Saturday, December 6, 2008

This Day in Literary History (Ernest Hemingway’s Father Commits Suicide)


December 6, 1928—Dr. Clarence Edmond (Ed) Hemingway, father of novelist Ernest Hemingway, killed himself with a Smith and Wesson .32 revolver. The desperate act, the culmination of diabetes and pinched financial circumstances, began a multigenerational family struggle with depression and suicide.

The novelist blamed his mother Grace for the death of a father who taught him all that he held precious: the joys of nature, a well as the need for ritual, order, self-discipline, and a personal code of honor. To be sure, Grace Hall Hemingway had been such a difficult, scolding woman that Ed Hemingway association had centime returned back to his childhood home in Oak Park, Ill.

But the Hemingway tragedy could not be blamed solely on one person. The union of Clarence and Grace produced a genetic nightmare, with the following medical ills experienced by later generations as well as by Ed: weak eyes, erratic blood pressure, diabetes, insomnia, paranoia, and depression.

If it were only a matter of two or three people, the tragedies associated with the Hemingway family could, I suppose, be attributed to the force of individual circumstances. Consider, however, this vast catalogue of depression and explain which factors often then genetics could explain it all:

* At the funeral several days several after the incident, Ernest and younger brother Leicester Hemingway vowed not to kill themselves if their health began to decline. Neither was as good as his word. Ernest, of course, killed himself with a shotgun blast in 1961. Leicester’s suicide followed 21 years later, after being warned by doctors that diabetes might force the loss of both of his legs.

* Ernest’s younger sister Ursula Hemingway Jasper, an artist living in Hawaii, killed herself five years after Ernest, overdosing on drugs after enduring bouts of cancer and depression.
Ernest’s youngest son, Gregory Hemingway, was forced to give up his medical practice because of alcoholism. His bipolar disorder and drug abuse probably resulted from difficulties in accepting his sexual identity (he was a cross-dresser). He remarried his third wife after his sex change operation, but the will in which he left her his estate was contested by his children because same-sex unions were not (and, to this date, still are not) allowed in Florida.

Margaux Hemingway, one of Ernest’s granddaughters, a successful model and failed actress, killed herself in 1996, the day before the 35th anniversary of the novelist’s death, after she had battled alcoholism and depression for years.

Another Papa granddaughter, Lorian Hemingway, is a recovering alcoholic whose memoir, Walk on Water, an account of how fishing helped save her life, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Re-reading this long, sad list again, the only other family history that I can bring to mind that remotely rivals this one is that of the Hayward-Sullivan clan, chronicled in Brooke Hayward’s 1976 bestselling Hollywood memoir, Haywire. The mother, Margaret Sullavan, a marvelous actress probably best remembered today for her role in the Jimmy Stewart Yuletide classic, The Shop Around the Corner, committed suicide in 1960. Her daughter, and Brooke’s sister, Bridget, killed herself before she was 21; brother Bill spent time in Menninger mental hospital and, after having gone on to some accomplishment in the film industry in his own right as an entertainment lawyer and producer (“Easy Rider”), died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound earlier this year.

These two famous cases made me wonder about genetic links among suicides. Sure enough, in 2007 a John Hopkins-led study reported that there was indeed such a link.

Ed Hemingway’s life as village obstetrician of Oak Park, Ill., and stern but devoted father to his son powerfully influenced several of Ernest’s works, including the short stories “Father and Son” and “Indian Camp.” Unfortunately, his death affected his son, too. The most obvious public link between the two is Robert Jordan’s haunted memory of his suicidal father in For Whom the Bell Tolls. But other resemblances between the two—compulsiveness that became more insistent as the years went on—might also have caused relatives to wonder about the novelist’s mental health over time, including the pack-rat mania, the daily, lonely letters when separated from his wife; constant money worries; and erratic behavior.

The Ernest Hemingway Museum and Birthplace in Oak Park, Ill., which I visited four years ago when visiting the Chicago area, is one of the more fascinating author museums in the United States. One reason why it has been so meticulously reconstructed is that Ed Hemingway was an avid amateur photographer, forced to give that up as a profession because of his parents’ worries that he couldn’t make a living from it. Ed’s photos of the house over time enabled preservationists to reconstruct the look of the house.

I can’t help but think, if Ed Hemingway could have realized how much he had influenced his children—and how much his death would haunt them in the future—that he might not have gone through with his terrible act. I feel the same way about other people I’ve known personally that have done so. Perhaps, in time, the Johns Hopkins study will lead us to end the generational scourge of depression, once and for all.

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