"Ernie Pyle Museum - Saving the Voice of the Common Soldier" Topic

The stories Ernie Pyle told, though of WWII, were the stories of soldiers (and sailors) from the days of the Romans to today. They are the stories of how the common man encountered and dealt with the adversity of combat; be he American, British, Byzantine, or even Carolinian. Ernie¡¦s stories are universal and timeless. In a way he marched with the men of Trajan and Henry IV and Marlborough and General Franks. This day, veterans day, aged veterans of wars from WWII to Desert Shield visited the museum. They sat in the Capt. Waskow theater and left with tears in their eyes. Ernie¡¦s words and memory must not be forgotten, so please when you read this plea, think of these things.

I¡¦m a director on the Board of the Friends of Ernie Pyle Development Fund Inc., (a 501(c)3 not for profit) which is dedicated to supporting the Ernie Pyle WWII Museum at his boyhood home in Dana, Indiana. Two weeks ago the State of Indiana, after a 2 year battle, finally succumbed to public pressure and signed the deeds returning the museum to the hands of the Friends of Ernie Pyle. The State of Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR), who administered the museum for the State, closed the museum in Oct. of 2009, absconding with many of the museum¡¦s artifacts (stored no doubt in some kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse as no one has seen any of them in the State Museum in Indianapolis). DNR personnel also disposed of Ernie¡¦s personal library, which was donated to the museum by Indiana University as well as having disposed of a sizeable portion of the Military History book collection held by the Ernie Pyle Museum in Dana. What books constituted the Military History collection are not known, as DNR personnel never made a record of that collection. However, they did make a record of the books from Ernie¡¦s personal library.

Now, with the deeds signed, the Friends of Ernie Pyle face the daunting task of supporting the museum without the aid of the State of Indiana and of replacing to the best of our ability the books in the library that were disposed of by the State of Indiana DNR. Many artifacts will never be replaced. For instance the State DNR personnel deny any knowledge of the existence of Ernie Pyle¡¦s .22 pistol which he carried while traveling the country during his Hoosier Vagabond days for snake killing; Ernie was afraid of snakes, but he was so tender hearted that in his youth he was unable to do this very thing- kill snakes, which are abundant in Indiana. But the State of Indiana DNR personnel claim to have no knowledge of the existence of this pistol, regardless of large numbers of visitors to the site and many of the citizens of the town of Dana, IN all claiming to have seen the weapon in the display case at the Ernie Pyle Museum in Dana. In many many ways the state has been less than honest or helpful. In fact in many instances they have been downright hostile.

Still, the museum has finally left the hands of the State of Indiana and returned to the ownership of the people who created the museum and gave it to the State of Indiana to begin with. We now face the task of funding extensive repairs to the site. The rubber seal coating on the WWII Quonset Huts has been scoured away by the winds and bare metal shows through in many places. The huts leak and we need a new seal coat on them. The Town of Dana has been forced by the State of Indiana to install a sewage system, which requires all facilities in Dana, including the museum, pay for hook up. The audio visual equipment in the Museum is over 15 years old and failing. Three displays have videos that explain their importance to WWII and to Ernie¡¦s memory, but the equipment that show these films has been failing with increasing frequency all summer. The birthplace home needs a coat of paint. We were left with three obsolete computers, two Win98 machines and one XP machine, all of which need replacing We want to be able to send tour guides with portable displays around the State of Indiana (and we on the board would like to expand this to the Midwest region) to schools for educational convocations. We need funds to put those materials together and to provide the travel funds and hire the right personnel for this. We would also like to obtain digital recording equipment that would allow us to record the stories of the veterans who visit the museum as well as to begin a state wide program of equipping the History Clubs of our state high schools so they can collect these stories, caching the digital recordings in a central repository at the museum for posterity. These are just a few of the things we need done or would like to do.

In short gentlemen, we are seeking donations for, and hoping to build, an endowment of $5 million (more if we are lucky). A website is under construction erniepyle.net where donations can be made via Paypal. Remember, this is a 501(c)3 not for profit organization so donation is tax deductible. Some people have reported difficulty with that site¡¦s donation system (it is under construction after all) so an alternate link to the Ernie Pyle Paypal donation system exists via my own personal website ( oldsoldiersmagazine.com ).

