Audie Murphy

Audie Murphy's boyhood was a sharecropper's. The plaque says he was one of nine children and finished the eighth grade at Celeste. The Handbook of Texas counts twelve children, and Wikipedia, drawing on his biographers, says he left school in the fifth grade to pick cotton for a dollar a day after his father deserted the family. His mother died in 1941. He hunted with a rifle to feed his brothers and sisters, then worked at a Greenville radio shop and a store, garage and gas station before he enlisted.

What the plaque says

Audie Murphy Most decorated soldier in World War II. Born 4.5 miles south, June 20, 1924, sixth of nine children of tenant farmers Emmett and Josie Killian Murphy. Living on various farms, Audie Murphy went to school through the 8th grade in Celeste -- considered the family's home town. He had to quit school to help support the family, acquiring marksmanship skills by hunting to provide food. On his 18th birthday, after being rejected by the Marines because of his size (5 feet, 7 inches; 130 pounds), he enlisted in the Army while working in Greenville. For unusual courage and bravery, he received 24 decorations, including the U. S. Congressional Medal of Honor; the French Legion of Honor, Chevalier: the Distinguished Service Cross; and a Silver Star. After the war he became a successful actor, his most prominent role portraying himself in the film "To Hell and Back," his war career autobiography. Following his untimely death in a plane crash in Virginia, May 28, 1971, and burial in Arlington National Cemetery, the U. S. Congress paid him a final tribute, dedicating a new veterans' hospital in San Antonio to the memory of this American hero. Survived by widow Pamela, sons Terry and James. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 13 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 26 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Celeste — 0.3 mi
• Birthplace of Mack Harrell — 0.6 mi
• Headwaters of the Sabine River — 2.4 mi
• Kingston Baptist Church — 3.0 mi