OAK PARK, Ill. -- In the Hemingway home in suburban Chicago at the turn of the 19th century, both parents had careers. So on many mornings when the family finished breakfast, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, a physician, went off to see patients and his wife, Grace, retreated to the parlor to teach her music students.

Young Ernest Hemingway and his siblings often remained at the table with their maternal grandfather, "Abba" Hall, who regaled the youngsters with stories about animals and Bible readings. Ernest's grandfather and the other adults who resided at the Queen Anne Victorian home in Oak Park, Ill., were strong influences on the boy, who would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in literature.

For Hemingway aficionados as well as more casual readers of his writings, the author's birthplace here provides a close look into family life as Hemingway knew it from birth to age 6. Hemingway's grandfather owned the house on North Oak Park Avenue, built around 1890, and the author's parents lived there with him from the time they got married until "Abba" died and they moved to another Oak Park residence.

		Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home and Museum • The Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home, 339 N. Oak Park Ave., and the Museum, 200 N. Oak Park Ave., are open 1-5 p.m. Sundays-Fridays; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays. • Admission, which includes both the birthplace and museum, is $8 for adults; $6 for students and seniors; and free for children 5 and under. Call ahead to confirm daily hours at 1-708-848-2222. • For more information, go to www.ehfop.org. • Oak Park is less than 10 miles west of downtown Chicago and is easily accessible by car or public transportation.

Because subsequent owners rented out the house as apartments and rooms, much of its original contents are long gone. The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park acquired his birthplace in 1992 and raised more than $1 million to restore it to its middle-class Victorian style with period furniture, draperies, rugs and artifacts. It opened to the public in 1993 although the restoration has been ongoing.

Hemingway did not maintain strong ties with his hometown. After his high school graduation in 1917, he joined the staff of the Kansas City Star as a reporter and months later landed in World War I Italy as a member of the Red Cross Ambulance Corps. He returned to Oak Park briefly after the war but then left for another newspaper stint in Toronto before his writing career took him back to Europe and eventually to homes in Key West, Fla., and Ketchum, Idaho. In a widely quoted but never verified comment, the author described Oak Park as a village of "broad lawns and narrow minds."

With the family gone from the community, the foundation relied on local historians as well as a memoir, "At the Hemingways," written by Hemingway's sister Marcelline, to come up with photos and details about how the home looked when the Hemingways lived there. Marcelline's children donated some personal memorabilia that is thought to be original to the home, including a rocking chair, a hall mirror and an Oriental vase.

Most of the restoration is complete except for the main staircase from the entry hall to the second floor, said Virginia Cassin, vice chair of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park. When sufficient money is raised to renovate the staircase, she said, the foundation will explore the walls for evidence of a small room between the first and second floors, possibly off a staircase landing, where, Marcelline wrote, her father consulted with his patients.

"It's been the house mystery," said Ms. Cassin. "We'll try to find it."

Meanwhile, visitors can glean a fair amount about Hemingway's preschool years from guided tours the foundation provides of the three-story structure with its grand wrap-around porch and spacious living area. Besides the stories told by his grandfather, Hemingway listened to tales from his mother's Uncle Tyley, who had traveled the world and who roomed on the second floor.

On the third floor, Dr. Hemingway maintained a collection of wildlife specimens. That area is closed to the public because a local writer uses it as a studio and dubs himself "writer-in-residence at Hemingway's Attic."

Open to the public are the first-floor entry hall, dining area, kitchen, parlor and library. On the second floor, visitors have access to the bedrooms and bath, including Hemingway's mother's room, where he was born on July 21, 1899, and the children's nursery, which contains Marcelline's toy box.

A few blocks away on North Oak Park Avenue, the foundation operates the Ernest Hemingway Museum, which features a number of temporary and permanent exhibits on the author's boyhood, high school years in Oak Park, his career as a journalist and novelist, and how Hollywood treated his writings when they were turned into films.

The foundation also owns the home on North Kenilworth Avenue, where the family resided after they left his birthplace, but it has yet to be restored and opened for tours. The foundation is negotiating with Dominican University in nearby River Forest, Ill., to create a partnership that could fund renovation of that 1905 stucco structure where Ernest Hemingway lived until his high school graduation.

Some might argue that Oak Park, less than 10 miles west of Chicago's loop, is better known as a showplace for Frank Lloyd Wright's early architecture. Wright built a home and studio there and spent the first 20 years of his career, 1889-1909, in Oak Park. Hemingway's home, in fact, is situated in Wright's Prairie School of Architecture National Historic District, which includes 25 Wright-designed structures.

But for tourists who come strictly for Hemingway, the birthplace and nearby museum will easily fill an afternoon and transport you to an era when children's ideas came from books, family and the wonder of exploring their day-to-day surroundings.

To mark the author's 109th birthday tomorrow, as well as the foundation's 25th anniversary, Hemingway scholar Susan Beegel will speak at the Hemingway Museum at a celebration that will include cake and champagne.