Lorian Hemingway is from Mississippi , the daughter of Gregory Hemingway and Shirley Jane Rhodes , a former Powers model . She grew up in numerous places throughout the South , including Mississippi , Arkansas , and Louisiana . Hemingway is one of 12 grandchildren of American novelist and Nobel Prize-laureate Ernest Hemingway . She is the great-granddaughter of a Cherokee chief on her mother 's side . Her maternal grandfather , Henry L. Rhodes , was a farmer in Golddust , Tennessee , and an accomplished guitarist . During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 , Rhodes played his guitar to his children as the floodwaters rose and eventually engulfed their farmhouse . The family was forced to flee in a rowboat . Hemingway 's maternal aunt , Freda Lassiter , an accomplished artist , would later paint scenes of the farmhouse and the flood , a theme that would run through her work throughout her life . Lassiter was a great influence on young Lorian , teaching her that the choices she made in life were hers alone . Lassiter also instilled in Hemingway , by example , a great love of nature and of all animals . Because of this early imprint Hemingway became an advocate of the Feral Cat Project , and actively rescues feral cats
Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
Lorian Hemingway