Naples mayor honors WWII veteran on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

80 years ago, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States was plunged into World War II.

On Tuesday, Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann honored Jo Ellis. She was an 18-year-old nurse for the Navy during WWII. Ellis says she’ll never forget December 7, 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the nation what it must do.

So, with that, Ellis joined the Navy and became a nurse to care for American soldiers. However, to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan, Ellis paid a heavy price like so many other women, men, and children.

“My first husband was killed in the war,” said Ellis.

Her high school sweetheart turned husband never made it home. But Ellis continued saving lives just as hers was being turned upside down. “I enjoyed every minute of it, except for the night I realized this is when my husband was killed,” Ellis said. “It was very hard… ”

80 years later and eight decades after losing her husband, Ellis says she still feels the love. She told WINK News that it was like no other slices and that she still longs for her husband to be by her side.

“I think I would just break down and cry and tell him how I wish I was with him,” said Ellis.

When her time comes, she wants to be laid to rest right next to her husband.

Ellis says she doesn’t think of herself as a hero but more as a person who wants to keep what happened to her from happening to someone else. “My husband gave his life. And, it was my duty to go and save somebody else’s husband to keep them going through what I’ve been through.”

Ellis told WINK News that she just wants everyone to know her and other nurses during WWII gave their all to save as many lives as possible.