Pyle archives contribution reflects columnist’s legacy
A box of clippings that gave a young mother hope during World War II has found its way to the school’s archives.
California resident Sandra Hunnicutt contacted The Media School after finding a 70-year-old typewriter paper box filled with newspaper clippings of Ernie Pyle’s columns from the Tulsa World. She contacted the school through its website after learning of its connection to the World War II correspondent.
“The clippings themselves aren’t that unusual, but her story about her mother’s memories of those years is special,” said Gena Asher, digital content manager at the school who responded to Hunnicutt’s email and forwarded the materials the school’s archivist, Josh Bennett.
Hunnicutt mailed the collection of 50 original clippings in yellowed but near-perfect condition from California to Bloomington. The articles feature the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer’s coverage of battles in the Pacific, including columns Pyle had written but were published after his death from machine gun fire on Ie Shima April 18, 1945.
Hunnicutt said she saved the clippings after remembering the comfort that the columns brought her mother while Hunnicutt’s father was stationed overseas in the Navy.
“As a teenager, I remember these clippings that my mother kept in a box in a storage closet,” said Hunnicutt. “Later, when my mother was in her 90s, I asked her why she kept these clippings for so many years.”
Hunnicutt said her mother replied, “Pyle gave me hope that your father would come back alive. I read Pyle’s columns every time they were in the paper, and I felt connected. I never wanted to forget him. He was a wonderful man.”
The collection was rediscovered after Hunnicutt’s mother moved into a retirement home. “As we were pitching everything out, I saw those clippings, and I remembered how much they meant to my mother. I thought, ‘This is really a historic thing. I should take them before somebody throws them out.’”
But the box was misplaced, then found 25 years later. Hunnicutt’s former brother-in-law returned the box to her at a family reunion last summer.
Hunnicutt’s mother was one of legions of Ernie Pyle fans around the world. The Hoosier, who attend IU as a journalism major in the 1920s and who served as the Daily Student editor, wrote of the war from the soldier’s perspective. He spent time with the troops, getting to know them and sharing their stories in his syndicated columns. He even died among his them, and the shocking news dismayed his readers.
“My mother would pray so hard for my father to come home, and she was so connected to Ernie,” Hunnicutt said. “Then my father came home, and Ernie didn’t.”
The columns and photos she sent to the school will become part of its larger collection, which often is used by researchers and historians.
More: