Additional, fyi:
The farmhouse in Dana, Ind., where World War II journalist Ernie Pyle lived from age two to 18 is gone.
Owner Gene Goforth, whose family bought the house after Pyle was killed by a Japanese sniper in 1945, hired a bulldozer to raze the house last month after a local Ernie Pyle museum decided not to move the structure to its downtown Dana location.
"It was very sad. It was just heartbreaking that we needed to do something with it," Goforth says.
Goforth inherited the two-bedroom house in 1974, using it as a summer residence until five years ago. After several robberies, however, the Texas resident decided "it would be better to just get rid of it," he says. Goforth ruled out selling the house because he said it would cost $60,000 to renovate it first. He did not disclose the demolition cost but said it was significantly less than renovation.
Several years before he chose to destroy the house, however, Goforth asked the local Ernie Pyle Historic Site to move the house to its downtown Dana location. "I offered it to them for nothing," Goforth says.
But the state of Indiana, which operates the museum as one of its 14 historic sites, was "not interested" in the house, says Laura Minzes, deputy director of historic sites, structures, and real estate at the state's department of natural resources. "Taking it out of context was really missing the whole point. Our feeling was that it was crucial that it remain part of the farm," she says. "Money was a factor as well."
Minzes says Goforth did not offer the house for free but could not recall his asking price. The state never investigated the cost of moving the house.
Last year, 3,674 people visited the Ernie Pyle Historic Site, where admission is free. Still, no Pyle fans seemed to know about the threat to the farmhouse.
"We were a little surprised that nobody called us," says Jeremy Risen, community preservation specialist in the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana's western regional office in Terre Haute. Dana has no preservation organization, Risen says. "We rely on local groups to keep us informed, so this is an example of where the system breaks down."
Although the house Pyle lived in the longest is gone, the only house the war correspondent owned still stands in Albuquerque. Pyle and his wife, Jerry, built the wood-frame house in 1940. Seven years later, the house became the Ernie Pyle Memorial Library and is still open to the public as both a library and a makeshift museum.
I have no home. My home is where my extra luggage is, and where the car is stopped, and where I happen to be getting mail this time. My home is America.
-- Ernie Pyle
