February 24, 2020 • 33 mins
Leicester Hemingway's life was very much lived in the shadow of his brother. It isn’t until after Ernest Hemingway’s death that Leicester made his boldest moves in life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy. You
Wilson Tracy. Everybody's heard the name or his Hemingway. I
think most people have at least heard of him. Yeah,
(00:21):
they may not have read his work, or maybe they did. Uh.
And his life is pretty well known and well documented
because he was so famous even in his own time.
But his brother is another story. But Lester, and that
has spelled the same way that the city in England
has spelt, but it has pronounced. Lester similarly, much younger
than his famous sibling, has quite a story of his own,
(00:43):
and it is, as you'll see, a life very much
lived in relation to his brother. In some ways, his
identity growing up was I'm Hemingway's little brother. We're going
to talk about the biography that he wrote about Ernest,
and really anything about himself is through the lens of
how his brother influenced him or how it related to
(01:04):
his brother. It really was not until after Ernest Hemingway's
death that Lester made his boldest moves in life. Uh.
And we're going to talk about all that as a
heads up, as you may or may not know if
you know any details about Hemingway's life and the Hemingway family,
there are going to be several instances of suicide that
we talked about in today's show, not in great detail,
(01:25):
but they do come up as elements that happened along
the way. So when Lester was born on April first,
nineteen fifteen, his brother Ernest, who would become just wildly famous,
was already sixteen years old. The family was living in
the Oak Park suburb of Chicago at the time. The
oldest of the Hemingway siblings was their sister Marceline, who
(01:45):
was born a year before Ernest in They also had
two more sisters, Ursula, born in nineteen o two and Madeleine,
who was called Sonny, born in nineteen o four. Another daughter, Carol,
came along in nineteen eleven, so Lester was the baby
of the family, also unplanned. His father was Clarence Edmund's Hemingway,
(02:06):
and his mother was Grace Ernestine Hall. The Hemingways were
supporters of the arts and of missionary efforts, and Clarence
founded a local chapter of the Agazez Society, which was
focused on collecting and studying natural objects. They were also
very interested in science in the natural world. Clarence was
a doctor and he worked for several insurance companies as
(02:26):
their medical examiner while also leading the obstetrics department at
Oak Park Hospital. There's a moment in the biography Lester
wrote that he was also working for a dairy as
like their physical exam guy for their employees. And Grace
had been on the cusp of what could have potentially
been a pretty successful career as a singer when she
(02:46):
decided to give that up and instead Mary Clarence and
start a family, and that is something that, according to Lester,
naged at her for the rest of her life and
she wondered what could have been. According to Lester's biography
of his brother, which we'll talk about later in the episode,
Arnest was very much a father figure to his much
younger sibling. Ernest did everything from changing lester stipers to
(03:09):
teaching him how to shoot and fish and fight. He
also gave his little brother one of a lot of
nicknames that he would use throughout their relationship. That was
the Baron. Grace was also assisted by a number of
nurses and servants. She was not particularly interested in the
more domestic aspects of family life. They were able to
afford help, sometimes hiring students on summer breaks to assist
(03:32):
to them. Yeah, Grace was not so interested in cooking
and housework. And I mean, if you can afford help
to do then you don't like to do it. Go
you h. In his very young years, Lester saw his
older brother start his career as a writer, taking his
first job as a police reporter at the Kansas City
Star through a family connection, and then Ernest moved quickly
(03:54):
on to joining the American Red Crossed Field Service to
join the war effort during World War One. Ernest had
actually wanted to go straight into the war from school,
but their father forbade it. Uh. It is very clear
through all of this and really the entire biography that
he wrote, that Lester idolized his big brother. Ernest was
injured by a mortar shell while distributing cigarettes and chocolate
(04:17):
to the men on the front lines in Italy during
the war. He managed to carry an injured soldier on
his back to the aid station before he passed out.
And that was a feat that was made even more
impressive because he was hit by two bullets from machine
gun along the way. His legs had also taken most
of the blast from the mortar. For years, this incident
(04:38):
grew in its telling in public circles, and it was
something that Ernest seemed to even encourage in not correcting
any of them. But Lester, in writing about it, set
the record straight that his brother had not taken hundreds
of bullets to the growing or had any kind of
mental or emotional breakdown as a result of this incident.
Ernest later referenced and kind of fueled this rumor that
(04:58):
his genitalia had been irreversibly injured in the writing of
his character Jake in his novel The Sun Also Rises,
So he definitely kind of enjoyed the oversized versions of
this story that went around. Ernest was seriously injured and
he required several months to recover, but he did return home.
He was hailed as a war hero, and Lester would
later write of it quote, it was pretty glorious stuff
(05:21):
being kid brother to the guy who had personally helped
make the world safe for democracy. When Ernest and his
first wife, Hadley Richardson traveled to Europe, Lester wrote him
what he described as fan mail that struck me as
so interesting that he calls it that, but clearly very
adoring of his brother. In the fall of Lester's grandfather
(05:45):
on the Hemmingway side passed away, and it was the
first of many events that culminated in a depression for
their father, Clarence. Soon after, Ernest wrote to tell the
family that he and his wife were separated amicably and
they were getting a divorce. This was something Clarence was
very upset by. He told Lester, who was just a
little over eleven years old at the time, quote, you know,
of course, that your brother has brought great shame on
(06:07):
the family by divorcing Hadley, don't you. Ernest's rapid second
marriage to Pauline Peiffer, who became pregnant soon after the wedding,
was another blow. Even though the Hemmingways loved Pauline and
we're happy to welcome a new grandchild, Ernest sort of
insulted his father, who, as we said earlier, was an obstetrician,
(06:27):
by asking kind of pointed questions about the quality of
the hospital where he was working. Uh As he and
Pauline try to decide where they were going to have
the baby. Yeah, it's interesting. There is a letter in
this biography that Lester publishes. He doesn't publish any of
his brother's letters, which we'll talk about in a moment,
But the letter that Clarence wrote back to him is
(06:48):
very polite and he kind of is like, oh, yeah,
the hospitals here might not do for you. Maybe you
would be better off having the baby elsewhere. And it
sounds very polite and not upset. But Lester is very
clear that his father was really injured and heartbroken that
the quality of the care that he was part of
was questioned in this way. Additionally, there was some ongoing
(07:12):
strife between Earnest and Clearance. Even though his eldest son
was making a name for himself as a writer and
was lauded as one of the great literary voices of
the time, by this point, Clarence and Grace just didn't
understand Earnest's work, and they often did not like it
when they read it. That, coupled with their ongoing dismay
about earnest life choices, had really put a strain on
(07:33):
the father son relationship. Than his played out. Clarence had
to run a bad luck he had invested in property
in Florida, planning it as a retirement destination, but then
the bottom dropped out of the real estate market in Florida.
The property was significantly devalued. The Hemingways owed a lot
more on it than it was worth, and Clarence was
(07:54):
not going to be able to set up a retirement
practice there. Several months later, Clarence was diagnosed with beauties.
This was something he had suspected for a while, but
he had put off getting tested. It's one of those
the cobbler's children have no shoes situation. He is one
of those doctors that did not want to go to
the doctor. Uh. These events all accumulated and Lester described
(08:14):
in his writing Clearance having a quote serious loss of morale,
and it was something he also called an emotional illness.
