Estelle Constant Norred Lewis

Estelle was born today at 8:00 AM, 1919 in the front bedroom of Click for more detail: Rose Dale Farm. Hannah Brissenden was midwife for the birth. It was a bright and sunny day at Rose Dale Farm, both literally and figuratively.

Graduating in 1937, Estelle immediately took the State Teacher's Exam at the courthouse. Her first teaching job was at Hitt School. She would teach children in the morning and travel to Jonesboro to Arkansas State in the afternoon for her BSE. Later, she would teach veterans at night in Piggott.

On May 21, 1981, she was retired after 41 years of teaching. The community presented her with a plaque for her many years of service.

Happy birthday, Estelle !

Piggott - 2104

Technicians tuning Piggott News Network tower

Martha Gellhorn

Martha Ellis Gellhorn and Ernest Miller Hemingway were married on this day in 1940 in Spain.

A journalist, war correspondent, short story writer and novelist, Martha and Ernest started an affair that ended Ernest and Pauline's marriage. Martha's war correspondent career includud the Spanish Civil War (where she spent time with Ernest ) and went through the US Invasion of Panama.

"One of the great war correspondents of the century, brave, fierce and wholly committed to the truth of the situation." - London Daily Telegraph

Martha was born in St. Louis 8 November 1908 and attended Bryn Mawr. She wrote articles for New Republic, served the United Press Bureau in Paris and reported on the Spanish Civil War for Colliers Weekly.

"All politicians are bores and liars and fakes. I talk to people." - Martha Gellhorn

An accomplished novelist, Martha finished The Lowest Trees have Tops in 1967, an account of her life with Ernest. Their marriage lasted five years when Martha, the only wife to do so, divorced Ernest.

Pauline & Ernest


Pauline Marie Pfeiffer and Ernest Miller Hemingway were divorced today in Spain, in 1940.

A wife who devoted herself to her husband more than her children, Pauline traveled with Ernest everywhere and even left her children in the care of others so she could be with him.

Pauline, who was sought after, rich, educated, a journalist with a large trust fund and a family support system that cared for Ernest and his needs, noticed signs from Ernest consistent with those he had earlier expressed. These were signs of a man having an affair like those with Pauline when he was married to his first wife, Hadley Richardson.

Ernest rewarded Pauline by having an affair with Martha Gellhorn, a journalist, war correspondent, short story writer and novelist.

Ursula Hemingway Jepson

Ernest Hemingway's Sister, Ursula died today in 1966. Severely depressed, she had taken a large quantity of pills to kill the pain.

One time at a party in Florida, Ursula overheard poet, Wallace Stevens, talking to a friend. [ Stevens wrote some of his best poetry after he reached the age of sixty, including the collections Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), The Auroras of Autumn (1947) and An ordinary Evening in New Haven (1950).]

What Ursula overheard was Stevens making disparaging comments about her brother, Ernest. She left the party and immediately told her brother what she had heard.

Hemingway got to the party just as Stevens was saying if Hemingway was there, he would dispatch him with a single blow. Suddenly seeing Hemingway, Stevens tried his best punch, but missed. Hemingway proceeded to knock Stevens down several times. When Stevens finally managed to land a punch, he broke his hand on Ernest's jaw.

Both men later reconciled because Stevens did not want the publicity.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Hemingway - The Sex Therapist ?

In A Movable Feast Hemingway counseled F. Scott Fitzgerald in Michaud's Cafe in France about his size. Paraphrased: "Scott said he had something very important to ask me. It meant more than anything in the world to him."

F "You know I never slept with anyone except Zelda."

H "No, I did not."

F "Zelda said that how I was built, I could never make any woman happy. She said it was a matter of measurements. I have never felt the same since she said that and I need to know truly."

H "Come to the office."

F "Where ?"

H "Le water"

Both came back to the table.

H "You are fine. There is nothing wrong with you. You view yourself from above and look forshortened. We will go to the Louvre and look at the statues."

Afterwards, Fitzgerald was still in doubt about himself.

H "It is not basically a question of size in repose. It is the size that it becomes. It is also a question of angle."

F "But after what Zelda said..."

H "Forget what Zelda said."

Listen to a portion of Ernest Hemingway's 1954 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech...

1917 Arkansas License Plate

FOUND - License plate fell off motorcar in front of Rose Dale Farm.

Please post inquiries to Rose Dale Farm RFD Piggott, Arkansas.

Temporary Flight Restrictions

A Piggott Blogger from Tulsa (a pilot) has sent proof of the President's travel path:

See the TFR (above) which appear as dark red circles, boxes, etc. which were in place, yesterday, the 6th, to cover the president's travels. They are defined laterally and extend up to 18,000 feet. No aircraft may enter except if on a flight plan and in communication with the ground.

Marine 1

Monday afternoon, 6 September, a contingent of Sikorsky helicopters flew directly over Piggott. Perhaps they were stand-by protection and emergency evacuation for President Bush who was visiting in Poplar Bluff, MO at this time.

2 Blackhawks led the group North, Northwest, followed by 2 Blackhawks behind and further East of them, finally followed up-the-middle by what appeared to be a Sikorsky VH-92, Marine 1.

