Family Relationships
During the war women on the home front took on new roles. Edith Sokol married Victor Speert in 1942 and moved from base to base with him fourteen times over the next two years. When Victor was deployed to Europe in 1944 Edith got a job in a day care center. Before long she was named director of the True Sisters Day Care Center in Cleveland. Her new responsibilities were important and challenging. In October 1945 she wrote to her husband about how she thought she was changing:
Last night Mel and I were talking about some of the adjustments we’ll have to make to our husbands’ return. I must admit I’m not exactly the same girl you left I’m twice as independent as I used to be and to top it off, I sometimes think I’ve become “hard as nails” hardly anyone can evoke any sympathy from me. No one wants to hear my troubles and I don’t want to hear theirs. Also more and more I’ve been living as I want to and I don’t see people I don’t care about I do as I d ____ please. As a whole, I don’t think my changes will affect our relationship, but I do think you’ll have to remember that there are some slight alterations in me.318
Of necessity, many women became more independent during the war years. Large numbers left their homes to enter the workforce, representing a new phenomenon in our culture. Those women staying at home also became used to shouldering more responsibility and to making decisions on their own. In the decades since the war these trends have continued and have presented challenges within the family. Fortunately, even though the culture has changed, our guidelines for successful family relationships have not. The Bible continues to be our authority. God ordained that marriage should be a relationship of such depth that it reflects Christ’s own all-consuming and sacrificial love for his church. In this sense it is a partnership between a husband and wife who love each other and submit to each other unselfishly and generously.
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy… each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
—Ephesians 5:21, 22, 25, 33
War bond poster. (National Archives)
World War II recruiting poster. (National Archives)
Women working on a B-17 bomber. (National Archives)