On the morning of December six, Clearance burned a few
of his personal items and papers, and then he retired
to an upstairs bedroom and he shot himself in the
midst of the households grief and turmoil. Ernest had traveled
(08:35):
in to manage the funeral arrangements and some other business.
He told Lester, who at this point was thirteen, that
a he should not cry that the Hemingways did not cry.
It's just kind of a horrible emotional burden to give
a kid and be that he wanted Lester to get
the gun that their father had used to end his
life from the police and have it shipped to him.
(08:56):
Ernest Hemingway wanted that weapon. So you might think that
something like that would sour the younger brother's admiration for
his older sibling, but this was not the case at all.
A few years later, as the movie adaptation of the
Sun Also Rises was coming out, Lester visited his big
brother in Piggott, Arkansas, where Pauline's family lived. It went
(09:17):
and saw the movie and reported back about it to
Ernest and then went hunting with him. And this whole
trip in Lester's account, reads as though Ernest was keenly
aware that his brother needed somebody to step into the
shoes of their late father, and the two of them
talked about their family. Ernest made sure that Lester had
enough money. Yeah, it's interesting. Ernest did not want to
go see the movie, but he didn't want to hear
(09:40):
if it was okay, So that's why he sent his mother. Uh.
And this relationship, to be clear, was also something that
benefited Ernest. He really liked having someone in his life
that looked up to him. Lester later wrote, quote, Ernest
was never very content with life unless he had a
spiritual kid brother nearby. He needed someone he could show
(10:01):
off too as well as teach. He needed uncritical admiration.
If the kid brother could show a little worshipful awe,
that was a distinct aid in the relationship. I made
a good kid brother when I was around, but I
couldn't be around regularly. We'll talk more about the relationship
between the Hemingway brothers as Lester grew into adulthood after
(10:21):
we take a quick sponsor break. As the years went on,
Lester and Ernest remained close, although other friends filled that
kid brother role for the writer. When Lester was busy
with school, the younger brother joined his brother on the
sea and Key West when the novelists took delivery of
(10:43):
his famous fishing boat pillar in and during their trips
out on the water, they continued their long talks. This
was something that they would do for years and years.
It was a board pillar that they discussed the fact
that Lester also wanted to be a professional writer, just
like his older brother, and the shared knowledge that anything
the younger Hemingway wrote would be compared to Ernest's work.
(11:05):
Everything you do, Ernest told his brother, they'll say you're
writing on my reputation. You know that, don't you. Ultimately,
Ernest was supportive of Lester's desire to write and told
him he could give him some advice, but he did
not want to help him in any way beyond that.
Over the years, he offered up some tips, like, if
you can't make up stories, you shouldn't try to write
(11:27):
a real one remembered as always sort of flat compared
to a made up one. Yeah, perfectly happy to do
all that advice, but he didn't want anybody to be
able to say that Lester hadn't earned his place as
a writer. He also advised that Lester should do what
he had done, which would start out in newspapers. He
felt like that was a really good way to develop
your own voice and also to basically like get in
(11:50):
the habit of having to write all the time, whether
you felt like it or not, And that was precisely
what the younger Hemingway brother did. Lester started working for
the Chicago Go Daily News, writing regional news and fielding
questions from his co workers about his famous brother. In
ninety three, almost twenty years after the two brothers had
started talking about Lester becoming a writer, he published his
(12:13):
first novel, The Sound of the Trumpet, and that was
based on his experiences in Europe during the Second World War.
It was compared in the press to uh to Ernest's work,
and often was deemed derivative and heavily influenced by Ernest Hemingway.
Lester wrote several other books that also we existed, but
when unpublished, we didn't mention that he went to Europe
(12:35):
during the Second World War. And there's a reason, which
is that Lester's life is not documented in any way
as well as his brothers. It kind of comes up
in these these oh yes, of course they went to Europe.
It was in my book. But he's so busy always
capturing his brother's life that he never really seemed to
record a lot about his own. Lester, for example, married twice.
(12:59):
I couldn't tell you that eights because I could not
find them, despite looking around very energetically about it. His
first wife was Patricia said. The couple had two sons together,
Peter and Jacob, who went by Jake, although that marriage
did not last. He next married Doris May Dunning, a
marriage which produced two daughters, Anne and Hillary, and he
was married to Doris for the rest of his life.
(13:20):
So documenting Ernest Hemingway's life was something that Lester said
was his brother's idea. Ernest wanted quote, somebody who really
knew me to write a book about me, and Lester
took up that challenge, writing about his brother's quote absolute integrity,
both emotional and aesthetic. But the famous Hemingway did not
want a biography to be published about him while he
(13:42):
was still alive, so Lester, who worked on the project
for some time, just held onto that manuscript. On July two,
Ernest Hemingway was found dead in the foyer of the
home in Idaho that he shared with his fourth wife Mary.
The obituary, which ran in The New York Times, printed
Mary's statement quote, Mr Hemingway accidentally killed himself while cleaning
(14:03):
a gun this morning at seven thirty am. No time
has been set for the funeral services, which will be private.
But the obituary also noted that Ernest had been treated
at the Mayo Clinic in recent months and quoted a
friend of the authors from the police force is saying
that friends had relayed that in the time leading up
to his death, Hemingway quote looked thinner and acted depressed.
(14:25):
The coroner also gave a quote in this obituary story
that stated, quote, I can only say at this stage
that the wound was self inflicted. The wound was in
the head. I couldn't say it was accidental, and I
couldn't say it was suicide. There wasn't anybody there. Lester's
book was published eight months after Ernest's death, titled Simply
My Brother, Ernest Hemingway, and it was dedicated to his
(14:47):
wife Doris. The opening of the book offers so much
insight into the reverence for Ernest that his brother had.
It reads quote. The conversations recorded in this biography are
as accurate as I could make them. I did not
have a tape recorder, and I do not possess total recall,
but my own notes, ship's log and memory enabled me
to reproduce many conversations. In writing dialogue, Ernest polished, edited,
(15:13):
and was the supreme master of this art. In presenting
earnest conversations, I have been mindful of the obligations of
a brother, a friend, and a biographer. Ernest did not
favor the publication of his letters, so they have not
been reproduced here. He regarded all biographies as unlucky during
the subject's lifetime, yet at the end of the last
(15:34):
letter I had from him, he wished me luck with
this book. Lester acknowledged the version of his brother's death
that Ernest's wife Mary had shared with the press, that
it may have been an accident rather than an intentional
effort to end his own life. But Lester also attributes
full intention to his brother's actions. He wrote really candidly
about his brother's depression, his sadness at having lost several friends,
(15:57):
and during that time at the Mayo Clinic, he was
undergoing elector shock treatments. He also notes in the text
that Ernest was, unlike any author before him, mourned globally
as though he had been a statesman rather than a writer.
