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Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Fox, John Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Fox_John John. Fox: Go and see if I can find any of the documents that I had written that were once classified and are now declassified. Robert Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Camera man: All right, I can adjust and play from here. Bauman: You good? Camera man: Yup. Bauman: All right. Camera man: I am. Bauman: Okay, we’ll go ahead and started then. Fox: Okay, fine. Bauman: So let's start by having you say your name. Fox: I'm John Fox. Bauman: Okay. And my name's Robert Bauman. Today is September 4th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start by, if you could, tell me about how you came to Hanford, what brought you here, when you arrived. Fox: Ah, yes. It was 1951. I had just completed a master's degree in mechanical engineering at Oregon State College at that time. And so it was early in the Korean War period, and I had been commissioned to a lieutenant in The Corps of Engineers when I graduated from college. So I was eligible to be called up from the Reserves. And this was one place where I applied for a job that didn't have any problem with that situation because they could supersede it during the Cold War period. So I was offered a job here. And I came to work in April of 1951. I didn't have my Q clearance yet. So they put me on odd jobs downtown in what was in the 700 Area for about three months until I got a Q clearance. And then I was assigned on the rotational training program for engineers, which involved three month assignments in various components over a period of a year and a half or so to give a choice of where there was a best fit for a job. Bauman: What were your first impressions of the place when you arrived? Fox: Well I had been warned, because when I was in college in the late '40s, one of my fraternity brothers had been assigned up here in the Army as guarding the plant for the anti-aircraft installations and so on. And then when he was discharged, he came to school. And he kept complaining about this being the middle of nowhere and dusty and desert, nothing to do and so on. So I had a picture of what it was like. And I expected to work here for a couple of years and then go get a job in California where I really wanted to live. In my younger years, I had lived part time in San Francisco and gone to school there in both elementary school and for a short time in high school. In fact, I was there when the war broke out—World War II broke out. And that's why I moved back to Portland. And I knew it had been very mysterious during the war. And so I was sort of prepared for it. But did not ever expect to stay very long. Bauman: What sort of housing did you live in when you first arrived here? Fox: Well, it was very full when I arrived because they were expanding again. They were constructing new piles and a new separations plant. So the first few weeks I lived in the construction workers' barracks in North Richland, what is now right near Battelle Boulevard and George Washington Way. And took the bus. I was single; I was broke; I didn't own a car. [LAUGHTER] But there was bus transportation within the city, as well as out to the plant. So I took the bus down to town for my job in the 700 Area. And then an opening came up in the dormitory. They had dormitories for men and women at the time, although there were more men than women. So I was assigned then to W21, which was on the corner of Lee and Stevens where Albertson's parking lot presently is. And that was a very social dorm. It was mostly young engineers, some others. So I lived there until 1953, when the first privately built houses were added to the city, the Bauer Day houses in the south end of town and the Richland Village houses at George Washington Way and the McMurray area north to Sacagawea School. And that was when the three of us—Jerry, and Wayne and I—moved into a Bauer Day house. Bauman: And where was that house? Fox: It was 346 Cottonwood on the corner of Cottonwood and Boise. Bauman: So how would you describe Richland in the early 1950s, when you first arrived, as a community? Fletcher: Well, I would describe it sort of from the social standpoint. For us, it was rather an extension of college life, if you will. There was a number of bachelor engineers. There were a number of secretaries, school teachers, and so on. There was nothing to do here. You realize that in those days there was not liquor by the drink in the states of Oregon and Washington. The only place you could drink liquor was in private clubs like the American Legion, the Elks, and so on. So you needed to know somebody who could get you into those clubs. You could go in the liquor store and buy a bottle and go to one of those and get a set up. Restaurants could not serve liquor. Taverns were okay; you could drink beer, or—wine wasn't very popular in those days. They had a lot of rot gut wine--Thunderbird and so on. And then taverns, you could not stand up with a glass of beer in your hand. You had to be seated. And you could not sing. [LAUGHTER] Interesting regulations. That changed in just two or three years. I forget when the law changed on that and it opened up to liquor by the drink. But that was great for the restaurants, but it killed the clubs—the fraternal clubs—slowly. But anyway, you had to make your own entertainment. And when I arrived, there had been something called a dorm club that was a social group for the singles. And it was just in the process of morphing into the Desert Ski Club. And so for something to do in the winter, I took up skiing, which I never had learned to do. And so we went on ski trips on the weekends and so on. And that became a main social activity. Over a period of time, sort of two by two, people got married off and that dwindled away in the long run. But the interesting thing is the Desert Ski Club has stayed as an active institution. I've since attended the 50th anniversary of which Stein Eriksen was a very famous skier in the '50s came and attended our 50th anniversary of the club. As far as I know, they are still going and organizing ski trips. And that was the genesis of a lot of other organizations of various types. The Richland Players for plays. The Richland Light Opera for musical performances. The I-MAC Mountaineering Club and hiking club. The Rod and Gun Club. All sorts of different clubs were formed for that. Book clubs around the library and other things. Bauman: Were there any sort of larger community events that you can recall from that period, Atomic Frontier Days, anything along those lines? Fox: There was an Atomic Frontier Days, but I can't recall when that commenced or when it ended. It wasn't anything we did. The other thing besides skiing, though, was water-skiing was just coming into vogue there. And of course, the people in the ski club took that up in the summer. And another fellow and I went together on a boat and a wooden—flat bottom wooden boat that was built really for racing in the Sammamish River, [LAUGHTER] a very shallow river. So we took that up. I remember that a couple of times I put on a water-skiing exhibition of sorts. I remember going up to Moses Lake from here with a group to put on a show. We used to go out on the highlands in the Columbia River and stay out there and bake in the sun all day and even water-ski at night and what have you. So we had a lot of fun doing that. So it was make your own entertainment. Bauman: And you mentioned that you lived in the Bauer Day home on Cottonwood. And how long did you live there? Where did you move after that? Fox: Actually, we moved in there in 1953. One by one, we got married. There was a turnover in roommates. I was the last one there. I was married in 1959. But the town was sold to the residents in 1958 and 1959. And I bought that house, because I was engaged and was going to get married and sort of kicked my last roommate out in the summer of '59. But in 1958, I also went in with a group of people to purchase land north of Richland, because the town at that time ended at about Newcomer Street. There were few houses built north of there. And the tracts of land between there and here on the WSU campus, Sprout Road, were auctioned off in various size tracts. And so a group of six of us went together and we bid on two tracts of land along the river. And one of the girls that used to go water-skiing all the time, we used to go down to the island that's just south of the island that's in front of the campus here. She always said I want to have a house on the river by that long island because that's where the best water is for water-skiing. And she got me so interested in that that a group of us went together and bid on two tracts of land along here. And then the auction, the way it was set up, we were the successful bidder on one of those tracts, although we were the second high. But we were closer to the high bid on that tract than on the other one. So we got that one. And it happens to be the tract that adjoins the campus here. And I have the—we subdivided into seven lots and sold the one that's next to the campus. And I'm on the other end of it, the last one. So I'm the seventh house down the street from where we sit. Bauman: Oh, okay. [LAUGHTER] So let's talk a little bit more about that. In 1958, the shift from Richland being sort of federal town. Fox: Yes. Bauman: Did it seem to you at the time that most people were in support of that, something that the people of Richland really wanted to happen? Fox: Well actually, that was a second go around. There was an earlier proposal by the government—I forget in what year, but let's say a couple of years earlier around '56 or so—to sell the property. Because it was apparent by that time that they weren't going to one day shut the plant down and kick everybody out. People—married people wanted an opportunity to own their own houses. And they were beginning to move away from Richland to Kennewick mainly, but also a little bit into West Richland where they could buy property and own their own home. So the government came out with a preliminary proposal, and people thought the prices were too high, considering the uncertainty of the longevity of the town itself and the investment and the risk. So they retooled that over I guess a two-year period. You can check this out from the history. And came back with a second proposal, which gave the option of buying the house at, as I recall, a higher price, but with a guaranteed buy-back at that price, should the price go down. But I think only one or two people took that option. They took the lowest price. [LAUGHTER] As I recall, I paid $7,000 for the Bauer Day house in 1958 or '59, whenever that closed. Bauman: So let's talk about your work then in Hanford. You mentioned you did these sort of three month-- Fox: Yes. Bauman: --working at different places at the site. Fox: Yeah. Bauman: After that period, where did you work then? Fox: Well actually, I had a lot of other changes through the years. But after that period, my assignment was in what was called the irradiation testing group, which managed special tests of radiation of unusual things in the piles—I'll call them piles because that's what they were called at that time originally—that were not related to the production of plutonium process directly. They might have something to do with something that was related to improving the process, but often they were unrelated completely. A couple of examples that stand out in my mind, one was a submarine reactor control rod that was for the nuclear Navy program. Of course, before they had completed their test facility in Idaho Falls. And they wanted to get some data on the durability of the design of the rod. And so that had to be placed in vertically in one of the reactors. And it was in—what was then very new—C pile. And put in place of one of the vertical safety rods. And it was particularly interesting in that, after that test was finished—because it had some tubing that came up for the monitoring and measuring of it while it was in the pile—in extracting it, it got stuck coming out. And it resulted in the longer than planned shutdown of the reactor. [LAUGHTER] Which did not go well with the production quotas. So that was a difficult time, but it was probably the most interesting one. Another one involved C pile before it started up. Actually, while I was on a rotation program one of my assignments was graveyard shift in the stacking of the graphite inside the pile. So I've actually been inside one of the reactors. And I was the inspector to see that each bar went in the right location and according to the plan for layout and nobody was tracking any contaminating material in there and so on. But also before that went into operation, there was a chamber underneath the reactor. And a scientist from Los Alamos named Fred Reines was trying to find experimental proof of the existence of neutrinos, which characteristically can pass through most any matter undetected. And so he got permission to build an apparatus called a scintillation counter chamber with fluid underneath that reacted—using the reactor as a shield from other background events to try to see if he could get a few counts of neutrino interactions in that chamber. He later went on, did the experiments in that deep gold mine in South Dakota and other locations and contributed to the verification of neutrino existence. Eventually won a Nobel Prize at the end of his career, at the end of his life, literally. So that was another just interesting thing. It had nothing to do with Hanford, but that occurred in that assignment. We used to, when I worked in that, our office was in the fire station at H Area. And so we used to visit, there was more of the old town of White Bluffs at that time. There was a cold storage facility, the bank, of course, which they're now talking about restoring. There was the old Milwaukee railroad station, very picturesque. Sorry they tore that down. And we used to go drive down there and eat lunch under the remaining trees. Later, I was transferred to the graphite group. And that was in 1954. And the history of after they started up the piles and they first discovered the xenon poisoning and so on. That story is well-told. But there was also what they considered a serious problem with the distortion of the graphite. The graphite was expanding under radiation. And so at the top of the reactor, it was visibly—not visibly, but measurably bending the tube that the slugs were in. And it was becoming more difficult to push them in and out and loading the reactor. And they thought if this keeps going, we can't continue the operation. In fact, it's my recollection--I don't have the records—that they shut down B-Reactor for some period of time in order to preserve it. And they built DR, which was a replacement for D in case they had to abandon it. But then there was much more concern about the expansion of the graphite. So they changed the inert atmosphere inside the reactor shielding from helium to a mixture of helium and carbon dioxide to heat it up—heat the graphite up—to a higher temperature figuring that this would anneal out the damage to the graphite. That did happen, in fact. And so I was assigned to keep track of how this was progressing according to the power levels of the reactor, because they were also then trying to increase the power levels of the reactor to produce more plutonium. But they didn't know how high in temperature was safe to go, didn't have good ways to measure the temperature in them. We were measuring the profiles. And so that was a very interesting task. And I was there doing that until 1956, when Hanford Laboratories was formed. And the Hanford Laboratories was formed and given the project for recycling plutonium in nuclear power reactors, which was their first peacetime mission for the Hanford Plant—or purely exclusively peacetime—unclassified, nothing to do with production of plutonium. But aimed at getting the maximum amount of energy out of the uranium ore resources. And so that would involve design of the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor from start to finish and the operation of that. That was a heavy water reactor, entirely different type of unique design. And so that was a very interesting project. So I was fortunate in having some very different job assignments throughout my career here in different technologies. And that, in fact, is what kept me here [LAUGHTER] for so long is that ever-changing job challenge. Bauman: So how long were you at the PRTR? Fox: I was there from 1956 until early 1960s, till about '63. I forget the date it went critical and into operation and I then moved on to other things because I wasn't associated with the operation of it. But it also has a very interesting operating history, because of a particular experiment that was done there that went awry. Bauman: Do you want to talk about that? [LAUGHTER] Fox: Well, I think it's well worth getting somebody who knows more about it who was involved in the fuel technology. Particularly today when there is a project at Savannah River for building mixed oxide fuel elements from the plutonium that's recovered from the weapons reduction program. And they have a project there that's in about the same sort of situation as the Vitrification Plant here in budget and schedule and so on. And yet, in the 308 Building in the 300 Area, mixed oxide plutonium, uranium oxide fuel elements were manufactured for the PRTR back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That plant has since been torn down. But the experiment that went awry was to run—the fuel rods in the PRTR were made of zirconium clad mixed oxide fuel elements, very similar to what's normal for nuclear power reactors. And that was the whole idea, that they were different mainly, and that they contained plutonium from the beginning. But it was decided to run an experiment to see how hot you could run those. If you could run them safely with the core of the mixed oxide molten in a fuel element that's about so in diameter. And I forget the melting point, but it's higher than 2,200 centigrade or something like that. And one of the fuel elements melted through the cladding and the pressure tube holding it and so on and seriously damaged the reactor. And had to have been—it was a big repair job. And I'm sure that's all recorded. I was not associated with it, but of course I heard about it [LAUGHTER] at the time. It's a story well worth telling, I think, about that time. Bauman: So after your assignment at PRTR, then where did you go from there next? Fox: Well, then we were working on trying to develop further reactor concepts. We did a little work for NASA when they were working on a rocket reactor that they had a design that was competing with Los Alamos for nuclear rockets. But that came to naught. Eventually, the successor to the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor was the Fast Flux Test Reactor, fast reactor fuel. And that was just beginning. That was after Battelle took over the operation of the laboratories in 1965. So that's beyond the time frame for your main interest. But in the late '60s, the group I was in was working partly to support Exxon Nuclear in their private fuel manufacturing venture, which they later sold to Siemens, and which Siemens later sold to AREVA, which is still in operation of manufacturing commercial reactor fuel. But that grew out of the lab. And some of the people, in fact, one of them who used to work for me that I just had lunch with at the Kiwanis meeting ended up working for Exxon and so on, and he retired from that. So that was a spin-off project. The FFTF project was turned over in 1970 to Westinghouse Hanford and taken away from Battelle. And at that time I had the choice of going either with the FFTF project or staying with Battelle for who knows what. And I decided to stay with Battelle for who knows what. I decided to get out of the nuclear business and move on to other things. Bauman: Hanford, obviously, is a site that emphasized security, secrecy, to a certain extent as well. Fox: Yes. Bauman: How did that impact your work? Or did it in any way? Fox: The security? Bauman: Security and secrecy. Fox: I didn't think it impacted it all that much. When I was working the 100 Areas, you know, it was a secure area. Nearly everything we did was classified. We had classified filing cabinets. We kept everything. We had to account for all the documents in our possession, or sending them into the library, so on. So there was more or less an accounting thing we had to destroy any drafts, procedures, and so on. You didn't want to forget your badge going to work. [LAUGHTER] After I retired, I still occasionally had a dream about going to work and somehow getting in the building and then discovering I didn't have my badge and thought, how—[LAUGHTER] what's going to happen? But you know, I think there were a few occasions when I forgot my badge. But it was never a big issue. I was—eventually in Battelle, I had very few classified documents. And it became more of a nuisance to have a classified file cabinet and so on. And then they can through on a campaign to reduce the number of security clearances. And they asked me to give up my security clearance. I didn't have any problem with that because it relieved me of that nuisance. It wasn't a problem to me about discussing it with anybody external. I think there was probably a little more cross talk between different projects. For example, at the time I came there were some projects that were a little more secret than others, like the P10 project for production of tritium at B Reactor. And some of the guys in the dorm were working on that. And they would talk about the problems with a metal liner, the glass liner, or this, that, or the other thing. We didn’t know—you got some idea of what that project was like, but you didn't really know the whole flow sheet for it or all of that. But you were aware that it was going on. So, just stuff like that. Bauman: President Kennedy visited the site in 1963. I wonder if you were there when he visited? Fox: That's right. You could go out there and you could take your camera with you. And you could take a photo of President Kennedy giving his speech, which I did. And that was not long before he was assassinated that fall. I forget the date, but it was maybe September of '63. Bauman: Mm-hmm, yeah. So you got a photo of him while he was giving his speech? Fox: Yeah. Yes, I did from a distance. I didn't have a good telephoto lens, [LAUGHTER] unfortunately at the time. Bauman: Do you remember anything else about his visit? Fox: Not especially. I don't remember what he said. Bauman: Were there any other events or incidents or things from those early years working at Hanford that stand out to you that you remember? Fox: A sort of an off-the-wall type of one. This was back earlier on when I was at the fire station at H Area. And at that time, there was a fighter aircraft based at Moses Lake, Larson Air Force Base. And again, it was protection for the Hanford plant. And a pilot from there had a flame-out over the Yakima firing range somewhere and ejected and landed on the Hanford plant. And he landed in a tree. And they had to—Hanford patrol had to get him out of his parachute out of the tree. [LAUGHTER] How ironic in all of that space that he could find a tree to land in. [LAUGHTER] But the—I’m trying to think—there were other events. There was an incident with the startup of K West Reactor. I think that's another sort of plant war story to tell. And I don't know what's been said about that. I recall there was a deadline to meet for the startup of the N Reactor. And that was practically willed into happening [LAUGHTER] before the stroke of midnight or so on. And you know there were sort of war stories to be told about that. Bauman: What would you consider the most challenging aspects of working at Hanford, especially in the '50s and '60s? And what might have been some more rewarding aspects of your work there? Fox: Well, the challenging aspects were trying to get more production for the Cold War and trying to determine what were the safe limits on operation for the piles, the temperature limits, avoiding incipient boiling in the tubes in the reactor core. And I assume that there were similar issues with the chemical processing plants. Again, because of the compartmentalization of the technology, I never worked in the 200 Areas. I had no understanding of the processes there or the issues there. And the infamous green run that you've probably heard some people talk about had occurred before I came here. That was very early in the Cold War, but they still talked about it. Individual radiation exposure limits were more—I wouldn't say they were casual—but compared to today's standards, they were relaxed. Procedures for doing things were not as cumbersome as they are today. It's practically impossible to get anything done today [LAUGHTER] under the work rules and procedures by comparison. And yet, it got done and generally safely. The only really serious accident that I can recall that involved radiation was the one in the Plutonium Finishing Plant with the glove-box with the americium. And I can't recall the employee's name got the bad exposure with americium and had treatment. But I don't know anything about the specifics of it. One technical challenge that was not met that I can recall, and I had one of the assignments on the rotational training program, which I mentioned earlier, was in the fuel manufacturing area in the 300 Area. I don't know if you've interviewed anybody who worked there, but the fuel process had an aluminum can about eight inches long and about a little over an inch in diameter. And you stuck the uranium slug in it. But where you did that in order to bond it to the slug, you stood over a pot of molten aluminum silicon alloy. And you had a holder that held the uranium can and the steel tube. You lowered that into the pot of molten alloy. And the operator manually pushed the solid uranium slug into it and then lifted it out and set it aside. And then it was cooled off and cleaned off and sent over to weld the cap on the aluminum can. Well, General Electric looked at this and said, this is a cumbersome manual process. And these workers are standing over this pot of hot molten alloy. Not a pleasant job. And we ought to be able to automate this, so they set up two competing approaches to automating it. And one was, let me call it a tinker toy set up approach. It's a disparaging term, but attempt to replicate the manual process with machinery to repeat—robotic, I guess, is a better word to use--to replicate that process. And I had a short assignment for three months because I was a mechanical engineer on doing that. And I made a couple of suggestions for it, which didn't work out as it turned out. So I didn't contribute anything to make a success of that. And it was ultimately unsuccessful. The other was for the design group to design a machine to do it by some alternate process. And there was a third process proposed that was more mechanical bonding process, but that was never tried out experimentally. The ultimate result was no process failed. And they used the manual process for as long as the whole production reactors existed. The N Reactor, the dual purpose reactor, used a completely different process because it required high temperature materials. Bauman: So then what would have been some of the more rewarding aspects of working at Hanford for you? Fox: Well to me personally, it was interesting because it was, of course, an entirely new technology at that time. And it was apparent to me that the Hanford graphite reactor technology was not suitable for power reactors in the long run. It got me to thinking about that. I had the opportunity also later toward the end of the '60s and the early '70s to teach a course here at what was then joint graduate center in reactor design. And also for three or four years to help with a spring quarter design course at the University of Washington in Seattle as an adjunct there in their spring design graduate level course on reactor design. So that, again, was very interesting, the interaction with students, and particularly at the University with foreign students. It's a clear contrast between American educated students and foreign educated students and trying to stimulate different ideas or taking a different look at things in the design course for how to apply the basic knowledge or principles or how to make trade-offs when you also had to get into the economics of things. The Hanford plant really didn't have much of an economic element to it. It was wartime, and you know it's almost at any cost—not quite that way, but-- So it led me to be able to think of things differently and think more of the getting into application versus theory. Bauman: Mm-hmm. Most of the students that I teach now were born after the Cold War ended, or many of them were, and don't know much about it or certainly don’t have many memories of it. So I wonder what you might say to either those students that I would have or future generations about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Fox: Well, I didn't think of it as anything special. And quite frankly, I think that I see these ads on television daily now about Cold War warriors or so on contributing to the Cold War effort. And I never viewed it in that or through a quasi-patriotic way. It was an interesting job. It was more interesting than a lot of other jobs I might have had in a career. And the fact that it in some way contributed to the beneficial end to the Cold War was okay, but I don't feel it deserves anything special. I mean, there are quite a few other things that needed to be in place to prevail in the Cold War—the whole rocket missile technology, the miniaturization of the weapons, the nuclear weapons, the hydrogen bomb, which Hanford had little contribution to, except the early production of tritium. It just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Bauman: I wonder if I could ask you, at what point did you get involved in city government? And was that in any way any connection to your work at Hanford at all? Fox: No. No, no connection. I've always had some interest in government, maybe inspired by a high school civics teachers named Wade Williams at Lincoln High School in Portland. And a high school alumni bulletin I just got last week named him as one of their outstanding teachers of all time. And he was a controversial guy, a very provocative guy. Staunch Republican in an era when everybody was a Democrat and a successful baseball coach [LAUGHTER] teaching government or social studies. But when we had kids in school I was on the school board for eight years in the late '70s and early '80s. Because I was concerned that the school that they built across the street here was mal-designed for the high school. And that the school was off on an education fad of the decade, was dictating school design according to some idealistic model that wasn't very practical in practice. But I just basically believe it’s a citizen's responsibility to give something back to the community as best he or she can, according to their abilities, whatever way works. And I felt I had something to contribute along that line. When I was on the school board, I was a dissenting vote on eliminating the teaching of world history at the junior high level, because students aren't interested in that kind of thing. And I'm not a believer in ignoring history, which is why I'm here today, isn't it? We're talking about the history of Hanford. When I retired, I wanted to do something more. And I got on the Parks Commission and ultimately, on the city council. Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about your time working at Hanford, or that you haven't talked about yet that you think would be important to talk about? Fox: Well as I've been saying to a number of people in talking about the Reach and the CREHST Museum and so on and some of the issues they have their currently, I think is important not to think just about the wartime mission or the wartime plus the Cold War mission, but it has led to other things. As I think I mentioned by a couple of examples I previously gave that it lead to peacetime missions. And part of that was a deliberate federal policy to say, okay, we've started this community here. There's a big investment in that community. We need to find a way to support some economy there after the wartime mission is completed and the plant is shut down. And so it led to peacetime missions. And that's led to the evolution of what's now the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and a whole science and technology. And there are unforeseen consequences of that. And the unforeseen consequences aren't always bad. [LAUGHTER] They seem to be for any action taken in the Middle East. But here, it's led to a very vital research laboratory. And we wouldn't have a branch campus of a university here today without that. And that's all an asset to the community. When the Hanford plant was originated, people came from all over the country to work here. It built a more diverse community of backgrounds and interests than in any other city its size in eastern Washington. And that persists now. It's a legacy from that. And it's built on and built on and built on in those directions. Out of the lab came the original patent for digital recording, little known, totally unrelated, so on. What else will come out of it in the future? We can't know. But I think we can estimate that something will come out of it that will be for the greater good and we'll see. Bauman: All right. Well, I want to thank you very much for coming in today and talking with us about your experiences. Appreciate it. Fox: Okay. Thanks. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:01:38 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 185 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview H Area VIT PLant 300 Area K West Reactor N reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Fox Description An account of the resource An interview with John Fox conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-9-4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-21: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 300 Area General Electric H Area Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (Wash.) K West Reactor N Reactor Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F91bc830435e20ab2f167731f6753a29d.jpg 07c79fb937ae0c69b708d6ee69024c9f https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F44d03d7ad701c05fcea08001a735079b.mp4 a1c266e40348c4f877dd5bfacbd661ab Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pre-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Madeleine Gilles Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Northwest Public Television | Gilles_Madeleine </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Robert Bauman: My name's Robert Bauman, and I'm conducting an oral history interview with Madeleine Gilles. And this is July 2nd of 2013. The interview's being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And I'll be talking with Madeleine Gilles about her family's history, her years growing up in Richland. So let's start with that, if we could. If you could tell me about how and when, why your family came to Richland. Anything about when and why they came here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Madeleine Gilles: Well, they came from Montana--Butte. I was about a year and a half old I think. And I guess they wanted to change from a miner to a farmer. And he was from-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Croatia it looked like. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Croatia, yes. And my mother was American. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What were your parents' names? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: What? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What were your parents' names? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Mr. Patricia and John Serdar. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: S-E-R-D-A-R. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And did you have any brothers or sisters? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I had two sisters which are a year and eight or nine months between the three of, you know. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Mm-hm, okay. And so when you came to Richland, did you have a farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I don't know how he came by a farm, but I know that he had 10 acres on a flat. And my mother's father, my grandfather, lived up on a little hill above us. It's now out at, behind that Richland airport. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Okay. That's where the land was? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes. It's still fenced off. There's nothing on it. [LAUGHTER] And it was by the irrigation ditch where we lived on the hill part. And the irrigation ditch had that flume across the little bitty gully onto downtown Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And you used irrigation water on farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: From that. Yes. They had weirs that went out to the fields and filled up. And you could water from there. They built little wooden waterways to where they wanted it, and then they'd have rails. And they'd flood the rails and then move it on to the next part of the field until they got it watered. And the ditch riders came by and kept watch on wherever it come out from the irrigation ditch. I forgot what they called those. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What kind of crops did you have? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: We had alfalfa and a big garden and strawberries and grapes and raspberries. So we were busy. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] And did you have any animals on the farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. We had about ten cows. And they pastured over where the golf course is now. Oh, I forget the name of it. It's a pony. [LAUTHER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [INAUDIBLE] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Horse name. Anyway there's a golf course down there now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Where the pastures were? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Where the pastures were, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so, the alfalfa, was that a crop you grew and sold? Or was that used for your animals? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, it's to feed the animals in the winter. You cut it and stacked it and put it on a wagon and hauled it over and threw it up on a haystack. [LAUGHTER] One way or another, in the barns, they used to take the horses and somehow off of the hay wagon. They wrapped it up, and then the horses went ahead and drew it up into the loft. That way. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so, what other buildings were on your property besides the house itself? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: The barn. And we had a cellar, a ground cellar, and it was covered with dirt and had to open up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What was stored in there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, canned fruit and things that--sauerkraut in the barrel and anything like that. And then we had where we kept the potatoes and the turnips and all that stuff in another building. And we had chickens. Of course, they harvested the turkeys in the fall. I don't know where they sold them, down to the butcher or somebody. And then we had the barn down the hill farther in front of the haystack, and that was--and there was a barnyard of course. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Growing up, did you have jobs that were yours on the farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. Worked all day outside and in the sun. [LAUGHTER] Hoeing weeds and picking strawberries early in the morning. We worked for people who had lots of asparagus. We cut asparagus early in the morning. In the spring, you know? And my mother worked in the packing shed, and they packed the asparagus ready for market. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Was this someone else in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I don't know. I think they shipped it. They shipped it in wooden crates. Not too big because they'd get smashed. And the strawberries, the same way. We picked strawberries. We picked apples. We picked pears. We did those kind of things for other people, plus we picked our own fruit so our mother could can them. And we was busy. We had to bring the cows from the pasture home in the morning after cutting asparagus—about 3:00 in the morning, you get up, cut asparagus, bring the cows home and milk them and take them back. Get ready for school. It was busy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: That's a lot of work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, but it didn't hurt me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you have time to do fun things--swimming or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yeah. We went down the irrigation ditch down to where it kind of stops down at where there's land and it kind of opened up a little space where kids could come. And we'd go swimming and take a bath [LAUGHTER] with soap. Didn't do much good because you had to run back up the flume home. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: But anyway it was--and well, at school, we did our sports, softball and basketball and went to different little towns for competition games. And see who'd go to Spokane. We went one year, but we lost by--for basketball--lost by one point. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah. I saw a picture of a basketball team-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, I was in it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: In the picture, right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What position did you play on the basketball team? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Pardon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What position did you play on the basketball team? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Guard. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Do you remember any of the other young women who were on the team? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: John Dam’s daughter was. She was forward. And I forget her name, but Margaret somebody was center. And I don't remember them all. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: You must've been a good athlete then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, I guess I was. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Well, there's also in that book, a note that you had won a race. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: A race. Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: At a picnic? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. At the end of the year, they'd have school competition between the grades and stuff. And that was for my running. Because we did a lot of running in soft sand. So when you go on hard surface, you could really go. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How did you get to school? Did you walk to school? A bus? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, no. A bus came, and we could see it when we lived on the little hill above the flat surface where we were at first. We could see it. Then we'd take off and run down to the corner and catch the bus. And then he'd pick up all the rest of the kids and go down to Richland. The school was behind John Day and Nelson's mercantile store there. There was a gas station there and a church where we had baccalaureate and all that stuff there from the grade school. And the high school was down the road from the grade school. Richland High. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Right. Do you remember any of your teachers from? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, Carmichael and—oh, I don't remember. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Any idea how big, how many-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Kids? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Kids there were. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, I think there was about 500 people. So they must have had at least three or four kids. So multiply that. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: We had a lot of kids. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: I want go back. You mentioned your parents earlier. And your father was an immigrant from Croatia. Did he speak English? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Not very well. There was nobody for me to talk to but the animals. [LAUGHTER] Because my mother didn't converse with him. Because she didn't know his language. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And how had they met? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, at a dance in Montana--Butte. And he knew her father in the mines. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: I see. And they got married and moved out-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. However, they were advertising at that time for homesteading in the '20s, you know. I was born in 1920. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: How they got there, I don't know. Because they never talked, and I didn't know what to ask them anyway. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Now, did you have electricity at all in your home? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. Kerosene light, lamp, and lantern to go to the barn and milk in the winter and stuff like that. Had kerosene. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And did you have--how did you get from--did you have a car at any time, or was it horse and wagon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: First of all, it was a wagon with a bed in it. We rode it in the back, and they rode in the front of course. And took a long time to get there, [LAUGHTER] wherever we was going. They belonged to the grange. And we'd go there for their meetings and dances. And my mother played piano, and she played for the drill team and for the dances along with other musicians. And they used to have house parties in the wintertime. They'd clear the floor, and whoever could come to play--and if there was a piano there, my mother played. And they danced or they played cards or--that was their entertainment, so to speak. Go from house to house to play cards. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Do you remember any other events? Were there 4th of July-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. We'd go to the park. What is that park called? Where the golf course is--on the river. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Howard Amon Park? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, no. It's a golf course on the river. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Columbia Park? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. They'd go along there, and people would come. And they'd make homemade ice cream, and they'd do their wieners or whatever—chicken, it usually was--a lot of fried chicken and pies and cakes, and they had a good time. And then, as I remembered, they used to shoot firecrackers off of the old green bridge and do their fireworks there. So everybody'd go down by the river there and watch them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: The fireworks there. There was a ferry that would take people across the river. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you do that very often? Take the ferry across the river? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, we didn't. But we did go down to the Columbia, down to the boom where they caught wood and trees and stuff and get our wood for the winter, or if you happened to be lucky, get a part of a tree or something. They'd saw it up and have some wood to build something. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you interact with any Native Americans in the area very often? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. When the fishing season was on, they used to go up to the Yakima someplace where there was a little dam. But they put their tents out across the ditch from us, and they'd have little tents. And then they'd have a three-sided tent where they'd have their fires out there and cook their fish and dry it and stuff like that. We had to drive the cows by the trail, went right by their camping site. [LAUGHTER] And my mother used to say to my little sister, "Rosie, if you don't be good, I'm going to give you to the Indians.” [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What about any neighbors or were there children from other families-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: --there a lot? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, Arstolds and-- they didn't live close. They had their own acreage and stuff. And we used to go to their house a lot. And Bumgarnters and--gee, I can't think of their names now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: That's okay. So in terms of the weather here--it can get pretty darn hot as we know today— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: --in the summer and pretty cold at times in the winter with no electricity. What was that like? Do you have any memories of the heat or the wind or the winter weather? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, we just made do. We had wood for fire. In the cook stove was the heater of the room. We only had two rooms on the hill, and the one house we lived on in the flat was a big one room thing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: And my grandfather, after he died, we moved up there. And the cook stove kept us warm, but it didn't go all night. [LAUGHTER] You had to get up in the morning and put the kindling in and light it and get it going. And in the summer, you just stopped. And again, in the shade, that's all you could do. And it got really hot because there was no trees. No trees. And now you have green and trees. It makes it cooler. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you get many dust storms? Do you remember many dust storms? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. Lots of hard sand would blow against your legs when you was going back and forth to the pasture. Ooh. That really stung. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How about any wild animals? Were there coyotes? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, coyotes, and rabbits. They used to have rabbit drives. A lot of men would get together so far apart and they'd drive the rabbits in front of them and then shoot them. Because they were a real menace. They get into your garden and eat everything up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah, I've heard about those before. Eating the crops were the problem, or the gardens, yeah. So I understand that you had a little bit of an accident. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes, I found a blasting cap that my dad had brought from Butte to blow up the sagebrush. It was big and tough to make more land, you know. And so I found an old one, and I thought it was full of dirt, picked at it and it blew up. Took my fingers off. But I made it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How old were you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I was 16 and very upset about it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so did you have to go to a doctor or a hospital? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, went to Lourdes, and Dr. Spalding took care of my hand. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And was that the only hospital? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Only one. And it was 13 miles, and the neighbors that had bought the flat--one room shack--took me over there. It was 13 miles or something. And I had to wait for a baby to be born before they could take care of me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: But they decided to keep my hand and not cut it off because it looked so bad. So I have a hand, just not the digits. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How long did you have to stay at the hospital? How long did it take to recover? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, I stayed there longer than I need to do because I didn't have any place to go. My mother and father got a divorce, and she was very ill with arthritis. It's the kind that just comes overnight, and I forget the name of it. But it's a bad one. And so she and I were in the hospital the same time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: So they kept me there, and then I went to work--for three months they kept me, and I worked folding bandages and stuff before they autoclaved them or sterilized them. And then I worked at the doctor's home for his son--to take care of his baby son. Then I got to go down and eat at their restaurant in the evening. So I was just the daytime stuff, and I stayed there. And I was there till I decided that I needed to go to school and learn to work over. So I went to the Catholic school in Spokane--the House of Good Shepherd it was at that time. And they took wayward girls, but they decided my sisters and I would be a help at the place to do other things. But to mind the rules the same as they had to, which was okay with me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So how long were there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh about two and a half years. My sister Mary was there 13 years, and Rosie was there 10 or so. But they did like Mary. She run the movie machine and helped the nuns. And I worked in the kitchen, and of course I learned to work. And worked in the where we ate in the cafeteria. And I got to go with the nuns when they went soliciting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So did you grow up Catholic then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Was there a Catholic church in the area anywhere? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, we had to come to Kennewick. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: My mother brought a few children, and my sisters over in the summer for us to take our catechism. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So Kennewick was the place to go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. So we got our proper papers to be a Catholic. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Do you remember what the name of the church was in Kennewick? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: St. Joseph's as far as I know. That was the first church, and I think it was on—I don’t know--down by the canal. Now I don't know where it is for sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah. I think it's on Clearwater now, but it used to be on-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And now I think it's on-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. I know where that one is now, but I don't know where they moved the old church. Yeah, it's on Garfield--the new church, St. Joseph. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So after you were in Spokane for about two and half years. What happened to you at that point? Where did you go from there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Pardon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Where did you go after you were in Spokane? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, I worked at a home and took care of invalid fellow and his baby when the family was gone. And I worked in the kitchen and fed the baby and all this. And they rang a bell for me [LAUGHTER] to come and wait on the table and stuff. And then they split up the families. The mother and father and the husband and wife moved out. So then I came out to--where did I go? Oh. I have to think. Where did I go? Oh, I went back to Richland, and I lived with a family that--he worked on the freeways and highways building, and she was home with two or three kids. And so I stayed there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: And in the summertime, we'd get to go to up in the mountains where they built highways. I forget the name of the one we was that one summer. Anyway. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Remember the name of the family that you were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, Drieslers. Jack Driesler, and Nellie. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And then you said your parents got a divorce around the time you were 16, also. Is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so what happened to the family farm when your parents got divorced? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: The government bought it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so did that happen when you were in Spokane that the government bought-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Or later? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. I was at 16, and I was born in 1920. So that was what? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: That was 1936. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And the government came in '43. So it would've been later. So did both your parents stay in Richland after they got divorced? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. He went back to mining up in Metaline Falls where his brother lived. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And how about your mother? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: She stayed here and married a guy that he lived out there by our school teacher. But when Hanford bought them out, they moved to Prosser and had a mint farm. And then my mother, she died young. She was 53. She died in '55. She had like emphysema and kidney problems. