A little piece of family history on this Pearl Harbor Day 2021. Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor. This is a page from my great grandfather Joseph Winterkorn’s ‘Ledger’ as he called it. This is where he documented his finances and important events in his life. I received a copy of this ledger several years ago from my Uncle Arthur who lived in Hawaii and worked for the Pearl Harbor port authority.

Greatest news that ever came after days of worry about the fate of our dear son Arthur in the far away Hawaiian Islands, where on the morning of Dec 7th 1941 the treacherous forces of Japan swept over Pearl Harbor causing destruction of life and property to the unsuspecting inhabitants, was a telegram received here on the night of Dec 13, 1941 at 11:15 saying:
“Alls well. love Arthur Winterkorn”
Indescribable are the feelings which those few words carried to us all.
He left the home for those far away lands on the 6th of August 1941 with so much hope and ambition to prepare himself for a better future in life.
Fate grant him life and success.
Written Dec 14th 1941.