In the case of book donations, I¡¦m not asking people to raid their libraries for their precious volumes on history. I am a historian too and you won¡¦t find my library there either. However, I did have a stack of duplicate books (you know how it is when you go to a used book store or buy a box full of books at an auction or yard sale ¡V you get duplicates). I am asking that you take a look at your libraries and any duplicate military history books that you don¡¦t really need, please mail them to us. We would be very happy to have them. Also, there is a pdf available with a list of books that were in Ernie¡¦s Personal Library. If you e-mail me tdcgsl@yahoo.com I will be happy to forward that list to you. Anyone who receives that list, please compare it to your duplicates and maybe even take it with you to sales, and if you stumble across one of those books, please please please send them to us. We would surely appreciate it.

All Book Donations can be mailed to:

Ernie Pyle Museum
P.O. Box 345
Dana, IN 47847

If you need a shipping address that isn¡¦t a Post Office box, then simply have your boxes of books sent to:

Ernie Pyle Museum
Main Street
Dana, IN 47847

No street number is needed as Dana¡¦s main street is only one block long ƒº There are only 3 businesses on the west side and three on the east side of the street. The UPS and Fed Ex men can¡¦t exactly miss us.

I really do appreciate your help. We have a long road ahead of us saving this national treasure.

Sincerely,

Tom Cundiff (Director)
Ernie Pyle Museum, Dana, IN 47847
erniepyle.net

Old Soldiers Magazine (editor)
oldsoldiersmagazine.com

White Dog Games (graphic designer)
whitedoggames.com

Certainly I can take a look at my piles of books. I'd be happy to donate my own WW2 books if you wanted to add some titles. jonatgawnedotcom

However, It strikes me that you should should try and find a friendly lawyer, as the State of Indiana had a responsibility to maintain basic records and deeds of gift for material as is standard practice in any museum. For them not to have have done so is tantamount to malpractice and maybe a little leverage on them might turn up something.

I'm sure you are reaching out to the military collecting community and the reenactor community (which is big in Indiana). You definitely need to pump up the website with photos and a way to donate. As well as requesting copies of any photos anyone may have taken of the exhibits (proof stuff was there).

Good work to preserve Ernie's memory. I had seen this article in the NYT:

link

but I didn't realise a wargamer was also involved. I'll see what I have around, best of luck.

>>However, It strikes me that you should should try and find a friendly lawyer, as the State of Indiana had a responsibility to maintain basic records and deeds of gift for material as is standard practice in any museum. For them not to have have done so is tantamount to malpractice and maybe a little leverage on them might turn up something. <<

We do have two lawyers on our board, a local lawyer and one who is also the legal council for the Hoosier State Press Assoc. I rather think the state managers who removed exhibits purposesly made no record of things, probably on orders from above. Some of the state officials have said it is better people see them at the state museum (not that they're actually displayed there) than at the smaller museum at Ernie's boyhood home. They say more people, 200,000 come through their museum a year in Indianapolis. However, the few observers who have been there have said visitors to the State museum in Indy just pass right by the small exhibit on Ernie and don't even stop. So, the idea that the small state exhibit imparts more information to a greater number is falacious at best. People who come to the Ernie Pyle museum at Dana do so purposefully because they understand the importance of the site and of Ernie's writings. They go away many with a tear in their eye. Veterans stop and tell stories to their families who come with them, that they've never told before, not to their families, not to their friends, but at the museum they tell us the staff and those loved ones who have come with them to this shrine. They don't do that at the state museum. It's a very different atmosphere at the Ernie Pyle Museum. It's intimate. They're dealing with home town guides, people who are volunteers but daily are local beauticians, and home makers, farmers, teachers, insurance agents, and me – I do give tours too.

Anyway, on the point regarding the lawyers, so far they're really behind the 8 ball because in the end, at the time the state officials did these things, the museum belonged to the state and thus, even though arrogant, their actions were legal. The items belonged to the state. The museum then belonged to the state.

