Papa's Polydactyls in Key West

In the course of fact-checking our upcoming WorldWise quiz, “Travelers' Tales,” Traveler researcher and staunch animal lover Meg Weaver stumbled upon Ernest Hemingway’s polydactyl cats, still living large at his home (and now museum) in Old Town Key West, Florida.

At the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, Papa’s home for over ten years, and the place where he wrote Farewell to Arms, Green Hills of Africa, and For Whom the Bell Tolls among other stories, a colony of 60 or so cats roam the gardens of the Spanish colonial home Hemingway purchased in 1931.

Not all of the kitties have extra digits on their front paws, but many are rumored to be descendants of Hemingway’s own beloved polydactyl, given to him by a sea captain ever so many cat generations ago. The museum’s website has its own cat section, featuring profiles of the frisky felines, named after famed writers, recent hurricanes, screen stars, and artists of Hemingway’s time: Emily Dickinson, Simone De Beauvoir, Ivan, Frances, Spencer Tracy, Audrey Hepburn, Archibald MacLeish, and Pablo Picasso among many others. The cats are of the “Heinz 57” variety, the museum’s website jokes, coming in all colors and hair lengths.

There’s even a “cat drinking fountain” on the grounds, commissioned by Hemingway himself. It's a conglomeration of an old Spanish olive jar from Cuba and a urinal from Hemingway’s pal’s bar, Sloppy Joe’s; apparently Hemingway’s second wife Pauline tried to hide the urinal component of the fountain by covering it creatively with colorful tiles.

The house itself, built 1851, is filled with Hemingway lore. The rooms contain much of the furniture used by Hemingway and his family, along with memorabilia and photos, first editions of his many works, as well as, of course, the whimsy of Papa’s polydactyls, still very much alive and well.

Read More: Associate Editor Amy Alipio recently interviewed the authors of Novel Destinations, and Hemingway's Key West cats were just one of their many literary landmarks.

Photo: A kitten lounges around, Papa-style, at Hemingway's Key West estate. We can't tell from the picture whether he's got an extra digit. By xbluegoox via Flickr

Comments

[Noah]

I never knew that Hemingway was a cat lady, but it does make a lot of sense, in retrospect.