Ernest Hemingway Collection, JFK Presidential Library & Museum
Ernest Hemingway was still married to Martha Gellhorn when he met his fourth wife, Mary Welsh, and on their third date he proposed. Nine years later, a month after he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the now-married couple went on a safari in East Africa that would ultimately be overshadowed by two plane crashes, one of which led to a head injury from which Ernest would never fully recover. Mary kept a diary during their time in Africa, but one entry in particular stands out for its deeply personal and revealing nature. It was written on 20th December 1953—not by Mary but by her husband.
The Diary Entry
We decided last night to lay off all huntings and shootings today because meat in camp by 18:00 last night and devote the day to rest and Miss Mary’s Christmas haircut, to look especially beautiful for all visiting guests. Her hair is naturally blonde to reddish golden blonde to sandy blonde. Papa loved it the way it looked naturally, but Miss Mary had made him a present of saying to make her hair really blonde a couple of weeks ago, and this made him want to have her as a platinum blonde, as she was at Torcello where we lived one fall and part of a winter, burnt the Beech logs in the fireplace and made love at least every morning, noon and night and had the loveliest time Papa ever knew of. Better than any, although many very good. But loving Mary has been such a complicated and wonderful thing for over nine years (sometimes fights and mutual wickedness (my fault) and sometimes hers too but always made up always made presents to each other). Mary is an espece (sort of) prince of devils . . . and almost any place you touch her it can kill both you and her. She has always wanted to be a boy and thinks as a boy without ever losing any femininity. If you should become confused on this you should retire. She loves me to be her girls, which I love to be, not being absolutely stupid. . . . In return she makes me awards and at night we do every sort of thing which pleases her and which pleases me. . . . Mary has never had one lesbian impulse but has always wanted to be a boy. Since I have never cared for any man and dislike any tactile contact with men except the normal Spanish abrazo or embrace which precedes a departure or welcomes a return from a voyage or a more or less dangerous mission or attack, I loved feeling the embrace of Mary which came to me as something quite new and outside all tribal law. On the night of December 19th we worked out these things and I have never been happier. EH 20/12/53.
Further Reading
This diary entry was reprinted in Mary Hemingway’s autobiography, How It Was, which was published in 1976 by Alfred A. Knopf.
Also…
- Mary Welsh Hemingway’s obituary in the New York Times
- For Better, For Worse: Meet the Mrs. Hemingways (JFK Library)
- The Beginnings of Ernest Hemingway’s Marriage to Mary Welsh (PBS)
- Ernest Hemingway at Wikipedia
Excerpt from How It Was by Mary Hemingway, copyright © 1951, 1955, 1963, 1966, 1976 by Mary Hemingway. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
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