The Girls of Atomic City (51 page)

1. Everything Will Be Taken Care Of:
Train to Nowhere, August 1943

I first met Celia Klemski through Colleen Black. The two still know each other after having crossed paths at Father Siener’s mass during the war. I have interviewed Celia many times and have had the pleasure of just sitting in her living room on many occasions. Already in her early 90s when I first met her, she is fit, healthy, and lively, much like the young woman who jumped on a train with little to no information about where she was headed.

Description of Celia Klemski from author’s visits, interviews, and historic photographs (courtesy of Celia Klemski). Descriptions of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, from Celia Klemski and also George Ross Leighton’s portrayal of the town in his essay “Shenandoah, Pennsylvania: Rise and Fall of an Anthracite Town,” from his book
Five Cities: The Story of Their Youth and Old Age
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936). Stories of rations and scrap-metal drives from author interviews with men and women. I first learned of the remembrance flags featuring blue stars for loved ones who had served and gold stars for those who had passed away from Colleen Black. The Blue Star Mothers of America and Gold Star Mothers of America still exist today. The last Sunday of September is Gold Star Mother’s Day. (“Blue Star Mothers of America,” by Deborah Tainsh,
www.military.com
. October 17, 2006; “Proclamation 2196: Gold Star Mother’s Day,”
Code of Federal Regulations: The President
, Office of the Federal Register.) An image of both stars can be seen in the World War II poster “ . . . Because Somebody Talked!” by Wesley, 1943 (Government Printing Office for the Office of War Information, NARA Still Picture Branch).

Information regarding the Manhattan Engineer District’s first headquarters from Leslie M. Groves’s
Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1962) and K. D. Nichols’s
The Road to Trinity: A Personal Account of How America’s Nuclear Policies Were Made
(New York: Morrow, 1987). Locations of Manhattan Project sites in the New York metropolitan area:
A Guide to Manhattan Project Sites in Manhattan
, by Cynthia C. Kelly and Robert S. Norris (Washington, DC: Atomic Heritage Foundation, 2008). Charles Vanden Bulck, disbursement officer and procurement manager for the Manhattan Project, Corps of Engineers (David Ray Smith, “Historically Speaking,”
The Oak Ridger
, July 5, 2011.) Description of
Saturday Evening Post
cover from September 4, 1943, issue. Regas restaurant description from author interviews with Celia Klemski and others; also “Regas Closing After Nine Decades,” by Carly Harrington,
Knoxville News Sentinel
, December 12, 2010; vintage postcards and photos. Moving of MED offices to Oak Ridge, from War Department memo dated 29 June 1943, “Moving District Office to Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Record Group 326; National Archives at Atlanta; National Archives and Records Administration.

Author note: “All in the same boat” is possibly the most oft repeated phrase I heard while conducting interviews for this book, from both men and women.

Tubealloy: The Bohemian Grove to the Appalachian Hills, September 1942

Information on a Bohemian Grove meeting from both attendee Kenneth Nichols, who refers to the September 1942 meeting in his book (previously cited), and also Groves, Rhodes (previously cited), and Stephane Groueff’s
Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1967). Additional information about the history and lore of the Bohemian Grove from “Masters of the Universe Go to Camp: Inside the Bohemian Grove,” by Philip Weiss,
Spy Magazine
, November 1989; “The Truth About The Bohemian Grove,” by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair,
Counterpunch
, June 19, 2001; “Bohemian Tragedy,” by Alex Shoumatoff,
Vanity Fair,
May 2009; “A Guide to the Bohemian Grove,” by Julian Sancton,
Vanity Fair,
April 2009. “A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club,” by Peter Martin Phillips, dissertation, University of California, Davis, 1994. Additional information on uranium procurement, Edgar Sengier, and the Union Minière du Haut Katanga mining holdings from
Road to Trinity
, previously cited, and Groueff (previously cited).
Road to Trinity
by Nichols (previously cited) and
Now it Can Be Told.
Reference to “fruit that scalds” from Tom Zoellner’s
Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World
(New York: Penguin Books, 2009). McKellar anecdote from author interviews, also
Remembering the Manhattan Project: Perspectives on the Making of the Atomic Bomb and its Legacy
, edited by Cynthia C. Kelly (Hackensack: World Scientific Publishing, 2004), citing William Frist and J. Lee Annis Jr.’s
Tennessee Senators, 1911—2001: Portraits of Leadership in a Century of Change
(Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1999).

