Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in the family home at 439 North Oak Park Avenue at eight o'clock in the morning on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. He was the second child of Dr. Clarence and Grace Hall Hemingway's six children; he had four sisters and one brother. He was named after his maternal grandfather Ernest Hall (who was widowed and owned the family home Ernest was born in) and his great uncle Miller Hall.

The town of Oak Park was a mainly Protestant, an upper middle class suburb of Chicago, and only ten miles from the big city. It was basically a conservative town that tried to isolate itself from Chicago's liberal seediness. Hemingway was raised with conservative Midwestern values of strong religion, hard work, physical fitness and self determination; he was taught if one adhered to these parameters, he would be ensured of success in whatever field he chose.

As a boy Hemingway was taught by his father to hunt and fish along the shores and in the forest surrounding Lake Michigan, where the family had their summer house called Windemere on Walloon Lake in northern Michigan. He would either fish in the different streams or go squirrel hunting in the woods, discovering early in life the serenity to be found while alone in the forest or wading a stream. When he was not hunting or fishing he was being taught by his mother the finer points of music.

Hemingway received his formal schooling in the Oak Park public school system. In high school he enjoyed working on the high school newspaper called the Trapeze, where he wrote his first articles, usually humorous pieces in the style of a popular satirist of the time. Hemingway graduated in the spring of 1917 and instead of going to college the following fall like his parents expected, he took a job as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star.