Little Traverse Historical Museum
100 Depot Court
Petoskey, MI 49770
2023 Schedule of Society Events Newsletter
Hemingway in Comics (including Disney!)
Friday, August 11 at 7 PM
Fred Svodoba Participates in a
Detroit Public Television Webinar Event
Hemingway Coming of Age in an Earlier Age
Hemingway Coming of Age in an Earlier Age
CMU Clarke Library Now Fully Open
In Person Visitors Welcomed
Both the reading room and exhibition gallery are now fully open to receive visitors. Capacity caps and face mask rules still apply, but generally appointments won't be needed for small groups. Researchers are welcome to visit our reading room Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5 pm. The Library continues to provide research assistance via phone and email and the Clarke staff always appreciates appointments for in-person research. Please contact us at clarke@cmich.edu or 989-774-3352 to make an appointment or for further information.
Frank Boles Retires
by Janice Byrne
After thirty years of service to the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University, the esteemed Frank Boles is retiring in August. Frank is well known to members of the Michigan Hemingway Society because of his attendance at many of the MHS conferences.
Frank always appeared with news from the Clarke, often with “goodies” from recent purchases like a rare first edition of an early Hemingway book or an unknown typescript page. During his tenure Frank helped to bring the Michigan Hemingway Society Archives to the Clarke, thus sealing what the MHS Board foresaw as a long term mutually beneficial relationship. More importantly, his leadership with the Hemingway Collection has elevated it to one of the best in the nation. The MHS salutes Frank Boles on this auspicious occasion.
Hemingway at the CMU Clarke Historical Library
with Frank Boles and Michael Federspiel
A three-part, six-hour documentary film that examines the work and the turbulent life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest and most influential writers America has ever produced. Interweaving his eventful biography, a life lived at the ultimately treacherous nexus of art, fame, and celebrity, with carefully selected excerpts from his luminous short stories, novels, and non-fiction, we will see beyond the façade of the public man, becoming intimately familiar with this brilliant, ambitious, charismatic, and egocentric genius.
Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, written by Geoffrey C. Ward, and produced by Sarah Botstein, Lynn Novick, and Ken Burns. Voice Actors Include Jeff Daniels as Hemingway; Meryl Streep, Keri Russell, Mary Louise Parker, and Patricia Clarkson as Hemingway’s four wives.
The Hemingway Collection at the Clarke: An Exhibit
The newest exhibit at the Clarke Historical Library on the campus of Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant beautifully displays much of the large Hemingway Collection housed there. MHS has a close partnership with the Clarke, where we not only support this important collection fiscally and promotionally, but where we house our own organization’s archives.
A reception for Friends of the Collection opened the exhibit on February 21, 2019, offering conversation and appetizers with exhibit curator and former MHS president, Michael Federspiel, and exhibit designer, Janet Danek.
Along with Frank Boles, Director of the Clarke, Mr. Federspiel and Ms. Danek presented a public program about the Hemingway Collection and the exhibit as part of the Clarke Speaker Series immediately following the reception. MHS was graciously recognized, as well as individual contributors, for their role in supporting the Collection.
Members of the MHS Board of Directors were able to visit the exhibit on April 27 when they met at the Clarke to plan the upcoming fall conference.
The exhibit is stunning, and we encourage everyone to visit the Clarke to experience this wonderful display of materials relating to Hemingway in Michigan and Michigan’s role in the Hemingway canon; the Hemingway family; the history of Hemingway’s career; and Hemingway’s impact on popular culture. (You’re going to love the movies!)
The exhibit will be open through August of 2019, don't miss it.
"I've written a number of stories about Michigan country –
the country is always true – what happens in the stories is fiction.”
-- Letter to Clarence Hemingway, 1925
A Weekend the Hemingway
by Felicia Preece
I was fortunate this past weekend to attend the Michigan Hemingway Society’s annual conference, held in Bay View, as the Bill Coté Scholarship recipient. Upon my receipt of the award, I was asked to consider my time at the conference and to reflect on both what I learned over the course of the weekend, as well as what being there meant to me. I have attempted to capture that information below.
As I shared with many of the attendees, my path to Hemingway was both typical (I read The Old Man and the Sea and “Hills Like White Elephants” in high school, feeling apathetic towards any literature where I was told what to think about it) and atypical (the first novel I read on my own was A Moveable Feast, the first memoir was Gregory’s Papa, and my favorite Hemingway novel is To Have and Have Not). Throughout college, I enjoyed exploring Hemingway’s writing, but it wasn’t until I was in my first year of Graduate School at the University of Toledo when I really got involved in Hemingway Studies. That is where this story begins. With encouragement from my department chair, I submitted a paper proposal to the 2012 International Hemingway Society Conference and was accepted. The conference was to be held in Bay View that year, and it was my first visit to Michigan’s Up North. The experience was nothing short of religious. As I made my way home after the week, I stopped at Walloon Lake – across from the general store on M75 – and swam. My dedication to the life and work of Ernest Hemingway began with that “baptism.”
And here we are now, six long years later, and I am back at “the beginning of something.” Over the course of the weekend, I was able to reconnect with several of you who have always held a special place in my memory and to meet many more people who will certainly continue to be among my Hemingway Family. The talks about Hemingway’s WWI wounding and his return to Michigan gave me a deeper appreciation for his relationship to this region and strengthened my own views that Hemingway really is a de facto Michigander. Hearing how the Civil War influenced young Hemingway’s life and attitude towards war helped illuminate his treatment of the subject throughout his life. I particularly appreciated Fred Svoboda’s suggestion of the *magic* in Hemingway’s writing and how it would seem that the magical is a reflection back to Hemingway’s time spent in the greater Petoskey area. To me, the area IS magical and healing to the spirit, and I would like to believe that Hemingway thought so, too. While the information itself was certainly beneficial, I believe that overall, the weekend gave me the inspiration and drive to rededicate myself (although this time I decided to forego an entire baptism and settled for plunging my arm in Walloon Lake) and continue working diligently on my dissertation.
There really are not words to describe how much it meant to me to be able to be with you all this past weekend. I am looking forward to many more conferences and to hopefully build my presence within the society and help spread the love of Papa not only throughout the great state of Michigan, but everywhere. I cannot thank the Board members enough for granting me this privilege by awarding me the Coté Scholarship.
Central Michigan University’s Clarke Historical Library
Acquires Rare Hemingway Edition
By Janice Byrne
Perhaps the most cherished Christmas present for members of the Michigan Historical Society, and indeed for every Hemingway fan and scholar, was the recent acquisition of what may be the most rare of all Hemingway volumes, Three Stories and Ten Poems, by the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University. Published in 1923 by Robert McAlmon in Paris (Contact Publishing Company) it was Hemingway’s first book. Only three hundred copies were originally printed and of those three hundred only a handful are known to survive. Thus when MHS member Dan Rupp informed Clarke Curator Frank Boles that a copy of the book was coming up for sale at a reputable Detroit auction house, Dr. Boles sprang into action. He was able to obtain the book for less than expected and although some additional funding was pledged by the MHS Board, the extra money was not needed. “We were able to buy it for a good deal less than the going price on abebooks.com" Dr. Boles said. “It was a really nice Christmas present for the library,”
Possibly of most interest to Michigan Hemingway Society members is that it contains the “date rape” story “Up in Michigan” which both Grace Hemingway and Gertrude Stein considered unfit to read because of its sexually explicit content. Family letters suggest that Grace and Dr. Edmund Hemingway returned their copy to Ernest for that reason. Today it and the two other stories, “Out of Season” and “My Old Man” are considered classics of American literature. The ten poems remain somewhat obscure, however. Nevertheless for many scholars having the book available in the Clarke collection represents a wish that none had actually expected to be granted.
