The Girls of Atomic City (27 page)

Paul Jones took some of its moves from traditional square dancing. Men and women formed two concentric circles, men on the outside. When the music began, men performed the Grand Left as the women standing before them moved Grand Right, easy and familiar dance moves that placed the young dancers in front of a slew of potential new partners. Skirts swayed, trousers strutted, smiles and nods swirled by in anticipation of . . .

“Paul Jones!” Pollock would call, or give a blow to his whistle.

When the signal sounded, the music stopped and so did the dancers. The men and women stood facing their new partners. Pollock would load up another tune and the new couples would hit the floor together. When the music came to a stop that lovely autumn evening, Toni was pleased to find herself face-to-face with a handsome young soldier who, for at least the next song, would be her dance partner.

Toni had always liked a man in uniform. This one was quite tall, easily six feet two, she thought, with close-cropped blond hair and strikingly clear blue eyes. He wore a khaki uniform; neat and pressed and tucked and spit-shined from head to toe. What was more surprising was that he managed to speak first, before Toni, champion chatterbox, ever got a chance.

“I’m happy I stopped in front of a tall girl,” the young man said. “That way my knee won’t hit you in the stomach when we dance.”

Toni laughed, wondering what he would say next.

“So,” he continued, “are you a Democrat or a Republican?”

What an odd get-to-know-you question
, Toni thought. But all she could do was answer, “I’m a Republican.”

This appeared to make the young man quite happy. He smiled and nodded.

“I’m Chuck Schmitt,” he said.

“I’m Toni Peters,” she responded, wondering what kind of reception she would have received from Chuck if her answer to his opening inquiry had been “Democrat.”

No matter. She and the blond-haired-blue-eyed soldier danced not only that dance, but many others that evening. Between turns around the floor they talked. No talk of work, of course. The standard Oak Ridge salutation would have to do:

Where are you from?

Chuck, Toni learned, was from Queens. Toni also learned that Queens was in New York City. That bit of information actually explained a lot, as she had been wondering why all of these Rs kept on finding their way into syllables where she never knew they belonged. Rs seemed to appear and disappear at will, with these northerners, depending on which corner of the Northeast they called home. Despite a year at the beck and call of Mr. Diamond, she had yet to become fluent in any flavor of “Yankee.” But unlike Mr. Diamond, Chuck made Toni want to make a little more effort.

Chuck’s story was as interesting as any she had yet to hear. He hadn’t been in Oak Ridge long and had only recently completed basic training at Camp Reynolds in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. He was about to be shipped out with the rest of his unit when he, his buddy Fred, and another soldier were taken aside by someone they hadn’t met before. This man told them that they had been reassigned. They would not be shipping out. Instead, they would be leaving on a train that night.

Chuck was handed a piece of paper with a phone number on it.

“You’re going to take the train to Knoxville, Tennessee,” the man instructed them. “When you get to the station, call this number. You are not to speak to anyone along the way. The only thing you are to say to any person who asks who you are or where you’re going is the sky is blue and the grass is green.”

With that, Chuck and Fred boarded a train bound for Knoxville, a place where, Chuck believed, everyone ran barefoot, lived in shacks, and still had outhouses. And here he was, talking and dancing with one of those very hillbillies, shoes and all.

Toni was becoming more smitten with the New Yorker with every incomprehensible word he uttered. She thought of Ken York, whom she had been dating back home in Clinton. Ken was away with the
Navy now, and Toni was never in love with him. But she felt a little bad taking up with another fellow. Her mother had always told her that no matter who Toni might meet in Oak Ridge, she had to be good to Ken.

“You have to date Ken when he comes back to town ’cause he’s fighting for our country,” she told Toni. “He’s counting on you.”

Toni agreed. But she thought maybe she could date Chuck while Ken was away. When Ken came back to town, well . . . she would figure out how to cross that particular bridge when she got to it. She’d always been one for thinking on the run.