Lester's biography of his brother was well received, and it
is still read today by Hemingley enthusiasts. And it is
definitely an adoring picture of the man, and it is
(16:19):
filled with a lot of stories about them hunting and
fishing together, a lot of details regarding all of that
not the best read for people who might be squeamish
about the details of such activities. Okay, so we're going
to go ahead and stop for a sponsored break, because
after his brother's iconic life had ended, Lester made some
really bold decisions of his own. We will get to
(16:40):
that right after a sponsored break. Okay, this is gonna
sound like we edited two different episodes together because it's
a little bit of a track jump. But we have
to pause for a moment here in the story of
Lester Hemmingway's life. We did not edit two episodes together
(17:02):
accidentally to discuss bird poop. Before synthetic fertilizers were commercially
produced in any kind of cost effective way, the name
of the game and soil fertilization was guano. All kinds
of natural fertilizers had been used since the beginning of time. Manure, compost,
and river silt have all been used to enrich soil
(17:23):
to produce crops for centuries. We talked about some of
this in our episode on the discovery of phosphorus. Yeah,
and guano. In this case, sea bird excrements rather than
bats was used in the Andes and the proving coast
as well as other areas to enrich the soil. It
became really coveted by a lot of countries in the
(17:45):
nineteenth century, and this is a significant part of several conflicts.
The First and Second Wars of the Pacific, which started
in eighteen sixty four and eighteen seventy nine, respectively, were
fought over occupation and exploitation of South American tier tories
that were rich and a lot of resources, one of
them being guano. But before either of those conflicts, in
(18:06):
eighteen fifty six, the US Congress past the Guano Islands Act.
Sea birds, particularly in places where their colonies have been
allowed to flourish without humans getting in the way, produce
a lot of very rich fertilizer. The U s and
the eighteen fifties did not have a whole lot of
islands with productive sea bird populations to fill this need,
(18:27):
so this federal law was intended to generate territory that
would give them access to this natural resource. The acts
opening reads as follows, quote, whenever any citizen of the
United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock,
or key not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other
government and not occupied by the citizens of any other government,
(18:48):
and takes peaceable possession thereof and occupies the same. Such island, rock,
or key may, at the discretion of the President, be
considered as appertaining to the United States. According to this Act,
the discoverer of such a spot is required to notify
the Department of State of the possession and provide proof
that all of the conditions of the law are met.
(19:09):
If the person who discovers the guano resource were to
die before all this paperwork and proof is taken care of,
his widow or heirs can follow through and they will
get credit for the discovery, as well as rights to
live there on this this declared land, and to harvest
and sell the guano there. The claimed land and guano
shipment is also to be protected by the US. And
(19:30):
I am using present tense language here because this federal
law still stands. We're going to get back to this
bird boot, but for a moment, we're gonna go back
to Lester Hemingway. The publication of my brother Ernest Hemingway
made a bit of money for Lester, and he had
some plans for how to use it. He had gotten
twenty five thousand dollars from Playboy magazine to publish the
(19:51):
story as a serial, and the biography was really successful,
eventually being translated into eleven languages. Everyone it seemed one
of the inside story of the Hemingway family and its
most famous member. On July four, four, Lester Hemingway took
all of the proceeds from the book and made his
own history by creating his own country. He floated a
(20:15):
raft made of bamboo. It was also fortified. We'll talk
about that in a minute, to a spot eight miles
that's twelve point eight kilometers to the southwest of Jamaica,
making that international waters. The raft, which was eight by
thirty ft or two point four by nine point one meters,
was then anchored with a Ford engine block. It was
fortified with pipes and steel, and Lester Hemingway declared that
(20:38):
this raft was an island. He further claimed that half
of this island was the brand new country of New Atlantis.
But the other half, you said, was claimed for the
United States under the Guano Islands Act, which at that
point was more than a hundred years old. The Guano
Islands Act made it possible for Lester to gain the
protection of the U. S. Government over his new country,
(20:59):
simply because his man made island was so small that
there would be no way to really coordinate off as
two separate entities in any sort of practical sense. So, uh,
he wrote a constitution for New Atlantis sort of. He
actually just used the exact wording of the U. S. Constitution,
but he subbed in the name New Atlantis everywhere the
(21:19):
original document had said United States. Seven months after claiming
this new territory, which was a republic, Lester held elections.
The resident voters of New Atlantis were Lester, his wife Doris,
their two daughters, pr specialist Edward K. Moss, and Julius Celini,
who was Moss's assistant. Lester was elected president in a
(21:40):
unanimous vote. And then all of this, the Declaration of
New Atlantis, the elections, Lester's constitution, all of that was
covered in the press. Lester gave quotes to reporters that
his new country was peaceful and had no intention of
threatening its neighbors, that he did not know of any
laws forbidding starting your own country. Yeah, I feel like
we should all so note that two of the constituents
(22:03):
who voted in that presidential election. His daughters were little
kids at the time, so voting rights were converted at
a very young age. There was also currency for New Atlantis,
which was, in case you're wondering, named after the Francis
Bacon idea. New Atlantis commerce was done in scruples, which
appeared to be just items scavenged from the sea, such
(22:24):
as fishhooks and shark teeth, etcetera. The joke there is
that Lester Hemingway thought that if you were rich, you
should have a lot of scruples. Uh. You could not
gamble though on New Atlantis that was for voting against
the law. Lester's wife Doris, stitched the country's flag, which
featured a gold equilateral triangle pointing down on a royal
(22:45):
blue background. It also had a circle of royal blue
in the center of the triangle. There were actually several
of these flags, because some had blown away in the
wind and whatnot. There is one remaining to this day.
And then there were the stamps. New Atlantis design in
print and sold stamps at five different values. President Lyndon B.
Johnson was featured on the one hundred cents stamp, which
(23:06):
resulted in a thank you note from the White House.
And all of this sounds a little bit silly. It
is easy to imagine that an eccentric with a bit
of privilege and some money was just mucking around with
this idea of starting a country, or that it was
some sort of publicity stunt for his writing. And he
did admit that he was motivated by fund and the
desire to see if he could make money off of
(23:28):
starting a new government, But there was also a scientific
goal for the fledgling Republic of New Atlantis. Lester Hemingway
wanted the island to become home to the International Marine
Research Society. They could do science work there and four
sales of stamps to finance that endeavor, and he also
wanted his country and any money that they made out
(23:49):
of stamp sales to be used to protect nearby phishing resources.
In the autumn of nineteen sixty five, Lester worked with
the librarian at the University of Texas Humanities Research Center
and Austin to create an exhibit about his new country,
including what maybe the only copy of the constitution, as
well as a number of other artifacts. This collection remains
at the University of Texas at Austin Harry Ransom Humanities
(24:12):
Research Center. Yeah, some of those pieces they have photographs
of online. But New Atlantis, you may have noticed, you
don't have to memorize it in a list of countries,
and that is because it was a short lived project.
Its demise was not that the Universal Postal Union refused
to acknowledge its stamps, although that was a very real problem,
(24:33):
But the culprit here was nature itself. New Atlantis, which
Lester had been hoping to expand and further fortify, was
destroyed in a storm in nineteen sixty six before he
could make improvements on it. After the demise of his
little country, Lester continued to write. He started working as
a freelance journalist, writing about fishing in the outdoors, activities
(24:54):
he had learned about from his brother. He wrote for
various periodicals and also started his own newsletter, The Biminy
out Island News, which he described as the smallest newspaper
in the world. Yeah. In one quote he said something like,
you would need two copies to wrap a piece of fish.
