The Biography of Ernest Hemingway Hemingway’s life began in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where he was born July 21, 1899. His father was a physician, and Ernest was the second of six children born to Dr. and Mrs. Clarence E Hemingway. His mother, a devout, religious woman with considerable musical talent, hoped that Ernest would develop an interest in music. Ernest enjoyed guns and fishing trips in the Michigan north woods, and that phase of his childhood formed important impressions reflected later in his stories of Nick Adams like “Indian Camp” and “Big Two-Hearted River.” Hemingway played high school football and learned to box, incurring permanent ey