The Wives of Los Alamos

If you have enjoyed past posts about the Manhattan Project and Oak Ridge, or if you have enjoyed either of the Oak Ridge/Manhattan Project books I've reviewed, you will probably enjoy The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit.

Los Alamos was one of the three principal sites of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to design and build the world's first atomic weapons. To review, Los Alamos was the site responsible for designing and building the weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, using fuels supplied by Oak Ridge and Hanford.

Although Ms Nesbit calls her book a novel, it's unlike any novel I have ever read. To me, it fell into a grey area between fiction and non-fiction. It reads more like an aggregated, collective memoir. She tells the stories of the wives who accompanied their scientist husbands to a remote mesa in New Mexico, the minutiae of living in a town under construction, war-time shortages, raising children, building community, being cut off from families and the rest of the world, and not knowing why they were there, except for "the war effort." Her voice is that of all the wives; "we wondered about..., we wore ...," etc. She tells of the aliases the families were given and the distracting answers they were given to answer questions that never should have been asked. She speaks of "the Director" and of "the General" without ever saying "Oppenheimer" or "Groves," but we know who she means and we share her secret. And at the end, as the scientists and their families deal with what they have created, say goodbye to colleagues and neighbors, and prepare to return to their universities or seek new jobs, we share some of their conflicted emotions about the experience.

When my wife and I first visited Los Alamos in the early 1970s, we had already lived in Oak Ridge for nearly four years and had heard many stories about life during the war years. Entering Los Alamos was almost like entering a slightly different Oak Ridge. The houses were of the same age, many of the same design. The greatest difference seemed to be that the deciduous trees of Oak Ridge had been replaced with pines. And the stories Nesbit tells are both the same and different from the Oak Ridge stories; it's like entering a slightly different Oak Ridge.

Christmas greetings

Have a happy

Victorian Christmas



The Girls of Atomic City

I've written before about Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project, the race with the Germans to build an atomic bomb during World War II. Much has been written about the Manhattan Project and the three sites (Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington) that were created to carry out this important work. The latest focuses on the young women, many fresh out of high school, who were enlisted to fill critical jobs in Oak Ridge, jobs that could not be filled by men because they were off fighting a war.

The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan tells the oral histories of women who came to Oak Ridge in their teens to perform jobs that were held in tight secrecy. Interviewed when they were in their 80s and 90s, these women had had no inkling of what their jobs entailed until the news of the Hiroshima bomb dropping appeared in local newspapers. They knew only that the jobs were contributing to the war effort. Many came from distant places, not knowing what their destination was until their trains pulled into the station in Knoxville, Tennessee. And then they could not tell anxious parents back home anything about their new lives, only that they were well and contributing to winning the war. They came from farms and coal mining camps, small towns and big cities. They endured mud, shortages, and primitive living conditions. And they were surrounded by people their own age, with whom they socialized, eventually married, and created a town that exists today.

Because of the need for secrecy, cameras were contraband during the war, and workers were rigidly compartmentalized. Everyone twelve years old and older was required to wear a picture badge when on the reservation, including in the residential and business districts. Codes on badges told which buses people could board, which plant area they could enter, and to which floor or wing within a building they had access. Recognizing the need to document the whole project for history, the Manhattan Project employed a young photographer by the name of Ed Westcott, and gave him access to all areas. His photographs (some reproduced here) are the images we all now know of that time.

Most people working in Oak Ridge learned the nature of their jobs from news reports following the bombing of Hiroshima. Ms. Kiernan tells of excited housewives calling their husbands at work to tell them the news, only to be hung up on by husbands who feared their wives had just broken the ultimate rules of secrecy and had jeopardized their livelyhoods.

Terrible as these weapons were, most agree that their use hastened the end of the war and saved many lives. With the end of the war, the work in Oak Ridge was scaled back and the workforce shrank accordingly. As the GIs returned from the war, they were given jobs and replaced many of the women. Some moved away, but some stayed to eventually buy their homes from the government and create a stable community. Oak Ridge shrank from a wartime population of around 75,000 to fewer than 30, 000 people, a number that has remained fairly constant over the years.

Having lived in Oak Ridge for more than 30 years, I was well familiar with the overall outline of the story. It was easy to tell if Ms. Kiernan had done her homework. The answer is a resounding yes. Not only are the stories well researched, the writing is excellent, and these familiar stories have held my attention as if encountering the information for the first time. I recommend it.

