December 6, 1941 (Saturday)

Edna does her "usual" Saturday work.

Cleaning up and a

little colder.

Did usual Sats work

of baking + cleaning

and then couldn't get

every thing done.

Alice worked at John

Livingston's to-day.

Shirley and Roger stayed

with me all day.

Morse and Frances

came this evening.

Stay a while then

went o stay all-night

with Mrs. McCarty.

---

The world will change for Edna, her family, and the rest of the United States just a few hours following this journal entry. On this day, however, Edna tried to get her normal routine of baking and cleaning done.

She writes, "...and then couldn't get everything done."

I suspect that she meant that she was unable to finish her work because she ended up watching over Shirley and Roger (two of her grandkids) and was then visited by Morse (her son) and his wife Frances.

I am struck by this simple and uneventful entry. It was just a day like any other. Edna, like Americans across the nation, were unaware that the next day would become one of the most significant days in American History.

December 6, 1941 was a quiet day at Pearl Harbor, too. Arles Cole (who was just 17 at the time) spent the day Christmas shopping. The next morning, as he stepped onto the navigational bridge of his ship, he heard explosions as someone shouted, "we are under attack."

Read more about Arles Cole's story from this 2016 post on AmericanLegion.org.

Pearl Harbor survivor Arles Cole in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. Photo by Lucas Carter.