Ernest Hemingway and His Beloved Cat (1954)
Author Ernest Hemingway, creator of literary classics like A Farewell to Arms, When the Bell Tolls, the Sun Also Rises, and The Old Man and the Sea loved cats. In 1935 Hemingway was at a bar. Captain Stanley Dexter was also there with his six-toed cat Snowball. Hemingway, a lifelong cat lover, admired Snowball, so Captain Dexter gave Hemingway a white six-toed kitten. The cat, which he named Snow White, was polydactyl, meaning it had extra toes, and she captured Hemingway’s heart.
As he said in 1943, “One cat just leads to another.” His Key West home soon filled with the chorus of cats. They roamed the grounds and accompanied Hemingway as he wrote. Today, 50 – 60 cats greet visitors touring Hemingway’s Key West home, some direct descendants of Snow White, living on the property, all either having the polydactyl toes or carrying the gene for it.