Very little. As he aged, Lester also let his beard
(25:14):
grow out, and to a lot of people, he started
to look like the spitting image of his deceased brother
during this time. In his mid sixties, Lester had a
heart attack and then was diagnosed with diabetes, which led
to a number of surgeries, including having artificial arteries put
into his legs. His health continued to decline, and his doctors,
noting his poor circulation, suggested that he have both of
(25:36):
his legs amputated. This was more than he was willing
to consider, and like his father and his brother before him,
Lester Hemingway's medical issues brought on depression, and at the
age of sixty seven, in September of nine, Lester Hemingway
ended his life via a self inflicted gunshot wound to
the head. I had not heard about Lester until fairly recently,
(25:57):
and I was immediately fascinated. Yeah, because it is a
story of someone who seems very um, I don't know
if contented is the right word, but comfortable living in
the shadow of a much more famous sibling, and even
to the point that they're willing to pursue the same
career knowing it will count against them in some ways.
(26:18):
But then once Ernest is gone, Lester does some really
fascinating things of his own. Uh, He's an interesting dude,
and I think, uh, a lot of people don't know
about him. I think people that are really into the
hemmingways and their family history and earnest probably have an
inkling of him. But uh, Lester gets a little bit
(26:39):
lost in the historical record. So that's why I wanted
to talk about him, because I love the story of
an eccentric and I love the idea of starting one's
own country, even if it does not go tremendously well. Uh,
it is such a fun idea though. Yeah, do you
have a listener mail for us? I do. It's much
(27:00):
more upbeat, although it does start out with the subject
line heartbroken. Oh yeah, I saw that subject line and
like I braced for impact. Yeah, it's and it turns
out to be lovely. It is from our listener page.
Who writes, Hello, Tracy and Holly. I've been listening to
Missed in History for years now, but I've fallen behind
after returning to school and reallocating a lot of my
(27:20):
time from podcasts. As my aside, congratulations on going back
to school. I hope it is fulfilling in that you're
doing great. She continues, I just listened to your podcasts
on the Little Mine fascinating as always, and heard that
you were coming to Denver. I held my breath as
I waited for you to say the date, and it was,
of course, already passed. I am so sorry to have
missed you. I hope you had a wonderful time in
(27:41):
Denver and look forward to hearing about that live show.
I'll start checking the website for appearance dates so I
won't miss another chance. Thank you both so much for
keeping me company during so many tedious tasks, long drives
in the occasional relaxing bath over the years. I'm sure
you hear it from others, but listening to you guys
for so long has really made me feel like we
have a strange sort of friendship, and I love learning
(28:01):
from you and hearing about all the little connections your
other listener friends find out in the world. Uh love
page ps. I think Holly called someone a gratul epithecus
and the William McClure episode. Did I hear that right?
If that was the thing I wanted on a T
shirt so badly? Um, yes, I did. That's a word
I used to describe myself when I'm grumpy, and I
think it's funny. It is a funny word. I don't
(28:23):
know when I started using it, sometime in my twenties
or something. UM. Sure, we'll see if they want to
put that on a shirt. We'll talk to our too
public people. UM. I wanted to mention this because it
brings up something that we've been discussing. You have probably
noticed if you go to our website it is not
as robust in terms of offering up all of the
stuff you may be used to seeing. It is not
(28:45):
so UM. I mostly just wanted to say we know
that is uh in some ways can be a little
bit frustrating. We are working on figuring out to work
around for it. I cannot make any promises. We don't
know what form that will take if we get to
a solution that the company agrees upon, but just know
that we hear you uh, and we understand we will.
(29:06):
I think probably as a matter of course, we might
start when we have appearances or trips coming up. We
might start just doing a quick little announcement of them,
maybe at the end of listener mail or something along
those lines, just to keep everybody posted. We do have
one appearance coming up that I can talk about right now,
I think you should. I will talk and then I
(29:27):
will get back to the website thing because I so
Sunday July we are coming back to Quincy, Massachusetts to
Adams National Historical Park for a live show two pm.
I am not a hundred percent shure yet whether it
is up on the Adams National Historical Park website, but
that's still quite a ways away in terms of time.
(29:47):
People have plenty of time to work on it. I'm
sure we will mention it again. So again back in Quincy,
Massachusetts again Sunday July at two pm that day for
after GHO. We had such a great time last time
around that I can't wait. Hopefully our live show will
not fall into the Adam's triangle in terms of recording
it like last time, but even if something goes wrong
(30:10):
with the recording again, we'll do a studio version of
that episode. Back to the website. I totally understand how frustrating,
uh it has been for folks who were using that
to get to our show notes or to have a
searchable archive of every episode ever, which is like a
thing that I said in every episode of the show
for years. Um. So yeah, we totally understand that the
(30:30):
website change has been frustrating. Um, it was something that
was outside of our control, and I think it's also
something that some people have interpreted as kind of nefarious,
but really it was just a product of our podcast.
It was initially part of a company called how Stuff Works.
Over the years, how Stuff Works, before we started doing podcasts,
(30:53):
was sold to Discovery Channel. After Discovery Channels, after we
were part of a Discovery channel, that's when we start
of doing podcasts. And then in this time span after that,
we were sold two more times, spun off into our
own business, and then sold again, and our website was
like on architecture from another another company that like doesn't
(31:14):
own us and isn't part of the show anymore. So
like it had to move to I Heart Radio, which
we have been part of for now more than a year,
like a year and a half. A totally different company
had been supporting our website all that time. So I
think folks have just some folks have been like, I
can't believe they did this to you, and really like
(31:36):
it was just a business thing that had to happen.
You You cannot, if you're a business just continue indefinitely
to support a totally different businesses website. Yeah, it's um
I always tell people because this comes up, I think
in in fandoms for many things. I'm very active in
Star Wars fandom. It comes up there. When something happens,
people want to attach meaning or intent to it that
(31:58):
makes it a little more exciting or dramatic. But really
often if it's an occam's razor, the most boring mundane
explanation is probably the realist one, because in business in particular,
there are a lot of boring, mundane logistics that just
have to be handled, and those often lead to situations
like the one we find ourselves in at the moment.
So again, as as Holly said, we are actively working
(32:20):
on getting a solution that will like at least have
our show notes and things available for folks. And in
the meantime, if you need some show notes, send us
an email and we will see if we can help
you out. Like with that reason, right, I cannot email
the show notes for every episode ever, but if there
is a particular episode that you need the show notes
for because you're working on a project for school or something,
send us a note. We'll try to help you out. Yeah, yes,
(32:43):
so Thank you for all of your patients in in
dealing with that if you're I know, particularly for educators
that often use the site in their classroom, it's been
a little bit frustrating, so we continue to work on
it again. It's it's a mundane, boring logistics thing, but
then create some difficulties figuring out a solution. So bear
with us and and thank you for your patience up
to this point. If you would like to write to us,
(33:04):
you can do so at History Podcast at i heeart
radio dot com. You can also find us everywhere on
social media as missed in History. If you would like
to subscribe to the show, that sounds just delightful to us,
do it at the I Heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts,
or wherever it is you listen. Stuff you Missed in
(33:25):
History Class is a production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy. You
Wilson Tracy. Everybody's heard the name or his Hemingway. I
think most people have at least heard of him. Yeah,
(00:21):
they may not have read his work, or maybe they did. Uh.
