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One More Thing Before We Go: Ernestine Hemingway

I myself loved to dress in drag as a kid. In fact I got in trouble several times with my father when he’d come home and catch me in his ties, suit jackets and suspenders — who doesn’t love suspenders? But apparently, Ernest Hemingway’s drag memories aren’t quite so pleasant:

It’s long been known that Papa had threatened to cut his mom off if she ever revealed anything about his childhood, and his sister’s revelations about their early years explain why: according to Marcelline, their mother Grace was desperate for twin daughters, and despite the 18-month age difference between the kids, carried out the fantasy, holding her daughter back a year so the siblings would be in the same grade, and dressing the children in matching girl’s clothes. Oh yeah — she also addressed her son as “Ernestine.” To Have and Have Not, indeed.

Hemingwhoa. Now we have to wonder if Hemingway was really that butch or just overcompensating for his years in drag.

[Source: Jezebel via Mental Floss]

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