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            Auburn University - University Relations
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4/7/95              Janet McCoy 

EASTER FEATURE: ALABAMIANS OBSERVE EASTER WITH MORE HOPE 50 YEARS
AFTER WWII
     AUBURN -- Fifty years ago Alabamians celebrated Easter by
holding all-day prayer vigils, canceling Easter egg hunts, inviting
far-from-home servicemen to dinner, and longing for the end of
World War II.
     Today, Alabamians prepare to celebrate Easter with much more
joy, hope and tradition, say two Auburn University faculty.
     "There was a very strong sense of awareness of what that war
had cost -- not just the hundreds of thousands who died but also a
real consciousness of the loss of living," AU religion professor
Charles Britt says of Easter 50 years ago. 
     "We really don't think in those terms today," says Britt, a
retired Methodist minister who is an adjunct faculty member in AU's
religious studies program in the Department of History. "I think
one of the big differences, and this is not an original thought, is
that the second world war was the last good war. "It was the last
war in which this country felt it was really doing the right thing
by going to war. 
     "There was a feeling that this was something no one wanted to
do, but it was the right thing to do. We don't have that today."
     AU historian Leah Atkins says as Easter 1945 arrived "for
Alabama women, there was hope that the war in Europe would soon be
over, but they worried about the Pacific.
     "Alabamians like Eugene Sledge (Auburn graduate and retired
faculty member at the University of Montevallo) were making
last-minute preparations to invade the Japanese island of Okinawa.
Japanese resistance was still strong, and no one could predict what
the next few months would bring or how many Americans would die."
     According to state newspapers, residents were ever mindful of
the "battle-scarred troubled world," according to an April 1, 1945
Easter edition of The Birmingham News.
     News staff writer Lily May Caldwell wrote: "... never in
history has the hope of Easter been more needed than on this
Resurrection Day when mothers and dads and wives and sweethearts
kneel before altars to lift their hearts in prayer for their loved
ones who are dying on distant battlefields for the victory of good
over evil, the power of love over the love of power.
     "Uniforms predominate in most of the churches where boys and
girls home on leave joined their families in worship, and empty
pews were silent reminders of the men and women of the
congregations who were spending Easter Sunday away from home. And
of those who will not return.
     "Many families were inviting servicemen home to occupy vacant
chairs at the Sunday dinner table, and hoping that other families
somewhere might be showing their own loved ones the same
treatment," Caldwell wrote. "Easter egg hunts were canceled by
churches, civic groups and most families because of the wartime
food shortage."
     In Mobile, the Press-Register  reported a "Round-The-Clock"
prayer vigil with 24 churches joining for continuous worship.
     In Montgomery, the Advertiser  said: "Cathedrals and churches
from coast to coast expected customary throngs for worship -- and
prayer for speedy victory."
     "Easter was always a special time for Christian families,"
says Atkins, director of the Center for Arts and Humanities at AU.
"During wartime it was more so. Letters written in that spring by
Alabama women to their men stationed in the war zones were filled
with descriptions of what the family had planned for Easter.
     "It was a sober time, when Christians felt deeply about he
meaning of life and the meaning of their faith and the message of
Easter. Many little star flags hung prominently in the front
windows of Alabama homes, signifying the ultimate sacrifice of that
family to the American war effort."
     Britt, who in April 1945 was finishing his divinity degree at
Vanderbilt University, remembers his church celebration of Easter.
     "On Friday night, the church was decorated with signs of
mourning. We had a long and intensive repentance service because of
the death of Christ and so many other people due to the war," says
Britt, who was a student minister.
     "We had another service on Saturday, in the late afternoon, in
which we took away the black cloths (of mourning) and replaced them
with white and green as a transition service to death and life. We
related the war to that service that as we continued to mourn, to
do better with our lives because of what these men and women had
lost."
     Following the Saturday service, the church was "completely
redecorated with lilies and greenery, and it was changed into a
fresh, living ,lively thing," he said.
     Britt says if he were going to preach this Easter Sunday, "I
would remind us that always in life we are losing something and it
may be other people's lives or the quality of life in our
community. It seems to me that the necessity of investing to making
up for what is lost is incumbent on us." 
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april95:easter1945
     CONTACT: Britt, 334/844-6776 (mornings only) or 334/821-4127;
Atkins, 334/844-4946.