Martha Wright

Martha Wright completed high school in 1941 and then went to live with her aunt and uncle in Chester, Pennsylvania.

In her interview, she recalls hearing about Pearl Harbor while getting ready for church, and discusses how it impacted her community in the months that followed the attack.

Hearing about Pearl Harbor

Yeah, Pearl Harbor, I’ll never forget that day. I finished high school in 1941, and I went to Chester, Pennsylvania to live with my aunt and uncle that fall. We were getting ready for church that Sunday morning – it happened on a Sunday morning – and I was standing in the living room. And we had the radio on, and they said something like, “The United States is now in war.” I don’t remember much more after that. I don’t know if we continued getting dressed to go to church or whether we stayed home because we were so upset about it. But that’s all. But after that, things began to get busy. Jobs began to get plentiful, and boys going to the service, and going to the train to see them go off to the service. It was kinda sad for me to see them leave home.