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: You mentioned that your grandfather had some land them on the hill above you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Now, did he stay there until '43? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. He passed away before we moved up there. So that's how come we moved up there. Some of this is mixed up, I know. But I think it's off. [LAUGHTER] Been a long time ago. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about, any--either events that really stand out in your mind or really special memories or anything like that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Not that I can think of at the moment. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: There was a continual-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Speak up. I can't-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: --relationship between Rosie who was the youngest girl and-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: We were raised together. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: --Mary. And they ganged up against Mary and pulled all kind of pranks like— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: --chucking cow patties at her and stuff like that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So a little sibling rivalry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, she wanted to boss everything. [LAUGHTER] When she hears that, she'll--she's still alive. And Rosie wasn't going to have that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And Rosie was the youngest. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. She was feisty. She passed away. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And all three of you were in Spokane for a while. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So what happened--your sisters, when they left Spokane, where did they go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Rosie went with my cousin Tony to Waukegan, Illinois and got a job there where they made pills-- filled pills. I don't know what you call it. But anyway, she got a job there and lived there about five years and came back out and met her husband out at the area. He was a--he drew--what do you call it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Draftsman. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Draftsman. And she was a secretary. And they met and married and moved back to Wenatchee where he was from, up there. And lived till they both passed away. Mary is still here with her husband Jim. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And then how about yourself? When the war came, did you move out of the area? Where else did you live besides-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, I was up in Seattle working at the Swedish hospital. And for a while, I worked at the Bon Marche, downtown Seattle and helped the baker in the morning and cleaned the steam table. They had a little restaurant at that time, the Bon Marche did. I helped the baker make pies and cakes and stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And when did you come back to Richland or to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: 1986. 50 years later. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Changed quite a bit probably since you've been last living there. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, I'm lost yet! [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: I was wondering what you would think would be important for people to understand about the community of Richland that you grew up in? To understand sort of what it was like to grow up there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I think it was a great life. And children worked and there wasn't so much vandalism. And of course, there wasn't that many people, but they were good people. I can't really think of anything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Well, thank you very much for coming in here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: This was terrific. Some really good stories and memories, and I really appreciate you being willing to come and talk with us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: There's probably a lot more, but I'm sorry I don't remember it all. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Well, what you remembered is great. Thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Okay. You're welcome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: It wasn’t too bad, was it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, I just wish I knew more. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: No, well, what you remembered is really— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: You did a terrific job, I’m proud of you. You obviously knew a ton of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Good, good, good. As I said, some of those memories are great— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Camera man: Can I take a picture before you go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: --because people now don’t know— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: They had no electricity, they had no water, I mean you had to pump it out— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: It’ll go along with your information. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: When we put together all the stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I hope it’s a good one! I don’t take good pictures anymore. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: Oh, well, we all say that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: All right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: [LAUGHTER] </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:37:27 Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1920-2013 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Serdar, John; Gilles, Mary; Gilles, Rosie Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Madeleine Gilles Description An account of the resource An interview with Madeleine Gilles conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/2/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-05-30: Metadata v1 created – [ J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick(Wash,) Richland (Wash.). Public Schools Hanford (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) swimming https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F82c04966c9ad4d75be52520235b0f436.jpg 0cfd3eabf5f6f11bc4ae97cf18f78000 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F5ac81b95ffc5c268e001b40efe232954.mp4 912843de88d1ba96be6a1ee7dfb001cd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Elizabeth Gladden Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Northwest Public Television | Gladden_Elizabeth </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Elizabeth Gladden. Capital E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H. Gladden. G-L-A-D-D-E-N. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Great. Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: The first year I was there, I was a Feemster. I was unmarried. And then we got married this second year. So my maiden name was Feemster. So the Social Security people told me to keep the F. Originally my middle initial was an E. But to keep the F of the maiden name to keep their records straight. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Sure. Right. And how did you spell your maiden name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: F-E-E-M-S-T-E-R. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. And my name is Robert Bauman. And we're conducting this oral history interview on July 7, 2014, on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So I guess let's start with maybe how you found out about—what were you doing before the war, maybe? And how you found out about an opportunity to teach at Heart Mountain. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Okay. As I said, Pearl Harbor is the one that started it all. And from there, the Army thought that the Japanese on the west coast would be a danger. And they wanted them moved. And we found out later that that wasn't true, that they really weren't a danger, that California just wanted the Japanese out, and this was a good opportunity to get them out. And I was teaching in Nebraska when Pearl Harbor came along. And then I finished that year, and the next year I moved to a town called Osceola in Nebraska, which was a little better opportunity. And I taught one week when I got a call from the Davis teachers' agency, telling me that they had a good job for me in Wyoming. And it sounded very good because I was getting $1,000 there, and out in Wyoming, I would be getting $2,000. So I just doubled the pay for a couple months' more work. My father thought I was going to the end of the world. But I resigned then at Osceola. I don't think the school board was very happy with me. And I packed up and came out to Heart Mountain. And it was, I think, the second week in September when I got out there. Some of the teachers had gotten there already. The principal and school superintendent had been on the job for several months. And they had tried to get everything organized so that we could be an accredited high school. And then we started school I think the first week in October. Several weeks I was there beforehand, we sorted books and got assigned to our classrooms and got things set out. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Do you remember what your first impressions were when you arrived in Heart Mountain? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: What? What? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Your first impressions of the place. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden. Oh. [LAUGHTER] I remember writing the folks and saying that it was all right if you looked up. The sky was pretty and blue, but not if you looked around. No, it was very, very bleak. It was hot. And all you saw were these black tar paper barracks. And you just saw the trainloads of evacuees coming in, and you felt sorry for them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: What sort of housing did you have there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, the first year we lived in Cody, Wyoming. There was no gas, so people weren't traveling. So we lived in a—what do you call it? It was a motel. A little motel. And a lot of the faculty lived there. There wasn't enough room at Heart Mountain yet. They had built dorms out there, and some of the single people were out there in dorms. But there were no apartments for the married people at all. And then in the next year, we had a fairly nice apartment, except ours also was not dust-proof. We had lots and lots of dust. But we did have electricity and water and a refrigerator. And all the evacuees had when they arrived was a big room. The rooms varied in size, depending on the size of the family. Some of the rooms were 20 feet long, and some were much smaller. Families varied from six on down to single. They had one lightbulb hanging down from the ceiling, no running water. The latrines and the showers were all outside. There was one for each block. And there were 20 blocks. So it was pretty cold. They said some of the mothers didn't get anything done but bundling up their children and taking them out to the bathroom and back in again. It was pretty, pretty sad. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And for the single people, were there separate dorms for the single people? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, the evacuees were in the same ones, but they had a smaller apartment. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Oh, okay, I see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: They say the women went to work immediately, getting sheets and so forth, dividing up the space so they'd have a little privacy. And I guess the latrines at first were just wide open. There was no privacy in them at all. But the Japanese were quite ingenious. They began to do things. They said Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck got a lot of money from tools that the internees had ordered. Some of them were trying to patch up the leaky holes in the barracks and so forth. They had one pot-bellied stove in each room. They didn't do adequate heating jobs, of course. Of course, that's what we had too, up on the hill. We had a pot-bellied stove. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so what did you teach then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: I taught English, and I also had a math class. I taught freshman and sophomore English and Algebra. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And about how many students did you have in a class? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, several of the classes were quite small. But they never got over 25 or so. They were pretty good. And I would say that the discipline was heaven. We had none of the discipline problems that I had when I got back to Pasco. [LAUGHTER] I think they were all kind of beaten down at that point. They seemed cheerful, but I don't know. They must have thought they couldn't get by with anything, because they very good. And of course the original schools were in the barracks. And there were no desks. They had the long benches that the kids sat in, and they had to do their writing on their lap. And I had an assistant to help me grade papers, which was nice, because I'd never had that before. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So the whole time you were there, there were no desks? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, just in the barracks. In '43, then, the high school was built. And it was heaven compared to what we had. It went up within a year. But it had a big administrative building--section in the middle. And then it had two big wings on it. And they had a Home Ec department in one section. They had a shop. They had a science department. They had a big gymnasium and auditorium combined. And we had enough textbooks finally. So it was very, very much improved over the first year. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: What about eating facilities? Were there cafeterias, mess halls? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, the kids always ate in the mess hall. You see, each block had its own mess hall where they would go, along with their bath facilities. And they would go to the mess hall to eat. I might say that at first there was a little unrest. They claimed they weren't getting the proper food and so forth. But they kind of worked with the administration. And later they didn't seem to complain so much about the food. Then we had a separate cafeteria up on the hill where we ate at noon. And we complained, because the meat was always lamb. I was so tired of lamb when we got through. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: I guess that's what was available in Wyoming. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Right. Yeah. Well, another thing that's of interest when we're talking about food is that they had their own chicken ranch down at the bottom they put in. And they also had a bunch of pigs down there. And the second year, the late summer, 1945, they took over the land across the street--across the highway—and they put in a huge garden. And they had every kind of vegetable imaginable down there. And the people around Cody said that it wouldn't grow. It wouldn't grow there at all. But we had an abundance of fresh things then. And it was in the fall of 1945—1944, rather—when it got really cold, and they were afraid the potatoes were all going to freeze. So they dismissed school. And they plowed up all the potatoes. And the kids went out and picked up potatoes. The faculty, too. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So about how many internees were there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: We had 10,000 in the camp. And there were times when we had about 10,700. There were 120,000 Japanese that were evacuated. If you had a sixth of a Japanese blood in you, you were evacuated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And obviously all the internees were from the west coast. Were they mostly from California? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: All along the coast. They were sent from Washington, along the coast. It went down that were also taken. There is this movie—maybe you've seen it--that is very, very good, number of years ago. And I can't remember the name of it. It's based on a family that was evacuated from over on the coast. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so there were some residents there from the Tri-Cities area, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, yes. My understanding is that the Columbia River was the dividing line. Everybody west of the Columbia River went. But some people east—and I know there were a couple families in Pasco went, because they were afraid. Sentiment against the Japanese was very, very bad, and they were afraid to stay. And they came back. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Now did you know these people at all when you were there? Or were these people that you heard about later? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, once the war was over, it was over, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So for students who were in the high school when they first came to Heart Mountain, but finished high school during the war, were they able go to college somewhere? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, while they were in camp those three years, if they had the resources and they found a school that would accept them, college students could go out, as long as they went east. And we had a number who went out. And also there were a few of the laborers who went out to get better jobs that were allowed to go. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So you went there in the fall of-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: In the fall of '42, and left in the late summer of '45. Was there five years--or three years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Overall, how would you describe your experience teaching there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, I would say it's very good. We had a nice social background with other Caucasians. And we knew a few of the Japanese. But somehow we didn't get very—there wasn't an opportunity, really, to get very close to them. I might say that the administration did a great job in trying to get things organized, along with the help of the outstanding leaders in the Japanese community. And they had Boy Scout groups and Camp Fire Girls and Girl Scout groups. And they had dance clubs and everything that would keep the kids busy. And when it got really hot, they dug a great big swimming pool. And the kids went swimming. And then in the winter, they skated there. Some of them had never seen an ice skate before. And they had great fun ice skating. They couldn't get out on the hills, though, to go sledding. They had to stay in camp. Oh, I might say there were about 19, I think, guard stations around the camp. And they were up high, with very powerful searchlights. And nobody could get out without being caught. And as we went in and out the gate, we had to have badges on. And the Army was stationed down at the base. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: You mentioned, when I talking to you earlier, that you had teaching assistants or assistants that helped you, grading? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yes, I had two students. They were kids who were already through high school. And they would help grade English papers and math papers. Sakiko Yoshimura and Metsu--Metsuku--Mets--suku—what's her name now? I've forgotten. I saw it in the book. Yeah. Yeah. And we kept track of--one of them went back to Japan the minute the camp closed down. And the other one was a seamstress. And she went to California. And when my daughter and I were traveling one day, we stopped to see her. But we lost track of her later. We don't know what happened. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Did you ever get a sense, or any of the internees ever say anything? They expressed any sort of disappointment or anger or anything about being in the camp? Or did they not really talk about it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, we were told when we went that you'll never get a job in a private school again. If you go teach those Japs. You're through. And they were crying for teachers when we got out. There's no problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So once the camp closed, then, what happened to you? What did you do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, when the camp closed--well, school was over in 1945 in the last of May. And all teachers were through. But if you wanted to stay on, and they needed you in some other department, you could go. And I was always interested in hospital work. In fact, that's what I thought I wanted to be when I was growing up, was a nurse. So I went to the hospital. And my husband went to the housing area where they were boxing up the household goods that the Japanese acquired and put them on the train. Incidentally, each one was given $25 a ticket to where they wanted to go, and that was it. But I had a lot of experiences in the high school—in the hospital. And I was so grateful for the opportunity. Being a Caucasian, I got to do things--administer medicine and do things—that otherwise the Japanese didn't get to do. And I remember so well. One of the doctors came in and grabbed me one day. And he said, come here, I need you quickly. Lady's going to have a baby. So I was there and he put out his gloves for me to hold to put them on. I was only woman in the room besides the doctor. And I got to see a baby born. And that was before I had any children. And it was really, really interesting. And another experience, there was a time, there was one of the fellows dying, an older man. And she got me and said, I think you need to see this. So she took me in, and we watched his last breaths. And when he was gone, she says, now we have to take out his false teeth and take him to the morgue. They had a morgue in the hospital. So she says, I want you to go down with me. And so I did. And shoved him in the freezer there. Then we came back to the room to clean it up. And she says, oh, I forgot to put his false teeth in. But she says, you don't have to go with me this time. I'll go down and do it. She was a graduate nurse, of course. And the salary scale, I don't think we've talked about, was very interesting. There were three scales. I was making over $200 a month. And the highest any Japanese internee could get was $19 a month. And some of the nurses got a little upset at one time. But they wouldn't do anything about it. They had set the scale for $19 for professional. And then I think it was $16 for in between. And the laborers got only $12 an hour. They said they couldn't pay the laborers more than the Army--an Army private got. And that was $20 a day, not an hour. $20 a day. So they didn't make much money. That was one reason they liked the work outside, if they could. Get a job on the outside. Because the administration demanded that they be paid the same way as a Caucasian on the outside. The governor of Wyoming wasn't very helpful. He wanted them to be slave laborers, practically, and work for $12 an hour. And the WRA--that's the War Relocation Authority--said no. You have to pay them same as you pay Caucasians. So some of them got some extra money that way, if they could be cleared. I mentioned to you the newspaper. We had a fellow who was trained in journalism. And he immediately started a newspaper. It started within a week I think from the time he got there. He got his staff together. It was an eight page newsletter--or newspaper, rather--that came out once every Saturday. And that kind of kept the evacuees in touch with what's going on in the outside world, as long as rules and so forth in the camp. And he had some pretty good editorials, where he was questioning things. And I do have some copies of those that I'll give you, if you want them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Now did those newspapers have to go through-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: I don't know how much censoring they did. I wouldn't be surprised, but what they had some though. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Were there radios allowed in the camp to listen to? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Get updates on was happening in the world? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: There were always rumors, always rumors. [LAUGHTER] We had a fellow up in the dorm area that got the greatest delight out of starting a rumor and seeing how long it took to get around. Oh, there were rumors about how there were Japanese on the coast, and they were going to invade. There was balloons that were going to be coming over, and so forth and so on. But nothing ever happened. There was never any incident at all. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Do you have any idea how large the staff was that worked at the camp? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, dear. I think there were 200 in the administrative area. And teachers--I don't know for a school that size—it was a big high school. We had the eighth grade in the high school, too. So it was a pretty big school. And our classes weren't big. I remember one summer, I taught solid geometry, and I only had about eight students in there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And was there a graduation ceremony? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes, yes. When they graduated, there was a big ceremony. We had a big auditorium, as I said, which was also a gym. And it was well used here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Was there a church or churches in the camp? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes. The WRA started out with two churches, a Catholic and a Protestant. And the Buddhists wanted their church. And two-thirds of the group were Buddhists. And the WRA refused, but eventually gave in. So eventually there was a Buddhist church, and the Catholic and the Protestant. We went to the Protestant church and got very well acquainted with the minister and his wife and had them over for dinner. Nice couple. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Do you remember when you heard about the war ending? Or any of that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes. We were eating lunch in--oh, no, no. When we were eating lunch, it was when Roosevelt was pronounced dead. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Oh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: And my husband was down in the lab, because he was always fooling with radios. He was building his own radio. And he came rushing up and said that Roosevelt had died. And this was during the lunch hour. I forget the date. But the war--well, it's an interesting story about how we heard about the war. We were married in '43. My sister was married in '45. And her husband was working at the University of Chicago. And the department--what do they call it? The one where they were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: The Manhattan Project, or-? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah. Well, it's part of the Manhattan Project. And he knew what we were doing out at Hanford, but we didn't know what was going on out here. And so the fellas were in the living room--I remember--and we were out in the breakfast nook at York, Nebraska, at my parents' home. And Stanley--my brother-in-law--came running out to the kitchen and grabbed my sister by the arm and said, come in and listen to this. He said, I want you to hear it. And you tell me what you heard. And she did. And then he said, well, that's what I've been doing. So that was how we know the war had ended. They'd dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. They always said Hiroshima, not "Hiro-SHEE-ma." </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So now did you and your husband meet at Heart Mountain? Or, how did you meet? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: I met my husband at the University of Chicago. I was there one summer. And we got acquainted. And we corresponded. And he'd come to Nebraska and so forth. Then he ran out of money. He was working on his Ph.D. So he took a job at Whitehall, Montana. And he was there the year that I was at Heart Mountain, the first year. And then he wanted to come down. And of course they gave him a job. And we were married then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so after the war ended, how did you end up in Pasco then? How did that happen? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, that was when--we stayed in Heart Mountain until almost the end of the summer. And then my husband was interested in getting a teaching job in Washington. So he started applying for jobs along the Columbia River, any big town. And Pasco was the first one that answered his letter and said, we have a science job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: What were your first impressions of Pasco? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Terrible. [LAUGHTER] Terrible. It was the last day in August. Very, very hot. We were in what they call the Riverside homes, down the river. Big room. We must have had a refrigerator. I don't remember it. But the cupboards were open. No doors on the cupboards or anything. And of course there was no electricity. I mean, you couldn't buy any electric gadgets. You did your cooking on a range. And if you can imagine that, on the last day of August--then it was then that C.L. Booth, the superintendent, asked me if--or I said, do I have to stay here? And he asked me what I did. And I said, oh, I've been teaching school. And he said, come on up and we'll you a job. So then I taught a year. And then we quit to have our family. And then I went back later. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so you already knew about Hanford before you came here, though. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah, we found out. The end of August, I guess, or in August, whenever that was, when my sister and her husband were there, because they'd just gotten married. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So what was Pasco like as a community in the 1940s, 1950s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, we stayed the first night at the new Pasco hotel on Lewis Street. And before we got our Riverside apartment. And it was pretty hot. I wasn't much impressed. My husband always wanted to go to Hawai’i. And he thought, well, we would be on our way to Hawai’i, then. He thought it would be nice to teach over there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so you stayed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: So we stayed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So that would be 70--almost 70 years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah, well, it was 70--I figured it was 72 years since I'd been at Heart Mountain. We came to Pasco in '45. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: '45? 69 years, I guess. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: About 20 years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: ‘45 to now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So if there anything I haven't asked you about-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well I think we’ve- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: --Heart Mountain? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, there was one thing that--the Nisei were subject to draft. And they had to fill out a big form. And they had a couple questions on there that a few of them wouldn't sign. One of them, are willing to withdraw all allegiance to the Japanese emperor? And the other one, are you loyal to the United States? Would you be serving the Army? And there was a committee that formed. And some of them thought their constitutional rights had definitely been tramped on. And that they wouldn't sign, they said, until they were given their freedom back. But the 442nd contingent that you know about, that was so very, very famous, they were all made up of Japanese. And a lot of Japanese took part there. But because of the questionnaire and so forth, and some of them got a little belligerent, they were arrested. And there was one fellow who really wouldn't give in. And he was put in jail for three years I know of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So you knew about that, about the questionnaire. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Uh-huh, yeah. That happened while we were there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Were there a number of young men from Heart Mountain who did end up going to the military, joining the Army? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes, yes, a lot of them. Which I think was pretty wonderful. The way they've been treated, that they would actually go. But they were showing their loyalty to the US. They claimed they were still US citizens. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Well, this has been very interesting for me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, it's fun to review it. I hadn't thought about it for so long. But it's interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: At some point, when you were here in Pasco, did you ever get to know any of the Japanese-Americans who lived here who had been in Heart Mountain? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, my husband had Jerry Minatoya I think, in class in Heart Mountain. And when he got here, he had him in class in high school. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: There were a number of Japanese families living in Pasco, though. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in and sharing your experiences and your photos. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well it’s been—I'm sorry my voice is so cracky. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: No, it’s wonderful. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: You're welcome. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:32:00 Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1945-2015 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Booth, C.L.; Minatoya, Jerry Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 226 Kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Elizabeth Gladden Description An account of the resource An interview with Elizabeth Gladden conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-05-30: Metadata v1 created – [J.G] Subject The topic of the resource Pasco(Wash,) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/7/2014 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. 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Ice Skating Pasco (Wash.) swimming War Relocation Authority (United States) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fea9f9be8e167dfb935591d617ccc4c54.jpg 8c3738fec6884afa34e5950678c91640 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff7b408a8660a5970b818fe119251bed5.mp4 f60b636cbba2fd60f67abb2a10310008 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Hendrickson, Wally Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Hendrickson_Wally Robert Bauman: If I'm not talking loud enough, let me know. Wally Hendrickson: Okay. Bauman: And if you need to stop to take a drink of water— Hendrickson: Oh! Okay. Bauman: Fine, no problem. Whatever. Hendrickson: Though Hanford wasn't involved, I once went to Vietnam to remove the highly enriched uranium fuel at a research reactor. But that was out of Idaho Falls. Bauman: Oh, okay. So it wasn't it directly connected to your work at Hanford? Sort of? [LAUGHTER] Hendrickson: Peripherally, some of the fuel came to the 300 Area and was used in the TRIGA Reactor here for work done on FFTF. Bauman: I think it would still be interesting to talk about that at some point during the interview. Are we all ready to go? Man one: Yup. Bauman: Well let's start by first of all just having you state your name. Hendrickson: I'm Wally Hendrickson. Bauman: Okay, great. And my name's Robert Bauman, and we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. Today's date is July 30th of 2013. So I thought we could start by first of all just telling me how, when, why you arrived at Hanford. Hendrickson: It goes way back. My mother's cousin worked here from the early '40s on. And I knew about the reservation because of family visits. But I first came to work here in 1955. I was an engineering student at University of Idaho and got a summer job here with General Electric--that was a contractor at that time--for the summer. Oh, it really suited me. I've been very interested in science and technology all my life. In high school I wrote a paper on disposal of radioactive waste. And I have four engineering degrees. I've really enjoyed technology. And I had the idea--idealistic young fellow [LAUGHTER]--that engineers could do a lot of good for the community. Bauman: And so what was your--you said you had like a summer job here when you were a college student. What sort of work did you do then? Hendrickson: Yes, it was for technical people—technical students. And it's to give the student a chance to get an early experience with a large technical organization. And, of course, the managers here would look at the students and wonder if they would want to have them when the students graduate. And I've worked here for one year in 1957 - '58, and I was a tech grad, with a few the listeners may know. At that time, a technical graduate like an engineer, or a physicist, or a mathematician would be given four three-month assignments to work in different areas at the site. And I remember—oh, later for that. I was really pleased at that opportunity. And one of the four three-month assignments I remember so well was water treatment. We treated Columbia River water for its use as cooling water in the breeder reactors—or production reactors, I think they're called—that we had here to make plutonium for weapons. And we cleaned more water than the city of Chicago. And our criterion was solid particles, not dissolved stuff, but little dust things that float around in the river and organic things. And I believe we sought to have the particles no more than 0.01 parts per million. And we had tricks that, I think the rest of the world still hasn't caught on to. [LAUGHTER] After the normal type treatment-- Is this dragging on too technical? Bauman: No this is interesting, keep going. Hendrickson: Well, most municipal water treatments were much like ours, except ours was really jazzed up. And they'd put in a chemical that would form a flock. It looks like a tiny piece of cotton floating in the water. And when it forms it readily picks up some dissolved material, but particularly particulate material. And that would settle when the water flowed through a very, very large swimming pool. And then water would go to filters. And they were really fancy filters. I wonder if the rest of the world has caught up with that technology. And we'd add Separan, which was like Lucite, a polyacrylamide, which would give a particle in water with a number of valences so it would attract particulates and enmesh them. And they would settle out or be filtered out. And I was able to work with two really great guys. One was a lawyer. [LAUGHTER] He'd minored in chemistry in law school, and graduated during the Depression, when you couldn't buy a lawyer's job, so he taught chemistry in high school. And there was a law, whose name I don't know, that enabled the government to essentially draft people with skills critical to the war effort. And he first went to a munitions plant, and then here. And I remember he set out to educate me. [LAUGHTER] He told me about the first breach of promise suit in America; that was during colonial times. Where a man died, his life agreed to marry the neighbor, and then thought that oh it's too soon. And he sued her for breach of promise, and was given property from her. That's because in those days it wasn't thought quite proper for women to have property in their name. So he actually lost something. Bauman: So what was this lawyer's name, this man's name? That you were-- Hendrickson: I can't remember now. He was big, and I think he died in the '70s. And I talked to his wife when I came back here in the '80s, and she said he remembered me and would talk about me. Bauman: So that was one of the four areas you worked during your-- Hendrickson: No, that was a full time employee. But I was a tech grad during that time and three months in water treatment. Oh, and another very interesting assignment was looking at the water of the river--or rather, looking at the contamination that mostly the cooling water for the reactors would contribute to the Columbia River. And one bit of--I guess it's a biological thing—that amazed me, phosphorus-32 would be made by fast reactor, fast neutrons, on the aluminum cooling pipes in the reactor tubes. And it would produce phosphorus-32. I think I'm mixed up here. I'm not sure what the target was, but anyway it would get into the water and algae would pick it up--hungry. They're hungry for phosphorus. And the concentration of phosphorus on a weight basis of the algae is 300,000 times what was in just the water. And my colleagues, they would say, well, what does that mean? How is it does it affect health? And they found that whitefish--if they didn't eat the algae, they ate something that had eaten the algae. And it would get into their bones. Now, when you eat whitefish, you usually don't eat the bones, but they didn't calculate—they didn’t take that into consideration. And they knew that some people fished quite a bit out of the Columbia and feed their family the fish. So they calculated what this exposed people to. And if they fished all through the year, and ate all of the fish and ate the bones, they would be getting close to limits for nonprofessional radiation workers. And I was really surprised when I heard about people saying the information regarding exposure of citizens was kept secret, because the very year I was here, '57-'58, the Public Health Service studied radioactivity in the Columbia River and wrote a report, and I had a copy of that report. Bauman: So were levels of phosphorus sort of the main finding from the work you did in terms of the possible impact on— Hendrickson: Yes, though I believe some aquatic worm at the mouth of the Columbia would pick up cobalt-60. And they were hot. Of course, people don't eat the worms. And I don't know if the fish do or not. There was so much work to study what became of the radioactive materials in the effluent, and what kind of hazard that was. And I remember—I'm sort of a chemist too. I remember reading the reports of the radiochemists about the techniques they developed and applied to analysis of radioactivity in the water—either effluent or the river itself. There are people that got to go up and down in a motorboat catching fish for some of this. [LAUGHTER] But much of the radioactive analysis had to come after quite a bit of chemical separation. A lot of things will get radioactive. And if you try to count a dry sample, it would be impossible to distinguish between those radioactive material, or nearly so. And they would use standard inorganic chemistry to separate different isotopes. And this place ran 24/7, and they liked to keep close track of the effluent, so they would build automatic systems to sample and automatically go through the chemical separations. If you've ever been in a hospital that has their own lab, you'll see big machines that are just amazing at being able to analyze for different organic chemicals in the blood. It's all automated. Nowadays, it just comes out printed on a sheet, sounds easy. But there was a time when it was very laborious. Bauman: Do you know if there were any changes made to any procedures in terms of water after the results of phosphorus and that sort of thing? Hendrickson: Well, changes--now I don't think there were many. They did they spend a lot of time finding out what was in the effluent, and what it would do to people. And my recollection is it that it was quite a ways away from any limit, any conservative limits that we operated from. I had heard, though, that the water treatment plant at Kennewick in those days filtered out radioactive particles. And if one went over to the filter bed—I suppose this is after the water's gone down—with a Geiger counter, it was quite radioactive. That was in 1957. Yeah, let's see. Oh! Yeah, this is embarrassing. My bosses said, well, some reactors are better than others in reducing phosphorus-32 material, why is that? Is it a function of the water treatment? So I was set out to set up one reactor. It had split water supply systems. So one reactor ran as normal, and the other half of the reactor ran a little dirtier. And we ran it for quite a while. Stuff builds up on the tubes, fine particles. If you see something in a pond, you might—well, certainly you'll see algae growing on it, but you might see accumulated clay particles. And then we purged the reactor. We ran in diatomaceous earth, which is nearly pure silica from little diatoms, the bodies of little diatoms. And that would scour the fuel elements. And this is done periodically to keep the amount down that we generated. And we took samples, then, during the purge, and they didn't make sense. And a couple weeks before that, I'd gotten some records from an accountant who was stationed over at the coal fired plant that generated steam. And I told him I need to see these records, and this is why. And he says, well, but there is no correlation like you suggest. And I got the records, and yeah, there was no correlation. [LAUGHTER] And my bosses had to admit that they didn't realize that. I suppose they'd gotten some idea during a short period of time that wasn't typical. Bauman: So, how long as a whole did you work at Hanford, and what other areas did you work in? Hendrickson: Well after '57, I started a doctoral program in physical chemistry at Washington State University. It was a very difficult time for me. Let's see, we had gotten a raise as teaching assistants there, up to $200 a month. And I had a bachelor's and master's in chemical engineering. So I didn't have as much chemistry as the other graduate students. It would pretty hard. And I kind of washed out, partly for financial reasons, and took a full time job at the research reactor in Pullman. Now it's called Harold Dodgen Radiation Center is the name. And he was a wonderful man--full professor of both chemistry and physics. Wonderful man, and so well trained. He was from Berkeley, as were some of the other faculty that I had. Well, I eventually got another master's in nuclear engineering and a PhD in engineering science. And then I came here for six months as a summer prof, they call them. Bauman: So what year would this have been? Hendrickson: That was in '71—July of '71. I came and unloaded my earthly possessions on a day that was 113 degrees. Oh! When I went to Pullman, I left the 13th of September, and the heat wave had not yet broken. And to that date, we had had 100 days above 90, and 30 days above 100. That was before anything like air conditioning in buses was thought of for [LAUGHTER] the people that worked here. Yeah, I would be away from home 11 and a half hours a day, be picked up by a shuttle bus that would deposit me at the big bus lot and then take a big bus out to wherever. And it was a toss-up of whether we should have the windows open or have the windows closed, because the air was so hot. Bauman: As so what were you working on then? Hendrickson: The four tech grad assignments. And I've spoken of two—water treatment, and another looking at the radiation impact on the Columbia River. And then I worked with the group that--they called them material and processes. And when something had to be done--a lot of things fell in that category—and they would finish up engineering if it were a new piece of equipment. And then see to procurement. Or they would work on a better decontamination material. When something gets into the contaminated water, the contamination will absorb onto the surface and stay there. And to get it off, you have to do some pretty strong chemistry. And [LAUGHTER] I've seen car loads of decontaminating reagents laying out in the sun, and I'd go test them. It's amazing what industry--Turco was a supplier of these decontaminating chemicals. And they would send us batches of new stuff that they'd worked up. Then we would test them here with our contaminants, and we give the results to them. But they wouldn't tell us what was in the samples they had given us. And I thought that was kind of a dirty trick. And then, I remember one fellow was working on epoxies. And I'd used epoxies at the research reactor in Pullman, so I knew something about that and thought it was interesting. Now there's a fourth one, but I can't remember what it was. Well, after I finished the doctorate, I came here for six months and then had two and a half year postdoc at the Naval Ordinance Laboratory. Then I worked at Idaho Falls at the chemical reprocessing plant and got run out of there and came to the DOE at Hanford for 20 more years—ten years with FFTF and ten years with the radioactive waste tanks. The waste coming from reprocessing fuel--reprocessing to recover the plutonium. And for a while, they were recovering the uranium, because we had huge quantities here that they wanted to use. They would put it back into service at another reactor. When I was here for six months as a summer prof--excuse me. That was really challenging, and when it was all over, I finally realized that what they had done was given me the unsolved problems of 17 years of operation. And it was daunting. One thing I worked out with caveman techniques—no computer, [LAUGHTER] nothing like that. But I had to know the chemistry used to separate CCM and strontium from the radioactive waste. And they were separated and put in a different place at high concentration. And then, those long half-lived isotopes, fission products, would not be in the humongous million-gallon tanks of waste. And they can use ion exchange resins to take out strontium. It's harder to do cesium, but they could do that, too. Bauman: What years would this have been that you were working on this stuff with the tanks and so forth? Hendrickson: Well in '71 as a summer prof, I did six months. And then, when I came back in '80--I came back to Hanford in '80, and I worked through the end of the century. The last ten years I worked on the tanks and the tank farms. Because of my technical interests, I would often get safety issues and the documentation that money is spent on in great quantities at facilities like this--environmental and safety documents. What was your question again? Bauman: Oh, my question was just about the time period that you were working on the [INAUDIBLE]. Hendrickson: Oh, time period. Yeah. It was in the '70s. And at the post-doc at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. I worked for a man that had been extracting and measuring cesium in natural waters. That means in a lake, a river, in the coastal waters, and up, I want to say Kamchatka. There's a string of islands that go from Western Alaska down, almost to the Siberian coast. And a lot of bombs had been tested in the atmosphere, and the fission products go up. They absorb on bomb casing material and sand and whatever happens to be for it to absorb on. And then it falls into natural waters. And the government, through its various agencies, keeps a track—kept monitoring this. And my mentor at the ordnance lab had been following cesium. And the sodium, potassium--oh my goodness, what's next? I want to say--it's been a long time since I had a chemistry course. They're very difficult to remove from anything. They don't readily form insoluble products. But there are a few compounds that can be precipitated from an aqueous solution to a salt that's insoluble that will take out some of these very soluble ions. And for cesium--cesium was a third one. Below sodium is lithium. If they mix a solution of nickel chloride, nickel sulfate, with a solution of sodium or potassium ferrocyanide, a precipitate will form. It'll be nickel ferrocyanide. And it starts with a couple of these getting together, and then some more bump into them, and more and more, until you get a real crystal. Well, when this goes on, the cesium is picked up, just as if it were a sodium. No, that's not right. It gets into the crystal structure. It's a foreign body, but it is incorporated into the crystal structure. And it's really a good extractor. It sucks up cesium to a very low concentration level. Well, then they can filter that out, and the cesium, as I said before, doesn't go to the big, million-gallon tanks. And that was good. We liked to keep track of our radioisotopes. Now these waste tanks, million-gallon waste tanks, everything goes in there. It's a dog's breakfast of processed chemicals and some things that shouldn't be in there. Now, as a kid, I knew about black gunpowder—potassium nitrate and sulfur and charcoal. And I knew how it would explode. Well, our tanks are chock-full of nitrates, which give off oxygen for the burning of sulfur and charcoal. It's an explosive, and a good one. Well, there you've got this oxidizing agent in huge quantities. And you've got nickel ferrocyanide intimately mixed with this oxidizer. And the cyanide radical is a carbon and a nitrogen. And carbon gives off a lot of energy when it's oxidized with CO2 or CO. So people would naturally wonder what might happen. And people study it, and people write papers on it, and senators say, oh my god, you find out what's going to happen! So they had a $25 million program to find out what happens in this mixture of oxidizer and ferrocyanide. And they assigned it to me. I had published in the area of cesium extractants and knew something about the chemistry. [LAUGHTER] And before I got very far into it, I tried to find out what was known about it. And there are guys here they call the graybeards. It was a senior process chemist. And they had thought it over and decided it's safe if it's wet. So that was in the back of my mind. And you may know about the—what is that? Committee? Nuclear facility safety committee, I think. Really smart guys, cream of the crop that really know their sciences. And they were set to looking at the government's nuclear facilities, because there were a lot of noise--horrible things are going to happen or have happened and the government's covered it over, that sort of thing. Well, that became one of their concerns. So, I've worked in civil service all of my life. I say I've never had an honest job. When problems come up and our government says that there's a problem, and we got to fix it, then a bunch of people are gotten together as part of a bureaucracy, and they take care of it. A lot of times, after that problem's gone, they still take care of things. But a very capable--Westinghouse at this time--man, and I can't remember his last name, Jim. He's a PhD physicist. He wrote up a program to thoroughly study this issue. And it was just talk what this National Committee wanted--that kind of approach. So we did five years of really good chemistry. And at the end, well, we proved that if it's kept wet, it's safe. But more importantly, we learned that the cyanide is decomposed. It's a rather energetic substance and readily reacts with other things. So it's not a cyanide anymore. And it's soluble in water, it's in the salt cake. Well that was a fun time. And I quickly learned that, okay, what is needed to satisfy the committee is to do good science. And by doing that, we may very well find a solution. And then the contractor and I had to close these issues. I think there were four or five reports we had to write to convince people that we have conscientiously studied and assessed the hazard and then state what remnant hazard there is, and get their buy off, and then I could go do something else. So there's a lot of management or bureaucratic processes that bedevil the technical manager nowadays. Bauman: Mm-hm. During that time when you were working at the tanks, were there any problems with leaking or any of that sort of thing at that point? Hendrickson: Oh, that and another things. [LONG PAUSE] I'm kind of uncomfortable talking about some of that, because there are people screaming the sky is falling! And there are some real problems, all right. [LAUGHTER] But throwing them into public conferences is kind of difficult. But it'll be handled with bureaucratic methods. And I--[LAUGHTER] when people say all things are terrible at Hanford, I say not to worry, there are plenty of hardworking taxpayers. And I'm afraid that they take it in the neck many times. But then, what is done out here in the cleanup is just amazing. I have always been concerned about radiation on health. And, of course, the bureaucratic approach, which worked very well--the health physics people here—Parker, an amazing man. What was done in radiation protection here at Hanford was first class, and, I think, very conscientious. I've heard about the very earliest limits of radiation exposure. At the time we started fissioning here, started the reactors operating, most of the data came from radiation therapy given to people, usually for cancer, but other problems as well. And the radium dial painters--do you know what that is? Bauman: Mm-hm, yeah. Hendrickson: People would get watches and clocks with radium mixed with the phosphorus, so it would glow. It glows all time, but you can see it in the dark. And they would be painted in, and the ladies that did that had little artist paint brushes. And they'd dip it in. And if they had to make a fine line, they would put it in their lips and rotate it. And died horribly from--radium's chemistry is