Soon the sounds of “Sleepy Time Gal” wafted over the crowd of bodies on the tennis courts, letting everyone know the evening’s swinging and swaying was coming to an end.
Sleepy time gal, you’re turning night into days . . . Sleepy time gal, you’ve danced the evening away.
Toni danced with Chuck, his knees nowhere near her butterfly-ridden stomach, knowing it wouldn’t be their last ballad.

★ ★ ★

As a nurse, Rosemary met all walks of Oak Ridge life. Most made their way through the clinic doors at some point, from kids with runny noses—separate primary-care physicians’ offices didn’t exist—to on-the-job injuries and train wrecks. She had even treated the General early one morning. His shoulder was bothering him again and the physical therapist hadn’t arrived yet. She wasn’t told why he was in Oak Ridge, and set him up as best she could and then went about her business. It wasn’t the first time the General had visited the clinic. Rumor had it that he liked disappearing into the maternity ward to sneak naps.

Rosemary “stuck to her knitting,” to borrow a favorite phrase of the General’s. Nevertheless, she still had an encounter or two that piqued her curiosity. One night when attending a dance with a group she soon found herself out on the floor with an attractive, clean-cut young man. He had come with several of his own friends, and the two groups of singles found themselves mingling and making plans to get together.

The men shared one of the larger houses in Townsite. (Rosemary
wasn’t sure which type—all that alphabetical housing began to blur after a while.) Houses were perfect for impromptu parties. Soon Rosemary and the man began seeing each other, and there were things she noticed about him. He was around one week and gone the next, on no particular schedule that she could discern. She had never seen him wearing any sort of uniform, but he and his friends did have that close-cropped, military-looking hair. Physically, they were very fit. She could not imagine any of them being 4-F (unfit for military service). Sometimes Rosemary and he would make plans and then, with little notice, he would have to leave town. He didn’t say where he was going and often didn’t know for how long.

It was difficult at times, forming opinions about people with so little to go on. Rosemary had already found herself the unsuspecting date of a married man. At least he was nice enough to confess his status on their second—and last—date. But Rosemary was fairly sure
this
fellow wasn’t married. She and her girlfriends had theories. FBI? Very possibly. Or maybe he was one of those high-level intelligence agents. None of it bothered her. She was well aware of the Project’s secrecy mandate and in a sense felt more liberated than others. She never felt she couldn’t say she was a nurse, for example. She treated everyone, from plumbers to generals.

But in this man’s case, she knew there was no asking. She never felt uncomfortable about it. He and his friends were perfect gentlemen and a lot of fun, to boot. The curiosity was there, but it was quelled easily enough. Their dating was casual and without any looming commitment, especially considering his odd schedule and frequent out-of-town travel. She wasn’t in any hurry to settle down. If she had been, she would have stayed at home in Holy Cross.

★ ★ ★

While young singles packed their days and nights with working and socializing, many young and not-quite-as-young, stay-at-home wives were prone to go a bit more stir-crazy. For couples accustomed to sharing in each other’s lives, Oak Ridge was a challenge, one perhaps felt more strongly by married women than those merely enjoying a dip in the dating pool.

Trips to crowded stores could take hours with babies in tow. And mud, always mud. Carriage wheels—or wagons, for those who couldn’t afford a proper carriage—sunk deep into sludge and bumped endlessly over unfinished surfaces, rousing even the soundest of sleepers. Evenings, when they saw their husbands, there was precious little to talk about.

“How was your day?”

This simple phrase, uttered by countless spouses since the dawn of the workaday week, took on an entirely different meaning here:
I know you can’t really tell me how your day was in even the vaguest of terms, but I feel like I should ask you anyway.

Even a woman of Vi Warren’s stature had had to adjust. She was the wife of Stafford Warren, head of the medical section for the entire Project. His position meant he had more secrets to keep than most. Vi had gotten a taste of the classified life before arriving in Tennessee. When they were still living in Rochester, New York, her husband’s out-of-town trips had become more frequent, while details about them grew scarcer. After one such trip, her two sons decided to play detective. They gathered all the evidence they could find about their father’s travels—mostly matchbooks—and used it to compile what they believed to be an itinerary. After dinner, the young men presented their findings. Stafford Warren rose, took the matchbooks and, without uttering a word, threw them into the fireplace.

