“What is history to some is a clear and present momentous event to others among us.”
— William T. Thomas
When we were children, my siblings and I became aware of Pearl Harbor Day as a day of remembrance, for two very different reasons.
Finding the farm
Our parents had married in a big church wedding in June 1951, and lived in an upstairs apartment in town while my father, with great hope and enthusiasm, searched for a farm to rent the moment he left his factory job each day. He felt mighty blessed when an older couple agreed to rent their farm, and the childhood home of the wife, to these newlyweds.
It was Dec. 7, 1951, when the young couple moved into the home where they would build their lives together, raising their children while growing their farms.
History
As a youngster, I knew that we always noted Pearl Harbor Day with reverence. In my heart, I knew it was important both in American history and in the history of my parents’ young love story. It seemed so remote, though, only touched upon as a page in history.
With the innocence and naivete of youth, what I wasn’t able to discern then is that a mere 10 years had passed from the horrific day in 1941 to the day the young newlyweds began life on the farm that raised us.
Not so long ago
I was oblivious to the fact that the moment was not a dim and historical note, but instead was a singular, shocking day that stood clearly emblazoned for my parents and their peers.
The young, dark-haired boy who would one day become my father had been sitting with his grandfather listening to the radio as they did nearly every chilly Sunday afternoon after church when regular programming was interrupted with the alarming news that bombs had been dropped on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
Dad was just a few months shy of his 10th birthday, and from that day forward, his memory was sliced into the before and after. All the young men he looked up to began making plans to sign up to serve their country, changing the tiny farming community drastically for the duration of the war. The very young stepped into those big shoes on the farms and in the villages as best they could.
All these years later, when I see the date in print, December 7, 1941, it still shocks me to think it was not a date far removed from us as just a page in the history book. Instead, it was a Sunday still very sharp and clear for my parents as they packed their humble possessions into boxes and started their lives as a young farm couple with high hopes and great patriotic pride.
