Plath was born in 1932 in Jamaica Plain , Massachusetts . Her parents were called Otto Emile Plath and Aurelia Schober Plath . Plath was born during the Great Depression on October 27 , 1932 in Jamaica Plain , Massachusetts , to Aurelia Schobert Plath , a first-generation American of Austrian descent , and Otto Emile Plath , an immigrant from Grabow , Germany .