Author note: Senator McKellar’s story is one of the most popular associated with the site of Oak Ridge and is repeated to this day in articles and by word of mouth. Author personally feels it has been “enhanced” by time, considering that the initial estimated cost of the Manhattan Project in 1942 was not yet near $2 billion. Note: General Leslie Groves officially acquired the Tennessee site on September 19, 1942, still considered Oak Ridge’s “birthday.” Then-colonel Kenneth Nichols was not yet District Engineer at this meeting, but would become so in August of 1943. Information regarding early days of MED from Groves, Nichols, and
Atomic Energy for Military Purposes (The Smyth Report): The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb Under the Auspices of the United States Government
, by H. D. Smyth (York, PA: Maple Press, 1945).

2. Peaches and Pearls: The Taking of Site X, Fall 1942

I first met Toni Schmitt at the VJ Day celebration at the Oak Ridge Historical Preservation Association in August of 2010. She had an incredible energy, dazzling smile, and incredibly detailed memories. I first interviewed her on September 14, 2010, but unfortunately, she died while I was still working on this book. I had the pleasure of meeting her daughter, Kathy Schmitt Gomez, who shared some of her mother’s additional documents and memories with me. These included a letter written by Toni’s younger sister Joyce—“Dopey”—who wrote about the peach sales of their youth.

Description of Clinton from author visits and interviews.
“Everything’s goin’ in and nothin’s comin’ out . . .”
from multiple author interviews. Information about fish gigs from author visits to the Museum of Appalachia, Clinton, TN. Market Street, Clinton, and its role in the pearling industry from author visits to the site and interviews; also author visits to the Museum of Appalachia (previously cited), the historical marker erected by the State of Tennessee, Market Street, Clinton, TN. Information on the history of the Clinch River pearls and the effect of Norris Dam on those pearls also from
Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley,
by Stephen Lyn Bales (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007).

Description of and information pertaining to Manhattan Engineer District’s (MED) original scouting of sites in East Tennessee from Nichols’s essay “My Work In Oak Ridge,” from
Voices
(previously cited); original document “Second Visit to T.V.A. Looking for Available War Plant Sites,” July 13, 1942, Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Record Group 326; the National Archives at Atlanta; The National Archives and Records Administration;
A City is Born: The History of Oak Ridge Tennessee
, by Fred W. Ford and Fred C. Peitzch (Oak Ridge: Atomic Energy Commission, Oak Ridge Operations, 1961); Vincent C. Jones’s
Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb
(Washington: Department of the Army, December 31, 1985).

Descriptions of eminent-domain seizures, including notifications, appraisals, displaced families, parcels, payments, and site clearing from
Road to Trinity, Now It Can Be Told
, and
A City is Born
(all previously cited); “A Nuclear Family: I’ve Seen It” (Y-12 Video Services, Y-12 National Security Complex, 2012); Peter Bacon Hales’s
Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997); Charles W. Johnson and Charles O. Jackson’s
City Behind a Fence: Oak Ridge, Tennessee 1942–1946
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981); Nichols descriptions of the Norris Dam and Tennessee Valley Authority from the Tennessee Valley Authority,
www.tva.gov
; relocation of families due to the dam from all of the above and
Tennessee’s Dixie Highway: The Cline Postcards
, by Lisa R. Ramsay and Tammy L. Vaughn (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2011).

Parlee Raby letter from document collection at the Y-12 National Security Complex New Hope Center History Center Exhibits, Oak Ridge, TN; stories of Van Gilder and John Rice Irwin from
Voices
(previously cited); John Rice Irwin’s “Oak Ridge Displacement” (NARA, College Park: Archive Booklet 62, no date listed). Reference to children being sent home from school to tell their parents they had to move from author interviews and anecdote of Lester Fox shared by Ray Smith. Fox was skipping school when he was called into the Oliver Springs telephone bank and told to get the principal for an important call, which reportedly came from a senator. The principal returned and gathered all students together and told them to go home and tell their families they had to move. The government needed their land.

