Biography
Ernest Hemingway was was born July 21, 1899 in Oak Park Illinois. In 1917 he was eager to join the army and fight in World War 1, but was unable to because he had problems with his vision. Instead he became a volunteer and drove an ambulance for Red Cross. He brought chocolate and cigarettes to the men in the trenches and to wounded soldiers. Within a year Hemingway was injured. On July 8, 1918 at Fossalta di Piave, he was giving out chocolate in the dug outs and a muzzle-loaded Austrian trench mortar hit a few feet away from him. He had over 200 pieces of shrapnel hit him, and all below the waist. Even though Hemingway was injured, he managed to carry a wounded Italian soldier to first aid. While carrying the man to safety, he was shot more in the legs by Austrian machine guns that had targeted him.(1)
In a hospital in Milan, Hemingway met and fell in love with a nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky. Agnes was known as a bright, energetic woman, who was tall and beautiful. Hemingway saw her as "doubly attractive so far from home, cheerful, quick, sympathetic, with an almost mischievous sense of humor-an ideal personality for a nurse (2)."had intended to marry her, but she left him for another man, saying, "He (the new man) was very gentle, a gentle, nice soul-much more interesting to me than a nineteen-year old."(3) Agnes left Ernest in March 1919.
Hemingway went on to marry four women after Agnes rejects him; Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gelhorn, and Mary Welsh.