LOCAL HISTORY
Aunt, uncle worked at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee facility BY BETTY OBENDORF Curator, Polo Historical Society Recently Kenneth and I went to Mt. Morris to gather with Bruce and Robin’s family. Because of the virus we were all outside in a large tent purchased for camping. It was all screened in to protect us from any bugs and we could watch all the little ones inside and out playing as they interacted with the adults. They had a water slide, water filled balloons, and a misting spray to run through on this warm day. The babies Rose and Archie played on blankets while we visited. Suddenly the conversation took a different turn. Someone said, “It is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs.” That is something I have never really cared to think about since it must have been horrific. I would have been in elementary school having just finished seventh grade. I hardly remember that time of my life. Bruce had just finished reading the story of a man who had survived being in both towns when the bombs fell. He had been in Nagasaki, survived, and then went Hiroshima where three days later the second bomb fell. The man lived to be ninety some years old. What a story! Then other stories began to be told of family members who had been involved in the making of the bombs at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That I remember perfectly because my aunt and uncle were there during that time frame. I came home and got out Ruby Jean’s book on the family and read once more some of my Uncle Hal’s comments on the war. He was my dad’s younger brother and he was a chemistry teacher. When the war started he began to look for a government job. He and my Aunt Ruth Ann went to Sandusky, Ohio to work in an explosive factory called the Trojan Powder Company. My aunt called it the TNT place and it was a dangerous place to be employed. The plant kept them in good health by taking blood tests periodically and x-raying their lungs. Their letters home were interesting as they talking about rationing stamps and not using their allotment for that week so they could send some sugar to my grandmother for canning. Also
The Oak Ridge plant in East Tennessee was part of the Manhattan Project. The buildings have since been demolished and an environmental clean up is continuing. Photos from Manhattan Project National Historical Park
they took a drive along the lake before “the number 8 gas coupons expired.” They had only an A book but even with that they did not use all of their gas. Then came the day when the government was looking for special people to go to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They wanted workers trained in chemistry and acids. Ruth and Hal packed up their car and headed for Knoxville, Tennessee. They might even have to stay in dormitories and perhaps could not be together. They knew they were making some kind of a new weapon and that it was all a big secret. They were part of the Manhattan Project that hundreds of people were working on in several laboratories in different parts of the United States. They were in the Oak Ridge National Laborato-
ry with another one at Hanford, Washington and another at Los Alamos, New Mexico. When the bombs were dropped on Japan, they knew what they had been working on during those weeks and months. Ruth Ann always referred to their plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee as the “atom bomb plant.” When the war was over, then came the challenge of finding a new job. They were glad to leave the places where they felt they could be blown up at any time. My Uncle Hal eventually went back into teaching chemistry at West Proviso High School near Chicago. While the salaries at war time in the dangerous laboratories were high, he was glad to eventually return to the calm, quiet classroom and my aunt became a homemaker ready to raise a family.
city and industrial complex in the hills of East Tennessee. The Oak Ridge Reservation included three parallel industrial processes for uranium enrichment and experimental plutonium production. The Oak Ridge site included: X-10 Graphite Reactor National Historic Landmark, a pilot nuclear reactor
which produced small quantities of plutonium; Buildings 9731 and 9204-3 at the Y-12 complex, home to the electromagnetic separation process for uranium enrichment; K-25 Building site, where gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment technology was pioneered. Buildings 9731, 9204-3 and K-25 together enriched a portion of the material for the uranium bomb.
ABOUT OAK RIDGE Editor’s Note: This information is from the website of the: Oak Ridge site - Manhattan Project National Historical Park. The Clinton Engineer Works, which became the Oak Ridge Reservation, was the administrative and military headquarters for the Manhattan Project and home to more than 75,000 people who built and operated the
OGLE COUNTY NEWS Ogle County Newspapers / oglecountynews.com • Friday, August 21, 2020
Reflections on relatives and the Manhattan Project
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