Jane Kendall Mason

Mason was born Jane Welsh in 1909. A decade later, her mother Elizabeth, a divorcée who sang at private parties for members of New York City's upper class, began a relationship with the divorced Wall Street tycoon Lyman Kendall, who was worth an estimated $20 million.[1] Kendall and her mother married, and he legally adopted Mason.[1] The family moved to Tuxedo Park, New York and maintained residences in Miami and Washington, D.C., and sailed to Europe for extended stays.[1]

Mason was educated at exclusive private schools, where she showed promise in drawing and sculpture, and competed as an equestrian at Madison Square Garden.[1] In her teenage years, the family lived at Kentsdale, an 1,000 acre estate near Potomac, Maryland, and were members of the Congressional Country Club.[1][2]

When she was seventeen years old, she was presented as a debutante at two different balls in Washington, D.C.[1]

In 1927, at the age of eighteen, she married George Grant Mason, Jr. in an elaborate society wedding at her family's estate.[1] Mason, a graduate of Yale University, was from a wealthy family and served as head of Pan-American Airways' Caribbean operations in Cuba.[1][3] The Masons moved to Jaimanitas, a large estate west of Havana that was staffed by nine servants.[1] It was here that Mason became known as a glamorous and eccentric socialite, hosting parties and attending events at clubs, casinos, and horse races.[1]

In September 1931 Mason and her husband were introduced to Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, while sailing on the SS Île de France.[1][4]

Former U.S. First Lady Grace Coolidge referred to Mason as "the most beautiful debutante who ever entered the White House."[5] American portraitist Howard Chandler Christy called her "one of the very best types of American girl."[1] Ernest Hemingway, with whom she was close friends and occasionally romantically involved, referred to her as "about the most uninhibited person I ever met."[1] She and Hemingway began an affair in 1932.[1]

In 1932, she wrote an article titled Resorting to Havana for Vogue.[6]

Mason, who could not conceive children, adopted to British boys, and Hemingway was named the godfather of the elder son.[1] On a safari with Bror Blixen, Mason shot a zebra foul and had it made into a rocking horse for her children.[1] She was an avid sportswoman and big game hunter, shooting elephants and rhinoceroses, and also went on big game fishing excursions.[1][4]

Hemingway based the characters Richard Bradley and Helène Bradley in To Have and Have Not on the Masons.[1][7] He also based the character Margot Macomber in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber on Mason.[1]

She modelled in advertisements for Pond's cold cream.[1]

In 1940 she divorced her first husband, George Grant Mason, Jr., who was a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board in Tampa, Florida.[5] A month later she married Republican politician and lawyer John Daniel Miller Hamilton, two days after he resigned as executive director of the Republican National Committee.[5] This marriage ended after she had an affair with the editor of Reader's Digest.[1] Then she married Arnold Gingrich in 1955, who she had previously been involved with while also being involved with Hemingway.[1][4] She and Gingrich lived at different residences in New York before settling in Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1962.

In 1964 she suffered a stroke that left her semi-invalid for the rest of her life.[1] After the stroke, M.F.K. Fisher described her in a 1968 letter as "a hopeless and completely helpless paralytic and ex-alcoholic cared for like a rare orchid."[1] Fisher and Mason's husband engaged in an affair at that time.[1]

She survived a suicide attempt in 1933, jumping off the balcony at her Cuban residence, and underwent months of intensive psychotherapy.[1][7]

In 1935, while on safari in East Africa, she had a romantic dalliance with Colonel Richard Cooper, a British officer who owned a coffee plantation in Tanganyika.[1]

She died in 1981.[1]