Dana works to raise $1M to maintain Ernie Pyle's legacy
12/26/2010 5:35:35 PM
Indianapolis Star, by Will Higgins
Like many of Indiana's small towns, Dana has been slip-sliding away for
decades, its population shrinking (658 and falling), its amenities all
but gone.
There used to be a pool hall, a dime store, grocery stores, a theater.
Now there's not even a gas station.
But recently, when the cash-strapped state government pulled the plug on
the one feature that made Dana special -- a small museum dedicated to
its one famous son, the World War II journalist Ernie Pyle -- the folks
there made their stand.
They appear to have succeeded, or at least to have won the battle. Last
month, the Indiana Natural Resources Commission agreed to turn over the
Ernie Pyle State Historic Site to the Friends of Ernie Pyle. The
transfer is expected to be completed by the new year.
Now comes the hard part. The Friends' 13 board members, almost all from
in and around Dana, are setting out to raise $1 million for an endowment
fund that could sustain the museum, which has been closed since Veterans
Day.
They're everyday people: a farmer, a hairdresser, an electrician, a
bookkeeper for a fertilizer company. Local volunteers would staff the
museum. There are no archivists here, no historians. There is little
money -- about $40,000, maybe enough to operate for a year.
It may seem like an odd way to treat history. But it's typical. In the
past year, with the economy limping and tax revenues dwindling, states
have closed dozens of historic sites, gutted their staffs or turned them
over to private groups such as the Friends of Ernie Pyle.
Such groups, volunteer-driven, "can't always replicate the
(government's) level of service," said Wendy Nicholas of the National
Trust for Historic Preservation, which last year put state historic
sites on its list of America's most endangered historic places.
"But in tough economic times, when (state governments) are trying to
balance budgets, you see cuts at historic sites, and Friends groups are
absolutely necessary -- they're fabulous."
The Ernie Pyle museum's move toward privatization began a year ago, when
state agencies were ordered by Gov. Mitch Daniels to shave their budgets
by 10 percent. The DNR, which operates Indiana's historic sites, decided
to save $50,000 a year by closing the Pyle museum. Only 1,579 people had
bothered to visit it during the entire year.
The agency's plan was to relocate key Pyle memorabilia to the Indiana
State Museum in Indianapolis. A spokesman promoted the move to the
capital city as a way to increase Pyle's profile.
But the folks back in Dana were having none of it. "Well, Ernie Pyle
wasn't born in Indianapolis!" said Cynthia Myers, president of the
Friends and one of Dana's two hairdressers. "He was born in a little
town, he was born in Dana, and that's where all his writings came through."
Pyle was a classic everyman. His war correspondence resonated with
readers because he wrote not of generals and grand strategies but of
average soldiers -- brave, scared, sleep-deprived grunts on the front
lines who did the heavy lifting.
So famous had Pyle become that when he was killed by a Japanese machine
gunner on April 18, 1945, the president of the United States broke the
news to the nation. Later, schools and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts
would be named for Pyle. Burgess Meredith would play him in a Hollywood
movie.
"We don't have covered bridges. We don't have rock formations," said
Phil Hess, a Dana farmer and the Friends' vice president. "Ernie Pyle is
all we have. If you meet somebody traveling, they say, 'I've never heard
of Dana.' 'Well, it's the home of Ernie Pyle.' That's just what you
say."
The Pyle collection, housed in a Visitor Center and a white frame
farmhouse that was the journalist's birthplace, contains, among other
items, Pyle's typewriter, his father's rocking chair, vintage
photographs, mannequin displays depicting World War II scenes and a
taped reading of "The Death of Captain Waskow," possibly Pyle's most
memorable column, by actor William Windom.
The facility became a state historic site in 1976 with the help of the
American Legion, which raised more than $100,000 from its members to
have the structure moved from Dana's outskirts into town.
Earlier this month, Myers and others on the Friends' board met with the
Legion and other veterans groups to seek further contributions. But
these days, tapping old soldiers for money for Ernie Pyle may be harder
than it was 40 years ago, when World War II veterans were plentiful and
in their prime earning years.
The Friends added two journalism executives to their board with the idea
that they could raise money from newspaper companies, but none has come in.
The town of Dana has no money to chip in -- it's busy building a sewage
treatment facility (agenda item for Dec. 14 Town Board meeting: "Sewage
salary for Tony and Misty"). Vermillion County's commitment begins and
ends with keeping the museum's small lawn mowed and its hedge trimmed.
Said farmer Hess: "History is a fragile thing. It can disappear overnight."
It is, it can and it does.
Since the recession, state historic sites across the country have been
hit as state governments try to cope with shrinking tax dollars. Late in
2008, Illinois shuttered 14 of its historic sites. They have since
reopened with skeleton staffs.
Earlier this year, Pennsylvania closed Washington Crossing Historic
Park, the site where George Washington and his troops famously crossed
the Delaware River on Christmas Day, 1776. A private group took over the
site last summer, and visitors continue to flock there.
Unlike Washington, Pyle has not shown much historical staying power. In
2005, for instance, another house in western Indiana where Pyle once
lived -- it was empty, a haven for vandals and had become a nuisance --
was demolished, with little fuss. And last year, the Pyle site drew by
far the fewest visitors of Indiana's 12 historic sites -- five times as
many people visited the site of T.C. Steele, and Steele, a landscape
painter, has been dead nearly 100 years.
Indiana's state government has shed history before. After an economic
downturn in the 1980s, it walked away from the Wilbur Wright Memorial
Birthplace in tiny Millville and turned it over to a private group.
Things there worked out nicely. Last year, a record-high 9,000 visitors
stopped in. Many were lured by new billboards on I-70 that advise "next
exit turn left." The signs neglect to add: "then drive 8 miles," so by
the time visitors arrive at the Wright birthplace, some are mildly
peeved. But they buy their tickets all the same, and many visit the gift
shop.
The museum is in the black this year to the tune of $5,700.
But if Wright's site is charmingly off the beaten path, Pyle's is in the
all-out boondocks. Twenty-five miles north of Terre Haute, Dana is not
on the way to anywhere, unless your destination is Bono or Randall. It's
about 30 miles from any interstate. The nearest grocery store is 10
miles away in Cayuga.
Bad geography, short memories -- the Friends of Ernie Pyle know the
impracticality of their mission. They don't delude themselves into
thinking the Ernie Pyle museum will drive tourism or do anything
tangible for the community.
"We're going to advertise," Hess said, "but I don't know how many
people
we would attract. You have to want to go to a small museum about World
War II and journalism. And not everybody wants that."
Still, Hess, whose family has farmed in the vicinity since the 1880s,
sees the little museum's preservation as a responsibility.
"And the state's not going to do it," he said.
"So we will."
Call Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043.