[Ernest Hemingway was] a great, awkward boy falling over his long feet . . . in life, a disturbing person with very dark hair, very red lips. Very white teeth, very fair skin under which the blood seemed to race, emerging frequently in an all-enveloping blush. What a help his beard, later was to be, protecting and covering this sensitivity . . . The inferiority complex remained to the end and with it came the braggadocio and the need to become somebody to himself . . . a quick and deadly jealousy of his own prestige and a constant . . . and consuming need for applause.
High school contemporary Frances Coates, on whom
Hemingway
had a crush, from an unpublished
memoir she wrote
now in the hands of her
granddaughter Betsy Fermano.
HEMINGWAY was born and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, a well-off middle-class area that was exclusively white and overwhelmingly protestant. In 1899, the year of his birth, its ethos was firmly late-Victorian and conservative, and both his parents were strict, teetotal and God-fearing folk who did not flinch from inflicting physical punishment on their children. His father Clarence, known as Ed, was a physician who worked from a surgery at home and his mother Grace trained as an opera singer, but gave up a potential career on stage when she married.
After graduating from high school in the summer of 1917, Hemingway (left at about 16) spent the next few months mooching about and hunting small game and fishing while staying at the family summer cottage on Walloon Lake. It was about this time that he began to imagine having a career as a writer. He had been one of the stalwarts of, and had contributed reports to, his high school paper, Trapeze and several of his short stories were published in Tabula, the school’s literary magazine.
He was told to travel to New York to report for induction and training, and on May 23, now commissioned with the rank of a Red Cross second lieutenant, he and his batch of fellow volunteers sailed for Europe. Passing through and spending a few days in Paris on their way to Italy, they arrived in Milan in the first
week of June 1918 and were immediately put to work clearing up corpses and body parts after an explosion the day before in a munitions factory ten miles north of the city. Although they were non-combatants, it was a kind of baptism of fire.
It’s also been suggested she agreed to marry Ed when she realised for health reasons she wouldn’t have a career in opera. Grace was, by all accounts, the dominant force in the family. She gave private singing and music lessons, and had her own large custom-built music room when she inherited money after her father died and built a new family home. Her professional income was greater than that of her husband, Ed, many times over.
In later life Hemingway claimed that at some point ‘the family fell apart’, that Grace had ruined his father’s life and that he hated her. It is unclear quite what he is talking about, though no one can know the dynamics of any family. On the face of it he does not seem to have had an unhappy childhood and adolescence, but as an adult he customarily referred to his mother as a ‘that bitch’. When Ed shot
himself in 1928, worried about money and his declining health, Hemingway insisted his mother had driven his father to suicide.
In later life Hemingway claimed that at some point ‘the family fell apart’, that Grace had ruined his father’s life and that he hated her. It is unclear quite what he is talking about, though no one can know the dynamics of any family. On the face of it he does not seem to have had an unhappy childhood and adolescence, but as an adult he customarily referred to his mother as a ‘that bitch’. When Ed shot
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| Ed and Grace Hemingway with their family. Leicester was yet to be born |
It is possible that Hemingway inherited her domineering personality and became hostile to her from his teenage years on because, it is said, she and later his third wife Martha Gellhorn were the only two women who would stand up to him.
The family had a summer cottage, Windemere Cottage, on the edge of Walloon Lake in rural Michigan, and Ed, a keen hunter and fisherman, loved the outdoors and passed on his enthusiasms to his son. For her part Grace ensured that all of her children were educated in the arts, and she regularly took them to concerts and exhibitions in Chicago.
The family had a summer cottage, Windemere Cottage, on the edge of Walloon Lake in rural Michigan, and Ed, a keen hunter and fisherman, loved the outdoors and passed on his enthusiasms to his son. For her part Grace ensured that all of her children were educated in the arts, and she regularly took them to concerts and exhibitions in Chicago.
All in all Hemingway seems to have had a steady and settled upbringing. He did well at school, regularly had his work highlighted in English classes, did not get into trouble and was never happier than when out in the fresh air fishing and hunting. He never elaborated on what it was that, as he later claimed, had made the family ‘fall apart’ — if, in fact, anything had — although one notable hiccup in Ed and Grace’s marriage was Grace’s relationship with a singing pupil.
Some biographers and writers suggest it might have been a lesbian attachment, but there is very little evidence for that, if any. When Grace was 36 (and Ernest was eight), she took on as both a pupil and as a live-in mother’s helper a Ruth Arnold, who was then just 13. Grace had four more children after Ernest was born and his sister, Madelaine, was only four when Ruth moved in. Ruth had a rather troubled family background and became part of the family and addressed Grace in letters she sent her as ‘Muv’. Ernest and his siblings referred to her as a ‘nursemaid’.
