Carol and Ernest Hemingway: the letters of loss.

Sinclair, Gail

SHORTLY AFTER CAROL HEMINGWAY GARDNER'S DEATH in fall 2002, her daughter Elizabeth Gardner Lombardi began putting papers in order and closing out the details of a long life. Carol's path had been relatively ordinary in many senses: marrying her college sweetheart, raising three children, working as a schoolteacher, retiring to a rural Massachusetts community, and dying at home with family and friends at hand. Most who knew her were unaware, or certainly uninformed by Mrs. Gardner, of her connection to fame. She spent her last seventy years avoiding that notoriety. As the youngest and once most highly-favored sister of one of America's most recognized authors, Carol could have garnered attention from scholars and the press, but instead decided upon precisely the opposite path. Her choice was a quiet, unassuming life lived far away from the blinding glare of her brother's fame.

Carol Hemingway's preference was not that of a shy or reticent spirit. In fact, she had been at the center of controversy in a number of incidents throughout her public school years and later in college. (1) Until now, the real impetus for Carol's removal from her brother's life has been treated by Hemingway biographers only in sketchy detail. But while sorting through her mother's effects, Elizabeth Gardner Lombardi uncovered an important missing link detailing Carol and Ernest's argument and irrevocable break in the winter of 1933--fifteen previously unknown letters. Brother and sister never spoke to each other again after the turbulent months recorded in these newly-discovered papers, and even though Carlos Baker's seminal biography essentially provides the reasons why, we can now piece together a much clearer picture of the events leading to their life-long separation.

Two of the fifteen letters were written from Ernest to Carol and cannot be included verbatim due to copyright restrictions. One 1932 letter, sent by her sister-in-law Pauline from the L-T Ranch in Wyoming, makes reference to Carol's preparations for her European trip later that fall. Another is an undated piece on the stationery of New York's Hotel Brevoort, written by Pauline's sister Jinny, probably in January 1933, just before setting sail to join Carol in Vienna for a skiing vacation. Six letters dated from 16 October 1930 through 21 February 1933 are from Carol to a friend named Edie. The remaining four are from 1932 until 23 February 1933; penned by Carol to "a crazy red-headed gal named Peggy Pratt" she had met while attending Rollins College. Carol's correspondence with her girlfriends is important as it relays growing frustration over Ernest>s objections to her relationship with John (Jack) Gardner, the man she would later marry. (2)

The first of Hemingway's two letters to Carol is dated simply "Saturday," but was almost certainly written in spring 1932, while their relationship still remained on loving terms. Ernest makes reference to John ("Dos") and Katy Dos Passos visiting in Key West for three days of "swell" fishing in the gulf, and includes a paragraph bragging about the size, kind, and number of fish caught. (3) Hemingway also says how "swell" Carol had looked on her last visit, Christmas 1931, and that he would love for her to come south again for spring break. The letter exudes fatherly/brotherly warmth and concern along with an offer to send money for necessities Carol might require. Ernest signs off as "old Stein," Carol's loving sibling, and indicates he finds putting pen to paper difficult but that life is in a "bell [sic] epoque."

Pauline's letter, 8 September 1932, is also warmly parental and includes a check as well as advice about where and how Carol should shop in preparation for her European adventure. Pauline closes with an invitation for her sister-in-law to return after the year abroad by way of Havana, where the Hemingways hope to take an apartment. Pauline calls Carol by her childhood nickname, "Beefie," and signs off with much love. Scribbled at the bottom is a message in Ernest's handwriting, sending his best love and wishes for good luck, and instructing Carol that Max Perkins will cash the check. He also includes Hadley's Paris address. This is the last known cheerful letter from the Hemingways to Carol.

