The Girls of Atomic City (7 page)

She hadn’t the faintest idea what to expect from this new place. All Willie had seen was his hut, the construction site, and the cafeteria, so he hadn’t much to tell. Hard work didn’t scare her, that was sure. She had seen hard. Picking pound after pound of cotton in the afternoon, cooking supper with Mama in the evening, getting up the next day to milk four cows—one cow so feisty she could, as Kattie liked to say, kick the sweetnin’ outta ginger cake. (Her brother Commodore had to tie that cow up before Kattie would take one step toward those angry udders.) In her younger days it was then off to school where incorrectly answered math problems meant a heavy-handed smack. When she was a child, she didn’t know which was worse, her switch-happy teacher in the one-room schoolhouse or that cow. Both had to be faced every day.
That
was hard. Picking an entire bale of hay alone was hard. Moving constantly from field to field, crop to crop, even as a child, was hard.

Whatever this new place in Tennessee had to dish out, she knew she could handle it. Auburn was moving farther and farther behind her, and along with it the towns and roads she’d known all her life, the fields of corn where she’d learned to husk in a flash, saving the
long silky strands of maize to make wigs for dolls who’d long lost their original coifs. Mama. Even that darn cow was miles away now.

But that’s not what was making Kattie cry as the car wound its way along the twisting roads of northern Alabama. With every passing mile, she was that much farther away from her babies. Leaving her children behind, children she’d been told were not welcome at this new place, not if your skin was black, anyway. That was hard.

★ ★ ★

Celia stared out of the window of the large town car as it bounced along the unpaved road and stopped at a gate flanked by a barbed-wire fence extending in both directions, vertically accented by observation towers. The car stopped. Armed guards in military uniforms approached. The driver got out of the car, and returned after a quick chat and a flash of some paperwork. The guards waved the car on.

Celia watched as the first glimpses of her new—Should she call it a town? A camp? An outpost?—passed slowly by. Military. That presence was immediately clear. Though Celia had had her share of protocol and security measures in Washington and New York, this was different. The car couldn’t have moved much more quickly, even if the driver had wanted it to. The mud made sure of that. Celia had never seen so much in her life. Having grown up in a mining town, she knew from dirt. She had known a life of soot, lustrous or not, settling in, on, and around every nook and cranny and every seam of your dress.

But
this
was like a raw pit of gummy earth. She and the other girls were still tired from the long train ride and intermittent sleep. Breakfast, though welcome, had only served to prolong the mystery. They had all been anxious to see where they were going to be living and working. Right now, gazing out the car window as wet, sticky earth sprayed up from the rain-soaked tires, it did not look good. Their first impressions were clay colored. They weren’t arriving as much as sinking into a sopping sea of mud.

Construction went on in every direction. The fences had been some of the first things to go up, and crews repurposed the barbed wire taken from many of the farms and homes that had been moved off the land. Celia couldn’t see any sidewalks, only wooden planks laid over the newly excavated ground. There were some houses, virtually identical, sitting side by side and lining the dirt roads. There were larger buildings, mostly white, similar in style and shape, not like the brick and stone and shingle of every other town she’d seen, or the soaring concrete and steel of the city she’d just left. Though the town was brand-new—less than a year old—somehow the mud managed to make everything seem run down. Wherever they were, it didn’t look finished. Why on earth would her bosses have decided to move the offices from New York City to . . . to . . . wherever this was? But if Celia wondered about the reason for the move, she never asked. She had worked for the Project long enough to know that much.

She also knew well the futility of asking the driver where they were headed. But then he finally spoke up: “You’re going to work first,” he said.

He took a turn off the main road, headed up a small incline, and finally came to a stop. Celia looked out the window and across a small expanse of grounds to the building that was going to be her new office. It looked like an H from where she sat, one long, narrow white building with a pitched roofline set perpendicular to a pair of two-story buildings on either side. Celia glanced down either side of the central structure. The complex didn’t look completed yet—the land surrounding it still resembled a construction site—but it was. Between the car and the squat white building was nothing but more mud. The sun was a bit higher in the sky now, but had done precious little to dry up the mess.

