KEY WEST, Florida – Ernest Hemingway spent the 1930s in Key West, Florida, and more than six decades after his death, fans, scholars and relatives continue to gather in the island city to celebrate the author’s award-winning novels and adventurous life.
Hemingway Days began in 1981 with a short story competition and a lookalike contest. This year’s celebration ended on Sunday, the 125th anniversary of Hemingway’s birth on July 21, 1899.
As a novelist, short story writer, and journalist, Hemingway’s place in the pantheon of American literature is undeniable, and his legacy permeates the culture and character of Key West.
Hemingway’s great-grandson, Stephen Hemingway Adams, was born nearly three decades after Hemingway’s death. Adams said working with his grandfather, Patrick Hemingway, who was Ernest Hemingway’s second son, helped him gain a deeper understanding of his famous ancestor.
“I worked with my grandfather and we released a book called ‘Dear Dad,’ which were all the letters between Ernest and my grandfather,” Adams said.
The difference between public perception and Hemingway’s documented reality can be confusing. He loved fishing in the Caribbean and hunting in Africa. He loved bullfighting, baseball, boxing and bar hopping. But he was also a serious artist who won Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes. He put so many life experiences into his writings that it can be difficult to separate the man from the myth.
Adams said it’s okay for some people to love the adventurer more than the writer.
“I think it’s a divide and I think that’s what’s fun about it,” Adams said of the throngs of look-alikes who visit Key West every year.
The Key West that Hemingway first visited in 1928 was a rustic fishing village, not a bustling tourist destination. Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, planned only a brief stop to pick up a car during their move from Paris to Arkansas, where Pauline’s family lived. But the car wasn’t ready and they had to wait several weeks.
Hemingway quickly made friends with local businessmen and fishermen. The couple made frequent visits to the island and ended up purchasing a French colonial house on a 1.5-acre (0.61 hectare) lot in 1931.
After spending most of his 20s in Paris, Hemingway embraced the island’s very different lifestyle, according to Cori Convertito, curator at the Key West Art Museum. & History at Customs.
“He doesn’t come here to act like a recluse and just write,” Convertito said. “He’s in bars all the time. He’s fishing with people. He’s interacting in boxing matches.”
Convertito pointed out that Hemingway was in his 30s for most of the time he lived in Key West, and not the white-bearded “Papa Hemingway” that most similar competitors imitate. “A Farewell to Arms” was completed soon after he began visiting Key West and the reception of that book, along with coverage of the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, increased his fame.
Much of Hemingway’s time in Key West was spent sport fishing with friends. Convertito said Hemingway began pioneering new techniques after acquiring his own boat, the Pilar, in 1934.
“He was desperate to land a fully intact marlin,” Convertito said.
The slow process of catching a trophy fish left them vulnerable to sharks, similar to the giant marlin caught in Hemingway’s 1952 novel “The Old Man and the Sea.”
Hemingway focused on catching fish and quickly pulling them out of the water. He was an early member of the International Game Fish Association and named vice president in 1940.
He also became an advocate for the Florida Keys and the people who lived there. “To Have and Have Not,” published in 1937, is set in Key West devastated by the Great Depression.
Hemingway strongly criticized the way the federal government responded to the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. The official death toll was 423, but more than 250 of those killed were World War I veterans hired through a federal jobs program. build the Overseas Highway, which connects the Florida Keys to mainland Florida.
Hemingway drove an ambulance during World War I and felt a particular affinity with veterans. Corey Malcom, a historian at the Florida Keys History Center, said Hemingway joined the recovery efforts and used his own boat to retrieve the bodies from the ocean.
Michael Morawski, CEO of Hemingway’s house & Museum, credits his great-aunt, Bernice Dixon, as one of the first people to help preserve Hemingway’s legacy in Key West. The local jewelry store owner bought the house for $80,000 in 1961, shortly after Hemingway’s death. The house became a museum in 1964 and was eventually designated a National Historic Landmark.
“The only reason she did it was to create a living memorial to Ernest Hemingway,” Morawski said.
In addition to the house’s historical and literary significance, the museum is also famous for housing the Hemingway cats. Around 60 polydactyl cats with a genetic mutation for extra toes continue to live on the property. Some of these cats are descendants of the original six-toed white cat that Hemingway was given by a ship captain.
The Hemingway Days festival began as a promotion for Sloppy Joe’s Bar, one of Hemingway’s favorite hangouts. Michael Whalton was working as a manager at the bar in 1980 when he read about a Bad Hemingway contest where writers parodied Hemingway’s sparse, blunt style.
Whalton decided that a lookalike contest and other activities around Hemingway’s birthday in July could be a great way to attract customers during the island’s off-season, when the hot, humid weather scares off many tourists.
“I didn’t really know what to expect,” Whalton said. “I was getting nervous because we didn’t have anyone signed up for the lookalike contest, so I called everyone I knew in Key West who had a beard.”
Participation was better than expected. The author’s younger brother, Leicester Hemingway, contacted Whalton and agreed to judge the lookalike contest with his wife and daughters. Whalton convinced another granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, Lorian Hemingway, to judge a short story contest.
David Douglas, president of Hemingway Lookalike Societybegan participating in the competition in 2000 and won in 2009. The 70-year-old Houston resident continues to return every year as a judge.
“I love the pageant, I love the camaraderie of all the contestants,” Douglas said.
David “Bat” Masterson of Daytona Beach became the newest “Pope” on Saturday. The retired pilot beat 121 others in this year’s lookalike contest.
The similar group has evolved over the years into a service organization with hundreds of members around the world that has funded more than $350,000 in scholarships for Florida Keys students. The organization also sponsors a youth baseball team in Cubawhere Hemingway moved after leaving Florida.
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