No clues of any kind were ever found in his pockets again.

Vi was well educated and socially active. When she moved to Oak Ridge with her children—her oldest, Jane, was already living there with her new husband—she channeled her healthy curiosity into writing. She shared her views about life at CEW in a column for the
Oak Ridge Journal
, titled “As You Remember . . .” The column was part commentary, part trip down a short but odd memory lane. But the prescient Vi had a feeling that—though the town had only been in existence for two years—theirs was a journey that people would want to know more about in the years to come.

Being suddenly shut out of a significant chunk of your partner’s life was a struggle. Sometimes spouses might be gone seven days a week,
with no explanation as to why. And woe betide the hardworking, unsuspecting man whose wife found a stack of envelopes suspiciously addressed to “ACME Insurance Company” in Knoxville secreted away in a closet for safekeeping. Who was he
really
writing? Another woman? Marriages had been threatened by less. Secrecy took its toll on relationships that once enjoyed open and frank communication, and were now stifled by duty. Secrecy became the norm. “Silence,” as one Project poster read, “Means Security.”

Writing and volunteering were perhaps Vi’s way of coping. Solidarity helped immensely, knowing you weren’t the only one being kept in the dark, like a lifeboat in a sea of not-knowing, even if that boat was filled with some gossiping and complaining.

For women left to wash mud out of their houses and off their clothes, or battle finicky furnaces and the soot that went along with them, an afternoon spent darning socks or sharing favorite recipes was something to look forward to. A sympathetic ear was always close by, and the latest news rippled down the plastic-coated laundry lines that ran the length of streets in neighborhoods and trailer camps, forming a spinal cord of communication that supported life in the small outpost. All a woman needed in order to tap into the information it carried was a clothespin.

But you were still being watched: In one case, it wasn’t long before security agents took notice of one of these regular “meetings” that took place behind closed doors.

Agents approached a group of recipe-swapping, sock-darning housewives one afternoon and demanded to know the topic of their conversations. What were they talking about in there, with their needles and thread? Why, they demanded, were these women meeting on such a regular basis, and so
secretively
? The situation blew over when the women explained theirs was a run-of-the-mill coffee klatsch.

Darn those socks, ladies. But maybe try not to be so subversive about it.

★ ★ ★

Dr. Clarke, on-site head of psychiatric services for the Project for seven months now, submitted a “Report on Existing Psychiatric
Facilities and Suggested Necessary Additions” on Halloween, 1944. He had, over the last half year or so, begun to familiarize himself with the unique challenges faced by those who lived in Oak Ridge, which were at times perplexing. Considering the times in which they lived—coming out of the Depression, in a World War—it would have seemed believable that Oak Ridge and the other Project sites would have
less
than their fair share of issues.

After all: If everyone had steady work, a place to live, and a good wage, what kind of problems could they possibly have?

Judging from the people he’d seen seeking counsel, attitudes about Oak Ridge were as varied as the people themselves. There were those who thought the Reservation was an absolute “hellhole” with no redeeming qualities. There were those who could take it or leave it. But that was okay—it was only temporary. Few believed the site would exist beyond the war, including those operating further up the Project ladder. And finally, there were those who thought that this odd new place they had come to know as Oak Ridge was the best thing that had ever happened to them.

“The difficulties of housekeeping and the inability of mothers to get away from the constant care of children is beginning to exact its toll . . . ,” Clarke wrote, as if channeling the frustrations and anguish of every woman in the country, let alone those on the Reservation. It was compounded by what Clarke described as an ongoing case of “never enough.” There never seemed to be
enough
of the kind of food you wanted, there were still never
enough
roads, not
enough
housing,
enough
places to shop,
enough
hours in the day to wait for what was already limited.