July 21, 1899—Several hundred miles west of Garrettsville, Ohio, where Hart Crane, another future literary genius afflicted with alcoholism and an instinct for self-destruction, was being born, Ernest Hemingway made his entrance into the world in a manner that startled most of the good citizens of the leafy Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Ill.
At 8 AM, the town of 10,000 awoke to a blast from a cornet being played by the local obstetrician, 27-year-old Clarence Hemingway, welcoming the latest addition to his family.
With his future concern for appearances, the future novelist and short story writer, one suspects, would have enjoyed the direct, emphatic manner in which his father announced his birth, as well as the town doctor’s vivid demonstration of his own masculine prowess in siring more offspring.
On the other hand, with his aversion to flowery prose, he probably would have been appalled by what his mother, Grace Hemingway, wrote: “The robins sang their sweetest song to welcome the little stranger into this beautiful world.”
In prior posts, I discussed Hemingway’s tendency to stretch the truth (particularly concerning his World War I service) as well as the thread of depression that infected his genetic line.
At 8 AM, the town of 10,000 awoke to a blast from a cornet being played by the local obstetrician, 27-year-old Clarence Hemingway, welcoming the latest addition to his family.
With his future concern for appearances, the future novelist and short story writer, one suspects, would have enjoyed the direct, emphatic manner in which his father announced his birth, as well as the town doctor’s vivid demonstration of his own masculine prowess in siring more offspring.
On the other hand, with his aversion to flowery prose, he probably would have been appalled by what his mother, Grace Hemingway, wrote: “The robins sang their sweetest song to welcome the little stranger into this beautiful world.”
In prior posts, I discussed Hemingway’s tendency to stretch the truth (particularly concerning his World War I service) as well as the thread of depression that infected his genetic line.
Far more can be said, however, about the Nobel Prize laureate’s life, and especially about the formative cultural influences of his family and hometown.
Not a word about Oak Park ever made it into Hemingway’s published work, but his experiences growing up in the town—at his birthplace on North Oak Park Avenue and another one on North Kenilworth Avenue—affected him for life.
Nearly five years ago, when I visited Oak Park, I was struck by the fact that it was home not only to Hemingway but to architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Not a word about Oak Park ever made it into Hemingway’s published work, but his experiences growing up in the town—at his birthplace on North Oak Park Avenue and another one on North Kenilworth Avenue—affected him for life.
Nearly five years ago, when I visited Oak Park, I was struck by the fact that it was home not only to Hemingway but to architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
In fact, Grace Hemingway belonged to Oak Park’s Nineteenth Century Women’s Club, along with two-thirds of what would become the town’s notorious scandalous triangle—Catherine Wright, wife of the architect, and the latter’s mistress, Mamah Barthwick Cheney.
“I had a wonderful novel about Oak Park,” Hemingway informed an academic, Charles Fenton, in 1952, “and would never do it because I did not want to hurt living (sic) people….Nobody in Oak Park likes me I suppose. The people that were my good friends are dead or gone. I gave Oak Park a pass and never used it as a target.”
What irked Hemingway so much in later years about the place? Much of his ill-will was bound up inextricably with his feelings about his mother, who reflected the town’s moral conservatism.
“I had a wonderful novel about Oak Park,” Hemingway informed an academic, Charles Fenton, in 1952, “and would never do it because I did not want to hurt living (sic) people….Nobody in Oak Park likes me I suppose. The people that were my good friends are dead or gone. I gave Oak Park a pass and never used it as a target.”
What irked Hemingway so much in later years about the place? Much of his ill-will was bound up inextricably with his feelings about his mother, who reflected the town’s moral conservatism.
Oak Park’s temperance bill, passed in 1872, lasted for a hundred years—even after the death of its most important native son—and Grace Hemingway lashed out at Ernest because of his drinking when he returned from World War I.
Hemingway blamed his mother for his father’s suicide in 1928. But her original sin, in his eyes, might have been the sexual ambivalence she instilled in him from an early age.
During my visit, I noticed a photo showing Hemingway in a blouse and his sister Marcelline in a pantsuit. Both had the same haircut.
Hemingway blamed his mother for his father’s suicide in 1928. But her original sin, in his eyes, might have been the sexual ambivalence she instilled in him from an early age.
During my visit, I noticed a photo showing Hemingway in a blouse and his sister Marcelline in a pantsuit. Both had the same haircut.
Until they were five or six, Grace—who had wanted a daughter when Hemingway was born--had the two siblings sleep in the same bedroom in two separate beds, play with identical dolls and with small china tea sets, and fish and hike together. For all intents and purposes, she treated them as twins.
In high school, Ernest took Marcelline to the prom as a date—a choice that might have been dictated by his mother.
In his posthumously published novel, The Garden of Eden, Hemingway’s protagonist is part of a bisexual ménage a trois, in a story that, biographers such as Kenneth Lynn now speculate, evince his longstanding fears of gender confusion.
Is it any wonder, as novelist John Dos Passos noted, that Hemingway was the only man he knew who really hated his mother?
But we can’t let the story end there.