In the fall of 1932, Ernest and Pauline were apparently unaware that Carol's relationship with John Gardner had progressed beyond what they might have approved. In fact, the couple's burgeoning romance, begun while both were students at Rollins College, had already drawn negative attention from college officials for its serious and progressive nature. At least in part, the relationship was behind Carol's leaving college, and the Hemingways did not yet know that lack had plans to follow her to Europe. (4) Internal memos from Rollins administrators suggest the two coeds "were living together in Lakeside [a college dorm] before they left." (5) The source of this evidence is unnamed, but is probably reliable. In a 25 August 1932 letter to her friend Edie, Carol writes: "The Dreier house [has] a whole lovely attic room upstairs for Jack and me with a ladder stairway we can pull up. And we do. Bobby Dreier.... [is] a godamnswell woman to let lack and me live here and all and all." (6)

Carol was more deeply and intimately involved with John Gardner than Ernest or Pauline knew. Though the Hemingways themselves had acted outside conventional morality in beginning their own relationship, Ernest's rather Victorian prudishness and Pauline's Catholic sensibility would form the standard for evaluating Carol's actions and for disapproving her liberal choices.

By January 1933, Carol had established herself in Austria with the idea of attending the University of Vienna for a year, and John Gardner made plans to join her in Europe. Ernest became concerned and had a growing dread regarding the couple's seriousness. However, with nothing specific as yet upon which to base his suspicions, he remained on friendly terms with Carol. On 11 January 1933, Carol wrote to her friend Pratt, also in Europe, and in the opening paragraph copied a telegram Ernest had sent her the day before:

 WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR WIRING GARDNER NOT COME EUROPE NOW
 UNABLE UNDERTAKE HIS SUPPORT AT PRESENT YOU HAVENT ENOUGH
 FOR TWO BESIDES OTHER CONSIDERATIONS WRITING STOP YOU HAVE
 PLENTY TIME PLEASE BELIEVE KNOW WHAT TALKING ABOUT OLD BEEF
 JINNY ARRIVING SKI IN FEBRUARY WITH YOU LOVE CABLE ME CARE
 SCRIBNERS LOVE ERNIE

The telegram was apparently precipitated by a letter John Gardner sent informing Hemingway of his intended departure for Europe. Carol does what Ernest asks, and then cables her brother saying, "Wired Jack sorry worried you love beefy." She also writes Ernest a long letter she is sure "he'll misinterpret."

Carol pours out to Pratt her growing frustration with the circumstances, and writes, "There's nothing I can do until I get some money of my own. Or Jack does. Ernie means well I know, but he doesn't realize what a goddamned unproductive state I'm in now, and will continue to be until I see Jack again." The letter makes clear Carol's determination to have a relationship with Gardner though she understands her precarious situation and dependence upon Ernest's financial support. She confides, "I wish he'd get over the idea I want him to finance me a husband. All I want to do is divide what he already gives me."

A 15 January letter to her friend Edie explains that Carol herself had asked John to set sail for Europe. She tells Edie, "I cabled to Jack that I'd figured out my money, and that we could both live here on my allowance which would be practically $80 a month until July, and he could study just as well over here, and hell I wanted him so." She resigns herself to Ernest's control over her and to John's pragmatic decision to "tell Ernie before he came as Ernie would find out anyway and might stop my money if he were mad." She woefully writes:

 I did as I was told, and will continue to the rest of the year as
 I have no means of my own and there's nothing else to do. But
 hell, I would love so to live a very unextravagant life either in
 the city or in Tirol and Jack and I could both study and work then,
 and we'd have had this time together no matter what goes
 bloody next year, and something might really have come of it.
 As it is, I'll go on leading a round of pretty dumb social
 activities, trying to dull myself against the thot [sic] of not
 seeing Jack, and getting nothing done that I want to do. I hate
 myself sometimes for being so dependant [sic] on him for my balance.

Her dependence on one man for financial support and on another for emotional buoyancy dominates Carol's thoughts and interrupts her ability to appreciate the European experience she had come to enjoy. She confides to Edie, "I hate so wasting all this time and the things that are possible to do in this country."

By 24 January, Carol's depression is gone, and she is "cock-eyed with excitement" having just received word that "Jack is sailing on the Deutschland, and aught [sic] to get to Cherbourg on the 27th." He is able to finance the trip by accompanying a family friend in need of institutionalization. (7) Carol vacillates between joy in her reunion with Jack and apprehension be cause she understands Ernest's potential for anger and the possible consequences of his disapproval. Stubbornly clinging to an optimistic hope that somehow things will work out, she assures herself, "I'm not a romantic bitch, really. If I were romantic I wouldn't choose to live on half my money and also incur my brother's everlasting wrath." What she wants to emphasize is not love-struck idealism, but her willingness to live with compromise if she must.

