Agnes von Kurowsky Stanfield (January 5, 1892, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – September 25, 1984), an American nurse, was reportedly the basis for the character of "Catherine Barkley" in Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
Kurowsky served as a nurse in an American Red Cross hospital in Milan during World War I. One of her patients was Hemingway, who fell in love with Kurowsky.[1] 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.[1] (see In Love and War (1996 film))
Hemingway used his experiences in Italy as the basis for ten short stories. Fictionalized characters based on Kurowsky appear in his short stories A Very Short Story and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, as well as A Farewell to Arms.
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Agnes's parents met while her German-born father[2] was teaching languages at the Berlitz school in Washington, District of Columbia Although her family would move many times during her childhood, Agnes came to regard Washington as her home. She attended the Fairmont Seminary and a training program for the public library in Washington. She got her first job in 1910 as a cataloguer for the library there. In 1914 she decided to leave the library and attend nursing school. In her words "[The library] was too slow and uneventful. My taste ran to something more exciting."
She attended the Bellevue Nurses Training Program in New York City, graduating in 1917. She applied for service with the American Red Cross, and, on June 15, 1918, she sailed for Europe. It was there, at her first assignment for the Red Cross at the Army Hospital Treviso in Milan that she met Hemingway. In 1919 she rejected him through a letter, while he was in the United States.
One of her uncles was the famous Chicago architect William Holabird, and her maternal grandfather was Gen. Samuel Beckley Holabird, who served as a Quartermaster in the United States Army.
Agnes's identity as the basis for the fictional character was not widely known until Hemingway's brother, Leicester, published a book in 1961 about his brother. Leicester Hemingway visited with Agnes in Key West while researching his book. Agnes gave him some photographs from her scrapbook that now reside at the Hemingway Foundation.
Agnes von Kurowsky was married twice. She married Howard Preston ("Pete") Garner on November 24, 1928 while stationed with the Red Cross in Haiti. After her Haitian assignment was completed she obtained a quick divorce. She married for the second time to William Stanfield in 1934. Stanfield was a hotel manager and widower with three children.
During World War II her husband and one of her stepsons both served in the Navy. Agnes and her two stepdaughters went to New York City, where Agnes worked at the Red Cross Blood Bank on Fifth Avenue. She remained married to Stanfield until her death in 1984, aged 92.
She is buried in the United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery in Washington DC.[1] She was honored for "her gallant and commendable services" with the American Red Cross during World War I.
In Love and War, the movie starring Sandra Bullock as Agnes von Kurowsky and Chris O'Donnell as Ernest Hemingway.