The pedigree of Ernest Hemingway

“Heritage” Grace Hall Hemingway

Hemingway’s pedigree, this is exactly the case when primary data are collected and described by the method of presentation. What did the mother of the world famous writer Ernest Hemingway.

Among the other documents at Fink Wihia, a twenty-eight-page typewritten manuscript was written by Hemingway’s mother, Mrs. Grace Hall Hemingway. The work traces the genealogy of the writer on the maternal side.

This genealogy reference, entitled Heritage, provides a number of interesting facts. According to Grace, Ernest Hemingway’s great-grandfather on the mother’s side – Ernest Hall – was familiar with Charles Dickens and “supported” the famous writer when he drunkenly walked through the streets of London.

Grace also notes that her mother Carolina Hancock “was the daughter of Captain Alexander Hancock… (the great-nephew of John Hancock crowned with revolutionary glory).”

She tirelessly praises her family members for their renunciation of earthly goods for the sake of selfless devotion to God and humanity.

Grace sent Ernest a manuscript with a handwritten note dated July 25, 1940. It says:

My dear son Ernest,

Here is the Chronicle that I wrote last summer about our family. It covers 200 years of life of five generations.

Sources I used: published memoirs of William Edward Miller (your great-great-grandfather), which talk a lot about his father, Dr. Edward Miller… from Oxford. My grandmother’s stories about her father and mother, husband and children. My father’s stories about his parents, sisters and brothers. My mother’s stories about her ancestors, as well as what I know about my husband.

I believe that you will keep it for your children. There are no other copies. Although I have no literary gift, I have at least established some interesting facts that could be lost for the future.

I hope you find this worthy of attention.

Grace Hall Hemingway Mom Loving You.

This is for you as a birthday present.

Selected excerpts from Heritage (Grammar and punctuation – no editing)

About William Edward Miller, maternal great-grandfather of Ernest Hemingway

(Pages 4-5). Having married, William Miller settled in Sheffield. As a musician, he was very popular because he owned the violin of the Cremonian masters, which seemed to be the shrine of his soul. He was considered the second, if not the first, violinist of England. His life flowed steadily in a comfortable world. He successfully taught Art dear to his heart, when one evening, attracted by the music that he accidentally heard on the street, he entered the Norfolk church. His appearance… stunned everyone present… because he was very handsome and there was something magnificent in his way of behaving. His dress in the Methodist church was simply unimaginable. He was powdered and covered in lace, as the fashion demanded from the dandy of that time. And there he heard the passionate sermons of the great John Welsey. In an instant, his whole life changed… he experienced conversion.

He went to the fence of the altar and knelt down, devoting his whole life without a trace of preaching the word of God. Having made such a decision, he realized that his favorite violin stood on the way to its execution – the most expensive for him in the whole world. And he decided never to touch her again. To this day, it is kept in the British Museum.

(Page 7). The descendants of William Miller were surprisingly always accompanied by wealth and worldly well-being.

About maternal great-grandmother Ernest Hemingway Mary Dunhill Miller Hall

(Page 9). She was a woman of a very strong nature, holding her husband under the heel and dominating the children until they became adults; they all inherited her strong will. She was devotedly devoted to the Methodist Church, she never missed prayer meetings inspired by deep faith, which began on Sundays at nine in the morning and continued until the service at noon. Often she led these meetings.

All the years that I remember her, she was a widow, strong and ready for anything, not afraid of anything. I saw her crawling under the train, which was moving slowly, to cross the railroad tracks if the train blocked her path, preventing her from passing. She always crossed the city streets, slipping in front of traveling carts or between them. She seemed invulnerable.

About emigrating to America

(Pages 10-11). After the death of their first-born, Florence, Charles Hall and his wife Mary followed their married daughter Marianne to America. They left the twelve-year-old Ernest and ten-year-old Gillam, and they took with them the nineteen-year-old son Miller and their little daughter Alice. Marianne, who had left earlier, married William Ludley Mandall, a good musician and organist who later installed the organ in his home in Chicago. The family’s voyage by sea lasted six weeks.