Hemingway’s frequent subject matter—fishing, bullfighting, war, and other male rituals—led critics to regard him as a kind of glorified American primitive. But that is a stereotype at odds with his upbringing.
Hemingway came by his interest in these matters primarily through his father, who taught him the importance of ritual --i.e., doing everything correctly and in the proper order, including catching and cooking fish.
In high school, Ernest took Marcelline to the prom as a date—a choice that might have been dictated by his mother.
In his posthumously published novel, The Garden of Eden, Hemingway’s protagonist is part of a bisexual ménage a trois, in a story that, biographers such as Kenneth Lynn now speculate, evince his longstanding fears of gender confusion.
Is it any wonder, as novelist John Dos Passos noted, that Hemingway was the only man he knew who really hated his mother?
But we can’t let the story end there.
Hemingway’s frequent subject matter—fishing, bullfighting, war, and other male rituals—led critics to regard him as a kind of glorified American primitive. But that is a stereotype at odds with his upbringing.
Hemingway came by his interest in these matters primarily through his father, who taught him the importance of ritual --i.e., doing everything correctly and in the proper order, including catching and cooking fish.
(Dr. Hemingway, in wooing his future wife, took note of her lack of traditional feminine domestic skills by promising that she would never have to cook, and he was as good as his word for as long as he lived.)
But in his own way, Hemingway, though not as exposed to culture as much as, say, Henry James, probably grew up with as much acculturation in the arts as Willa Cather, whose work is permeated with it.
Grace Hemingway might have been something that her son loathed—a church lady—but she was a church lady with a decided artistic inclination that he inherited.
But in his own way, Hemingway, though not as exposed to culture as much as, say, Henry James, probably grew up with as much acculturation in the arts as Willa Cather, whose work is permeated with it.
Grace Hemingway might have been something that her son loathed—a church lady—but she was a church lady with a decided artistic inclination that he inherited.
Before her marriage, she had hoped for a singing career. But as a victim of scarlet fever, she was sensitive to bright lights, rendering her debut a disaster.
(To console herself, she went on a cruise and bought 35 pairs of opera gloves, stopping at that point only because another glove would incur a tax.)
After marriage, Grace taught voice and served as a choirmaster. Her services were frequently employed in a number of the 40 churches in town at that point, meaning that she ended up making 10 times more than her husband, who often had to accept payment in whatever form his not-very-affluent patients could afford, including crops or chickens.
Hemingway’s birthplace actually belonged to Grace’s father rather than her husband. Upon her father's death a few years later, she used some of the proceeds from his estate to have a larger house built to her specifications (even though Clarence Hemingway was not sure the family could afford it).
(To console herself, she went on a cruise and bought 35 pairs of opera gloves, stopping at that point only because another glove would incur a tax.)
After marriage, Grace taught voice and served as a choirmaster. Her services were frequently employed in a number of the 40 churches in town at that point, meaning that she ended up making 10 times more than her husband, who often had to accept payment in whatever form his not-very-affluent patients could afford, including crops or chickens.
Hemingway’s birthplace actually belonged to Grace’s father rather than her husband. Upon her father's death a few years later, she used some of the proceeds from his estate to have a larger house built to her specifications (even though Clarence Hemingway was not sure the family could afford it).
The new home featured a music studio and recital hall thirty feet square with a vaulted ceiling and a narrow balcony.
The Hemingway home featured an “imagination room”. Each of the children was taught an instrument and encouraged to tell stories, and several of Ernest's siblings became writers or artists in their own right.
A couple of other items in the Hemingway Birthplace and the nearby museum in his honor highlight other fascinating aspects of his childhood and youth:
* In the birthplace, a room for older children contains a series of pictures by famed magazine illustrator Maud Bogart, who used her son as a model for Little Jack Horner. That son, Humphrey Bogart, was the same age as Ernest Hemingway, and starred in the film version of the novel To Have and Have Not.
The Hemingway home featured an “imagination room”. Each of the children was taught an instrument and encouraged to tell stories, and several of Ernest's siblings became writers or artists in their own right.
A couple of other items in the Hemingway Birthplace and the nearby museum in his honor highlight other fascinating aspects of his childhood and youth:
* In the birthplace, a room for older children contains a series of pictures by famed magazine illustrator Maud Bogart, who used her son as a model for Little Jack Horner. That son, Humphrey Bogart, was the same age as Ernest Hemingway, and starred in the film version of the novel To Have and Have Not.
* At the age of two, Hemingway drew, on his father’s stationery, the following items: a giraffe, a sailor, two guns, Noah’s ark, a tree, a pipe, and a man on the moon—all testifying to his future love of adventure.
* As a little boy, Hemingway particularly loved his nicknames “Pecos Bob” and “Billy the Squirrel.”
* In high school, Hemingway’s writing was already drawing notice, with his compositions frequently read aloud in class as models. But he was widely regarded by classmates as “conceit(ed),” “carefree,” “unkempt,” and not especially popular with girls. The latter two traits were probably related, because right before starting classes, he would sometimes skin fish, and he might still reek of it by the time the school day began.
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