And his life is pretty well known and well documented
because he was so famous even in his own time.
But his brother is another story. But Lester, and that
has spelled the same way that the city in England
has spelt, but it has pronounced. Lester similarly, much younger
than his famous sibling, has quite a story of his own,
(00:43):
and it is, as you'll see, a life very much
lived in relation to his brother. In some ways, his
identity growing up was I'm Hemingway's little brother. We're going
to talk about the biography that he wrote about Ernest,
and really anything about himself is through the lens of
how his brother influenced him or how it related to
(01:04):
his brother. It really was not until after Ernest Hemingway's
death that Lester made his boldest moves in life. Uh.
And we're going to talk about all that as a
heads up, as you may or may not know if
you know any details about Hemingway's life and the Hemingway family,
there are going to be several instances of suicide that
we talked about in today's show, not in great detail,
(01:25):
but they do come up as elements that happened along
the way. So when Lester was born on April first,
nineteen fifteen, his brother Ernest, who would become just wildly famous,
was already sixteen years old. The family was living in
the Oak Park suburb of Chicago at the time. The
oldest of the Hemingway siblings was their sister Marceline, who
(01:45):
was born a year before Ernest in They also had
two more sisters, Ursula, born in nineteen o two and Madeleine,
who was called Sonny, born in nineteen o four. Another daughter, Carol,
came along in nineteen eleven, so Lester was the baby
of the family, also unplanned. His father was Clarence Edmund's Hemingway,
(02:06):
and his mother was Grace Ernestine Hall. The Hemingways were
supporters of the arts and of missionary efforts, and Clarence
founded a local chapter of the Agazez Society, which was
focused on collecting and studying natural objects. They were also
very interested in science in the natural world. Clarence was
a doctor and he worked for several insurance companies as
(02:26):
their medical examiner while also leading the obstetrics department at
Oak Park Hospital. There's a moment in the biography Lester
wrote that he was also working for a dairy as
like their physical exam guy for their employees. And Grace
had been on the cusp of what could have potentially
been a pretty successful career as a singer when she
(02:46):
decided to give that up and instead Mary Clarence and
start a family, and that is something that, according to Lester,
naged at her for the rest of her life and
she wondered what could have been. According to Lester's biography
of his brother, which we'll talk about later in the episode,
Arnest was very much a father figure to his much
younger sibling. Ernest did everything from changing lester stipers to
(03:09):
teaching him how to shoot and fish and fight. He
also gave his little brother one of a lot of
nicknames that he would use throughout their relationship. That was
the Baron. Grace was also assisted by a number of
nurses and servants. She was not particularly interested in the
more domestic aspects of family life. They were able to
afford help, sometimes hiring students on summer breaks to assist
(03:32):
to them. Yeah, Grace was not so interested in cooking
and housework. And I mean, if you can afford help
to do then you don't like to do it. Go
you h. In his very young years, Lester saw his
older brother start his career as a writer, taking his
first job as a police reporter at the Kansas City
Star through a family connection, and then Ernest moved quickly
(03:54):
on to joining the American Red Crossed Field Service to
join the war effort during World War One. Ernest had
actually wanted to go straight into the war from school,
but their father forbade it. Uh. It is very clear
through all of this and really the entire biography that
he wrote, that Lester idolized his big brother. Ernest was
injured by a mortar shell while distributing cigarettes and chocolate
(04:17):
to the men on the front lines in Italy during
the war. He managed to carry an injured soldier on
his back to the aid station before he passed out.
And that was a feat that was made even more
impressive because he was hit by two bullets from machine
gun along the way. His legs had also taken most
of the blast from the mortar. For years, this incident
(04:38):
grew in its telling in public circles, and it was
something that Ernest seemed to even encourage in not correcting
any of them. But Lester, in writing about it, set
the record straight that his brother had not taken hundreds
of bullets to the growing or had any kind of
mental or emotional breakdown as a result of this incident.
Ernest later referenced and kind of fueled this rumor that
(04:58):
his genitalia had been irreversibly injured in the writing of
his character Jake in his novel The Sun Also Rises,
So he definitely kind of enjoyed the oversized versions of
this story that went around. Ernest was seriously injured and
he required several months to recover, but he did return home.
He was hailed as a war hero, and Lester would
later write of it quote, it was pretty glorious stuff
(05:21):
being kid brother to the guy who had personally helped
make the world safe for democracy. When Ernest and his
first wife, Hadley Richardson traveled to Europe, Lester wrote him
what he described as fan mail that struck me as
so interesting that he calls it that, but clearly very
adoring of his brother. In the fall of Lester's grandfather
(05:45):
on the Hemmingway side passed away, and it was the
first of many events that culminated in a depression for
their father, Clarence. Soon after, Ernest wrote to tell the
family that he and his wife were separated amicably and
they were getting a divorce. This was something Clarence was
very upset by. He told Lester, who was just a
little over eleven years old at the time, quote, you know,
of course, that your brother has brought great shame on
(06:07):
the family by divorcing Hadley, don't you. Ernest's rapid second
marriage to Pauline Peiffer, who became pregnant soon after the wedding,
was another blow. Even though the Hemmingways loved Pauline and
we're happy to welcome a new grandchild, Ernest sort of
insulted his father, who, as we said earlier, was an obstetrician,
(06:27):
by asking kind of pointed questions about the quality of
the hospital where he was working. Uh As he and
Pauline try to decide where they were going to have
the baby. Yeah, it's interesting. There is a letter in
this biography that Lester publishes. He doesn't publish any of
his brother's letters, which we'll talk about in a moment,
But the letter that Clarence wrote back to him is
(06:48):
very polite and he kind of is like, oh, yeah,
the hospitals here might not do for you. Maybe you
would be better off having the baby elsewhere. And it
sounds very polite and not upset. But Lester is very
clear that his father was really injured and heartbroken that
the quality of the care that he was part of
was questioned in this way. Additionally, there was some ongoing
(07:12):
strife between Earnest and Clearance. Even though his eldest son
was making a name for himself as a writer and
was lauded as one of the great literary voices of
the time, by this point, Clarence and Grace just didn't
understand Earnest's work, and they often did not like it
when they read it. That, coupled with their ongoing dismay
about earnest life choices, had really put a strain on
(07:33):
the father son relationship. Than his played out. Clarence had
to run a bad luck he had invested in property
in Florida, planning it as a retirement destination, but then
the bottom dropped out of the real estate market in Florida.
The property was significantly devalued. The Hemingways owed a lot
more on it than it was worth, and Clarence was
(07:54):
not going to be able to set up a retirement
practice there. Several months later, Clarence was diagnosed with beauties.
This was something he had suspected for a while, but
he had put off getting tested. It's one of those
the cobbler's children have no shoes situation. He is one
of those doctors that did not want to go to
the doctor. Uh. These events all accumulated and Lester described
(08:14):
in his writing Clearance having a quote serious loss of morale,
and it was something he also called an emotional illness.