Celia was collecting herself and her bag when a collective gasp emanated from the other women in the car.

Celia turned. She stared, astonished, as one of the girls stepped out of the car and began sinking, as if in quicksand.

Foot! Ankle! Midcalf . . . ?

The young woman finally managed to extricate herself, but her shoes were certainly ruined, if she could even manage to retrieve them. Celia watched as the next woman bravely exited and tried to
avoid a similar plight. No dice. After a few steps she, too, began to lose her footing in the morass of unavoidable muck.

Celia was horrified. Imagine wearing their best clothes and shoes and having them ruined on the first day at a new job! But her pity was soon replaced by concern for her own hard-earned ensemble: The dress her sister had bought her and these precious I. Miller shoes.

There is no way I am stepping out of this car in my new shoes.

She had never in her life had such an expensive pair, and she had bought them herself. She wanted to make a good impression and was not about to sacrifice her footwear to the elements.

The driver waited.

“I can’t!” she said. “I paid twenty-three dollars for these shoes!”

Celia sat, adamant, not about to step one foot out of the car. The driver exited the vehicle, marched around to Celia’s door, and flung it open. Then he offered Celia the only solution he could think of: He snatched her up and carried her across the muddy expanse, safely depositing her at the door of the administration building.

Relieved, Celia strolled past her travel mates, who were washing their feet and footwear in small sinks that were conveniently located right inside the door. She met briefly with Lieutenant Colonel Vanden Bulck and was introduced to two civilians, Mr. Smitz and Mr. Temps.

She received two distinct identification badges. One was a “Townsite Resident’s Pass”; the other was a badge that specifically allowed her entrance into this, the administration building, or “Castle on the Hill,” as she’d heard it called. She peered at the badges. Across the top of the resident badge, beneath the date of issue and her ID number, was written in large letters “Clinton Engineer Works.” Her age, height, weight, and eye color were listed. The pass stated that she was “a resident of Oak Ridge Tennessee,” and was “authorized to enter and leave the reservation only through gates on Highway no. 61 (Clinton, Elza, or Oliver Springs).”

Celia signed her new badge alongside the signature of a “Protective Security Officer.” The badge had to be worn and visible at all
times. Now, at least, one of her questions was answered: She was a resident of Oak Ridge, part of the Clinton Engineer Works.

A short while later, carrying her suitcase and clutching her oh-so-precious and still unsoiled shoes in hand, Celia carefully made her way out of the Castle and walked barefoot across Tennessee Avenue toward dormitory W-1, the first and currently only women’s dorm built in Townsite. Celia wasn’t the only woman in the small lobby looking for a place to live, and space was scarce. The housemother mentioned that one woman had a double room she was looking to share. And that’s how Celia introduced herself to Maybelle Panser from Wisconsin.

Maybelle led Celia upstairs to the second floor of the two-story building. The room had two single beds, a night table positioned between them. There were two small dressers and a very tiny closet of sorts, in front of which hung a cloth curtain rather than a door. Everything was brand-new. The mattress didn’t seem too bad. The room had a single window, and when Celia looked out she could see the Castle. Communal bathrooms were down the hall. Unpacking was a breeze, as Celia had not brought much with her. A few changes of clothes and makeup, of course, but only the basics: some pancake, a little lipstick, her eyebrow pencil, and powdered blush. The I. Miller shoes went straight into the closet, where they would stay.

The housemother was strict, and curfew was 10
PM
unless you had permission otherwise or had shift work. Celia thought the cost for the rooms was reasonable. She and Maybelle would each pay $10 a month to share the space. Downstairs in the lobby, everyone had their own mail slot for letters and other messages. She had promised her mother and her brothers that she would write. She had yet to figure out how they were supposed to write her back.

