Declaration of War

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“When Pearl Harbor was bombed, I was in college. It was Sunday afternoon and we were studying for final exams and one girl came running down the halls saying ‘the President has – Pearl Harbor’s been bombed and the President has declared war.’ And we – of course we didn’t know what Pearl Harbor was but we knew that it was something that belonged to the United States and that it was something very crucial since the President declared war and we were all just in a tizzy about it. We didn’t know – we just didn’t know what was going to happen. Well there were a lot, we had an ROTC at school and there were a lot of our friends who were in ROTC and we were already picturing them having to go. So it was a really tense time and a scary time and one good thing about it is that the nice professors that were having the final exams the next day said they would not have final exams. That was the best thing about the whole thing."

Editor's Note: At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, Edith was attending the University of Georgia earning an undergraduate degree in sociology. While she initially intended to study journalism, she switched to a major applicable to social work. She became interested in this field due to seeing firsthand the impact many of the New Deal programs had on others.