Martha Tolles was born in Oklahoma City [Annotator’s Note: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma] in 1921. She grew up in New York City, New York. The Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] was hard and there were signs up for the WPA [Annotator's Note: the Works Progress Administration was a federally sponsored program that put unemployed Americans to work during the Great Depression]. Tolles was attending college when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. She heard about the attack on the radio. It was scary and shocking. Life changed for them. Very quickly, the young men all disappeared. Girls started to change. Before, they wore pearls and skirts, and then they started wearing jeans and shirts that belonged to their brothers or fathers. Tolles was invited to join the WAVES [Annotator's Note: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; United States Naval Women's Reserve] and she learned how to decode. She dropped out of the WAVES because she was worried she would not be able to marry because he was an officer in the Navy as well. Tolles worked for the newspaper after she graduated. Roy signed up to be a pilot. He got his commission in the Navy. Tolles got on a train to go to Texas. The train was filled with soldiers. When she worked for the newspaper, she would interview families whose sons were injured or killed in battle. All the new wives gathered together in a hotel. They all had to get married on the same day in the base chapel. Each pilot only had 15 minutes to get married. She was married 21 June 1944. Then they had to go to Daytona Beach [Annotator’s Note: Daytona Beach, Florida]. They spent one night in New Orleans [Annotator’s Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] on the way. If people had a spare room, they would put a sign in their window room for rent.

Martha Tolles went to Florida in June [Annotator’s Note: of 1944] with her husband. They got a month off and went back to visit their families in New York. Then he was sent to Laguna Beach, California and she went with him. Her husband joined the Marine Corps when he was commissioned. They were in California for six months. The weather was nice in the winter. The young pilots were daring. Sometimes they would turn out the lights and follow the exhaust of the plane in front of them. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died and Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] took over. She felt like they lost their good, experienced leader. They thought could Truman handle it. Her husband had to train for combat at Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California]. Then he went to San Diego to prepare for departure. Tolles went back to New York and lived with her mother. She got a job with another newspaper. Her husband was sent to the Marshall Islands. They were being held there in preparation for the invasion of Japan. He had to fly over nearby islands that were still occupied by the Japanese. His plane was shot in the fuel tank and he was lucky to make it back to base. Several days before the bombs had been dropped [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945], there were white pieces of paper being dropped in New York. Truman was astonished by the casualties on Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg; 1 April to 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan] and this persuaded him to drop the bombs. Her husband returned home close to Christmas time [Annotator’s Note: of 1945].

Martha Tolles got a phone call saying her husband was coming home. He wanted her to fly out to LA [Annotator’s Note: Los Angeles, California] to meet him. Then he was to report to Brooklyn [Annotator's Note: Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York City, New York]. They found a ride in a car to cross the country. There was happiness because the war was over. Her husband enjoyed flying. He went to law school after the war. They were married for 66 years. He used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] to go to law school. Her husband went on to open a law firm in California. They had five sons and one daughter. Tolles had back problems and had to have back surgery. While she was laying in bed healing, she decided to start writing a children’s book. Her husband lost a button on his uniform and Tolles put a safety pin on it. He saluted an officer and the officer gave him some trouble about it. The war changed the country. She thought the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] was fabulous.