Some biographers and writers suggest it might have been a lesbian attachment, but there is very little evidence for that, if any. When Grace was 36 (and Ernest was eight), she took on as both a pupil and as a live-in mother’s helper a Ruth Arnold, who was then just 13. Grace had four more children after Ernest was born and his sister, Madelaine, was only four when Ruth moved in. Ruth had a rather troubled family background and became part of the family and addressed Grace in letters she sent her as ‘Muv’. Ernest and his siblings referred to her as a ‘nursemaid’.
Ruth lived with the Hemingways for many years until one day when she returned to Oak Park from Walloon Lake, where in the meantime Grace had built herself her own cottage and where she and Ruth stayed with the younger children, Ed told her she was no longer welcome.
Ed, it seems, had come to believe local gossip that there was a romantic relationship between Grace and Ruth, as, some biographers believe, eventually did Ernest. Grace wrote Ed a letter reassuring him on the matter, but Ruth had to move out and did not call on Grace unless Ed was not at home. It is equally, and quite possibly more, likely that Ruth simply came to regard Grace as a mother figure (as suggested by the ‘Muv’ of her letters). Whatever the truth, after Ed’s death she moved back into Grace’s household and shared her home until Grace died.
. . .
To Ed’s disappointment — he wanted his son to follow his footsteps into practising medicine — Hemingway began to consider a career in journalism instead of attending college. His later claim that he was unable to got to college because Grace had frittered away money intended to fund his college years on building her own Walloon Lake summer cottage is generally dismissed by his biographers as another piece of his customary invention.
In October 1917, Hemingway was taken on as a trainee reporter by the Kansas City Star — his uncle Alfred Tyler Hemingway had been a classmate of the Star’s chief editorial writer and had secured an introduction. The Star had a good reputation nationally, not least for the rigour with which it trained its apprentice reporters, and Hemingway always maintained he learned a lot about by observing what was laid down in the paper’s stylebook.
In October 1917, Hemingway was taken on as a trainee reporter by the Kansas City Star — his uncle Alfred Tyler Hemingway had been a classmate of the Star’s chief editorial writer and had secured an introduction. The Star had a good reputation nationally, not least for the rigour with which it trained its apprentice reporters, and Hemingway always maintained he learned a lot about by observing what was laid down in the paper’s stylebook.
He was by all accounts a diligent, popular and ambitious reporter, and always prepared to take on extra work when asked. But he was not with the paper for very long.
Just over six months after Hemingway had joined the Star, he and two young colleagues volunteered to serve as Red Cross ambulance drivers in Europe and resigned at the end of April. He later claimed he had, in turn, already applied to serve in the US army, the US navy and the US marines and had been rejected by all three on the grounds of his poor eyesight, but as often with Hemingway no corroborative evidence to substantiate that claim has ever been found.
Just over six months after Hemingway had joined the Star, he and two young colleagues volunteered to serve as Red Cross ambulance drivers in Europe and resigned at the end of April. He later claimed he had, in turn, already applied to serve in the US army, the US navy and the US marines and had been rejected by all three on the grounds of his poor eyesight, but as often with Hemingway no corroborative evidence to substantiate that claim has ever been found.
There is an intriguing claim, based on a letter Hemingway’s sister Marcelline wrote to her schoolfriend Frances Coates, that Hemingway signed up ‘to go to war’ — albeit with the Red Cross — because of his unrequited love for Coates.
In an unpublished memoir written by Coates towards the end of her life, now in the hands of her granddaughter Betsy Fermano, she describes Hemingway as
‘. . . a great, awkward boy falling over his long feet . . . in life, a disturbing person with very dark hair, very red lips. Very white teeth, very fair skin under which the blood seemed to race, emerging frequently in an all-enveloping blush. What a help his beard, later was to be, protecting and covering this sensitivity . . . The inferiority complex remained to the end and with it came the braggadocio and the need to become somebody to himself . . . a quick and deadly jealousy of his own prestige and a constant . . . and consuming need for applause.
Notable is the suggestion that Hemingway suffered from an inferiority complex.
He was told to travel to New York to report for induction and training, and on May 23, now commissioned with the rank of a Red Cross second lieutenant, he and his batch of fellow volunteers sailed for Europe. Passing through and spending a few days in Paris on their way to Italy, they arrived in Milan in the first
They were then assigned to their various stations, some of which were busier than others, but soon Hemingway felt his station wasn’t busy enough, that he wasn’t seeing as much action as he wanted and he volunteered to serve even closer to the Italian/Austrian frontline. There his duties were to run a canteen some distance behind lines where soldiers could relax. Yet he still felt he role wasn’t exciting enough, and off his own bat he began cycling to the front with supplies of chocolate and cigarettes for the Italian soldiers.
. . .
Late one night after being in Italy for just four weeks and 12 days short of his 19th birthday, Hemingway was badly wounded when an Austrian mortar landed near him. He was lucky to survive — an Italian soldier who had been standing next to him was killed. After first-aid treatment, he was taken to a field hospital and then transferred to the Red Cross hospital in Milan. It was there that he met and fell in love with one of his nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky (who served as the model for Catherine Barkley, the heroine of his novel A Farewell To Arms).