There was one thing the state nabobs did take, though no proof of it exists, was a box full of photos donated by local veterans not to the museum but to the Friends of Ernie Pyle organization with the express understanding that they would then stay in Dana and not belong to the State of Indiana. That big box of photos disappeared at the same time as the many exhibits were removed by state operatives. But, because their actions were in secret there's no proof that the state people took these photos. And, of course, the State people deny any knowledge of them.

I thank you both for your kind wishes, and I look forward to re-populating our library. It'll be the first positive step foward.

Thank You Both,
Tom Cundiff
(Wargamer for 40 years)

Just re-newing the thread.

Hi, Tom,

I've been following this unfortunate story for some time, and have wanted to do something to help the museum out in some small way. I don't have much spare cash handy to contribute at the moment, but I do have at least one very nice duplicate military history volume, and it wouldn't be bad for me to try to thin out the ranks of my library in general, so I thank you for putting your post up here, and giving myself and others a chance to help the Ernie Pyle museum out. My dad is a WWII Army vet of CBI and the Pacific who has always sung his praises.

Howdy,

Aye, my father was also a Pacific veteran (6th Inf. Div. HQ & HQ Bty. 6th Div. Art.), and being a local here too before the war, he remembers reading Ernie's Hoosier Vagabond columns, and had met Ernie's father working on the farms here. Of course the people here followed avidly Ernie's WWII writings.

Thanks Much for your spare books. We can certainly use them. Today is my 50th birthday, and of course reaching that milestone (or millstone) one cannot help but realize the rest is all downhill. I was considering making a will and insuring my library was donated to the museum. Now I hadn't thought of that before. I know my nieces will have no interest at all in my military library and the books left to them will see their end in either the dump or a yard sale. So, why not leave it to the Ernie Pyle Museum? Of course that led to the question, "why not ask military historians and wargamers to leave their libraries to the museum in their own wills?" I hadn't thought of that until the last day or two. Most of us, when we die, end up leaving our collections of books and games to a family that doesn't really understand or appreciate our love of books and games. They'll just dispose of our precious collections. This might be a good way to preserve these things.

Also, at this link, you will find a download button that will provide you a pdf listing Ernie's Personal Library. Ernie was a rather eclectic collector of books himself. His own library reveals the materials he used as he travelled the country during his Hoosier Vagabond days (remember Charles Kuralt? Ernie did that very thing before even Steinbeck. Ernie was the first columnist to travel the country writing about odd local events. Ernie was also a fan of literature. His collection held such authors as Jane Austen, Balzac, Conrad, Dickens, Emerson, Hawthorne, Kipling, Longfellow, Somerset Maugham, John Milton, Proust, Shakespeare, Thackeray, Twain, and Beau-Marchais to name a few. So, click on this and download his book collection list. We'd like to replace those too.

link

You'll have to excuse the thead title, CSW is a Byzantine labrynth of threads. I couldn't find the proper place for that.

Thanks Much for your books. We'll be very happy to have them, and promise to take care of them.

Sincerely,

Tom Cundiff (Director)
Ernie Pyle Museum, Dana, IN 47847
erniepyle.net

Old Soldiers Magazine (editor)
oldsoldiersmagazine.com

White Dog Games (graphic designer)
whitedoggames.com

We have received many unsolicited donations from the New York Times article

link

link

link

The article's author also dropped us a nice note as well as hard copies of the New York Times in which the article ran for the museum's archives. Mr. Barry also expressed his thanks for the help of our board President (Cynthia Myers) and Vice-President (Phil Hess) who showed him around the museum during his visit here before writing his story, and for their help in answering questions. Mr. Barry was also gratified to know it was his help that pushed state bureaucrats to action finally signing the deeds that transferred the museum to the Friends of Ernie Pyle.

The Article in the New York times has also been instrumental in that it has generated more interest from reporters who have an interest not only in the subject of Ernie Pyle, being a war correspondent, but also who are intrigued by the "David Beats Goliath" story of how a band of hard working small town people were able to snag the Ernie Pyle Museum from the clutches of (pardon the mixed Metaphors) the Evil Empire. National Public Radio has tasked a reporter with writing another piece about the museum. We anxiously await the results of that article.

