Ruby Nelson shares an extraordinary heritage with a handful of others in Western New York. She was born in Georgia 78 years ago today, a couple of decades before she moved to Buffalo in search of better work and opportunities.
Her birthday was Dec. 7, 1941, now most often called Pearl Harbor Day, recalling when Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the American naval base in Hawaii. Nelson, like many born on that date, said it gave her a birthday no one ever forgets.
When she was little, her family used to kid her about the idea that “while we were going to war because of the day when I was born, I was running around here, raising heck.”
I asked if she had any other particular story about the impact of such an historic birthday, and she thought about it and said she could not think of anything when it came to day-to-day events, but there was one element absolutely central to her life.
“Well,” she said, “my name.”
Ruby Pearl Nelson was born Dec. 7, 1941, and named after Pearl Harbor Day. She was photographed at the home of her daughter, Sonya Graham, in Orchard Park Friday. (John Hickey/Buffalo News)
It turns out her parents did not call her “Ruby,” on a whim. It was intended as a match for her middle name, Pearl, which her parents gave her because of the significance of what happened on that day in Hawaii.
“They knew there was a war going on,” she said, “and they thought it would be the perfect name for me.”
For Ruby Pearl Nelson, whose maiden name was Smith, that meant a lifetime of living out the power of the day. I contacted her after I went looking for Western New Yorkers with Dec. 7, 1941, birthdays – according to the Board of Elections, there are about a dozen who are registered voters in Erie County – while the number of surviving veterans who served at Pearl becomes tinier each year.
The only one I know is Ed Stone, 96, a native of Towanda, Pa., who enlisted at the old Post Office in Buffalo, served on the USS Pyro at Pearl Harbor and ended up working and retiring in Syracuse.
He remains extraordinarily vital. This week, for instance, he spoke before a packed hall at a high school, and he will give a talk Saturday before a Naval Reserves unit. Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh is declaring that Dec. 7 is "Ed Stone Day," a proclamation Stone will accept while nursing a sore back because he went out after the storm and shoveled snow.
Stone is also saddened by the end of a bet he hoped he would not win. Two years ago, in Hawaii, Stone made a bet with his good friend, Bill Garland of Idaho, about which would one would return to Pearl Harbor as a 100-year-old. Garland, a Marine, also served at Pearl. He and Stone became close at those reunions.
The dream was that they both would win the bet and shake hands again someday, in Hawaii.
Garland died in April, at 96.
Ed Stone, who enlisted in Buffalo: One of the few surviving veterans who was at Pearl Harbor. (Sean Kirst/The Buffalo News)
“I guess I’m one of the last ones here,” Stone said. “But I’m very fortunate that I still remember.”
His point is that people should recall not only what happened during the attack on Pearl Harbor, but how the world changed as a result of that day. In Derby, Terry Cooke certainly does. He spoke of the grief he felt this week after a U.S. sailor shot and killed two people at Pearl. Cooke recalls how his great-uncle David served in the Navy with distinction during World War II, and how his visits to Buffalo were inspiration for his nephew.
In grade school, Cooke said, the teachers always pointed out the Pearl Harbor connection to his Dec. 7 birthday. He later served in Vietnam, where he said no one talked about Pearl Harbor Day. In combat, where Cooke earned a Bronze Star, one day meshed into the next.
Eventually, he and his wife Beth had the chance to visit Pearl Harbor. Looking down into the clear water, they saw the ruins of the USS Arizona, memorial and tomb of many servicemen.
On that trip, the magnitude of when Cooke was born was made clear.
Nelson Winter, for his part, remembers his mother telling him that even during labor, “she was scared to death” about reports of the nation going into war. He grew up on a farm in rural Langford, which meant working seven days a week. He recalls how he saw telephone linemen on the job on a nearby road, climbing high on poles, and he knew they probably got weekends off.
Winter joined the Army, came home and went to work for the telephone company. He is retired, but his wife Marilyn often tells him that Pearl Harbor Day means “everybody remembers my birthday.” He often reflects on impossible changes in daily life, on how his mother – on the day he was born – waited anxiously for news of what happened at Pearl Harbor.
Today she would simply glance at alerts on her phone.
“The world,” Winter said, “is just moving so fast.”
One of my favorite stories came from a Buffalo woman who did not want her name in the paper. Her Pearl Harbor birthday meshed with monumental changes in her family. She was the first-born, and she and her mother went to live with her mom's parents while her dad served in the Army, surviving the Battle of the Bulge.
The woman can remember the day her dad returned by train, then wrapped his arms around her at the Central Terminal.
On her childhood birthdays, her family would joke with her: "You started the war."
As for Ron Foster of Tonawanda, he said in a cheerful way that the unfortunate element of a Pearl Harbor Day birthday is that you never forget exactly how old you are, which gets a little tougher as we near the 80th anniversary.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I’m not so anxious to hear it.”
Growing up, he always felt conflicted about Pearl Harbor Day. He was an only child, and his birthday meant a lot to his parents, but once he got into school he began to appreciate what he called “the full somberness” of the day.
Foster realized the day on which his family was joyous about his birth was also a day when millions of Americans contemplated what they lost in World War II. “It cast a little bit of a pall over the whole thing,” he said, especially in the decades just after the war, an intensity that gradually diminished as we move close to 80 years from the time when it was fought.
Raised in Gowanda, Foster was a high school pitcher whose strength was his control. He became a chemical engineer who still works full-time downtown. He knows he and his wife Penny will wake up this morning to see all the old newsreel footage of smoke and fire in Pearl Harbor, and his birthday guarantees he will always honor the service and sacrifice of all those who were there.
Looking ahead, he said the day provides him with a mission, based on the example of a father who lived to be 96 and a grandfather who made it to 98.
“My goal,” Foster said, as he celebrates his birthday, “is to someday say that I’m the last person on the planet who was alive on Pearl Harbor Day.”
Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Buffalo News. Email him at skirst@buffnews.com or read more of his work in this archive.
Thanks for reading Column: For Americans, Dec. 7 is a date which will live in infamy. For some, it's also their birthday - Buffalo News. Please share...!
0 Comment for "Column: For Americans, Dec. 7 is a date which will live in infamy. For some, it's also their birthday - Buffalo News"