The best way to find the plain marble tombstones of Mary and Ernest Hemingway is to look for the three tall spruce trees that stand above them. Around the horizontal grey slabs many other graves bear familiar names. His grand-daughter Mar-gaux (spelt ‘Margot’ on her gravestone), also took her own life and her epitaph, ‘A free spirit freed’, could almost be his as well. George Saviers, Hemingway’s doctor, lies a few yards away, and beside him the grave of his son Frederick Saviers, who died of a viral heart disease at the age of sixteen. One of Ernest Hemingway’s last letters was to this boy. Hemingway was having treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester when he heard Saviers’ son was ill but still found time, on 15 June 1961, to write him a cheery letter. It ended:
‘Best always to you, old timer from your good friend who misses you very much.’
Not a bad way to sum up my feelings about this journey and the man whose footsteps I have followed from Oak Park to this graveyard in Ketchum - Ernest Miller Hemingway, July 21,1899-July 2, 1961.
Hemingway’s Life
1899
Ernest Miller Hemingway born 21 July in Oak Park, the Chica-go suburb of ‘wide lawns and narrow minds’.
1913
Enters Oak Park High School; pretty hopeless at football but makes up for it in writing for the school paper.
1917
First job, on the Kansas City Star, as a cub reporter.
1918
Volunteer ambulance driver for the American Red Cross in Italy. Wounded 8 July at Fossalta. Ends up in Milan hospital and starts love affair with nurse Agnes von Kurowsky.
1919
Reluctant homecoming - keeps out of mother’s way up in Michigan.
1920
Reporter on the Toronto Star Weekly.
1921
September: Marriage to Hadley Richardson.
November: they sail for France, where he works as foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star in Paris.
1922
Starts writing short stories (rejected), befriends Gertrude Stein who encourages him to keep writing.
En route to join Ernest in Switzerland, Hadley leaves suitcase of his original manuscripts on a train.
1923
First visit to Spain; first bullfight; first son John born; first book published - Three Stories and Ten Poems.
1925
In Our Time, a collection of short stories, published; the result of five years’ work. Following Pamplona Fiesta in July starts writing The Sun Also Rises.
1926
Meets F Scott Fitzgerald, and editor Max Perkins at Scribner’s. Scribner’s publish The Sun Also Rises. First literary success.
1927
Divorces Hadley for Pauline Pfeiffer. Men Without Women (a short story collection) published.
1928
Leaves Paris, rents house in Key West. Second son Patrick born. Father commits suicide. Starts writing A Farewell to Arms in Key West and in various ranches in Wyoming.
1929
A Farewell to Arms published.
1930
Working on Death in the Afternoon - the bullfighting bible - in Key West and also up at the L-Bar-T Ranch, Wyoming.
1931
Buys house in Key West. Third son Gregory born.
1932
Death in the Afternoon published.
1933
Winner Take Nothing published. First safari to Africa.
1935
Green Hills of Africa - first book about Africa.
1936
Working on To Have and Have Not in Wyoming, Cuba and Key West.
1937
To Have and Have Not published. Involved with Loyalists in Spanish Civil War, helps produce propaganda film Spanish Earth.
1938
The Fifth Column - play about the Spanish Civil War - and The First 49 Stories published.
1939
Separates from Pauline, starts living in Cuba with Martha Gell-horn. Writing For Whom the Bell Tolls in Paris, Cuba, Key West, Wyoming and Sun Valley, Idaho.
1940
For Whom the Bell Tolls published. Marries Martha Gellhorn. They set up home in Cuba at the Finca Vigia.
1941
He and Martha visit China and the Far East as foreign correspondents.
1942
Arms his boat Pilar to search for German submarines in Caribbean waters.
1944
War correspondent for Collier’s magazine. Flies with RAF and helps liberate Paris, especially the Ritz wine cellars. Gathers material for Islands in the Stream (published 1970).
1945
Divorces Martha.
1946
Marries Mary Welsh. They settle back in Cuba.
1948
Visits Europe. Falls for Adriana Ivancic in Venice.
1949
Starts writing Across the River and into the Trees. Begins writing what was to become The Garden of Eden (published 1986).
1950
Across the River and into the Trees published. First really unfavourable reviews. Finally starts The Old Man and the Sea and continues with Islands in the Stream.
1952
The Old Man and the Sea is published and his reputation is redeemed.
1953
The Old Man and the Sea awarded Pulitzer Prize.
1954
January: Premature obituaries following two plane crashes within three days in northern Uganda. October: Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature.
1955
Starts writing African journal, to be published 44 years later as True at First Light.
1956
Old diaries discovered at the Paris Ritz which form the basis for A Moveable Feast, finally published in 1964.
1958
Moves out of Cuba and back to the American West, renting a cabin in Ketchum, Idaho.
1959
A 10,000-word article following the Ordonez-Dominguin mano a mano bullfights in Spain, later published in Life magazine (1960) and as the book The Dangerous Summer (published 1985). July: Celebration of 60th birthday in Malaga.
1960
Two suicide attempts. Treated at the Mayo Clinic with electric shock therapy.
1961
Discharged in January. Another suicide attempt in April, returns to clinic. Discharged as ‘cured’ 26 June. 2 July kills himself. Buried in Ketchum cemetery.
Acknowledgements
The Hemingway Adventure would not have been possible without the help of many people.
Martha Wailes was one of the first to come on board and her enthusiasm and exhaustive thoroughness in picking through the rich detail of Hemingway’s life has helped make this book possible. As producer of the series, she showed indefatigable energy in organising, chivvying and cajoling people into helping us. Mirabel Brook guided us round the world with a steady hand and she and Laura Tutt turned a complicated shooting schedule into a precision instrument.
My co-adventurers and assorted towers of strength were David Turnbull, director, bon viveur, and the man who coined our title, Nigel Meakin, cameraman and bull impersonator, Jay Jay Odedra, his assistant, and John Pritchard, who recorded every roar, squeal and explosion - and those were just my pieces to camera.
In every country we needed special advice and we would have been lost without the help of Ernesto Juan Castellanos in Cuba, Elizabeth Nash and Robert Misik in Spain, Diane Saccilotto and Dajna Annese in Italy, Francoise Jamet and Brian Ferinden in Paris, Richard Bonham in Kenya, Patrick and Samantha Moray in Uganda, Mary Perkins, Carli Reardon, Rita Brown in Key West and Brad Leech in Petoskey.