Stories of John Hendrix, “the Prophet,” from
The Oak Ridge Story: The Saga of a People Who Share in History,
by George O. Robinson Jr. (Kingsport, TN: Southern Publishers, 1950); “John Hendrix and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” by David Ray Smith,
www.SmithDRay.net
;
Back of Oak Ridge
, by Grace Raby Crawford, edited by David Ray Smith (Oak Ridge, TN: 2003).

Author’s note: One of the spared structures, a stone house built just months prior to the land acquisition by an Owen Hackworth, is currently on the National Register of Historic Places stating that it served as housing for General Groves prior to the completion of the administration building and Guest House. Information on the Luther Brannon House from “History and Architectural Resources of Oak Ridge, Tennessee” (previously cited); “Brannon, Luther, House,” from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior. However, additional references to Groves having used this structure for lodging have not yet been found.

Information on peaches and their role in the region from author interviews with Toni Schmitt, personal papers of Kathy Schmitt Gomez, and “The Wheat Community,” by Patricia A. Hope, in
Voices
(previously cited).

Rosie the Riveter and Geraldine (Hoff) Doyle information from “Geraldine Doyle, 86, dies; one-time factory worker inspired Rosie the Riveter and ‘We Can Do it!’ Poster,” by T. Rees Shapiro,
Washington Post
, December 29, 2010;
Saturday Evening Post
(cover image May 29, 1943);
Norman Rockwell: My Adventures as an Illustrator
by Norman Rockwell and Thomas Rockwell (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960). Information about James Edward “Ed” Westcott from author interviews and from
Through the Lens of Ed Westcott: A Photographic History of World War II’s Secret City,
edited by Sam Yates (Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 2005).

Tubealloy: Ida and the Atom, 1934

“Ida Noddack: Proposer of Nuclear Fission,” by Fathi Habashi, from
A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity
, by Marelene F. Rayner-Canham and Geoffrey Rayner-Canham (Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queens University Press; Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1997); “Ida Noddack and the Missing Elements,” by Fathi Habashi,
Education in Chemistry
, March 2009; “The Discovery of Nuclear Fission,” by Emilio Segrè,
Physics Today
, vol. 42, July 1989. “Enrico Fermi—Biography,” Nobelprize.org, June 10, 2012; “Possible Production of Elements of Atomic Number Higher than 92,” by Prof. E. Fermi,
Nature
, pp. 898–899, June 16, 1934; “Über Das Element 93 (On Element 93),” by Ida Noddack,
Zeitschrift für Angewandte Chemie
, vol. 47, September 1934, p. 653.

3. Through the Gates: Clinton Engineer Works, Fall 1943

Interviews conducted with Kattie Strickland, Celia Klemski (previously cited), Toni Schmitt (previously cited), and Jane Puckett. Additional documentation (badges, invitations of work, telegrams) courtesy of the private papers of Celia Klemski and Jane Puckett. Repurposing of fencing from old farms from
Atomic Spaces
(previously cited).

I first met Kattie after interviewing her granddaughter Valeria Steele Roberson. Kattie is lively and friendly and very patient with repeated questions about what must have been a trying time in her life.

Jane Puckett is a force of nature, and still friends with Virginia Coleman and Rosemarie Waggener, another interviewee who is not featured in this book.

Author note: Many interviewees had tales of hacking and coughing dust. This particular anecdote about the “Oak Ridge croup” and orientation films comes from interviewee Joanne Gailar, and from her essay “Impressions of Early Oak Ridge,” in
These Are Our Voices
(previously cited).

All
Oak Ridge Journal
clips as cited within text.

The constant shuffling and dividing of dorm rooms and the need for space comes from author interviews, notably with Celia Klemski and Colleen Black,
Road to Trinity, City is Born, City Behind a Fence,
and
Atomic Spaces
(all previously cited).