Photo album, approximately 7½x10¾”, consists of 100 pages of family memorabilia including approximately 121 original family sepia-silverprint photographs ranging in size from 2x4” to 7x8”, most are 3x5½" or period postcard size. Nearly every photograph in the album is identified in Ursula Hemingway’s very fine and readable hand, often to the length of a short paragraph.
Hemingway family photograph and memorabilia album put together by Ernest Hemingway's younger sister, Ursula. Noted on the flyleaf in her hand as “ Ursula Hemingway, Book IV from July 1st 1913 to July 1st 1916, Eleven years 2 months to Fourteen years and 2 months old”. The photographs well document the Hemingway family during the early 1910s, with images of children partying, family dinners, group images before the city house, and the Walloon Lake summer house in Northern Michigan that the family loved and that was so much a part of the Hemingway life. There are photographs of the Hemingway grandparents, the father, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, (including a 1914 photograph of him with his famed “Tin Lizzie” from which he made his legendary house calls), and a wonderful image of the family Thanksgiving dinner at the Grandparents. There are approximately 21 images showing the young Ernest, many in group family shots, some individual pictures with him as the young fisherman holding trout, playing on the waterfront in and around boats and canoes. One small portrait photo is a terrific image of the smiling young Ernest. During this period the last and youngest Hemingway child Leicester was born and there are a number of photos of him in his infant years, as well as his printed birth announcement.
Scattered throughout the album are numerous programs of recital, school and church events in which the Hemingway children participated, approximately 25 letters in envelopes and postcards mailed to young Ursula, approximately 30 pieces of original art by Ursula who would become an accomplished artist in her later years. A 12 page holograph diary of a trip Ursula took with her mother Grace, to Nantucket in 1914, along with photographs and an original miniature watercolor presented to Ursula by the Nantucket artist Marianna Van Pelt. One wonderful photograph is labeled as “the 6 children taken together for the first time”, complete with a smiling Ernest, and everyone in their Sunday best. Ursula learns the typewriter, and makes a list of all the family at a Walloon Lake birthday party, including Ernest. Another photograph shows Grace and Dr. Hemingway’s 19th wedding anniversary with all 6 children together, 3 letters laid in, are written from Ursula to her mother at Walloon Lake, along with a separate note to “Ernie”, and much more.
Ursula Hemingway, (1902-1966), graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota where she met her future husband Jasper Jepson. After marriage in 1925 the Jepsons settled in Honolulu where Mr. Jepson was a Vice President of the Bishop Trust. Ursula became a recognized painter and the Jepsons had one daughter. It was through this daughter's family that this Hemingway family material descended until the present. A remarkable survivor and truly unique archive of items that document the early life of Ernest Hemingway and his family in the Oak Park, Illinois and Walloon Lake years.
Condition:
The album is in very good condition, the sewn binding covered in textured flexible morocco is tight and sound, the album pages are heavy and are interleaved with glassine which has protected the photographs, which for the most part are unfaded, except a handful which do exhibit some slight discoloration.