"At 8 o'clock on the morning of July 21st. 1899 Ernest Miller Hemingway came to town wrapped in a light blue comforter. It was a very hot morning. The sun shone brightly and the Robins sang their sweetest songs to welcome the little stranger to this beautiful world."

"The little lad weighed 9 lbs., had thick black hair, dark blue eyes, black eyebrows, Mahogany colored complexion, a dimple in each cheek, Grandpa Ernest Hall's nose and mouth, like a cupid's bow, Hands and nails just like Grandpa Ernest's. Plump and perfect in form with a deep toned voice," wrote Grace Hall Hemingway of her second child's birth in the first of five lavishly annotated scrapbooks of photographs, newspaper clippings, and letters she made. (1) The paper record that begins with her lovingly compiled scrapbooks comes full circle with the generous donations to the John F. Kennedy Library by Hemingway's fourth wife and...