like calcium, it goes to the bone. And it's a bad way to go. But they started out from that level. And I think they were very rational and very conservative. Since '44, we've learned a great deal, and we've lowered the limits. Bauman: You mentioned earlier that you spent a period of time working at FFTF. Hendrickson: Yes. Bauman: I was wondering if you would talk about that a little bit at all? What sort of work you did there, and your experiences in that work? Hendrickson: Bear in mind that in World War II, there were a number of things that were very useful and high technology. And America developed them and used them, and they contributed significantly to the successful outcome from our viewpoint, anyway, of the Second World War. And, of course, radar is one, sonar. I lost my train of thought. [LAUGHTER] Just a minute. Of course, I think the power levels of our early, primitive, first-built production reactors was up in several thousand megawatts of heat released. They were pretty big reactors. And people in the know said, that's a lot of power. Can we use it to power submarines that would not have to come up except for food and water, and could be submerged for a month? Well, smart guys in the Navy and the Atomic Energy Commission made it happen. And very soon, they had prototype power reactors online making electricity, putting it into the grid. And according to the cost estimates of the time, it would be very economical to produce power that way. And a lot of utilities got into that. And big companies like Westinghouse and Combustion Engineering, Babcock and Wilcox, and GE made power reactors and sold them, and they were run in this country and largely were very successful. And so people say well, let's look at the slope of this line. And by, I think it was the year 2000, we're going to have 1,000 big power reactors operating. And that's going to eat up the world's known supply of uranium. What will we do then? And, of course, a physicist said well, you can breed plutonium, and it makes a fine fuel for power reactors. And they proved that. And FFTF was a big part of the technology developed. And because of this projection, they made decisions in the late '60s—projections of 1,000 power reactors being used in America in the year 2000. In the late '60s, the Atomic Energy Commission committed itself to developing breeder reactors and started a really smart program to get the kind of knowledge necessary to use that kind of a reactor system. And for generations, the electric power generation in America had been increasing 7% a year. And people that we never give a thought to had seen to having that power available for us. And they put reactors in. They thought reactors were good, and safe, and economical. Well, the FFTF was kind of the last of the great efforts along this line. And they were going to build a demonstration plant at—not Chalk River. That's Canada. Do you recall that—? Bauman: No. Hendrickson: Well, they were going to build a prototype. It means a big, nearly full sized reactor. And the lead time on some of the stuff, sometimes the lead time is three or four years just to get billets to run through the rolling mills of a special alloy needed. So there was a lot of planning going on and ordering components. And the Arabs don't like our politics in the Middle East. And cut off delivery of oil, the price went way up. I'd heard that the cost of oil at a seaport in Saudi Arabia cost $0.25 a barrel, because it's so easy to drill, and it's easy to get out. And you can plan ahead on things like that. But our growth rate just, phew, and growth rate of electrical demand went down. And I don't know where it stands now, but the whole world went through [LAUGHTER] a technological crisis when that happened. And we had kind of a recession in this country. And a lot of the industry did not build in anticipation of growth. And they stopped building reactors. They finished the ones that were being built. And this projection of meeting 1,000 reactors in 2000 was way off. I think we've had around 200 power reactors. I'm not sure, something like that. But we kept this program going in spite of economic changes and projected electrical demand changes. Though what we did here was wonderful science. The Japanese just shook their heads when we decided to shut down FFTF. In their country, they don't do things like that. They should have run FFTF until the wheels fell off, because we'll need that data some time. And the materials development that took place at FFTF is just amazing. I have thought of NASA as doing wonderful things with science, and big projects that cost billions. But I think what was done here in fuel and materials developments is of that quality and that nature and being a very big effort. Bauman: Let me ask you, during your working at Hanford—the different times you worked here—what you see as your biggest rewards working here and maybe your biggest challenges. Hendrickson: Well, [LAUGHTER] certainly from my standpoint, a wild technologist, I appreciated that technical experience they were great things done here. And it's easier, just off the top of the head, it's easier for me to say the benefits I got. And I got to go to work in very large, very focused management systems. And I saw quite a bit of development of the individual engineers. The contractors were good at that, at least when we had long-term missions. Well, of course, in the early days when plutonium was the product, I didn't have any qualms about that. I kind of trusted of the government to be halfway humane if it were used in war. But at some point, I realized the system was crazy. The CIA in 1972 said that--I think it was '72, in a newspaper clipping I read--that we had more bombs at that time than we would ever use in a war. And we just kept producing until the environmentalists used the environmental regulations to shut down the production facilities. The CIA was dead right about having all we needed. And bureaucracies, once they get started, are self-fulfilling. Bauman: You just mentioned the shift from production to clean up. Obviously, the mission changed. And you were here during both phases, I guess. I wonder, can you talk about how that shift impacted your work at all, or changes you saw as a result of that sort of change in mission? Hendrickson: Well, the turnaround of the mission occurred before I got here in '80. It was thought--when I got here, we were deep into clean-up. When I worked as a summer prof in '71, I talked to the old timers. And they told me this one tank level goes up and goes down--up and down on a rather regular basis. And they didn't know why. I had no idea why. And now we know very well. I think we spend around $100 million getting that knowledge. And it was touted as a great incipient disaster. We're going blow those tanks up and blow that waste all over. So it was known, and it wasn't worried about at one point. People do get complacent, I guess. But then again they sited these facilities out in this unpopulated desert. Some people from the east--when they came out here--they come to the airport and get in town, and then they have to drive 55 miles out to the facility. Most of the world doesn't think that way. So we built in great depth of protection in simply where we sited it. One thing that they did--they released huge quantities, industrial quantities of carbon tetrachloride that was used in extraction and cleanup of plutonium. And they released it to the ground. I think there were thousands of gallons. And that's not smart to do that sort of thing. We released radioactive streams to the ground that were very, very, very low in radioactivity. And I don't worry about that sort of thing. It's not going to lead to any harm—in Wally's opinion. But some things [LAUGHTER] that they found out there are really amazing. These old timers that worked around the tank farm said they would throw radioactive tools, dirty, contaminated tools down in the tanks, and they would throw radioactive machines that they didn't want any more down in the tanks. This is just hearsay. [LAUGHTER] And the tanks whose level would rise and low were studied. I think it was around $100 million. They found out that there were radiolytic gases given off, and gases given off by chemical reactions. Even after decades in the tank, still going on. Well some of the gas attaches itself to particles so it doesn't bubble to the top. And that heavy sediment at the bottom gets lighter, and lighter, and lighter, and then it rises up and goes to the surface. And the gas bubbles expand, and they break. And you've got explosive gases in the tank. Well, guys told me that some of the fellas would like a match and drop it down the tanks, and light a piece of paper and let it float down into the tanks and go, woof! That's not firsthand information. [LAUGHTER] But people sure can get worked up about things. Bauman: Security and secrecy are sort of always connected with Hanford. I wonder if you could talk about that all in terms of maybe the first time you were here in the 1950s--did you have a special clearance at all, and did security, secrecy change at all from the time you were here in the '50s--you were here later in the '80s? Hendrickson: That's a subject I have strong feelings about. I think they did a very good job. And I trust their judgment that it was necessary. Yeah, it was part and parcel of living in Richland. I was told at one time, you had to have a security clearance to live in the town of Richland. And I think there a lot of the old timers here. I believe Richland has a very low crime rate, a carryover from those times, I think. People that they wouldn't give a security clearance to lived someplace else. They didn't come here. Of course, I was young, and what's the word? Impressionable. And I saw all of the guards and had a badge and would flash it. It got so when I'd go to a grocery store, I'd take my badge out. [LAUGHTER] Nuclear weapons kill people by the hundreds of thousands, or millions for the big hydrogen bombs. And we wouldn't want the technology, or bomb material, or the bomb itself in the hands of people that we don't want to have it. And when you think of the consequences of failure in the security area, you realize why they are so thorough. Now the rules are thought out carefully by experienced people. And the rules are pretty well written out. And people are able to follow those rules. So I think we owe a lot to the safeguards and security programs that have been part of this world. Bauman: I wonder if you could talk about, overall, your thoughts on Hanford as a place to work. Hendrickson: I was surprised when I came as an undergraduate at how happy the people were with the Tri-cities. They liked it. I'd come from mountainous timber land. [LAUGHTER] Being out here in this sandbox was something different. I think people like it here. As a technical guy, I was glad I was in this environment. I think the Richland Police Department is a couple notches above the average. I think that's a carry-over from the effort made in this area by the Manhattan Project. One bad thing about Hanford is that it would have economic ups and downs, really severe ones. And a number of times in my experience here, I've seen weeds growing in cracks in the sidewalks and closed businesses. It looks like we'll have a good economy here, this handling the cleanup is going to take decades. And I think they even haven't planned too much for the very end. Bauman: Before we started recording, you were talking earlier--you mentioned something you had worked on during the Vietnam War. I know it's not directly related to Hanford, but I wondered if you might want to talk about that a little bit more. Hendrickson: Well, there was a connection with Hanford. After I left that post-doc at the Naval Ordnance Lab, I worked at Idaho Falls with the Atomic Energy Commission, within a group that looked after the fuel reprocessing plant. And we would call it the chemical plant. And after I'd been there about a year, a message came from headquarters that they wanted volunteers to go to Vietnam to take out the highly enriched uranium that fueled a TRIGA-type reactor at Da Lat in South Vietnam. And they wanted people with health physics and TRIGA-reactor experience. Now I'd worked on a TRIGA reactor for ten years, and kind of by that a lightweight health physicist. And my buddy was a GS-14 health physicist at Idaho Falls. And he had been president of the western section of the—let’s see—the Health Physics Society. So he and I talked and said, yeah, we'll volunteer. And we were the only volunteers out of about 20,000 AEC people. When I worked at the radiation center in Pullman, I chummed around with a lot of the graduate students and post-docs. I really enjoyed that. And one of them developed into a friendship. He was a Vietnamese physicist trained at the University of Saigon. And some of their degrees are taken as the same level as the Sorbonne degrees in France at that time. And he worked on a nuclear engineering master's program. And he was earmarked to return to work at the reactor that was being built. It was quite a complex--they even had their independent power--diesel electric generator. Well, he wanted to stay for a doctorate in radiochemistry and started on that, but his country demanded he come back. And he worked at the reactor. And he and I corresponded. And he told me about meeting a small pharmacienne—I guess that's the technical—the feminine form of pharmacist in French. And I'd hear about his courtship and had a baby. And then he didn't answer my letters. And when I was in the DC area at the Naval Ordnance Lab, I called the Vietnam embassy, and the man I got had been my friend's boss at the reactor. And Ti was dead—La Banh Ti. And I'd learned about his experience- - he, and his wife, and his little girl Christine had gone up to Hue, where Ti's father lived for the Chinese New Year. That's a real big thing in Asia. Well, of course, that was in the time of the Tet Offensive. And Hue was overrun, including the citadel. And the American and Vietnamese forces eventually pushed them back. Ti had been seen by some of the Viet Cong, and one fellow knew him and fingered him. And he was taken as prisoner to a park and kept there. And after the Viet Cong realized they'd better retreat, the prisoners were taken out to the edge of the city and put in a ditch and shot, which isn't as bad as it might be, because sometimes they would douse them with gasoline and light it. Well I knew about the reactor in Da Lat from my association with Ti. And we--John Horan and I--John died probably 20 years ago--he was an airman in the Second World War. We said, yeah, we'll go. And that was sent back to Washington. That was Friday. And I went with a scout group up in the hills outside of Idaho Falls. And I'd made two toboggan-like things out of old skis with the seat on it, and the boys played with that. I went hiking, and I came across a pregnant doe. And I followed the tracks. I heard the noise, and I realized eventually that it was a pregnant doe, so I broke off. But I was doing that on the weekend. And Monday I took flight for Vietnam. And I didn't have a passport. So we made arrangements for special treatment with a passport office in San Francisco. [LAUGHTER] It was a hassle. The guy that was supposed to take care of that detail had gone to a dentist and not told anyone. When Horan got back, he wrote a bad letter to that guy's boss. But we got it. We finally got it--we got a visa from the Vietnamese and flew over--that's a long flight. And we were met at the airport by the first secretary--political military. He was a career department of state man. I think he's still alive. He's in his mid-90s. Just a first class person. Well the first thing he did when he recognized us was remind us that we were volunteers. It went downhill from there. We were to go up in a small plane just to reconnoiter, see what conditions were at the reactor. And, let's see--that must have been a four-seater. There were four of us that went up. Jay Blowers was his name. What was it--Air America, run by the CIA. And I couldn't see the compass--I sat in the back. But I could tell the direction by the sun. Instead of flying from Saigon north-northeast to Da Lat, we went directly east out over the South China Sea, and then north-northeast, and then directly west. And when I'd figured that out, I said why? And they said, well, the Viet Cong has very respectable anti-aircraft capability between those two cities. And I thought, okay. But when we got there--I think it's at 5,000 plus feet, and it's a wonderful place after you've been down at sea level in the tropics. And the French used it—developed it as a vacation area. And there was a college there, and a school for noncommissioned officers. And I saw all kinds of agriculture—oh, yeah, there was an agricultural school of some kind. Well, we came to an area that was nothing but clouds. And there were mountain peaks around. And we went round, and round, and round, trying to find a hole. And we were just about to the point where we would have to leave because we only had enough gas to make it back to Saigon. And the pilot saw a hole, and he went shoo! like that and leveled. And we were going straight towards a mountain. He went shoo! like that. And there was a landing field and plopped down on the field. It was so fast, I didn't get to react. I wasn't used to that kind of flying. Well we found the reactor in very good condition. And they had a fork truck which wasn't in good condition, and we needed a fork truck to lift shipping containers. The ones we got were brought by air from Bethesda Naval Hospital in DC. And they were 55 gallon drums. And they had a pipe--an ordinary plumber's type pipe. It was kind of big, though. Must've been six inches. And there were some lead around it. And then concrete around that. And they were pretty heavy. So we needed heavy handling equipment. And they had a bridge crane. Now, a lot of research reactors are built like this one, which is that in a round building, straight walls, and then a dome. And there's a ridge up at the top that a crane—polar crane, I think they call them—goes like this. And they had some problem with it, but they said it would work. And the water was in excellent condition, though they had shut it down since '68. The head of the reactor, the manager became a close friend, and he has died. You know this was in '75, March of '75. This is interesting; Wally did something smart--two things smart. When we were in Saigon, we quickly went over to the Vietnamese atomic energy office and said we're from the government, and we're here to help you. And we’d gotten sign off by the political type that was over such things as research. And we said we want your help, we want to go up and see what's there, and what we need to get the fuel out. And how hot is the fuel, stuff like that. Of course, they didn't know, because they hadn't fooled with it for seven years. And they had shut it down. I thought whenever, in the nuclear field, they do something like that, they write a safety report. So I asked, do you have a safety report? May I see it? And in the report, typically they do the thought experiment of, well what happens if the fission products are dispersed in the air, the whole bunch. And so I saw that they had figured out the amount of cesium and strontium. Those are the long half-lived elements. They wouldn't have gone down a little bit in seven years. They had that all worked out. And I said, well, from that amount of so many curies, at this distance, you'd get this dose rate. But we'll only take out one fuel element time--piece of cake. It's no problem. But anyway, we took out a fuel element, because we wanted to survey it. And Horan had bought our emergency response box. We had dosimeters and radiation instruments--some of them we got from Berkeley. I don't know how that was arranged. And we would take the fuel out with a long hose that had a gripper at the end. The TRIGA had a little post sticking up that was sort of arrow shaped, and a neck. And metal--a mechanical thing on this garden hose went on that post and clamped onto the neck. And we'd pull it to the surface. And that particular hose system had a history of dropping the fuel elements. So we immediately grabbed the fuel element in the bare hand and disconnected it. And a guy over there, about eight feet, would read it with a G-M tube. That's what this case was. Well the guy with serving instrument was down on the steps a ways. And he walked up, which also brings him closer. And we could hear the count rate--zeeeeee. And it stops. And people experienced with high sources and G-M tubes know [LAUGHTER] that it's saturated, and it's really hot, and you better get away. And Horan says oh, we got a divide by ten thing. We'll put that on it. Well, the thing that goes bad in counting the radioactivity is in the Geiger tube itself. So the divide by ten was useless. And we got--I said, well, let's just stand back farther. [LAUGHTER] And we got a good reading, a valid reading. That tickled me, that the Idaho health physicist hadn't picked up on the instrumentation they had for emergencies. Well let's see, I guess this might have been the second trip up there. But anyway, there was a little fence around the grounds and a guard's house at the entrance, and a lean-to made of bamboo on the side. And a family was living under that lean-to. And they had several children--one was really small. And I talked to them, and they didn't know English, but I talked to them anyway. And the little girl had--I don't know if they call it harelip, but anyway her two front teeth were growing on jawbone that was in front of her lip. And wars are expensive, and a lot of things are neglected because of that. I really hate to see war anyplace. Problems like that can be dealt with so easily. But I had some time, and I offered to give the children a tour through the reactor. I guess the guard spoke enough English. So I took them, and pointed to the crane and pointed to this great—oh dear, the reactor was in a silo-like concrete shield with water. And then we climbed a step up to the top. But anyway, I pointed to different things, and then I took them into the chem labs, and there was a model of the reactor. And I said--oh, see that reactor out here? Here's a model. And the oldest girl, you could just see her face light up. She understood, and she explained to the kids what it was. Well, then we went back to Saigon. And communicated with headquarters—Atomic Energy Commission headquarters. I found out that this was handled at a very high level. The White House decided who was going to pay for the recovery, and an Air Force general was given responsibility for transportation. And an AEC fellow course handled the AEC part. And I've met him. Bauman: And the connection to Hanford was-- Hendrickson: Well. Oh! Oh yeah--do you have time? I can tell more about actually moving the fuel. Bauman: Just a little more, yeah. Hendrickson: Well, we got the fuel out. The C-130 was overloaded, and we didn't know it. And the airport runway was on top of a hill, and we had to fight off people that wanted to take refuge in our plane and be taken out to the south. And the plane was backed up. And the engine revved up as high as it'll go with the brakes on, and then the brakes are released. And it starts out about like a baby buggy, just rumbling along and the engines are straining. And it did pick up speed, but at this time I could see out the pilot's window, and we didn't so much take off as we ran out of runway and there were farmhouses outside the wings. And we got back. And then these heavy casks were loaded on a different kind of airplane--C-141, and taken to Johnson Island, and then to the States. And some of the elements came here to Hanford and were used in the FFTF complex for experimental work. And I met the director of that reactor. He is a good man. Bauman: Now, that's quite a story. Are there any—beginning to wrap up here--anything I haven't asked you about or anything you think is important to talk that we haven't talked about yet? Hendrickson: Anything else I think might be important? Bauman: Yeah, that I haven't asked you about or that we haven't talked about yet that you'd like to say sort of briefly here at the end? Hendrickson: Oh, there are a number of things--I probably could think a little bit. Maybe I'll make some notes and contact you. Bauman: And we could always schedule another, Hendrickson: If it seems worthy, I'll contact you. Bauman: Okay. I want to thank you a lot for coming in today. I really appreciate you sharing your memories and your experiences. Hendrickson: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: All right. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:32:02 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1955-1957; 1980-2000 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1955-1957; 1980-2000 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. La Banh Ti Horan, John Blowers, Jay Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Wally Hendrickson Description An account of the resource An interview with Wally Hendrickson conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear instruments & methods Nuclear waste disposal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-7-30 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-8: Metadata v1 created – [RG] CIA General Electric Hanford (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 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Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Danny Henry Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 220 kbps Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Northwest Public Television | Henry_Danny </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: My name is Danny Henry. Spelling is D-A-N-N-Y. Middle initial is R for Ray, R-A-Y, Henry, H-E-N-R-Y. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: All right. Thank you. And my name's Robert Bauman, and we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities on July 2nd of 2014. So let's start maybe by talking about how and when your family first came to the Tri-Cities. When that was, and why they came. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay. Actually, my father first of all came to the Tri-Cities. And he came to the Tri-Cities, I believe it was somewhere around '48. It was in the mid or late 40s. And he actually came out from the South, from Arkansas--Atkins, Arkansas, Polk County. And he was married to my mom at that time, but she stayed back in the South, and he came out to work for the government during the war effort. And he worked out here for some period of time. I don't know how long, but he liked it out here. And so once his mission was done, he went back to the South. And then later years, came back out and found work with the railroad. And then eventually he started working construction. And he became a laborer, and worked construction. Then he came back out to the site, and worked at N Reactor for some period of time. And I can even remember back in the 60s when John Fitzgerald Kennedy came out here, the President, to give a speech about the N Reactor. I was a kid. I think I was probably about seven or eight years old, maybe 10, somewhere around there. And then he decided to stay out here. When he came back out to the Northwest, back out to Washington, decided to stay out here and got work, and then sent for my mom, and she came out. And so they made a life and stayed on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Hm. Do you know how he originally heard about Hanford? It's a long way from Arkansas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: My understanding from my older brother, which is 20 years older than me, he said that he actually received direction from the government, or allowance from the government, and received gas credit, or chips, or whatever, in order to drive out and to show up at the Hanford site at some designated time. And so him and another one of his friends both drove out, and they went to work out here during in the 40s. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So he was recruited in some way or something, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So then you were born in the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes, I was born in Pasco, Washington in 1953, May 7, 1953. And I graduated Pasco High School, went on to college, and graduated from Evergreen State College, and then returned back here to the Tri-Cities and found employment out at Hanford. First of all, it was with Rockwell, and with the fire department. I'll back up a little bit. During the summer of when I was in high school, two summers, I did work out for J. A. Jones at that time in the 300 Area, and I actually worked as a printer, or learned—as a summer job, and learned how to print on these old, offset printers. And did that for two summers. And so when—actually I had graduated from college and came back. While I was at college, I did receive an emergency medical technician certificate through the State of Washington, and so it was a good shoo-in to go to work for the fire department as a firefighter. So let's see. It was Chief Good at that time who hired me. And at that time there was only a few that had EMT certifications. And Chief Good had told me that there was no intention at that time to actually have the fire department respond for emergency care. They had always called the Richland fire department, or Kadlec, or some other emergency services. And so I didn't really see a whole bunch of future in staying there at the fire department. So I heard that they were hiring down at N Reactor for reactor operators, and the pay was a bit better. So I thought that would be a challenge. And so I applied. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so you got a job there, then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. I started working at N Reactor, I believe it was late 1978, and went into the reactor operator program, and eventually—well, started in the fuels department, and then had the opportunity to get into the certification program for the control room. And decided I would take on the challenge. There was a lot talk back and forth with the other operators. Some was pro and some was con. No, it's not really better to work in the control room. It's better to work in fuels. But I seen a challenge of being able to actually operate a reactor. And I really wanted that certification. And so I did go in the certification program. And after, I think, two years, two and a half years—I think the class started out, I think it was like 24, 26. And the final certified reactor operators, I think there was six of us. I could probably name them. Yeah. And all the other operators dropped out, and they went back to fuels, or they got into the trades, or just left the company. But I stayed on and was certified. It was very, very challenging, very hard. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Right. And so how long was that training program again? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: The training program, I think it was about a year and a half, two years. With all of the qualifications, you had to be trained on all the different systems. You had to get checked out by the senior operators, and they would ask you questions, and make sure you were proficient in every one of those before you got the sign-off. So you had to complete all of that, as well as take tests, periodic tests, on the systems. And when you had finished all your actual qualifications, then you were allowed to take the eight-hour exam. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, okay. Hm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And so once I had finished up mine, there was testing. And I took the eight-hour exam, and passed the eight-hour exam. I think I probably took about 10 hours to finish it, but that was fine. And passed the exam. And from there, you were then allowed to do a walk through, where a senior trainer would take you out into the facility, and basically ask you anything he wanted to, all the way from the front face, to the rear face, to the confinement valves, to the emergency cooling system, and anything in components or valves, and circuitry, and all of that. And I passed that, and did quite well. I spent a lot of time actually—when I was an operator, the duties primarily was laundry, because there was a lot of SWPs, or radioactive clothing that was used. So someone always had to maintain laundry. And then also some of the duties was housekeeping. Some of the duties was actually patrol, where actually you went through the reactor, and made sure all of the outside systems and everything was in correct alignment, and there wasn't any out-of-spec conditions. So I spent a lot of time out in the reactor. At the time when I was out, I took it upon myself to take prints with me, and actually verify and look at a lot the systems out there, so I knew them pretty well. So that was one of the things that really worked for me when I did my walk-through. I was really ready for that. And I think I scored highest in my walk-through of the three tests. The final test was the oral exam. And the oral exam consisted of a senior person from training, senior person from operations, senior person from nuclear safety. And they all sat on your board. And I think there was one other individual also, I think may have been quality assurance, maybe. And basically they sit in a room like this, and you sit in front of a table, and they ask you questions, and you answer the questions. And they had the choice of asking you whatever questions they chose to, as long as it related to reactor operations, up to and including the electrical distribution systems that powered or brought power to the reactor, as well as the power going out, steam systems, all of the different auxiliary systems part of the plant. But anyway, I passed that exam also, the oral board. And so then I was granted my certification. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: A pretty grueling process. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: It was, very much. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so how long were you an operator, then, how long did you work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Actually, as a certified operator—I maintained my certification, I believe, for a year and a half, maybe two years. There was a requalification. I think it was about a year and a half. I did operate the reactor, the nuclear console, the AA console. That probably doesn't mean anything to you, but the water systems, or the actual nuclear panel, where you actually pulled and maintained power, and adjusted power, and also a lot of the air balance systems, and the secondary systems, where the steam was produced and sent over to Washington State Public Power. We sold steam. It was a dual purpose reactor. And worked on all of the panels. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so before you were an operator, you worked in fuels, you said. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So what sort of work did that entail? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: The fuels operation--[COUGH] excuse me—was actually--the fuel that would come, that would be the spent fuel that was discharged out of the rear of the reactor would come out, go down, and go what was called a trampoline, and go into the water, and hit this metal mesh chain type of trampoline to slow it down. These fuel elements were, I think, as I remember, somewhere around 50-60 pounds. So coming out of the back of the reactor, they were there pretty heavy. And so then they would roll down into conveyor carts, and that's one of the duties as a fuel operator, doing charge discharge. You'd basically take the fuel after it went through the cart, move it out, index it, take it out, and then place it in various different storage compartments in the back face of the reactor, or actually in the basin, what was called the fuels basin. And then also--that was the primary job of a fuels operator, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so how long total did you work at Hanford, then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Total time at Hanford is 35 years. I've been out here 35 years. It's been a long haul. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah. And so you started in the late 60s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: '78 or '79. I believe my actual start date was 8/1/1978. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So you were there for a little while, and at some point the mission shifts to clean up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: How did that impact the sorts of things you were doing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Well, one of the things about being--as an operator, is that you work shift work. And so I actually worked shift work, I think, for like three years, rotating shift, A, B, C, D; graveyard, swings, days. So I never got used to that. I had a family. I was just starting a family and stuff, and I wanted to be able to spend a lot more time with my kids and my wife on normal hours. So I looked for another job at N Reactor, and there was an opening for actually a process standard engineer/nuclear safety engineer. And so I applied for it. I got the job, and was responsible for maintaining standards, process standards, which is day-to-day operations. If there was any changes or deviations to the operations, there had to be approval. There was an approval process. And so I was kind of responsible for maintaining that, reviewing it, and then approving it through the control room, through my management, in order to make any changes to reactor operations. Pretty much that was that job. It was straight days. I liked that. Five days, I was off the weekends. It was great. And there was some other opportunities also during that time in that position. I wanted to mention, I had a very good mentor. His name was John Long, and he was the nuclear safety engineer, or nuclear safety manager, manager of nuclear safety at that time. And John was very instrumental in assisting and helping me, and I really do appreciate his efforts. He's deceased now. But anyway, John helped me quite a bit when I was in that position. There was other opportunities also. I moved from there, and became—actually went into the planning aspects of outages. And so the reactor would run for so long, sometimes there was a planned outage, sometimes an unplanned outage. Unplanned outages usually were because the reactor scram for some reason. Maintenance had to be done, something had to be fixed or repaired. So for the actual planned outages, I became a planner/scheduler, or took a position as a planner/scheduler, and actually planned to do various different maintenance. What that consisted of was drawing out a long-term plan, and when the reactor was down, to manage that plan, and for the systems to be fixed, repaired, coordinated for the least amount of time so the reactor could actually come back up and running. We were being paid. And it was one thing I wanted to mention about N Reactor. There was a lot, a lot of good spirit. The people who worked out there, they really knew that they were on a mission. This was during the Cold War, and we knew what we were doing, and it was just a lot of good spirit. You know, when you'd ride the bus out--by the way, I rode the bus back and forth. And when you'd be on the bus, and the reactor was down, and you'd get past the fire department, and you'd make that last left turn, people would just kind of wake up. And they'd be looking, and they were looking to see if that green light goes on. There was—on the board, there was a green or red light. And someone up front would say, yeah, we're up. And it was just a lot of that kind of spirit of wanting the reactor to run. I really, really liked that. So being a part of the--doing the planning and scheduling, or a position as planner/schedule was a real shoo-in to going to work as outage manager. I then became an outage manager, where actually I managed the outage center. And the outage center basically coordinated, on a daily basis, on a shift basis--there was six of us, and I guess you could say we were kind of elite, we were very picked to run that, because it was so critical to the mission—and your responsibilities was to make sure that things got done as scheduled, as planned, and that you had the craft resources to do them. You coordinated with the operations folks, the fuel folks, the engineering. That was your job, to coordinate all those efforts. A lot of the things that happened in the plant and the repairs actually required that you have engineers in place in case there was questions, technical questions, changes to paperwork that had to be authorized, and so on and so forth. So that was part of the job as outage--primary job as an outage manager is to make sure of that. And you reported directly to upper management, and sometimes DOE. So you were responsible on a daily basis to coordinate and have those meetings, and ensure that work got done and statused at the end of the day. So shortly after that, they announced that—or probably, I guess, maybe about six to eight months in that position--they announced that N Reactor--after Chernobyl--they announced the N Reactor would no longer be on the same mission, and it was going to shut down. So I moved from there to another job. I actually left N Reactor, and went to 200 Area, and worked as a nuclear safety engineer, over for—I'm trying to think right now. I can remember who I worked for. I worked for Arlen Shade. But actually, my responsibilities was over B Plant WESF. And at that time they had just started to bring back the capsules that was basically sent down to--I forget exactly--Decatur, I think. Yeah. And anyway, these capsules, there was some problems with them. But anyway, they were bring them back. And so I was right as part of that. I don't know what happened to that mission, but I served there as a nuclear safety engineer with oversight responsibilities over people at WESF for a period of time. And then after that, let's see. I almost have to look at my resume to think. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: It's really been--it's actually been that long. Of course you're going to be cutting and doing clips and stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: So I can just-- Oh, by the way I have a--I actually pulled this out. This was actually my certification. Wally Ruff's name over to the right there kind of faded. It must have gotten wet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, yeah, huh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: That's the original certification. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: [INAUDIBLE] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: What's that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: --the control room on the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't know exactly what you guys would want, but I just grabbed some stuff. This was my 30-year recognition with Fluor. I don't have a 35. I don't know. They didn't give out a 35-year recognition. I don't know why. Let's see. Where am I? Process standards, senior outage planner, outage manager of nuclear safety, principal engineer. Oh! Yeah. Then after that there was—actually, when I was--as the nuclear safety principal engineer oversight over B Plant WESF, there was a position that came available for a manager for OSHA compliance, OSHA safety and health program. We had previously been benefited, let me say, with headquarters coming out, and they were called the tagger team. And they basically came out to the site, and they went through the whole site, and they were doing assessments. They had a very, very large group, and they assessed the site, with the effort to give feedback to the improvements that needed to be done at Hanford. Well, part of the actions, or corrective actions, was to develop an OSHA type of assessment program that would look at occupational safety and health, industrial hygiene, and in some aspects, I think, fire protection. Anyway, there was a position open, and I did not have the background in occupational safety and health, but I talked to my manager, and talked to my manager, and finally I convinced him to put me in as a temporary position, just as an acting manager. And so he went ahead and authorized that. So I then moved from the outer areas down to 300 Area, and from there, he basically said, okay, Danny, you want this position. You think you can do it? He says, okay, here's a stack of resumes. You have two staff and that's it, and a student worker. Okay, so you need to first of all hire and find some people that are qualified to be inspectors in occupational safety and health, and hygiene. And then you need to have all this done, by the way, and a program developed in four months. And so that was quite a challenge. It was really a challenge. I did hire—went outside and hired some people, and they were good people. We were a very good team. I didn't know about occupational safety and health, but they taught me. I knew I could hire people that were smarter than me. And I actually hired--and maybe for reference, one of the people was Judy Larson I don't know if she still is living. But she was a certified industrial hygienist. She was working for PNNL, and she transferred over. I also hired a student that--well, no, he actually had graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, and he wanted to do fire protection. So I said if he came over I'd get him trained up. And so he came over. And I also hired another individual that was an industrial hygienist—or two other individuals, a Clinton Stewart, and the first occupational safety and health person I hired, his name was Steve Norling. And he would be a good person to interview in the future. I would recommend that you do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: How do you spell the last name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Norling. N-O-R-L-I-N-G. Steve. He's a good guy. He still works PRC. I haven't seen him in a few years, but I think he's still out there. But anyway, we developed a program. We put the program together, hired a contractor to actually help us with the writing of the program, and we set it up. And we actually went out in the site, and first of all, we had to compile all of the buildings, because we were basically responsible for all of the Westinghouse people, and all of their facility. So we had to figure out all of the facilities in the whole site. And then we had to have some kind of system to figure which ones we would go look at first, based upon risk. And so we developed that program, and to make a long story short, the tagger team came back out to check the corrective actions on all of the site, and when they got to us, our program, they had no findings, absolutely no findings, zero findings. And they only had one recommendation, in that we needed to involve the employees more. And so then we transitioned into the Voluntary Protection Program. But that was very outstanding. And that really impressed my management. So then from acting manager, I was made manager of the organization, and proceeded on to continue my career. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So what time frame was this, roughly, then? [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Oh, let's see. That was May 1991 to September 1992. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay. Let's see. From there, I transitioned into basically manager of safety programs assessments, which developed. And basically our mission at that point was to develop baseline hazard assessment programs for facilities. And basically, for each facility that you had operations in, to go and do a baseline hazard of everything, both the occupational safety, industrial hygiene, the nuclear aspects of it, and any other types of hazards, so that for that facility, all of the known hazards of that facility would be known and could be communicated, and basically programs and systems set up in place to keep the workers safe. From September 1992 to February 1994, I worked in that position. And after that, I worked as the manager of the Voluntary Protection Program, or actually manager of Industrial Safety Planning, which consisted of managing the Voluntary Protection Program for Westinghouse and for Fluor Hanford, doing their contract transition. And of course the Voluntary Protection Program is still out here on the site, as you probably well know, and there's different--but I was very instrumental in getting that program off zero. After that, I worked as operations engineer. I transitioned and went back out to the site, to 105 K-East and K-West. I worked as an operation specialist in development of the Canister Storage Facility and the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility out at K-Basins and at 200 East, is where the Canister Storage Building is. And then also K-East and K-West storage facility. I was assigned to the shift office, and worked as an OE, Operating Engineer, basically under the direction of a shift manager. And basically managed the facility's work activities, coordinated those on a daily basis to get work done, assigning work to the craft personnel, releasing work packages during lockout/tagout, and various different aspects of operations for that facility, managing that facility. After that, let's see, that was from 1998 to 2002. And from January 2002 to present, I've worked as a management assessment coordinator. And responsibilities are primarily to develop the Management Assessment Program and Integrated Evaluation Plan database for DOE-RL. And let me explain, that Integrated Evaluation Plan is basically a database that takes RL's assessments and our assessments, and basically puts them together, so we have one integrated plan. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: I see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And that effort is to actually benefit, or to alleviate, or eliminate redundancy in assessments, teaming with the site and doing various different assessments, rather than they doing one and we doing the same one. Yeah. So that's currently where I'm at right now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So you've had several different sorts of positions. You've worked at N Reactors, and K-Basins, and different parts of the site. Of the different jobs you had, over the 35 years, different places you've worked, what was—was there a specific job or place that was sort of the most challenging and/or most rewarding, that you got the most sense of accomplishment or reward? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah, there was. I would have to say probably the reactor operations was probably, I'd say, number one, because I know there was no other African Americans that had ever certified at N Reactor, and then later on I found there wasn't any others in any of the other facilities of the plants. So I felt very good about that. And it was very challenging. The second area would have been in developing the OSHA compliance program, because that was basically, I knew basically nothing. And I had to go find people in order to work that were much smarter than me, and be able to develop a program that would actually meet the muster of headquarters when they came back out. And it was very challenging. I stayed up quite a few nights thinking about it and worrying about it. And yeah, it was very challenging. But it was a very, very well-put-together program, and it met everything that they were looking for. So I'd have to say those two positions were the most challenging, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: When you were talking about working at the N Reactor, you talked about riding the bus, and the sort of spirit, the sense of mission, I think, in the Cold War-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So when the Cold War ended in 1989, 1990, did that sort of sense of mission change? Did it shift somewhere? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: I guess I couldn't really expound on that, because what I was speaking of was during the time I was working at N Reactor. And once the Cold War ended, I was at that time working--when did the Cold War end? That was-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Well, I guess it depends, right? The Berlin Wall came down in '89. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: When the wall came down. Okay. Yeah. I was—where was I at at that time? Yeah, I was actually up in the 200 Area. I was oversight. I was a part of an appraisal team doing integrated safety appraisals out of the 200 Area. So I had transitioned away from N Reactor some years before that. So I didn't really feel a difference with what I was doing. The real thing that I seen that really affected a lot of the people at N Reactor was when they announced that it was not going to—it no longer had a mission. It wasn't going to be restarted. The reactor was run very hard, run very well, and produced a lot of power, and was very good in its mission. And there was just a lot of pride there. And when that was announced, there were a lot of people that really was hurt by that, because it was a reason to come to work. It was really a reason to come, and a reason to work for something. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: I want to go back to something you talked about early when you started talking. And you mentioned President Kennedy's visit when he dedicated the N Reactor. So do you remember that? Did you-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: I actually remember that very well. And in fact, it was my father, and my mother, and my sister, and me, and my friend, Ronnie Brown. I haven't seen him in years, but I understand he's doing well. My dad brought us all out to the site, and drove with all of the, what seeming like thousands and thousands of cars, you know, we were just kids, and all the way out to N Reactor. And yes, I definitely remember that. I can remember the helicopters coming in, and the dust flying, and all that. And I didn't know that President Kennedy's hair was red. [LAUGHTER] But on that day, seeing him that close, because me and my friend, we kind of wormed all the way up as close—we were just little tiny kids, so people let us by. And we got up there, and we were able to stand up on—there was like different seating that people had brought. And we just kind of stepped up on one of the little seats that were there, and we had to get our heads up over the crowds. And we could see him when he stepped out of the helicopter, and he walked over to the podium. I can remember that, just like the yesterday. I also remember that day very well because my sister—it must've been over 100 degrees there--my sister was suffering from heat exhaustion. I remember when we actually came back, my mother was taking care of her. She was getting water into her, and everything. That was a very vivid day. That was a very, very, very good day. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: What I also wanted to ask you was, like growing up in Pasco in the 50s and 60s, was it a segregated place? Or was it—what was it like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Not when I came along. Not actually in the 60s. I hear stories about the way it was, but I don't know. I went to Pasco High School. I went to Stevens Junior High School. It was all integrated. My grade school was Whittier. It was integrated. It just was East Pasco, and it was primarily blacks. But also there was Hispanics and whites all went to that school, but it was predominantly black. Then after, actually, when I finished sixth grade, they divided sixth grade, and then seventh, eighth, and ninth. It was junior high school. I was selected, because of where I lived in East Pasco. I was assigned to go to Stevens Junior High School, which was, at that time, way across town, and nothing, hardly anything around it. So we rode the bus over to Stevens. But prior to that, the majority of blacks, African Americans, Hispanics, basically went to McLoughlin Junior High School. But McLoughlin at that time was what is now Pasco City Hall. That used to be McLoughlin. [LAUGHTER] But my brother goes back, I mean my brother's deceased. And he passed away, in fact, about a year and three months ago. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: This was your brother who was about 20 years older? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. He actually went—the high school at that time was McLoughlin, which then became City of Pasco. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Okay. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And Whittier was the grade school, junior high school when he went to school. I do have some pictures of him. He was part of the patrol that went out and let the kids across the street and stuff. Yeah, he had the little patrol hat on, and all that. I have all those pictures of him when he was really young. And by the way, my brother, he is 20 years older than me, but he graduated from Pasco High. He then entered the Army--or no, he was drafted. He was drafted, and he actually fought in the Korean War. And he corrected me. Every time I said Korean War, he said, no, it's the Korean conflict. It was not a war. [LAUGHTER] And he served two terms in Vietnam, and was wounded. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: What was his first name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Thurman. In fact I have a—here—obituary out of the paper. But he had what I consider a pretty impressive military career. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah, 20 years of active service. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes. Two terms in Vietnam, a very unpopular war. Me growing up in the 60s, it was, gee, I've got a brother that's overseas fighting, with all the racial strife and stuff here in the United States. But he was very proud of his country, and he was willing to go and do whatever he was assigned to do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so you had an older brother, and how many other siblings did you have? