Hemmingway: The Old Man and the Desert

I recently watched the movie, Hemmingway & Gellhorn, which had been on my to-do list since its debut in 2012. I was reminded of the movie after writing a blog post about my 2009 trip to Cuba where I was fortunate to get a private tour of Ernest Hemmingway’s home in Havana.

I enjoyed the movie and, no surprise, I particularly appreciated the scenes of Hemmingway and Martha Gellhorn at the Havana home they shared.

 

Ernest Hemmingway's home in Havana 2009

The movie also renewed my curiosity about a rumor I encountered while researching my family history. I never took the rumor seriously because it seemed so incredulous. As the story goes, Ernest Hemmingway once stayed for a period of time in the tiny western New Mexico village of Cubero. Of course, Cubero means something to me because my Grandpa Louie was born and raised in the village near Grants. Generations of my maternal Chavez ancestors were among the original settlers of Cubero.

I figured it was possible that Hemmingway could have stopped over in Cubero in the early 1950s. But I can’t bring myself to believe the claim that Hemmingway wrote his famous short novel, The Old Man and the Sea, from the desert Southwest. When I was in Cuba, it was a thrill to see a copy of the classic book on the shelves of Hemmingway’s bedroom in Havana. I can’t imagine he would have written The Old Man and the Sea any place other than Havana.

Cubero, NM 2011

Over the years, others have explored the rumor about Hemmingway and Cubero. A local blogger went to Cubero on a fact-finding mission in 2009. A resident of Clovis wrote about the rumor in a 1996 edition of the Hemingway Newsletter, a publication of the Hemingway Society. In the footnotes, Kathy Willingham says he couldn’t find any evidence that Hemmingway visited New Mexico, much less stayed in Cubero. “Either the biographers have missed something or New Mexico has some of the best liars,” she wrote.

While I don't claim to have done extensive research on a visit to Cubero, I can say with certainty that he did, indeed, visit New Mexico, thanks to a friend at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives. After a quick search of newspapers, she discovered that Hemmingway visited Santa Fe from Sun Valley, Idaho in February 1948 – four years before he published The Old Man and the Sea, most likely in Havana. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953.

JFK

I was born six years after President Kennedy was assassinated. My only “memories” of Kennedy have been shaped by 50 years of media coverage and the memories of others.

It’s been said that many northern New Mexico homes in the 1960s had two photos hanging on the walls: One of the Pope and another of President Kennedy. My Great-Grandparents had both photos on their wall in Las Vegas. My Dad recalled his Grandma Emily referring to President Kennedy as “Juanito.”

To this Day, my Dad has a photo of President Kennedy hanging in his home office. He also has a photo of Marilyn Monroe. Go figure.

 

NewsWeek Magazine with JFK on the Cover

I do have one unique story about President Kennedy. When I traveled to Cuba for the first time in 2008, I got the opportunity to walk through Ernest Hemmingway’s Havana home, which is now a tourist destination. Among the many fascinating items I saw in the home was a NewsWeek magazine with an illustration of then-candidate John Kennedy on the cover. The headline read: “Can Anybody Stop Kennedy?”

 

Photo of Ernest Hemmingway at his Havana home

Photos of me posing with the replica of Hemmingway's kitchen phone

Our New Mexico delegation was at the home for a specific reason: we were donating a replica of an old phone that Hemmingway once had in the home. There is a famous photo of Hemmingway talking into the phone in his kitchen. Our Cultural Affairs Secretary, Stuart Ashman, tracked down the replica and worked with officials in Cuba to arrange for the donation. Everyone in our delegation took turns posing with the phone.