On a personal note, while on a literary trip to London a number of years ago this reporter visited a rare book shop in Bloomsbury which was said to have a copy of Three Stories and Ten Poems. The proprietor claimed at the time that only five copies were known to exist. His price translated from Euros to dollars was in the range of $25,000 and the copy was in less than fair condition. In contrast, the copy purchased by the Clarke, is in good condition and was purchased for considerably less money. As one MHS member put it, “Whether you like Hemingway or not, on the rare book market this was one heck of a deal.”
Patricia Innis shares her video of "Hemingway Haunts"
environmental artwork at the
Michigan Legacy Art Park.
Places That Inspired Northern Michigan’s Greatest Authors: Hemingway, Harrison + Voelker
By Jeff Smith and Lissa Edwards
Excerpt from the September issue of Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine
published on MyNorth.com, September 13, 2017
– Hemingway’s Little Traverse –
There would be other loves—Paris bistros, Cuban cats and cigars, marlin off the Florida Keys, Montana’s heavenly skies. But before all of that, Ernest Hemingway was infatuated with Northern Michigan. He married his first wife, Hadley, here almost a century ago. That event, set in the village of Horton Bay on Lake Charlevoix, closed the Northern Michigan chapter of Hemingway’s life. But by then the landscapes, landmarks and characters of our region had so infused his imagination that they came pouring out in the now legendary stories he wrote in Paris, where he and Hadley moved soon after their wedding. Most notably, Paris is where Nick Adams came to life—that quintessential Northern Michigan summer boy that stars in many of Hemingway’s stories.
So many of the landmarks that he quilted into those stories still exist, that to see them is to feel the writer’s very presence. Hemingway junkies are all but guaranteed spine tingles. And even if you don’t care a hoot whether your writing is crisp and verb-filled (Hemingway) or cloying and flowery (virtually every writer before him) you’ll be inspired by the landscape, pubs and eateries along this trail. Brush up on your Hemingway 101 and follow along as we introduce you to Hemingway’s Northern Michigan years.
Stay …Where Hemingway Stayed:
The lemon yellow Stafford’s Perry Hotel, on the corner of Bay and Lewis Streets was built in 1899—the same year Hemingway was born. He stayed here when he was 17, after a hiking and camping trip. Relax in one of the 75 guest rooms and you’ll know how young Ernie felt when he returned to civilization after his trip.
Tour
Sumner Road public access on Walloon Lake: As a teenager, Hemingway rowed from Windermere, across Walloon Lake to the end of Sumner Road. A mile-and-a-half-walk landed him in the hamlet of Horton Bay where he had a number of friends and adventures that would figure heavily into his stories. Years later he would pen a scene in his story “Wedding Day,” in which Nick Adams and his bride, Helen, launched here to row across the lake to a honeymoon cottage after their wedding. Not coincidentally, this is also where real-life Ernest and his bride Hadley rowed away to spend their honeymoon night across the lake at Windermere after their wedding.
Horton Bay General Store: This 19th-century white clapboard building in the middle of town makes an appearance in both “Up in Michigan,” and “The Last Good Country.” Take a seat on the front porch like Hemingway often did. Better yet, nowadays you can do what he didn’t do: stay in the B&B above the store, have a drink in the tavern in back, and enjoy breakfasts, lunches and special tapas dinner.
Pinehurst and Shangri-La: These two privately owned cottages on Lake Street are what is left of the Dilworth Resort where Hemingway bunked (in the back of Pinehurst) when he was in the village. The Dilworths hosted a wedding breakfast for the newly married Hemingways in Pinehurst. The Dilworth Resort makes an appearance in “Summer People,” and “Up in Michigan.”
Public access on Lake Charlevoix: Continue down Lake Street to where it ends at Lake Charlevoix and you’ll know the setting Hemingway was imagining when he wrote “The End of Something,” “Summer People,” “On Writing,” and “Up in Michigan.”
City Park Grill
City Park Grill: Lore has it that the aspiring writer liked the second seat from the end of the bar. Great food and live music means it’s still a fun place. 432 East Lake Street.
Little Traverse Historical Museum: To get your Hemingway bearings, stop in at this train station-turned-museum. Not only does it have a fascinating and permanent Hemingway exhibit but the writer also mentioned it in “The Indians Moved Away.”
The Carnegie Building: Once the Petoskey Public Library, this building was a favorite place of Hemingway’s when he was living in Petoskey during the winter of 1919–20. In December of 1919 he spoke here to the Ladies Aid Society about his experiences in World War I—memories that became the basis of his epic “A Farewell to Arms.”
Event: Michigan Hemingway Society Annual Conference, October 6–8, Terrace Inn, Petoskey. Register here.
Must-Read books by Hemingway
The Nick Adams Stories // The Torrents of Spring // For Whom the Bell Tolls
Also read: Picturing Hemingway’s Michigan by Michael R. Federspiel
Jeff Smith is editor of Traverse Magazine, smith@traversemagazine.com.
Elizabeth Edwards is managing editor of Traverse Magazine, lissa@traversemagazine.com.
The Hotel Walloon cordially invites you to attend their third annual
The Last Good Country: Walloon Lake, an Ernest Hemingway Occasion
event on April 27th through April 29th, 2018:
- A meet-n-greet with Valerie Hemingway, Ernest’s daughter-in-law and personal assistant.
- Fly fishing demonstrations by master river guide, Brian Kosminski.
- Tours of Walloon Lake and Petoskey where Hemingway summered and began his career as a writer of fiction led by yours truly, Christopher Struble, President of The Michigan Hemingway Society.
- Combined with a Hemingway inspired feast at the Walloon Lake Inn you are guaranteed a unique opportunity to experience for yourself the area, activities and season that so inspired America’s most influential writer of the 20th century… Ernest Hemingway
The Torrents of Spring
by Chris Struble, President of The Michigan Hemingway Society
Originally a story by Ivan Turgenev, Ernest Hemingway, while living in Paris in 1925, decided to “borrow” the title “The Torrents of Spring” from the great Russian author for one of his own novels. Although originally written as a parody of then friend Sherwood Anderson’s, “Winesburg Ohio”, in order to get out of a contract with his publisher at the time, Hemingway peripherally, also managed to capture perfectly the feelings, quite often those of excitement, one experiences in Northern Michigan as harsh winter slowly winds down and the first subtle signs begin to announce that spring may actually be on its way.
With several weeks still remaining before Ernest would trade in his text books and dress wear in Oak Park Illinois for fishing poles and bare feet at the family summer cottage on Lake Walloon, “Spring fever”, as it is commonly known, for young Hemingway would have been especially strong in April, for April marks the beginning of Trout season -surely one of the most important dates on the avid outdoorsman’s calendar. So important was this date that in 1919, when offered a cushy paid position in Toronto caring for the home of the affluent Connable family, Hemingway’s only condition of acceptance was that he be able to return to Michigan for the first day of the season opener.
True to his passion, Ernest was back fishing the streams and rivers that spring of 1920, leaving behind a subsequent job as a reporter for the Toronto Star. Prior to departing, he was able however, to secure a freelance position with the publication writing about what else?… trout fishing of course!
