The Woman Who is More Than a Footnote in Ernest Hemingway’s Life

I love to read historical fiction because I get to learn about different periods in history and still experience the compelling arch of a story. Sometimes I’ll read a historical fiction novel and absolutely need to learn more about the people highlighted. That was the case when I finished Love and Ruin by Paula McLain, which is about the relationship of Ernest Hemingway and his third wife Martha Gellhorn.

It’s important not to look at Gellhorn through the lens of her relationship with Hemingway because she was an incredible reporter, author, and adventurer in her own right. Today I want to share a brief history of Gellhorn’s wild life and highlight a woman who was well ahead of her time.

The Depression

War correspondant & Hemingway

Gellhorn met Hemingway on a trip with her family to Florida and the pair decided to travel together to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War…nothing like a good war to put you in the mood to fall in love. What I love about Gellhorn is that she continually put herself in challenging and dangerous situations, and came back from every failure with a renewed sense of motivation, with or without Hemingway.

Instead of settling down into the role of the dutiful wife, Gellhorn continued to travel and report, even when she didn’t have the support of her husband. While nowadays it may seem easy enough for a woman to chart her own course, this was back in the 1940s and it was harder for women to assert their independence and still fulfill their expected roles as wives.

After Spain, Gellhorn went to Germany to report on the rise of Hitler, to Czechoslovakia before the Munich Agreement, and to Finland, Hong Kong, Burma, Singapore, and England to report on WWII in all parts of the world.

The only woman at D-Day landing

This is my favorite Gellhorn story. Despite multiple setbacks, including some orchestrated by Hemingway, Gellhorn was determined to report from the D-Day invasion. Hemingway had inserted himself as the correspondent for the major publication Gellhorn was working on, and only one reporter could be sent. Gellhorn still decided to get herself to the preparation zone before the ships would embark and she flashed an old press pass and lied by saying she was going to be interviewing medical professionals on one of the hospital ships. She was waved through.

Once on board, she had to hide herself until they were underway. The ship she was on was the first hospital boat to arrive and it was absolute chaos. Gellhorn realized she just needed to lend a hand wherever she could.

When night fell, she went ashore at Omaha Beach with a handful of doctors and medics—not as a journalist but as a stretcher bearer— flinging herself into icy surf that brimmed with corpses, following just behind the minesweepers to recover the wounded.

Town and country magazine

None of the reporters who were sent to cover the event made it to shore, including Hemingway, and of the 160,000 people on the beach, Gellhorn was the only woman.

I find this entire story to be absolutely incredible and am shocked I had never heard of Gellhorn until reading McLain’s book.

Later

Gellhorn covered every major conflict until she was in her 80s and became ill. She lost her vision and was sick with ovarian cancer when she decided to end her own life by swallowing a cyanide pill.

Her adventures and stories are captivating. Whether you decide to read her work, or read about her, there is much to be learned from Gellhorn’s life.