On the morning of December six, Clearance burned a few
of his personal items and papers, and then he retired
to an upstairs bedroom and he shot himself in the
midst of the households grief and turmoil. Ernest had traveled
(08:35):
in to manage the funeral arrangements and some other business.
He told Lester, who at this point was thirteen, that
a he should not cry that the Hemingways did not cry.
It's just kind of a horrible emotional burden to give
a kid and be that he wanted Lester to get
the gun that their father had used to end his
life from the police and have it shipped to him.
(08:56):
Ernest Hemingway wanted that weapon. So you might think that
something like that would sour the younger brother's admiration for
his older sibling, but this was not the case at all.
A few years later, as the movie adaptation of the
Sun Also Rises was coming out, Lester visited his big
brother in Piggott, Arkansas, where Pauline's family lived. It went
(09:17):
and saw the movie and reported back about it to
Ernest and then went hunting with him. And this whole
trip in Lester's account, reads as though Ernest was keenly
aware that his brother needed somebody to step into the
shoes of their late father, and the two of them
talked about their family. Ernest made sure that Lester had
enough money. Yeah, it's interesting. Ernest did not want to
go see the movie, but he didn't want to hear
(09:40):
if it was okay, So that's why he sent his mother. Uh.
And this relationship, to be clear, was also something that
benefited Ernest. He really liked having someone in his life
that looked up to him. Lester later wrote, quote, Ernest
was never very content with life unless he had a
spiritual kid brother nearby. He needed someone he could show
(10:01):
off too as well as teach. He needed uncritical admiration.
If the kid brother could show a little worshipful awe,
that was a distinct aid in the relationship. I made
a good kid brother when I was around, but I
couldn't be around regularly. We'll talk more about the relationship
between the Hemingway brothers as Lester grew into adulthood after
(10:21):
we take a quick sponsor break. As the years went on,
Lester and Ernest remained close, although other friends filled that
kid brother role for the writer. When Lester was busy
with school, the younger brother joined his brother on the
sea and Key West when the novelists took delivery of
(10:43):
his famous fishing boat pillar in and during their trips
out on the water, they continued their long talks. This
was something that they would do for years and years.
It was a board pillar that they discussed the fact
that Lester also wanted to be a professional writer, just
like his older brother, and the shared knowledge that anything
the younger Hemingway wrote would be compared to Ernest's work.
(11:05):
Everything you do, Ernest told his brother, they'll say you're
writing on my reputation. You know that, don't you. Ultimately,
Ernest was supportive of Lester's desire to write and told
him he could give him some advice, but he did
not want to help him in any way beyond that.
Over the years, he offered up some tips, like, if
you can't make up stories, you shouldn't try to write
(11:27):
a real one remembered as always sort of flat compared
to a made up one. Yeah, perfectly happy to do
all that advice, but he didn't want anybody to be
able to say that Lester hadn't earned his place as
a writer. He also advised that Lester should do what
he had done, which would start out in newspapers. He
felt like that was a really good way to develop
your own voice and also to basically like get in
(11:50):
the habit of having to write all the time, whether
you felt like it or not, And that was precisely
what the younger Hemingway brother did. Lester started working for
the Chicago Go Daily News, writing regional news and fielding
questions from his co workers about his famous brother. In
ninety three, almost twenty years after the two brothers had
started talking about Lester becoming a writer, he published his
(12:13):
first novel, The Sound of the Trumpet, and that was
based on his experiences in Europe during the Second World War.
It was compared in the press to uh to Ernest's work,
and often was deemed derivative and heavily influenced by Ernest Hemingway.
Lester wrote several other books that also we existed, but
when unpublished, we didn't mention that he went to Europe
(12:35):
during the Second World War. And there's a reason, which
is that Lester's life is not documented in any way
as well as his brothers. It kind of comes up
in these these oh yes, of course they went to Europe.
It was in my book. But he's so busy always
capturing his brother's life that he never really seemed to
record a lot about his own. Lester, for example, married twice.
(12:59):
I couldn't tell you that eights because I could not
find them, despite looking around very energetically about it. His
first wife was Patricia said. The couple had two sons together,
Peter and Jacob, who went by Jake, although that marriage
did not last. He next married Doris May Dunning, a
marriage which produced two daughters, Anne and Hillary, and he
was married to Doris for the rest of his life.
(13:20):
So documenting Ernest Hemingway's life was something that Lester said
was his brother's idea. Ernest wanted quote, somebody who really
knew me to write a book about me, and Lester
took up that challenge, writing about his brother's quote absolute integrity,
both emotional and aesthetic. But the famous Hemingway did not
want a biography to be published about him while he
(13:42):
was still alive, so Lester, who worked on the project
for some time, just held onto that manuscript. On July two,
Ernest Hemingway was found dead in the foyer of the
home in Idaho that he shared with his fourth wife Mary.
The obituary, which ran in The New York Times, printed
Mary's statement quote, Mr Hemingway accidentally killed himself while cleaning
(14:03):
a gun this morning at seven thirty am. No time
has been set for the funeral services, which will be private.
But the obituary also noted that Ernest had been treated
at the Mayo Clinic in recent months and quoted a
friend of the authors from the police force is saying
that friends had relayed that in the time leading up
to his death, Hemingway quote looked thinner and acted depressed.
(14:25):
The coroner also gave a quote in this obituary story
that stated, quote, I can only say at this stage
that the wound was self inflicted. The wound was in
the head. I couldn't say it was accidental, and I
couldn't say it was suicide. There wasn't anybody there. Lester's
book was published eight months after Ernest's death, titled Simply
My Brother, Ernest Hemingway, and it was dedicated to his
(14:47):
wife Doris. The opening of the book offers so much
insight into the reverence for Ernest that his brother had.
It reads quote. The conversations recorded in this biography are
as accurate as I could make them. I did not
have a tape recorder, and I do not possess total recall,
but my own notes, ship's log and memory enabled me
to reproduce many conversations. In writing dialogue, Ernest polished, edited,
(15:13):
and was the supreme master of this art. In presenting
earnest conversations, I have been mindful of the obligations of
a brother, a friend, and a biographer. Ernest did not
favor the publication of his letters, so they have not
been reproduced here. He regarded all biographies as unlucky during
the subject's lifetime, yet at the end of the last
(15:34):
letter I had from him, he wished me luck with
this book. Lester acknowledged the version of his brother's death
that Ernest's wife Mary had shared with the press, that
it may have been an accident rather than an intentional
effort to end his own life. But Lester also attributes
full intention to his brother's actions. He wrote really candidly
about his brother's depression, his sadness at having lost several friends,
(15:57):
and during that time at the Mayo Clinic, he was
undergoing elector shock treatments. He also notes in the text
that Ernest was, unlike any author before him, mourned globally
as though he had been a statesman rather than a writer.