From his earliest and most critically acclaimed works including “The Big Two Hearted River” a story about the cathartic and healing powers rivers and streams possess, to “The Last Good Country,” perhaps the last story he was working on at the time of his death, Hemingway’s love of fishing and northern Michigan provided a lifelong source of inspiration, both in his personal life and literature.
(This special blog post on Ernest Hemingway is compliments of Chris Struble, President of The Michigan Hemingway Society, who has been an integral part of Hotel Walloon’s Hemingway Event and will be participating in the event for a third year.)
Hotel Walloon, 4127 N M-75, Walloon Lake, MI. 49796 | (231) 535-5000 | © 2018 Hotel Walloon
For the first 22 years of his life, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning Ernest Hemingway spent his summers exploring the woods and waters of Walloon Lake, Horton By, Petoskey and the neighboring communities of Northern Michigan. It was here he discovered his love of fishing, hunting and writing. It was here where many of the scenes and characters for his future works would be shaped—most notably, those of Nick Adams.
Literary and history buffs are quick to reference Chicago, Paris, Spain, Cuba, Key West and Ketchum as locales where Hemingway made an impact. Yet, it was Northern Michigan which held what some consider the most treasured place in the author’s heart. Except for a single night in 1947, when he was passing through Michigan on his way west, Hemingway never saw this region again after his September 1921 marriage in Horton Bay to Hadley Richardson.“
Hemingway had a very special place in his heart for Northern Michigan. The memories and images in his mind found their way into his works throughout his life, even when the stories were set in other locales around the world,” says Chris Struble, president of The Michigan Hemingway Society. “He remarked to his sister, Ursula, in a letter from 1943 that his time here was the clearest part of his life. But life changed him and he was afraid that if he came back, it wouldn’t be the place he remembered and he couldn’t risk losing what he had known and loved.”
Several events are planned in Petoskey this summer and fall to pay tribute to Hemingway and the impact he made on this region of the state.
www.MichiganHemingwaySociety.org
Michigan Hemingway Society Conference
Petoskey-Bay View, Michigan
October 6-8, 2017
This year the Michigan Hemingway Society is hosting its annual literary and history conference, Friday evening through Sunday afternoon, October 6-8, at The Terrace Inn in the Petoskey, Michigan, Chautauqua community of Bay View.
Founded on the shores of Lake Michigan in 1875, Bay View has maintained its historic buildings, homes and charm. Hemingway was very familiar with this community when he lived in Petoskey for that last time. Throughout the weekend, attendees will tour some of the old Victorian buildings and cottages, exploring their architecture and learning the detailed history of the community.
There is a plan for a special event on Sunday afternoon, with attendees recreating an infamous party that Hemingway attended in one of the Bay View cottages.
This year’s keynote speaker is Steve Paul, the author and edit or of several books including Hemingway at Eighteen: The Pivotal Year that Launched an American Legend, due out this fall. Paul recently retired from the editorial board of The Kansas City Star after 41 years. Starting out on the city desk, he was a longtime arts and culture editor, book critic, special assignment writer, projects editor and writer, mentor and coach to young writers and teachers, and producer of high-profile feature stories on culture, music, architecture, books, people and the city.
Hemingway himself started his writing career at The Kansas City Star. After graduating from Oak Park River Forest High School in 1917, he left the culturally-rich environment there in the Chicago suburbs, as well as the freedom of summers in Northern Michigan, when he moved to Kansas City to become a journalist. If all his trips to Kansas City were added together, he lived and worked in that town for a little more than a year—the longest stay, for six months, was when he was a cub reporter from October 1917 until April 1918.
From there he joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I, returning the following year to the United States, and finally to Petoskey as a wounded and decorated war veteran. He then married his first wife, Hadley Richardson, in Northern Michigan, and the two moved to Paris. While there, Hemingway began freelancing for the Toronto Star, writing fishing sketches before becoming a foreign correspondent.
Membership in the Michigan Hemingway Society is $20 per calendar year, $30 for a family or $10 for students. Join online and register for the conference at www.MichiganHemingwaySociety.org. Benefits include a reduced fee for the annual conference, a printed copy of the MHS Newsletter and periodic updates of MHS News.
The Michigan Hemingway Society has been active since 1983 and was incorporated officially as a non-profit organization in 1993. Made up of university professors, writers, high school teachers, fly fishers, journalists and all kinds of other people who are interested in exploring the life and body of literature created by this Nobel prize-winning author, The Michigan Hemingway Society’s group volunteer energies have been focused ad hoc, on such events as its annual Hemingway weekend, the membership newsletter and maintaining the organization’s website and Facebook page.
www.michiganhemingwaysociety.org | www.facebook.com/MiHemingwaySociety
#MiHemingway #Hemingway #HemingwayInMichigan
#PetoskeyHemingway #UpInMichigan
Check out the Visit Michigan Up North website for more information on Hemingway’s Northern Michigan Connection.
West Bloomfield High School Visits
Hemingway Country
by Jennifer McQuillan
English Department, West Bloomfield High School
Is Hemingway still taught in American high schools?
This was a question that came up during the Michigan Hemingway Society Conference last fall. As a veteran high school English teacher, I've been attempting to answer that question on a national level, but I've found that it's going to take me more time and research, so I've decided to answer it on a decidedly more personal note: YES, I'm teaching Hemingway - selections from the Nick Adams stories - at West Bloomfield High School in West Bloomfield, MI. As a matter of fact, this year, every tenth grade student in our high school read Hemingway's "The End of Something" for the first time in my eighteen years of teaching here, and that's because of the connections we've forged between our Literary Garden and the Michigan Hemingway Society. Imagine - bonding over some Horton Bay mint!
We also made history - as far as MHS President Chris Struble can remember - by becoming the first high school in recent memory to take a field trip to Hemingway country on May 15, 2017. Fifty-two sophomores, juniors, and seniors made a one day trip to Horton Bay and Petoskey to visit sites associated with Hemingway's early life and the Nick Adams stories. Chris and I tag-teamed our teaching at these sites; Chris handled the local history and Hemingway background, and I handled the literary symbolism and connections. Dr. George Colburn helped to coordinate much of the trip and filmed parts of the day, interviewing students as part of his Young Hemingway film and planned educational modules. Students loved the living outdoor "classrooms!" They plunged their own hands into the cold spring and tasted the mint mentioned in the beginning of "Summer People," the same mint we have growing in our Literary Garden at West Bloomfield High School. They sloshed into the waters of Walloon Lake and wrote Hemingway's name into the sand there. Best of all, Chris and I held a fantastic conversation about "The Big Two-Hearted River" with stunning views of Lake Michigan behind us and the ghostly remnants of the Arlington Hotel smoldering below.
Of course, no trip to Petoskey would be complete without fudge and ice cream, and the kids were grateful when Chris gave them some time to give in to sugary temptation. Then it was off to the Little Traverse Historical Museum with Director Jane Garver to see even more Hemingway artifacts (that wedding invitation! that priceless Hemingway signature!) and local Petoskey history before we wrapped it up for the day and the long ride back downstate.
My students want me to plan another trip for next year, and I have staff members clamoring to come, as well! Here's what some of the kids had to say:
"The most recent Hemingway trip was the perfect blend of fun and learning, as we were able to see exactly what Hemingway saw and felt, even though it was decades ago..."