Ernest's wrath does soon arrive in the form of a typed, single-spaced letter on 1 February 1933. He opens with the usual nickname, Beef, but then sarcastically asks if he should adopt Gardner's style and call her Carol instead? He chastises her for breaking his confidence and alludes to Gardner's claim that the couple have slept together. Hemingway says that he wouldn't give this information any credence, not believing in the man's trustworthiness, except that circumstances seem to bear out the story. Carlos Baker reports that an angry meeting had taken place in New York between Hemingway and Gardner just before the young man departed for Europe. That encounter, writes Baker, ended not only with Ernest refusing permission for the couple to marry, but also with his threatening to knock Gardner's "teeth down his throat if he persisted" (237). Not surprisingly, Hemingway doesn't mention this hostile exchange to Carol, but says that Gardner has sent him three letters and has also shown him several of Carol's. Words flew back and forth between all the involved parties, angry letters sent before others arrived that might have calmed hostilities, still others arriving after the fact and only adding kindling to the fire.

Hemingway accuses Carol of being unwise, deceptive, immature, and rude. He believes she practices a pseudo-religious worship of Gardner, what he later designates as "Gardnerism" shaking his once-held belief in her better judgment. He reminds Carol that she had initially disliked Gardner, and that the young man proudly boasts of wearing her down through three months of effort. Hemingway even labels Gardner a "pitiful psychopathic," a diagnosis he claims to have made through analysis of lack's letters and conversation. Ernest reminds Carol that it is his duty is to point this out to her. He argues that if he fails to do so and she later extricates herself from the relationship, Carol will only blame him for not having warned her.

Hemingway also understands the likelihood that Carol will not recover from her worship of Gardner, as he puts it, and that therefore it won't matter what he says. Since this is the likely scenario, he wants to get his opinions on record. First, he derides Gardner's desire to become a psychoanalyst, and pejoratively labels him a "male nurse." Next, Ernest calls him both a liar and a fool who seeks only to further his own whims. Finally, he predicts that within five years the young man will not only fail to achieve his profession but will himself be the recipient of a strait-jacket. Hemingway sarcastically implies that Carol's romantic foolishness will no doubt cause her to reply, "And I want to be in it with him."

Hemingway calls Carol's behavior ludicrous, or so it would seem, he says, if he were to pass judgment without loving her. He compartmentalizes his thoughts into an intellectual component that sees Carol's folly, an emotional portion that feels only love and thus overlooks fault, and a deeply guarded artistic element that he reserves for occasional use in his writing, sarcastically implying that Gardner would not know about such mental regions. (8) Hemingway is angry at the language Carol has apparently employed in her letters concerning Gardner and sees her use of "dirty" words as a violent, cheap, and unnecessary method to emphasize her points. He boasts of not having to use such language in his own writing and of not learning it from Lady Chatterley's Lover, or at least from reading it with anyone else. Hemingway seems to blame Gardner for Carol's moral deterioration.

Carol has apparently written that she is in love and that Ernest cannot understand her situation. He takes great offense, calling her ridiculous for not crediting his worldliness or experience with such matters. He sees her as blinded by Gardner, who he believes bears certain prophet-like qualities and has thus become Carol's "Master." Gardner is to blame for her insulting behavior to himself, Pauline, his sister-in-law Jinny, and everyone else who cares about her.

The final toxic point Hemingway takes up is not substantiated by Carol's surviving letters to Pratt or Edie. He accuses Carol of saving money to have an abortion. He reminds her that the one hundred dollars she has collected would have come from himself or from her mother and father, and that her seemingly glib attitude about taking care of it herself would be unfounded given the sources of her funding. His perspective, he explains, is that abortion is murder, not from a religious stance, but based on a purely biological position, and that it will affect her just as much as the baby she might abort. Hemingway tries to convince Carol that such medical intervention perpetrates havoc not only on the body, but also on the spirit. He argues that had Hadley or Pauline undergone an abortion, Bumby, Patrick, and Gregory would have been murdered. Hemingway boasts that he knows a thing or two he could share with Carol about abortions and that he is not as glib about the subject as John Gardner. He viciously compares Gardner to Nathan Leopold, a murderer famously convicted for an especially senseless killing of an innocent victim. (9) Hemingway suggests that he would rather see the birth of bastard children than his sister resorting to abortion and that Carol and John could have their children sterilized later (presumably to save the world from the bad genes of Gardner, whom he calls "goofy"). He adds that abortion should be no substitute for birth control.

