# Agnes von Kurowsky grave story

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Agnes von Kurowsky grave story," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/agnes-von-kurowsky-grave-story/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's account of discovering the Washington, D.C. grave of Agnes von Kurowsky, the World War I Red Cross nurse whose four-month wartime romance with a young ambulance driver, Ernest Hemingway, made her the model for the lead female character in six of his books, including A Farewell to Arms.*

- **Subject:** Agnes von Kurowsky, WWI Red Cross nurse
- **Wartime romance:** Four months in Italy, with 19-year-old ambulance driver Ernest Hemingway
- **Literary legacy:** Model for the lead female character in six Hemingway books, including A Farewell to Arms
- **Archive:** Love letters, photos and scrapbook now held at the Hemingway Museum, Key West

[John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) recounts discovering the Washington, D.C. grave of **Agnes von Kurowsky**, a World War I Red Cross nurse, born in 1897, who was sent to Italy to care for wounded American soldiers. There she was assigned to a severely wounded 19-year-old ambulance driver named Ernest Hemingway, and the two began a *"torrid affair"* that lasted four months before she broke it off and married an Italian lieutenant. Hemingway went on to make her the lead female character in six of his books, including his 1926 debut short story, *The Snows of Kilimanjaro*, and his masterpiece *A Farewell to Arms*.[1]

## "The only woman he ever loved"

A year after Hemingway's 1961 suicide, his brother contacted von Kurowsky to interview her for a planned book, *My Brother, Ernest Hemingway*. He told her that despite four failed marriages and Hemingway's alcoholism, he had never stopped talking about her and considered her the only woman he had ever truly loved. Von Kurowsky gave him photographs of the two of them from his hospital bed, their exchanged love letters, and a scrapbook she had secretly kept of every newspaper mention of him, never having told either of her own husbands about the relationship. That material, the photos, letters, and scrapbook, is now held at the Hemingway Museum in Key West, Florida.[2]

## See also

- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. CIA Spy Breaks Silence On Elon Musk's Twitter Files — John (2023-04-12), at 2:03:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmPpOps1yeI&t=7410s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-12-danny-jones/
2. CIA Spy Breaks Silence On Elon Musk's Twitter Files — John (2023-04-12), at 2:05:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmPpOps1yeI&t=7538s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-12-danny-jones/

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