In February of 1942, a baby boy was born to Lura and Alfred Bowles of Carswell, West Virginia.
What did they name him?
Larry Allen — after Associated Press war correspondent Laurence Edmund “Larry” Allen, the “sea-going Associated Press war correspondent whose experiences with the British fleet in the Mediterranean [had] thrilled millions of newspaper readers” a month earlier.
Those “blow-by-blow action stories of Mediterranean warfare” were so thrilling in fact that, several months later, 33-year-old Larry Allen won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.
Interestingly, journalist Larry Allen was born (in 1908) with the name Lawrence Finzel. He was named after his father Lawrence Finzel, a “world champion coal miner.” As a teenager, “[d]etermined to carve out his own unique identity,” he altered the spelling of his first name. Sometime in the 1930s, after working in newspapers for several years, he changed his name again — adopting the surname Allen, and publishing stories under the nom de plume “Larry Allen.” (I’m not sure if the middle name Edmund was given at birth or added later on.)
Sources:
- “Allen Namesake.” Prescott Evening Courier 12 Feb. 1942: 3.
- “Larry Allen’s Mediterranean Stories Win Pulitzer Prize.” Palladium-Item [Richmond, Indiana] 5 May 1942: 2.
- Larry Allen Bowles – Find a Grave
- Larry (Finzel) Allen – Find a Grave
- “Miner Recollections: ‘Larry Allen’ Finzel, coal miner’s prodigal son.” Cumberland Times-News 9 Dec. 2018.
- Associated Press advertisement. Spokesman-Review 4 Jun. 1942: 10.