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Ernie Pyle State Historic Site,  Dana, IN erniepyle@abcs.com

Dana, Indiana, is the town where Pyle was born in 1900 to tenant farmers. The Ernie Pyle Memorial Highway passes near the Ernie Pyle State Historic Site, not far from Ernie Pyle Memorial Park and Ernie Pyle Elementary School. The Historic Site draws 8,000 annual visitors to its Quonset hut: a small video theater and rooms filled with memorabilia, including Pyle’s typewriter and Coleman stove. It also hosts annual World War II reenactments, this year August 9-11. In 1935 Scripps-Howard hired Pyle as a roving columnist, and his fame grew as he trekked the United States and South America with his wife Geraldine. The pressure took its toll, however: Ernie and Jerry both became heavy drinkers; she suffered from long-term depression; he had a few affairs.

Ernie Pyle Home/Library, Albuquerque, NM www.cabq.gov/rgvls

Once the home of Ernie and Jerry Pyle, this Albuquerque library branch became a National Historic Landmark in October 2006. It’s stuffed with Pyle documents: letters from the likes of Ike and Eleanor Roosevelt; his last handwritten article; notebooks and scrapbooks. The garden headstone marks the grave of Cheetah, Ernie’s favorite dog.

 

Originally published in the June 2007 issue of World War II Magazine. To subscribe, click here