TLS signed “Hemingstein, From Ernest Hemingway to L. C. Hemingway,” one page, 8.25 x 11, Finca Vigia letterhead, January 24, [no year but circa early 1940s]. Letter to his brother, Leicester Hemingway, whom he called "Baron." In part: "I know how you feel about wanting to get into the armed forces and the feelings do you credit. This is going to be a long war. To win it will take many years. No one between eighteen and fourty five or fifty is going to be without a chance to take an active part in it. So get this straight and start thinking with your heard as well as with your heart. You are married and the father and sole support of two children. Your first duty is to support them in some work as useful to the government as possible. You are at present engaged in such work and while there are times when any civilian work seems unimportant you must remember that as things get steadily better organized the importance of your work will be steadily better defined. Do not be a dope and throw up your present job. Instead see how much better you can do it and try to overcome your worst habit; sloppiness in regard to caring for material things which first showed its-self in your guns being badly cleaned when you were going on your first cruise and has culminated in the loss of the Blue Stream. I know how badly you feel about that. But you should feel damned badly. Start in taking care of your razor and keeping it properly (maybe you do) and work ahead from there.
Charles Thompson was responsible for the fact that your other boat was not lost too. You have to learn to take care of stuff Baron. I know how tough your problems have been and how you have every valid excuse. But on taking care of property no excuses are valid. Especially when you were always careless weven when you had no other duty but that toward your and others property. That is the end of the bawling out and God knows I take no pleasure in bawling you out because I have the utmost goddamned sympathy for you and for Tony in the loss of that lovely craft.
About going into the army or Marines: I know you have a lot of guts. You have, however, two small children, a wife, bad eye-sight and no military education either formal or informal. You are much more use in your present job than you would be in any except naval service. I think eventually you will go into that but at present use your head and stick to your job and see how useful you can be." He adds a handwritten postscript, initialed "E.H.," in full: "I shall probably have to come to Washington shortly on some work and will see you there." In very good to fine condition, with staining and discoloration at the bottom.
In the early years of World War II, Leicester Hemingway—Ernest Hemingway’s adventurous younger brother—took a 45-foot schooner, the Blue Stream, on cruising expeditions through waters around Florida and the Caribbean. These voyages were part adventure, part amateur investigation—Les wrote a Reader’s Digest article in November 1940 called 'Caribbean Snoop Cruise,' detailing his search for suspected German U-boat activity and Nazi operatives in tropical ports. The boat was apparently lost through Leicester's carelessness, and Ernest offers some stern brotherly advice on taking better care of things—underscoring both the practical mindset demanded by wartime scarcity and the brothers’ shared maritime interests.
Ernest Hemingway himself was deeply engaged in wartime efforts, contributing as a correspondent to various news outlets and conducting his own anti-submarine patrols off the Cuban coast. Leicester, eager to enlist, was constrained by his role as the sole provider for his wife and two children, as well as by physical limitations such as poor eyesight. The letter captures the broader reality of WWII home front service, where not all patriotism was expressed in uniform, and where personal responsibility to family and resource conservation were cast as vital contributions to the national war effort.
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