Ernie

Well, I'll start off by saying that my name is Ernest Hemingway. Many people call me by a few nicknames I've been given by my friends. Some of those include "Ernie", "Hem", "Hemingstein","Champ", "Hemmy", and "Papa."
I was born on July 21st, 1899,(if you even care) in Oak Park, Illinois, where I still continue to live. I was born into an amazing family. I have many siblings, and I am actually the second of six children (four sisters and one brother).
When I was little, my dad taught me how to hunt and fish in and around Lake Michigan. Ever since the first summer my dad took me out on the lake, I never could stop fishing. If I could back to something sometime in my life, I'd pick the times I'd go fishing with my family in summer, since I don't have much time to do that now with my job and all.
When I wasn't out fishing, hunting, or spending quality time with my dad, I was with my mom being taught the important qualities and points of music. My mom, Grace Hemingway, used to be a somewhat famous singer. She had intentions of making her life career about singing, but instead she eventually settled down with my dad and started a family. She still enjoyed singing and occupied some of her time by giving voice lessons and music lessons to the children in Oak Park, including her six children.
I never really had a knack for music, but my mom made me take cello and choir lessons. Along with my choir lessons, I sang in church a lot, usually on Sunday mornings. If I had a choice, I wouldn't take music lessons, but my mom wanted me to become more experienced in music.
Way back in time, when I was considered to be "young", I went to Oak Park High School. It was just like any other high school. It had sports,electives, and the normal educational classes. I took all the normal classes, and on the side, I took up some sports such as football, swimming, water basketball, and I was even the track team manager. Pretty impressive huh?
Nobody thought school was all that great. I enjoyed myself in my classes though. English was my favorite all through school. I enjoyed all the essays and writing assignments. Later in school, I took up journalism and wrote for the school newspaper, The Trapeze.
When I graduated high school in 1917, I decided not to go to college, but that strongly disappointed my parents. Since my uncle was a journalist too, he referred me to the chief editorial writer of the newspaper that he worked for. Soon enough,I was accepted to be a reporter and journalist for "The Kansas City Star."
World War I started shortly after I graduated (about 1917). I was eighteen at the time. I tried to join the army. I wasn't quite sure if I had made the right decision for myself, but even if I wanted to join, apparently I couldn't be accepted because I had bad eyesight. Shortly after I was declined from the army, I heard that the Red Cross was taking up volunteers as ambulance drivers. I immediately signed up and was accepted that same year (1917). When I arrived in Europe, my ideas about war completely changed. It was much scarier and much more powerful than I ever would have thought. My job was not easy. I had to carry dead, yet mutilated bodies to the nearby cemetaries. One day on the job, I was delivering chocolates and other gifts of such to the soldiers on duty. A mortar shell exploded and knocked me unconscious and killed soldiers near me. I'm pretty amazed I survived it.
I returned from war two years later. When I got home, my parents tried to pressure me into finding work, but I just wanted to stay home and rest. I procrastinated at finding work for almost a year.
One of my friends, Ralph Connable, was the editor of a local newspaper, Toronto Star Weekly,and offered me a job to work for it. I later moved into my friend's house because I was sick of my parents making me feel ashamed for my choice of not going to college and not making my life important. At Ralph's house, I met Hadley Richardson. She was beautiful, smart, and everything I looked for in a woman. The two of us fell in love and we married in 1921.
We decided to move to Paris, France, where I believed I could influence the European literature. I met many influential writers there. I met Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Max Eastman, Lincoln, Steffens, and Wyndahm Lewis. I became friends with some and became acquaintances with others. I began writing stories in Paris that were influenced by my life, hoping that someone could publish them. Right about the same time, my wife got pregnant and we had a son. It was very difficult for me, considering I had my work life and my family life separate.
With a recommendation from my friend, Ezra, Ford Maddox published some of my stories including "Indian Camp" and "Cross Country Snow." Ford even put some of my stories in his magazine, but unfortunately, his magazine didn't last long. This was basically my starting point for my writing. I wrote multiple stories such as In Our Time, The Big Two-Hearted River, The Sun Also Rises, Men Without Women, The Killers, In Another Country, and A Farewell To Arms. These were pretty great books if I don't say so myself. During these four, long, and stressing years, I went from being a small, novel writer, to being a very important writer, which excited me greatly.
