Indiana University School of Journalism

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Photo by Yang Han

Students talked with volunteer Phil Hess, left, during a visit to the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum Friday to learn about Pyle's early years. At spring break, they'll follow his path through Europe during his war correspondent

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By Meredith Reffner

When the School of Journalism’s most famous student, Ernie Pyle, first came to Bloomington in 1919 from his hometown of Dana, Ind., he traveled 90 miles on unpaved roads.

When 30 School of Journalism students traveled from Bloomington to Dana last Friday, the roads were paved, but that was the last sign of the 21st century.

Associate professor Owen Johnson led the group to visit the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum, a site that features Ernie Pyle’s birth home and two Quonset huts of full of Pyle’s World War II possessions, columns and other memorabilia.

Ernie Pyle is most remembered for his wartime columns that detailed the realities of life the G.I.s faced during World War II. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his war correspondence.

Students in J418 From London to Paris in the Footsteps of Ernie Pyle are spending the entire semester learning about Pyle and his writing, and they will spend spring break in London, Paris and Normandy exploring the key places in Pyle’s wartime reporting.

Johnson arranged the trip to Dana so students could get a feel for how Pyle lived during his childhood. Ernie Pyle Scholars and Media Scholars also went on the day trip.

Photo by Jessica Williams

Students saw many of Pyle's belongings as well as those typical of the era. Here, From left, Autumn Scaglione, junior, and Meredith Reffner, senior, look through a display case.

In Dana, students saw the rocking chair that belonged to Will Pyle, Ernie’s father; the mantelpiece clock that belonged to Ernie’s aunt; and Ernie’s very own checkerboard. They learned that Maria Pyle, Ernie’s mother, traded eggs from her chickens so she could get supplies for the house. The students walked up and down the small town’s main street as Pyle may have done in his day.

“It gives you a better perspective of how he felt growing up,” said Dana Koglin, freshman and student in J418.

Pyle was born in 1900 to a farming family. At the age of 9, Pyle began working on the farm.

“He knew right then and there that was not for him,” said tour guide Joanie Rumple.

She said Pyle really wanted to join the military as World War I heated up, but his parents forced him to finish high school first. After graduation, though, he left Dana for good, and his first stop was Bloomington, where he studied journalism, leaving a semester shy of a degree to start his career.

His legacy remains in Dana. In 1973, Pyle’s house was moved from outside of town to the corner lot it sits on today. The American Legion and Lilly Foundation donated funds to fix up the home, and townspeople donated the furnishings.

The home became an Indiana state historic site in 1976. Nineteen years later, the Scripps Howard Foundation, Pyle’s lifelong employer, provided the money to outfit the two Quonset huts with the World War II artifacts.

Despite the red “State Historic Site” marker that welcomes visitors to the property, the state of Indiana closed the site in 2010. The Friends of Ernie Pyle took ownership and reopened the site in 2011, and the group is planning a national campaign to raise support for the maintenance of the site.

Photo by Jessica Williams

Associate professor Owen Johnson (third from right) discussed the burial sites of Ernie Pyle’s parents, Will and Maria Pyle, located in a small church cemetery outside Dana, Ind.

The group has a 13-member board that meets monthly to discuss the direction of the museum. Rumple and fellow tour guide Phil Hess are members. They want to ensure that Ernie Pyle stays alive for generations to come.

For the IU group, though, that was accomplished.

“I wasn’t expecting a museum,” sophomore Ernie Pyle Scholar Claire Aronson said. “This part was really neat.”