"Seeing the history and nature of the area helped me to love the area enough that I will be taking my family around to the areas we were up north. Learning about Hemingway’s life was also helpful in helping me to understand what he was trying to convey with his writing."
Thank you to Chris Struble, Dr. George Colburn, and Jane Garver for all of their hard work and boundless enthusiasm in making this trip a reality! You can bet we will be back next year!
Hemingway Statue & Birthday Celebration
by George Colburn
Contemporary Learning Systems
We are moving close to the Big Moment on July 21 when the statue of Ernest Hemingway will be dedicated in Petoskey and the American premiere for the documentary Young Hemingway & His Enduring Eden will be held at the Perry Hotel. I hope you all can make it for this once-in-a-lifetime event.
Paul Hendrickson will attend and make remarks at the dedication and at the premiere dinner. The sculptor of the statue will also be attending also. A social hour is planned at 5 p.m. that will feature both of them, and we are hopeful that several of the "Emerging Writers" chosen by the PEN organizations (with funding by the Robert Dau family trust) will be in attendance.
July 21st, 2017, is not the end of the work on the Young Hemingway Project. There will be filming on the 21st so that segments to include the statue and what it means can be added. The newer version will be premiered at the 2018 Hemingway Society conference in Paris, where the final segment will be filmed. Then preparation will begin for a TV presentation in the 2018 - 19 TV season.
Between the two birthdays, our primary goal is to create the educational version of "Young Hemingway." We have a team of teachers ready to advise us how to edit our documentary for maximum impact in the classroom and to produce with our production team a pilot ELM (electronic learning module) for possible distributors to consider.
Chris Struble and George Colburn have been getting a little practice with teachers and students by hosting two "Saturday Mornings with Ernie and Nick" sessions at the Petoskey Library in the past month and spending all day May 15 at Hemingway locations in the area with approx. 55 students from a downstate high school (the teacher, a member of the MHS, will be one of our consultants on the development of the educational package). On the right is a photo of Chris and George hard at work on the steps of the Horton Bay General Store.
From the very beginning of the Young Hemingway Project in 2012, the goal has been to create a solid educational program - something that will be used by teachers for many years. If you would like to help support the creation of the theatrical version of this project please visit the project’s website at www.hemingwaysmichigan.com. Additional information about Contemporary Learning Systems may be found at www.contemporarylearning.org
The Hemingway 100-Year Graduation Party
Saturday, June 17, 2017
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM CDT
The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is pleased to announce its second annual Hemingway Benefit, “The 100-Year Graduation Party,” on Saturday, June 17, from 7 - 10 p.m. at the Hemingway Museum. This celebratory event will commemorate Hemingway’s graduation from Oak Park River Forest High School in 1917. What’s more, the benefit is a testament to our mission statement because it supports the development and mentoring of young writers through the EHFOP Scholarship Fund and essay contest.
Hemingway honed his literary style writing for the Oak Park River Forest High School student newspaper, The Trapeze, and the student literary magazine, The Tabula, which lives on as the school’s annual yearbook. Since Ernest’s graduation in 1917, thousands of students have walked the same halls, inspired by the school’s most illustrious alumnus. The Foundation considers it an honor to preserve the legacy of Oak Park’s native son through support of his birthplace home and museum, which are visited by thousands of people each year.
The evening will feature performances by the OPRFHS Jazz Ensemble and the Julian Spoken Word Club, delicious food from Winberie's, cocktails by Papa’s Pilar, wine, Lagunitas beer, and a fabulous silent auction. Guests will have the opportunity to take a picture alongside Ernest’s yearbook photo and write a Hemingway inspired six-word short story on a vintage typewriter. We will also introduce our second annual publication of “Hemingway Shorts” — a collection of short stories submitted by emerging writers, as well as the publication of the top three student essays.
In addition to proceeds benefiting the Foundation’s current programming and birth home maintenance, we will introduce the winner of the second annual EHFOP Scholarship Fund. It will be awarded to an incoming senior at Oak Park River Forest High School and will include a mentorship with our 2017-2019 Writer-in-Residence. Ten percent of the benefit’s proceeds are allocated to this fund.
Tickets purchased for the event include a one year membership to the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park. This event is also the Foundation's annual meeting. Cocktail attire is suggested.
Generously sponsored by:
Lisa and Ray Lewis
Wednesday Journal
House of Heat
Steve Scheuring at Baird and Warner
Allan and Jan Baldwin
Ginkgo Acupuncture
HeadEase
Gary Longstein at Allstate
Forest Park National Bank & Trust Co.
Winberie's
Lagunitas Brewing Company
Papa's Pilar Rum
Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park
John Cohassey to Lecture at
Rochester Hills Library
There will be a "Library Lecture" by John Cohassey at the Rochester Hills Public Library, 500 Olde Town Rd, Rochester Hills, Michigan on Thursday, March 2, 2017 at 7:00 pm. Cohassey, a Michigan Hemingway Society board member, will discuss the year 1919 when Hemingway decided to become a writer. He returned from WWI that year and spent the fall and most of the winter in Michigan.
Cohassey trained in the visual arts, and he played music professionally for many years before becoming a writer himself. He earned a master’s degree in history from Wayne State University in 1995. His first book, “Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson” (Wayne State Press, 1998), won an award of merit from the Historical Society of Michigan.
In 2007, Cohassey served as a consultant for the History Channel documentary, “Hippies.” His most recent book is “Hemingway and Pound: A Most Unlikely Friendship.”
From The Rochester-Avon Historical Society Newsletter Jan/Feb 2017. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Hemingway Events for 2017
by Janice Byrne
The 2017 calendar for Hemingway events is not yet complete. Nevertheless a few interesting items have been scheduled for this year. First was the Modern Language Association session “Hemingway and Imagism” held in Philadelphia this January. Next came the Key West to Havana boat race that began on January 22 and ended on February 3. The race consisted of four parts over the course of two weeks. While not particularly related to Hemingway biography, it does remind fans of Harry Morgan’s trips along the same route in To Have and Have Not.
As for future events, the Oak Park Hemingway group is holding their annual Writing Workshop on February 2, 9, 16 and 23 under David Berner’s leadership. While nothing else appears in February, there is a March first deadline for papers on Hemingway’s works and biography to be presented at the January 2018 Modern Language Association in New York. That is only two days before the Moscow, Idaho, Hemingway Festival sponsored by the University of Idaho (March 3-4). The event is open to the public and is in honor of the PEN Hemingway Award given at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library each spring. This year PEN Hemingway will be April 2. Also in April (6 through 8) the University of Louisiana at Lafayette will host the symposium “Hemingway in the Global South.”
The University of Arkansas at Piggott will sponsor a literary trip to Cuba on May 12 through 19. The group represents one of several long-term offerings of the Pfeiffer Home Museum. Similar trips for scholars (and now some also for the general public) are offered from time to time by several tour companies. Most include a donation to an organizing Hemingway agency.
As one might suspect, come June and July, things really begin to heat up. In Paris the Left Bank Writers Retreat runs from June 11-17 while the sixteenth International Colloquium Ernest Hemingway in Havana will meet June 15 through 18. Sponsored by the Finca Viga and the National Council Heritage, it is a premier event featuring Cuban scholars who whose work at the Museo Ernest Hemingway may be the basis for their papers. Next, the Sun Valley Writers Conference goes from June 30 through July 3. Note that a bike festival on June 29 through July 2 overlaps these dates. Perhaps with a slight stretch of the imagination one might be able to tie it into the bike races in Hemingway’s fiction.
