February 19, 1945 (Monday)

HANK GOES BEFORE DRAFT BOARD

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Snappy cold. Sunshine

most of day.

Washed, had quite

a large one.

Hank and Ed Moore

drew manure to-day.

Henry went to Alto

this afternoon.

Very tired to-night

going to be early.

Henry, Hank & Ed

went to Grand Rapids

to-night, as Hank

went before the draft

board for a hearing

to consider his status

on the farm vs. induction

to the army,

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Edna isn't writing much in her journal these days about the War. I imagine she is just tired of it and wants it to end. She has no way of knowing that in less than six months, the Japanese will surrender and War will be over.

Edna's youngest son Hank is managing the farm. Henry Sr. is in his 60s and busy with his work as a county commissioner. Edna's son James Lawerence (Bob) lives nearby the farm but is employed full-time and the only parent to two boys. Her son Morse no longer lives in the area. So it is that the farming is left to Hank. Something Hank will do until his death in 2007.

Hank was just 17 when the War began. Now, not yet 22, he is old enough to go off to fight. Edna has likely been worried or many reasons when she notes that Hank was headed to Grand Rapids to go before the draft board,

In 1942, Congress passed the Tydings Amendment to the Selective Service Act, requiring local boards to defer registrants “necessary to and regularly engaged in an agricultural occupation or endeavor essential to the war effort.”

Edna doesn't write the words in her journal, but certainly she is hoping that Hank will be considered "necessary and regularly engaged in an agricultural occupation."

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On this same day in WWII History:

The Fourth and Fifth Marines, commanded by Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, USMC, land on Iwo Jima.