Over the years, Del Mar College has recognized many former presidents, regents, faculty, and students who have contributed to the college. Surprisingly however there is none for the professor whose death in 1985 was noted in newspapers throughout the United States.

She was Dr. Edith Parker who wrote the declaration of war against Japan on Dec. 8, 1941. Any exhibit would need to include a facsimile of the document and the letter from Lyndon Johnson to Dr. Parker expressing an interest in lecturing at Del Mar. It was because she was there.

I first came to Del Mar in 1967. Although I had not intended to teach at a junior college because of its limited course offerings, the college recruiter, Grady Sinclair, whom I met in Houston, assured me that Del Mar was about to become a four-year college, and PhDs were required for teaching these specialized courses. My wife and I had lunch with Dr. Parker, chair of the History Department, and Dr. Aileen Creighton from the English Department. The Music Department was nationally recognized for its outstanding faculty and the newly completed library with its two extra floors for future expansion indicated the seriousness of what Sinclair had told me. From all that I saw and heard I wanted to become involved in this exciting venture.

Although four-year status never happened, there was little time for regrets about coming, not with classes to teach, students to mentor, and the research and writing expected from a PhD. For encouragement I was assigned a student typist and all the while, I was learning about the History Department’s remarkable chairperson.

Edith Helen Parker was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1905. Following high school, she attended the Fredericksburg Virginia State Normal School and taught in elementary schools in that state. She then became a reporter at the Washington Herald.  In 1934 she left the Herald to become congressional aid to Texas Sen. Tom Connally, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At her boarding house in Washington, she made friends with fellow lodger Lyndon Johnson, aide to Texas congressman Richard Kleberg.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Capitol was abuzz with the horrendous news of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. The following morning an urgent message arrived at Connally’s office. President Roosevelt wanted a declaration of war brought to him immediately. With Connally temporarily absent, the responsibility fell to Edith. Hurrying to the Library of Congress she and an associate were temporarily blocked by a Marine unit installing machine gun emplacements in anticipation of an imminent attack on the Capitol. The document Edith found useful was the 1917 declaration of war against Germany. After rewriting it, she had it on Connally’s desk just in time.

Only 45 minutes after the president finished his “date which will live in infamy” speech, the Senate voted for war. As Edith later recalled, “I didn’t realize that I was making history, for it was my copy that was voted in the Senate.”

While still in Washington, Edith completed a bachelor’s degree at George Washington University, then moved to Austin for master’s and PhD degrees at UT. Her advisor there was noted Texas historian Walter Prescott Web. In 1948 Edith served on the national committee that selected the Five Greatest United States Senators providing material that John F. Kennedy would later use in his “Profiles in Courage.”

In 1958 Edith came to Del Mar as History Department chair the same year that John Carroll received a Pulitzer Prize there. When she retired in 1970, Edith moved to Austin where UT provided an office from which she conducted research on her mentor, Tom Connally. Due to health problems, her book was never completed, and she spent her final years at a nursing home in Augusta, Georgia, passing in 1985.

I last saw Edith in January 1981 when she came to Corpus Christi to hear a guest speaker at Del Mar. The three of us were having dinner at the Albatross restaurant when I asked her why Del Mar never became a four-year college. She became upset and I regretted having brought it up. “It’s all my fault,” she replied woefully. “I had [—] in Austin on the phone and he told me, ‘You can go ahead, Edith. It’s been approved,’ but I never thought to ask him where the funding was coming from.”

I wish I had told Dr. Parker that her achievements were far more important and reminded her of the day, Dec. 8, 1941, when she made history.

Norman C. Delaney PhD, retired Del Mar College professor, is both a Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award winner and Dr. Aileen Creighton Award for Teaching Excellence winner.