Having expressed his feelings in such a vituperative manner, Hemingway now reverts to a kinder, more brotherly posture and implores Carol to visit him in Key West. Alternatively, he offers to come to Europe so they can personally talk this through. He argues that it would be best for Carol to make the trip to Key West, noting her complaints about getting nothing productive done, and he pleads that she won't lose anything by missing March in Europe. His making the trip would interrupt work, and he adds that he is working hard and well and must finish his book by April. (10) For old times' sake, Ernest asks that she do him the favor of making the voyage, and he will provide a round-trip ticket.

Hemningway's last bit of counseling is to remind Carol of her economic dependence. He is aware that at twenty-one she can legally marry if she so decides, but if she does she will have to make her own way except for a fifty-dollar-a-month security, a gift from him, that may not always hold its worth in the market. Hemingway claims that John Gardner has compromised Carol, and that neither of them have any real sense of the world or of how to support themselves in the manner they have enjoyed with others footing the bills. He reminds Carol that life does not revolve purely around sex and that the man to whom she is offering such allegiance may claim to be a genius, but has not proved it.

The letter's final paragraph pleads Hemingway's desire to help his sister and promises continued support as long as she still means something to him. He implies that he is no longer certain Carol remains the intelligent, red-cheeked sister whom he admired so much and in whom he had blind confidence. Hemingway writes that he can only know her mental and emotional state by speaking with her directly, and he closes with a plea that Carol cable him about whether she will make the trip or he will be forced to halt his work and travel to Austria himself. He signs off as her loving and affectionate brother, Ernie. This is the final communication preserved from Ernest to Carol.

On 19 February, Carol writes a letter to her friend Pratt swing little about her conflict with Ernest and the troubles brewing. Instead, she focuses on her relationship with John Gardner and tells Pratt she'll soon be able to give hints about "matrimonial bliss," though she goes on to say she and lack have had "three or four good fights." Evidently, Pratt had expressed a desire for her friend to "find a man who wasn't gallant," and Carol assures her "this one isn't." She confirms a strong-willed determination in John Gardner that had no doubt butted up against Hemingway's, thus fueling his animosity. Carol seems to find this quality in Gardner a positive complement to flaws in her own nature and confides, "I am slowly learning. I'm learning a hell of a lot, in fact." She and Jack have fallen into an ordinary routine that leaves her "happy and miserable tho [sic] gradually getting happier." Her postscript indicates that Jinny Pfeiffer is there and gets along with lack. She also writes "Ernie's letter says, 'no marriage,' so I'm hog-tied until something happens about money."

In a long letter to her friend Edie on 21 February, Carol discusses the troubles with Ernest. She confesses that her original optimism has now turned to fading hope:

 I was quite sure that in a bit of time Ernie would come around
 and either decide that I was a good gal and that if I were making
 a blunder, that I would learn a great deal from it or that maybe
 he'd just wash his hand[s] of the whole business and say go to
 hell if you want to. Or even that he might decide that he hadn't
 really had time to judge Jack and that he might not be such a
 bad guy after all.

Carol expresses surprise that Ernest is so unrelenting and hostile in judging Gardner, and she quotes several of the most vicious lines from his 1 February letter. She interprets Ernest's words as intended to break down her feelings for Jack, and "to make him out a precocious child seducer," even though Carol is one year Jack's senior. The way he carries on, Carol writes, "You'd think Ernie wanted to marry me himself." She describes the whole situation as "too fantastic for me to get really worried over," though she wisely understands that "I ought to pay some attention to his rage because I really need his support in living expenses." Beyond practical considerations, Carol confesses about Ernest, "I really love the guy. Just because he's acting now as unseemingly as my father makes me smile indulgently instead of being mad at him."