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: I had a sister. I actually had a half-brother and a half-sister, that—they didn't live here. They lived--Margie lived in Wichita, Kansas. And my other brother, half-brother, lived in--I think he lived in Wichita, Kansas, too. I didn't really get to know him that well. I got to know Margie pretty well. Then I had my sister, Marilyn. She graduated from Pasco High School. A teacher for 34 years in Yakima. She just retired about three years ago, I think. And still living in Yakima. But she taught school. And those were all of my siblings. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So would you say that Pasco, Tri-Cities was a good community to grow up in? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah, I think so. I really think so. No, I don't have any--I have to just--not so much the community as much as pointing back to my parents. I think I had very--I've seen other people, my friends with different parents and stuff. And I think I had some pretty good parents. My dad was very industrial. He worked construction as a laborer, but he had rentals. And he had--and of course, I came along much later. But he had houses and rentals, but he worked construction. And him and his best friend, Mr. Louzell Johnson. He was a bricklayer. My dad was a laborer. They kind of was a team. And they worked, and they built a lot of houses throughout Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland back in the 50s and 60s. And he worked on a lot of the dams on the Snake River. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: The building of a lot of the dams. And I can just remember--well, I can remember my mother talking, and also my dad. And on Sundays we would take drives, and he would take us way out to where the dams were being built, and stuff like this, for something to do on Sunday for the family. And I didn't pay any attention to it really. But I can remember. I can remember. Those were very good times. My mother, she worked at the Navy base that was in Pasco. Have you heard— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yes! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: --that there was a Navy base there? She worked in the laundry at the Navy base. And then we came along, my sister and me, and so she just stayed home and took care of us, and my dad worked. But I spent a lot of years painting, and fixing hot water tanks, and unplugging sinks when I was a kid. I was very cheap labor. [LAUGHTER] So I learned to do that stuff really early in life. So that's pretty much my parents. They were very good people. Anybody you ask, they were very good people. There’s the obituary of my mom. I didn't get the obituary of my dad. I didn't find it. I have it somewhere, but there's this picture here. Anyway, go ahead. I just—I’m kind of rambling. So you can--it's a good thing you're editing this, and you can cut out all the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Are there any other events? You talked about the JFK visit. But any other events that sort of stand out in your mind from growing up, or from your years working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: You know, I can't really--not really. Not really anything that really, really stands out. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So overall, then, in looking back at your 35 years working at Hanford, how do you assess it as sort of a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Overall, I'd say that Hanford, for me, it's been a very good place to work. I was given opportunity. You know, I had opportunity. And anyone that's going to achieve anything in life, if they prepare themselves, and when the opportunity comes, they step forward and they take it. I mean you can't much ask for much more than that. My dad gave me some advice, of course, when I first started working out there. You know, he said, make sure you keep your eyes open, and you watch everything around you. And do not worry about if there's people against you, because God will always put one person there for you. And I always remember he told me that. And so I think about that, that different times during the time I worked out there, the people that have been there, that have assisted me and mentored me, and helped me to continue to do better work, a better job, and basically to feed my family and keep on living, as my mother would say. Yeah. I can't think of any other outstanding--there's been a lot of accomplishments, just small little milestones that have been made in safety and our management's commitment to safety, and our management's commitment to the workers, and making sure that they are heard, and that they're actually dealt with, and talked to, and gotten back to when they have safety concerns. And I guess there's a lot of pros and cons about that. But I see safety as being not just the number one thing at Hanford, but being integrated in all that we do at Hanford, is how I see it. And so I know there's a lot of things—I've seen the media. I've seen there are things that are going on out there that I don't know about. I have not worked in some of those areas. But for all of the areas that I have worked and been in, that has been the primary concern, is safety. And you compare to what we have out at Hanford, compare it to out in the real world, and we have a lot of commitment and concern, and actually management standing up, and taking responsibility for things, and actually dealing with them, trying to correct them, and working to try to make events or things that happen not reoccur. I actually brought a--you can get back to your questions, but I'll forget. But I actually sent off--you know, I seen it on television, and then a fellow employee told me about the Cold War Patriots? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And you probably know. I got my little certificate. And I got, actually, the pin. Whoops! I actually got this pin that came with it. And I have it—of course I can't bring my badge in here, because it's a Hanford badge. But I stuck my little pin on the badge, and so I thought that was kind of neat. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah. Actually, I talked to the Cold War Patriots last week about the project here. Well, I don't have any other questions for you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Oh, okay! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Unless there's something else that we haven't talked about yet, or I didn't ask you about that you think is important, to-- We can--Eric can actually film some of this sort of once we’re done talking. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Eric: Yeah, anything that you showed him we’d want to get photocopied. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay, sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: They could always integrate that, then, into the interview. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay, sure. Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Anyway, thanks very much for coming in-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: You bet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: --and doing the interview. I really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay, yeah. You know, if you don't step forward and make sure that you're a part of history, you won't be. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Absolutely. So how did you--I was going to ask you, how did you hear about the project? Did [INAUDIBLE] contact you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Actually, I was at a PZAC meeting--President's Zero Accident Council— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: --meeting--and there was an individual that works-- </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 200 Area N Reactor 105 K-East 105 K-West K Basins 200 East Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1953-2014 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1978-2013 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald) Long, John Ruff, Wally Larson, Judy Stewart, Clinton Norling, Steve Brown, Ronnie Henry, Thurman Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:52:04 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Danny Henry Description An account of the resource An interview with Danny Henry conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-1: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/2/2014 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear instruments & methods Pasco(Wash.) Richland(Wash.) 105 K-East 105 K-West 200 Area 200 East 300 Area B Plant WESF K Basins Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 N Reactor Washington State Public Power Supply System. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1e70e5f6902f36a8dce5b5ec4f9229c3.jpg 2299143b7462e91e44a8263168c065d0 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F668060df69888e4182ac2a6dd4aa0020.mp4 1c1a7cedc234e0082608686d3d8c0ae2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Samuel Moore Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Northwest Public Television | Moore_Samuel </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Robert Bauman: My name is Robert Bauman, and I am conducting an oral history interview with Samuel Moore, correct? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Samuel Moore: Right, Samuel-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: This date is July 9, 2013. And the interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. And I'll be talking with Mr. Moore about his experiences working at Hanford site, living in Richland and so forth. So maybe let's start actually from the beginning, if you want, could you tell me how and why you came to Hanford, how you heard about it, how you got here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Okay, I'm going to tell you how I got here. My father was working at a cook in the mental section of Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. And he came home, and he says, there's a better job at Hanford, Washington. So he left and came out. Then he told them that I can't be here without my family. So they put us on, I think it was a troop train, and it stopped in Pasco and set us off. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Could you--where is Camp Chaffee, Arkansas? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: It's east of Ft. Smith and that, so. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And how old were you at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: About eight. And then we come in--put us off of this I'll call it a troop train, because there was a zillion soldiers on it. And it picks up and they took us to Kennewick to a place called Naval Housing. And that's where they put the people coming in for Hanford workers to stay until a house was available. And we stayed there, and then from there we moved to this nice little square building which had a flat top, set up on stilts. And it was called a prefab at 1300 Totten Street. And that means that we lived at the end house. The telephones were on the telephone poles at the end of the block. So when the phone would ring you were told to answer the phone and go get whoever it wanted who. So that's the way we started in Richland. And we lived there for I don't know how long. And then we moved to different houses around Richland until I graduated from Columbia High School, which was Columbia High School in Richland at that time. Now it's Richland High. And then after that I did a short job with a construction company. And then I went to work for General Electric, running one of their blueprint machines when they were getting ready to build the REDOX Building and the PUREX Building. So I'd go, I was the first one in to warm up the machines and run them for a while. And then after while I got uplined and I could deliver those suckers out into the area. So that was my starting with General Electric then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay, so let me go back a little bit. So what year did your family arrive then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: 19--it was either 1943 or '44. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay. And your father, was he a cook here also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No, no. He'd come out and he was a, as we call them today, rent-a-cop. He was a patrolman out there. And he worked as a patrolman ‘til he retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And you said that your first job was with General Electric, and what year would that have been? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: About 1953 or 4. Then I went from there, like I say I was in the blueprint sections and all that. And then I had a job—I got a chance to become an engineer's assistant. And then when they were going out and building different things, so that helped me get into the other sections of General Electric and so on. And when that one cut, I transferred into radiation monitoring. And that was when they had the Hanford labs, and the old animal farm was at 100 F Area. So I worked in that group until--I forget what year it was. I'm not good on years and dates. But when they decided they were going to re-tube all of those reactors out there in the hundred areas and so they could put bigger slugs in them and all that stuff, I worked on that until about 1957. And they said, guess what? We're not going to pay you anymore. So I left here. But I stayed with the government job. I went to the Nevada test site and blew all the plutonium up that they made out here. So then I came back to Hanford in 1960. So then I was still in radiation monitoring and worked all kinds of different places, tank farms and everywhere else out there that I could think about. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So it sounds like you worked all over the Hanford site. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: All over the Hanford site, that's right, yes, everywhere. And I worked a lot of the times at the burial grounds in 200 West Area. When they would take the big wooden boxes to PUREX and REDOX and they'd fill them. And then they'd pull them up, and they'd put a big long cable on the whole string of cars, and that box was way down that string of cars. And then when they get up to the burial ground, the train and it would coordinate, and they'd pull it back. And as the cable would come around, and when the box got to the trench, the train would stop. And they'd just spin it around and down in a trench. And then we get the honor of riding the bulldozers to set those freights so they could cover them up. That was one of the deals. And the other times I worked in a lot of the tank farms and pulling pumps and putting new bearings in those pumps and all that kind of stuff. It was an experience, believe me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Yeah, I'm sure it was. So a lot of this was with radiation monitoring? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: It was radiation monitoring. And I was in radiation monitoring until 1980-something. And I had a little problem out there, and they wanted me to release some stuff. And I said, uh-uh, not me, it ain't mine. So they said, well we've got this other section over here that you should be in, so I got into the safety part with respiratory protection. And I was trained to repair the breathing air things, like the firemen use. I was trained to do that, fix the PAPRs, and the escape packs, and all that stuff so. And check over places for where they—oxygen levels to where they could go in and work and all that, so that was my last eight years of Hanford, was in the respiratory section I'll call it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And so when did you retire then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: In 1994. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So almost 40 years minus the years that you were with-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, yeah. Well as the way I said, when I came back to Hanford in 1960, they told me it was a temporary job, it would probably only last six, eight months. Well, I found out that at Hanford a temporary job is pretty permanent. It only lasted 33 and 1/2 years. It's a temporary job there, so I guess at all turned out pretty good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: I guess you could consider that temporary. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Temporary, yeah. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So many interesting things that you've worked on. So let's go back to the early years. First, in the 1950s and you talked about radiation monitoring, something with radiation, you did blueprint and stuff, but then radiation monitoring? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: And then radiation monitoring, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay, and some of that was with animals? Is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, I went into the animal farm on some certain times, but I wasn't assigned there for anything. The big one I was assigned to was what they called the 558 project, which is when they re-tubed all of the old reactors. And that was, you'd go in and set dose rates for all the people when they're working. And so it was a deal. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And now Hanford, of course, is a highly secure site, right, lots of security, secrecy to a certain extent. Can you talk about that at all? I mean, in terms of getting to work or at work, how did that impact you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Most of the places where I was, the secure part of it wasn't that strict. But other places like, some of those buildings, yeah, they were really a strict situation. And when I go back a ways, when my dad and we lived in this—I call it the slum house on Totten Street--nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew. I didn't know what the guy next door was doing, and they didn't know what my dad did. Until I think it was 1944 or '45 when they announced what they were really doing here. And it was kind of a shock, that deal, so. That was my deals of the secrecy out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Now, did you have to have special security clearance? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yes, yes, I did. I had special clearances, yes. I had everything but the very top secret one. And that was real handy because when I left here, I went to the Nevada test site. I had to use the same secret pass. And then the same thing when I come back. It was very, very--what am I trying to say here? I mean, I'm an old guy. I'm just about at the end of the road here. Most of my work, like I say, was the tank farms, and those places, where secrecy was not involved in that. And it was like times when you'd have a spill, you dig it up and prepare it to the burial ground. A lot of that was the work that we did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And you said your first job was at General Electric. Obviously, there are different contractors. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Now, who all did you work for over the years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, we went to General Electric. Then it went to there was one called Isochem, Rockwell, oh there's a whole slug of them, I can't remember all of them. So it seemed like every time you'd turn around, they were turned over to somebody new. But it was Westinghouse when I decided I would better leave before I had a real problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So can you talk about what was happening there toward the end that made you want to leave? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, I was, like I say, I was working on the PAPRs and all that kind of stuff. It got to be a real drag, you know. And everybody was doing that then. It got to the point where every time you turned around, everybody was wanting this, and wanting this, and wanting this. You're only one person. And I was a guy that did most all the fixing. So I decided--to my wife, I said--I call her the voice from the other side. She said, what's the matter? And I says, well, before I mess up on one of these pieces of equipment and kill somebody, I think I better retire. So we just decided, okay. And she worked for the Hanford Project, too. And of course she was much better off than I was. She worked for one of the big managers as a secretary. So we just decided that was it. And we had our nest eggs saved up and said, okay, it's retired and we're going to see the world. And we did that until my one eye decides to go bad. Then we had to stop. Other than that, I'd probably been in who knows where. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: While you were working at Hanford were there any significant events, or sort of, things that have happened that sort of stand out in your mind specifically? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, and I was trying to think. It was about 1962, graveyard shift, 233-S, it caught on fire and it burned. And it was a big mess. That's where I wound up with my shot of plutonium in my bones, as I'll say, from that fire. And, of course, back in those days you didn't know what was what, so they worked on it and cleaned it up. And but there's a couple of contamination things that sticks out in my mind. One of them is, we used to bury the material from 300 Area which is, I guess you would call a Westinghouse, Battelle or somebody. And we used to dump them into caissons in the backside of the 234-5 Area. And we had one of those that kind of broke open and messed us up a little bit. Took us maybe six, eight, hours to get cleaned up so we were able to go on our merry way. But those are the only two that really stick out in my mind. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Did you miss any amount of work as a result the exposures when you had those? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Nope. Nope. They just cleaned you up and said go back to work. You all have to remember that back in those days, all of the things that happened in a lot of places, we didn't know. We didn't know what the repercussions was going to be. We didn't know that. Now, this is why we're paying for a lot of stuff right now is because we didn't know how to do all that stuff. But like I say, there's a lot more people that know a lot more about that Hanford stuff than I do. Like I said, it's been many a year since I worked some of those places, too, that I can't remember some of the stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Sure, sure. The radiation monitoring group, how large of a group was that? And how many employees do you know, have an idea who worked-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: There was probably about 60 or better. But each company, I think, had a group of their own. The 200 Areas had one big group. The 100 Areas had a group. And then 300 Area had a group, so you put them all together there was probably more than 60-some. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay, and just to—you said there was a fire in, you think about, 1962. Was it the 200 Area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yep, in the 200, down behind the REDOX Building. That just, poof, was it and it went, so. And I think the reason they had the fire was because somebody had some greasy coveralls and stuff and didn't take care of them the proper way, and the first thing you know, poof, they were on fire. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And this was where there was radioactive material? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, it was back in the radioactive area, so everything got messed up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And at the time you probably didn't know necessarily everything, but you've had some health problems since then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I won't say that my health problem is caused by the contamination that I had or was dumped with. I've had quite a few of those. I've had a melanoma cancer in this ear, and I had a very large contamination that got in that ear and area. So I've had to have some surgery done there, skin grafts and that kind of stuff. But so far it hasn't slowed me up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: I'm going to shift gears a little bit here. Were you working here in 1963 then when President Kennedy came to? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And do you remember at all? Were you there that day? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No. Well, I was on a project that day, but I was not out where he was. I was one of the, I guess how would I say this, the lower steel, so I took care of the work over while everybody went to that. But yeah, I was here. I came back from Nevada on September 13, 1960, and I worked till '94. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And then I wanted to ask you a little about Richland. So other than when you first got here, it sounds like you lived in Richland most of the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: How would you describe Richland as a community at the time, as a place to live? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: It was very good because at that time, when you were there, you didn't even have to worry about locking doors. I mean, everybody was—it just one big thing. It was a government town and everything would deal like that. And nobody really did—didn't have the vandalism or anything like that around town. And as you probably know that, if you're familiar with Fred Meyer’s on Wellsian Way down there, that was a swamp deal, because that was where Richland got their drinking water. Like I said, I lived in 1303 Totten the very first time and then we moved from there down to on Benham Street. And I don't know how to say this, other than the way I normally say that, but that was down where we called the turd churn. That was the sewage plant down there. Then from there I moved back up to Swift. And then in--I was trying to think when it was, 1963 or so, they did away with the old irrigation ditch that came through Richland and goes underneath Carmichael, because that's where they flooded the cattail place down there for the drinking water in Richland, and let it seep down and pump it up. And they busted everything up and back about then I was reading the Villager, I think it was, the Tri-City paper, and there was a lot for sale on Totten Street. So I bought it and went out and looked at it. It was the old irrigation ditch. And I built a house over the old irrigation ditch, and I still live there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And you—when you first arrived you were a child. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: What was it like going to school? I'm assuming that there were people from sort of all over, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: All over. Yeah. And you just walk to school. And it was, like I say, there was no buses or anything, you could walk to school. And everybody just seemed to fit right in, you know. Nobody had any qualms whether I was from Arkansas or anywhere else. But like I say when the first house there in Richland, Wright Avenue was the last street in town. And beyond that was one of the most fabulous cherry orchards that there was. And when you were a kid you'd slip over in the cherry orchard and get cherries and take them home to your mother. And she could make you some jams, jellies, or whatever pie, or whatever. But it was a deal. There was quite a group of kids that came from all over the country. And they just seemed to fit in, none of this gang thing or anything like that. They were just, everybody was all buddy-buddy, you know? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: You mentioned you went to, what was then Columbia High School. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: How about elementary and middle school? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: And in elementary school when we moved the one that I really remember was Lewis and Clark down on the south end of town. And I went there until one of the, I'll call them students decided to burn it down. And they burnt Lewis and Clark down. And so a lot of us were told to go up to Marcus Whitman and finish off the year up there. So we did that. And then them from there on Carmichael, the junior high, was being built and I think they opened it up at about a mid-year. And I was one of the ones I went there the mid-year into Carmichael and then over to the high school after that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And so what year was that the Lewis and Clark burned down? Was that like in the late '40s then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. But the funny part of it is, not too many years ago they arrested a fellow down in Portland. And he was laughing about burning the building down. So I guess they couldn't do anything to him, but they found out who burned it down now. Yeah. Well, there was Lewis and Clark, Marcus Whitman, Sacajawea which was right there by Central United Protestant Church was the old Sacajawea school. And then there's Jefferson which is still going. And our fabulous people are trying to shut it down, move it, and do something else with it. But who knows what's going to happen. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Do you remember when you were growing up and going to school and living here at that time any community events, parades? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Oh, yeah! Atomic Frontier Days was a big—the big, big thing. I have breakfast with a group of Columbia High graduates and I can't remember what her name is, but she was one of them that used to run for the Queen of Frontier Days. And there was a couple others. But that was the big thing. And they used to take—Howard Amon Park turned into booths, and just like a big fair down there. So it was things, and then all a sudden they decided to move everything around to the Tri-Cities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And was that in the summer? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, that was always in the summer, you know. And then the big hydroplane races, they would come in, but they were the old ones that had the 1,200 or 1,300 horse-powered gasoline engines in them, the noise makers. But that was about the extent of the things. And if we go back I can remember the floods came through and when they build all the dikes that they're tearing down now. But I don't think they got to worry about that, being as the dams are still functioning. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Do you remember some of the floods? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Oh yeah, I can remember the flood deals, when they built the road up to going to the Y. They had to build all that up because you didn't get to Kennewick when the flood was on. Well, it was right up to the George Washington Way road there by wherever the guy that has the petrified stumps down there. The water was just across the street from his house, was right up to the edge there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So I want to go back now to Hanford itself and your work experiences there. You talked about some specific things you did and some specific things. How would you describe Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Hanford was a real good place to work. It was really good work, and good place to work. Mainly I think because you didn't know everything that was going on. So you knew that you had your section, what you were doing, and you didn't want to make waves or something like that. But to me, Hanford was a good place to work. There was a lot of--I had a lot of good friends that came up through the, I call them the ranks. They were, like I worked in the blueprint and there was guys that drove the mail trucks. We wound up as a real knit group of people there. They work out of the old 703 Building, which part of it's still there. And we used to have Coke breaks and go back there. And everybody put a quarter in the pot and then get your Coke bottle. When it was all through whoever had the bottle that was from farthest away got the kitty. So it was a good place to work, really. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And I guess is there anything you would like future generations to know about working at Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, I would like everybody to know that where this country really screwed up was when we dropped that bomb and blew up everything. We kept everything too secret. They should have let everybody know what that was and what was happening. Today we would have had a better deal of doing what they're doing today if they'd done that, I think. Now that's my opinion and no one else's, but if they would have just let them know what was going on, and what happened, it would have been a lot better. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And then is there anything that I haven't asked you about in terms of either your job at Hanford—or jobs, I should say, at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Or living in Richland? That I haven't asked you about, that you'd like to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No. Like I say, Richland was a good place to live, though, and Hanford was a good place to work. I mean you did your job, and everybody else did theirs, and everything worked out just fine. There's a lot of things that I'm not too sure of what happened. But a lot of those places they did have things when they were doing experiments for the Navy and all kind of stuff out there. But I didn't get in on any of that stuff at all. It was one of those deals, you go in and you dress out, and most the time the monitors were the first ones and the last ones out. So that was the deal. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: When you did that, did you wear a badge? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, TLD, thermoluminescent dosimeter. So you always had a badge on. I understand that some of the guys used to take theirs and set them aside so they wouldn't get too much radiation, so they would be eligible for overtime. But I wasn't into that overtime route. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And so how would you know? How did it register that you had too much exposure? How was that read? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well they put it into a meter that would read what the thermo was. And the original ones were--what am I trying to say? Film, there was a film. And they would read the film of what, how much had been exposed to that. And that's how they got your dose rates there, how much you took. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And did that change at some point to some other method? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, they used the film badges to start with. Then they flipped over and they found out they could use these, what did I call them, thermoluminescent detectors, which is you put at charge on them. And I guess the radiation would discharge the charge. So they'll know how much was used off of it. And then you had pencils that you read, that would tell you, that would read if you were supposed to take, let's say, 50 MR. Well you'd set that when you come out, you'd be there and there was always time keepers. There was a time keeper in that group that was taking how much your exposure was, and how long you had been there, and calculating it to when you should get yourself out. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And they would let you know that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: And then they'd tap you on the shoulder and say, go. So then they’d go out. And then there would be somebody out there that would get them undressed and check them, clean them, and make sure they were all, no contamination on them and either send them to lunch or home. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And that sort of procedure-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: That procedure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: --throughout the time-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Throughout the whole time I was there, yeah. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: All right. Well thank you very much. I really appreciate your being willing to come in and talk to us. And very interesting-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, like to say, there's things out there that my mind just doesn't pick up on them right now. So probably middle of the night at one o'clock, I'll wake up and say, golly, I should have told him this. But no, that's the deal. But really, Hanford was a good place to work and to me, it's been real good to me. I got a good retirement off of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: All right. Well, thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: You bet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: I really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: You bet. And seeing now that he's got the shut off, I'll tell you about my week. I took my motor home and went to Ilwaco. You know where Ilwaco is on the Columbia River? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Man three: Yeah, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: On the way over there. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:35:10 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) 703 Building 100 F Area 200 West Area 300 Area 234-5 Area 200 Area 100 Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1953-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1953-1994 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Samuel Moore Description An account of the resource An interview with Samuel Moore conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-16: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/9/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region 100 Area 100 F Area 200 Area 200 West Area 234-5 Area 300 Area 703 Building Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff3d85bde00e86e0c74863a946d82d95d.jpg afffa7c79551d98dda0f88b751d2c406 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8b04b9ce1b21e1ea75e4060d99aac9f3.mp4 50f96b20387d4d3089b3a6aceecfbccc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Leroy Noga Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Northwest Public Television | Noga_Leroy </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Leroy Noga: Leroy Noga. But I usually go by Lee all the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Robert Bauman: And your last name is N-O-G-A? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: N-O-G-A, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Okay. All right. My name's Robert Bauman. Today's date is October 15th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. So let's start if we could just by having you talk about how and why you came to Hanford. When that happened, what brought you here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I had hired--in the state of Minnesota. And they painted a picture of all the pine trees and everything, and several of us come out here in 1955. So I drove out here--it was January in '55. And from Spokane to here—it was at night and it was foggy where you could cut it with a knife. I couldn't even see the white line on the side, hardly. Anyway, I stayed at the Desert Motel in Richland. And next morning, got in the car and I see all this stuff that looked like I was on the moon or something. Sage brush. Where's all the pine trees, you know? I couldn't believe it. Everybody's got a picture of Washington with the beautiful pine trees and everything. [LAUGHTER] Including us from Minnesota. Anyway, so then of course I hired in with GE. And stayed in the dorm, men's dorm. And that was another shocker because I'm a ballroom dancer and used to going to several ballrooms in Minneapolis. Big ones--the Prom, the Marigold. And I would always never have a problem to pick up a woman--a nice looking woman to dance with. And here everything was--the women were afraid to go out. They stayed in the dorm and there wasn't anybody to dance with. I was very disappointed and I thought, as soon as I get enough money, I'm leaving town, and I'm going on. I was single at the time, of course. But then I went to work in K Area and K-West. Around suddenly and after I got to see the area a little bit. Of course, I'm from Minnesota, land of the ten-thousand lakes--we actually got a lot more than that. But here it was rivers, and I was unfamiliar with rivers. But after I got acquainted just a little bit, and found out how the hunting was--very good duck hunting and pheasant hunting at the time. I thought, hey, this isn't so bad. And then I tried the river fishing, which was quite different. And that wasn't so bad either. I was able to catch fish. And then I did dance with a local girl that said, well Lee, just stick it out a little while. It kind of grows on you. And I still remember that statement, and I'm still here— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: --after all this time. And I wouldn't move. Of course the area has changed a lot. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: And we had dust storms then. A couple of us bachelors, we stayed in a Bower Day House. And after one dust storm, I think we had about a half of inch of dust on the floor the next day. And that was typical. They weren't too well built, as far as keeping the dust out. And I can remember another time there living in the same house where we had a big snowstorm and then we got a chinook after that, chinook wind. Which we used to get a lot of those warm chinook winds, of course. And I remember the water had melted so fast, that the water had washed a full six pack right in front of our house. And I thought, well that's nice. [LAUGHTER] And anyway, as far as--you were going to ask me some questions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. Well I going to--about how long were you in the dorms then? And then how long did you live in the Bower Day House? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I was in the dorms--gee, that that's going way back. I don't remember. Maybe a year a year or maybe a little longer. I remember I missed a piano, because I used to play the piano. And I rented a piano and put it downstairs in a dorm. It was kind of something you don't usually do. But I did it anyway and played. And we ate breakfast every morning at the Mart which is now the Davidson Building, I think it is--right there across from the post office. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Big mart, everybody was eating there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: What was Richland like as a community in the 1950s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, everybody kept their doors open. Never locked them. It was a government town so it was very safe. With no crime like there is now. You remember the officers’ club and stuff out the area where they had--well the government tried to keep us here, and so they had big functions out there. Dances and name performers out there. And I was out there a few times--out here in north Richland. The government, of course, didn't want us to quit. And some of us stuck it out, like myself. And I worked for ten years for GE and then GE pulled out. And that's something that really irritates me to this day because--I don't know if--you probably don't want to televise this, but anyway, I think that was timed. The government always has these contractors come in and then they change. And I was—they had a ten year contract to be vested. But they had an age clause. You had to be 28 years old and I was a one month away from that. So I either had to go back east and work for GE back there—but I had a family of four now. And of course I didn't want to go back there and leave my family here. So I didn't get vested. And then different companies come. And Westinghouse, and on, and on. And every time I really had a nice job—I really loved it--a different company would come in. I had to change companies or I had to change jobs. I finally got tired of it and I quit. And I started my own business. And I might mention this--while having my own business, I did security systems, and fire systems, and stuff like that. And I was the first company that installed the first security system out here in the 300 Area. It was ultrasonic over the fuel rod of the pool. And so I thought that was something that maybe someone else didn't do out here, related to the area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Right. And so what year was that then? Roughly around the time period that you quit and started your own business? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, it had to be after ten years. I quit—I don't remember just exactly what year I quit out here. I worked for Battelle. And then I think Westinghouse come in. I think that's when I quit. Rather than change companies again, I just got tired of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Let's go back--if it's okay to go back a little bit. You mentioned your first job was to K-West. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: So what sort of job was it? What sort of work were you doing then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well I was instrumentation, of course. And did all the instrumentation out there. It was a very--I liked it because it was such a variety of different instrumentation. And then some of the really nasty work we had to do as an instrument person was go on the rear face with the water dripping down. All dressed up in rain gear, gloves, and everything double, you know. And the radiation was so intense back there that you could only spend about 15 minutes, 20 minutes, or something. And you were back there to replace these bad thermal temperature devices on the rear face. I didn't really like the working in the reactors too much. And I tried to get into the 300 Area labs, which I finally was able to do. They didn't like to let us go out there in areas, but I finally made it. And then we--in the 300 Area that was very interesting, too. Because there we got the moon rocks and we analyzed those. And I worked with chemical engineers and whatever to get the right instrumentation. Whatever they needed to put that stuff together so they could do what they want. It was interesting work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah, right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: We had what they called multi-channel analyzers at that time. We didn't have computers yet. It was—the computer age was just starting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: If we can go back again to talking about working on the rear face of the reactor. You said, you could only be there for about 15 or 20 minutes. Was that only 15, 20 minutes that day, and then you couldn't go back in again that day? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah, you were burned out for--well I can't remember the period. You were burned out. You couldn't go back there for maybe a month. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Wow. And so I assume you had some sort of dosimeter, or badge, or something like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah, you had pencils and stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Mm-hmm. Which they read when you came off the rear face. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Were there ever any times working there that you had an overexposure, or anything like that? Or any of your coworkers, or anything along those lines? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I was never overexposed, I don't believe. I think there probably were some incidences but-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: None that you were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: No. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: They were pretty careful--radiation monitoring were pretty careful to always check the time and they always read the dosimeters. And that was pretty well adhered to. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: And then you said you moved to the labs. Is that the 300 Area, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: And you worked there for several years, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah, I worked there for—I don’t know—eight years or so, maybe. And then when I quit, I came back as the--I quit for, I think 12 years, when I had my own business. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: And then I came back as a manual writer. It was an engineer’s title. I forget the glorified name I got. [LAUGHTER] But it was a manual writer writing procedures N Reactor. Instrument procedures for the--because I was an instrument person. It was an ideal task for me, as an engineer to write the test procedures for instrumentation. For the instrument people there at N Reactor. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: And which company was that, for then? Which contractor that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Phew. UNC. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: My mind isn't very good as far as old stuff because-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: That's good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I just remember the stuff—lucky to remember the stuff today. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: One of the events--sort of big events in this period--President Kennedy came to visit in 1963. Where you working at-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Kennedy? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. President Kennedy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I remember that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Were you on-site? Did you see him? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I was wondering if you could talk about that at all and describe your memory of that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I just remember that he was here and I saw him. That's about all I remember about it. Yeah. That was quite an event. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Do you remember anything about the day at all, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, everybody was just really happy and pleased that he came. He was pretty well loved, you know--as a man. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I wonder--you mentioned earlier--some of the security at Hanford and obviously it was a place that emphasized security, secrecy. Did that--in what ways did that impact your work at all? The sort of focus on security or secrecy? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I don't know how far you want to digress from—wherever I want to go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Wherever you want to go, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well talking about security brings up something that I thought I'd mention. And that is after I got to work there at GE for a while, and talking with regional monitoring people, and stuff like that. They got to know me, and I got to know them, and they found out that I was interested in old cars—antique cars. So one of them told me about--there's an old Chevrolet cab convertible out there in the boonies. Somewhere between H Area and F Area. And I said, oh really? And I thought the guy was just blowing wind maybe. I didn't really believe him at the time. But then I got still interested. I got to talking to him and maybe another monitoring guy, and it sounded like there really was one out there. So I looked into it further and I thought, well if there is, how do I get it? How can I get it? So I talked to Purchasing and Purchasing says, well you'll have to bid on it. And I said, can I bit on it? And if so, I don't even know if I can find it. I said, is there a minimum that I can bid for it? No, no minimum. Just fill out the papers. So I bid a minimum of $25. And I got a security clearance to go off the road. Because this was just out in the boonies. No roads, just out in the sage brush to look for it. Somewhere between H Area and Rattlesnake. So I asked a friend of mine who had a Jeep if he'd go out there with me. And we used his Jeep and we hooked a trailer behind, and off we went. We got permission to go out there. And we drove around quite a bit. And we finally found it. And we winched it on. And then I thought, well now I wonder if I can get a title for this thing from the state? [LAUGHTER] But being the contract from the government, and that I bought it--the state didn't hesitate at all. And I got a title for it. And this is one of the originals from an old homestead out there. You could still see some remains of the homestead. Of course the government went and destroyed everything. And most of the automobiles--I don't know if you know this--but most of the automobiles that were out there, the government made a special attempt to destroy all the engines. They took sledgehammers and busted the engines up. They made special attempts to--so the automobiles would never be used again. I don't know why, but that's what they did. This one somehow escaped. And the engine was still in it. But the head was off of it. But it was still restorable. And I have not restored it yet, after all these years. But now comes a time when I'm trying to get somebody interested in it. And if so, restore it and give it to him. Because I don't have that many years left. I'm hoping that somebody might help me a little bit financially to do it. And I would then donate it to whoever. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: But you still have it after all these years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I still have it. Yup. It's been in the garage for all these years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. That's interesting that it was a car from one of the old town sites—old home sites there that was still sitting out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I had not heard that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yes. I brought it up because it is a very rare incident. And I think I'm probably the one and only that has done something like this. At least maybe the first one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: And I'm also the first one, like I say, to put a security system out here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. So thinking back on your years working at Hanford, what were--and maybe you've already talked about this--what were the most challenging aspects of your work there and the most rewarding parts of working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, most challenging? Hmm. Oh, you know, it was all challenging, really. [LAUGHTER] It was very different. The instrumentation—when I first went out there, I was not a technician. I was a trainee--I had to be a trainee first. And my technician was not all that—didn't seem like he was there that long either. He didn't know all that much either, I don't think. [LAUGHTER] And I can remember one incident, they had an instrument that had mercury in it. We had to be careful how you calibrated it. And it wasn't my fault, because I was just a trainee. But my technician blew the mercury out. It went all over the control room which was not a big--nobody really appreciated that too much. That was challenging. That was kind of challenging. You had to be very careful, as an instrument person, with what you did. And if you worked in the control room, like in--what's the first--the reactor they're making a-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: B Reactor? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: B Reactor. If you worked back there at the panel gauges, you had to be very carefully that you didn't bump something, because they were very sensitive. Any movement, jar or something--and you could trip the reactor while the reactor was up. And you had to calibrate some of those things while the reactor was up. You actually had a lot of responsibility there. If you knocked the reactor down--and you could--you didn't hear too many good comments. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. How about the most rewarding part of your work in Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, when I—I don't know. There was a lot of rewarding things. When I came back to work again after a 12 year hiatus, so to speak, they closed N Reactor down, and I had to find another job. There weren't that many jobs available at PUREX because there was a lot of people looking. PUREX had a job for a project engineer job. And I interviewed for it and I said, well I'd kind of like this. But I don't think I'm qualified. I said, I'd like to have it, but I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'm qualified. Because I don't have a degree. A chemical degree is what you should have had for that job. But down the senior engineer that was doing the hiring--he called me and he said, Lee, you've got the job if you want it. So I thought, what the heck, I'll try it, you know? [LAUGHTER] But I was able to find the niche there where I was needed. And it just so happened they were replacing all the electrical main panels, you know--and everything like that. So I was then the project engineer for doing that. And the people from Kaiser, who actually came out and did tests and everything--I had to approve everything that they wrote up. And from the PUREX standpoint to see if it was safe, and so on, and so forth. That was rewarding. It was a challenging job. And then from there, I went to Kaiser. And there I got a job writing procedures for electrical code violations. So I had to write procedures to correct all—bring all the stuff up to code. This was a little bit out of my element, because I was an instrument technician. But I just got the code book out and learned quick. And that was rewarding, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I wanted to go back to-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I wore a lot different hats out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah, right. I want to go back to almost sort of first question I asked you. You said you came from Minnesota and you'd heard these sort of stories of Washington State, or whatever. What were you doing in Minnesota before you came here? And how much--what did you know about the Hanford site itself? Did you know what was being done at the Hanford site, and that sort of thing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I guess I should have known more. I really didn't know anything about it, particularly. I was just young, I guess. The recruiter came through and it sounded good. The money sounded good. And some of my--I went to Dunwoody Institute there. That's where I hired out from in Minneapolis. And some of the other students also hired in with GE. So I thought it probably was a good thing to do to start out. Good experience. That's actually what I trained for there at Dunwoody was instrumentation. I went there--I tried to go to college, but I didn't have any money really to support myself. And it was even tough to support myself at Dunwoody because I didn't have no help at all. I had to work part-time every night. