Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Tillie and Pappy Arnold returned home at last

Friends of Ernest Hemingway to rest in Ketchum Cemetery


By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Out for a shoot, circa 1958, Lloyd Arnold, Ernest Hemingway, Tillie Arnold and Mary Hemingway poses with their day's bounty from the field. Photo by Forrest MacMullen. Courtesy Regional History Department, The Community Library.

Two instrumental characters in the Sun Valley scene from the resort's very beginnings in the late-1930s were Tillie and Lloyd "Pappy" Arnold. Pappy worked as the chief photographer for the new Sun Valley Resort and Tillie ran the company's camera shop. Among the many people they became good friends with over the years were Ernest Hemingway and his third and fourth wives, Martha Gellhorn and Mary Hemingway, née Welsh.

In describing Hemingway's circle of friends in Sun Valley, his son Jack Hemingway wrote, "The spiritual nucleus of that little group of fellow sportsmen was Tillie Arnold."

In kind, Tillie said of her friendship with Hemingway, which began in 1939, "ours was destined to become a laughing, joking, kidding, teasing, friendly, loving relationship."

Tillie always maintained Hemingway had been her best friend. After her husband died, Tillie lived with Mary in the Hemingway house in Ketchum for two years.

After many years—Hemingway died in 1961, Pappy in 1970 and Tillie this past January—the Arnolds will be interred at the Ketchum Cemetery, where their good friends "Papa" and Mary Hemingway are buried beside each other. Tillie's sister, Donna Kimbell, with whom she lived in Fullerton, Calif., is bringing their cremains to Ketchum. Tillie would have been 100 in April of this year.

"There aren't many people who remember Lloyd now, but oh that man was precious," Kimbell said. "When he married Tillie, he married all of us, too. We had the most wonderful family and we were so happy."

Indeed, Tillie was the second oldest of a very close family of 10 siblings. Tillie was born April 6, 1905, in Magnolia, Iowa. Sadly, Kimbell is becoming used to gathering for family funerals. Her sister, Kathy, who lived in Colorado, passed away at age 88 in April.

Kimbell's two remaining siblings are Joy, 92, who still lives in the farmhouse in Iowa where she's lived for 68 years, and Janice, who is the baby at 79 and lives in Missouri. Janice's husband died in December, a month before Tillie. Still, Kimbell expressed not the weight of losing her family but the joy of what has been a remarkable life full of love and joy.

"She was such a peach," she said of Tillie. "They were such a fabric of early Sun Valley."

The Arnolds had bought two plots in the Ketchum Cemetery but gave them to the Hemingways when Jack's first wife, Puck, died in 1988, and later for Margaux, Jack's middle daughter, in 1996.

Lloyd was buried in his hometown of Council Bluffs, Iowa, after dying while he and Tillie were in Arizona visiting her sister Helen and her husband. Burial in Ketchum at that time was impossible because of the frozen ground. Besides, Tillie couldn't bring herself to cremate him at that time, although that had been his wish, Kimbell said.

"She was really a kindred spirit of Papa Hemingway," she said. "And Mary was a sister friend."

When Tillie moved back to Ketchum and lived with Mary, she work for Atkinsons' Market and at the old Christiania Lodge in accounting, keeping the books.

"That was her forte," Kimbell said. Later, Tillie became a docent at the Hemingway House, where she'd lived, and at the Sun Valley Lodge.

Through the years, many people became surrogate family for Tillie, among them Patty and Bill Smallwood.

"He was so good to her," Kimbell said. "Bill encouraged her to write. He transcribed her recordings and published her book, 'The Idaho Hemingway,' in 1999. He wrote it just like she said. Bill just loved Tillie. Everybody loved Tillie."

Lloyd Arnold also published a book about their friend, called "High on the Wild with Hemingway," in 1969.

Other friends of Tillie's in Idaho were Connie and Mike McLean. When they moved to a house in the Snake River Canyon, Tillie moved to Buhl to be closer.

"They were like her children. Connie and Mike were just wonderful to Tillie. And loved her so dearly," Kimbell said. "David and Mary Nuffer from San Diego also were good friends. They just loved her and that little thing just came alive with them."

Kimbell said that after some years, Tillie changed her mind about cremation and gave into Lloyd's preference. Tillie also knew that she wanted them both to be in Ketchum, also as originally planned.

At her request, David Nuffer called the Ketchum Cemetery District and asked if there was any space. He was told "not much," except for two plots cater-cornered to Papa and Mary Hemingway's graves. The plots had recently been sold back to the district.

The memorial for the Arnold's return to their home and interment is at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, July 21, Ernest Hemingway's 106 birthday.

There will be a lunch reception after the memorial in the Sun Room at the Sun Valley Lodge. Anyone who wishes to join them at the reception should call either Kimbell at (562) 697-4079 or Nuffer at (619) 224-1045.

"We're going to have a good swinging time with the extended family up there," Kimbell said.

Hemingway's 106th celebrated

The Community Library in Ketchum will commemorate the birthday of Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway with a multimedia presentation at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 20, with Regional History Librarian Chris Millspaugh.

Millspaugh will focus on Hemingway's life in Idaho, including little-known anecdotes from his contemporaries and many never-published historical photos.

The Regional History Department contains a wealth of information on the history of Ketchum, Sun Valley and the surrounding area, including print material, photographs, and other items related to Ernest Hemingway and his life in Sun Valley and Ketchum.




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