Carol expresses uncertainty concerning Ernest's request that she visit him in Key West. John Gardner encourages her to go and sees her hesitation as a sign that she doesn't really know what she wants. Otherwise, he chides, she would surely "show Ernie" her real convictions. Carol agrees that he might have a point, but she has also "learned thru [sic] association with my parents that there's no sense trying to reason or explain to blank walls." She adopts a passive stance and confesses, "I think I never really imagined that Ernie and Jack should meet. I thot [sic] I could always keep these two parts of me separate. Now that the conflict seems to be on, I don't know if I have the strength to stand on my own ground if I go back to see Ernie." She is certain of her love for Jack and knows that it is "the first real conviction I've ever had--I mean positive conviction" different from her many resolves "about not being like my mother or Oak Park or the Congregational church or Miss Devine, etc." Instead, Carol is concerned about Ernest's financial hold over her and his powers of persuasion if she goes to Key West. She tells Edie:

 I don't know if I have the strength to stand on my own ground if
 I go back to see Ernie. I know I love Jack.... But if I get with
 Ernie, whom I understand probably better than Jack since he's all
 connected with my background, I'm going to listen to a lot of well
 turned sentences, try and make smart ones myself, and we'll both
 talk all off the point and decide how much alike we are, and get a
 little drunk, and make jokes, and smile knowingly at each other.

She also predicts what will be the likely outcome if she holds her ground against Ernest:

 If I stick absolutely to the point about lack and me we will just
 talk at each other with no basic sympathy and neither of us
 listening to the other because we figure the other guy doesn't
 know what he's talking about. Conflict no matter what. I'll get
 tired first and decide in his favor over my welfare.

Carol is quickly growing weary of "having all these inconvenient personal dragons to kill" when all she wants is to work things out calmly and settle down with John Gardner. She tries to bolster herself in a postscript claiming, "I'm not as badly off as it sounds."

Two days later Carol writes her friend Pratt about Ernest's "nasty letter" (dated 1 February). She tells Pratt that she has cabled Ernest to say she will come to Key West if he insists, but that it will be expensive and the skiing is good in Europe at present. Carol hopes he has received her response written "in the interval since he wrote his bombastic letter." By this time, she has decided the trip will be useless because Ernest has probably settled into his opinion with "no point we can meet on to start the discussion." Even so, Carol is still clear about her reliance on Ernest's financial support and her unwillingness to eke out a living as a department store clerk or something equally outside "the sort of freedom" to which she aspires. Carol mentions that Jack may receive an inheritance from his grandmother's recent death, but if this comes through, it would be too fin down the road to help immediate needs.

On 27 February 1933, Ernest writes to Archibald MacLeish complaining, "We haven't heard from Jinny [Pfeiffer] (that sinverguenza [rascal]) since she left. Believe she is engaged in bringing Gardner and Carol together--helpful old daughter." (SL 382). In a letter dated simply "the 8th" (probably of March), Carol writes Pratt, "I am happy to inform you Jack and I have started on the long process of getting married in a foreign country. It takes years.... Ernie is ignoring me. I ought to worry but I can't right now." Carol highlights those final two words in large script, draws a cartoon figure of a bird, and signs off, "Your old cock-eyed but ladylikepal, Old Beefy."

This is the final letter related to Carol and Ernest's quarrel. She did not make the trip to Key West, nor did he set sail for Europe, and the break was irreparable. From the spring of 1933 until Ernest Hemingway's death in 1961 they knew of each other only through correspondence with their brother and sisters. This separation was tragic for the loss of shared interests and of a deep and affectionate sibling relationship. Carol's early writing, too, seemed to warrant an artistic mentoring she would never receive. Her spirited letters written between 1930 and 1933 portray a keenly intelligent and independent young woman possessing many qualities that Hemingway admired. From her break with her brother, to her choice of a husband, and ultimately through a life lived simply and quietly, Carol Hemingway Gardner maintained the spirit of determination that these early letters establish and the history of her life underscores.

