Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867 in Wisconsin to his father William Wright, a preacher, and mother Anna (1). Due to the combination of Anna’s demanding personality, and feeling that his family fell short of the ideals that he preached, William Write walked out on the family (2). Frank’s mother’s family therefore became very important to him, and while born Frank Lincoln Write, he changed his middle name to his mother’s maiden name, Lloyd Joneses, to show loyalty to her family. With William out of the picture, and Anna’s family taking a large interest in the young man, Wright spent many summers as a teenager on his uncle’s farm (3). The Lloyd Jones family played a large role in pointing Frank in the direction of architecture (4). Before he was even born, Anna wanted her son to be an architect (5), and with William being a let down to the family, Wright could be her protégé and fill that void that had William left behind. Despite Anna’s support for her son, she was his toughest critic and usually did not try to mask her disapproval of his decisions, especially when it came to women. Wright attained his family identity, religion, Unitarianism, philosophical outlook, and romantic idealism from his mother and her family (6). One of Wright’s earliest contacts in the architecture world was with Chicago architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee who constructed a small Unitarian chapel on his uncle’s farm (7). After studying civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin for less than a year, Wright joined Silsbee at his firm.