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Do you remember how much your first job at Hanford paid? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Oh, boy. [LAUGHTER] I don't. But there was overtime, of course. It paid pretty well. Although I've made more even before that, one time. It's a little off the subject again. But I worked on the Garrison Dam in North Dakota. And here again, I wore a different hat. Me and a buddy of mine, we hired in--we bought a brand new toolbox, put it a saw in it, hammer, and blah, blah, blah. And hired in there at the Dam as journeymen carpenters. The union--which is real strong--they'd been needing people so bad that the union official didn't check us out, which he should have. And big money. I saved the checks for a long time. We went double-time. Worked on Sundays. An astronomical amount of money. But then we got greedy because we heard they were making even more on the outlet side. I think I worked on the inlet side, and we when on the outlet side. Well, I worked there about two weeks and then union guy got wise and we had to quit. I can't remember but I it was a couple of hundred dollars a week, which was pretty good money at that time. I don't remember. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: You talked earlier about finding the car, and being able to purchase the car, I guess. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Were there any other sort of unique things that happened or things that stand out in your memory during your time working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: No, other than meeting a girlfriend out there. [LAUGHTER] I don't know. I worked in almost every area out there. I worked in all the hundred areas. I worked at PUREX. I worked in 200 Areas, 300 Areas. I worked in almost every lab in 300 Area. I worked in 325, in all of them, 329. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Of all the different places you worked, the different jobs that you had--was there one that you enjoyed the most, that was--looking back on it, you'd say it was maybe your favorite job that you had out there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, all the work I did in 300 Area was very pleasing to me. And of course after that things changed a lot when they start shutting down things. I really did like N Reactor. I will say that. They were the--of all the places I worked, it was like a family. They were the friendliest, nicest bunch of people to work with. Everybody seemed to know everybody, and you know, it was very pleasant. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: So it's a group of people you worked with that made that so enjoyable. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah. Yeah, the whole N Area was just--I really hated to see that close. It was, like I say, like a family. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: So if you look back at your time working at Hanford, overall, how would you assess your experience working in the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well it--other than what happened to me changing jobs all the time, other than that bitterness--really my employer was the government. And they should be the ones that--I shouldn't—break in service, and all that stuff. You shouldn't have lost it like I did. I lost it when I quit. And then I went back to work there again. But that's the bitterness I have. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Which you'll probably leave out of this interview. [LAUGHTER] But other than that, it was a--I'd never tried it really. It was a wealth of experience and rewarding. Like I say, we did interesting things. Counted moon samples and it was very interesting--always. All the experiments we did, it was different. The engineers were always trying to think of something different to do. How to lower the background so that you could count very low background stuff and radiation. It was always interesting, always challenging. And then after that when the work there at 300, when I quit and went back, it wasn't fun anymore then. I mean, then things are closing down, pretty much. I closed PUREX down. I worked there and then they quit. They closed down. N Reactor closed down. And everything was closing down. That's when the fun stopped, kind of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah, I was going to ask you then obviously, at some point, the effort shifts from production to clean up. And I wondered how that impacted some of the things that you did? Was it that you saw a lot things shutting down at that point? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, after things started shutting down, of course just overall morale went down. And the sense of purpose didn't seem to be there anymore. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I teach a class on the Cold War. And a lot of my students that I teach were born after the Cold War ended. And obviously, you were employed at Hanford in the 1950s and 1960s--the height of the Cold War in many ways. If you were talking to someone who didn't really know much about the Cold War, or was born after it ended—how would you explain or describe Hanford during that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, let's see. That's a big question. How do I feel about it? Do I approve of how the government just took over things and ordered everybody out without any money? Reimbursement until much later? How do I feel about that? Well, I've got mixed emotions about some of that stuff. How do I feel about dropping the bomb on Hiroshima? We made the stuff and how do I feel about that? I still have probably mixed emotions about that, too. But I guess it's something we had to do. I have to accept that. One thing I will say, what went on at Hanford could never have happened in the time frame that it happened there at Hanford. How they designed and built like the PUREX Building, for instance. It's simply amazing. Outstanding workmanship and performance. It's unbelievable, almost, what happened in that short period of time. And it was a very dedicated workforce. Of course we didn't know a lot of what we were doing when we first came out here really. But we just did our work. It was interesting. And we all really were dedicated and liked our job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Is there anything I haven't asked you about yet? Or is there anything else about your experiences at Hanford that you'd like to talk that you haven't had the chance to talk about yet? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Gee, I don't know. I have a son that still works out—more or less works for Hanford. And he is getting a furlough, maybe today. Because our government’s shutting down. Mixed emotions again. [LAUGHTER] As far as Hanford, like I say, it was a good experience for me. And I'm not sorry I came out here. Not sorry I went to work for Hanford. Lots of good memories. And a lot of my friends, a course though who are gone. I'm one of those hold-outs. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, just so many of my friends that hired in when I did, they're no longer around. I'm 83 right now, so. Yup, time goes fast. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today and sharing your memories and experiences. I appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Thank you. </div> Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 Kbps Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:41:57 Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview K Area K-West Area 300 Area H Area F Area N Reactor B Reactor Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1955-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1955-1960 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Leroy Noga Description An account of the resource An interview with Leroy Noga conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-17: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/15/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear instruments & methods 300 Area B Reactor F Area H Area Hanford (Wash.) Hunting K Area K-West Area Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 N Reactor Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0a5f95a067cc15c8bfd7705114ca6269.jpg 9e12f751613b211e66d587db18607e0a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F99406b7ecf1307fceba5c8061e9a614a.mp4 c229c9e2af641822b5c55f7020ad8681 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Myles Pasch Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Northwest Public Television | Pasch_Myles </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Robert Bauman: Okay. All right. My name's Robert Bauman. And I'm conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Myles Pasch, today June 11th, 2013 and we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities, and I'll be talking to Mr. Pasch about his experiences working at the Hanford site. So good morning, and thank you for being willing to have me talk to you today and be our first subject in this project. Appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Myles Pasch: Welcome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So what if start by just having you tell me how and why you ended up coming to the Tri-Cities area to work at the Hanford site. How did that come about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well I come about, my mother was working here when I got out of the Army in '45. Why, she already had a job lined up for me out here, and so come out here to take that job that they--the job actually didn't materialize, but I start working with the electrical distribution as a lineman's helper, because of the experience in the Army. I was a communications system in the Army, and so I started out in the line distribution as a ground man for the line gang, and about six months later why the Corps of Engineers turned the telephone system over to DuPont and with the telephone experience I had, they--I mean if you put me in the telephone system and I worked in there then until I--until my retirement. And various jobs from cable splicer helper, to cable splicer, to lineman and supervisor of the installation and maintenance crews, and then supervisor's office. Finally end up in engineering section by the time I retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So you worked in a lot of different places, but mostly on electrical and phone. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Just about all of it on phones. Phones, phones, and phone lines. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And what sort of job did your mother have when you arrived? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: She was in the T Plant, 221-T Plant cleaning instruments and that from the separations group when they--vessels that they had to use for transferring materials and so forth and she was cleanup on that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Oh, okay. And when had she begun work here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: She began work there when they went into production. She worked at Hanford during construction in the mess hall, and then she transferred to DuPont and started working soon as--right after they went into production instead of construction. My dad also worked there. Both in construction and in--and he went into patrol, the Hanford patrol, when they went into production. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And do you know how your parents ended up coming here for work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: I really don't. I was in the Army at the time that they did come out here, and so I'm not sure how--other than I know they were living in northern Wisconsin. There wasn't much going on there, and so I know that they tried to find something in the war industry to work on, so they applied for and came out here to Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And did both of your parents continue working at Hanford after the war also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes. Fact is, I think my dad retired in '52. My mother retired when DuPont phased out and they went to General Electric. She phased out with DuPont, but Dad stayed in until 1951, actually, when he retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Right. So you said you initially worked for the Army Corps of Engineers and then DuPont? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: No. I worked for DuPont when I hired on in July of '45, but the Corps of Engineers was running the telephone systems at that time rather than DuPont, and they turned the telephone systems over to DuPont in January of '46, and at that time I transferred right over to the telephone section and worked there until retirement. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. So what might a typical work day have been for you back in the late 1940s early 1950s? What sorts of things might you have done in a typical workday? Where might you have gone on the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well, we had to go wherever they needed telephone service, and it was installation of the wiring, telephones, and maintenance of them. And so wherever they needed telephones, we went. I worked in the outer areas all the time, very little in the 300 Area. Most of my work was in the two East-West, and the 100 Areas, wherever they needed a telephone repaired or put in, why, there's where we worked. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: How large of a crew or group did you work with usually, would be out there doing telephone repairs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Usually there was about eight or ten men on the telephone installation and repair group, and there was anywhere from one to four cable splicer crews going splicing cable. Especially when they really start opening up in the late '40s early '50s, and they start increasing the size and that of the telephone systems. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So I imagine over the 37 years--is that how long? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes, 37. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Imagine over the course of those 37 years the telephone systems changed quite a bit. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes, we started out with--when the Corps of Engineers had it, they started out with common battery switchboards with operators on them in each area, and each area had a 100 or 200 line switchboard, whatever they needed. And when they turned it over to DuPont, though, they'd already had installed a automatic switching station. So right after they turned it over to DuPont, why it switched over to automatic switching stations and the operators were taken off the project. And then it wasn't many years later they had to increase the size of that. They went from a Strowger switching system to a North Electric all relay switching system. And just in the--well not what, in the early '80s or late '70s, why, they switched over to a computer-controlled switching system, which is what they are still using out there now is a computer-controlled. But they went from say 100 lines in each area to several thousand lines and now, and the increase in people and buildings that were put in during that time. During that period of time. When I first started there, there was only three reactors and the East-West Area each had a separations building, but the only one that was actually in use was the 221-T Plant. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So were some of those buildings more challenging to work with install or fix phone lines? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yeah, some of them we had to get special permits, special clothing, monitor buttons, and pencils, and badges to go into them. Probably only allowed 30 minutes in some spots. They were restricted to how long you could work in there and so forth, because of the radiation. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. So did you have a radiation monitor or some sort when you did that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: We had a radiation monitor. Our badge was a radiation monitor. Whenever we went into an area, why, we got a couple of pencils that you put in your pocket that rated different types of radiation. Some buildings they had to have even another different pencil in your pocket in order to work there. Because there was different types, different radiations. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And, so you mentioned you worked in T-Plant? In there as well? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Oh, yes, I worked--fact is that was one of our most challenging ones. We went there to work, and you had to drive dressed in double protective coveralls and boots, and gloves, and hoods, mask, and then when you went out, you had to strip all that and you couldn't drag your tools out with you. They stayed, either stayed or got thrown away. So in that one you were very limited on how long you could work in the canyon. That was in the canyon itself. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Yeah. Now for the site itself, when you first started working at Hanford site, given high security and secrecy, did you have to get a special security clearance, or--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: I had a Q clearance all while I worked there. I had a Q clearance, which allowed you into everything except top secret buildings. The only thing about Hanford there is a need to know basis. You never learned anything about anything else that was going on except if you were doing it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: When you first started, were you--how did you get to Hanford? Were you able to drive your own vehicle or did you have to take the bus? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: We took a bus out. You could drive your own vehicle off the area, park it outside the fence and that, but most people rode the bus out. They had bus transportation to all areas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And did that continue for most of the time that you worked at Hanford, or did that start to change? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: That continued. Most of the time I worked at Hanford, except the last few years and I was manager or supervisor of the business office. I was working in the 700 Area in the Federal Building. Was then based in there. So at that time I no longer had to ride buses out. But then the last three four years I worked, I was back out in the areas again, but of course I was driving company car out for instructing people on the new telephone systems. They'd set up meetings and I'd go out and instruct them on how it worked and what they could--what they could use of the communication systems. There was a lot of stuff they weren't allowed to use by DOE because it was expensive and unnecessary. So some of the things that they could have had and used, why, they weren't available to the plant operations. Some of the top management had them, but a lot of the systems was not available to the regular—most of the divisions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Now because of the security at Hanford, and secrecy, were there any sort of special phone--concerns about communication, using telephones. Was there any special security or anything like that, related to telephones? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: They always stressed security. That, talk and sink your ship, and so forth and that, to keep people from talking, and of course they had monitoring systems that they--the FBI had one set up in one of the buildings there where they could access any phone in the plant if they had the need to monitor to see if anything was going on that shouldn't be going on. And they then recorded them on little old spools of wax. Little drums of wax recordings that they used to use way back when. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Really? [LAUGHTER] Wow, that's interesting. Did that impact your work at all, the connections at all, or how you did the telephone lines at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: It just gave us more work. I mean we had to--and that was top secret, we were not allowed to discuss that with anyone that this was set up was there, available to the government. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: I’m going to shift a little bit now and talk a little bit about the area, the Tri-Cities area. When you first arrived where did you live? And what were your first impressions of Richland or the area here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well it was--lived in a--with my folks. They'd rented a three bedroom prefab, because they wanted us to come and live with them while I was there. So we lived in that prefab for the first six months, then we moved into one of the B houses down the south end of town. And it was pretty desolate, lot of wind, no trees. [LAUGHTER] And I thought every time the wind blew, why, they'd lose about half their—half their employees would terminate—termination winds they used to call them. [LAUGHTER] And of course the--none of the cities were any too large at that time, and they just grown a lot since. But Richland was all government owned, all the homes and everything was government owned until about '53 they sold the--about '52 or '53 they started selling the houses to the resident who was in the house. And I moved out just before that. We'd moved out and went to Kennewick, so we didn't buy one of the--one of the plant houses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Now had you--did you know anything about the area before you came here? Had your parents told you anything really about-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Not a thing. Just come for the job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So what was the community like in those early years in the late ‘40s early ‘50s? Because I would assume most people had come from all over the United States to work. What was that like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: They come all from all over from the United States and they--everything in town was government owned. So they had a big recreation building. They had two theaters and they had the recreation building where they would contract some major musicians to come in and play, oh, probably once a month they'd come in and play for a dance there for the people. About the only other--well, we had the bowling alley and one tavern in town. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, the bowling alley and the tavern and two theaters. So a lot of the recreation were just people parading up and down the streets on a Sunday when they weren't working. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So there were theaters to go to. Were there any parades or those sorts of events going on in the summer at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Every year they had parades that the government sponsored. Either parades or art in the park and such as that, that they got started. So there was quite a bit going on, and like I say, every so often they'd get a big band, one of the big bands in to play for the dances. And each department would manage to make a couple of parties every year to keep their people happy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: You mentioned the termination winds and often a lot of people came and went. What made you stay and your family stay there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Oh, I guess I liked the job. [LAUGHTER] It was just what I had always had been doing was telephone work. So I liked the job, and the pay wasn't too bad. And we had all—a lot of free time. I mean on the weekends and that, and it wasn't too far to go out to find recreation in the areas. Fishing or boating or just sightseeing. So we enjoyed—and we enjoyed the climate and that here compared to in some other areas we lived in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Not quite as cold as Wisconsin, I guess.. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes. That's-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: I wonder if there were any major events or things that happened while you were working at Hanford that stand out in your memory. I know President Kennedy was here in 1963, right, to sort of open the N Reactor. I wonder if you remember anything about that or are there any other events that really stand out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: That was one time that they even let school out so that school kids could go out there. And our son was in the band, so he was out there playing, and the whole family was out at the N Reactor when President Kennedy was there. Were able to spend the afternoon out there. Fact is, they even got a chance then to take them by the building I was based in at the time, which is out the old BY telephone building. Got to take the family by there, and so we had a family picnic there at the BY building on the way home from the outing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: That's probably the first time family members had a chance to be out-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: That's the first time they were allowed out there at all. I mean if you didn't have a badge you didn't go out there, unless you got special badge to go out into the area. But they had the checkpoints at 300 are and out at--on the highway coming in from the Yakima area--the highway where that highway 24's junctions with it. They had a gate out there, and one out by the--before you got to 300 Area and you had to have a badge to go through there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. And were you able to drive your cars out for that event? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: You could, but they were inspected. Trunks inside and outside as you went through, and--but you could drive your car out. But most people did use the bus. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: I wonder if--what would you like future generations to know about Hanford? What it was like to work there. What it was like living in the Tri-Cities, especially in the 1940s and 1950s and those years in early Cold War years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well, I don't know. [LAUGHTER] That's a--other than the fact, that it was one of the main things that stopped the World War very soon. I mean they saved--people worry about them having killed a lot of people, but they saved a lot lives. And if you look at it in the long run, well, they saved one amount of lives with the production at the Hanford plant. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: It seems like your work experience in 37 years was generally very good. You liked your job, is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Most of the time it was good, yes. It was--there was ups and downs, but it was as a rule it was pretty good. It was a good job and it was a sure job. I mean as long as you did your work and kept your nose clean, why, you had a job for as long as you wanted to stay. I could've stayed on beyond retirement age if I wanted to, but I was ready to go traveling. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And how about the Tri-Cities as a place to live? You mentioned you moved to Kennewick in the early 1950s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: We moved to Kennewick in 1952, and lived there until 2011. I moved back into Richland, about four or five blocks away from where we first started out in Richland. [LAUGHTER] So I liked it in Kennewick, but it's crowded. We found a real nice location out in Richland that we liked and I built a home there, and we--I moved out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Well that's really interesting about your work and seeing the different changes right, with the telephone system and changes at Hanford. So you started with DuPont. What other contractors did you work for over the years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well, DuPont, and General Electric, and ARCO, and Westinghouse, and main one, Rockwell. Fact is, I've spent a lot of time—Rockwell was one of the last ones that I just transferred over to Westinghouse as Rockwell phased out just about the time they were phasing out and combining a lot of the companies. Rockwell went out and I've worked with--or with Westinghouse for just a short time, then just to carry over until they got it--got all their programs going again right. There's a lot of change every five years at least, why, they were changing contractors, and was always a big change. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Was there a contract you worked for that you really enjoyed working for maybe more than some of the others? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Oh, no. They were all pretty good. I mean they were--had a job to do, and I was working in the same telephone department all the time. We just transferred under different management, and seems like all of those contractors were nice to work for. I mean, they were all—seemed just one as good as the other. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. Is there anything that I haven't asked you about? Or any memories that you have of either working at Hanford or living in the Tri-Cities that you think is important to share that I haven't asked you about yet, or haven't talked about yet? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Not off hand. I can't think of anything. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. Well, I really appreciate you coming and sharing your memories and your experiences working at the Hanford site and being a part, especially of those early years at Hanford. I really appreciate it, and thanks very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Other than being a little nervous, why, I enjoyed it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Man two: The only thing I can think of—well you-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Woman one: Last week my daughter came here when we came for the chancellor thing. And she's 15, and they had studied it somewhat in school, but she had some really strange thoughts, and not really positive thoughts about things that had happened here. And I was wondering if maybe you, since you lived through it, if you could make that—the reality of life at that time more real to them? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: I don't know, it just--there was a lot of restrictions and that, that you had to consider, going through that. And the security involved with it was very strict, but I can see where it was very necessary. Any of that restrictions and the production that they made, like I say, saved a lot of lives overall, if you'd have continued with the war as it was going. Why, it brought a stop to it in a hurry. And I think we should be thankful that it did that rather than carry on for invasion of Japan and whatever would have happened after that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Well again, thank you very much. I really appreciate you being willing to be the first person to be interviewed as part of this. You get all the little nuances of everything so I really appreciate Mr. Pasch. Thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: You're welcome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Man one: Okay. Stop the tape. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:26:50 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 249 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 100 Area 221-T Plant 700 Area N Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1947-2013 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Myles Pasch Description An account of the resource An interview with Myles Pasch conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/11/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 221-T Plant 300 Area 700 Area Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) N Reactor Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3e4aaec73e6f6c9ba18a36475c893e05.jpg bde01b50c49fdd19de9845aaa9a2a017 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fab86fcd9bafe1ad87121451929b5f8b0.mp4 bf4cb3c2a0e804cfdad85f1d48db7166 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Laura Arata Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Leonard Peters Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Northwest Public Television | Peters_Leonard </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Leonard Peters: Leonard Peters. L-E-O-N-A-R-D P-E-T-E-R-S. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Thank you. My name's Laura Arata. It's November 19th--already--2013, and we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. So I wonder if we could start, if you could tell us a little bit about how your family came to Hanford and where you were from. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I was born in Denver in August of '43. My father came out in June or July of '43 from Denver. And so my mom, myself, and my brother were there in Denver, and when I was two months old we came out with another family, the Carl Eckert family. And it was my mom, Mrs. Eckert, their daughter--who was about my age--and my brothers. So five of us came out in a car in October of '43. And my dad was working out here. And so that's how we came out, was in an old car. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: And what was your father doing at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: He was a truck driver. He drove for Remington Arms in Denver, who was DuPont, and he also worked for Bechtel up in Alaska. And he came down and went back to Denver and was driving, heard about this place. And if you'd like a very interesting story-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Always. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: He was driving for an Army officer. A colonel or something, I'm not sure. Kind of a--I'll say chauffeur, but it wasn't really a chauffeur. But my dad had heard about this place. And he asked his--I'll say colonel--about it. And very few people knew about it. But this colonel says, well, I can't tell you anything about it, but if you've heard of heavy water, it has something to do with heavy water. Of course my dad, heavy water didn't mean anything to him. But you know, hindsight. It's kind of interesting to me this colonel knew a little bit about what was going on here. As big a secret as it was, not that many people knew. But he had some idea of what was going on. I found that very interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Yeah. And how long did your father work at the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: From '43 until he retired in '73. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Okay, well, we'll come back to that. I want to ask you just a few questions about the area. Obviously you were very, very young— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I'm sorry. He passed away in '73. He retired in '67. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Okay. I'll have more questions for you. [LAUGHTER] Do you remember, growing up, what sort of housing you lived in, what the situation was like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: My first memory was an A house, 1520 Thayer. We moved in there about 1945. So that's my first memory, though we lived many places before that, as my dad's Q clearance bears out. But my memory goes back to the A house in 1945. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Did you live there for quite a while? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Lived there until around '56, '57. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: And could you describe that house a little bit, for anyone who doesn't know what an A house is? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: An A house is a duplex, two-story. You have neighbors literally right next door to you. It was a three-bedroom, all upstairs. And of course back then there was no air conditioning, and it would get hot in the summertime. I can literally remember summers, 109 to 110, 112 degrees. And the only air conditioning was a swamp cooler. So it was pretty miserable, but yet you didn't think about it because that's just the way it was. The government literally furnished everything, from throw rugs to table, chairs. I mean literally everything. Coal. We had a coal-burning furnace, and like once a month or so on, they would deliver coal. And you had to make sure there was a coal bin that had slats in it, and you had to make sure that the slats were in, because if you forgot to put the slats in you'd have coal all over the basement floor. And so that was kind of interesting. My dad, every morning, would have to get up and stoke the fire and get it going in wintertime, because we used to have some pretty bad winters compared to today. And so that was, again, just part of living in this area. Dust storms. You've heard of the termination winds. The wind would blow and the curtains would go back and forth and just wave in the breeze, with all the windows closed. And you'd have a quarter of an inch of dust on the windowsills and everything. But there again, that's just the way it was. I can remember one story--my wife tells that when her mother came out with her and her brother, met at the train station, and the father was there to pick them up. There was a windstorm right then. And her first words were "Sherman, get me a ticket back home." And they ended up dying here, and buried here. And I know my dad, he swore he would never—he wanted to go back to Colorado, but again, he was buried here and lived here all the rest of his life. But what else can I say on the government? Everything—you know, I've heard of people—we never did do it, but people get tired of a chair or something, they'd break it, call housing. They would need another chair, and they'd come out and replace the chair. And if you had—back then they had fuses, as opposed to breakers. Blow a fuse, call housing, they'd send an electrician out to change the fuse for you. I mean, it was pretty amazing, really. And it was good quality furniture. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Cool. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about growing up in Richland in the '40s and '50s, sort of what the community was like at that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: It was a fairly small town, of course. I think--and this is just my memory--it was about probably maybe 23,000 people, was all. Something like that. And it was truly a Leave It to Beaver era. People laugh at that, but that's exactly what it was, because if you stop and think about it--in order to live in Richland, you had to work out in the area. In order to work out in the area, you needed clearance. And it was not unusual to have someone knock at the door and be an FBI agent investigating someone or something. I mean, it was very controlled. And so there was no crime to speak of. Nickel and dime stuff. But there was one murder, in all those years. They never did find the killer. But no, we'd play out all night and folks wouldn't think a thing about it. That’s just the way it was. And in the summertime, like I said, as hot as it was, all the windows and doors would be wide open and wouldn't think a thing about it. And people kind of knew one another. Not that you knew everybody, but that small a town and everyone working out there. Everyone rode the bus, so there was a camaraderie with not only where you worked but also on the buses. And people I think really did try and watch out for one another. But no, growing up, it was great. One kind of fun story. We used to hooky-bob. You know what that is? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: I don't. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Okay, what we'd do in the wintertime when the roads were snowy and icy. You'd hide behind a bush, and as a car went by, you ran out and grabbed the bumper and had them drag you around. And that was a lot of fun. That was one of the winter sports. But it was kind of interesting. I can remember, newspaper front page showed a bus with a glove on it. The story was, it was a hooky-bobber and his hand was wet and it froze to the bumper, and--make a long story short, it was on the dangers of hooky-bobbing. But it just happens that the guy that that glove belonged to graduated a couple years ahead of me. Name was Jim Crum, who is now an attorney for the US government. But no, it was a fun time. I mean, Friday night shows was wall-to-wall kids. Very seldom was there a fight or anything. We'd hang out at the Spudnut Shop, or there was another place called Tim's. Someone that had a car would drive around the Uptown area about 30 times, just looking for gals or whatever. I mean, it was an American Graffiti time. Have you seen American Graffiti? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Yes, sir. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: You see that, and every person in there--Hey, that was so-and-so; that was so-and-so. I mean, it was so accurate to our high school days. It was a good time to grow up. Wintertime, of course, we had Christmas tree forts, and if there was snow on the ground we'd have snow forts and choose up sides and have snowball fights hiding behind our snow forts. We would, if there was no snow--or even if there was snow after Christmas--build Christmas tree forts. Stack them up and have a roof on it, even sleep out in it. But if a neighbor down the street--you know, if they had a Christmas tree fort, about one or two in the morning we'd sneak down and steal all their trees. And we'd have a bigger fort then. We would sleep out a lot in the summertime, because it was hot. I can remember we would sleep out maybe 10 o'clock at night or so. There were still orchards, cherry orchards in town. Up on Van Giesen. We lived just around the corner on Thayer. We'd get up, go down there and steal cherries. We'd steal quite a few cherries. Then the next day we'd sell them house to house. What else was there? The buses were a big part. The buses were fun, because there was two groups. They were both run by the government, but there was what they called the city local, which took people from point A to point B as far as downtown and uptown, different places. Then there was the outer area buses that took workers to work and brought them home. But there was two different--not bus companies, but groups of drivers that drove for each group. But not only hooky-bobbing, but it was always fun to--as buses passed--snowball them, and throw snowballs at them. Just fun things. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Some good winter sports. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Could you talk a little bit more about these--you mentioned Friday night shows, and also the Spudnut Shop. Could you describe those a little bit? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I mean, everyone went to them. All the kids went to them. And you know, you're talking the '50s, where rock and roll was just coming in. I wrote a piece one time on--I really think that we were born at a nice time, because we can remember big bands, we can remember that type of music and how rock and roll came in. And of course parents didn't like rock and roll at all. It was evil, and all this. But a lot of the movies, some of the movies, had rock and roll stars. I can remember people dancing in the aisles while the movie was on. Things like that. I can remember one gal was dancing what they used to call a dirty bop. They ended up kicking her out. [LAUGHTER] But no, there was dancing and hooting and hollering. Before the Uptown Theater opened was the Village Theater. And that was when we were younger, but that's when they showed the serials, whether it be Superman or Whip Wilson or whomever. But every Saturday we'd go to the show. There'd be a cartoon as well as one or two double feature. That's back--we were young, but a fun thing then, I guess, was to have your popcorn boxes. They were boxes at the time. You'd flatten them and throw them and make a shadow on the screen. That was the big deal. But the Village Theater was so strange because it was all kids, basically. Because the Richland Theater, which is now The Players, was more the adults. The Village Theater was for little kids. But you would walk down the aisles, and was a kind of carpeting, and you'd stick, stick, stick, stick. I don't think they ever cleaned it. Pop spilled on it, candy bars, and everything else. That was fun. Then they did build the Uptown Theater, and that was more adult movies. But on Friday night, it was lot of science fiction. That's where you saw Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, and all that. Then the midnight shows had really neat--they'd have a midnight show, and we wouldn't get home until three in the morning, but no big deal. You'd walk home. No big deal. I don't know if you can do it today, but there'd be half a dozen of your friends walking home with you, just having a good time. But the Friday night shows--I started smoking quite early. I don't smoke now. But I can remember, for mowing the lawn and peeling the taters and things that, I’d get $1 a week allowance. And with that dollar I could buy a pack of cigarettes, which would last me a week, get into the show, and have like a dime left over. So I mean, a dollar, I was in fat city. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Do you remember how much a movie cost, about that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: First ones I can remember was $0.11 or $0.12, and then it went to $0.20. And I think during my high school days, if I remember right, it was probably $0.35, something like that. I'm not sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: All right. I'm fascinated by the Spudnut Shop and Tim's. Can you describe those a little? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Well, Tim's was where Dr. Chavla placed his--it's kind of caddy-cornered from the graveyard, the old graveyard. And it was a nice place. A fireplace in it and everything. That's where the kids hung out. And it wasn't really a pizza parlor, but it was kind of a pizza parlor sandwich place. It was our high school days, and it closed, I'm not sure exactly when, but became Einan's Funeral Home. It went from the restaurant to Einan's Funeral Home. And then Einan's, of course, moved out on the bypass. But the Spudnut shop, it's bigger now than it was. It used to just be just a few booths. But I can remember Spudnuts were, let's say, $0.10. And for a Spudnut ala mode--that was a Spudnut with soft ice cream on it--that was $0.15. And if you had $0.15 for that, you was in pretty good shape, because we didn't have money like that. And there was another place just two doors down from that that was the Fission Chips. But it was interesting the way they spelled fission. It was fission, like nuclear. It was Fission Chips. You can see some old pictures of the Spudnut shop, and just a couple doors down, you'll see the Fission Chips. But we'd hang out in the Spudnut Shop before the movie, and then maybe go there after the movie. And that's just where everyone hung out. When we had a car later, more in our high school years, we hung out at a place called Skip's. It was where Les Schwab is now. That was kind of the hangout there. I don't know if you want this on there. It's not very nice. But Skip's, there was a young girl worked there with a cleft palate. One the guys that we kind of ran with, he had a cleft palate also. He was about three years older than me. But he pulled in there, him and friends, and she said in her cleft palate way, ,ay I help you? He said yeah, give me a such and such. And she got mad, you don't have to make fun of me! Because she though he was just making fun of her. Kind of a sad story, but kind of humorous also. The movies was a big part of life. Of course, swimming. We used to swim in the Yakima a lot. And the old pool, what we used to call the big pool, down in what's now Howard Amon Park—it used to be Riverside Park--there was a swimming pool there. And the flood of '48, '47-'48, it flooded the park. And so they done away with that pool and built the present one. That flood was quite a deal. I can remember going--the bridge was out--going out of Richland, and they had a pontoon bridge. And that causeway wasn't there then. It was just flat. But I thought that was so neat. We was going across the bridge, and you see pontoons all the way across it with lumber to drive on. And that always impressed me. Down around Gowen and things, I can remember the basements flooded from that flood. And it was quite a flood. That's when they built the dam or dike around Richland and Kennewick and so on. The—I was thinking of something else, and lost it. But no, the flood was quite an event. I worked with a guy named Ralph Schafer, who had a private pilot's license, and they hired him as a bus driver. But they let him go from bus driving long enough, because the only way to the airport at the time was to fly from Richland to Pasco. So they hired him to ferry people to the Pasco airport in his private plane, because basically there was no way out of Richland, until they put that pontoon bridge in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: I wonder if you could talk about--obviously you went through school here. Do you have any memories--there were also some residents that were here prior to 1943, that were still in school here, that were moved off of their family lands. Did you go to school with anybody who had memories of that, that you recall? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Not to my knowledge. You hear all kinds of stories and things that I don't know. I know I've heard that one family--or some people, I'll say--when they were, quote, kicked out of White Bluffs Hanford area, they moved to Prosser, Sunnyside, somewhere up there, and swore they'd never set foot in Richland. And whether that's true or not, I don't know. But I know there's hard feelings over it, rightfully so. But no, I don't know of anyone. I know we had a lot of construction workers in trailer parks in north Richland. There was a big trailer park, and they had an elementary school out there, John Ball. And once they got all the houses built that they were going to build, I guess, they closed the trailer park and closed John Ball and had them all into town. But I can remember living on Thayer, going to school at Old Sacky—Sacajawea, the Old Sacky--that for some reason, for two-three days they sent me to Spalding. I had to walk to school, which was maybe three, four blocks, five blocks. I can remember big piles of dirt, having to climb over them to get to school. And the reason for that was they were building the ranch houses at that time. So I was probably first grade, I'm guessing. So they were still building in the late '40s, early '50s. In fact, Bauer Days and the Richland Village came later, after the letter houses. But school--no, I honestly can't remember any kids there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: No problem. We're here to get your memories, so. A bunch of other things I want to ask you. One thing, you said your father worked in Hanford until '67. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: He retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: He retired in '67. So he was working in the area when President Kennedy came, in 1963. Do you have any memories of that event? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: No. I was in the Navy then, so no. I know my wife said that she went out to see him. And there were so many people you could hardly see him, but she went out to it. But no, I got out of the Navy in October, '63. I was on a train back to Denver to visit relatives. It's kind of sad. I was sitting in the club car playing cards with strangers, and the porter came in--a black fella--says, [EMOTIONAL] the President's been shot. And we all--aww, go on, he's pulling our leg, he's joking. Then I says, you don't joke about something like that. We were somewhere around Wyoming on the train, and then they was able to get a radio station over the PA or whatever it was. Sure enough, a little bit later--that he had died. And that's how I learned of it. I'll never forget that train ride. Got to Denver, and it was just strange. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Of course. And we're right on the anniversary of it now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. Yeah. But my dad, I don't know if he went to see him or not. I mean, he was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. He came out of the Depression. He was born in '03, so he'd been through a lot. I can remember him saying that he'd vote for a yellow dog before he'd vote for a Republican. He was the old Democrat. But he did vote for one Republican. That was John Dam, who was running for county commissioner. They were personal friends. He said that's the only Republican he'd ever voted for. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: One exception. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: So did you work at Hanford at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: You did. So could you start filling us in on that a little? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I worked 40 years out there. Hired on '65. And luckily my dad was still working, so we overlapped. We were both drivers. And I started out as a laborer, though they called them servicemen--basically a laborer. And I got set up to bus driver. And in '61, had a layoff. And I could have stayed, but I thought, man, let's see what else is out there. And I went and worked for Battelle. I was with Battelle for about 13 years in inhalation toxicology. Long-term study. Plutonium, curium, americium studies on dogs. And in about '84 I quit Battelle and went back to transportation, because money. You know that all your college folks know that biology is not real high-paying, unless you're a PhD or something. But a BS in biology's not much. But no, I really enjoyed that. In fact, when McCluskey's glove box blew up, about 200 Areas were exposed to--I forget if it was curium or americium, but there hadn't been a lot of studies on those. And like I said, I was working in inhalation toxicology, and we got two or three big contracts right after that to study the health effects of curium and americium through inhalation. He was an amazing man, because I worked with PhDs. Immunologists, veterinaries, hematologists. You name it, we had the discipline there. Pathologists. And they didn't give him six months to live, with what he got. And he ended up living probably 20 years or better. It is quite an amazing story. You can go on the internet and look up Atomic Man, and his story's in there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: We actually interviewed the gentleman who was in charge of the cleanup, cleaning up his hospital room. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. I don't know if it was this guy I worked with, what we called a radiation monitor. Now they're HPTs or something. But he was with him, scrubbing him and things. His name was Larry Belt. He'd be a good interview for you. I worked with Larry for a number of years. He was our radiation monitor when we exposed dogs and so on. But he said, you can't believe the pain this man was in. He said, we had to literally scrub him with brushes, because he had stuff embedded in his face and so on. Terrible. He says, submerge him and scrub him. No, Larry Belt could tell some stories about it. But back to my job. I quit Battelle for financial reasons and went back to driving. Drove a bus for a lot of years. They shut the bus system down, and I went and worked driving a truck, and drove ERDF trucks hauling the solid waste from out around the river and so on. Did that for a number of years and retired. I taught HAZMAT classes for the last about ten years. But buses were the fun job. A lot of stories there. One of our drivers named Carl Adcock was driving down Delafield, taking the day shift home--so it was about four or five in the afternoon—and a little girl was standing out in the middle of the street playing. About five, six years old. Stopped his bus, pulled the brake, got out and spanked her butt, get out of here! Got back in the bus, and the passengers were just--what are you doing? You could get in trouble for that. And it was his daughter. But no, we've had people have epileptic seizures on the bus. And there's all sorts of things like that. A lot of stories. