Mrs. Gunn's Diary: Jan. 1, 1942

One month after Pearl Harbor, she pays close attention to the war news

“Warm and rainy,” Mrs. Gladys Gunn wrote in her page-a-day diary from her lovely brick home in northwest Washington, D.C., using a blue fountain pen. Her handwriting was precise, elegant, and — fortunately for me — easy to read.

“We soon will have been at war with the Axis powers one month Jan. 4th. “Today we expect to hear Manila has fallen. In the radio it was predicted that the war would last 3 to 10 years — Heavens! Praying and hoping and working may end it sooner."

The prediction was correct, but fortunately it was closer to three years than 10 when the war ended with the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945.

At the end of the diary, she turned to domestic matters. Her husband, Ross Gunn Sr., was at work. Their oldest son, Ross, Jr., who was 13, was on a Boy Scout camping trip. Her maid had quit, so she was managing the household and her remaining children, all boys: Leigh, 9, Charlie, 5, and Bob, who was a baby.

“Today was declared a day of prayer all over the land,” she noted. “Churchill and Roosevelt attended church.”

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The editorial cartoon above appeared on the front page of the Jan. 1, 1942 Washington Evening Star, accessed via newspapers.com.