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Ernest Hemingway became a literary legend and cultural icon by using his talent to convert his incredible life of adventures to pen with such celebrated novels as “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man And The Sea,” among many others.
As of Saturday, the fact those larger-than-life experiences included a trip through Ottawa on the way to Starved Rock State Park became a little more tangible.
There is now a bronze historical marker on the banks of the Illinois & Michigan Canal commemorating the 125th anniversary of the day and the spot where Hemingway and his friend and classmate, Ray Ohlsen, came ashore in Ottawa during an April 1917 canoe trip from their hometown of Oak Park, before continuing on foot to then just six-year-old Starved Rock State Park.
The new historic marker, located near 101 E. Canal St., a short distance away from the old I & M Canal’s toll collector’s house, was sponsored by the Ottawa Canal Association, the Ottawa Historic Preservation Commission and the Illinois State Historical Society, and was paid for by Ottawa’s Richard Mennecke.
Mennecke, a member of OHPC, said his family is from Oak Park, he grew up there and his grandfather was a waiter at the Edgewater Beach Resort in Florida at the time that Hemingway was known to be there. There’s no evidence that they ever met, but the coincidence was enough for him to make the purchase.
“It’s not that I have an association with Hemingway, but it was all so very coincidental and also so very very interesting, I paid for it,” Mennecke said. “Chuck (Stanley) brought the idea to us, we hemmed and hawed about how to do it as a group, how we’d do the funding … so we did it. It’s a part of Ottawa now.”
Special guests at the unveiling included the Illinois State Historical Society’s Chet Wold, who showed many large prints of photos taken during the trip borrowed from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and Andy Rae, the grandson of Ohlsen.
Ohlsen was accompanied to the ceremony by more than 30 members of the Ohlsen family, some traveling from as far away as Florida just to attend.
“It’s amazing that it’s come to this,” said Rae, a resident of Bloomington, “amazing that my grandfather – who we called Dado – would tell us stories about Hemingway, what he was like and the things they did. My brother actually recorded some of them and those tapes have been used in several articles and research into Hemingway’s life.
“The time of this was changed a few times, the marker was delayed a few times as well, but it’s terrific that so many of us were all able to make it here today … This is a wonderful day for our family.”
An interesting feature prior to the ceremony was Ottawa brothers Evan and Andrew Ristau paddling up the canal in a canoe similar to the one Hemingway and Ohlsen used on their trip.
With the OHPC’s Chuck Stanley serving as emcee, the dedication featured remarks from Ottawa Mayor Robb Hasty, former Ottawa Mayor and OHPC member Bob Eschbach and Illinois & Michigan Canal Association president Arnie Bandstra.
According to Wold’s highly-detailed chronicle of the trip for Illinois Historical Society Magazine, Hemingway, the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature for “The Old Man And The Sea,” and Ohlsen decided that in 1917, during spring break of their senior year, they would borrow a canoe and trek the 90 miles from Oak Park to Starved Rock.
During the four day trip, the two 18-year-olds stopped to see friends and to camp, eventually reaching the I & M Canal. They portaged around the locks and, when they landed in Ottawa, decided to send the canoe back to Oak Park by train and hike the remaining 10 miles to the park.
The men explored for a few days, enjoying the views and once actually climbing up the face of Starved Rock to the summit, before hiking back to Ottawa to catch the train back to Oak Park.
It was just a year later that Hemingway famously was an ambulance driver during World War I.
“What’s beautiful about today is that the more we have events like this, the more we learn about the canal,” Eschbach said. “This is really a great day … It’s a reminder of our history and how important the canal was in the history of Ottawa.”