Their return path 2-3 hours later was SSE in same previous pattern........

Bern, Switzerland

A Joyce on Hemingway:

Nettie Norred Sanders and Hyman Sanders, a superintendent of Pfeiffer Farms lived at 2nd and Orr in Piggott. Hyman was responsible for taking Ernest Hemingway hunting when he was in town. Often Hyman would take Ernest to Rose Dale Farm where Russell Norred and Ernest would go quail hunting.

A son, Robert Sanders and a friend, years later on a trip to Europe after graduation from college at University of Arkansas, were in a tavern in Bern, Switzerland when an esoteric question about Twentieth Century American novelists caught the attention of a gentleman at the bar. The question they offered out loud to each other was "What Hemingway novel did James Joyce like the most?" Overhearing this, the man turned around and said "I know the answer." It was Giorgio Joyce, James' son. He said "Father liked The Sun Also Rises best."

From The History of Rose Dale Farm

A Farewell to Arms ( chapter 1 page 1 )


" All good books are alike in that they are truer if they had really happened, and after you are finished reading one you will feel that it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and the sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer. "

- Ernest Hemingway

" If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. "

- Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

Bull in the Afternoon ?

11 August 1937 - Under attack from Leftist American writer, Max Eastman, Ernest Hemingway accidently bumped into him in Max Perkins' Scribner Publishing office and a major altercation ensued...

In describing Hemingway's literary style in Death in the Afternoon, Eastman previously announced with assertion that the book was filled with "juvenile romantic sentimentalizing over a rather lamentable practice of the culture of Spain." Eastman challenged Hemingway's statement that the spectacle was a tragedy, insisting that it was merely a case of men torturing and killing a dumb animal. Moving from the book to the author, Eastman then suggested that Hemingway's defense of and interest in the bullfight was prompted by his lack of confidence in his own manliness, which had caused Hemingway to adopt a 'literary style of wearing false hair on the chest.'

Upon their accidental meeting, both men exchanged pleasantries and Hemingway, grinning, ripped open his shirt to reveal his hairy chest. He then, still grinning, ripped open Eastman's shirt to reveal no hair. Then Hemingway, in a flash of anger, hit Eastman in the face with a copy of the review and a wrestling match ensued. Hemingway's temper quickly quieted and no damage was done to either man.

Each went on his way to relate to the press and others, his version of the encounter.

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Charles Scribner, Jr. born today in 1921

" Looking back, I am bound to say that working with Hemingway was rather like being strapped in an electric chair. All the electrodes were always in place, and it would need just a flicking of a switch to ruin me......

I don't think it made me cowardly, but it made me nervous."

- Charles Scribner, Jr., concerning his on - off publishing relationship with his most famous and tempermental author, Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway Died Today at 61

Family Suicide History:

In 1961 at Ketchum, ID, Ernest took his life with a shotgun.

His father, Clarence 57, died in 1928 from a self-inflicted Civil War Pistol shot.

His sister, Ursula 64, died in 1966 from a drug overdose.

His brother, Leicester 67, shot himself in 1982.

His granddaughter, Margaux 41, died in 1996 from a drug overdose.

Skipping a suicide generation, Gregory 69 (son of Pauline and Ernest), died in 2001 from natural (sic) causes as Gloria in a Miami jail cell.

Growing Up in a Small Town

You know everyone in the 4th of July Parade.

You can name everyone in your high school graduation class.

You know what 4-H is and can name all four H's.

You used to "drag main street".

Whey you said the "F" word, your parents knew about it within an hour.

You scheduled parties around the schedule of different police officers, because you knew who would bust you and who wouldn't.

You went to parties at a pasture, barn, gravel pit, or in the middle of a dirt road. On Monday, you could tell who was at the party because of the scratches on the legs from running through the woods when the party got busted.

You would never buy cigarettes because every store clerk knew how old you were. Even if you were old enough, they'd still tell your parents.

When you did find somebody old enough and brave enough to buy cigarettes, you still had to drive on country roads to smoke them.

You knew which ditch held the beer your buyer dropped off.

It was cool to date somebody from the neighboring town.

The whole school went to the same party after graduation.

You gave directions by people, not street names.

You had no choice but to date your friends' ex's.

Your car was always filthy because of the dirt roads and no one bought dark-colored vehicles.

Everyone considered a nearby town to be "trashy" or "snooty", but it was actually exactly like your town.

You referred to anyone with a house newer than 1970 as the "rich folks."

You thought people in the "city" dressed funny, until you picked up the trend two years later.

Anyone you wanted could be found at the gas station.

You saw at least one friend a week driving his tractor through town.

You had friends who occasionally drove a grain truck to school.

The gym teacher suggested you should build your strength by "bucking bales this summer."

All directions included "the stop light" as a reference.

You decide to walk somewhere for exercise and five people stop to ask if you need a ride.

Your teachers often called you by your older sibling's names.

Your teachers mentioned when they had your parents in class.

The closest mall was a long drive.

You thought nothing of seeing an old man riding through town on a riding lawn mower.

You've peed in a cornfield.

Most people went by a nickname.

- Al Lowe