The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park

Looking for Hemingway Through the Prism of the Pilar

 

Paul Hendrickson, a writing professor at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak on “Looking for Hemingway through the Prism of the Pilar,” based on his work-in-progress on Hemingway’s fishing cruiser, Pilar. Hendrickson will be at the Ernest Hemingway Museum, 200 N. Oak Park Avenue, in Oak Park for the 2009 Hemingway Birthday Lecture on Tuesday, July 21, at 7:00 p.m. Regular admission is $10; $8 for members and seniors. Following the lecture and discussion, guests will enjoy singing “Happy Birthday” to Ernest Hemingway who was born in Oak Park on July 21, 1899, some 110 years ago. For tickets, please call The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park at (708) 848-2222 or E-mail ehfop@sbcglobal.net.

 
In October 2008, Hendrickson spoke at the Michigan Hemingway Conference on what he called “watery antecedents.” His program reviewed Hemingway’s boyhood experiences along the Des Plaines River near Oak Park and in Michigan. Some of the research was done in The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park Archives with assistance from board members Barbara Ballinger, Redd Griffin, and others.

Hendrickson received the 2005 Provost’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Penn, where he conducts writing workshops in advanced nonfiction. His published books include Sons of Mississippi, winner of the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award in general nonfiction and also the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize. He is also the author of Seminary: a Search, (based on his study for seven years for the missionary priesthood), Looking for the Light: The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott (National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in 1992), and The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War (National Book Award finalist in 1996).

Hendrickson was a journalist for more than 30 years, working for most of that time as a staff feature writer at the Washington Post. He has degrees in literature from St. Louis University and Pennsylvania State University. He lives in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

Washington Post Features Hemingway's Birthplace

From Sunday's edition:

As a writer, I ashamedly had no clue that the Pulitzer- and Nobel Prize-winning writer was born and raised in Oak Park. Paris, Cuba and Key West, Fla.: Those are the places I had associated with Hemingway. Yet there on Oak Park Avenue stood the six-bedroom Victorian where baby Ernest was born in July 1899 in a second-floor bedroom, the second of six children of Clarence "Ed" Hemingway, a doctor, and Grace Hemingway, a music teacher.

The house on Oak Park Avenue was owned by Hemingway's maternal grandfather; after he died, 6-year-old Ernest and his family moved to a house a few blocks away on North Kenilworth Avenue. While the latter is closed to the public, the Oak Park Avenue residence is open for visitors interested in more than a walk-by. The wrap-around porch and round tower alone gave me a serious case of house envy. A nearby museum inside the Oak Park Arts Center offers further insight into the writer's life. Artifacts on display include a letter from the nurse who broke Hemingway's heart, thereby helping to inspire his novel "A Farewell to Arms."

James Plath Book Signing

 

James Plath, author of Historic Photos of Ernest Hemingway, signs copies of his book for the EHFOP's Barbara Ballinger and others on Sunday, April 19.

 

The book is available for purchase in The Hemingway Museum Store, 200 N. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, IL 60302.

Author Visit & Book Signing April 19th: James Plath

James Plath, author of the newly published Historic Photos of Ernest Hemingway, will visit The Hemingway Museum Sunday, April 19th at 3 p.m. to speak about his subject and sign copies of his book.

 

When Ernest Hemingway won the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature, presenters called him "one of this epoch's great molders of style," praising his vivid dialogue and journalistic eye for "robust details to accumulate and take on momentous significance." But even the Swedish Academy could not separate Hemingway the writer from Hemingway the adventurer. They also cited his "manly love of danger and adventure, with a natural admiration for every individual who fights the good fight in a world of reality overshadowed by violence and death."
 
"There have been a number of books that incorporate photos of Ernest Hemingway, but none of them give such prominence to the images. Ernest Hemingway was suspicious of journalists and often gave conflicting answers during interviews, but it's hard to lie to a camera. That's why these photos, spanning a lifetime, collectively tell a story that feels different from all the other biographies," says Plath.
 
Historic Photos of Ernest Hemingway is part of Turner Publishing's Historic Photos series. These books, highlighting the history of the great cities, landmarks, events, and key figures across America, have been acclaimed as a staple in the collection of anyone who loves history.
 

The event is free and open to the public. The Hemingway Museum is located at 200 N. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, IL 60302.

Three Sessions Remain in Hemingway Reading Group!

The Oak Park Hemingway group will read William Faulkner's novel Go Down Moses during its winter sessions, beginning on January 13, 2009 at the Oak Park Library. Copies of the Vintage edition have been ordered at The Book Table, 1045 Lake Street.

Since the work is composed of seven short stories which are connected by character, setting, and theme, it would be ideal if participants could read the entire book before we begin, and then re-read each story just before we discuss it.

A genealogy will be distributed at the first meeting; however, readers may find it useful to construct their own genealogy as they read for the first time.

All Sessions Meet 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Small Meeting Room, Second Floor
Oak Park Public Library
845 Lake Street

3/24 The Old People and The Bear

4/14 Delta Autumn

4/28 Go Down, Moses

EHFOP Annual Meeting March 12 at 6:30 p.m.

All current Foundation members and supporters are welcome to gather at the Hemingway Museum, 200 N. Oak Park Avenue, at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 12 for the Foundation's annual meeting.

 

Refreshments will be served and Foundation Director and past president Redd Griffin will offer a discussion of the EHFOP's 25-year history of keeping alive Hemingway's Oak Park story.