HIS EARLY
LIFE
Ernest Hemingway (1899, July 21-1961, July 2) was born in
Oak Park (suburb of Chicago, Illinois). Born in the family home at 439 North
Oak Park Avenue (now 339 N. Oak Park Avenue), a house built by his widowed grandfather
Ernest Hall. Hemingway was the second of Dr. Clarence and Grace Hall
Hemingway's six children; he had four sisters and one brother. He was named
after his maternal grandfather Ernest Hall and his great uncle Miller Hall. Oak Park was a mainly Protestant, upper
middle-class suburb of Chicago that Hemingway would later refer to as a town of
"wide lawns and narrow minds." His
mother dressed and raised him as a girl for part of his life, calling him
"Ernestine". Some reports claim that, when Hemingway was born, his
mother fantasized that he was the twin of his older, 18-month-old sister,
Marcelline.
(1900)
For two
months each summer, Hemingway was allowed to attend a boys' camp, where he
could dress and live as a boy. In his youth, Hemingway often joined his father
hunting and fishing. Boxing was a lifelong passion for him.
