Fred Rogers

Rogers remained married to his wife Sara till his death.

After the final episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was aired in the year 2001, Rogers was diagnosed with Stomach Cancer in 2002. A mastectomy done in the year 2002 could not slowdown the disease. He died in the year 2003 at his home with his wife by his bedside.

Many critics consider Rogers to be the greatest television personality in the history of American TV.

Fred Rogers was born on March 20, 1928 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, USA. He was the only child of his parents till he was eleven years old. His parents later adopted a baby girl named Elaine.

Rogers developed interest for music at a young age from his maternal grandfather, Fred McFeely. His maternal grandfather was interested in music and coached Rogers in music and Piano.

Rogers also got encouragement to learn music from his mother. He used to sing while his mother played Piano. Rogers started to play Piano when he was five years old.

He completed his schooling in Latrobe High School in the year 1946. He got admission in the prestigious Dartmouth College and then got transferred to Rollins College located in Winter Park, Florida. He got a BA in Music Composition in the year 1951.

He met his future wife, Sara Joanne Byrd at Rollins College. They married in the year 1952 and had two children James Rogers and John Rogers.

Due to his fascination for television, he applied for a job at the leading national television channel NBC in the year 1951 and worked in some musical programs of the channel like Your Hit Parade and The Voice of Firestone.

He quit NBC as he thought the reliance of commercial television on advertisements for their survival limited their ability to educate and enrich the youngsters.

In the year 1954, he started working for the first community TV station, WQED. He was a puppeteer in a children’s show called ‘The Children’s Corner’. He worked as a cohost in an unscripted Live TV for seven years. In this time, he developed many puppets, music tracks, and characters like ‘King Friday XIII’ and ‘Curious X the Owl’. These music tracks and characters were used in his later work.

During his time at WQED, Rogers earned a degree in theology from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. After his ordination, he continued his work with children’s television.

In the early 1960s, Rogers moved to Toronto and was contracted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to work for the children’s program ‘Misterogers’. Despite getting popular with children, the show was discontinued after just three seasons.

'Mister Rogers Neighborhood' was the single biggest achievement in the life of Fred Rogers. The show is still considered as one of the achievements of American television. Rogers was active till the end of the show. The show ran for more than three decades and was one of the longest run television shows in the world.