Martha Gelhorn was born in St. Louis in 1908 to two parents who wanted much more for their daughter than the role women were to play at the time. Her father, George, was a doctor, and her mother, Edna, was politically active in the suffrage movement and served as Bryn Mawr's president.
Her father pulled her out of school as soon as he learned the nuns had covered the pictures of female anatomy in health class and took her to the Mary Institute, where her mother was the president. It was also the school of another young girl who had been there a few years before, Hadley Richardson.
At just 8 years old, her mother took her to the Democratic Party Suffrage rally in 1916 in St. Louis, giving her a very early view of the rights women should have. After attending Bryn Mawr for one year, she decided to leave and chase her career as a writer. In 1930, she would travel to Paris with a backpack and $50. Even in 1930 Paris, it was hard to find an inexpensive place to stay, and she came across a brothel where she could stay for a few francs.
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, think of the times Eat Pray Love inspired people to pack up and head to Europe. With a copy in her backpack, she found a cheap place to stay and a job at the United Press as a foreign correspondent and also for Vogue. While in the city of love, she would later meet Bertrand de Jouvenal. Jouvenal had also been Colette's stepson and, later, her lover for five years. Some historians say Martha had married Bertrand, but in her own biography, she doesn’t say they did.
Martha was not content to stay in one place too long. She became one of the first female war correspondents after traveling the US documenting the Depression for President Roosevelt. Never one to shy away from conflict, she was able to bring the stories in a way nobody else did. Gelhorn would find the real story and tell it from a raw and sympathetic point of view that touched her readers.
Her outspoken nature got her in trouble in one job after another. While working for Roosevelt, she supported and encouraged angry FERA workers in Idaho to lash back at their horrible boss and encouraged them to break the office windows. Roosevelt fired her. She didn’t care.
In 1936, after her father died, Martha, her mother, and her brother decided to spend Christmas in Key West. She was a fan of Hemingway’s writing, even had a picture of him hanging in her apartment at one time, and knew where to go to find him. They walked into the Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West, still there today, and found Hem sitting at the bar. A popular recounting says she walked in, wearing a tight fighting black dress and her blond hair catching everyone’s attention. She did get attention, but it wasn’t so dramatic.
He was immediately interested in her; she was unlike any of the women in his life. She was also a writer and war correspondent, her career, and marched to her drum. It is exactly what would split them apart. It was a friendship at first, and the seasoned writer supported and influenced her. Once she took off for Spain to cover the Civil War, he quickly followed, and their affair began. Pauline was back in Key West, and now another woman was doing exactly what she had done to Hadley.
As one of the very first female war correspondents, she traveled to Germain in 1938 to see the rise of Hitler and to know what was to come. Gelhorn traveled wherever the story was, Czechoslovakia, Singapore, Russia, Finland, Burma, and Hong Kong, chasing the next story and reporting on it in a way no other writer did at the time, with love and empathy.
In May 1939, Martha went to Cuba to write and she found the home that would be tied to him for the rest of his life. The Finca Vigia was rundown and in disrepair but she saw the potential, even though he hated it at first. He would spend his mornings writing and afternoons drinking, and she rarely sat still, always leaving to chase wars.
On November 21, 1940, shortly after his divorce from Pauline was finalized, the two married in a small room in Wyoming. As a honeymoon, the two traveled to China, but he wasn’t happy about it. Hem was used to his wives catering to him and doing what he wanted; that was never going to be Martha. He didn’t understand why she didn’t want to be a wife and stay at home.
Becoming more and more disenfranchised by the United States, she wanted to be in Europe as Hitler was taking over more of the continent. Finally, she found some passage to Europe and hid in a bathroom on a cargo ship from New York to England. It was the days leading up to D-Day, and to get to France, she dressed as a paramedic, traveled in an ambulance, and was the only woman on the beaches of Normandy.
Martha had tried to help get her husband to Europe and asked Roald Dahl of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory fame, who also served in the Royal Air Force, to get him a seat on a flight from New York. Hem had another idea, he contacted Collier's who Martha worked for and offered to write for them on the war. This move would move her down the ladder, and he not only stole her job but also was over her. He tried all he could to get to the beaches but never made it, although he would retell it differently over time.
The last straw came when on her return to England, she was asked about his health and she knew nothing about a car accident he had been in that was the beginning of many crashes and head injuries. Arriving at St George's hospital, he was surrounded by Boysturus friends and, on his bed, numerous empty bottles of alcohol. She was done with it and told him just that. Women didn’t leave Hem except Agnes, the nurse, during WWI, and Martha and his ego couldn't take it.
At the same time, in Londo and then off to Paris, he was sleeping with his worst of all wives, Mary, a journalist and married. In Paris, Martha and Hem planned a dinner to discuss their relationship. He showed up with a group of plans; she walked out. From Holland she sent him a letter on November 3 that she wanted a divorce, he was pissed but did agree. On December 21, 1945, the decree was granted, and it was over. Gelhorn never wanted to be the postscript in his biography, nor should she be.
She continued chasing wars, going where women wouldn’t go. Her personal life was always a mess; she put herself first, above anything else. In 1949, she adopted a son, George Alexander Gelhorn, in Italy and would travel the world. Eventually, she left him with family in New Jersey and never looked back, and the two would never have much of a relationship.
In 1954, she married again to T.S. Mathews, editor of Time magazine, and divorced nine years later. “Marriage bored me,” she said.
Aside from writing about wars, she also wrote five novels, 14 novellas, and two collections of short stories, many of which are very witty and funny. In her books, she never mentioned Hemingway or let anyone else bring him up; she always called him the “unwilling companion.”
In 1970 she finally settled down in London buying a flat in the city and a house in Wales and would continue to write and travel to Vietnam, Israel and Nivaragua until she was 81 years old.
In her final years she suffered from liver and ovarian cancer and lost her eyeset. Always wanting to be control of her life Martha died on February 15, 1998 at 89 years old, taking her own life by swallowing cyanide pills.
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