Of course, the main event for those interested in tauriana, the annual Fiesta San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, is still on July 7–14. This seven days of running with the bulls, now famous around the world, popularized by Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, has prompted other celebrations during the month of July, including the Key West Festival from July 18 through 23. The Key West Papa Look Alike competition will be held July 20-22 as a fundraising event for a local community college. On Friday, July 21, the Perry Hotel in Petoskey, Michigan will host an event celebrating Hemingway’s birthday. Included in the celebrtion will be the premier showing of the new documentary “Young Hemingway: Finding His Muse in Northern Michigan.” On that same weekend Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, will hold its first Hemingway conference. Raul Villareal, son of Hemingway’s Cuban major domo, Rene Villareal and his colleague Michael Curry are the organizers and promise a great program, including a talk by Valerie Hemingway. September brings another Hemingway Festival, this one in Ketchum, Idaho. Now also an annual event, this year’s gathering will be held the weekend after Labor Day (September 7-9). The year rounds out with the annual Michigan Hemingway Society weekend in Petoskey October 6 through 9. Watch for news of other Michigan oriented events in 2017 and mark your 2018 calendar for July 22-29, the International Hemingway Society conference in Paris!
Where is Hemingway in Colleges and Universities?
by Janice Byrne
A recent informal search revealed that undergraduate and graduate courses including works by Ernest Hemingway might be fewer in number than generally believed. Surprisingly, of those responding only one offered course exclusively dedicated to his works. That is Institutio Hemingway in Bilbao, Spain. American universities listing courses in their catalogs that include Hemingway titles are Yale, University of New York at New Paltz, University of California at Riverside, University of Michigan, Flint, Misericordia College and Huston Baptist University. Not surprisingly, each of these courses is taught by an internationally acclaimed Hemingway scholar, including H. R. Stoneback, Nancy Sindelar, Matt Nicel. and Michigan Hemingway Society’s Fred Svoboda.
The perhaps most important academic institution for Hemingway studies at this time is Pennsylvania State. Under the leadership of Sandra Spanier, Penn State covers the globe on a wide variety of topics as they produce new volumes for the Letters Project.
Bill and Donna Coté Scholarship for 2016
Awarded to Lily Rosenberg
The Michigan Hemingway Society exists to encourage the study of Ernest Hemingway's life and work, especially regarding his relationship to Michigan. What better way to do this than to foster an interest in Hemingway in a new generation? Long-time Society member Bill Coté suggested that a student scholarship be created and designed to bring young students to read, understand, and appreciate the novels and short stories of Ernest Hemingway. The Board of Directors is delighted to announce the creation of the Bill and Donna Coté Scholarship Fund.
This year the very first Bill and Donna Coté Scholarship has been awarded to Lily Rosenberg, an eleventh grade student at West Bloomfield High School in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Read her award-winning essay "Hemingway’s Pure Michigan.” Lily has been actively involved in her school's one-of-a-kind Literary Garden, a project that repurposes neglected courtyard space to feature plants collected from the homesteads of American authors, along with those plants featured prominently in their narratives. The garden showcases the plants collected from over 30 authors, including mint from Horton Bay to represent Hemingway. We were thrilled to have Lily and her teacher, Jennifer McQuillan, with us at the fall conference. We look forward to continuing this important scholorship in the coming years as we do our part to introduce new readers to Hemingway and provide them with the opportunity to share their interest with others.
If you would like to actively support this scholarship, please contact Christine Ney at info@michiganhemingwaysociety.org for details. You can help by donating online or by sending a check to the Michigan Hemingway Society, PO Box 922, Petoskey, MI 49770, specifying a donation to the Bill and Donna Coté Scholarship Fund.
Hemingway Events
October, 2016 through May, 2017
A list from Janice Byrne
By the date of this year’s Michigan Hemingway Society conference a number of events will have passed. For instance, the Hemingway look-alike competition in Key West ended on July 24 and the marvelous conference at Dominican University that same month has faded into a nostalgic memory. The Sun Valley Hemingway Festival (September 8-10) came and went as did the Cubana Noche event in Piggott, Arkansas (September 30.) Nevertheless there are a number of up-coming events every Hemingway fan and scholar should note, These include:
October 11..................Valerie Hemingway speaks at Vassar “The Importance of Knowing Ernest: Lessons on Life and Literature I Learned from Papa”
October 14-16............Michigan Hemingway Society conference, Petoskey, MI
October 20-27............Faulkner/Hemingway conference, Southeastern Missouri State University at Cape Girardeau
November 7-11..........Veteran Writers Retreat, Hemingway/Pfeiffer Museum, Piggott, Arkansas. The event is funded by Arkansas State University, the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
December 9...............Call for papers due “Hemingway in the Global South,” University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
December 31.............“Ernest Hemingway Between Two Wars” exhibit at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Library, Boston ends. (The exhibit is open now.)
December 26.............Boxing Day festivities, Oak Park, IL
December 31.............Year Long anniversary celebration of Silver Creek Preserve ends. National Wildlife Association.
January 5-8, 2017.....“Hemingway and Imagism” session. Modern Language Association, Philadelphia.
April 2, 2017...............PEN/Hemingway Award, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library.
April 6-8, 2017...........“Hemingway in the Global South”. University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
May12-19, 2017.........Hemingway/Pfeiffer Museum sponsored trip to Cuba, featuring settings for Islands in the Stream and Havana sites.
July 22-29, 2018........Hemingway Society International conference, Paris.
What’s Happening at the Universities?
July 2016
by Janice Byrne
The July Biennial Conference of the Hemingway Society and Foundation International held at Dominican University revealed much of what is happening in academic institutions across American and indeed the rest of the world. With over four hundred participants, most of whom were academics, the conference sessions abounded with new information about recent research and plans for the future. For example, Kent State University Press has contracted with major scholars for its series on reading Hemingway. Included are books by Marc Cirino, Kirk Curnutt, Larry Grimes and Micahel Roos which will be released individually over a period of the next five years. Meanwhile the letters project at Pennsylvania State continues with volume 4, edited by Miriam Mandel, to be available later this calendar year. Volume 5, to be edited by Robert Trogdon, should appear in another two to three years.
Various institutions have developed Hemingway units and courses for their undergraduate students. Among these are the University of Kansas with its common book program and the US Naval Academy at Annapolis. Numerous sessions on teaching Hemingway also took place on Wednesday, July 20. Among those presenting papers about their own techniques were Michigan Hemingway Society members Fred Svoboda and Janice Byrne. Both spoke about the short stories. These teaching sessions offered continuing education credit for secondary level English teachers attending. Two additional members of the Michigan Hemingway Society Board, Jack Jobst and John Cohassey, also spoke as did John Sanford and Valerie Hemingway. They and numerous others hold dual membership in the International and Michigan Societies, thus putting MHS on a par with the top scholars in the world.
Perhaps most note worth was conference host Dominican University who awarded novelist Tim O’Brien an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree on Tuesday evening. O’Brien commented that he did not want to come to the conference at all but agreed to do so out of friendship with the conference program chair, Alex Vernon, among others. He then went on to deliver a powerfully confessional talk about influences on his own work, including Ernest Hemingway and one s high school special English teacher. O’Brien’s speech was the high point of the conference for most if not all of the participants.