Sadly, my relationship between my wife and kid began to wear off. We decided to get a divorce after 6 years of being together. Shortly after divorcing Hadley, I married a fashion reporter, Pauline Pfeiffer. We moved to Key West and enjoyed our stay there. It was just ones of those places where it was good for work and play. That was, until my father died. It was horrible enough until I found out he shot himself in the head. I finished up writing A Farewell To Arms, Death in the Afternoon, and For Whom The Bell Tolls. My book, A Farewell To Arms got published and became a big hit. Unfortunately, I didn't stay to get my other books published. I went back to Illinois, so I could arrange my father's funeral. It was an extremely hard time in my life.
In 1937, I traveled to Spain with Pauline. It caused a big problem with my family life. My wife went through a hard time being pregnant twice and having two sons. With all my work, I hardly had time to be home with my family and my wife made it so bad where I didn't want to come home because she didn't want to be with me anyways. I worked with this writer, Martha Gellhorn, and the more we talked, the more I started to like her, and soon enough, I was hiding the affair I was having with Martha from Pauline. Four years later, I divorced Pauline and married Martha because our marriage wasn't lasting and it was just a hassle.
Martha and I went to Cuba. I went back to finishing up For Whom The Bell Tolls. In 1940, I finally finished it and got it published. My book won me The Pulitzer Prize and my book was called a success commercially and critically to my surprise. I started working on new books: Islands In The Stream and The Garden Of Eden. In 1942, I went to Europe to get some coverage on World War II.
On my way to Europe, I got in a car crash and severly injured myself. I had to get over 50 stitches in my head while dealing with a serious concussion. My wife, Martha, visited me often, but the more I saw her, the more I got sick of her, to be honest. Mary Welsh, the nurse who took care of me, was very nice and sweet. I fell in love with her quickly. In 1945, I ended my marriage with Martha and married Mary.
I took Mary back with me to America in 1946. After my experience in Europe with my injury, I wrote a book about it. I called it Across the River and Into the Trees. I finished writing it, thinking it was a good book, but apparently, it wasn't as good as I had thought. The critics tore it apart. It was pretty harsh.
In 1952, I finished writing The Old Man and The Sea and got it published. Fortunately, my new book was called a success. I was awarded with the Pulitzer Prize again in 1953.
A year later, I decided to take Mary with me to Africa. We boarded a small airplane to take a tour of Africa's waterfalls and lakes. During our trip, our plane crashed. Mary fractured her ribs. The plane had caught fire and we all tried to make it out safely. My wife and the pilot got out fine through the front exit of the plane. I tried getting through the main door. I used my head to ram the door open until I could break through and get out. When I made it out, I was in severe pain. My skull was fractured, two discs of my spine were dislocated,my liver, right kidney,shoulder, and my spleen were ruptured, and my face and head was burned by the flames.
Despite my injuries, Mary and I traveled to Italy and then down to Cuba. I was awarded with the Nobel Prize for LIterature, but I did not attend the ceremony in Sweden due to my injuries.
I tried to continue my writing, but everytime I wrote a story, I didn't feel like it was good enough to be published. My health was ruining me physically and creatively. Over a long period of time, I worked on A Moveable Feast(my memoirs).Even if I published it, I knew I wouldn't be around to see the success of the book.
I vacationed to Idaho because I had enjoyed the cool summers there, the lakes I could fish at, and the forests I could hunt in, but even when I arrived in Idaho, I still didn't enjoy life, let alone, I regretted going there. I was sent to a clinic in Minnesota to get treatment for high blood pressure and depression. Even though I got help for myself, I didn't feel better; I just felt worse. I began to have suicidal thoughts and my wife thought it would be best if I got expert help. I appreciated the effort Mary put it to help me get better, but I knew the only way to end my pain was to kill myself. I was put into electro-shock therapy to try and repair my mental state. Unfortunately, for this program, memory loss was a side effect. After my treatment, I could no longer write and I could no longer think of anything creative to write about. Writing now, was almost close to impossible.
Nowadays, it's even hard for me to keep you posted on what's been going on with me. I fight with depression and paranoia everyday. There's always a voice I hear telling me that I'm better off dead.
That gun in the basement seems pretty friendly right now..
I think it's even calling my name to it..