Agnes von Kurowsky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Agnes von Kurowsky (1892-1984) served as a nurse in an American Red Cross hospital in Milan, Italy during World War I. One of her patients was Ernest Hemingway, who fell in love with Kurowsky in spite of a 6-year age difference between them. After the war, Hemingway returned to the United States and expected Kurowsky to join him there and for the two of them to get married. Instead, soon after, he received a letter from her ending the relationship. Although Kurowsky did eventually return to the United States, they never met again.

Hemingway's youthful affair with Kurowsky and, ultimately, his bitter resentment of the ending of the relationship, had a lasting affect on him. His short stories A Very Short Story and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and the novel A Farewell to Arms have fictionalized characters probably based on Kurowsky.

Agnes was the only daughter of Agnes Holabird and Paul Von Kurowsky, a Polish immigrant to the United States. Her uncle was the famous Chicago architect William Holabird, and her maternal grandfather was Gen. Samuel Beckley Holabird, who served as a Quartermaster for the United States Army.

 Important Dates in Agnes von Kurowsky's Nursing Career
 1918-1919 American Red Cross in Italy
   Milan 11 July - 15 October 1918
   Florence 15 October - 11 November 1918
   Army Hospital Treviso 10 November 1918 - 5 January 1919
   Milan January - June 1919
 1920-1922 Service with the American Red Cross in Romania
 1922 Night Supervisor, Bellevue Hospital
 1926 Returned to Red Cross service - Haiti
 1927-1931 Director of Nurses Sanitarium Haitian General Hospital, Port-au-Prince
 circa 1931-1934 Assistant Supervisor of Nurses Sanitarium in Otisville, New York
 circa 1942-1945 Service with Red Cross Blood Bank in New York, NY
 1956-1965 Lived in Key West, Florida
 1965-1984 Lived in Gulfport, Florida
 1984 Died, 25 September. Buried in Soldiers' Home National Cemetery

Trivia:
Kurowsky charcter in the film In Love and War was played by Sandra Bullock.

[edit] References

Holabird, John Augur, Jr. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architects Oral History Project. By Susan S. Benjamin (207-page PDF file.)
Agnes von Kurowsky, Henry Serrano Villard, James Nagel: Hemingway in Love and War: The Lost Diary of Agnes von Kurowsky: Her Letters, and Correspondence of Ernest Hemingway (ISBN 1555530575]] H/B, and ISBN 034068898X P/B.)