence University, alma mater of Frost’s wife Eleanor, Dr. Piskor became friends with Frost’s daughter Leslie Ballantine. The two were attempting to develop an Eleanor White collection at St. Lawrence at the time of Leslie Ballantine’s death. In 1993, Dr. Piskor donated his collection to St. Lawrence. He continues to add to it today.