Hemingway - a Look at Him

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born at eight o'clock in the morning on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. In the nearly sixty two

years of his life that followed he forged a literary reputation unsurpassed in the twentieth century. In doing so, he also created a

mythological hero in himself that captivated (and at times confounded) not only serious literary critics but the average man as well. In a word, he was a star.

Born in the family home at 439 North Oak Park Avenue (now 339 N. Oak Park Avenue), a house built by his widowed grandfather

Ernest Hall, Hemingway was the second 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 and his great uncle Miller Hall.

Oak Park was a mainly Protestant, upper middle-class suburb of Chicago that Hemingway would later refer to as a town of

"wide lawns and narrow minds." Only ten miles from the big city, Oak Park was really much farther away philosophically.

It was basically a conservative town that tried to isolate itself from Chicago's liberal seediness. Hemingway was raised

with the conservative Midwestern values of strong religion, hard work, physical fitness and self determination; if one adhered to

these parameters, he was taught, he would be ensured of success in whatever field he chose.

As a boy he was taught by his father to hunt and fish along the shores and in the forests surrounding Lake Michigan. The Hemingways

had a summer house called Windemere on Walloon Lake in northern Michigan, and the family would spend the summer months there

trying to stay cool. Hemingway would either fish the different streams that ran into the lake, or would take the row boat out to do some

fishing there. He would also go squirrel hunting in the woods near the summer house, discovering early in life the serenity to be found

while alone in the forest or wading a stream. It was something he could always go back to throughout his life, wherever he was. Nature

would be the touchstone of Hemingway's life and work, and though he often found himself living in major cities like Chicago, Toronto