Ethan Frome Edith Wharton (1862–1937). In 1862, Edith Newbold Jones was born into a wealthy and distinguished New York family. Her family traveled to Europe when she was three years old to escape the inflation that followed the Civil War. There they remained for eight years. Her private education by a governess was supplemented by her own voracious reading. At the age of seventeen, Wharton made her debut into society. Her first engagement was broken by her fiancé’s mother, who was angered by the cold reception she received from the Jones family. Shortly after this incident, Wharton met Walter Berry and, although they did not meet again for several years, the two became lifelong friends. In 1885, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, a rich Boston banker twelve years her senior.