Mrs. Gunn's Diary: Jan. 6, 1942

The boys want to ice skate; she is shocked by the projected cost of the war

“The weather has cleared and we have real winter,” Mrs. Gunn wrote today. “The boys are hoping they can skate out-of-doors this weekend.” Meanwhile, her husband, a civilian physicist, had “gone to Norfolk to inspect some Navy work.”

But most of her diary entry was devoted to President Roosevelt’s State of the Union speech, given at 2:30 that afternoon. He asked for large numbers of planes and tanks and a military appropriation “so large that it makes people gasp and doubt if our great-grandchildren will recover from it,” she wrote.

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The snapshot of two young boys skating in New York’s Central Park is being offered by a dealer on eBay.