Hemingway’s Cats
By Laura French

My favorite photo of Ernest Hemingway was taken at the end of what I imagine to have been a fabulous dinner party. The great man, seated at the head of the table, is absorbed in conversation with the person on his left. He is not in the least concerned with the cat that is picking its way through the plates and wine glasses.

Dave Gonzales, Events Director for the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum in Key West, Florida, has his own favorite photo. Hemingway is flanked by his two sons. Each of the three Hemingway males is petting a cat.

The photographic evidence is conclusive: Ernest Hemingway, that most macho and masculine of all writers, was a cat lover. Use that fact to counter any claims that cats are for girls and only dogs are a real man’s best friends.

The phrase “Hemingway cat” has come to be a synonym for polydactyl—a cat that has more than five toes on its front feet. Hemingway’s first polydactyl cat was given to him by a ship’s captain in Key West, Florida. Cats were kept on ships and in seaports to control the rodent population. (Is that why Hemingway favored island locations like Cuba and Key West?) “Mitten-pawed” cats were considered good luck, so the captain’s gift was a sign of special favor.

Today, about half of the 60 cats on the grounds of the Hemingway Home in Key West have extra toes. In years past, the cats bred freely, and it was even possible for tourists to obtain a Hemingway cat as a souvenir. Happily, those days are gone. Now, a controlled breeding program keeps the population constant. Only the polydactyls are bred, but that does not insure that all of their offspring will inherit the recessive trait.

Visit the Museum Website and you’ll find a whole page devoted to the Hemingway cats. Today’s Mama cat is named Pauline, presumably after Hemingway’s first wife, the father of his two cat-loving sons. (Pauline was probably the inspiration for the Hemingway short story “A Cat in the Rain.”) One wonders what Hemingway would have thought of naming a cat “Nikki Adams.”

The cats figure prominently in the museum’s online gift shop—the logo on the baseball cap is an embroidered polydactyl pawprint. They even have their own Cat Cam on the website.

All of this attention to the cats has recently led to controversy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is contending that Hemingway House is an “exhibitor of animals” like a zoo or circus. The USDA contends that Hemingway House needs an Animal Welfare license—but refuses to provide the license until the museum puts the free-roaming cats in cages. Failure to comply could be punished with a fine of $200 per day per cat—obviously too steep for the privately funded museum.

“We are still trying to resolve the issues between us and the USDA and we feel that this should come to some conclusion in August 2008,” according to an email from Dave Gonzales. “In the meantime, the cats are still roaming the grounds as they did when Hemingway lived here. We have installed ‘cat fencing’ around the entire acre of property in compliance with the USDA's requirements.” To keep abreast of developments, sign the guest book at the Hemingway House Website.

If you want to know more about Hemingway’s lifelong love affair with cats, which stretched from Boise to Key West to Cuba, read Hemingway’s Cats: An Illustrated Biography, by Carlene Fredericka Brennen.

Laura French is a freelance writer who lives in Roseville with three cats — Gracie, Tennessee Tuxedo and his pal Chumley, and Sofie, whose breed(s) will forever remain a mystery.