Thank You All for your donations.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving,

Tom Cundiff
Ernie Pyle Museum (Director)
erniepyle.net

Old Soldiers Magazine (editor)
oldsoldiersmagazine.com

White Dog Games (graphic designer)
whitedoggames.com

Howdy Gents,

I've received 4 boxes of books from wargamers for our library. I wanted to thank all of them publicly. Every little bit helps.

Now that the museum is legally in our hands, the state of Indiana signed it over to us back in November, we are looking forward to fundraising … about as much as one enjoys hammer toes. Still, it has to be done. The museum hasn't had any maintenance carried out on the buildings in the last 10 years. This is one of the things in which the Indiana DNR was remiss in their duties. Roofs on both the birthplace home and the two military quonset huts are leaking and have been for some time. We have had the facilities hooked up to the city sewage system, something that the state didn't do. It was supposed to have been done within 3 months of the notice from the town of Dana (received in June 11) so by Nov 11 they were already delinquent. But, we had that done last month on our dime. No sense talking to the Indiana DNR about the bill, they'll just refuse to pay, afterall they hadn't done any maintenance to the site in the last 10 years.

The birthplace home also needs a coat of paint. Walmart did donate paint for the fence around the house, and we had a Community Service …. um, is inmate the correct word? do the painting this spring.

Our parade jeep is in dire condition. It needs the King Pins replaced as well as a complete rebuild of the front end suspension. The engine leaks oil and the cooling system has a broken petcock that needs replacing. The passenger seat cushion also needs some work because it comes loose (the screw holes are stripped). The low gear box simply doesn't work so we don't have 4 wheel drive and we don't have the low granny gears (which helps driving it in a parade at very low speed – the speed at which a band walks in a parade). Presently you have to juggle the throttle, choke, gas pedal, and ride the brakes and clutch to keep the speed below 12mph without killing the engine (walking speed is about 6 mph).

The museum's Audio Visual System has two theaters and one automated TV documentary. They run an introductory documentary that visitors watch as they first enter the museum. The Waskow Theater runs the small documentary about Ernie's most famous column (also voted the single most influential column in journalistic history by the Professional Journalists Assoc.). And finally the exit video is a tribute to Ernie Pyle by people like Gerald Ford, Andy Rooney (a friend and companion of Ernie's), William Windom (not only a famous actor, but also a combat infantryman and member of the 101st Airborne who dropped on D-Day into St. Mere-Eglise). We've had estimates from several companies to repair/replace the system we have, which is over 15 years old. Those estimates exceed $15,000 USD, one which replaces the entire system was $49,000. USD

Our office equipment is circa 1980. Two of the three computers are Win95, and one is an XP (2003) with only 64 Gb of memory and no modem. Not that the lack of a connection to the internet is a real problem because we don't HAVE a connection to the internet, nor could we afford one if we did.

We are also hopeful of obtaining two empty lots adjacent to the museum, which will help us to expand the museum into the future. As things stand now, we have no space for expansion, yet we have lots of people wishing to make donations of WWII materials (documents, photos, equipment, things their deceased fathers and grandfathers had stored away in long forgotten boxes in their attics). We'd like to be able to display some of these, but don't have any place for its exhibition. And, yes, this would require a new building on those lots. It's a dream I know, but a serious one which we hope to execute within the next 5-10 years.

So, there are a number of things we need worked on, and of course that means we need the money to do them, which we don't have presently.

We have a paypal donation button on our website that now works! Before the only way was to visit my own personal website where I had one set up in the interim for the purpose (that one still exists actually – redundancy isn't a bad thing – one never knows when computers will break). Anyway, you can access the museum's paypal Donation at erniepyle.org It does finally work! I'm so happy to say that at least someting DOES work :)

Thank You All for your donations.

Tom Cundiff
Ernie Pyle Museum (Director)
erniepyle.org

Old Soldiers Magazine (editor)
oldsoldiersmagazine.com

White Dog Games (graphic designer)
whitedoggames.com