One hundred years ago in June 1917, Oak Park’s most famous native son, Ernest Hemingway, graduated from Oak Park High School (now Oak Park and River Forest High School). To celebrate, the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park is marking this milestone by holding its annual fundraiser on Saturday, June 17, at the Hemingway Museum, 200 N. Oak Park Ave. Leading up to the event, Wednesday Journal will feature pivotal moments from Hemingway’s life each Wednesday.
“The Italian government awarded Ernest with the Medaglia d’ Argento al Valore, citing that despite being ‘gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated.'”
(N. Sindelar, Influencing Hemingway. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014, p. 28.)