What had actually happened just before midnight on July 8 at the front on the banks of the river Piave has never been clear. One account has Hemingway first being knocked unconscious, then, once he had regained his senses, insisting that others should be treated before his wounds received attention. Another, more heroic, account has him carrying a badly injured Italian soldier from the frontline to safety and being hit in both knees by machine gun fire as he did so. Another account has him being shot in the thigh.
Uncharacteristically, at the time Hemingway insisted he had no memory of what had happened (although later in life he developed increasingly fantastical memories); but he never denied it might well have been the case that he carried the soldier to safety. Sceptics then and since have pointed out that as he was also hit by machine-gun fire and both his knees were badly damaged, it is unlikely he would have been able to carry another man even a few feet. The claim is now generally accepted to be just another piece of Hemingway myth-making.
As he grew older, the claims he made about his ‘wartime experiences’ became ever more extravagant. No much later in life he claimed to have served with — and been commissioned into — an elite Italian corps, the Arditi, and had led an Arditi battalion into battle. He hadn’t. His sole ‘frontline’ experience in World War I was the few weeks when, first, he drove a Red Cross ambulance and then began delivering cigarettes and chocolate to the troops. He never fought or ‘saw action’.
When he was finally discharged from the hospital in Milan after three months of treatment, Hemingway was again posted to the front, but almost immediately struck down by jaundice and readmitted to hospital. By then Agnes had been sent to Florence to care for flu victims and the two saw far less of each other. She returned to Milan at the beginning of November, but nine days later she was again sent off, this time to Treviso. In the last two and a half months of their five-month romance, Hemingway and Agnes saw each other just twice (or possibly three times — biographer James Mellow believes they also say each other on New Year’s Eve, five days before Hemingway sailed back to the United States.)
In the nine days they had together in November, he and Agnes had apparently made plans to get married; and although in later life Agnes played down their romance and denied she and Hemingway had ever been physical lovers, Hemingway insisted they did have sex, though that claim, like the many he made throughout his life, might best be taken with more than a pinch of salt: Agnes’s colleagues in Milan say that some nurses were ‘free with their favours’, but Agnes wasn’t.
Although she and Hemingway wrote almost every day while they were not together and her letters were as passionate as his, there is a strong suggestion she was already having second thoughts. She was a popular and attractive woman with many suitors and was beginning to re-consider marriage to someone so young — he was still only 19 and at 26 she was more than seven years older — and who, she discovered, was in many ways still quite immature. She later claimed in an interview that she had tried to convey her doubts about their relationship to Hemingway on one of the last times they were together (on a train from Padua to Milan), but had given up when Hemingway became upset and they had quarrelled.
What had actually happened just before midnight on July 8 at the front on the banks of the river Piave has never been clear. One account has Hemingway first being knocked unconscious, then, once he had regained his senses, insisting that others should be treated before his wounds received attention. Another, more heroic, account has him carrying a badly injured Italian soldier from the frontline to safety and being hit in both knees by machine gun fire as he did so. Another account has him being shot in the thigh.
Uncharacteristically, at the time Hemingway insisted he had no memory of what had happened (although later in life he developed increasingly fantastical memories); but he never denied it might well have been the case that he carried the soldier to safety. Sceptics then and since have pointed out that as he was also hit by machine-gun fire and both his knees were badly damaged, it is unlikely he would have been able to carry another man even a few feet. The claim is now generally accepted to be just another piece of Hemingway myth-making.
As he grew older, the claims he made about his ‘wartime experiences’ became ever more extravagant. No much later in life he claimed to have served with — and been commissioned into — an elite Italian corps, the Arditi, and had led an Arditi battalion into battle. He hadn’t. His sole ‘frontline’ experience in World War I was the few weeks when, first, he drove a Red Cross ambulance and then began delivering cigarettes and chocolate to the troops. He never fought or ‘saw action’.
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| Hemingway spent three months in the Milan Red Cross hospital |
In the nine days they had together in November, he and Agnes had apparently made plans to get married; and although in later life Agnes played down their romance and denied she and Hemingway had ever been physical lovers, Hemingway insisted they did have sex, though that claim, like the many he made throughout his life, might best be taken with more than a pinch of salt: Agnes’s colleagues in Milan say that some nurses were ‘free with their favours’, but Agnes wasn’t.
Although she and Hemingway wrote almost every day while they were not together and her letters were as passionate as his, there is a strong suggestion she was already having second thoughts. She was a popular and attractive woman with many suitors and was beginning to re-consider marriage to someone so young — he was still only 19 and at 26 she was more than seven years older — and who, she discovered, was in many ways still quite immature. She later claimed in an interview that she had tried to convey her doubts about their relationship to Hemingway on one of the last times they were together (on a train from Padua to Milan), but had given up when Hemingway became upset and they had quarrelled.
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