MN90: Widow’s Feast

Mary Welsh was not only Ernest Hemingway’s fourth (and last) wife but also his literary executor. But critics sniffed at the idea of this lumberman’s daughter from Bemidji editing her great husband’s memoir A Moveable Feast.

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Producer: Britt Aamodt

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood

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Transcript

Welcome to MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds.

Ernest Hemingway's widow or his literary executor, Mary Welsh, a lumberman's daughter from Bemidji, Minnesota, had given up her journalistic career to become the fourth and last Mrs. Hemingway, a full-time job that looked great in photographs, but in private, was often troubled by her husband's alcoholism and erratic behavior. Likely the result of multiple brain injuries over the years. That tumultuous marriage ended July 2, 1961, when Welsh woke to the sound of the gunshot that Hemingway had used to take his own life. Very quickly, the widow became the literary executor. She was overseeing the editing and publication of Hemingway's last manuscripts, including a memoir he'd been writing the past several years about his life. In 1920s Paris with his first wife Hadley. A Moveable Feast came out in 1964. Some literary scholars sniffed that the wife was too emotionally involved to be a trusted editor of the master. Anyway, Mary Welsh had her say in 1976 when she published her own memoir How It Was.

MN90 is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at MN90.org.