Provenance

[Old and Reliable]

Great cover choice for PP issue, Austin. From that era, and other fotos of the late Ernest H., this one shows his face rather full and florid. He abused alcohol and apparently women, but kept his solid work ethic for writing for a long time. I have read that his two preferred hunting "escopetas" were a Browning O/U and a Model 12, both 12 gauges with a single sight plane. His one weak eye may have led to his choice in shotguns.

His defective vision kept him from serving in the "Big Red One" in WW1, so he served with distinction in the Red Cross Ambulance Corps, decorated by the Italian Gov't for pulling two of their soldiers out from German mortar fire. He most likely died with some of the Krupp-steel still in his legs.

I was at Camp LeJeune that summer of 1961- a Col. came into the duty hut and told us that "The great writer, Ernest Hemingway, has died, a gunshot wound from cleaning a shotgun at his home in Idaho" Only later did we find out that it was a SIGSW- what a loss.

If this Parker was one of his guns, would any of his surviving family have it, or a record of his ownership?

Hope to see you at the MI UP shoot in June- I plan to take a side trip over to visit Puglisi's in Duluth--

[J.B. Books]

Originally Posted by Francis Morin

He abused alcohol and apparently women,

You said it like it's a bad thing?

[Bill Murphy]

Yup, Bruce, that's the way I remember hearing about it.

[Old and Reliable]

How he treated both his wives and his lovers will always be a topic for discussion in some circles. Of his four known wives, the one that fascinates me is the third one, Martha Gelhorn.

Daughter of a prominent St. Louis physician, educated at Bryn Mawr, a published writer even when she met E.H., befriended by Eleanor Roosevelt, their marriage separated by conflicting careers as WW11 correspondents- quite a person indeed.

I can appreciate some of E.H.'s "gusto" for life in the "macho" lane, without having to emulate it, as much as I can appreciate songs by the late Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin without having to embrace the drug-crazed world they developed for themselves.

My forebearers taught me to respect women. Doesn't mean I profess to understand them, however!!