Altogether the Seventeenth Biennial International Hemingway Society Conference provided great insight into what is happening with Hemingway studies throughout the world.
Hemingway-Related Events
April through October, 2016
A list from Janice Byrne
- April 23................
Michigan Hemingway Society Board meets at CMU,
Mount Pleasant, MI - April 29-30........... Walloon Hotel Hemingway weekend
- May 15................
CFP due date Faulkner and Hemingway conference,
Southeast Missouri State University - May 26-19...........
ALA meeting in San Francisco, The Sun Also Rises and
Hemingway’s sense of place - May 28................ Japan Hemingway Association “The Last Good Country”
- June 6-10............ Hemingway-Pfeiffer Writers’ Retreat, Piggott, Arkansas
- June 15...............
Hemingway “Shorts” contest by Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park,
entries due at ehfop.typepad.com - June 19............... Philip Greene lectures in Boston area most of the month
- July 12-15........... Sun Valley Writers’ Conference
- July 17-22...........
The Hemingway Society, Dominican University and The
Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park host
International conference, Oak Park/ River Forest, IL - July 23.................
Hemingway birthday weekend post conference festivities,
Oak Park, IL - July 19-24............ Key West celebration
- September 8-10... Sun Valley Hemingway Festival, Community Library, Ketchum, ID
- October 14-16...... Michigan Hemingway Society conference, Petoskey, MI
- October 20-22...... Southeast Missouri University at Cape Girardeau conference
Love of Literature Grows Deep
in School Literary Garden
A note from Art wagner
Hello, Friends,
You may recall that last June a teacher wrote to Chris to request plants from the Petoskey area relevant to Hemingway and his stories.
Today the Detroit Free Press has a major story about West Bloomfield High English literature teacher Jennifer McQuillan. It is copiously illustrated and the link below should get you to the online edition where the photos are in color. (The print edition had mostly black and white photos.)
Chris sent mint from Horton Bay and is mentioned in the article.
Love of Literature Grows Deep in School Literary Garden
Art Wagner
Ernest Hemingway's Friend
John Herrmann
To be Honored
The Historical Society of Greater Lansing and the Library of Michigan will honor Lansing’s forgotten author John Herrmann with an event celebrating the release of his 1926 banned book What Happens.
Historical Society President Valerie Marvin said that Herrmann was an intimate member of the “lost generation”, friends with Ernest Hemingway and a noted radical writer of the 1930s.
Dr. Sara Kosiba, who provided the introduction for the book, will give a talk regarding the novel, with some Hemingway references mixed into the talk. The book is an interesting novel for what it says about youth culture during the time it was written and for its contributions to discussion of literary obscenity at the time.
The novel was published in 1926 in Paris by McAlmon's Contact Editions press and then seized by U.S. Customs when a shipment arrived in the United States and essentially banned on charges of obscenity.
State Librarian Randy Riley said that the confiscation of What Happens and the resulting obscenity trial is an important part of Michigan literary history.
McAlmon’s Contact Editions press also published Ernest Hemingway's debut, Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923).
The free event will be at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 11 in the Library of Michigan Forum Room, 702 West Kalamazoo St, Lansing, MI.
John Herrmann’s What Happens was a little before its time. Originally published in France in 1926 and seized by U.S. Customs for violating the 1922 Tariff Act, which banned the importing of obscene materials from foreign countries, the novel has never been published in the United States. Until now. What Happens tells the coming-of- age story of Winfield Payne, a young man from a wealthy Michigan family. Winfield’s struggles to make his way in the world are complicated by his awakening sexuality and fickle affections. He wants to be a hero, but modern life isn’t made for heroes.
What Happens (1926)
By John Herrmann
Introduction by Sara Kosiba
ISBN 978-1-942885-11-5 | eBook |
New Grant Awarded for Documentary
“Young Hemingway:
Finding His Muse in Northern Michigan”
Sandra Lee Photography Studio & Gallery
Making plans for a July 21 “Birthday Celebration” at the Perry Hotel on the occasion of Ernest Hemingway’s 116th birthday are
(from left) Chris Struble, president of the Michigan Hemingway Society, Reginald Smith, general manager of Stafford’s Perry Hotel,
and George Colburn, producer of the documentary.
Contemporary Learning Systems, Inc., a Petoskey-based company, has received a grant of $16,500 from the State of Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs to continue its work on a documentary titled “Young Hemingway: Finding His Muse in Northern Michigan.”
Making the announcement was George A. Colburn, a historian and the company’s president and executive producer. A resident of Melrose Township, Colburn is the writer and producer of the new 60-minute documentary that began production in the summer of 2012 at the biennial meeting in Petoskey of the Hemingway Society.
Contemporary Learning Systems, Inc., a non-profit company that specializes in informational video programming for television, the Internet and schools and colleges, has been operated locally since 2008. The “Young Hemingway” project was launched by Contemporary Learning Systems, Inc. in late 2011 upon the publication by Cambridge University Press of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922, Colburn noted. “This comprehensive collection of young Hemingway’s letters makes clear how influential Northern Michigan was in the development of the great-writer to-be,” Colburn said.
An ongoing letters project based at Pennsylvania State University and its editors are responsible for much new information being released about the young man’s life, he added. “We are very pleased to receive this grant from such a prestigious source,” Colburn said; “we know there is stiff competition for such grants.” According to Colburn, the funds will insure the completion of the project’s production phase this spring, and the immediate start of the post-production phase.
On Tuesday, July 21, the Perry Hotel will host an event celebrating Hemingway’s connection with Northern Michigan, Colburn said, “and thanks to this grant we now expect to screen a full-length preview for those attending the event.”
The new grant to Contemporary Learning Systems, Inc. was enhanced by a contribution from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. The grant was awarded through Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs peer review process and was one of 484 applications to compete for Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs fiscal year 2015 funding. Contemporary Learning Systems, Inc.’s grant was one of nine given to organizations in Emmet and Charlevoix counties.
Last year, another state agency, the Michigan Humanities Council, provided Contemporary Learning Systems, Inc. with an important grant that kept the project moving forward in 2014, Colburn said.
Since the documentary’s 2012 launch, videotaping has been completed locally at the Hemingway family’s Walloon Lake cottage, Windemere, on the Bay View campus, at multiple locations in Petoskey, and throughout Horton Bay. Other locations have been in Oak Park, Ill., where young Hemingway grew up, and on the campuses of Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pennsylvania. Further production locations this spring will be in Boston, New Paltz, NY, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., where some of the foremost Hemingway scholars are based.
The documentary has been funded to date by a large number of local businesses and organizations, Colburn said, including the Meijer Foundation, Boyne Resorts USA, the Bay Harbor Foundation, Petoskey Area Visitors Bureau, the Michigan Hemingway Society, Bay View Association, Charlevoix County History Preservation Society, City Park Grill, Arlington Jewelers, and the Perry Hotel.
Individuals have also signed on as sponsors, he noted, including the Wally Kidd Family, Mary Jane Doerr, James and Constance Burt, and Dale and Ruth Hull. “I have been involved in raising funds for television and media education projects since the mid-1970s,” Colburn noted, “and in all this time I have never seen anything like the broad-based community support given to this project.” The documentary has also more than two dozen “friends” who have contributed from $25 to $250 to the project, he said.
“What is particularly satisfying about this production is the number of local people involved in its production,” Colburn said. “All of our key positions are filled by professionals who lived in this region, including editors, videographers, music producers, narrator, researchers and line producers,” he added, “and thus the funds provided by our grants stay right here for the most part.”
