Vincent had two younger sisters.

Norma Lounella Millay Ellis (1893-1986) graduated from Camden High School, worked at the Whitehall Inn, moved to New York, married Charles Ellis, an actor and artist who designed sets for the Provincetown Players. Norma became the executor of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s estate and while she and Charles were living at Steepletop, Norma founded the Millay Colony for the Arts at Steepletop.

Kathleen Kalloch Millay (1896-1943) graduated from Camden High School, attended Vassar College, moved to New York, published poetry and fairy tales, married playwright Howard Young keeping her maiden name, died of alcoholism.

Cora Millay filed for divorce in 1901 and took her girls to stay with relatives, first in Rockport, Maine; and then in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Cora brought her girls back to Camden in 1903, since she could earn money as a visiting nurse in surrounding towns.

The Millays lived at 100 Washington Street, a house with no plumbing or electricity, from 1903 to 1908. They then moved to 40 Chestnut Street, next to the post office, and across the street from the Cushing house where Vincent took piano lessons.

The Millays moved to 82 Washington Street after Vincent graduated from high school.

All three houses have been torn down.

Although the Millays were poor, Cora encouraged the cultural development of her girls—schoolwork, reading, writing, music. The Millays had the finest collection of books outside of a library. In 1912, Vincent reported that she was “well acquainted with William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Walter Scott, George Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, and fifty other authors.

Cora shared a love of poetry with her daughters, especially the works of James Whitcomb Riley, Eugene Field, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and John Greenleaf Whittier. Cora wrote much poetry herself, publishing a book called Little Otis in 1928. Cora encouraged writing and reading above housework, and she subscribed to St. Nicholas magazine for the girls.

Cora also promoted music. She bought a piano and arranged piano lessons for all three of the girls; and she encouraged singing

Vincent graduated from Camden High School in 1909. She had performed in school plays at the Camden Opera House, and was the editor of the Megunticook, the school year book. She hoped to be chosen Class Poet, but her class voted for a boy instead. At graduation, students read essays and poems, and Edna read her poem called “Le Joie de Vivre.” It was voted the best poem and she won a $10 prize. Edna’s poem and the class poet’s poem are published in the 1909 Megunticook.

Edna St. Vincent Millay began writing poetry around the time the Millays moved to Camden, in 1903, when she was ten. Her first poem was called “One Bird.” She had four poems published in St. Nicholas, the children’s magazine, from 1906 to 1910. In 1908, when she was sixteen, Vincent collected all her poems into a notebook she titled “The Poetical Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay” which she dedicated to her mother.

Cora, encouraged her daughter to submit a poem for the anthology The Lyric Year. The editors were offering a $500 prize for the best poem. Vincent submitted a poem under the name E. Vincent Millay, and the judges assumed the author was a man. It was a long poem about death and rebirth written from the top of Mt. Battie. Vincent called it “Renaissance,” and one of the judges suggested she change the title to “Renascence,” the English spelling of the French word for rebirth. When her poem was published in The Lyric Year, in 1912, she did not win first prize, and many poets were disappointed.