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: You must see a little bit of everything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Oh, yeah. We had poker games, bridge games, on the buses. They had cardboard tables. Four people would sit down, put their table between the aisles and play cards. They had a bridge game going from 100F, which was where the animals were before they built 300—the animal life sciences 300 Area--but they had a bridge game that was going steady for at least 30, 35 years. I mean, it was different people. You know, someone would retire, someone else would take their place. But it started out at 100F at lunch break and then on the bus, and it continued. When we were at 300 they were still playing. Again, it was different players, but it was the same game. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Wow. There's something I wanted to ask you about. Returning back to when you worked in inhalation toxicology at Battelle, did you work with the smoking beagles? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yes. That was my first job, was smoking. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: We just interviewed Vanis Daniels-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Oh, yeah. I know Vanis. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: --last week, who worked with the smoking beagles. Can you describe for us the process of getting the beagles to smoke two packs a day? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Well, the hard part's lighting 'em. No, the reason for the study, as I understood it, was uranium miners were dying early, and they wanted to know why. Because it could be cigarette smoke--because most of them were smokers--uranium ore dust or it could be radon daughters. And so we had a group of--I forget now. 70 dogs, 60. Something like that. And 10 of would receive smoke only, cigarette smoke only. They had a table, kind of a horseshoe. The mask fit over their muzzle with a cigarette in there, and like every seventh or tenth breath, a little gadget would open and their breath would suck in the smoke. But then ten of them would receive uranium ore dust and radon daughters. There was a large chamber that held ten dogs around it, and up in the top there was a grinder thing that would grind the ore dust and sprinkle it down in. I mean, it wasn't noticeable, it wasn't thick, but it was in there. And then we had radon. I think it was water bubbled through it that would give the radon gas, and it would get into the chamber. And then we had another ten that would receive cigarette and the radon. And then a control group that didn't receive anything. They were called sham. You'd bring them in, go through all the same routine, but they wouldn't receive anything. And just see what the effects were. And it was a lifespan study, so you'd look at the dosage and how long they lived and what affected them the most. So that's basically what it was. One story I heard--probably true--was that the Russians said that our limits were too high, should be lower. So that maybe prompted it, I don't know. Then after that when we got to 300 Area, 100-F moved into 300 Area, and they closed 100-F down. And then they had a group of just smoking dogs. And it was more difficult in the sense that we had a mask that fit over their muzzle, and they could trick it. They could breathe out of the side of their mouth. When they did it at one area they trached them, and there was no cheating that. It was direct. There was no getting around that. I learned a lot. I mean, that was one of the most exciting jobs. And the learning curve was just like that. I really learned a lot about physiology and biology and chemistry. You work there that long, and you learn a lot. Because part of my job was necropsy--or what they call autopsy, but necropsing the dogs. And we always said we took everything but the bark. I mean we literally disarticulated them and took every piece that they had. Every organ, every bone, separated it. The reason for that—we wanted to know where the plutonium or curium or whatever went to in the body. Where was the body burden? Was it in the lungs, was it in the bones? And interestingly enough, we exposed Pu-238 and 239, and the 238 would be a bone-seeker. The bones would have high doses. But in 239, the bones hardly got anything. It was all soft tissue. So they learned a lot from that, as far as where these elements--what they seek. The target organs, if you will. I don't know if all that should go in this. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Fascinating. I really love hearing about it. Could you talk a little bit about--obviously, during those times, security and secrecy was still very much a part of working at Hanford. Did that impact your work at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Oh, a lot. You know, being raised--from my oldest memories, it was secure. And I can remember when I was probably about 10, 11, 12 years old I went in for a library card here in Richland. They asked who my dad worked for, and I was scared to tell them. Because the security--my dad never told me what was going on out there. And I knew security was a big deal. And I says, I don't know. I kind of knew, but I--And she says, well, what does he do? And I says, well, he drives. So then she wrote down General Electric. But no, I mean, it was paramount even as a kid. I can remember—and this is kind of funny hindsight--but kind of put yourself in that timeframe--I can remember calling my brother who was seven, eight, nine years old--would have been in the early '50s, McCarthy era--I can remember calling my brother a dirty communist. And my dad just came unglued. He would rather have me call him S.O.B. than that, because that wasn't something you messed with in the early '50s, with the FBI and everything else. But I mean, security was bred into you, I guess. And when I hired on, it was still, but not like it was. But many of us still had that same mentality. I can remember when they started releasing things to the public. That always bothered me, because this is secure, and people don't have the need to know a lot of this stuff. Security was a big deal. I mean, you didn't go anyplace without a security badge. They could stop you, search your car, and everything else. So it was a high priority. There was seclusion areas within the area. You might get out in the area, but you might not be able to get into a certain area. When you got in that area, you couldn't get into another area, like dash-5 or Z-Plant or REDOX or PUREX. You needed extra security on your badge to get in these places. So security was very tough. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Could you talk a little bit about how Hanford was overall as a place to work? Anything you found particularly challenging or very rewarding about your time in the area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I think it was great. You know, let's face it, it was great for a lot of people that worked here. I mean, good pay—relatively good pay, and a lot of people raised their families and sent them to school on this pay out here. And as far as working out there, we really had fun in the early days. And by the early days, I mean when I hired on. Because I felt very lucky that when I hired on, most of the old-timers were still working. And by old-timers I mean them that hired in the '40s. So a lot of the stories, a lot of things that they knew and interesting things that they talked about, I was privy to. And that was great. And it was, to me, really a fun place to work. I really enjoyed it. Later I can remember saying more than once in the '80s or '90s, this isn't fun like it used to be. And it wasn't. But you know, I was younger then, and that made a difference. I was about 21, 22 when I hired on. And so times changed. I think in the early days--by that, my early days--there was what we call maybe some dead wood. And they might have five people to do a job for two people. But I mean, it was good, it was job security. Well, then came the cuts and so on. I think that made it a little different, because one thing that's bothered me over the years, there's been layoffs. But you can check the records. Many times after these layoffs, within six months they're calling them back, because work has to be done. We might cut 500 people, but that job is still there, so they called a portion of them back. Which, to me, doesn't make sense. But I don't think there's the fat out there that there was at one time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about? Any other stories that stand out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I think the racial thing was a big story in the early days because there wasn't that many black people working out there. And I can remember us--I mentioned earlier that Richland didn't have hardly any blacks. We had one black I'm aware of. He was a shoeshine guy at the Ganzel's barbershop. His picture is still in there. But I can remember--I must have been six, seven years old--I saw my first black person. I was in a car downtown with my mom. And I saw him, and I just saw his hands and face. And I can remember wondering, I wonder if his whole body is that way—we just didn't see them. We had two black guys in high school. C.W. and Norris Brown, who was terrific basketball players. And the main reason their family moved was because of those two boys. It was a different time then. I don't know it should go on record, because I don't know if it's true or not, but talking about the early people that worked there, one of the stories that I heard--and like I say, whether it's true, I have no idea. But they were out working, and they had a burn barrel. It was very cold. A barrel full of wood and so on, a burn barrel. The construction workers were huddled around it, and this one colored individual this kind of bulled his way in. He wanted to get up to the front. And the story goes--whether, again, true or not, I don't know--a carpenter took his hammer and ended it. And that wouldn't surprise me, though I don't know if it's true or not. Because there was prejudice. A lot of the people that came here were from the South, and it was a different lifestyle. I know that they had separate camps for the blacks and the whites. And it was segregated. So I can remember when I was driving the bus here, we only had--to my recollection—one black in all of transportation. There may have been more, but I think only one. And it wasn't until probably '63 or '64 that they really started recruiting blacks. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: I understand there were labor organizers and people who came in with the NAACP and that sort of thing to sort of assess conditions, which would have been about the time you were working in the 100 and 300 Areas. Do you have any recollections of that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Well, the one black that I told you about was a serviceman—labor. Same group I was in. And he was the head of the local NAACP. His name was McGee. And the way you became a driver was seniority. In other words, if this driver retired and you were next in seniority, you'd get that job. Well, he was the next one up, as a laborer, for a driving job. They wouldn't give it to him, for obvious reasons. Well, he fought it through the NAACP and he ended up becoming a driver. But they was not going to give him that job because of his race. Battelle, to their credit, was the first ones to make an overt effort to hire black people. And that's where--gentleman you mentioned earlier. And Battelle had--not overwhelming, but a number of blacks working for them. And in inhalation toxicology we had a number in animal care as well as in the crafts. So I would say from '63 on, it started changing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: So this is kind of my last question--we'll have students accessing these interviews. Most of my students now are too young to have remembered the Cold War. It's sort of an older-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: So maybe if you could just talk a little bit about what it was like being part of this Cold War effort, and what you'd like students or future generations to know about contributions to that process. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. I know there's different views on this, but I feel very strongly about--because I knew a lot of GIs from that time frame—had two uncles that were in the war. And you know, the atomic bombs, and we made the plutonium here for the bomb, literally ended the war. I am a firm believer--had we had to invade, there'd been hundreds of thousands on both sides killed. And they talk about the badness, rightfully so, of the atomic bomb. But you look at the conventional bombing of Germany, and it was as bad or worse as the atomic bombs. The firebombing of Tokyo. Things like that. So as bad as the atomic bomb was, it did end the war. You'd had to live through it. Now, as far as the Cold War goes, you know, the place wasn't supposed to last much more than ten years. And that's what everyone thought. Well, then the Russians got the bomb. That changed things a little bit. And it was scary. I mean, like I said earlier, me calling my brother communist. I wasn't old enough to really realize what was going on, but I can remember--would've been during the Korean War--my dad came to my brother and I and said, I want to know where you guys are all the time, because we might have to leave town in a hurry. That was the mentality of that time. We had air-raid sirens throughout the town. I can remember every--I believe it was Monday at ten o'clock, they would go off to test. But there was one right behind Jason Lee, where I was going at the time, and it was loud. Every--I think it was Monday or Tuesday, at ten o'clock they'd go off. Because we literally were on standby. We didn't know what was going to happen. And the Korean War and then the McCarthy era, it was a scary time for adults. You know, as a kid, you didn't notice it, other than watching others. But I think Hanford had a lot to do with ending the war. Which ushered in the Cold War, because of the proliferation of the weapons. And you have to give credit to whomever for tearing down the wall, for bringing somewhat of a peace in the world—I say somewhat. I think it was our spending billions of dollars building up our—you know the old saying, peace through strength. That's what Reagan did. He was a big spender, but he got the job done. But Hanford was unique, because I can still remember there was anti-aircraft placements out there. When I hired on, all the old track houses were still there. I worked on a fuel truck, and we would fuel here and there and then we'd go out into the desert area, if you will, and look at these old houses that were still standing. And the old icehouse was still there. And a lot of these buildings were still there in the '60s. And why they had the need to tear them all down, I don't know. I think it was a shame. But they tore them all down other than the bank and the school. I believe about all that's left. No, it was a different time. Like I say, I can still remember my dad telling us both, I want to know where you are in case we have to leave town. I mentioned earlier, the FBI--it was not unusual to have an FBI agent knock at the door and talk to my folks about so-and-so. We had neighbors that lived in the same house—in our A house, our neighbors there was there one day and gone the next. It wasn't unusual to--you're out of here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Certainly a different time. I want to thank you so much for coming in and sharing your memories with us. I really appreciate it. We'll film all these goodies you brought us, if that's okay-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yep. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: --before we have to go. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:57:05 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 194 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX 100 Area 200 Area 300 Area 100 F Area Z Plant Dash 5 Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1945-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1965-2005 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Belt, Larry Daniels, Vanis Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Leonard Peters Description An account of the resource An interview with Leonard Peters conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-21: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 11/19/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 100 F Area 200 Area 300 Area Dash 5 Plant Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) swimming Z Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd3a31e8f531859f8cf4173f7e777e4cc.jpg 2a38262e6623571282c597a9daca931b https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7c6061bb308050f0219a8db9b6ffcf03.mp4 98f9b422199605caf34957b60917b70d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Petersen, Gary Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Petersen_Gary Gary Petersen: Sure. This is easy. Robert Bauman: All right, let’s see. Petersen: Hair's combed, eyebrows are trimmed. Man One: Yeah, you sure do look pretty. Petersen: Actually I'd rather watch her than— [LAUGHTER] Petersen: Is that-- Bauman: Unfortunately, you're supposed to look at me, actually. Petersen: Oh. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Yeah, I’m sure. All right. Does that work there, on the mic? Woman One: Mm-hmm. Bauman: It’s okay? Man Two: Mm-hmm. Bauman: Okay. Man One: We can start whenever you’re ready. Bauman: All right. All set to go? Woman one: All set. Bauman: Excellent. All right. Well, Gary, I think we're ready to go. Petersen: Fire away. Bauman: All right. Well, let's start first by having you say your name and then spell it. Petersen: Okay. It's Gary Peterson G-A-R-Y P-E-T-E-R-S-E-N. That's important, the E. Bauman: Yes. You're right. My name's Robert Bauman and today's date is June 5th of 2014. And we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So, Gary, let's start with the beginning of your time here. Can you tell us about when you came to Hanford and Tri-Cities, what brought you here? Petersen: Well, that's a good question. [LAUGHTER] Okay. Actually, I came first in 1960, January, 1960, with the Nike Ajax Missile site at the top of Rattlesnake Mountain. And I was temporarily assigned up there--well I was assigned up there, but three times a day we'd get on the back of a two and a half ton truck and go down to the mess hall down below. And I knew I was going to die, so I asked be transferred to any place and I got sent to Korea. I said never come back to the Tri-Cities, but as you can see, I did. The second time, though, is probably the one you're after. I decided after the military that I needed to get an education, so I went to Washington State University and got a Communications degree with a minor in Electrical Engineering. I had a job with Ford Motor Company all lined up, but I wasn't too enthused about going to Detroit. That was January of 1965. And so my college professor, Chuck Cole said, gee, there's a new company opening up in Tri-Cities. Why don't you stop by? So I stopped by on a Friday, went to work on Monday with Battelle, which became Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. So there's how I got here. Bauman: So, that first time, in 1960, why did you want to transfer? Was it the ride down the mountain? Petersen: Three times a day with an 18-year-old driving, and you drop 2,000 feet, and at the bottom there's a 90 degree corner, 16 degree grade, and it was January. I knew that one of these was going to go off the road. So I said I've got to get out of here. So I put in request for transfer, and I transferred. Just like that. To Korea. Bauman: Right. During the first time here in 1960, did you spend any time in town? Petersen: We did, much different than--actually most of the servicemen, and there were quite a few of us at the four batteries, would go to--there was a bowling alley and a dance hall over in Kennewick, just off of Clearwater that was surrounded by fruit trees. Now all of that's gone and it's all businesses and so on. Clearwater's full, but at that time, it was all orchards. It was pretty nice. Bauman: What were your impressions of the place, other than not liking that ride down the mountain? Petersen: Well, you have to remember it was about like probably what the first military people saw when they came by here in December, January of 1943. I mean it was cold, it was brown. No trees. It was a barren place, even in 1959. So I can imagine what Colonel Mathias thought when first flew over this place. From the top of Rattlesnake, as you can imagine, you saw the entire Hanford site, so it was pretty barren and bleak. Bauman: Going back a little farther, where had you lived before this? Where did you grow up? Petersen: I graduated from Womack High School, which is up the Okanagan. I lived on an apple orchard. Again I was used to being around trees, and you come to the desert--I can imagine, any time between 1943 and 1959, ‘60, ‘61, ‘62, this was a pretty barren place. Bauman: And so in 1965, you took the job up at Battelle. Petersen: Yep. Bauman: What was the job? Petersen: The job to start with was a communications person. I became the manager of the news of service. The advantage I had was I got everywhere on the Hanford site, except the tank farms. I've stayed away from the tank farms successfully for a lot of years. But I spent a lot of time out on the hundred F reactor, which was the biology and aquatic biology site at the time. I got all over the site, including back up to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain a couple of times. So it was really pretty nice. Bauman: When you came back then, in '65, where did you live? Petersen: Lived originally in what were called the stilt apartments. They're on Jadwin. They've been fixed up since, so you would never know that they were stilt. Stilt, meaning that they actually had posts that held up the second floor. The posts were the garage for the people who lived there. But they're not far from the Chevron station, kind of in North Richland. Lived there for quite a while. And then the last of the homes that were built prior to 1958 went for sale. Those were called the Richland Village Homes. And there were two-bedroom and three-bedroom, either one-car garage attached or unattached. And they went up for sale for—I bought one—three-bedroom with a single car garage attached—for $6,200. Pretty good buy at the time, and I ended up paying less than I was for rent in the stilt apartments. I thought was pretty good deal. Bauman: What was the community of Richland like at the time in the mid-1960s? Petersen: The community was still just finding its way out of what I call the federal government ownership. In 1958, the city became an incorporated city again. And it was 1958 that the federal government to city back over to itself. And so between '58 and '65, it was a city that was still trying to find its way as a city, other than as a federal funded city. It was unique in that aspect. Battelle was well the first companies, too, to come in here—although it had a government contract, it was one of the few to come in here and be from the outside. Man, up until that point it was DuPont and then General Electric and then in 1965 is when the AEC decided to diversify the Hanford contract. They split it up into eight pieces, and so Battelle was one of those pieces. The others were HEHF and the operations and so on. There's been 35 contractors in here since 1965, and Battelle was one of the early ones. Bauman: Now, before your first arrival here in the 1960, the Ajax site, were you familiar with Hanford? Did you know what sort of work that was going on in Hanford? Petersen: Well, I did only because I spent some time up at Fairchild Air Force Base. They also had a Nike Ajax missile site. They were trying to transfer some people from Fairchild to Hanford. And so I learned a little bit about what Hanford was. The nice thing at the time is everybody--all the military guys said, oh, you're going to love the Tri-Cities because it's way warmer than Spokane. So I thought, sure, and then you come down in January and it was cold, at the top Rattlesnake you get winds up to a hundred miles an hour. It was not one of your pleasure spots at the time, but the view was great. View was great. Bauman: So, you knew something about Hanford at that point. Petersen: Knew that it was a military installation, federal installation. Knew that they made the material for the atomic bomb. Knew that there was a reason for the Nike Ajax missile site to be there, to protect the site. So, yes, that much we were pretty clear on, and the military took their job very seriously. There was a no fly zone over Hanford. No commercial flights, no flights of any kind other than military itself. It was pretty well protected. And on top of Rattlesnake, I might just add, that was the radar installation. It was at the highest point, so the radar reached a long way. You could see planes coming well, well in advance of them ever getting through to Hanford. What was interesting is sometimes we would notify Fairchild or McChord, and you'd actually have fighter jets intercept planes that wouldn't veer off. That was a unique feature of what you did on top of the mountain. The other sites, they had radar installations, but that one was pretty unique. That was pretty good. Bauman: Yeah. So in 1965 when you came and were working in communications, what sort of responsibilities did you have there? Petersen: Well, one of the assignments that was unique was to take tours to indoctrinate all new staff members, and that was for everywhere on the site. Over the years, I've taken literally thousands of people on tours over the site. At the time, it didn't seem like it was that great of a job to be able to take people around the site, explain what the reactors were, what the 100 Area, 200 Area, 300 Area, those kind of things. But as it turned out, the longer I did it the more I realized that the work that was going on here was critical. The Cold War, was still fairly active, so it became important to me to make sure that people understood what kinds of things went on here. It wasn't until later that I became interested in what happened pre-1943. As you keep tromping across the land, you start saying, oh, there were other things here too. But it was pretty good. Bauman: Those site tours for new employees, were they able to go pretty much everywhere on site? Petersen: We could go everywhere except into the area that had the plutonium, which is now known as the Plutonium Finishing Plant. Where there was restricted classified, the real concern was both tritium and plutonium. You couldn’t say the word tritium back in those days. You could plutonium, because they knew it was the material for the plutonium bomb, Fat Man, came from here. But tritium was something nobody talked about. And so those areas were restricted and that was mostly in the tank farm area. That was were chemical separations took place, so we stay away from those. It was okay by me. Bauman: Well, that does raise—obviously, security, safety were very important at Hanford. In what ways did security at Hanford impact your job? That's obviously one way. There's certain areas you couldn't go, right? Petersen: There were replaces you couldn't go. The badges--all of the badges at that time were designated to which areas you could or couldn't go. It was readily identifiable on your badge whether you were allowed into say, the 300 Area or the 100 Areas with reactors, or the 200 Area. And within them there were other exclusion zones, too. There were restrictions placed in each of those locations. Typically somebody that worked in 100 Area wouldn't ever be allowed into the 300 Area, or into the 200 Areas. The reactor areas were the 100 Area, the 300 Area was the research area, and the 200 Area was chemical separation. They were pretty segregated as to where you could go. Bauman: In communications you mentioned that you couldn't say the word tritium. Were there other things you couldn't talk about or write about? Petersen: You couldn't talk about quantities. As a matter of fact, there was a real restriction early on. One of the things that I found in the process of working in communication, there were nine production reactors around the Columbia River on the horn. In the summertime in particular there were periods where all nine reactors would be working. Sounds unique when you think about it today, but in the summertime June, July, August they actually measured the temperature of the Columbia River before the first reactor and after the last reactor. As I recall, if the Columbia River temperature was raised by close to ten degrees, then they would have to start shutting down the reactors, because the flow back into the Columbia River was that warm coming from reactor. In order to protect the fish and things in the river, then they really monitored the river very carefully. The reason I point that out is you also never talked about how much water went through those reactors because there was a fear that the Soviet Union could figure out the quantities of production simply by measuring the amount of water that went through those reactors, or the temperature increase from one point to another. It sounds odd today, but that was one of the strictures of what you could and couldn't talk about. It was a pretty quick--they were very careful about quantities. Bauman: And I assume that you had to, when you were hired, had to go through security clearance process--? Petersen: Q clearances were standard. There was one level above that that was called CRYPTO for a while. I don't know what happened on those, but that was for individuals who got around most of the site. They were a unique feature at that time. Bauman: Where was your office located? Where did you work out of? Petersen: Well my office moved all over. Originally it was in the old army headquarters—and this is in 1965. Battelle, when they first came in here, moved into a building that was called 3201. Later they changed it to the old office building—OSB was what it was called, old office building. But that was before the Battelle buildings were built, which became known as the Sand Castle. We lived and worked from January of 1965 until probably the spring of '66 before we moved into the new Battelle-owned buildings, the Sand Castle, which are on Battelle Boulevard now. And then later I moved out into the 300 area. I was in and out of 100F area. Those kind of places. So, yeah. How we doing? Bauman: You knew the site well. Petersen: Well, except for the 200 Area. That was a real restricted area, and maintained that for quite a number of years. Bauman: You talked about giving tours to new employees, sort of the indoctrination to the site. How about for dignitaries, government officials, did you do that? How about the general public? Petersen: The general public rarely, if never, I don't think we ever did that, but government official Catherine May was the first congresswoman I took through. She was a congresswoman from 8th District. I took Senator Magnuson through. Later Tom Foley, so quite a number of those over the years. In later years we started getting some foreign visitors, as well. But early years congressional officers, congressional staff, the governor. Dan—Governor—the name just few out of my head. The governor of the State of Washington, Dan--? Bauman: Evans. Petersen: Evans. Thank you. He later became also a senator from the state. He was a first governor that I helped escort across the site. Most of those, it was unique to be able to take visitors like that around the area. Bauman: Do any of those tours especially stand out? Were any officials particularly interested or excited about it? Are there any sort of strange stories from that? Petersen: [LAUGHTER] Well, Senator Magnuson was a unique individual. He actually came out quite a number of times. And one of those times we were in the 300 Area, and I was working at the time for Westinghouse, Westinghouse Hanford Company. He came out to actually, quote, break the ground on FFTF. We were in a building at the time, a four story office building in the 300 Area, and I'll never forget, I was assigned to make sure he got up to the podium. His vehicle came in front the building, and then drove around to the back of the building, so I ran back and met Magnuson back there. I'd known him before. Frankly, honestly, he was drunk as a skunk. I didn't think he was going to be able to make it. He says, just get me to the podium and I'll be fine. I didn't think it was possible. But he got up, he gave an excellent speech. A little wobbly, but I don't think most people knew that he had been drinking. This was 4:00 in the afternoon or so, and then he left. I might point out, it was about a year later, 1971, that President Nixon came out. There was quite a scramble, because at that time there were no buildings for Westinghouse. Westinghouse was kind of spread all over, so when the advance team for Nixon came out, they decided that the proper place would be the Battelle buildings. This sounds odd, but there was a real infighting between, at that time, Atomic Energy Commission, Westinghouse Hanford Company, and Battelle over what signs would be displayed where. Because Westinghouse was interested in making sure—this was for FFTF, and that was a Westinghouse project. On the front of the podium, of course, was the President's seal. He spoke out in front of the buildings, but behind that—or around that, Westinghouse came in the night before and put up Westinghouse circle W signs around the site. Just an example of my boss at the time, who was one of the vice presidents, said I don't care how you do it, but I want to sign that says Battelle that they can't take down and will be located visibly for all the cameras. So we stole a door off of one of the rooms in the Battelle building. I don't know if you've been the buildings or not, but they're very tall doors. They're nine-foot-tall doors. So we actually, that night, took one of the doors off, put Battelle on it, and put it up on the front of the building up high so it was right behind the podium. Westinghouse--we had to do that after midnight. That door actually was at the entrance to Battelle for—I don’t know—the next 20 years. They finally took it down not long ago. But that was relative to President Nixon showing up. That was pretty good. Bauman: Stealing and moving doors. Petersen: Well, everybody wanted their name and with the President of the United States, and so that's what we did. Bauman: Did you get the chance to meet him when he came? Petersen: I did. One of the things I still—my family still values—is Pat Nixon was along with him. My oldest daughter was one year old, and because of what I was doing, we managed to get my wife and daughter into what was called the VIP area of the presentation and so on. She didn't get to shake hands with President Nixon, but Pat Nixon came by and actually held my daughter for a brief minute. We got a picture of it and it is still on the family someplace. Bauman: How about foreign dignitaries were there any-- Petersen: Foreign dignitaries, those came later, too, after the SALT agreements. On the signing of the SALT agreements, there was real concern both on the part of Russia, Soviet Union, and the United States for how much materials were still being made or not made. There were a number of Russian visitors who came over to verify which reactors were still operating, which ones weren't, how much material was still going through the canyon facilities, those kind of things. We started for the first time, seeing some of the senior Russian officials come through. The one that still strikes me and my memory is Admiral Sarkisov. He was head of the Russian Navy, and he came out both to see at that point the start of the reactor vessels from the submarines. Today, we have about 124 submarine and cruiser missile reactor cores out on site, but at that point I want to say we probably only had eight or ten, maybe 11, 12, something like that. But he also wanted to see those and verify that the submarines had actually been decommissioned, cut up, and so on. We toured both the reactor areas and the submarine vessel area. Of course, that's where my story about FMEF comes from, too. There was a building out there that was built for FFTF called FMEF, Fuel Material Examination Facility. On the way out to the site, Admiral Sarkisov asked, what is in that building. I told him it was a shut down building. We went out and toured the site. We toured the top of Rattlesnake Mountain with him, too, which was pretty unique. But we toured the site and coming back in, he asked if he could see that building, inside the building. So I called security. It was a closed building—it was locked up. And so they met in they let us in. As we came out, Admiral Sarkisov says, well now I can move the satellite. I asked what he was talking about. And he said, well, we've been watching that building since it was completed, and we couldn't believe the United States would build a building of that size, that massive size, and then not use it. So we knew that was connected underground some other place, because we never saw any cars come. So the Russians actually thought that that building was so secret that they had an underground entrance that came from someplace else. But he saw it was simply not used. And it is unique building. It's a billion dollar building. Bauman: That's a great story. When you were giving the tour with him, was there an interpreter present when he was-- Petersen: There was always an interpreter. As a matter of fact, one from both State Department for us, for the people who were the escorts, and then he had his interpreters, too, so there was both. The group was probably ten people or so: site manager, and then others of that--there was people from state--you didn't let them wander around by themselves. Pretty unique. Bauman: Well, you said you've been connected to Hanford since 1965-- Petersen: Mm-hm. Bauman: I'm sure you’ve-- Petersen: Almost 50 years. Bauman: --been privy to a lot of interesting events and stories. So I’m going to ask you to tell me some of those, but there's one in particular I know, and that's the alligator story. Petersen: Yeah, the alligator story is good. Bauman: All right, you can talk about that. Petersen: The alligator’s pretty unique. The aquatic biology was located in 100-F Area. That's the last reactor in the downstream flow of the Columbia. So they studied the impacts of the reactors on fish, miniature swine, beagle dogs, they had African pygmy goats, but one of them—Merc Gillis was a doctor of veterinary medicine—graduate of WSU, I might add. He said that he wanted to study the uptake of strontium-90 in a thick skinned animal, because strontium is bone seeker or thick skin. So he convinced the manager of the site, of biology site, that we ought to buy some alligators. The story varies depending on who you're talking to. Bill Bair will give you one side of the story, because he was one of the managers out there. I'll give you another one. But I know for a fact at least six alligators were purchased for the studio strontium-90 uptake. Bill Bair says there were more, but I still wonder about that because I was in and out of there a lot. But these alligators were about two and a half feet long and they put them in a retention pen in the Columbia River, but it was also where the effluent from the F Reactor came back. The water would pass through the reactor, put into retention basin for a short period, and then put back in the river, so it was warmer than the river. That's part of the point. It also was the first place where the water returned to the river, so that was where the strontium would be taken up by the alligators. That's the theory. Well, two months, three months after they put the alligators into this retention pond, there was a big storm. The pen came down and all six alligators got out. This was under the AEC at the time, too—they managed to catch five, but they missed one. It was months later that a fisherman over in Ringgold, downstream, fishing caught this last alligator. Of course, he was trying to tell friends about it, and on and on. But, he had to protect the proof, so he took to a taxidermist office in Pasco and had the thing stuffed. Well, one of the technicians from aquatic biology was walking by the taxidermist shop, saw this stuffed alligator. So he ran in, grabbed the alligator, and ran out, which now makes it more or less of a public story. This was in 1963, before I got here. But the story comes around. Anyway, AEC tried to bury that story. No, we've never had an alligator out there. We don't know anything about alligators. They actually, I think, had it classified for quite some time. But when I got here in '65, my boss was a guy named George Dalen and I had been here for about a year. He says, it's time to give the alligator back. I had no idea what he was talking about, but this is where I entered the story. So he pulls out this stuffed alligator about like this, and he said it was, I think the guy's name was Aaron, he said track him down, because he was the fisherman. He paid to have it stuffed, and we're going to give the alligator back. We'll just let the story go away. So I did. I found the man. Unfortunately, the Tri-City Herald ran a story about this big about the alligator, and once every eight or ten years, they use one of these clips when they do the previous in history. DOE came in and they claimed to know nothing about any alligators, ever, ever, ever. It was in the technical library that they finally found the documents that showed not only did they have alligators, but the other five, they moved from 100-F when they had a fire out there, down to the 300 Area where life sciences built a new building. So I know that there were six alligators, five, one stuffed, and Bill Bair says that there were a few more than that, but I don't know that. That's the alligator story. Better told over beer, I might add, but not bad. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Are there any other stories during your time at Hanford--incidents, events, things that you were involved in in your job [INAUDIBLE]? Petersen: The biggest one is one that I think this community has forgotten completely, and that's Apollo 11. Apollo 11 was the first lunar landing. When Apollo 11 came back to the moon and splashed down in the Pacific, it turned out that in 329 Building, there was a room that was used for very low level radiation detection. It was a room made of pre-World War II battleship steel. It was used for a lot of reasons for measuring very small quantities of radiation. Battelle actually put in a bid with NASA to study some of the first lunar materials that came back. So they had splash down in the Pacific, and we had a man named Dr. Lou Rancitelli, who actually waited in Houston for those materials to be flown from the Pacific, off of the aircraft carrier, back to Houston. He had a briefcase—big briefcase—chained to his wrist, where he brought those back through Seattle and then to the Hanford site. He arrived here about one in the morning, I might add. There were only a few people--Doctor Perkins, myself, a couple of others, who were waiting. We kept this all secret, because we weren't supposed to tell news media or anybody else that this was going on. But Lou got the materials back, and the next day we started petitioning NASA to allow us to display those moon rocks here in this community. The second place in the whole world that moon rocks were displayed was the Federal Building here in Richland. We managed to display them for three days, and there were lines four abreast around the federal building to look at those rocks. They'd go by and ooh and aah because it came from the moon. But almost to a person, everybody says, looks just about exactly like what we see out here in the desert. You couldn't tell them apart. But the fact that we had those lunar materials, I mean that was--wherever you were, you watched TV of the landing on the moon in 1969. That was a huge event. It was after that that Nixon came to town, but hardly anybody recalls that at all. It's just a forgotten piece of history, but at the time, it was pretty big. It was almost--and I missed it—it was almost like when President Kennedy came out to dedicate the Hanford Generating Project attached to N reactor, and that happened in 1963, just before I got here. Big events. Bauman: Yeah. Yeah. Any other happenings or stories that stand out in your mind? Petersen: I wasn't a part of what was called the Green Run. Others will have to tell you about the Green Run. But one of the stories I covered, and that's one of the only ones that I was out near the tank farms. Atmospheric sciences is out between the 200 East and 200 West. It has a 300-foot-tall atmospheric tower at that site. They've all been removed today, but going downwind from that 300-foot-tall tower were, number one, four or five 200-foot-tall towers and then five or six or seven 100-foot-tall towers. They would regularly release very small quantities of radioactive iodine, most usually put into colored smoke so they could track both the visual as well as radiation and see how long it took to go downwind and disperse. Just to show you how we were at the time, the photographer and I who were covering that piece as a story thought, well not only did we want to shoot it so you can see it go, but get underneath it so you could watch it as it--It's not a very smart thing to do today, but at the time it seemed like a pretty good idea to be able to watch that stuff as it drifted and deposited. So, we did the story. AEC never let us release it, but we kept the story internally for quite a number of years. I don't know what happened to it now, but those kind of things went on fairly often. You need to know where radiation goes, and that was a piece of it. Bauman: Do you know roughly the time period that would have been? Petersen: Well, it would have been probably '68 or '69, someplace in there. There has been more study on the Hanford site--atmospheric studies, geologic studies, temperature swings, those kind of things, than almost anywhere in the United States. They really tracked how the weather changed, how the wind moved, what the ground flow is from rain, those kind of things. It was--going to atmospheric physics lab in the 200 Area was an experience. At one point I managed to take a TV crew up, because if you climb a 300-foot-tall tower in the middle of Hanford, you could see just about everything. It turned out that we got the film crew up, they took the pictures, and then security looked at the pictures and said you have pictures of classified areas within those pictures, so they took a whole video. All of the climbing up and down was for naught. So, a pretty good place. Bauman: You mentioned earlier that when you first came and started giving tours, you really didn't know much about pre-'43 events. Petersen: True. Bauman: When did you become more aware the communities that were out there and start learning more about that? Petersen: I had the real fortunate opportunity to meet Bill Rickard, and I hope you've interviewed him. Bill is a gentleman of the first order, but Bill has probably walked that site more than any single person. One of the early things—I got acquainted with Bill. Bill ended up taking me on walks across parts of Hanford. The first time that he took me out was to Rattlesnake Springs, which is up a gully on the face of Rattlesnake Mountain. It's just an experience to go with Bill, and that was mostly on—we call a bugs and bunnies--but it was mostly what was all of nature that's out there: deer, elk, coyotes, even fish and so on. But Bill knows that site probably better than any other single person. So every chance I ever got to go out with Bill, anywhere, that's where you first got the sense that there was something here pre-1943. That's when I first saw the irrigation piping. That's where you first saw the home site--we've had two major fires across that site, and both of them ended up and taking out things and were still left. There was a home up by a Rattlesnake Springs that actually still had furniture in it. It was burned down in the first fire. So Bill knew all that stuff, and so the experience of going out with Bill was really unique. I wouldn't trade it for anything. That's where I started thinking, well—actually, Bill led me to a person named Annette--I can't think of it. Bauman: Heriford? Petersen: Heriford. Annette is the one who—she was in the class that would have graduated from Hanford High School out there on site. She worked for Battelle, PNL at the time. I got real acquainted with Annette, and then I helped Annette have the first reunion of her class out at that old Hanford School and that would have been, my gosh, maybe '78 or so. 1977, '78. And Annette could tell stories about what the old Hanford town was like and White Bluffs, and how rich and agricultural area it was. She was an amazing lady. It's too bad that she passed away quite some time ago. She was a real historian. You talk to those, and all of a sudden it becomes real. She's the first one that I talked to, not Bill Rickard, but Annette Heriford that that explained that some of the people had less than two weeks' notice to move off that site. You think about it and you say, that's just not possible. But it happened. Then you start feeling for the people who—there were roughly 2,000—the numbers change, depending again on who you talk to. The one on one side, the federal side, says there's only 1,500 people out there. But if you look at the historical records, you know that there were probably about 2,100—kids and the whole works. Some of the early census didn't include some of the children, or the sheep herders that moved back and forth across the site. In talking with Annette, you finally got the feeling that was something else here that happened before 1943. That's what got my attention. Good that you know her name, too. Bauman: Yeah. Why did you think that was important, then, for people to know about? Petersen: It was probably a little later than that that I also became acquainted with some of the Native Americans. I've got to know some of those over time, too. The relationship of the people who lived out there, both with Native Americans and the site—I’ll change directions for a minute, too. My family at that point lived in Wenatchee, so when I first came in 1965, in order to get to Wenatchee from here, you had two choices. You'd either go around through Pasco and up through Moses Lake and back, or you could go out to Vernita where there was a ferry, part time, and it didn't work at night. You'd ride the ferry and go across. That was prior to the bridge being built and so on. As you go out there, and see the ferry, you'd also see the structure that now I know is Bruggemann Warehouse, and you'd meet some of the people who were either former residents or Native Americans. Then you stopped and you waited for the ferry. You got a chance to talk to some of the people as you went back and forth. There was a lot of discussion about what was this site prior to. But growing from Vernita to Vantage that was pre-Mattawa days. Now I can visualize what Hanford must have been, because Hanford was an agricultural area, prior to—it looked like Mattawa today does. When I first started driving up there, there were no orchards between Vernita and Vantage. Now you look, there's orchards and vineyards and all kinds of stuff at Mattawa. Hanford was that, but it was that before 1943. You have to visualize what it was like, and it was amazing. Hanford really has a perfect weather pattern for early produce, and it was one of the first in the state to produce and all kinds of things--peaches and pears and cherries and walnuts, all kinds of stuff. How we doing? These guys need a break. