-
“One cat just leads to another,” Hemingway wrote to his first wife, Hadley Mowrer, in 1943. At the time, nearly a dozen cats lived at Finca Vigía, his home outside Havana. In the same letter, he proudly reported that he had taught one called Friendless “to drink with me,” meaning whisky mixed with milk. Questionable pet care, perhaps, but extremely on-brand.
-
Ernest Hemingway sitting at a table feeding his cat Cristobal a corn cob at his home, Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba.
-
The feline population kept growing. In her 1950 profile of Hemingway for The New Yorker, Lillian Ross reported that he lived with 52 cats, along with 16 dogs, hundreds of pigeons and three cows. This was no longer a household. It was a small country with Hemingway serving as its heavily bearded minister of animal affairs.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Mary Welsh with cats at Finca Vigia.
-
Finca Vigía, Cuba, 1954. Seated on the front steps hugging a black-and-white cat (colour). Also on Wikimedia Commons.
-
Ernest Hemingway with sons Patrick and Gregory, Finca Vigía, Cuba, c. 1942. Photographer unknown. Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
-
Each cat had a name and personality. There were Princessa, Good Will, Cristóbal, Big Boy Peterson, and Boise, who may have been Hemingway’s favorite. “I have a cat named Boise, who wants to be a human being,” he told Ross. Boise ate whatever people ate and even chewed bitter vitamin capsules.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Ernest Hemingway's Cats, Willy and triplets Spendy, Shopsky, and Ecstacy, play in a tree at Finca Vigia, Cuba.
-
Hemingway was equally proud of the cats as a group. Speaking to his son about a feline originally named Smelly, he said, “We renamed him Ecstasy. Every one of our cats knows his own name.”
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Good Will, Hemingway's Angora tiger cat, 'sits' in chair at Finca Vigia.
-
The JFK Library, which holds Hemingway’s papers and extensive personal archive, simply describes cats as one of his favorite animals. That may be the safest possible understatement about a man who shared his home with more than 50 of them.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Ernest Hemingway holds his cat Friendless at Finca Vigia.
-
The man obviously loved felines, as Hemingway’s brother Leicester recalled in his 1961 memoir, “My Brother, Ernest Hemingway”:
Much has been written about Ernest’s enormous fondness for cats. He claimed they were superior to people of unknown quality. “A cat has absolute emotional honesty, Baron,” he told me once. “Male or female, a cat will show you how it feels about you. People hide their feelings for various reasons, but cats never do.”
And I think at least, perhaps cats appealed to Hemingway because they never cared about the legend. To them, Papa was simply the large, bearded man who knew when dinner was due.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Cristobal and his sister Izzy play in Hemingway's African Baskets.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Ernest Hemingway and his cat Cristobal drink at the table at Finca Vigia.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Cats in Finca Vigia.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Hemingway looks at this cat Cristobal on a table in Finca Vigia.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Ernest Hemingway with his cat, Boise, outside Finca Vigia.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Ernest Hemingway's cats, Friendless' Brother and Willy, watch a monkey outside the window at Finca Vigia in Cuba.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
One of Ernest Hemingway's cats "Big Boy Peterson" sitting indoors with a view of Baldy Mountain in the background. Ketchum, Idaho.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
A kitten sits between Ernest Hemingway's feet at Finca Vigia.
-
via Ernest Hemingway Photographs Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Mary Hemingway with cat, Boise. Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba.
Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.