Sunday, September 08, 2019

Ernest Hemingway and Laura Ingalls Wilder

Literary Authors and their connections

So what is the name Ernest Hemingway and Laura Ingalls Wilder doing on this blog about Iowa and connections to its history?  As far I know Hemingway spent much of his life in Ketchum, Idaho where he is now buried.  For a time he lived and wrote from his home in Cuba.   
Laura Ingalls Wilder spent most of her growing up years (which she wrote of in her very famous Little House series), in Minnesota and DeSmet, South Dakota.  However, she did live for a time in Burr Oak, IA.  I've written about that connection in earlier blog posts both here and elsewhere:
And Hemingway - His parents Dr. Clarence Hemingway was a physician, and his mother Grace Hall Hemingway was an accomplished singer and very musical).  The family lived in Oak Park Illinois and often spent time at  their summer home near Walloon Lake in northern Michigan.  Never in Iowa but his grandmother's family, the Hancocks, had lived in Dyersville, Iowa for several years before his grandmother married Ernest Hall (Hemingway's grandfather)  and Ernest Hall tired of the rural life and moved his family, including his daughter Grace, to Chicago and then to Oak Park, Illinois.  Across the street lived the Hemingways and Grace Hall and Dr. Clarence Hemingway married.  Ernest was the second of the Hemingways's six children. There were four girls: Marcelline, Ursula, Madelaine, Carol, and the youngest child, a brother Leicester.  

Ernest Hemingway never did live in Iowa - even for a short time but his mother Grace Hall Hemingway had Iowa roots.  And there is an firmer Iowa connection, a more lasting collection.
 The connection is through Leicester, Ernest's younger brother, and Ernest's younger brother.  Leicester gives Ernest Hemingway the clearest connection to Iowa.  Leicester and his second wife, Doris Mae Hemingway 'nee Dunning had been married since 1956, and at the time of his death (suicide as his brother, father, and sister Ursula ended their lives)  in 1982, Leicester and Doris were living in Miami Beach, Florida where he had been publishing a fishing newspaper for five years or so.  Leicester's funeral was in Florida, but his cremated remains were returned to Iowa for burial in Alden Cemetery, Alden, Iowa, Hardin County, Iowa.  Doris Mae Hemingway died 15 years later (1997)  in Florida and is buried in Alden, Iowa as well.  Doris was raised in the Alden, Iowa area and many of her family members are buried in the cemetery.  So finally a firm connection from Ernest Hemingway to Iowa.


The Iowa Connection - A Passing Relationship

Both Ernest Hemingway and Laura Ingalls Wilder have a brief and thin connections to Iowa - but a connection never-the-less.  Ernest's brother is buried in Iowa, Wilder's youngest daughter Grace was born in Burr Oak, Iowa.  But Iowa was not either writer's residence (for long at least).


So What Is the Connection to One Another -- Hemingway & Wilder?

This question is answered by a little known fact - there are only two Presidential libraries that hold major collections of a literary figures papers and manuscripts.  One is the John F. Kennedy Presidential library in Boston, Massachusetts.  And the other - by now you've probably guessed it, or at least part of it.  
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa holds the literary papers and manuscripts of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
For information about why Wilder's papers are at the Herbert Hoover library view the September 1, 2019 presentation at the museum :
Hoover Presidential Library. (2019 November 20) Long Way Home: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Sarah Uthoff.  Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ApdkBc29pJQ

The Ernest Hemingway Collection

In a blog entry by Stacey Chandler, Reference Archivist at the John F. Kennedy Library, Chandler explains how the personal papers of Ernest Hemingway came to be part of the presidential library. 
Cahdler, Stacey.  (2018 July 18) JFK & Hemingway: Beyond "Grace Under Pressure. The JFK Library Archive : An Inside Look (Blog).  Retrieved from https://jfk.blogs.archives.gov/2018/07/20/jfk-hemingway/
Information about the Ernest Hemingway Collection is explained on the scope of the collection page: https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/MEHC#overview

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Collection

Information about the connection between Herbert Hoover, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter Rose Wilder Lane is discussed on this page on the Hoover site focused on Lane's connection to Hoover, and the link then to Wilder.  The Rose Wilder Lane Collection, retrieved from 
Information about the Laura Ingalls Wilder Collection is explained on the page titled: Rose Wilder Lane and Laura Ingalls Wilder. The page is part of the Herbert hoove Presidential Library and Museum site.  Page retrieved from https://hoover.archives.gov/education/rose-wilder-lane-and-laura-ingalls-wilder.

A brushing glance at Iowa from both Hemingway and Wilder - but their connection to one another as the only literary personalities to be so represented in Presidential libraries is more firmly implanted in the history of our society.