★ ★ ★

After hearing so much about the Clinton Engineer Works, Toni was now seeing it firsthand. The guards with guns checked that she did, in fact, have an interview, and let her pass. The construction, the people—it amazed her that all this activity was right down the road from
Clinton. There was one last pearl to be plucked from the Clinch: The world was her oyster.

Guards directed Toni to the administration building for her interview. The Project was recruiting as heavily as ever, with offices in Knoxville for the different contractors who ran various plants and administrative operations. Toni found it oddly quiet when she entered the Castle, a contrast to the buzz outside. She wondered if she was the only one being interviewed for the job. That would be a stroke of luck. Toni had taken bookkeeping courses and had become, she thought, a darn good typist. At the very least she had to be able to get a job as a secretary. She didn’t want a factory job if she could avoid it.

A Mr. LeSieur greeted her with a welcoming smile that put her at ease. But moments later, it became clear that Mr. LeSieur was not going to be interviewing her. Instead, he walked her down the hall and into the office of Mr. Diamond, whom Toni immediately pegged as a big ol’ Yankee. Toni had never met one up close before, but she had heard plenty about them. It wasn’t unusual for northern buyers to be spotted in Clinton haggling with pearlers on Market Street.

Mr. Diamond had a massive, booming voice and a belly to match. Right off, Toni could tell that there would be no introductory niceties, no how-do-you-dos or where-are-you-froms with Mr. Diamond, that southern sort of conversational two-step that was second nature to her, and only polite.

Mr. Diamond got right down to it.

“Do you take dictation?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

Mr. Diamond shoved a pad at Toni and began to speak.

It wasn’t like anything Toni had ever heard before. She leaned forward, every muscle in her body, up to her freshly scrubbed ears, tensed in concentration as she listened so hard she thought she would sprain something. She felt totally lost, like she was riding some sort of syllabic roller coaster, trudging blindly on an endless scavenger hunt in search of the letter R.

Goodness, Lord, what on earth is that man saying? Is he speaking English?

Mr. Diamond finished and looked up at Toni. Toni looked down
at her pad. The transcription looked more like an unfinished game of hangman—just about every third word was a gaping blank space. Toni had no choice. She showed Mr. Diamond what she had done.

“No, no, no!” he barked. “Tran-SCRIBE it!”

Toni said nothing, but Mr. Diamond’s tone was wearing on her. Though she didn’t understand everything he said, his exasperated snarl communicated volumes.

“Well,” he continued in a huff. “Can you at least type?”

“Yes, sir,” Toni answered. “
And
I can take dictation, too. I couldn’t understand a word you said!”

“I didn’t understand a word you said, either!”

That was that. Interview over. Mr. Diamond called out to Mr. LeSieur: “Come get Miss
Pee-tuhs
!”

Mr. LeSieur escorted Toni out and asked her to sit down and wait for a moment.

I can work for anybody
, Toni thought to herself.
I don’t have to work for him. There are plenty of jobs.
Maybe, just maybe, she would take a factory job if she had to.

They kept her waiting, and waiting . . .

Heck—enough of this.

Toni got up on her feet and was ready to storm out the door. But Mr. LeSieur appeared suddenly and stopped her.

“Mr. Diamond wants to know if you can start on Monday.”

★ ★ ★

DO YOU KNOW . . . That owing to, shall we say, circumstances over which we have no control, the
Journal
cannot print the names of any persons in its columns for the present. This will explain our failure to publish various news items contributed, bowling scores—We are unique—the only newspaper in the country without any news.

—
Oak Ridge Journal
,

October 17, 1943

Jane unfolded the thin, brownish onionskin paper. A telegram. Finally. The Clinton Engineer Works and Tennessee Eastman Corporation had deigned to write to her family’s elegant home in Paris,
Tennessee, with instructions. She’d thought the interview with Mr. Powers had gone well, and the offer of work had come the first week of October. But that hadn’t been the end of it.

“We are at present making the necessary investigation and on receipt of a satisfactory report from this investigation, you will be immediately notified to report for work.”