He was born in 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, to his mother Elizabeth Masen. As a young man during World War I, he wanted to join the army. However, during an epidemic of the Spanish Influenza, his mother and father died and he became very sick. Carlisle, already a vampire, was working in the hospital at the time, and cared for Edward's mother as she died. Just before she died, she asked him to save Edward's life in the way "others do not have", and Carlisle wondered if she knew his secret. He took both Edward and his dead mother to the hospital morgue, and then he took Edward home and turned him into a vampire.