Colburn anticipates raising the necessary funds to complete the documentary by end of the year, and he plans to submit it for public television distribution in early 2016. Early planning has begun, he said, for premieres in Emmet and Charlevoix counties around the time of Hemingway’s birthday in July 2016.
The Hemingway Society’s next biennial meeting is being held in Oak Park next July, and Colburn hopes to premiere the documentary there as well. An educational version of the documentary focused on internet distribution will be produced upon funding, Colburn said. A research project that will lead to the creation of such an educational series of programs has just begun, he noted.
For more information about the documentary — and to see a 12-minute video preview — visit the documentary website: www.HemingwaysMichigan.com.
This article appeared in PetoskeyNews.comunder Home – News/Features – Community...More Community News
Posted: Thursday, March 19, 2015 7:00 am
Oak Park Library Receives Grant To Digitize and Share the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park and Library Archives
In an email from:
John W. Berry, Chairman, The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park
Colleagues:
We are very excited about this grant to digitize a share of materials held in the Hemingway archives at the Oak Park Public Library.
The Macelline Hemingway Sanford Collection of Hemingwayana a generous 1998 gift from the Sanfords (John, Jim and Carol) and the collection of Minneapolis Hemingway collector, the late Waring Jones, will be digitized for the first time and available through the Illinois Digital Archive and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) beginning later this year and concluding just ahead of the international Hemingway conference, July 17-22, 2016 in Oak Park and River Forest.
See details on the grant here: Oak Park Library to Digitize Ernest Hemingway Archives
Press Release:
Oak Park Public Library Awarded $86,900 Grant to Digitize Hemingway Archives
Michigan Hemingway Society
Elects New Officers
At the May 2014 meeting, the Board of Directors of the Michigan Hemingway Society elected local businessman Chris Struble president of the Society to replace retiring president Mike Federspiel. Chris is a local Petoskey businessman, the co-owner of Arlington Jewelers and owner of Petoskey Yesterday, which provides historic tours of the area.
Diane Fox was elected treasurer at the meeting to replace the retiring Marion Sanford. Jack Jobst was elected newsletter editor and Cecil Ponder was elected as membership chairman, both to replace Nancy Nicholson who will retire in May 2015.
The Michigan Hemingway Society will hold its annual October weekend conference this year at the Odawa Hotel on October 17-19. The theme for this year’s conference is “Hemingway and Supporting Cast.” Members of the Society will present the friendships between Hemingway and several of his friends (Irene Gordon, Marge Bump, Lewis Clarahan to name a few). The focus will be on how the friendships came to be and how they ended, well or badly. In related presentations, Dr Bill Nicholson will speak on Hemingway’s narcissism, and Fred Svoboda will discuss reflections of Ernest Hemingway in his stories. John Cohassey, whose latest book is Hemingway and Pound, A Most Unlikely Relationship, will be our featured author speaking at the conference. The officers who chose to retire will also be honored at the conference for their exemplary service. If you enjoyed the presentation of “Hemingway’s Women” by MHS members at the 2012 Hemingway Society conference in Petoskey-Bay View, you won’t want to miss “Hemingway and Supporting Cast.” Watch for more details at www.michiganhemingwaysociety.org.
The Michigan Hemingway Society was formed over 20 years ago to promote the study of Hemingway’s relationship to Michigan in his life and his works. Hemingway spent his boyhood summers in the Petoskey area and was inspired to use Northern Michigan people, settings and incidents as a basis for much of his early writing, especially in the Nick Adams Stories. MHS holds a conference each year in October and was the host organization for the international Hemingway Society’s 15th Biennial Conference in 2012, which put the area on the prestigious list of “Hemingway was here” sites.
For more information about the Michigan Hemingway Society see www.MichiganHemingwaySociety.org or contact Chris Struble at info@michiganhemingwaysociety.org
The Campaign to Advance the
Michigan Hemingway Endowment
The Michigan Hemingway Endowment at Central Michigan University was founded in 2003 to accomplish three goals:
• Enable the Clarke Library to purchase material by or about Ernest Hemingway.
• Preserve the Hemingway-related material in the Clarke collection.
• Educate the public about the influence of northern Michigan on Hemingway
and the place of Michigan in Hemingway's works.
A recent acquisition to the Clarke Library was one the family scrapbooks made by Ernest Hemingway's mother, Grace Hemingway.
The current Endowment principal is approximately $37,000. A fund raising campaign is now underway to raise another $63,000 for the Endowment, growing the principal to $100,000, which would enable further collecting, preservation and outreach activities.
Thanks to the Michigan Hemingway Society board and individual members who have already contributed. To date 26 gifts totaling $22,725 have been received, plus a documented planned gift of $10,000, which totals about 52% of the goal.
Your support with a gift to the endowment, large or small, may be given through a tax deductible contribution to the Clarke Historical Library. Please specify that the contribution is for the Michigan Hemingway Endowment.
For more information about the endowment
or to discuss a possible donation of material please contact:
Megan Moreno
Director of Development and Community Outreach
Central Michigan University Libraries
(989) 774-1826
megan.r.moreno@cmich.edu
Lansing Community College Dedicates
Ernest Hemingway Conference Room
The Lansing Community College in Lansing, Mchigan unveiled their newly renovated Arts & Sciences Building in the Fall of 2013. The building, originally designed to serve students in the 1960s, has become a flexible, learner-centered space that encourages both formal and informal interaction between students, faculty, and academic areas.
According to their website at http://www.lcc.edu/buildforward/project/as.aspx:
"The Ernest Hemingway Conference Room [is] named for one of the world's most notable authors who spent 22 summers in northern Michigan."
Hemingway Fox River Marker Dedicated
The quiet campground on the East Branch of the Fox River seven miles north of Seney, Michigan, was the site of a gathering of Hemingway fans, Michigan Department of Natural Resources Personnel and members of the Michigan Outdoor Writers Association on Wednesday, August 14th, 2013. The event was the official dedication of a new historical marker celebrating a 1919 fishing trip to the Upper Peninsula that writer Ernest Hemingway turned into one of his most famous short stories, "Big Two-Hearted River." The marker is one of a series of markers MOWA has placed in recent years. The limestone and aluminum Hemingway marker is the fruit of a cooperative effort between MOWA and the DNR.
It was a beautiful day and more than 40 people were in attendance. Hemingway’s nephew, Jim Sanford was asked to speak and told some very interesting stories about life on Walloon Lake where the Hemingway family’s summer cottage was located. It was pretty special! Others attending included Jim Sanford’s wife Marian, Michigan Hemingway Society and International Hemingway Foundation and Society members Nancy Nicholson, Janice Byrne and James Byrne, MOWA President David Graham, Seney Township Trustee Don Reed, Director of Michigan Department of Natural Resources Keith Creagh and DNR spokesman Ed Golder.
"MOWA's members think it's pretty special that a story about fishing on the Fox River 94 years ago is still one of Hemingway's best-loved stories," said MOWA President David Graham. To learn about MOWA's Michigan Heritage Memorial program visit www.miowa.org/mowa-heritage-memorial-sites.
"We were delighted when MOWA approached us about placing this marker at a DNR state forest campground," Creagh said. For additional information visit the DNR website http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153--309820--rss,00.html
You can also visit the marker itself located at the Fox River State Forest Campground in Schoolcraft County on the East Branch of the Fox River seven miles north of Seney, Michigan, on highway M-77.
