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Lot 69
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Hemingway ALS, after heroically saving his wife's life, makes a jocular comment that life is dull but "much better than planting peoples on Boot Hill"
Hemingway ALS, after heroically saving his wife's life, makes a jocular comment that life is dull but "much better than planting peoples on Boot Hill"
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Description:

Hemingway Ernest

Single page ALS, 8.5" x 11",  on letterhead of Memorial Hospital of Natrona County, Casper Wyoming. Written entirely in the hand of Ernest Hemingway to the recto and verso of the page. Dated "Sunday August 25, 1946", and signed by him as "Papa". Heavily penned by Hemingway in strong vibrant blue ink. Near fine with expected folds. Accompanied by the autographed mailing envelope,6.5" x 3.5", inclusive of the Memorial Hospital return address. Postmarked August 26, 1946.

 

This incredible letter is written shortly after Ernest Hemingway (and family), had yet another hair raising, catastrophic event that was beginning to define "normal" for them. This letter, written by Hemingway from the Natrona County hospital, was penned just a few weeks after his wife nearly died of an ectopic pregnancy, and was written to Lloyd and Tilly Arnold. Just one week earlier, on the morning of August 19th, Mary woke alone in the cabin with an excruciating pain in her stomach, tried to stand and doubled over screaming. Ernest found her writhing in pain and called for an ambulance who carried her to the hospital where the doctor determined she was hemorrhaging from a burst fallopian tube resulting from an ectopic pregnancy. The hospital surgeon was out "fishing" with only a young scared looking intern available, and Mary was rapidly deteriorating and was about to die. By the time the surgeon was present, he declared her no longer operable, with virtually no pulse, and told Ernest she would die and he should take this moment to say goodbye. Instead Hemingway, who had seen enough battlefield transfusions knew how to handle "street" medicine, had managed by himself to give her a "battlefield" transfusion. Mary recovered enough that the surgeon was able to operate. As ample evidence attests, he could be an impossible man to live with, but no one was better in an emergency than Hemingway. In fact life for him was living from one emergency to another and only two weeks after this near fatal moment he was joking that life is dull but "much better than planting peoples on Boot Hill" the name for any number of cemeteries, chiefly in the American West. During the 19th century it was a common name for the burial grounds of gunfighters or those who "died with their boots on".

 

"Dear Pappy and Tilly

This just hurried note to enclose check and confirm wire about meeting the kids at Rawlins at 2.12 pm on Thursday.

Can never tell you how much I appreciate all you guys and Taylor have done and how sorry have been to make you so much trouble. Mary is really much much better yest and today. Blood count good, pulse and temperature normal and her colour is fine now and appetite good. Ate a good breakfast and lunch today. If everything goes good she should have stitches out on Wed or Thursday.

 

Don't know yet when she can travel will have you on that by end of this week.

 

Very dull life here between  (illegible) court and Hospital. But much better than planting peoples on Boot Hill. Will let you know how everything goes. Tuesday Sept 2 will make two weeks since operation. Presumably would leave hospital then but don't know whether could travel. One possibility would be charter plan to fly to Hailey By direct air travel is not a very long flight.

First shipment of mail came yest (24th)

Thanks very much

Best love to you both and all my best to Taylor.

See you soon.

Papa

Enclosed check for $175.00"

 

 

Hemingway would come to endure a wide array of tragedy, accidents and illness all of which defined his view on life, and all of which crept into his writing. In 1930 he had already had his first severe accident, this one in a car.  His compound spiral fracture had him hospitalized for seven weeks, with the nerves in his writing hand taking as long as a year to heal, during which time he suffered intense pain.

 

By 1933, during a trip to Africa on Safari, he had contracted an illness so severe he was  he was evacuated by plane to Nairobi, an experience reflected in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro".

 

In 1944 he suffered one of what would become of his many concussions, this one from a car accident, with two other severe concussions resulting from 2 concurrent small plane crashes in 1954 in Africa. His fourth concussion resulted from a brush fire, when he was again injured, sustaining second degree burns on his legs, front torso, lips, left hand and right forearm, however his wife Mary reported to friends the full extent of Hemingway's injuries was two cracked discs, a kidney and liver rupture, a dislocated shoulder and a broken skull.

 

He survived a severe bout of pneumonia, his Hemingway family suffered a series of accidents and health problems in the years following the war: in a 1945 car accident, he "smashed his knee" and sustained another "deep wound on his forehead"; Mary broke first her right ankle and then her left in successive skiing accidents. A 1947 car accident left Patrick with a head wound and severely ill. And as shown above his 4th wife nearly died from an ectopic pregnancy.

 

Trauma and tragedy surrounded Hemingway and his family throughout his life, but through the metaphorical fire he wrote with enormous passion. Even his four marriages would weave into his novels. This outstanding letter penned by Hemingway on the heels of another disaster in his life and that of his family demonstrates not only his incredible forte to manage chaos but his phenomenal ability to think clearly and respond instantly in an emergency. A scarce inside look of this important Nobel prize laureate!


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