Queer Places:
Ketchum Cemetery, 1026 N Main St, Ketchum, ID 83340
Gregory
Hancock Hemingway (November 12, 1931 – October 1, 2001), also known as Gloria
Hemingway in later life, was the third and youngest child of author
Ernest
Hemingway. He became a physician and authored a memoir of life with his
father.
For years, Hemingway claimed, he had experienced gender dysphoria.[20] He experimented with wearing women's clothes on a number of occasions.[21] Wife Valerie wrote:[9]
All his life Greg fought a losing battle against this crippling illness. He lacked critical early help because his parents were unable or unwilling to accept his condition nor could he come to terms with it himself for a long time, taking up the study of medicine in the hope that he would find a cure, or at least a solace. Failing that, he developed an alternate persona, a character into which he could retreat from the unbearable responsibilities of being, among other things, his father's son, and of never ever measuring up to what was expected of him, or to what he expected of himself.
Valerie Danby-Smith was Ernest Hemingway's personal assistant. In 1961 she had a one-night stand with Brendan Behan. Nine months later, she gave birth to a son she named Brendan. Brendan Behan died two years later, having never met his son.
Hemingway considered gender reassignment surgery as early as 1973.[22] He had the surgery in 1995 and began using the name Gloria on occasion.[23] Despite the surgery, Hemingway, presenting as a man, remarried Galliher in 1997 in Washington State.[24]
Hemingway's public persona remained male. As Gregory, he gave interviews about his father as late as 1999.[25] In July of that year he attended events marking the centenary of Ernest Hemingway's birth in Oak Park, Illinois.[26] He also spoke at the dedication of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum in his mother's family home in Piggott, Arkansas, when it opened on July 4, 1999.[27]
Hemingway's transition from male to female was a long process left incomplete at his death. He had breast implant surgery on one breast and then had it reversed.[9] He was sometimes seen in women's attire;[9] yet, dressed as a man, he frequented a local tavern and presented as what a patron called "just one of the guys."[9] When he was arrested just days before his death, he first gave the police the name Greg Hemingway, then changed it to Gloria.[18]
Hemingway died October 1, 2001 of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in Miami-Dade Women's Detention Center. That day, Hemingway was due in court to answer charges of indecent exposure and resisting arrest without violence.[18] Hemingway had been living in Florida for more than ten years.[7]
In most obituaries, he was called Gregory, but Time magazine published a brief notice of the death of "Gloria Hemingway, 69, transsexual youngest son turned daughter of novelist Ernest Hemingway" and noted the novelist once said Gregory had "the biggest dark side in the family except me."[28] The gravestone reads: "Dr. Gregory Hancock Hemingway 1931–2001". He is buried next to his father and half-brother Jack in the Ketchum, Idaho cemetery.
Hemingway left two wills. One will left most of the $7 million estate to Galliher. The other left most of it to Hemingway's children.[24][29] The children challenged the will that named Galliher as heir, claiming that Galliher was not legally Hemingway's widow since Hemingway's home state of Florida did not recognize same-sex marriages. The parties eventually reached an undisclosed settlement.[19]
Daughter Lorian Hemingway wrote about her father in the 1999 book Walk on Water: A Memoir.[30] Son Edward, an artist, has written and illustrated the children's books Bump in the Night, and "Bad Apple".[31] Son John wrote the critically acclaimed memoir Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir.[32] Son Patrick is a professional photographer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Son Seán is the curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
My published books:
