Pearl Harbor Memories

Disasters can be great prompts for family history interviews. Many years ago, when my daughter was in high school, she used Pearl Harbor Day as the basis for interviewing some of the older members of our family.  After this we also did some interviews based around the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962), the Kennedy Assassination (22 November 1963), and the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.  Perhaps other infamous historical events can be used as similar interview prompts in other countries.

The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor

The American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was attacked by the Japanese on 7 December 1941, a day President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed “… a date that shall live in infamy.”   This was over 70 years ago, so very few relatives will be able to remember this date.  Here are the transcribed notes my daughter made:

"Where were you when you heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and what was your reaction?"

Phyllis (age 67 years at the time of the interview): I remember that day because I was six years old and the only thing I remember about it really is my mother crying because my brother was..., I had five brothers and the oldest one was sixteen I think at the time... and she knew that he was going to have to go to war. That really upset my mother. [Two of her five brothers ended up in the service; one in the Pacific and the other in Occupied Europe]

Shirley (age 76 years at the time at the time of the interview): I remember that. I was standing in the kitchen, ironing, I was ironing a blouse, getting ready to go to church. I heard the news, and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't absorb what it actually meant to me. It really didn't all sink in until later, but then I heard Kate Smith coming on and singing “God Bless America.” And standing there crying my eyes out as I ironed, because it was so touching. I was beginning to realize what it was going to mean to the country.

Robert (age 77 years at the time of this interview, he has since passed away): I was listening to a football game at my house on 7 Dearborn Avenue [Beverly, Massachusetts]. I was about your age, in high school. And my reaction was “Japan? Attacking us? We’ll have them wiped out by Christmas time.”

Shirley: At the time.... I’m a nurse. And I was taking care of a lady whose father was the ambassador to Japan. At the time of the war, before, and during the war. And Ambassador Grew, his name was, from Manchester (MA), and he was... She showed me lots of papers and things that he had written about what he claims in writing. And they showed me a copy of the letter, the family owns. That he had told the president, that Japan was about to do something, he didn’t know that Pearl Harbor was actually going to happen, but it was going to be Pearl Harbor. But he knew because of his position, and contacts, that there was about to be some sort of a war with Japan, and he was ignored completely. When he went and had an interview, I saw the letter that he wrote to the president, Roosevelt, and told him what was happening, and what steps he thought should be taken. Because, perhaps, president Roosevelt was old and ill at the time, he wasn’t using good judgment and he never furthered that information on. And then Pearl Harbor happened.

[See this link to a Wikipedia article about US Ambassador Joseph Grew (1880 – 1965),  who was interned by the Japanese following the Pearl Harbor attack  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Grew ]

Note: I still have the audio tapes of my daughter’s interviews. I remember she was very serious about the assignment, since September 11th, 2001 was only just two years earlier during her first week of high school.  This is especially memorable because my uncle has passed away since the interview. My aunt, uncle and Mom spoke for over an hour about the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and the home front during World War II. By the end of the World War II, my uncle Robert was serving as a paratrooper medic in Europe.

About ten years later I was able to take my mother to Hawaii with me, and one of the places she most wanted to visit was Pearl Harbor.  It was fun taking her to see the sights, and very moving to visit the USS Arizona with her and to hear more of her memories of that time period in history.  The museum at Pearl Harbor had some wonderful exhibits of the war and of the home front.  Visiting museums like this with your parents and grandparents can lead to lots of great family history memories. 

Vincent and I at Pearl Harbor with Mom, 2012

Don’t Be Reluctant to Say “I Was Wrong”

I have met those that meet a suggestion that the information about and an ancestor’s information could be wrong with hostility, derision, or just ignoring you.  I can say, I am not one of those.

The research on Jasper Newton Wells has never stopped since I first began trying to find the Hero’s family in 1980.  It started out as a granddaughter telling her memories of her grandmother, Martha Ann Maloura Wells, and the little information she had on her grandmother’s parents.  From there I turned to the Clayton Library Center for GenealogicalResearch in Houston for more information.  Mom said they were in Alabama.  My search began with looking for Jasper Wells in Alabama 1860. I searched the Alabama AIS Census Index for him.  I could not find him.  I was beginning to doubt.   Each time I went to the Library, I went back to the index in hopes.  This went on for a couple of years.  Then one day, when I opened the index, my eyes strayed to the other page, and there he was!  His name had been entered in the index out of alphabetical order.  This was one of my first research lessons; don’t trust an index to have all the information or even the correct information.  The second lesson on the same principle was searching through a book on Henry County, Alabama, “History of Henry County I”.  Jasper’s name was not in the index, but his daughter said he served in the Civil War.  I decided to browse through the different troops they had listed from that county.  There I found Jasper listed as a private in the Irwin Invincibles, subsequently called Henry Light Infantry with at note that said they were dispersed to Georgia 25^th Infantry, Co. E. 

I sent to the National Archives and Records Service requesting information on his Civil War Service. I received the information back that left me at 1862 and a big question mark.  Jasper in Nov. 1862 was at “St John’s “ sick.  

This is now found on Fold3 

Knowing that he was sick, and following the Georgia 25^th Infantry Co. E, I found a Jasper Wells who died in Virginia in 1864 of Typhoid. That seemed logical, hence pencil in death in 1864 Virginia…  Then later I found Nancy in the Ancestry.com collection “Alabama, Confederate Pension and Service Records, 1862-1947” with Jasper listed and a death date of Dec 1864.

Nancy Wells of Henry County, Alabama

Eureka! Hi Five! I was sure I had nailed it now.  It was down to finding St. John.  The Family was told of the find and I was doing the happy dance.

 Fast forward one year…  As I was doing some clean up on Jasper’s sourcing, I decided to search some more.  Lo and behold, someone had posted a picture of J N Wells’s tombstone from the Georgia 25^th Company E.  Whoot! 

The person who shared on Ancestry never gave his name dwightbrooks2, this is also on FindaGrave

There it was, so pretty, but wait, it was in Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia in April 1863.  How could this be?  This must be a mistake!  I did some more digging, (I still have inquiries out), only to find out that the Henry Light Infantry was in Savannah in 1862 from where they dispersed. There was a St John’s Church in Savannah, which could be the St. John’s I was looking for.   I looked inquired of the person who had posted the picture of the tombstone where he had found it and who had taken the picture.  He said lived in the area and was looking for Wells in the Civil War area and found it.  He was researching Wells, so he had added it in his tree as an unrelated person until he could research it more.  I then turned to FindaGrave who had more information about the cemetery Laurel Grove Cemetery (North).  Sure enough the grave was listed there. 

I admit it.  I erred.  He apparently never made it out of Savannah, Georgia and was lost in the shuffle.  My only assumption is that Nancy was giving when his death was confirmed to her.  I have not quit digging on harder proof, but I am sure this is our Jasper this time.  Hopefully the vial records were not burned, since the City of Savannah has burial record of his death and burial date. 

And that is me saying, I made a mistake.  It is okay, new information is coming out all the time.  Who would have known that a random save by a non related person would have pointed me to solving the mystery of where Jasper died.