The Ella Mae Cloake Diary is a digital version of a personal daily diary created by Ella Mae Cloake from 1941 to 1944 that documents her life as a high school and college student, in Roseburg and Corvallis, Oregon, during World War II . Cloake received the diary from her brother, Wallace Henry (“Wally”) Cloake as a Christmas gift in 1940. This “Five Year Diary” includes one page for each day of the year (e.g. January 1) with a few lines allotted for the daily entry from each year. Cloake’s diary entries are short, consisting of a few phrases or sentences describing the weather for that day and her activities. The earliest entry is for January 1, 1941 and the last entry was made in early September 1944.
The diary includes handwritten entries made by Cloake during her first two terms at Oregon State in Winter and Spring 1944 as well as her last years of high school. Several entries of note are her mention of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the U.S. declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941. In her diary entry for December 9, 1943, she writes that Oregon State “accepted me”, that she had sent in her $5 fee, and that she had asked for her resignation at the Soldier’s Home. Her December 13, 1943 entry notes she had received some small pictures of her brother Wally from Australia. For June 6, 1944, she wrote that the D-day invasion of France was underway and that she had attended a D-Day church service. She makes brief references to exams, studying, and meeting with her advisor in entries during the time she was an Oregon State student. In addition to her daily entries, the diary includes expenses and income, lists of gifts received for her high school graduation, family birthdays, and addresses.
This digital surrogate was made from the original diary loaned to the Special Collections and Archives Research Center in 2016. Two different PDF files of the diary are available for reference use upon patron request. Both files include the entirety of the diary; one is higher resolution and a larger file (2.7 Gbytes) and the second is a smaller file (38 Mbytes).
