P R IN T : News
2 »X» Wednesday, Feb.27,2013
For Whom the Letter Tolls
Clackamas Communi
ty College was recently
donated a rare, unpub
lished letter by Ernest
Hemingway
Sage Niles
The Clackamas Print
Clackamas
Community
College was treated to a gift
that is not often bestowed
upon community colleges. It
received, from a private col
lector, a rare 80-year-old letter
written by Ernest Hemingway.
The letter written in 1933,
intended for his friend Charles
Thompson, details deep sea
fishing in Cuba, a car that he
left in Florida and about set
ting a later date for a scheduled
hunting trip to Africa. The let
ter was written in pencil while
Hemingway was staying at a
Havana hotel.
The donor is Larry Peterson,
a Lake Oswego based lawyer.
Peterson came into possession
of the letter at an auction in
1993 and it has largely sat
untouched since then.
“I believe he paid about
$5,000 and it has recently been
appraised at close to $23,000,”,;
said CCC Major Gifts Officer,
Vicki Smith.
The letter was given not
only to the college but to the
Alden E. Miller Law Library of
Clackamas County. ,
“We drafted up a memo of
understanding between us and
the law library. Larry Peterson
had to give it to one place so
we could give him a receipt,
so he gave it to CCC but we
share ownership with the law
library,” said Smith.
Plans on unveiling the letter
at CCC are still in the works
and much is still on the table
in regards to how to show the
letter. Another concern is what
the most responsible and aca
demic way of handling the let
ter will be.
“We’ve been in touch with
the National Hemingway
Society and professors who
study nothing but Hemingway,”
said Smith. “And they say don’t
display the original and there
are ways to get really good
copies and I don’t know where
that will be displayed yet.”
“A t this point we’re
leaving up how to
display the letter to .
the English Depart
ment. ”
Greg Fitzgerald
CCC Foundation Director
The English department has
hopes for the letter as well
and expressed interest in pos
sibly passing the letter around
to other colleges in the area.
English Chair Dave Mount had
some ideas about what could be
done with the letter.
“I think one thing we could
do is facilitate making sure
that Hemingway scholars in
the area do know about it,” he
said. “Maybe writing a letter
and sending it out to UO and
OSU to let Hemingway experts
in the area know it’s here. It’s
kind of a responsibility actu
ally.”
Greg Fitzgerald, Foundation
director, has overseen the letter
since it first arrived at CCC.
“At this point we’re leav
ing up how to display the let
ter to the English department.
They are going to figure out
what they want to do to unveil
this. It’ll be spring term,” said
Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald offered more con
crete details on what the plans
for the letter will be.
“We’ve had a lot of inter
est from Dr. Suzanne Clark
at the University of Oregon,
but also from Penn State
University who has a project
called the Hemingway Letters
Project, and from the Kennedy
Presidential Library in Boston,”
said Fitzgerald.
The Hemingway Letters
Project at Penn State is a unique
and ambitious project with
their hopes to publish 6,000
of Hemingway’s letters, and
the letter that was donated to
CCC was previously unknown
to them.
The college, however, can
not publish the: letter or put out
a transcript: of the: letter, and
will rarely show the original.
“The content of the letter is
copyrighted by the Hemingway
family for some period of
time, but it will be published
in a series of books with the
other Hemingway letters,” said
Fitzgerald.
A donation of this size and
importance is a fairly rare thing
for the college, and overall
everyone involved with the let
ter has expressed hope, joy
and excitement at getting the
opportunity to work with it.
“Certainly it adds to our
academic status that we have
another piece to add to our col
lection and our research collec
tions. It’s a good legacy for this
college all the way around,”
said Fitzgerald.
M
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Larry Peterson and wife Trina Peterson show off the letter. After ac
quiring the letter from an auction in J993, Peterson decided to hand it
over to CCC this past December.
HEMINGWAY
Andrew Millbrooke
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B ^ ohitid@efackamas.edu
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