Lester's biography of his brother was well received, and it
is still read today by Hemingley enthusiasts. And it is
definitely an adoring picture of the man, and it is
(16:19):
filled with a lot of stories about them hunting and
fishing together, a lot of details regarding all of that
not the best read for people who might be squeamish
about the details of such activities. Okay, so we're going
to go ahead and stop for a sponsored break, because
after his brother's iconic life had ended, Lester made some
really bold decisions of his own. We will get to
(16:40):
that right after a sponsored break. Okay, this is gonna
sound like we edited two different episodes together because it's
a little bit of a track jump. But we have
to pause for a moment here in the story of
Lester Hemmingway's life. We did not edit two episodes together
(17:02):
accidentally to discuss bird poop. Before synthetic fertilizers were commercially
produced in any kind of cost effective way, the name
of the game and soil fertilization was guano. All kinds
of natural fertilizers had been used since the beginning of time. Manure, compost,
and river silt have all been used to enrich soil
(17:23):
to produce crops for centuries. We talked about some of
this in our episode on the discovery of phosphorus. Yeah,
and guano. In this case, sea bird excrements rather than
bats was used in the Andes and the proving coast
as well as other areas to enrich the soil. It
became really coveted by a lot of countries in the
(17:45):
nineteenth century, and this is a significant part of several conflicts.
The First and Second Wars of the Pacific, which started
in eighteen sixty four and eighteen seventy nine, respectively, were
fought over occupation and exploitation of South American tier tories
that were rich and a lot of resources, one of
them being guano. But before either of those conflicts, in
(18:06):
eighteen fifty six, the US Congress past the Guano Islands Act.
Sea birds, particularly in places where their colonies have been
allowed to flourish without humans getting in the way, produce
a lot of very rich fertilizer. The U s and
the eighteen fifties did not have a whole lot of
islands with productive sea bird populations to fill this need,
(18:27):
so this federal law was intended to generate territory that
would give them access to this natural resource. The acts
opening reads as follows, quote, whenever any citizen of the
United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock,
or key not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other
government and not occupied by the citizens of any other government,
(18:48):
and takes peaceable possession thereof and occupies the same. Such island, rock,
or key may, at the discretion of the President, be
considered as appertaining to the United States. According to this Act,
the discoverer of such a spot is required to notify
the Department of State of the possession and provide proof
that all of the conditions of the law are met.
(19:09):
If the person who discovers the guano resource were to
die before all this paperwork and proof is taken care of,
his widow or heirs can follow through and they will
get credit for the discovery, as well as rights to
live there on this this declared land, and to harvest
and sell the guano there. The claimed land and guano
shipment is also to be protected by the US. And
(19:30):
I am using present tense language here because this federal
law still stands. We're going to get back to this
bird boot, but for a moment, we're gonna go back
to Lester Hemingway. The publication of my brother Ernest Hemingway
made a bit of money for Lester, and he had
some plans for how to use it. He had gotten
twenty five thousand dollars from Playboy magazine to publish the
(19:51):
story as a serial, and the biography was really successful,
eventually being translated into eleven languages. Everyone it seemed one
of the inside story of the Hemingway family and its
most famous member. On July four, four, Lester Hemingway took
all of the proceeds from the book and made his
own history by creating his own country. He floated a
(20:15):
raft made of bamboo. It was also fortified. We'll talk
about that in a minute, to a spot eight miles
that's twelve point eight kilometers to the southwest of Jamaica,
making that international waters. The raft, which was eight by
thirty ft or two point four by nine point one meters,
was then anchored with a Ford engine block. It was
fortified with pipes and steel, and Lester Hemingway declared that
(20:38):
this raft was an island. He further claimed that half
of this island was the brand new country of New Atlantis.
But the other half, you said, was claimed for the
United States under the Guano Islands Act, which at that
point was more than a hundred years old. The Guano
Islands Act made it possible for Lester to gain the
protection of the U. S. Government over his new country,
(20:59):
simply because his man made island was so small that
there would be no way to really coordinate off as
two separate entities in any sort of practical sense. So, uh,
he wrote a constitution for New Atlantis sort of. He
actually just used the exact wording of the U. S. Constitution,
but he subbed in the name New Atlantis everywhere the
(21:19):
original document had said United States. Seven months after claiming
this new territory, which was a republic, Lester held elections.
The resident voters of New Atlantis were Lester, his wife Doris,
their two daughters, pr specialist Edward K. Moss, and Julius Celini,
who was Moss's assistant. Lester was elected president in a
(21:40):
unanimous vote. And then all of this, the Declaration of
New Atlantis, the elections, Lester's constitution, all of that was
covered in the press. Lester gave quotes to reporters that
his new country was peaceful and had no intention of
threatening its neighbors, that he did not know of any
laws forbidding starting your own country. Yeah, I feel like
we should all so note that two of the constituents
(22:03):
who voted in that presidential election. His daughters were little
kids at the time, so voting rights were converted at
a very young age. There was also currency for New Atlantis,
which was, in case you're wondering, named after the Francis
Bacon idea. New Atlantis commerce was done in scruples, which
appeared to be just items scavenged from the sea, such
(22:24):
as fishhooks and shark teeth, etcetera. The joke there is
that Lester Hemingway thought that if you were rich, you
should have a lot of scruples. Uh. You could not
gamble though on New Atlantis that was for voting against
the law. Lester's wife Doris, stitched the country's flag, which
featured a gold equilateral triangle pointing down on a royal
(22:45):
blue background. It also had a circle of royal blue
in the center of the triangle. There were actually several
of these flags, because some had blown away in the
wind and whatnot. There is one remaining to this day.
And then there were the stamps. New Atlantis design in
print and sold stamps at five different values. President Lyndon B.
Johnson was featured on the one hundred cents stamp, which
(23:06):
resulted in a thank you note from the White House.
And all of this sounds a little bit silly. It
is easy to imagine that an eccentric with a bit
of privilege and some money was just mucking around with
this idea of starting a country, or that it was
some sort of publicity stunt for his writing. And he
did admit that he was motivated by fund and the
desire to see if he could make money off of
(23:28):
starting a new government, But there was also a scientific
goal for the fledgling Republic of New Atlantis. Lester Hemingway
wanted the island to become home to the International Marine
Research Society. They could do science work there and four
sales of stamps to finance that endeavor, and he also
wanted his country and any money that they made out
(23:49):
of stamp sales to be used to protect nearby phishing resources.
In the autumn of nineteen sixty five, Lester worked with
the librarian at the University of Texas Humanities Research Center
and Austin to create an exhibit about his new country,
including what maybe the only copy of the constitution, as
well as a number of other artifacts. This collection remains
at the University of Texas at Austin Harry Ransom Humanities
(24:12):
Research Center. Yeah, some of those pieces they have photographs
of online. But New Atlantis, you may have noticed, you
don't have to memorize it in a list of countries,
and that is because it was a short lived project.
Its demise was not that the Universal Postal Union refused
to acknowledge its stamps, although that was a very real problem,
(24:33):
But the culprit here was nature itself. New Atlantis, which
Lester had been hoping to expand and further fortify, was
destroyed in a storm in nineteen sixty six before he
could make improvements on it. After the demise of his
little country, Lester continued to write. He started working as
a freelance journalist, writing about fishing in the outdoors, activities
(24:54):
he had learned about from his brother. He wrote for
various periodicals and also started his own newsletter, The Biminy
out Island News, which he described as the smallest newspaper
in the world. Yeah. In one quote he said something like,
you would need two copies to wrap a piece of fish.
