A view of World War II from the home front

Friday, Dec. 7, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

The movie had just ended at the theater, one of the largest in Rockford, Ill., when the young couple heard the shouts of the newsboys.

"Extra, extra! Read all about it! Pearl Harbor attacked!"

Virginia Wells turned to her date, a sergeant stationed at a nearby Army camp.

"Where's Pearl Harbor?" the 22-year-old asked.

Today Wells is 87. She has lived an extraordinarily full life, serving in the Women's Army Corps, traveling the country as her husband's Army assignments required, raising her family. Her memories span nearly nine decades. Some are as sharp as the chisel in her father's workshop, the one he used to make her toys. Others are more grainy, like the pink-sand beaches of Bermuda, where she and her children were stationed with her husband during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

But Dec. 7, 1941, remains somehow frozen in time.

There are some things, Wells told Desert Rose Adult High School students Wednesday, you don't forget.

Sandra Ransel, principal of Desert Rose, said she invited her mother to speak to the history class to help students understand that "little people are part of big events."

Ransel was teaching this week to satisfy a new law, which requires administrators to lead a classroom at least one day each academic year. Wednesday's social studies class provided an ideal forum for her mother's World War II remembrances.

She told the students about the coupon books for buying shoes and the rationing of sugar and flour and meat. Wells eventually joined the Women's Army Corps and was assigned to nursing duties at a military hospital near Chicago. That's where she met Gordon Wells, who went from being her "most annoying patient" to her husband. She told the students about the night he and his buddies helped one of her patients "escape" in his wheelchair to join them for an evening of beer and dancing at a local tavern. The man drank his beer and got up and danced - the first time he had walked since being wounded in the Pacific Theater.

Gordon Wells' military career took the family all over the country, including stints in Wisconsin and Colorado Springs. When he retired, the Wellses joined their daughter in Las Vegas. In 2004 Gordon Wells became the first veteran to earn his high school diploma at Desert Rose. He died last year.

Her husband had kept in close touch with his Army buddies, and for decades there were regular reunions. But of the old crowd only a handful remain.

For Patrick Heath, who graduates from the school in March, hearing about Virginia Wells' experiences "was much better than just reading about history in a book." His grandfather also served in World War II, and Heath said he plans to ask him some questions the next time they are together.

"He tried to tell me stories when I was a little kid but I wasn't old enough to understand," said Heath, 18. "Now I get that it's important."

On Wednesday the school's library was turned into a museum of sorts, dedicated to the vast branches of Ransel's family tree. Students thumbed through dog-eared diaries and examined hand-tinted portraits and worn scrapbooks, many dating to the 1880s.

Ransel urged students to consider their family histories as they gently handled hers. Write down stories, talk to your older relatives, collect pictures and put them somewhere safe, Ransel told the students.

"History isn't just people who make it," she said. "It's the people who record it."

At least one of the artifacts was old enough to perplex Candace Martin, 23, who will earn her diploma from Desert Rose in February.

"What is this?" asked Martin, holding a small brown album, embossed with the word "Autographs" on its mother-of-pearl cover.

That is how friends once remembered one another, back in the days when photography was rare, never mind cell phone cameras. Inside the book are brief quotations, snippets of poetry and wishes for health, happiness and joy.

A cool idea, Martin said.

"I'm gonna do this."