I was born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, July 6, 1907 in the house of my parents,
known as La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacan. At the time, a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City.
The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 when I was three years old. My mother would often usher my sisters and I inside the
house as gunfire echoed in the streets. My neighborhood was
extremely poor at the time. Occasionally, men would leap over the walls
into their backyard and sometimes my mother would prepare a meal for
the hungry revolutionaries.
Around age six I contracted polio, low levels of calcium left my right leg thinner
than the left, it was terribly embarrassing so I disguised by wearing long skirts. As a
girl I was extremely athletic, I enjoyed boxing and other sports. When I was 15 I was
enrolled in the Preparatoria, one of Mexico's premier schools, I was one of only thirty-five girls. I joined a gang at the school
and fell in love with the leader, Alejandro Gomez Arias. During this
period, I also witnessed violent armed struggles in the streets of
Mexico City as the Mexican Revolution continued. It taught me so much about the destructive nature of poverty, I eventually became an active communist sympathizer.
When I was 18 I was an in a bus accident that truly shaped my life. I suffered countless serious injuries, and I spent 3 months physically recuperating in a full-body cast. Even after that I had relapses of pain the rest of my life and struggled with walking. I never healed from the emotional damage as the accident left me unable to have a child, although I conceived three times all of my pregnancies had to be terminated which only threw me into a deeper pool of pain.
I had a long and questionable relationship with Diego Rivera. We never had a traditional union. We always stayed separate housing. Looking back I suppose that led to the multiple infidelities by my husband. And I just added to the fire.
http://www.biography.com/people/frida-kahlo-9359496/videos/frida-kahlo-mini-biography-17730384
http://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/biography.html
http://www.biography.com/people/frida-kahlo-9359496