NOTES

(1.) At her high school graduation, Carol gave a speech about Langston Hughes. This choice was rather radical choice for the conservative Oak Park, Illinois audience to whom she addressed her remarks. While attending Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, Carol also chose to side-step conventionality and published several controversial stories in the Rollins literary magazine, The Flamingo. Of particular note was a piece called "Two Girls" that seems to treat the beginnings of a lesbian encounter.

(2.) All letters in this article except those noted as previously published come from Carol Hemingway Gardner's private papers, sent to me by her daughter Elizabeth Gardner Lombardi. They remain unpublished at this time and are the property of the Gardner family.

(3.) Carlos Baker notes that this visit from John and Katie Dos Passos occurred in the spring Of 1932. (Life 226).

(4.) Carol's problems at Rollins were not necessarily all tied to John Gardner. A letter from all English professor, Kathleen Sproul, to the college president, Dr. Hamilton Holt, relays other issues:

 It seems that certain influential people consider Carol Hemingway
 and a few others like her as anti-social and not the kind of
 student desired here.... Carol Hemingway is not anti-social. She
 has an excellent mind and a large, encompassing understanding, and
 an unusual creative ability which can't be expected in its
 experimental stages to limit itself to what may be considered by
 fine average person "nice."

On 2 December 1 1931, Dr. Holt warmly responds, "Do not worry about Carol Hemingway.... I like the girl and if you find that some people are trying to depress her, do your share to express her, or get her to express herself, which is better." (Rollins College Archives. Used by permission.).

(5.) After their return from Europe and their marriage, Carol and Jack applied for readmission to Rollins in July 1933. The quotation is in a memo from Rollins president Hamilton Holt to Dean Anderson, 14 August 1933, considering their request (Rollins College Archives. Used by permission).

(6.) The next paragraph shows Carol's natural writing ability and penchant for description:

 The country is wonderful, I mean full of wonder. Large slabby rocks
 like at Neebish, but more verdant woods with brooks aim stones
 covered with soft moss. The mountains are in layers of mist most of
 the time and aren't hemming the way I thought they would be, but
 only make the sky longer. We pick blackberrys [sic] on a casual
 walk, or look for wild roses, and it's all very peaceful and not
 fraught especially with anything. It was only yesterday we could
 get around to talking much. It seemed before as tho [sic] there
 were four people present, Jack and me and the person he had been
 writing to, and the person I had been pouring myself out upon. And
 it was like an O'Neill play in that way, except that it was all in
 lower case with nothing much getting said outloud.

(7.) John Gardner convinced the family of Keith MacKaye, brother of Carol's Rollins friend, Christy MacKaye, that he should accompany the young man to Switzerland to install him in a sanitarium. Keith had been attending Yale and suffered a breakdown while there. Gardner, possessing a keen interest in psychoanalysis, saw a chance to help out the brother of Carol's close friend while also bankrolling his trip to Europe so he could join Carol there.

(8.) These labels indicating intellectual, emotional, and professional divisions are strictly mine. What Hemingway suggests is that various parts of his head separate his responses or approaches to circumstances.

(9.) Hemingway refers here to the famous Leopold/Loeb murder case of 1924. Nathan Leopold, 19, and Richard Loeb, 18, were intelligent, privileged young men who randomly selected a victim, brutally murdered him, disfigured the body, and stuffed it into a culvert. When confronted by police, they readily admitted guilt. The case captured huge public attention because it defied rational explanation.

(10.) The book to which he refers is probably Winner Take Nothing. Michael Reynolds reports that, "Pushing hard to finish a book of short stories for the fall season, Hemingway wrote almost every morning of that March [1933]. (Hemingway: The 1930s 127).

WORKS CITED

Baker, Carlos. Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story. New York: Scribner's, 1969.

Hemingway, Carol. File. Rollins College Archives. Rollins College. Winter Park, FL..

--. Unpublished letters. 1930-1933. Property of the Carol Hemingway Gardner Estate. Used by permission.

Hemingway, Ernest. Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961. Ed. Carlos Baker. New York: Scribner's, 1981.

--. Unpublished letters to Carol Hemingway, 1932-1933. Property of the Carol Hemingway Gardner Estate. Used by permission.

Reynolds, Michael. Hemingway: The 1930s. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.

GAIL SINCLAIR

Rollins College