Nobel Prize winning American author.

In 1918, after leaving his hometown of Oak Park, Illinois, followed by a short stint as a cub reporter at The Kansas City Star, eighteen-year-old Ernest Hemingway enlisted as a volunteer in the Red Cross ambulance service. The volunteers were sent to Italy, and on the voyage overseas, Hemingway shared a compartment with Chicagoan Frederick Spiegel. Stationed in Schio for the rest of the war, the two young men developed a friendship, and afterwards they occasionally communicated. Hemingway, of course, became an internationally renowned writer and Spiegel found success in his family's business, but their shared youthful experiences resulted in a life-long effort to stay in touch.

Chicago businessman.

Born in Chicago in 1898, Frederick William Spiegel was the grandson of Joseph Spiegel, founder of a local home furnishing business. He was the son of Modie Joseph Spiegel, director of the successful, huge mail-order company, Spiegel's Home Furnishing Company. Frederick Spiegel worked for the family business, Spiegel, Inc., from 1920 until his retirement. He married Clara Gatzert in 1923 and had two children. They were divorced and he later married Ruth Hirsch in 1949.

Spiegel served in the American Red Cross ambulance service in 1918, receiving the Italian Croix de Guerra. In World War II, he was captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He died in Chicago in 1975.