Very little. As he aged, Lester also let his beard
(25:14):
grow out, and to a lot of people, he started
to look like the spitting image of his deceased brother
during this time. In his mid sixties, Lester had a
heart attack and then was diagnosed with diabetes, which led
to a number of surgeries, including having artificial arteries put
into his legs. His health continued to decline, and his doctors,
noting his poor circulation, suggested that he have both of
(25:36):
his legs amputated. This was more than he was willing
to consider, and like his father and his brother before him,
Lester Hemingway's medical issues brought on depression, and at the
age of sixty seven, in September of nine, Lester Hemingway
ended his life via a self inflicted gunshot wound to
the head. I had not heard about Lester until fairly recently,
(25:57):
and I was immediately fascinated. Yeah, because it is a
story of someone who seems very um, I don't know
if contented is the right word, but comfortable living in
the shadow of a much more famous sibling, and even
to the point that they're willing to pursue the same
career knowing it will count against them in some ways.
(26:18):
But then once Ernest is gone, Lester does some really
fascinating things of his own. Uh, He's an interesting dude,
and I think, uh, a lot of people don't know
about him. I think people that are really into the
hemmingways and their family history and earnest probably have an
inkling of him. But uh, Lester gets a little bit
(26:39):
lost in the historical record. So that's why I wanted
to talk about him, because I love the story of
an eccentric and I love the idea of starting one's
own country, even if it does not go tremendously well. Uh,
it is such a fun idea though. Yeah, do you
have a listener mail for us? I do. It's much
(27:00):
more upbeat, although it does start out with the subject
line heartbroken. Oh yeah, I saw that subject line and
like I braced for impact. Yeah, it's and it turns
out to be lovely. It is from our listener page.
Who writes, Hello, Tracy and Holly. I've been listening to
Missed in History for years now, but I've fallen behind
after returning to school and reallocating a lot of my
(27:20):
time from podcasts. As my aside, congratulations on going back
to school. I hope it is fulfilling in that you're
doing great. She continues, I just listened to your podcasts
on the Little Mine fascinating as always, and heard that
you were coming to Denver. I held my breath as
I waited for you to say the date, and it was,
of course, already passed. I am so sorry to have
missed you. I hope you had a wonderful time in
(27:41):
Denver and look forward to hearing about that live show.
I'll start checking the website for appearance dates so I
won't miss another chance. Thank you both so much for
keeping me company during so many tedious tasks, long drives
in the occasional relaxing bath over the years. I'm sure
you hear it from others, but listening to you guys
for so long has really made me feel like we
have a strange sort of friendship, and I love learning
(28:01):
from you and hearing about all the little connections your
other listener friends find out in the world. Uh love
page ps. I think Holly called someone a gratul epithecus
and the William McClure episode. Did I hear that right?
If that was the thing I wanted on a T
shirt so badly? Um, yes, I did. That's a word
I used to describe myself when I'm grumpy, and I
think it's funny. It is a funny word. I don't
(28:23):
know when I started using it, sometime in my twenties
or something. UM. Sure, we'll see if they want to
put that on a shirt. We'll talk to our too
public people. UM. I wanted to mention this because it
brings up something that we've been discussing. You have probably
noticed if you go to our website it is not
as robust in terms of offering up all of the
stuff you may be used to seeing. It is not
(28:45):
so UM. I mostly just wanted to say we know
that is uh in some ways can be a little
bit frustrating. We are working on figuring out to work
around for it. I cannot make any promises. We don't
know what form that will take if we get to
a solution that the company agrees upon, but just know
that we hear you uh, and we understand we will.
(29:06):
I think probably as a matter of course, we might
start when we have appearances or trips coming up. We
might start just doing a quick little announcement of them,
maybe at the end of listener mail or something along
those lines, just to keep everybody posted. We do have
one appearance coming up that I can talk about right now,
I think you should. I will talk and then I
(29:27):
will get back to the website thing because I so
Sunday July we are coming back to Quincy, Massachusetts to
Adams National Historical Park for a live show two pm.
I am not a hundred percent shure yet whether it
is up on the Adams National Historical Park website, but
that's still quite a ways away in terms of time.
(29:47):
People have plenty of time to work on it. I'm
sure we will mention it again. So again back in Quincy,
Massachusetts again Sunday July at two pm that day for
after GHO. We had such a great time last time
around that I can't wait. Hopefully our live show will
not fall into the Adam's triangle in terms of recording
it like last time, but even if something goes wrong
(30:10):
with the recording again, we'll do a studio version of
that episode. Back to the website. I totally understand how frustrating,
uh it has been for folks who were using that
to get to our show notes or to have a
searchable archive of every episode ever, which is like a
thing that I said in every episode of the show
for years. Um. So yeah, we totally understand that the
(30:30):
website change has been frustrating. Um, it was something that
was outside of our control, and I think it's also
something that some people have interpreted as kind of nefarious,
but really it was just a product of our podcast.
It was initially part of a company called how Stuff Works.
Over the years, how Stuff Works, before we started doing podcasts,
(30:53):
was sold to Discovery Channel. After Discovery Channels, after we
were part of a Discovery channel, that's when we start
of doing podcasts. And then in this time span after that,
we were sold two more times, spun off into our
own business, and then sold again, and our website was
like on architecture from another another company that like doesn't
(31:14):
own us and isn't part of the show anymore. So
like it had to move to I Heart Radio, which
we have been part of for now more than a year,
like a year and a half. A totally different company
had been supporting our website all that time. So I
think folks have just some folks have been like, I
can't believe they did this to you, and really like
(31:36):
it was just a business thing that had to happen.
You You cannot, if you're a business just continue indefinitely
to support a totally different businesses website. Yeah, it's um
I always tell people because this comes up, I think
in in fandoms for many things. I'm very active in
Star Wars fandom. It comes up there. When something happens,
people want to attach meaning or intent to it that
(31:58):
makes it a little more exciting or dramatic. But really
often if it's an occam's razor, the most boring mundane
explanation is probably the realist one, because in business in particular,
there are a lot of boring, mundane logistics that just
have to be handled, and those often lead to situations
like the one we find ourselves in at the moment.
So again, as as Holly said, we are actively working
(32:20):
on getting a solution that will like at least have
our show notes and things available for folks. And in
the meantime, if you need some show notes, send us
an email and we will see if we can help
you out. Like with that reason, right, I cannot email
the show notes for every episode ever, but if there
is a particular episode that you need the show notes
for because you're working on a project for school or something,
send us a note. We'll try to help you out. Yeah, yes,
(32:43):
so Thank you for all of your patients in in
dealing with that if you're I know, particularly for educators
that often use the site in their classroom, it's been
a little bit frustrating, so we continue to work on
it again. It's it's a mundane, boring logistics thing, but
then create some difficulties figuring out a solution. So bear
with us and and thank you for your patience up
to this point. If you would like to write to us,
(33:04):
you can do so at History Podcast at i heeart
radio dot com. You can also find us everywhere on
social media as missed in History. If you would like
to subscribe to the show, that sounds just delightful to us,
do it at the I Heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts,
or wherever it is you listen. Stuff you Missed in
(33:25):
History Class is a production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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