Agnes Hannah von Kurowsky Stanfield (January 5, 1892 – November 25, 1984) was an American nurse who inspired the character "Catherine Barkley" in Ernest Hemingway's 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms.

However, in a letter dated March 7, 1919, she wrote to Hemingway, who was living at his parents home in Oak Park, Illinois, that she had become engaged to an Italian officer.

[1] Hemingway's son Jack called the loss of von Kurowsky "the great tragedy" of his father's early life.

Her parents met while her German-born father[3] Paul von Kurowsky was teaching languages at the Berlitz school in Washington, D.C.,[2] where her mother Agnes Holabird was a pupil.

However, several months after he had returned to the United States, in March of 1919, she rejected him through a letter informing him that she was engaged to an Italian Royal Army officer (later disclosed as Domenico Caracciolo).

Leicester visited Agnes in Key West (where von Kurowsky had moved with William Stanfield, and worked as a librarian) while researching his book.

The cause of her death was not reported;[4] her body was buried in the United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[1] She was honored for "her gallant and commendable services" with the American Red Cross during World War I.