Ohio prosecutor indicts groundhog

Butler County, Ohio, prosecutor Mike Gmoser has indicted Punxsutawney Phil, the "official" weather predictor of Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania. Legend has it that on February 2 each year, groundhogs emerge from their hibernation and look around. If they see their shadow, they return to their burrows and there will be six more weeks of winter. If they don't, there will be an early spring.

Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, has built events around Groundhog Day since at least 1887and has become the official prediction site in the public mind. Their anointed groundhog is Phil, who predicted an early spring this year. The first day of spring has come and gone, and winter keeps its hold on the whole eastern United States. The folks in southwest Ohio have simply had enough winter and have laid the blame squarely at Phil's feet. Officials of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club have vowed to fight extradition.

Groundhog Day has its roots in Candlemas Day, on which day the weather was thought to predict weather yet to come. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's web site contains several songs and sayings from Europe that link Candlemas to weather, such as this song from England:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come, Winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Go Winter, and come not again.

 German immigrants are credited with bringing the tradition to North America and with selecting the groundhog as the prognosticator.

The folks in Ohio and Pennsylvania both seem to be enjoying this diversion from winter weather that has stayed beyond its shelf life. And isn't it wonderful that a prosecutor has nothing better to do than indict a groundhog for blowing a forecast? Watch your backs, all you meteorologists on television!

UPDATE: Prosecutor Mike Gmoser is now calling for the death penalty for Punxsutawney Phil. And he almost kept a straight face when he made the announcement on television.

Contemplations

Just what would a calico cat say to a Christmas cactus? What do they have in common, other than the accident of fate that put them in the same place? They sit, mute, wondering who will initiate the conversation. Do they speak the same language? Do they have a common understanding of the words each uses? Are there any shared values?

The only difference between these two and the U.S. Congress is that cat and cactus sit quietly opposite each other. In Congress, insults and accusations are thrown from one side of the aisle to the other, from House to Senate and back. The results are the same; nothing gets done.

It certainly would be more peaceful with plants and stuffed animals filling the seats in Washington. But then, what would the 24/7 news sources, the radio screamers, and the TV talking heads do with all of their time? Come to think of it, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Reflections

My friend Bill and I recently took a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the simple reason neither of us had been there in several years. My wife and I stopped going when the Big South Fork was being developed because traffic around the Smokies was so heavy. We could come to BSF and avoid the crowds. But it was winter and traffic was down so we gave it a shot. We did go on a Tuesday to avoid the weekenders.

We came through Townsend on our way home and I saw a church off the road that looked interesting. The church turned out to be pretty commonplace, but its setting was anything but common. It sits on the bank of the Little River, which was in pool, still and clear enough to see the bottom. Bright sunlight cast reflections of the far side of the river.

 

 Magnificent.

Getting restless

As we head into the downside of winter, I'm feeling a need to hit the road. The days are getting longer and we're having more sun, yet the air remains chilled and the wind has sharp teeth. It's what they call "second winter" in the mountains of New Mexico. My thoughts, however, are jumping ahead to summer.

Not just summer, but to  the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. Since it originally was a religious community, let's start in the church or meeting house.

It's a large space with no interior supports to interfere with the movement of worshipers during their dances or marches. And the acoustics are unbelievable.

The Centre, or Church, Family dwelling is just across the road in front of the meeting house and serves as the major museum building on the site.

Step inside and you will be greeted by a tour guide who will give you an overview of the village and the museum. You are then free to wander about the three floors and basement at your own pace. There are always guides around to answer your questions.

The dwelling is essentially a large dormitory with its own kitchen, dining, and common areas. The photo above shows a typical "retiring room," or bedroom. At the height of the village, a room might sleep 3 to 5 Shakers. As membership declined, Believers eventually got their own rooms.

Unlike some Shaker museums, the items on display here are all authentic, Shaker-made antiques. You'll find no reproductions displayed here, although the lodging available to overnight guests has only reproductions, for obvious reasons.

Stairways flank the central hall on each floor. Women would have been restricted to using the one on the left; men would have been restricted to the one on the right. Although floors were coed, just like in college, the women's and men's retiring rooms are on opposite sides of the central hall.

The top floor was reserved for storage, here being cases for out-of-season clothing. Natural light illuminates the storage area.

I think it's time to get the calendar out and start planning a trip. Gotta find a cure for cabin fever.