Thanks to Jan Byrne, Nancy Nicholson, the Michigan Outdoor Writers Association and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for contributions to this article
Joseph Waldmeir, Founder of The Michigan Hemingway Society, Dies
Our founder, Dr. Joseph J. Waldmeir, Jr., died September 12 at age 89. Of course, we all knew him as Joe. And it's a poorer world without him in it.
Joe was an internationally recognized author, critic, and literary scholar. In addition to his own work, he was responsible for publishing the "Hemingway Up in Michigan Perspectives", a collection derived from papers presented during a 1991 gathering in Petoskey. It was that gathering, held at the Perry Hotel, that convinced Joe a Michigan Hemingway Society was a viable vision, and he worked with patience and perseverance, and Fred (Svoboda) and Ken (Marek) and me, until it happened.
Our first conferences were very modest affairs; we weren't yet plugged in to the Hemingway stars of the literary universe. Joe helped us do that. Our first conferees were the great unwashed, who came to learn what this Hemingway guy was all about. Joe taught us in such a charming way that we kept on coming back for the annual dose of literary enlightenment and fun we called our fall conferences. And so, over the past 25 years, we have become a respected organization on the Hemingway roster. Because Joe attracted the right kind of people, when he moved away to Iowa, we kept moving up the ladder. Although Joe couldn't be with us last year when we were selected to host the Hemingway Society's biennial conference, his fingerprints were all over the place.
I learned from his obituary in the Detroit News that he served under Patton during the Battle of the Bulge; that he was a Fulbright scholar who taught in Ireland, Finland and Denmark; that he earned his Doctorate at Michigan State University and was a professor there for four decades. That he was kicked out of high school in the 11th grade. Maybe that explains the huge openness with which he greeted anyone who showed any trace of intellectual curiosity. He is, hands down, the best teacher I have ever had, in or out of school. He never waved his CV under anyone's nose, but he was always there to discuss life and what literature had to teach us about life. And he started, not from his lofty position, but from the place occupied by the other person. No wonder one always came away from a conversation with Joe feeling so much smarter, so encouraged about untapped potential, and so eager to dig deeper.
This is not to say he was perfect; nobody is. I hate those eulogies that sanctify their subject without acknowledging the existence of a shadow. We all have a shadow, and in literature, isn't it the shadow that makes the most compelling story? Shadow and all, Joe was my friend and I miss the man. We aren't likely to see any like him soon, and I hope his family knows that we know, what a treasure has been lost with his passing.
-Audrey Collins McMullen
Scrapbooks Chronicling Ernest Hemingway’s Childhood Made Available for First Time by JFK Library
"These scrapbooks, lovingly compiled by Grace Hemingway, provide an unprecedented glimpse into the making of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century," said Tom Putnam, Director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. "From the everyday minutia of childhood, to priceless early correspondence and writings, the scrapbooks are a treasure trove for anyone interested in the early life of Ernest Hemingway."
Spanning the years 1899 to 1917, the scrapbooks tell the story of Hemingway’s childhood growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, and vacationing at the Hemingway family’s cabin in Northern Michigan.
The above comments are quoted from the JFK website. See the full JFK text at http://www.jfklibrary.org/About-Us/News-and-Press/Press-Releases/Hemingway-Scrapbooks-Made-Available-to-Public-for-First-Time.aspx
"From his birth to his high school graduation, Ernest Hemingway's mother kept photo filled scrapbooks documenting his life -- and his summers in Michigan. The JFK Presidential Library (where Hemingway's papers are preserved) has just posted digital versions of the 5 scrapbooks at its website. This is a great resource for those interested in his Michigan experiences."
-- Michael Federspiel, President of the Michigan Hemingway Society
Join the Clarke Historical Library on Wednesday evening July 31, 2013 as Michael Artman presents “Hemingway's Paris”
Mr. Artman and his wife exchanged homes with a Parisian family and found themselves living in the Latin Quarter of Paris, only a few blocks from where Ernest and Hadley Hemingway lived when they moved to Paris in the 1920's. Long interested in the Hemingways, Mr. Artman's vacation became a research trip into “Hemingway's Paris,” walking the pathways traveled by Ernest and Hadley and visiting the haunts they found intriguing so many years ago. Join us, as Mr. Artman takes us along for the journey. Retired educators from Port Huron, MI, Mr. Artman and his wife, Anita Shagena are both two time CMU Alumni and members of the Michigan Hemingway Society.
7:00 pm – Park Library Baber Room
Reception to follow.
Open to the public without charge.
For more information contact Frank Boles at the Clarke Library, 989.774.3352 or boles1fj@cmich.edu.
Individuals in need of a accommodations due to a disability while using the library should phone 989.774.1100.
For more information on the Clarke Historical Library: click here.
Major Hemingway Acquisition
by Central Michigan University's
Clarke Historical Library
Hemingway’s Life in Michigan Documented in New Historic Treasure
Ernest Hemingway grew up in northern Michigan, a process his mother lovingly documented for him, and for all her children through a series of family scrapbooks. One of those remarkable scrapbooks, created for Ernest’s sister Ursula, was recently added to the many Hemingway items found in Central Michigan University’s Clarke Historical Library.
The over 100 page album is entitled, "Ursula Hemingway, Book IV from July 1st 1913 to July 1st 1916, Eleven years 2 months to Fourteen years and 2 months old". The 121 original photographs found in the album, virtually all carefully annotated by Grace Hall Hemingway, document the family through images of children partying, family dinners, group images at the Walloon Lake summer cottage in northern Michigan that the family loved and that was so much a part of the Hemingway life, as well as their Oak Park, Illinois home. The album offers a thorough and fascinating insight into the cottage life of a typical family in northern Michigan at the beginning of the twentieth century. A typical summer family with one unusual characteristic; a child who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
For those interested in Ernest Hemingway there are approximately 21 images showing the young Ernest, many in group family shots, some individual pictures with him as the young fisherman holding trout, playing on the waterfront in and around boats and canoes. One small portrait photo is a wonderful image of the young Ernest. Another wonderful photograph is labeled as “the 6 children taken together for the first time,” and includes a smiling Ernest and everyone in their Sunday best, photographed with the family’s newest (and as it happened) last infant child. Another photograph shows Grace and Dr. Hemingway’s 19th wedding anniversary with all six children together. The album also includes many letters including notes to “Ernie.”
Ursula’s album joins an extensive collection of material documenting Ernest Hemingway’s life in northern Michigan that is found in the Clarke Library. These include four letters written by Ernest Hemingway in or about northern Michigan, unpublished, original material written by the young Ernest, a large existing collection of Hemingway photographs and an extensive collection of printed works, including such iconic volumes as Asa Gray’s Manual of the Botany in the Northern United States given to Clarence Hemingway by his wife Grace, kept at the cottage, and likely frequently consulted to answer questions raised by Ernest and the other Hemingway children.
The acquisition of the album was made possible by the Michigan Hemingway Endowment, a fund created in the Clarke Library to support acquisition of material about Ernest Hemingway’s Michigan years, a generous gift by the Michigan Hemingway Society, the Friends of the CMU Libraries, and other private contributions.
For more information about the album or the other Hemingway material in the Clarke Historical Library, contact Frank Boles at boles1fj@cmich.edu boles1fj@cmich.edu or by phone at 989.774.3352.