The Hemingways at Canterbury

Hemingway has been thoroughly examined as a writer, a rogue adventurer, a husband and a lover, and as a complicated, large personality, by turns cranky and charming. A less frequently viewed aspect of the Hemingway persona is that of father to teenaged sons. From 1942 to 1949, first Patrick and then Gregory Hemingway attended Canterbury School, a lay Catholic college prep school in New Milford, Connecticut. This essay explores their relationship with their father and their mother Pauline during that time as revealed in family letters and school records. The picture of the relationship is one of affection and concern, shot through with Hemingway wit, incisive comments, and abiding interests.