Geraldine Elizabeth (Siebolds) Pyle (1899 - 1945)

Born 23 Aug 1899 in Cottage Grove, Washington County, MN, USA

Ancestors

Died 24 Nov 1945 at age 46 in Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, NM, USA

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Biography

Daughter of John T. Siebolds and Myrtle Morey. She met Ernie Pyle in Washington, D.C., where she had been working as a clerk for the federal government since World War I, and he was a copy editor for the Washington Daily News. They were married July 7, 1925.

Geraldine shared Ernie's wanderlust. In 1926 they toured the U. S. until running out of money, ending up in New York City where Ernie worked for two major dailies. In December 1927, Ernie returned to the Washington Daily News and became its managing editor in 1932.

In 1935, when Ernie wearied of desk work and started on a roving assignment as a Scripps-Howard columnist, she went with him. Before war came, the Pyles had covered Canada, all of the United States, Hawaii, Alaska and South America. They wore out three cars in crossing the States 35 times.

Millions of readers came to know Geraldine through Ernie's war correspondence columns, in which he referred to her as "That Girl."

On April 14, 1942, Geraldine and Ernie Pyle divorced. The following December, while he was on assignment in Africa, he initiated the legalities to remarry. They were remarried by proxy on March 10, 1943; Ernie was in the field while Geraldine was in Albuquerque.

On July 4, 1945, Geraldine received the Medal of Merit, awarded to her husband posthumously by President Truman. The ceremony, held at the Palace Theater in Washington, D.C., included the premier of the movie, "The Story of G.I. Joe," inspired by Ernie Pyle's coverage of the infantry in the North African and Italian campaigns. Ernie's role was played by Burgess Meredith.

In his will, Ernie left Mrs. Pyle their home – a little white clapboard cottage they purchased in 1941, and where she and Ernie lived when they weren't traveling – and $100 weekly for life from a trust. She offered the cottage to the city of Albuquerque as a memorial. Today, the Ernie Pyle Library, an active branch of the Albuquerque Public Library system, located at 900 Girard Blvd SE, Albuquerque, NM, houses a small collection of adult and children's books, as well as Pyle memorabilia and archives. The carefully preserved house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 22, 1997, and designated a National Historic Landmark on September 20, 2006.

Although Mrs. Pyle suffered from a prolonged illness, she had lived alone since her husband's death. Only a nurse attended her at the cottage. She entered St. Joseph's Hospital Wednesday, November 21, 1945, when she was stricken with acute uremic poisoning. She failed to rally and died in the hospital at 7:30 a.m. on Friday.

With her when she died were her sister, Mrs. W.F. Jones of Fort Morgan, Colorado, and brother, Captain Fred M. Siebolds, recently returned from service in India. She was also survived by her mother, Mrs. Myrtle Siebolds, and another sister, Mrs. Roy F. Johnson, both of Stillwater, Minnesota; and another brother, John Siebolds, of Afton, Minnesota.

Geraldine and Ernie had no children of their own.

Information compiled from numerous newspaper reports and G. Kurt Piehler's introduction to the 2001 edition of Ernie Pyle's "Brave Men."^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=130414215