Florida History: The 'Papa' of writers, Ernest Hemingway

Readers: We told you about the literary giants who at times called Florida home in our column, “Carl Hiaasen, Harriet Beecher Stowe and other great Florida writers.” Over the years, Key West alone hosted, full or part time, John J. Audubon, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens. None more famous than "Papa,” Ernest Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway's home, at 907 Whitehead St., is a two-story green shuttered, green-and-ivory coral rock house, built in 1851. It is a national historic landmark and tourist attraction. Perhaps its most well-known feature is the colony of about 50 six-toed cats, believed to be descendants of his pets, who roam the one-acre tropical grounds.

Hemingway, born in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Ill., wrote and edited his high school newspaper and yearbook and worked for the Kansas City Star before becoming an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I. He moved to Paris in the early 1920s with his first wife, Hadley.

Papa and his second wife, Pauline, first visited Key West in 1928, returning from Paris by way of Cuba. It was in Key West when Hemingway finished "A Farewell to Arms," a semi-autobiographical novel set in World War I.

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The couple moved into what would become the historic home on Dec. 19, 1931. The place was in disrepair and the Hemingways did an extensive renovation and restoration. It included the swimming pool, which was finished in 1938 costing $20,000 — about $370,000 in today's dollars.

For a decade, Hemingway wrote, drank, fished and lived the tropical life, taking time to referee Friday night open-arena boxing matches.

It was at his home that he wrote "Death in the Afternoon" and "Green Hills of Africa" and "To Have and Have Not," a novel about Key West during the Great Depression. He called it a "conch town where all was starched, well-shuttered, virtue, grits and boiled grunts, undernourishment, culture, prejudice, righteousness, interbreeding, and the comforts of religion ..."

Of course, Hemingway was still Hemingway. One night at a party, poet Wallace Stevens commented to Ernest's sister that he didn't think much of the man's work. Upset almost to tears, the sister made a quick call to Papa. He stormed into the party, called Stevens outside, and broke his jaw with a single right hook.

Ernest and Pauline divorced in 1940 and Hemingway went to Cuba with his third wife, Martha Gellhorn. He later would marry a fourth time, to Mary Welsh. A longtime struggle with depression led to his suicide in Idaho in 1961.

Over the years, he was an absentee owner but made several visits to the Key West home made famous by the great writer. And his six-toed cats.

Next week: Negro Fort

Last week:  The Barker Gang

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From a reader: Dear Mr. Kleinberg, I enjoyed your piece about Ma Barker and thought I would pass this along. My mother's family actually had direct contact with the Barkers.  My mother's family originally lived in Ocala. My Grandmother and Grandfather were both widowed with children and eventually married.  They had five more children together.  My Aunt Gladys, one of two daughters from my Grandmother's first marriage, married into the Scott family (Uncle Sweet) of Ocklawaha.  My mother often visited her older sister and relatives in Ocklawaha and attended dances at the Pavillion on Lake Weir which is now a restaurant.  

I remember two family tales about Ma Barker. I was told that one of my uncles rowed Ma Barker and one of her sons across Lake Weir. He of course had no idea who they were. The other tale is about one of my mother’s nieces coming home from school and walking past the shot up house after the showdown. I believe they displayed the bodies for all to see. 

We used to visit Oklawaha when I was a child and it could have been a movie set for old Florida.  I visited Oklawaha a few years ago and it almost seemed like a preserved time. It still has some dirt roads in town and is pretty small. The lake front however is quite popular. Some of the Scott family pictures used to be displayed at the pavilion, but I did not see them the last time I was there.  My mother is the last of her blended family. She is 93.  Although her short term memory is seriously impaired, she still recalls all sorts of stories from her childhood. - Joe P., Hobe Sound, Fla