In
1917, President Wilson declared war against Germany on Good Friday. That’s
fine, I guess, except it caused me extra work to get history right.
I
spent a lot of time on the first chapter of my current work in progress, and I
was pretty happy with it as a first draft. Then I was going through some old
hymnals, thumbed through the Easter hymns, and realized that two of the
important historical events underlying my story had taken place the first week
of April, when Easter sometimes falls. Sure enough, Easter fell on April 8 in
1917, meaning that the United States’ April 6 declaration of war against
Germany fell on Good Friday.
So
why was that a problem? The first chapter couldn’t have happened the way I
wrote it. I started with the paperboy crying “Extra! Extra! U.S. declares war
on Germany.” That would have been okay, except my protagonist and her friends
heard the announcement as they left her Lutheran school that afternoon. No
parochial school—and few, if any, public schools in those days—would have been
open on Good Friday.
The
fix has them leaving the Good Friday service at their church. Unfortunately, doing
involves quite of bit of reorganization as well as both additions and
subtractions. I can, however, use some of the cut material later in the story.
So the work I had already done isn’t a complete waste.
I’m
just glad I caught my mistake in time.
__________
The
image at the head of this post is a 16th century painting attributed
to Frans Pourbus the Elder. It is in the public domain because of its age.
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