About Ernest Hemingway’s maternal grandfather Ernest Hall, after whom he was named

(Page 11). Having insisted on giving up the clergyman’s career, Ernest went to the doctrine of a carpenter who had business on the other side of London. Every morning and every evening, Ernest traveled three miles round trip, often experiencing unforgettable happiness from meeting with Charles Dickens. Ernest was already a passionate admirer of Dickens’ novels, and when he met a writer sadly wandering the streets after a few missing glasses, Ernest happily accompanied him and supported him… Both Ernest and Gillam, who was then studying at Westminster Abbey [he was the owner of the “exceptional soprano”], – they took care of his brother, Charles Jr., and were good patrons to him. Three years later, parents, having settled on a small farm in Dyersville, Iowa, a settlement founded by the English community, were sent for the remaining sons to come to them. The boys’ journey across the ocean, a train ride to Dibouk itself, and from there to Dyersville on horseback and in a colonist van — all took two months. The journey was accompanied by exciting stories of a glorious future in Iowa. Upon arrival, the London boys thought that they were in paradise.

(Pages 18-19). One morning, my father turned to the whole family: “I want you to sit down and listen to me. I have to tell you something important. An amazing thing happened to me. This happened once before, but then it frustrated and frightened me so much that I frightened anyone He didn’t say anything. But now it happened again, and I feel that I have to tell you everything. Don’t think that I dreamed about it. It happened at the height of the day, I calmly sat in a shop in the hustle and bustle of affairs when suddenly, without any omen, a thing happened to me oh! Everything around seemed to be shrouded in a veil of bright rainbow rays! Wonderful sounds! Unlimited joy! Amazing feeling of complete happiness!..” When he stopped, finding no more words, I exclaimed: “Well, so what did you see, daddy? what did you hear?”

“That is the point, he said with a note of despair. There are not enough words, the language is too insignificant to express it.” And he added, after some time, necessary for him to gain clarity of thought: “I can try to explain this to you only allegorically. Imagine a worm that crawled out of the earth and for several minutes was able to experience and perceive all the joys available to us, human beings… sounds of beautiful orchestras and symphonies, birds singing. Able to feel the splendor of sunset and white lamb of turquoise waves. Able to feel poetry and great literature; Beauty of Nature and the joys of human love and fellowship. And then, you know, this worm came back underground and tried to tell all his brothers about all this. He couldn’t find a word for it! He wouldn’t find comparisons from his own experience! So now I feel like such a worm,” said my eloquent father…

Trying to explain this to myself by virtue of my understanding, I think that the world was revealed to him as the Lord sees it, but not man.

(Page 20). He did not fear death, believing in immortality. They say about old people like my father: “He saw God and spoke to him.” Many times I burst into his room, as it is permissible only for little girls, and made him kneel in front of a small table. His eyes were raised to the sky and wide open, he smiled, turning to the Lord. This picture always stands before my eyes…

(Page 22). When my children Ernest Hemingway and his sister were still crumbs, their grandfather Ernest Hall often gave them slices of ham from his breakfast. He called them his “doggies, eating up the remains.” More than once he repeated to me when we were gathering at breakfast: “Grace, this is an amazing boy. If nothing happens to him, he will make the whole world worry.”

About Ernest Hemingway’s father Dr. Clarence E. Hemingway

(Pages 27-28). A year after the death of my mother, I married Dr. Clarence Edmonds Hemingway. Dr. Hemingway has just completed a course at Rush College of Medicine and has begun practicing in Oak Park, Illinois. For three years he worked as an assistant to the brilliant surgeon Nicholas Senn and in the last year tirelessly improved in the great science of surgery, improving the technique of existing abdominal operations, spinal operations and rib resection…

My father was very attached to my husband, who answered him in full reciprocity. That was the happiness of my life. None of them made important decisions in business or money matters, without consulting the other. The doctor often repeated: “How rich I am, having two real fathers!”

Dr. Hemingway was one of those generous and exalted natures who love people, seek to help their neighbor, no matter what it costs them. He would like to never bill patients. If people thanked him, it gave him more joy than when they paid; and if they did both, he would return home shining, like a schoolboy who was praised…

The Lord blessed us with six children: Marcelina (musician, sculptor, playwright, who has four successful one-act plays), Ernest (author of novels and short stories), Ursula (sculptor), Madeleine (musician, harpist and pianist), Carol (writer), Leicester (magazine editor).

From the book of N. Fuentes “Hemingway in Cuba.”