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: You started in '65. You're now at TRIDEC. At what point did you move to TRIDEC? I know you worked also at Westinghouse and [INAUDIBLE]. Petersen: My wife kids around and says I can't hold a job. That's the point. I typically work for a company for about seven years and then move companies. So I worked for Battelle for a while, then Westinghouse for a while, then what was called WPPSS, Washington Public Power Supply System for a while. But I retired from Battelle in 2002, and the Hanford manager for the site was Sam Volpentest. Sam was 99 years old at the time, and his doctor, who's also my doctor ended up saying, Sam you can't fly to Washington, DC anymore and go after money. I'd known Sam since '65, I met him in '65, and Sam called and said, Gary, I know you retired, but would you come back to work part time, ten hours a week, easy job go to Washington, DC for me and that's it. He had the nerve to die at 101. He lived for about a year after he hired me to do those trips. And when he passed on, as a result TRIDEC at the time said, well, we need somebody full time to do this. I wasn't real interested, so they said we'll make it part time job. You only have to work 25, 30 hours a week. It hasn't been that since. Away we go. It's nice because if they want to fire me, I'd love it. I'll go and play golf. It's a good deal. Bauman: Can you talk about Sam Volpentest a little bit? Obviously, a very important figure through most of the Tri-Cities. Can you talk about his significance a little bit? Petersen: Would be happy to. Sam was an incredible politician. He never ran for office that I know of, but he knew politics from the top to the bottom. He was friends with everybody from Governor Rosellini to Senator Magnuson, Senator Jackson, Speaker of the House, Tom Foley. He knew politics. If you read the book so that was just written about Sam, it has a lot of facts, but until you knew Sam--and I was fortunate. Another part of my assignment, when I first got here in '65, TRIDEC was called TRICNIC. So it had a different name. It was Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council. And Sam was not a writer. As a matter of fact, everything he did was longhand, very pretty penmanship, but he couldn't put things down on a typewriter for taking to Washington, DC and so on. Battelle, one of their offers to the community was to provide somebody who could write to Sam to write their newsletters, to write their congressional letters, to write things. I got to know Sam when he was in a little office on the Parkway. Later he moved into the Hanford house. Sam was a mover. Most of the ideas that Sam accomplished didn't start with Sam, but he would hear an idea and he'd say, that sounds good. We're going to do that. For example, he started TRICNIC/TRIDEC in 1963. In 1963—you've got to go back in time—every road in and out of the community was two lanes. There was one airline only at the time, and Sam knew that in 1963 the government, AEC, was starting to shut down the reactors. Sam and Glen Lee and Bob Philip formed TRICNIC and they did that to try and offset, with federal dollars, the coming shut down of the production mission at Hanford. In the process, they also determined that in order to develop a community long range, you had to have transportation. Even though most people think that Sam concentrated on Hanford, he actually--and Glen Lee and Bob Philip—all really focused on how do we make the Tri-Cities bigger and better than it is? Four-lane highway was first, but airlines were second, and the third one that really was not well-known at all was education. And they went after a Center for Graduate Study for this community, which became WSU Tri-Cities. They decided that you had all of this intellectual property at the laboratory at Hanford, but you needed something for their families. I don't think it was a sit down and let's do a vision and do all these things. I think it came in pieces, where they actually decided they wanted certain things. Sometimes the fallout was better than what they expected. As an example, the breeder reactor program, which started in 1968, '69, was going to be a major, major new AEC mission. Sam went after the breeder reactor program, and he didn't get it. Savannah River did, what was called Clinch River Breeder Reactor. But he got the secondary issue, which was FFTF, which is a small test reactor that led to. As it turns out, over time the administration killed the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, but they kept FFTF going. Or, another example is we lost out on a mission that Sam really wanted that I think was called SMEVs—and maybe I'll explain it, but maybe not. And we lost that one, too, and so Sam went to Magnuson and said, we need something. Give us something. A couple days later, the story goes, Magnuson called up and said well we had a federal building planned for Montana or Wyoming or something, but they really don't want it. How about we put a federal building in the Tri-Cities. That's how this Federal Building came about. That was Sam. Sam was tenacious. He either liked you, or he didn't like you. There were people he wouldn't let in his office, period, but others-- Phenomenal memory. He could pick up a phone and call congressmen or senators from other states without ever looking the number up. He would pick up the phone--he never believed in talking to staff. He would talk to Senator Magnuson. He would talk to Chet Holifield. He would call them up personally and say I need this or I need that. He was incredible. Bauman: That's a great story. How was he able to have such persuasive powers with Magnuson, Scoop Jackson, a senator also, Tom Foley, right, these US Senators? Tri-Cities is still fairly small, population-wise. Was it his tenacity? Petersen: Well. It was his tenacity, but it all started with Governor Rosellini. And the fact that Sam, for a period before he came here, was in the Italian something club in Seattle, which was Rosellini, Magnuson was an honorary member. He, Sam, belonged to the Seattle club, which is still there, downtown Seattle. He made politically--he recognized that you needed political connections no matter what. When he came here and then he had the backing of Glen Lee, Tri-City Herald, the combination of those two—Sam took every advantage he could find. His advantage with the Tri-City Herald was, if he thought we needed something, then Glen Lee would support it editorially, and they would go after the politicians collectively and get it. Sam liked to take credit and he did many, many things, but it was really the combination that he put together that was pretty unique—partnerships. It took him a long time to play what I call both sides of the aisle. Typically he was a Democrat. He was a solid, solid Democrat. But he started realizing that there were Republicans that you had to deal with as well, and he needed to work with them over time, and he did. He built friendships across the whole gamut. And active, I mean, he was amazing. If you ever got a chance to go—Sam was small, but if you ever got a chance to go to Washington, DC with Sam, it was an experience. It was unbelievable. He knew where he was going. He didn't have to look at a map. He walked everywhere. I'll say he was a cheapskate, but he was a penny pincher. If a hotel cost $110 a night, he'd find one where you’d get it for $109. Sam was that kind of an individual. But he knew The Hill like nobody else I've ever seen. He knew the underground parts of The Hill, too. He didn't like to get out in the weather, so there's a whole both subway system and hallways between the House side the Capitol and the Senate side. Sam knew all of those underground links, and he'd just take off through those tunnels and go from one side of The Hill to the other side of The Hill. Amazing. Bauman: And he lived a long life, so he had-- Petersen: 101. Bauman: --connections with those politicians-- Petersen: Long period of time. He recognized, too, that he was outliving his supporters. He outlived Magnuson, he outlived Jackson. The one that was constant was Rosellini and Rosellini and he were the same age. And so Rosellini lived to 100, as well. Pretty good. Bauman: What about Glen Lee? What sort of role--what was he like? Petersen: Glen Lee was a bulldog. He's a big, imposing man. The thing that I think the Tri-City Herald should have done was kept his office as a mausoleum. His office was a piece of history by itself. He had pictures with Presidents, he had pictures with governors, he had memorabilia from all over the place. If you asked Sam and Glen the same question, you'd get two similar, but different answers. Who caused something to happen? I'll give you one story that is really unique. How did Battelle get here? Sam had a vision of how Battelle came; Glen Lee had a vision of how Battelle came. Fred Albaugh, one of the lab directors had a story about how Battelle came to be here. And Sherwood Fawcett, who became the first director of the lab, had a different story. I believe they're all correct, but they're different. Each one takes credit in a different way, and so Sam claims full credit for bringing Battelle here. He was at a meeting in New York and he knew that the lab was going to be bid out. He ran into Burke Thomas, who was the president of Battelle, and Sherwood Fawcett, and sold them on the idea coming. That's Sam's story. If you listened to Sherwood Fawcett, Sherwood Fawcett said that the president of the company actually was a graduate of the University of Washington. He wanted to open the lab somewhere in the state of Washington. Burke Thomas found out that this lab was going to be bids, so Burke told Sherwood go and bid on that and win it. Two different sides of the same story. I don't know which one is right. Bauman: You've been connected in Hanford for quite a few years now, and seen a lot changes take place. Obviously, one of the key changes was the mission of the place itself, from production to clean up. I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit in terms of how you saw that and the impact that had on the area of Hanford itself? Petersen: I'm happy to. I'm going to connect it back to Sam a little bit. One of the changes that was major was going from AEC, Atomic Energy Commission, to an organization for a short period called ERDA, which I forget now what that stands for. They were only and operation for a year and a half or so, and now to DOE. Most of the new missions for the Hanford site didn't come from within the federal government, they came from the community. As the production reactors were being shut down, Sam and Glen in particular saw that we needed to find new missions for Hanford. One of the first ones was a Hanford Generating Plant, which was operated by Washington Public Power Supply System, but attached to N Reactor. N Reactor was the first dual purpose reactor in the United States, and the vision was it was going to last a long time because it was the newest one and it produced 800 megawatts of power. Sam and Glen said, let's get the HGP here, because the United States wouldn't dare shut down a reactor that's producing 800 megawatts of power, so that was one the early ones. But as you started to see the reactors come down, they looked for other missions. One of the first ones was a thing called BWIP, which is--everything has an acronym, but a Basalt Waste Isolation Project, which was actually in competition with both Nevada and Texas to become the nation's repository. BWIP, that's a misnomer, what I just said. BWIP was actually the study of the geology of basalt for a repository, but it wasn't going to be the repository. It was a study site. If it worked, if it showed that it could work, then there would have been some other place on the Hanford site they would have dug deep down into the basalt and made a repository. Deaf Smith, Nevada, Yucca Mountain, and here were one of the visions of Sam and Glen and wanted to become the repository for the nation. All of a sudden there was a move in Congress that said we're going to select one and it's going to be Yucca Mountain. And so shut the other two down. And actually BWIP, the Basalt Waste Isolation Project, was shut down within a period of two to four weeks. There were hundreds of people who worked out there. When that shut down, Sam then went after that Clinch River Breeder Reactor program. The breeder reactor program ended up getting FFTF so there was certain things that happened in a sequence that he was always looking for that new mission, whatever it was. One example, the one that Sam loved to do, and I stumble on every time, is Sam also heard that MIT and some others were going after this deep space exploration project. There were two sides to that, at the time. One was SNAP, which is the Space Nuclear Application Program and the second side was what became LIGO, the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-Wave Observatory. I can only do that once. But Sam loved that one because he could spit it out. He had that one memorized and he loved to go into a congressional office and say—rather than LIGO. So Sam is the one that really pushed for that project as well. Always, they had a vision of trying to capture new missions for Hanford, and it was never really—the push never came from DOE or ERDA or AEC after the original mission. They all came from the community. And we’re in competition with Oak Ridge, Idaho Falls, Savannah River, for those kind of things. Bauman: Another one of the changes that's taken place at Hanford since I've been here is there are a lot fewer buildings on site now than there were. I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, and what that means, you think, in terms of the history. Petersen: I'll start lightly and say it's a conspiracy. The conspiracy is every building that I've ever worked in out there, with the exception of FFTF, has been torn down. [LAUGHTER] So I think they're out to get me. At the top of Rattlesnake Mountain were the Nike Ajax building, they've been torn down, and buildings and then the 300 Areas that I had offices in. What we're seeing today, though, is the success of cleanup, particularly along the river corridor. I will say that the Department of Energy and the contractors have done an amazing job of cleaning up this site. When you look at the changes, particularly in the 300 Area or the reactors themselves, the change is phenomenal. I forget, I think there's something like 280 buildings have been taken off the site, and the landscape has changed. The big, tall smokestacks are gone. The water tanks that were out there are gone. The skyline has changed drastically. And they've done it, too, with an intent to try and return it to original habitat. Most of it is what's called brownfields, but they have done a tremendous job of actually recovering a lot of the vegetation the original look of the land, with the exception that this was agricultural area, so it's different. But that's a huge, huge change. And most of that's been in the last five years. It's a different thing today than it was, 1965. You just see it all over the place. Bauman: You've been giving tours for years. I can't imagine how many tours you've led. Petersen: I don't know. A lot. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Do you have a favorite place on the site of the different places you stopped for tours or maybe when you went out with Bill Rickard? Is there a place that you really--? Petersen: The B Reactor is unique, unique, unique. There is no place like B Reactor. When you go in to B Reactor and you realize that 50,000 people were brought from all over the United States, and some foreign countries, they didn't know what they were building. They didn't have computers. They didn't have portable radios. They didn't have portable phones. And they, start to finish, built B Reactor in 11 months. That's just plain incredible. When you look at the craftsmanship of doing that, the best analogy is still from Jim Albaugh, who was the head of the Boeing program for 787s. We took him on a tour of B Reactor and he came out and he said, this would be like trying to bring in 50,000 people, have them build their own community first, because they had to have a place to live and eat and so on, and then tell them build a 787, but you've got no computers to do it with. And you've got to buy all the materials and manufacture them. So B Reactor is unique, unique. I can't say enough about B Reactor. But there's a flip side, too, and that is I've also become enamored with pre-1943. When what I think about that, it's really the city of White Bluffs, and the fact that there's still a ferry landing out there, there's a bank building out there, there's sidewalks out there. You go out and when you're alone, you go out by yourself, you can just visualize this community that used to exist. Then all of a sudden, they're moved away and 50,000 people come in in a period of weeks, just a very short period of time. They have to build a town, and then they start building things like B Reactor. And to know is all done, really, under the direction of a 36-year-old individual and a Corps of Engineers, it's unbelievable. I know a lot of cocky 36-year-olds, but I don't know anybody like Franklin Matthias to do the things he did with 50,000 people. Unbelievable. My favorite place is B Reactor. It's got to be right there. Bauman: Well, I think you and I could just go on talking for hours, probably. Petersen: [LAUGHTER] I think we're close. Bauman: But I do wonder, is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you want to talk about, maybe that I haven't asked you about. Any stories, or anything that's really important that you want to mention? Petersen: There's a piece that has yet to be done, Bob, and that piece I've talked to several people about. That piece is trying to capture either the individuals or the families of the people who were here prior to 1943. I think it is extremely important for us as a community to find those people, identify them, bring them together, allow them back out on the site for the first time. I took the Bruggemann family back out. That was the first time--did this about three years ago. That was the first time they had been back since 1943, and to go--it's like anybody's heritage. If you have a chance to go back and see where your parents or your grandparents--or you, as a child, grew up--the vision is different. Things are smaller, but—the feel of the place. We need to find those people and give them credibility and standing so that they have the opportunity to see their heritage. It turns out that exactly the same time as people were being moved off Hanford, the Japanese were being moved off of Bainbridge Island. Exactly the same time. And they all had to be off by August of 1943. In the case of the Japanese, the federal government has actually done some very nice things. They helped some of the families regain their land. They put up displays of all kinds to say this is what happened. But here at Hanford, of those families still are scattered around the United States, and they have very little to remember the site that they knew by. When you think about--and I'll use the Bruggemanns because I know them the best--you think about Bruggemanns who had 1,400--they had 640 acres, but they leased more—and they had sheep, they had cattle, they had a working staff of something like ten to 20 people on and off, up and down. They were given two weeks to get rid of all that stuff and move. We've got to get that. We've got to capture that. We've got to help them. That's the piece. How’d we do? Did you guys go to sleep back there? Man two: Huh? [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Well thanks very much, Gary, for sharing your stories. Like I said, I'm sure you and I could go on talking for quite a while. Petersen: I recognize, too, you're really after the people who were here from pre-'63, but '63 to '65 or so. But I'm a Johnny-come-lately, so I look at it different. Bauman: You know a lot of the history of the place, the stories. Petersen: There's pieces that are really pretty fun. There's some of the stories, honestly, that you probably will never hear, because they have different twists to them. Some point, not with an audience, I will tell you there's another side to the Apollo 11 moon rocks that got here. It's a very unique story that only a couple people know, how they actually came to the site. And it was tough. Bauman: Thanks so much, Gary. Petersen: Yeah. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:08:37 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 260 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor 100 Area 200 Area 300 Area N Reactor 200 East Area 200 West Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1960-2014 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. ca1965-2014 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. May, Catherine Foley, Tom Nixon, Pat Bair, William (Bill) Rickard, Bill Volpentest, Sam Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Gary Petersen Description An account of the resource An interview with Gary Petersen conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-6-5 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 100 Area 200 Area 200 East Area 200 West Area 300 Area B Reactor DuPont General Electric N Reactor Plutonium Finishing Plant Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005 Washington Public Power Supply System (WOOPS) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fed25944dab4903146b0422e355ce7f2d.jpg 4c5ec9de7b2c58b0a02aa1b112e4fdb8 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fbac10c255985e6bd8454dc3880c7a868.mp4 0536d4ccbf8f9f6ffa0583d6596b8741 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Petty, Bob Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Bauman: Okay. All right. My name's Robert Bauman. And I'm conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Bob Petty. Today is July 10th of 2013, and the interview's being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. And I will be talking with Mr. Petty about his experience working at the Hanford site. So, Mr. Petty, if it's okay with you, I'd start with how and why you came to Hanford, where you came from, and when. Robert Petty: My mother and father came from Arkansas. My dad came in August of '43, my mother in 1948. And I was born and raised here, born in 1948. And I--well, I'm retired from the Department of Energy. I first started working out here at the age of 11. Bauman: Okay. Petty: My father was in transportation. He would put me in the trunk of his car. And since his brother, my uncle, was a security patrolman, would wave me on through, or wave my dad on through. And this went on for several years. And my dad kept me hidden for those two years. And on numerous occasions, kind of a funny type of note, people had hit deer and killed them. Of course, my dad being the back woodsman that he used to be, stopped and put the deer in the car. And one particular time, I was in the trunk with that deer. And I am screaming, I want to go home, I want to go home. Well, we didn't go home. But I was a laborer. Helped build WNP out here for the nuclear plants, and decontamination and decommissioning of numerous reactor facilities. Pump houses, power stations, and things of that nature. There were some good times and some bad times. The controls that what I would expect I don't think were in place. And starting in 1971, we started doing D&D, and I was allowed to go anywhere I wanted, with the exception of in the reactor facility itself. And we did go into some potential hotspots. And at no time were we told to wear a mask or have a dosimeter. And at no time—all I had was just a badge that had Bechtel on it. And so nobody ever told us to--you know, working around the asbestos—of which I have asbestos-related disease—that you need to protect yourself from not only asbestos, but from potential chemicals, maybe radioactive contaminants and things of that nature. And so I eventually went to work for the Department of Energy in 1990? '91? '91. And I retired as a management analyst due to my health. And then shortly thereafter, I went to work as a senior technical advisor for CH2M Hill. Bauman: I'm going to ask you to go back a little bit- Petty: Sure. Bauman: And go back to the stories first of as an 11-year-old, your dad taking you out to the site. So he was in transportation? Petty: Yes. Bauman: And do you know--so he came during the war, correct? Petty: Mm-hm. Bauman: How did he—from Arkansas. Do you know he heard about Hanford--? Petty: Well he--my dad originally was in the Civilian Conservation Corps in central Arkansas. And he had heard about this place out in the desert. And when he got here, I do remember him telling me--he passed away in '82, that, oh my god, what have I got myself into. It is hot. There are windstorms that you just couldn't believe how bad they were. And so he came up here. My mother and father were married at the time. And my mother did come out several times, and then went back home, and eventually settled out here later. And so he was a truck driver, then a bus driver. And then after my mother moved out here, she worked out here from '48 to I think about 1950, working next to a hot box. And she became contaminated. And she eventually died of lung cancer, bone cancer, skin cancer, and multiple myeloma. But when she was contaminated, she was pregnant with me. And I am involved in litigation over this. But trying to prove something is not easy. Bauman: Where was she working at the time? Petty: She was working in the 3--I think the 300 Area. I don't remember which building it was. I am not positive the location, but I think it was there. Bauman: And what was her job? Petty: I really don't know. No, I couldn't say that for sure. My mom has been dead for a number of years. And so there's a lot of questions you don't get to ask that you would like to have asked. Bauman: And you were born in '48? Petty: Yes, November of '48. Bauman: And did you have other siblings? Petty: Yes, I have three sisters. Four sisters, one is gone. So I have three remaining sisters. And one now works at Oak Ridge, and I have two that live—one in Pasco, one in Kennewick. Bauman: And when your dad first came to work here, he came basically by himself? Your mom would come visit sort of, and then-- Petty: Yes, yes. Bauman: And did they have any kids at that point, or it was just the two of them? Petty: No, no. My oldest sister wasn't born until June of 1944. But my mother had went back home, then came back numerous times. Bauman: When your mom was working here, and you said she had symptoms of being exposed, did she know what she was working with at the time, do you know? Petty: Not really. And now there are procedures in place where if a woman is pregnant or think they may be pregnant, they're not allowed to go in any potential hotspots. That was not the case back then. Bauman: So your father would basically sort of smuggle you, I guess you could say, into the site? Petty: Lack of a better word, yes. Bauman: With the help of your uncle. Petty: Yes. Bauman: So what would you do when he got to work with you, then? What did you do during-- Petty: My dad originally started out as a house mover. And one of my particular jobs was I'd get underneath the house and cut the piping loose, take all the asbestos off of the piping, snakes, cats, dogs, dead or alive, indifferent. And odd jobs around that he thought I could do, and so—oh yeah. Bauman: So what houses were you moving? Petty: Back in those days, most of them were structural wood buildings from the Hanford site to whoever wanted to buy them. Bauman: So houses that were on the Hanford site, had been there prior to the war? Some of the older houses? Petty: There may have been several, but most of them were either on-site or from Camp Hanford. Bauman: Oh, okay. And so his job was to move those off. Petty: Right, correct. Bauman: You crawled under— Petty: And there are many, many of those still around today. Bauman: And so how long did you do that? Petty: Up until after my dad passed away 1982, I decided to sell the remaining equipment and what we had. I didn't want anything to do with that portion of the business. And so from then, I started going back to school. And I have numerous college degrees. And so eventually I went to work for the Department of Energy. Bauman: So when you were 11 and 12 and out onsite helping your dad, were there other workers there who knew you were there? Petty: My dad tried to keep me isolated. There were the people around, and they knew what was going on. But they didn't say anything. And there was kind of some camaraderie—you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back. And so they didn't say anything. Bauman: So you were born in '48. Did your family live in Richland, then? Petty: Yes. Originally came to Pasco, lived in Sunnyside, then shortly moved on to Richland. Bauman: And where in Richland did you live in the '40s and '50s? Petty: I think it was 1311 Marshall. Bauman: And what was Richland like at the time as a sort of place to grow up? Petty: Richland, since August of '43 through December of 1958 I think it was, was a government town. And they came in and said, you're going to do what we tell you to do. And since this is a government town, secrecy was of utmost importance. And I didn't remember a whole lot about that per se. But I do remember numerous times where we had to duck and cover in grade school. And we had drills and things of that nature. But on the whole, I do remember Richland being very hot, maybe because there were hardly any trees. And there was so much construction going on around Richland, new homes being built. Bauman: My sense is that people, workers, families, came from a lot of different places. Was that sort of true? Did you experience that the families that you knew, friends growing up, that they had come from all over the United States? Petty: My dad did tell me when he first came out here there were people from all over the nation, just about every state in the union. And the men stayed in the men's barracks and the women stayed in the women's barracks even though they may have been married, until their name came up for a house. And times like that were very tough on my mother and father. And I do remember meeting numerous people when I was young telling me that they were from maybe New York or Connecticut or something like that. Yeah. Bauman: And when you were growing up, do you remember any special community events, parades, any of those sorts of things in Richland? Frontier days? Petty: I do have pictures of parades. And I have a book from Richland--or Hanford, Hanford Days, Richland Days, I think it is. And it shows parades in there also. And I do have several pictures of parades that we had here in town. And so those were good times. Played Little League baseball, we formed a baseball team and didn't do very well. But on the whole, I think pretty much the only thing we did was--well in summertime—was go swimming. They had a small pool in Howard Amon. But for the most part, we didn't do very much. Bauman: Okay, let's talk more about the work you did at Hanford. When did you start working at Hanford? Not with your father, but-- Petty: I first started in earnest--I became a laborer in the local laborers here in town. And went to work at FFTF back around '70, the early '70s. And some things that went on, I won't say on camera, because they're not very nice. And when FFTF was first started, it was projected to be about $79 million in costs. And that particular job, being a cost plus contract, ended up being almost $800 million, which you see today, in fact. And my job was just basically a laborer. A broom, shovel, hammer. Bauman: During construction--? Petty: Yeah. And it was not uncommon at all to have six or eight laborers on a one-man job. That was very common. Bauman: And that was--you were working for what contractors? Petty: Working for Bechtel, Chicago Bridge & Iron. Yes. I think Mellon brothers. Bauman: And that was in the early 1970s. Petty: Yes. Bauman: And then earlier, you had mentioned going places--you said you were allowed to go sort of anywhere, no dosimeter. Could you talk a little bit more about that, like what sorts of places you were talking about? Petty: A lot of the buildings that you see--or have seen in the past, you'll see pictures of them, many times there was as much below ground as there is above ground, like in the water treatment facility, for instance. We would go down below ground and take out all the scrap iron and stuff like that, all the wiring, all the piping. There were wells, numerous wells around those sites that we went in. And they had a thick brass shaft. We would go down into the well and cut that off and scrap the brass out. And there were numerous of those around. Bauman: And this was sort of all over different places on the site? Petty: Yes, yes. And so subsequently, the--I was young, but--and then when I became a laborer, and we pretty much just had the free run of all the facilities, with the exception of the reactor itself. And at no time did I ever think I was in danger. I was born here, lived here, raised here, and worked here. I have no problems going out there today. Bauman: Now I know, especially during the war and early Cold War years, security obviously was very tight. You had to ride in the trunk of your dad's car to get through. When you were actually a laborer, was there still a lot of security? Did you have to have any special clearances, anything along those lines? Petty: There was security, but since my dad was a private contractor, no. Although you had to go through a checkpoint—several checkpoints in fact, entering and leaving. And they would check your vehicle for maybe any contraband, drugs, weapons, or alcohol. And if your car did not have a sticker on it, it had to be searched. But since my dad at times had special privileges, was not. And so here's a little story that—I put myself through school. And I was working weekends, but working full-time here. And I gave a tour to a group of senior citizens from Boston. And I got everybody on the bus, and a little old lady with a cane sat up next to me and we got to talking. And she says oh goody, I want you to take me out and show me where the cowboys can shoot the Indians. And she actually believed that they did that today out here. And she asked me what kind of work I did. And I says, well, this is a former nuclear weapons plant. Well, what do they do out here? Well I said, they made plutonium production for nuclear weapons. And she got up and moved to the back to the bus. And that paradigm has not changed in many people's minds. And so they still have a perception of if they get anywhere near here, they may become contaminated. Potentially, maybe yes. But highly unlikely. Highly unlikely. And so I had the perception when I worked out there I'm not going to get contaminated, or I'm not going to get sick or something like that. Well, I was wrong. But I have no compunction about going in places like that. Bauman: So you worked for Bechtel. And then in '91 you moved to DOE? Is that right? Petty: Yes. Bauman: Okay. And what sorts of work did you do there? Petty: I started in procurement, since I have a procurement degree, working contracts. And after three years there, I moved to the different side of the house. Worked on environmental safety and health as a management analyst. And I was more of a technical person, wrote, maybe, technical reports, read them, made recommendations to the assistant manager, who was the boss of my director. And although I have numerous college degrees, I am not a scientist or anything like that. I'm more of basically just a paper pusher. Bauman: When you were working out at the site, were there ever any sort of events that stand out in your mind or things that happened? Fires, or anything--incidents like that, I guess. Petty: I was involved in a very serious accident in which my dad was demolishing and standing too close to a building. And I don't know if you've seen a very, very old silent movie where a silent film screen star was standing in a building and the entire wall just came over on top of him. But he was standing in the doorway, and it missed him. And that's what happened to me. The entire wall came down, and I was standing right in the doorway, and it missed me with the exception of one of the beams had come down and caught me on the head. And I have permanent damage as a result of that. There was a very large fire here which I think covered about 240,000 acres at one time. On national news, people had the perception of this is going to be the end of the Tri-Cities if something goes wrong. Well, nothing was going to go wrong. And there are too many protections in place, and these buildings are too well-fortified to have anything escape. Bauman: The incident where the wall fell down around you, how old were you at the time of that event? Petty: I was about 15--16, something like that, yeah. Child labor laws weren't very stringent then. And so I think people got away with a lot more than they should have. Not only with work environment, but it's also--if I can put this very delicately--men living in men's barracks and my mom living in the women's barracks, and there was a barbed wire fence separating them. And my dad told me that the only way that they had relations was through a barbed wire fence. And during the day, they didn't see each other very often. But they would go to dances, and maybe occasionally a vacation. But I don't remember any of those. Petty: Did your dad have any other stories about his time here before your mom was here permanently? Bauman: You know, I remember when my mom came up--well, she went back home numerous times in the '50s. And everything she cooked was fried. Fried everything. And she would take the grease and make into gravy, and I thought that was the best food in the world. But now my veins kind of cringe. And that was the way—predominantly, I think, a lot of the diet that people had back then. But I do remember catching several rattlesnakes out here when I was young, at a young age. Which—I don't remember playing with them, I do remember catching them. And I would just let them go. Bauman: President Kennedy visited the Hanford site in 1963. Petty: Correct. Bauman: The NPR. I wonder if--you would have been 15 at the time, roughly? Petty: Yes, I was 15 at the time. At the time I seen him, he was maybe 40 feet away. And of course my mom thought he was the best-looking man she'd ever seen. And I thought it a very, very interesting, very cool, you know, I get to see the President of the United States. Which he wasn't the first--or he was the first, but he was not the last. But overall, I thought John Kennedy was very, very likable. Bauman: What else do you remember about that day or him being here at the time? Petty: When he first arrived, I looked out there and I'd seen a mass of people. And I do remember first thinking, all these people can't be here for the president. But they were. And I really didn't grasp the ramifications of maybe his political influence being the president. And I really wasn't interested in that type of thing when I was growing up. And it kind of dawned on me that this is important. He's a very important man, one of the most important men in the world. And so that had kind of a profound effect on me, and I eventually went into--took government courses in school. Bauman: Any other times when you were working there at Hanford that you remember dignitaries coming, or other presidents or anything like that? Petty: We were working on-site one particular day. And somebody was using a cutting torch, and we had started a fire. It was during the summertime. And tremendous amount of cheatgrass around. And I do remember we had started a fire, and it got out of control very quickly. And I thought the building that we were working on was done. But luckily, we got the fire department there in time. And it had consumed several acres and a portion of the building that we were working on, but we ended up saving it. A little scary. Bauman: About when would that have been, roughly? Petty: '72. Yeah. Bauman: And what area of the site might that have been? Petty: That was 200 West, I think. Yes. Bauman: Overall, how would you describe Hanford as a place to work? Petty: In the '40s, '50s, '60s, there was a mindset that it was just a job. And even when I worked out here in the '70s and '80s, I felt it was just a job. And then when I went to work for the Department of Energy, the mission had changed from nuclear production to cleanup. And so to kind of put it in perspective, my grandfather worked out here, my dad worked out here, his brother—in fact all his brothers, all his sisters, all their kids, my sisters. And people have the perception of, well, I'm from here. All my relatives worked out here. Well, you owe me this job. Well, that's not true. And when I worked at DOE, the manager came in one day and we had an all-employees meeting. And he said, all you employees are very well-educated, make very good money, have numerous college degrees. We do not owe you a job. And that's true. And I feel that's the same way here at Hanford. We do not owe them a job. Most of those people are very well-educated. And so in the next 20 years, things are going to be ramping down, probably more so than they are now. And today's paper said that one firm here in town was going to be reducing their staff by 90%. And I think people need to become aware well, the well is going to run dry. It was good while it lasted. And I made very good money here. And I knew my time wasn't going to be here forever. But people I think need to change their paradigms, and I certainly changed mine. And we had some very, very good times out here, and a few bad. And since we have changed to environmental cleanup, everything we do is scrutinized. And from if you spill a quart of gasoline or paint, it has to be written up and you have to make a report. Just to give you an idea of--very, very stringent. Bauman: When did you notice that change? Was it when it shifted from production to cleanup more, or was it--? Petty: I think I first started to know the change about 1988, I think it was, when they first--what happened at Chernobyl. I think that was a major turning point. And then they seen the similarities between Chernobyl versus the N Reactor. Although I don't think that could have happened at the N Reactor. And I think from that point on, from the point they shut it down here at the N Reactor, they started to focus more on environmental cleanup. Bauman: I want to go back a little bit and ask you a little bit more. One of your first jobs was working FFTF? Petty: Mm-hm. Bauman: That became somewhat of a controversial facility, to a certain extent. Petty: Very much so. Not so much--well, it was a cost plus contract. Not so much during the construction and operation. In the initial operation it actually was never really used. There wasn't a whole lot of controversy. But the controversy came later when the government wanted to shut it down. And that's a tremendous amount of money just to let loose of. And it could have done a lot of good. But the government finally decided that it would be best if they shut it down. And a great number of people think it was political, which it may have been. I don't know. Although I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself, and I'm not going to say anything about that. Although when they did shut it down, I do remember doing a number of correspondence with different people from Washington, DC, here at the Hanford site and at DOE here regarding to the FFTF. Bauman: I wonder for--you said things have changed, obviously, at Hanford site over the years. And I wonder for future generations, people 20 years from now or 50 years from now, what would you like them to know about working at the Hanford site, what it was like? Petty: Well going back to 1943 when the site was first picked, this isn't something they had ever done before. And their number-one priority, number-one goal, was to end the war. And now their number-one priority is to clean up this mess. This isn't something they'd ever done before, either. This is the largest cleanup project in the world. And subsequently, I think that a lot of this new areas that they're going into is how do they clean up these certain types of chemicals or radiation or contamination. And there's so many things that they don't know and they don't know how to treat. They've never done it before, like the Vitrification plant. This is never something that they've done before. And they say it's going to work, take this liquid sludge and turn it into glass logs. It'll probably work, yes. But it's not something they've ever done before, and I think generations down the road need to realize that we cannot stop plutonium production. There are many, many environmental groups out there, but other countries in the world, all over the world, are now getting nuclear weapons power plants, the potential to produce nuclear weapons. It is not going to stop. And if we stop producing plutonium, uranium, for weapons, nuclear power plants for nuclear or electricity production, then if we're not moving ahead, then we're falling behind. And we are falling behind now, at least in my estimation. And so I think we need to change the paradigms of our youth that this can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing. And if we make it safe enough, with the controls in place, there should be no problems. Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you think would be important to talk about, or any other memories from your experiences working here that you-- Petty: No. Bauman: --want to share? Petty: Have you been on-site before? Bauman: Yes. Petty: Okay, so you kind of understand what's going on out there and the history portion. I do hope that the B Reactor museum comes to fruition, because I think we need to leave a legacy for our children and our grandchildren and generations farther down. And I think it's extremely important not to forget that, but also be respectful and mindful of what we did and hopefully never, never, ever again. Bauman: Well thank you very much for-- Petty: Sure. Bauman: --coming in and talking to us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:37:49 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948-2013 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bob Petty Description An account of the resource An interview with Bob Petty conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-7-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-19: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 300 Area Department of Energy Housing Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963 Richland (Wash.) Secrecy Vitrification Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8281eeea60bc11443576c297c088680a.jpg cc17aca4ceedb233f5ec5376253ee16c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1a4fe936fb05b5f5d96e8988d8fc182a.mp4 034eb209cfdf1e2030c91dc16e22815f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pre-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Leatris Reid Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Northwest Public Television | Reid_Leatris </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: My name is Leatris Faye Boehmer Reid. B-O-E-H-M-E-R. It's pronounced "bay--" "bay-mer." And I was born in North Dakota in 1930. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Just before we get started on that, I just need to get the date on here, make sure we have everything. And so we're recording this on August 27, 2013. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay, August 27. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And we're recording it in your home in Walla Walla. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Yeah, let's have you talk about your family and how your family came to White Bluffs. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: First? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I came here in June to White Bluffs, Washington in 1935 or '36. I'm pretty sure it was '36 because I had my sixth birthday there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So you said you were born in North Dakota and moved to White Bluffs in 1936. Why did your family leave North Dakota and head to White Bluffs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, we had a terrible Depression, as you know. And I was a Depression baby, and we just simply weren't—there was no work, there was no money. We just simply had to get out of there. We lost a little boy at two and a half with what they call membranous croup at the time. But it was actually, what it was was that awful--oh, kids have it. It's asthma, terrible asthma. And he just couldn't make it. And I think it just broke my mother's heart. She had just lost a baby. So then I became the baby. But I think I was almost six, so--She had written all over Washington, Oregon, because she knew that there was fruit there. And there was food, and the temperature was reasonable. And so she wrote all the little towns that she could find in Washington and Oregon to find out what they did there, what they grew, and what the chances were of people surviving. And she got one for Mr. Reierson that owned the grocery store in White Bluffs, and one from the man who had the bank. And I can't remember his name. But she got glowing letters about the fruit. She got glowing things about that there was work. There was packing sheds, there were alfalfa fields to take care of. And there certainly were. They didn't stint on it and it was not exaggerated. So that's how we came to be there, and find it we did. It was exactly like they described it. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to us, because we would have starved. We had no money even to pay for that little boy's doctor bill that we left. So then I was the littlest one, and we had six left. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so talk a little bit about your parents and your siblings, what your parents' names and your siblings' names-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, my oldest sister--who I dearly love and still is alive and I'm glad--is 10 years older than me. And her name is Dorothy Lorraine Boehmer-- "bay-mer"--Foyer. And she lives in Everett, Washington, and she will also probably make a statement to you. But she's my oldest. And then I had a sister LaVonne. I had a sister named Helen and a brother named Virgil, all of them the same name, Boehmer. And I had a little brother. I had a sister named Darlene also. And she didn't live at White Bluffs. She stayed with my great-aunt and uncle in Minnesota because they had no children and they wanted to educate her. She was very smart. And she had been treated badly at school in North Dakota, and she didn't want to go back. And they were visiting us. So my mother said, well, you could have her for a year. And of course she--they became so attached to her. And she loved them dearly, and they were good to her. And they did visit us at White Bluffs. And they liked White Bluffs when they came. But it was the best thing that ever happened to us to move to White Bluffs. They had work in packing sheds, like I say. They had--the kids were very receptive to us. And everybody there just opened their arms. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I wonder if you could describe the place you lived in White Bluffs. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, we lived at Lulubelle Johnson's house, and we were buying it from her. But we never realized any money out of when it sold to the government. But Lulubelle Johnson had a son named Ford Johnson because Lulubelle Johnson was a niece of Henry Ford, made the automobiles. And we stayed there at that house and it was just—it was wonderful. We had good neighbors, fruit orchards all over. All over. When they said that you will find all the fruit you want, they really meant it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so what sort of fruit was on the farm you grew up on? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, we had--we grew alfalfa. If you didn't grow alfalfa, you grew fruit. But we had a good well on our land, and alfalfa was a good-paying crop. And of course, we had a cow. And if we had too much alfalfa, we could sell it. So it wasn't something that went bad. And the fruit--every kind of fruit. First time I ever tasted cherries or even seen a cherry tree was there. Or ever ate an apricot or seen an apricot. Or even apples--we had apples there—wonderful. And the whole valley was full of that. It wasn't just one little orchard, it was lots of orchards. It was covered with orchards and alfalfa fields. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Did you have electricity? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We did! First time we had electricity. We had electricity shortly before we moved from North Dakota because I remember my mother had a Maytag washing machine that she had just bought and paid $2 a month for. [LAUGHTER] So we had that all packed up and ready to go and our tickets--the government gave us tickets to get out of a depressed area. And we took the Empire Builder--brand new--to Spokane, and came into White Bluffs on a fruit train with our little parcel of stuff. And they welcomed us with open arms. And they were [AUDIO OUT] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So you mentioned that there was a well. Is that--how were your crops irrigated with it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, well, we had sprinkler systems. They weren't like they are now. But what we had, you dug the ditch across the field. And then you made little rows out of that on both sides. And you would run it from the well pipe into that big main ditch. And then you would take the little ditches and close them up. When you've got enough irrigation water, you'd close them back up. And that's what we did. That's how we did it. And that's how they water the orchards. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And how about running water? Did you have-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We didn't have running water in the house. We went out and got it by the bucketful off of the well. There was a little faucet and you could either pull it up with a bucket or you could turn the faucet on. There was a pump. [LAUGHTER] It's the same one you watered the yard with. But it was grand to have all the fresh water you needed because we paid $0.25 a barrel in North Dakota for drinking water because it was a rancid and acrid. $0.25 then was a lot of money. We washed clothes with it. My mother would take it after she washed clothes and scrub her floors. And they were white from the lye in the soap. And then she would put it on her garden. But we never had bugs on the garden. [LAUGHTER]. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So I was gonna ask you--who were some of your neighbors? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Let me see, Beldins. Beldins were one of our neighbors. Summers were some of our neighbors. And I can't even remember what--his kid's name was--oh, I can't say his name. He kind of talked with a nasal. And my dad called him Snazzy Summers. [LAUGHTER] I don't know where that came from. But anyways, he was--he had a crush on my sister Helen. And Helen didn't like him. Of course, she was only about 12 or 13. I don't think she had boys in mind. She was kind of a tomboy, too. They were some of our neighbors. And we lived-- the Abercrombie place was north of us. And down below us was an abandoned place. And they must have made wine of some kind, because they grew grapes and the grapes were still there. They grew right down to the water. We would go down and get these great big, beautiful Tokay red grapes. And they were right there by the river so they had enough water. But then the whole farm was completely abandoned, probably because of the Depression. I really don't know. But they were the neighboring ones. And the Grewells lived up above us. Helen and Gerald Grewell was their name. And Helen Grewell was my sister Helen's very favorite girl. They’d run around all the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And how about you? Who were some of your best friends-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, Patsy Borden was my best friend for a while. She was probably my best friend, yes. And she was the granddaughter of the Saths, who were related to the Wiehls who run the ferry. And Ida Mae probably was another little friend. She was a nice little girl. I liked them all. We actually--there wasn't a whole lot of--kids had to go home and go do things. It wasn't--I remember the Kilian children because they were German. And they came there, I want to say about '37, '38. Hitler was already busy in Germany. And they came home. And they Mrs. Supple used to raise sheep. Her and husband--they were German also, very, very German. Nice people, but she thought Hitler was doing such great things over there for the German people. And so Mr. Kilian went over and had a long talk with her and said, you know, you are putting yourself in a dangerous position, because this is not going well in Germany. He might be doing things for the German people, but he has things in mind for the world. And I thought, how kind. How provocative and kind that was. It wasn't necessary for him to do that. He really didn't know them. But he had heard things. And in a little community, things like that get around. It isn't gossip, it's just fear. But I thought that was very kind. I was only about 7, 8 years old. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I was going to ask you about-- did you have certain chores or responsibilities-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Always. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --that you had to do on the farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Everybody did. Everybody did. Mine was feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. And we had a little hen named Grandma that mother picked out of the shell, and Billy Rooster, who I guess was named after me. He turned out beautiful. But little Grandma Hen was sterile, so she must have been too weak. But she kept her in the warming oven for an extra couple hours, and she picked her out of the shell. She was sterile. And she would run around stealing everybody else's chicks. She would have a couple of Rhode Island Reds, and she would have a couple of little Leghorns, and maybe a little Barred Rock or two. And she'd huddle them up and boy, she'd fight them off--she's going to keep these kids. Well, Mrs. Sath was such a sweetheart. They lived in the--next to us. And she brought my mother some duck eggs-- white Peking duck eggs. And she said, why don't you just set her. She's dying to and she doesn't know--she'd fight them off. And so they set about 10 eggs under her because duck eggs are pretty good sized. And she hatched out every one, and she was so proud of them. Oh, boy, she'd just stomp around that farmyard like she really knew what she was doing. And she just took them down to the horse trough one time. And they found the horse trough, and they jumped in. And she just went berserk--"come back, come back." And so it got to be a morning thing. Every morning she'd take them to the horse trough because they had to have their swim. But she raised them. [LAUGHTER] Those things were fun things. We didn't have TV. We had a little, tiny radio that we could listen to for the news. But it wasn't a thing you had on all day. But Billy Rooster used to hear the music and he would try to keep up with it. And my sister Dorothy would always do the lunch dishes. She'd say, Billy Rooster, are you out there singing to this music? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: It was very wholesome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Mm-hm. What other sorts of things did you do for fun? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: The river. Oh, the river. The river was a godsend. We learned to swim the first year, the first summer we were there. And we had a raft. The dads had got together and built this big raft. And if you could swim out to the raft—I was not supposed to, but I did. And the little Lowe boy wasn't supposed to, either. He was just learning to swim. And he went under. And my sister Dorothy was a really good swimmer. And he went under for the third time. And she went down and got him, got him out on that--pulled him up. And there was a couple of guys up there pulled him up on that raft and they turned them over on his stomach. And the water just poured. And he lived. But he wouldn't have lived. And every one of those kids at White Bluffs were just as devoted as that to the river. That was our playground. We had to do our work in the morning because it was cool enough. And the summers over there were--boy, they were hot. But we could go in and get in the swimming pool then, our swimming pool. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: You mentioned a little bit ago having a radio. Did you have a telephone also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We finally did have a telephone. And it was only a dollar a month. That was right uptown. We'd never had one of those before. It was a party line, so if there was an emergency, you had to give up the line. If there was an emergency--if you didn't, they would take your telephone out and you'd never get a telephone again. So that was good and responsible. And I think Mrs. Westling was the telephone--she had it in her home. She and her daughter, I believe, operated it, I'm pretty sure. They lived up by the bank, I remember that. But I can't tell you--we didn't have names on the streets that I know of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so did you get your news mostly on the radio? Was there a newspaper also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: There was. There was a little newspaper there. And I believe it was for Hanford and White Bluffs. And my brother actually worked for that newspaperman. First you start out just because he thought it would be fun. Phil asked him, he said, would you like to know something about publishing a newspaper? And so Dutch went and worked for him. That's what we called him--we didn't call him Virgil. And he went and worked for him. And they did publish a little newspaper. It was a weekly, just once a week. And, of course, they had all the Ladies Aid tea parties, things like that, things at the church. Everything was in there. Yeah, a little gossipy paper. It wasn't malicious. It was just who had a luncheon at their place or whatever. And so, when he got older and came out of the Army, he went and took formal newspapering, went to college and took it. And he became a newspaperman. Boise Statesman was one of them. And he went down to California. And he worked down there for a while, about 10 years there. So that was good for him. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: He got started in-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Yeah, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: What businesses do you remember being in White Bluffs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, I remember Reierson's Grocery. And I remember around the back of it was a little creamery where you could--in fact, they picked up a can of cream at our back porch every morning, because we had, by then, two cows. And one was a Guernsey and one was a Jersey, and they both had lots of cream. So we couldn't use all the cream, even for six kids. [LAUGHTER] So they would come and pick that up. And my sister, Helen, always did the ironing. She liked to iron. That was her job. And so he would come, and here she'd be on that back porch, early in the morning, starting the ironing. [LAUGHTER] And he says, I don't think you've gone to bed. He was a kidder. But that was what she did, and she was excellent at it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So there was Reierson's and-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: And the creamery. And there was a little garage back there, and I can't remember the name of it because we didn't have a car. But there was a little garage back there. And there was Pop English's drugstore. Everybody knew where that was. Pop English and his wife had no children. But they owned this little drugstore. And they made the best ice cream in the world, and he sold it there. And you could have an ice cream cone for a nickel. I mean it was an ice cream cone. And a dime was a double dipper, and it had two shelves and then one cone—it went down to one cone. And that was a dime. And it was hard, if you had a dime, to decide whether you wanted to do that or not. I remember my mother used to give us two pennies for Jesus to take to Sunday school. And I always put one in. I figured Jesus wouldn't care if I have a rope licorice from Pop English's. And years later, I told her, I said, Mama, if I would have known that Jesus didn't want my money like I do now--he wants our love, has nothing to do with my two cents--I would have brought you home one. She says, your Sunday school dress was the messiest thing ever. She says it was always was covered in black. And, she says, the rest of the girls I could just press the back of that little white dress with some water and make it good for next Sunday. And she says, they could wear a Sunday school dress for all month [AUDIO OUT] but you. But she says, I never knew that. And I said, well, I says, if I would've known better, which I know now, you'd have had one, too. [LAUGHTER] By then I was about 47 years old. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, talking about the school in White Bluffs, how large was it, how many students do you think there were, and maybe the teachers that you remember particularly-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I would say that, in my first and second grade class, there was 18 that I can name off, that I can remember. We had a little boy come there named Carter House. And I think his father was something to do with engineering. Allard, Sam Allard kept the irrigation system and the electric thing, and I think Mr. House had something to do with it. But we had never seen a child look like this before. He looked like he stepped out of a catalog. He had this blonde-- beautiful boy-- had this little blonde hair all cut so nice. And he wore little argyle knee socks and little suit pants and a little white shirt and little slaps on his shoes. And I thought, my gosh, that's the cutest little boy I've ever seen. And, of course, he didn't know how to share. And one day I was swinging on the swing, and Alice Moody looked out the window. And here was this little boy grabbing that swing and taking it away from me. And she says, we don't do that here. She says, you have to wait your turn. She says, when Leatris is done with it, she says, you can have it. It'll be your turn. [LAUGHTER] But they were probably nice people, it's just that they weren't White Bluffs-oriented. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so you want to talk about Alice Moody a little bit? She was your first-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Ah, she was a wonderful teacher. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --grade teacher, is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Wonderful lady. She taught first, second, and, I believe, possibly third. And there was probably, I would suppose, 18 in the first grade, and probably close to that in second. And then there was the third grade. And we had—we did not have separate rooms, but we had little partitions that she would put up so that we would keep our attention. And we did have monitors. Everybody helped everybody. If there was a little boy that needed help with numbers and somebody was good with it, she would assign them to help that child. It wasn't--it was probably the most together community. If something was unfair on the playground, it was put a stop to right away, sometimes by the children. And teachers, if they were in their room, they kept a window open in good weather because if there was anything wrong in the playground, it was either reported or taken care of. And I can't remember fights on school. I can't remember that, ever. It would never have been tolerated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: How did you get to school, did you walk-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --or did you ride the bus? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Everybody walked. The only children I remember that came in on a bus--oh, what was his name—Mr. Fisher's school bus. Mr. Fisher, I believe. And he came in on a little bus--with a little bus. And I think they were probably from out toward Saddle Mountain and farms like that because they had to go to school. But I do remember a little bus. And I don't even remember that it was painted yellow or anything. I think it kind of reminded me of maybe a van. But it had windows in it and it was kind of squared. It seems like it was dark gray. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Mm-hm. And so far was the school from your home? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, I, let me see. We had to pass Saths’ orchard, the whole length of their orchard, and then Beldins’. And then we had to walk across the front of Beldins’ and their [AUDIO OUT] was pretty good sized. And then we had to walk up past Summers' up the hill to our house. So I would suppose it was probably a mile. And some of them walked a lot more than that. And Mrs. Moody used to bring kids in with her when she came to school because she drove to school. And she was around the Reach, around the--it was last reactor. And Old Town used to be there. The whole town used to be on the river at one time. But they moved it away because I think they were progressing. People were moving in, spreading out. Orchards were filling in. And I think that's why they probably moved the town. But we had a movie theater. We had a movie theater. And somebody from the Tri-Cities came over with a movie. In the summertime, we had a movie once a week, probably in the evening early, about seven. And then, in the wintertime, it was kind of hit and miss whenever they could get over or whatever, I don't know. I can't remember. But we did have movies there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Do you remember any movies that you saw over there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: No, I wouldn't remember that. I probably wouldn't even have understood it. But it wasn't anything that was offensive because they didn't do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Where was the movie theater in relationship to some of the other businesses-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay, across the street from Reierson's Grocery, and also across the cross street where the railroad came to fill the cars, that was right across the street from Reierson's Grocery as you come in to White Bluffs. Then there was a main drag. And there was a railroad hotel there, because they had railroad workers that, when they went out to do things to the railroad--the rails out there--they had to have people. And then they also rented to other people if they came in and there was a room empty. And it was right across the street from Reierson's Grocery from this one that's burned off. And behind there was a building. And that's where they had the movie theater. And it was just an old building, I don't know. It had seats in it--not wonderful, but seats. And then they had a balcony on it, too, so that was good. Kids would go up there and of course, you know. One time we had some holy rollers in there that rented it. [LAUGHTER] And they were rolling around on the floor. And my brother and his buddies were up there taking toilet paper, throwing rolls down there. They were all in little--I don't know, rolling around. [LAUGHTER] The Spirit moved them, I guess. Boy, they got in trouble for that. [LAUGHTER] But it was used for a lot of things. If they had a community meeting or something, they'd either use it, the high school or that little building, depending on what it was about. Sometimes it was a farm meeting, or a new spray that was coming out, or what they should do and shouldn't do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Mm-hm. I was going to ask you about any community events that you remember, either picnics, or Fourth of July things, or boat races-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Boat races we had right there. They did not start in Tri-Cities. They started at White Bluffs. It was wonderful. Mr. Kilian used to slice his big watermelons and sell them for $0.05. [LAUGHTER] Pop English used to sell his ice cream cones. Oh, and the Ladies Aid always had something going--cookies or something or a bake sale. And it was just a fun time. And we had a band. We used to gather up a band and have music there. It was pretty good. And in the spring, we always had a little May Day thing. And we had a maypole. And they would twine the strings around it like they do. And we had a program--quite a program--at the high school. And we had one that we were in that was the doll dance. And Alice Beyers was supposed to be the French lady who had the dolls. And so we had these cute little dresses on, little ballerina-type dresses. And she would come around and wind us up. That was the first start of it, and we danced to the tune, the doll dance. [AUDIO OUT] old, old, tune. And each one of us she wound up. And we started dancing. And we would dance around this maypole. And that was part of the program. And we had--oh, I remember my sister had a reading. "I want to live in the house by the side of the road, and be a friend of man," is the way it goes. And each stanza ends with that. And every single--my mother tutored her, her teacher tutored her--and at the end of every one of those stanzas when she got up there, "I want to live in the house by the side of the road and be friendly with men." It brought down the house, of course. Oh, my mother was so embarrassed. She was so embarrassed. [LAUGHTER] So when she-later in life--when she had a beautiful garden and a family of her own, I found that on a plaque that you put out in your garden, an open book with this on it in a plaque form. And it said, "I want to live in the house by the side of the road and be a friend to man." [LAUGHTER] I said, this is for old memories, Helen, and she laughed. She had a good laugh out of that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: You mentioned earlier your Sunday school dress. What church did you go to? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, I think at that--first, we went to the Presbyterian, but then they closed that. But then we went to the little Lutheran church I think was up in back of the bank. And we went there for a while. But my dress was always a mess. I come home with licorice all over it because, of course, I had to stop and take one of those pennies, buy a licorice at Pop English's drugstore. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Do you remember any other churches in the community? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I do not. I don't remember that there was Catholic church there. I don't remember that there was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I wonder—I know that the Wanapum people were in the area. I wonder if you have any memories of the Wanapum Indians, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, yes. We had--I don't know that they--they were Johnny Buck's Indian tribe. My brother knew Frank Buck. He had two wives. One was old and had white hair, and her name was Deloria. And I don't remember the other one. But they were fine people. They came in and they would gather fruit off the ground because it was ready to dry. They would catch fish out of that river and smoke it and just grab your nose and want you to go down there and have some. And they were just fine people. They came in usually before cherries--you would see them before cherries--and then you would see them every day out in the orchards. And nobody ever charged anybody for that. They could have all they wanted. And my mother actually learned to dry fruit. And oh, that smelled good, just waft up and grab you by the nose. And they put it in little, thin sheets like cheesecloth. They'd make a rack with willows--make a rack, weave it, and put it between maybe stumps of willows, little tiny seedling willows that were coming up. And they would make these racks. And they would put this cheesecloth over it to keep the flies away. And they would dry it. And they would dry fruit all summer long--peaches, cherries, apricot, apples, everything. And they taught my mother that if you soak them just a few minutes in saltwater, they will not turn brown. And they won't salt the fruit. And so she learned how to do that. And the fish—oh! When they smoked that fish, you wanted to go down there and just have some. It just smelled delicious. They had a mixture they mixed up to put on it so it wouldn't dry it out. And they would take the whole bone out of it. They'd slice it. They take the scale off, the skin off, and the ribs out. And they would place that between these same little cloths and dry it. And they would smoke it from beneath and they'd keep that just really low. Oh, you could smell it all over the valley. You'd just--oh! And it was delicious. They did a good job. And they were interesting. Interesting, interesting people. And you know it was a good [AUDIO OUT] for kids. I remember my brother used go up, 14 or 15 years old, he and his two buddies Leo and Louie Russo--Leo Goodner and Louie Russo- and they'd go up to Saddle Mountain, take a little flour and little baking powder and maybe some salt and some lard. And they'd go up there and stay for a couple days. Nobody thought anything of it. There was a little spring up there and it was always green. And they'd just camp out and snare a rabbit or whatever. They just couldn't--they just loved it. Usually he went in good weather, yes. But we didn't have bad weather in summertime. But you wouldn't let a 14-year-old kid out now, three of them all by themselves? [LAUGHTER] But they had wonderful times. And it was a good place to raise kids, and it was good place to be raised, too. Really good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I want to ask you about the sheriff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, Roy Bean was a fine man. I think I told you about him coming to get the boys to take the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: You did before we started recording on the film-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, he was a deputy sheriff out of the Tri-Cities. And I think the main thing--the office was up in probably Yakima, I'm not sure. But he had two little girls. And Roberta went to school with me. And Loretta came along later. She was younger by a couple of years. But he came to our house one morning, and he--we were just up. Dutch wasn't up yet, my brother. But he said, I wonder, is Virgil up yet? And he said, no, he said, but I'll go get him. He said, what's he done now? And he says, he's sure going to get it if he's gotten into trouble. And he says, now I want you to understand. He says, there's nothing going to be trouble about this, Joe. He says, I want you to go get him up. He says, his two buddies are in my car. And, he says, we're going to do a little favor for some people. And he said, I don't want any repercussions about this. I don't want any questions about it. If I hear of any beatings about this, he says, I will deal with it. And my dad went in and got Dutch up. And he came out and got in the car. He was dressed. And they went up to the packing house, which is right across from Reierson's Grocery. And he says, now, we're going to go get that car, which you pushed down this incline last night and released the brake. And he says, we're going to push it back up that slight hill. It was probably down there about seven, eight blocks. Well, it was uphill, now. It wasn't so easy. But, he says, I'll help you with the brake here. And he said, we'll keep this released. And he said, we'll push this back up. So he got those three boys--probably 14, 15 years old--to push that car about seven or eight blocks up to be iced. And he came home. He was pretty sweaty and he was pretty tired. And he wanted some breakfast. [LAUGHTER] But nothing was ever mentioned about it. And he was a fine man. He knew how to handle people. And he wasn't out there to bully anybody or--and later, he came to a family reunion. We called him up and invited him, because we knew he'd lived in Milton-Freewater, him and his wife. And, of course, Roberta-I kept track of Roberta because she moved here. That was his oldest daughter. And so I was glad to meet them. And we invited him to the get-together. And he mentioned that. And he laughed about it to Dutch. Dutch was a little uneasy when he thought we were going to invite the Beans. [LAUGHTER] And I said, he made a good joke out of it. He says, I've used that a lot of times, he said, on how to and how not to. And he said, you turned out pretty good. He says, turned out pretty good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Someone else I wanted to ask you about-- when we were talking earlier, you were mentioning a man named Ellis John-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, Ellis John was an interesting person. He lived down in old town in just one of the abandoned buildings. He had been on some kind of a merchant ship. And somebody on that ship that worked with him attacked him. And he was beating on him, and he killed him. And so they sent him to a penitentiary. It was a kind of an accidental killing. He didn't mean to but he was really--that's what I got out of it. But he lived there. He came to White Bluffs because it was such a nice little town. He came through there and he liked it. And he was an artist, a real artist. He did pictures of people. And he would make a few bucks, did paintings of them. And when I had my 10th birthday--my mother used to leave vegetables and fruit on his porch because she knew he didn't have a garden. And she always left vegetables and fruit if we had extra--because we always had extra--on his porch because he was kind of a recluse. But he would come out and talk to you. He was pleasant. And when I had my 10th birthday, my folks bought Muriel Beldin’s girl's bike for me to ride. And it was a smaller bike. And he painted roses on the fenders of that blue and white bike. And I had the prettiest bike in town when I moved to Walla Walla. [LAUGHTER] So I always remembered him because I was fascinated with--in fact, I took art in school because I was so fascinated with him. He would sit there and sketch somebody and--right in front of your eyes-- and make it live. And you wondered how he did that. He used charcoal a lot, and pen and ink, and paint. Just-- and I always felt bad because his life was kind of wasted there. He could've been--I mean he could make a likeness of anybody perfectly. But he chose to be there because we accepted him, and we respected his privacy. He had been through a lot. And I don't think he was a murderous person. I think it was something that happened. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So when and why did your family leave White Bluffs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, in 1937, Hitler was very busy. And by 1941, he was even busier. And in June--in April of 1941, we moved to Walla Walla. My dad says, there's going to be some military. He says, you can bet your sweet life. He says, it's big enough to have some military. And he said, I want to be where there's some jobs. And so we moved to Walla Walla. And there was a veterans' hospital here and he was a veteran. And he said, I just think it'd be better, because they had surveyed our area in 1937, '36 or '37, I'm not sure which. But we kept surveyors at our house, so we knew they were surveying for something. And it took them, oh, a couple years to survey all that area that they were looking at. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: But you didn't know what they were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: They didn't even know what they were surveying for. They were hired by the United States government. And they were employees of the United States government. So we kept Mama and Daddy Redd, we called them. And they were nice people. They had no children, and they just loved us. They just--she taught us really good things, things that we hadn't learned from our mom. Mama didn't know how to make fudge. She'd never had that much sugar to spare in her life. [LAUGHTER] So we all learned how to make fudge and penuche and good stuff from Ma Redd. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So you knew they were working for the government, but you didn't know-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We didn't know. They didn't know. But they were there about, I would say, two years. So I associate it with the Manhattan Project because it's a logical. Hitler was busy. Oh boy, was he busy. So I don't know. It might have been, it might not have been. We thought it was an irrigation project. We were so excited, because an irrigation project [AUDIO OUT] would have given us more, see, I mean, you could have irrigated more land. But-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So how were you when you left White Bluffs and you moved-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I had my 11th birthday here. It was in the spring of 1941. And we didn't have war until 1941, December 7. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So as a 10- and 11-year-old girl, what did you think of leaving White Bluffs and moving to Walla Walla? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, I thought I was going to die. For one thing, they had a Holstein cow over at Margaret Stearns's where we lived in her little house when we came here. And my father took care of her yard and milked her cow and separated the milk. It was a Holstein cow. That's like skim milk. I didn't drink milk for a year. I couldn't handle it. I mean, we were used to--we had cream on top of the milk. And then we sold half of it to the little dairy. And, I says, this is what we slop the pigs with. I'm not drinking this. And they worried about me--I wasn't drinking milk. But it was probably better for me, but I wasn't used to it. I wasn't used to it. The Scandinavian blood in me calls for that milk with the fat in it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Did you keep in contact with the people from White Bluffs after you moved here to Walla Walla? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I knew Bonnie Morris was here, and her sister, Ruth--her sister-in-law, Ruth. They were both Morris girls. And I don't think they were sisters. I think they were cousins because we had two Morris families there. But Ruth went to school with my sister Dorothy at White Bluffs High School. And I went to school with Bonnie Morris, who went to White Bluffs Grade School. And I'll tell you what, I was sure jealous of that girl. She could do handstands and cartwheels all around the White Bluffs Grade School and not stop. She could do a flip over and throw herself up and come down on her feet. And I just--I was just amazed. She was a couple years older than me, or I thought she was. But I don't think so. I think she was probably close to my age. She probably--maybe it was one year. But she was a fantastic athlete. Even the boys envied her. I mean, she could just flip around like a circus performer. And here I was, a tomboy, but not delightful with things like gymnastics. There was always somebody we envy when we were kids. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So in 1943, a couple years after you moved away, the federal government came in and-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Cleaned out everything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --everybody had to leave. Did you hear about that from people you used-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: My sister was living there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, she was, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: She was living in the Johnson place. She said nobody ever came and got the beautiful antiques she had upstairs. She had a teapot that came over on the Mayflower. The legs were--it was a silver teapot, and the legs were actually worn completely off. And it had the Ford name on it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So which sister was this, then, who had-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: That was Dorothy, my oldest sister that I love so much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And why had she stayed there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: She stayed there because she had husband who was a truck driver. And she was expecting her first baby and didn't really know what else to do. And he was gone. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Was this someone she had met in White Bluffs, then, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: She met him in Kennewick. She was working at Kennewick General Hospital at the time. And she met Vern Fouracre. And they got married at our house. In fact, we chivareed them at our house. And that was probably when--I was 13 when I was an aunt, so Colleen was born in '43. And she wasn't born there. She was born—she was pregnant when she was there but she was born after that. And that's when they moved them out. They had to move everybody out. And I always wondered whatever became of Mrs. Johnson's beautiful things, because they were museum things. They should've been in a museum. They shouldn't have been in an attic. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Right. Where did your sister and her husband go, then, when they had to leave? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, they went back to Kennewick. And Colleen was born in Kennewick. Was born in--[AUDIO OUT] Then she came to Walla Walla. And she had a little boy a year or two later. She had four. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Have you ever gone back to-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We went to the Hanford-White Bluffs picnics, I think, four or five times. And then, of course, the people who were doing the arranging for it--Annette Hereford and I can't remember the other boy. I can't remember the boy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Man off-camera: Bob Grisham, maybe? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I believe, I believe. They graduated high school with Dorothy. And they just were getting too old to do that. And it was hard thing. And people were dying off. But Alice Moody was at the last one. I was, too. And I loved seeing her. And I knew her immediately. She looked just like herself, just exactly. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So when you went to the reunions, it usually was a picnic, right, at the park, Howard Amon Park. Did you also do a tour-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Mm-hm. We did, we did. We could take our car in. First time, I think they had a bus for people who had no transportation, because the Tri-Cities had--they were old. Some people weren't driving anymore. So they evidently had acquired a bus for some that couldn't. And whoever had room in cars, we took them. But ours was always full because our kids were just fascinated by this. And we went to the dinners, little banquets that we had you. Mr. Reierson was there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: What did you think when you had a chance to go back and see the land, the area where-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Broke my heart. Just broke my heart. We had a hard time finding--we wouldn't have found where our house was, except there was a water tank associated with this pump. And it set out front. It was made--and a lot of the people had them. Some of them had brick with a liner in it. But this one was cement and was kind of cone-shaped, and evidently was a holding tank for the house, or whatever. I don't know, I'm not sure. But it was there. And that was still there. They hadn't knocked that down. That's the only way--and it set up on a hill. It was the first row of hills as you came down toward the river--dropped down the river to Old Town. And so, that was how we found it. But there wasn't any stumps of trees left. There wasn't anything left. They actually had the crew of conscientious objectors at McNeil Island come down and cut the trees and the wood out of there, and took it back for fuel by truckloads. And that was the last, just before they released--they were already starting to build the reactors and things and dig the systems underneath, and storage thing under the--But it was a wonderful place to grow up, and I don't know that they'll ever get it cleaned up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Anything that we haven't talked about yet in terms of White Bluffs, any stories or events that stand out that we haven't had a chance to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I just think it was the best place to the world to raise kids because there was a community spirit-- that I never saw favoritism. I never saw belligerence about minding rules. I always saw a humanitarianism. If you knew that your husband or your neighbors or anybody was having a problem, you didn't make it your business. You didn't gossip about it. It wasn't a usual. It was more of any empathy, more of a sympathetic, let's just do what we can for them. I never saw the malice toward anybody because they were poor or maybe did something wrong. If there was a wrong committed, it was straightened out and talked about by the two people that did it. And it was left alone. And they had a tavern there. [AUDIO OUT] And, even there, it was not tolerated for people to act like a bunch of savages or fights or--It was a place to go have a cold beer if you wanted one, but I don't remember a lot of drunkenness or--I don't think he would have--Harry somebody was his name. It ended up two people owned it, but I can't remember what their name was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, the tavern? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: And we were gone, but they told us about it. And I can't remember, but that was the last of it. And it was just a little tavern. I probably, I don't know--it was probably four or five little tables and maybe a row along the bar. I remember standing out there one time because my dad went in to have a beer with a friend. And I said, well I'll wait out here and eat this ice cream cone from Pop English. [LAUGHTER] I knew what to do with it. He was a fine man. He actually organized the White Bluffs band. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: The high school band. And he made room for everybody. Everybody had-- Ola Meeks could do the baton twirl, and she taught two other girls to do that. And they had white pants with a--it's either black or navy blue stripe down the side--and a white shirt, just a plain little white shirt. The girls wore a white blouse. And everybody had a part in high school band. And they went up to Yakima and they took first place. That little-- and competing against Kennewick, Pasco? It was amazing! Somewhere we have a picture, and I don't have the picture. I can't find it. [LAUGHTER] But Dorothy just loved it. She played a drum, and she just loved it. And they did a good job. No, it was a fine place to grow up. And it was sad, because it really was a neighborhood community. And there were people who had plenty, I mean, they had--there were well-to-do people there. But they didn't flaunt it. They were no different when they went to the Grange meeting. Or whether they were entertaining, it was not—there was not any class distinction. And especially at school I noticed it. That's unusual. That's unusual. And we welcomed it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you very much for letting us come here and talk to you today, and for sharing your memories-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, you use what you can. I know you you'll cut, because, of course, you can't. You have to do what you have to do. But I know that people are going to give you some wonderful stories, stories about how they were accepted. And I'm sure every one of those people that you interview will tell you the same thing, that it was a wonderful community. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Thanks again very much. I appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I appreciate your coming. </div> Location The location of the interview Yakima, Washington Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 227 kbps Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Boehmer, Dorothy Boehmer, LaVonne Boehmer, Helen Boehmer, Virgi Boehmer, Darlene Ford, Henry Borden, Patsy Moody, Alice Bean, Roy John, Ellis Fouracre, Vern Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:59:59 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Leatris Reid Description An account of the resource An interview with Leatris Reed conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 8/27/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-22: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource White Bluffs (Wash.) Walla Walla (Wash.) swimming Walla Walla (Wash.) White Bluffs (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ffd574834b9e91334555bb134407a78ff.jpg c7a06ce1bcaa7cf7ff7b35701c99c37a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F935d35ec4e72a2fdefbfaff051d8a29d.mp4 8bcb13d04c4911f897a5aaab7e50965b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jack Rhoades Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Northwest Public Television | Rhoades_Jack </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Robert Bauman: Okay. We'll go ahead and start. And if we could start by having you say your name and then spell it for us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Sure, my name is Jack L., middle initial for Lewis, Rhoades, R-H-O-A-D-E-S. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Great. Thank you very much. And my name is Bob Bauman and this is October 16th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start with, if you could talk about your family's background. What brought them here? What brought you and your family here to the Tri-Cities, and when, and that sort of thing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Sure, well my dad worked for DuPont in the early '40s--like '40, '41, '42--in a TNT plant for the war effort, and he had a college degree in chemistry. So when the Manhattan Project kicked off in late '43, he was one of the people selected out of DuPont's Joliette Plant to go down and train on the chemistry of plutonium at Clinton Works, which later became Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was located in Oak Ridge, probably an Army Depot at the time. And when he was transferred to the Clinton Works, why, my mom and my younger sister and I—I would have been about four then—went back to the ranch in Colorado and lived with her parents until my father got transferred up here to Hanford in like April of '44. And we finally got a house, or were on line to get a house, by August '44. And so what I can remember--I mean I was a young kid, but this was pretty traumatic, all the excitement of the war effort--but my mom got a telegram, which was hand-carried out to the farm by the postman. And it just simply said, go to Denver, get on train such and such. There'll be a one-way ticket for you waiting, get off at Hinkle, Oregon and the government will take care of you from there. So it was amazing because the train had some servicemen on it, but the preponderance of people on this train were women, just like my mother, headed to Hanford with two or three screaming kids. Everybody was trying to carry a couple suitcases, trying to carry a kid or drag a kid. We got off the train in Hinkle, Oregon—which is out like the armpit of America—and it was dark. It was probably midnight. And the Green Hornets, or the old Army buses, were there with a bunch of MPs. And the soldiers were really great. They helped all the women get their luggage off and loaded us all up into buses and drove over-- course we had to go the long way around Wallula Gap to Hanford. And the parking north of the Federal Building was all administrative and dormitories. So my dad had actually been in a dormitory there with a roommate for six months. And so he was out front waiting when the bus got there, along with tens of other guys. And so his roommate had gotten moved to another room, so there was like two cots in there. And my mom and dad had one cot, and my sister and I had another cot. And we lived there for several weeks until his name came up and we moved into an F house on—it's Jadwin now, but it used to be Goethals—down in the 300 block. There used to be Campbell's Grocery Store across the street. That's the way life started for us. I was five at the time, but my birthday was in late October, so I started the first grade in Lewis and Clark, which was one of the first schools that was occupied by students because they were still building the houses toward the north. I think maybe Marcus Whitman was in place, and later on Jefferson was built. But there were so many kids that when my mother took me to school, I was assigned to go to school from 6:00 AM to noon. And then other kids came in and went from 1:00 to like 5:00 or 6:00 at night. And so nobody had a car. You just were on foot. And then of course, the government had the Green Hornet buses for transporting people around town to a limited extent, but mostly for transporting workers out to the 200 Area. My dad was actually was the first plant manager of T Canyon, which was one of the two bismuth phosphate plants for producing uranium from the fuel from B Reactor. He later became the manager of 231-Z. When they first started processing plutonium, the end result at Hanford was plutonium nitrate, and they had to reduce it. It would come out of T and B Canyons as a fluid liquid. And so 231-Z then condensed it down to like a green Jell-O, and that's what they flew to Los Alamos. And then Los Alamos actually converted the green Jell-O to the metal which went into the first Trinity explosion. And even though everybody knows about Nagasaki because of the plutonium there, there was actually a third pit that was available. And after Hiroshima, Tibbets flew back to the United States to get the third pit in case it was needed. But, fortunately, the Japanese surrendered. So after the war was over, my dad got promoted up to what was called an area supervisor. He managed all of the plutonium activities because they'd started a new building that was called 234-5, or Z Plant. And Z Plant was the plant that produced the pits during the Cold War, and that's the nuclear core. So what they made down at Los Alamos for Trinity and Nagasaki, they transferred the production and the production line up to the building in 234-5 and he was a manager of that. I remember, in later years, my dad talking about the building was divided into two parts. There was the top secret half and the secret half, and the workers didn't know who was on the other side. They had entrances from different directions and they never communicated. And the whole building had—the doors were like a bank vaults, not three foot thick, but they were steel bank vault doors. And he said he had to memorize over 100 combination locks in the building. And to him, that was one of the more challenging tasks that he had to do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And how long did he work at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: We left in '50, and it ultimately caused his demise. But he had, according to the health physics people, he ended up dying of stomach cancer. And so there was a 50-50 chance that it was caused by working at Hanford. But he had developed really severe ulcers. And they eventually had to cut out half of his stomach because it just perforated and he kept almost bleeding to death. And so we moved to Texas and he went into business with one of his brothers in Odessa, Texas selling real estate and insurance. And later moved back in about 1960 and he then worked for United Nuclear, and he was a manager of extrusion press for N Reactor fuel. And then later on was hired by DOE and was a director of safety for DOE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And what was your father's name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Paul Gordon Rhoades. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And so during the war period when you were in first grade, did you have any idea of what your father was doing? What he was working on? What his job was? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: No, absolutely nothing. And he was absolutely paranoid about the secrecy aspect. I can remember that vividly. And I can remember when news of the bomb was released on the radio, and my mother called him on the phone out at the plant. When she said, did you know that the bomb they dropped on Japan was made in Hanford? And he slammed the phone down, wouldn't even talk to her. He viewed working at Hanford as the same way a marine would view going ashore in Iwo Jima. It was his duty. In fact, he was not really for going after the compensation stuff that I think was voted in in 2000. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Did he at some point then talk about what he was doing out there? What he-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Not much really. I mean, he did have anecdotes, like talking about the Green Run, when they released iodine-139. And one of the things I remember him talking about was arriving at work in a bus. And ruthenium is something that can't be filtered out in the sand filters on the plutonium processing plants, and so it would condense on the side of the towers because the chimney was so tall that it would cool off and then it'd condense on the inside of the--Well, every once in a while there'd be a change of conditions and this stuff would flake off, and go out the top of the stack, and be like snowflakes falling on the ground, and they have a short lived half-life. So the guys would get off the bus. They'd have to put on gauze mask and booties and everything, and walk into the building, and then get decontaminated before they entered the building. And then that was the start of their eight-hour shift. But there was no question that production was paramount. And there's no question in my mind that what DuPont did with the knowledge that was available in those days for designing the canyons and the reactors, was nothing short of brilliant. And even though people are upset with the environmental contamination--because we basically have got five square miles--or five by five, 25 square miles that's contaminated from the soil to the groundwater out there in the 200 Areas. But compared to what they did in Russia, which was dump it straight into the lake that fed out under the Arctic Circle, DuPont took advantage and was farsighted beyond belief in my professional estimation. I just marvel at how DuPont did on designing the reactor, and designing the canyons, and having them work safely. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: You say your father didn't really talk about it a whole lot--his work—did he ever express any concerns about safety at all or was he-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Never. In fact, DuPont was--as I grew up, and then as I worked later and they were down at Savannah River, and when I was working at Hanford--DuPont probably had the highest reputation for safety of any large organization in the nuclear industry. At Savannah River, if a guy climbed up a ladder, and did something stupid, and fell off and broke his arm at home, and he came to work and they found out that he had been unsafe at home, then he had time off. I mean, he was punished for what he did on the weekend because he was not thoughtful in his safety process. But DuPont, I held them in extremely high regard, high reputation. And they were, when you think about it, they did this for a dollar. They definitely were part of the war effort that sacrificed for the good of America. They weren't in it to make money or anything like that. They just were doing what they were paid to do. And they got out as soon as they could. And then they came back and did a second stint when they were asked. They were the only company that the government trusted. So they built Savannah River. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I want to go back to talking about when you first arrived and you were five years old, do you remember any sort of first impressions that you had, or early memories of first arriving in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Oh, it was, of course, for a kid in the first grade, it was exciting because everybody was the same. They were all on foot, and they were all new. In fact, that kind of curiosity anecdote was on the first day as I was walking to school with my mother, and we got about half way to the school. And another woman who's coming in on a side street, and she had a little boy. And my mother just about passed out. It turned out it was her college roommate, who they hadn't seen since she graduated from college. And they both had gone their separate ways and it ended up that they are actually living in the house behind us. And they renewed their friendship from college and it went on until they both passed away. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: You mentioned that in first grade, you started at 6:00 AM. There was so many children that was a way they could serve the needs of all the families with children. How long did that last? Did that last through first grade or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah, it probably did last the first year. But by the time the year had gone by and as a year progressed, they were building hutments out alongside the school. So basically, the first grade was about the only time I went to school inside of a building. And maybe the sixth grade up in Jefferson, I went inside a building, but the rest of time I was always in a hutment. There were just more kids than there was space. But yeah, that was sparse. I mean, you didn't have a car. The only entertainment was playing bridge and softball. They had a very organized adult softball league, so that was the entertainment. There was no stores to buy Christmas gifts or anything. You ordered whatever you wanted out of Sears and Roebuck in July, and it got back-ordered, and you got it in the following July. But when Griggs opened over in Pasco that was a big thing because when I wanted a bike. And when my dad bought me a bike, basically, he had to borrow somebody's car. And we drove up to Yakima, and then he came home and assembled it, and turned us loose. For kids, the basic entertainment was skating. And they had concrete tennis courts up by Lewis and Clark--on the south end of Lewis and Clark--and so that was the only surface that you could roller skate on, because you had those old clamp on roller skates that you tightened with a key that just hooked on to your heel and the sole of your shoe. And so we were just constantly roller skating. There wasn't other entertainment. There was just recess at school. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Were there any movie theaters, anything like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah, there were. There were two movie theaters. And every weekend your dad gave you a dime. And you could get in for a nickel, I think, and get popcorn for a nickel or something like that. Probably everything you stood in line for—I mean everything—there was just a line beyond human belief. Like when it was haircut time, the only barbers in town at that time were down at the Allied Arts, down below Jackson's bar. And so, I don't know, they had two or three barbers in there. So Saturday morning, the boys and their fathers would show up to get their haircuts. And so there'd be a line of 100 kids. There wouldn't be no adults. They were all up at the bar playing pool and having a beer while the kids stood in line waiting to get a haircut. But when Ganzel’s came in was like night and day. Even shopping at the grocery store, you had to become friends with the butcher. If you didn't know somebody in the grocery store, and they befriended you and gave you a heads up that, hey, there's some marshmallows coming into town, why, you just did without. You ate a lot of canned fruit and vegetables and stuff like that. And people were always doing their own chickens and putting them up. But it was just pretty spartan. They gave you a house. I don't know if my dad even paid any rent. Basically, they gave him grass seed. They gave him coal. We just had a real nice house. And my parents had borrowed somebody's pickup, and they'd driven up Yakima and bought some furniture, and brought it home one piece at a time. But we lived down there on Goethals for, probably, from '44 to '49, or something like that. And then we moved up on McMurray, and then we left in '50 and went down to Odessa, Texas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: What about institutions like churches? Were there churches for people to go to on Sundays in those early years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: We didn't. It wasn't because my parents didn't believe in God, it's just like we didn't go to church. I mean, we'd have had to walk. I'm not even sure where--I honestly do not remember where the closest church would have been. I'm sure there were churches, though, because the government set off areas for parks, they set off areas for schools, they set off areas for churches, very thorough. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: What about any community events that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Not much. They had Richland Days. They had like the polio March of Dimes drives. Actually it was probably after—between, let's say, '45 and '50—when Camp Hanford really had gotten established and they had moved in missile people. This was just a sizable number of soldiers up there in North Richland, but they had much better facilities for entertainment--movies and all--it was just built newer. And so even though my dad didn't serve in the service, he had a lot of friends that had been in the service, and so we could go to movies up there. And they had outside entertainment that came in that you could go to. We never did live out at Hanford or anything like that. My ex-father-in-law actually came here and he lived out at Hanford for a while. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: So you said your family then moved away in 1950, and then came back in 1960? Your father came back? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah, about ten years later he came back. I'm not too-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Did you come back at that point also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Well, I was in college, so I came up here after I graduated in '61 and went into the—they still had the draft at that time—so I volunteered for the Navy, and ended up flunking a hearing test and flight school. So I got washed out of flight training. And Vietnam hadn't started to build up yet so they weren't desperate for pilots. So after I got out of the Navy, I came back up here and stayed for a short while and got a job. I had a mining, engineering and geology degree, so I got a job in Colorado in a molybdenum mine, and worked there for a couple of years, and decided to go back to college and get a degree in metallurgy. And so I went to WSU and graduated from there in '65, went down to Kaiser Steel in California. By then, my dad had moved from working for the contractor into working for the AEC. Now, I'm not too sure—I'm sure he just probably just wanted me and my wife and their grandkids closer to them—but anyway, he told the people in personnel that I had a metallurgy degree. And one day I got a call from Wanda Cotner, that was the branch chief over the personnel hiring, and she asked me if I'd come up for an interview. And she said that she could give me a nice raise if I'd think about joining the AEC. So I ended up accepting the offer. And when I got my Q Clearance, I moved up here in July of '67, and worked for DOE as an individual contributor over PNLs. It was a Hanford lab. PNL, I guess, had taken over by then. They had a number of very important metallurgical programs on understanding how plutonium reacted, especially in the reactor with neutrons hitting it all the time. So I advanced very nicely. And by the early '80s, I was assistant manager for--it was then ERDA or AEC--for all the compliance programs at Hanford--that'd be safety, and QA, and environmental, and security--so all the compliance structure at Hanford. Then, probably, in about '84, I guess, I moved me over and I was assistant manager for all the nuclear operations at Hanford. So I had the 300 Area for the fuel fab for N Reactor. And we still had N Reactor running. And FFTF was starting up, we had PUREX running and T Canyon. I probably had a billion dollar budget back in the '80s just for all the nuclear operations here at the site. So we did the first comprehensive EIS that was ever done in the Department of Energy for the tank farms, built the last double shell tanks that were ever built. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And how long did you work at--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: I worked for about 20 years for DOE, and the AEC, and then I took an early retirement in, must've been like 1988. So it must have been about 21 years I worked here. So I left Hanford and went over to Idaho Falls and was as a manager over their capital construction projects. And then I got transferred to Rocky Flats. After the FBI and EPA had shut down Rocky Flats, the Department of Energy terminated the contract with the contractor. And actually they didn't even compete the contract. They just, literally, gave it to EG&G, which is almost unheard of, to not compete a major contract. So I was in charge of—they had shut down Rocky Flats operations. And so when EG&G came in, our charter was to restart the plant. And so I was the project manager over restarting the plutonium operations at Rocky Flats. I got promoted up to being assistant general manager over environmental remediation. And then I got a call from Lockheed down in Houston and they were trying to break into the DOE business. And so they hired about 20 experienced people that had worked in and outside of DOE to put together proposals to run these big contracts, whether it be Oak Ridge, or Rocky Flats, or Idaho, or Nevada Test Site. And so then I worked for Lockheed and it then became Lockheed Martin. But I worked for Lockheed from like '93 to '96, and I was a general manager of one of their environmental remediation divisions. And I transferred back up here, which was probably about the sixth or seventh time I've been through this town. But when Lockheed Martin and Fluor won the Westinghouse contract in '96, I got transferred back to Richland. So I'd made a circuitous loop that had gone from Richland to Idaho Falls to Rocky Flats outside of Denver, down to Houston, the Nevada Test Site, and the back up to Hanford. But I ended up, after I retired from Lockheed Martin, I went to work for a small business here at ATL International. They currently run the 222-S Laboratory. I was a vice president for them over all their Hanford work. Eventually, I just decided to go out on my own. So I consulted from about 2004 to the end of 2011. And by then, I looked around and all my contacts had either died or moved to Arizona or Florida. Even today, I probably don't know two human beings that are still working for a living. But this place has been--and DOE has been—absolutely a blessing to me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I want to go back. So your family left in 1950. Then you came back in '67, roughly? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: No, I came back in '61. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Just for a short period of time. Just long enough to enlist in the Navy. And then when I got ready to start flight school, I took a hearing test. And believe it or not, the physical requirements for all branches of service are the same. It's just that they check people that are going to be in the Air Force or in the Navy, they just check certain things closer than they do if you want to be a marine. And so I was just borderline acceptable in the hearing. And since they had an abundance of pilots and the Vietnam War hadn't escalated or not, they ended up giving me an honorable discharge and reclassifying me as 1-Y, which is, it has to be a national emergency to call you back up. I came home and then went to Colorado and went to work in the mine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: When you came back here for the job working at Hanford, I was wondering, what ways had the community changed since you were here as a child going to school? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: You know what, to me, at a macroscopic view of the Tri-Cities, the biggest thing that's changed is the number of people. Richland is still uptown and downtown. Kennewick is striving to open up that area between the two bridges along the river. But the biggest thing is now there are probably three times as many people. There was probably 90,000 people between the three towns early in the '50s. And now there's probably a quarter of a million people. And so the biggest changes is that the roads and streets haven't been modernized--or the stoplights--to handle triple the traffic. But the wine industry obviously is a major thing, because when I was a kid growing up here—When they talk about termination dust storms, they were not kidding, because I lived in eastern Colorado and my parents had lived through the Dust Bowl, and I knew what dust storms looked like. And when they hit Richland, your house—I remember my mother, she—when they vacuum--you've just got sweep broom and a wood floor, and your sweeping it up, and throwing it in the yard with a dust pan. But the irrigation changed all that. There's just so much more moisture going up in the air that the dust storms are few and far between. And the humidity has gone from like 10% or 15% probably to 35%. And the summers have gotten less extreme. When I was a kid, it was not unusual at all for July--from the first of July to the end of July--to be 110 to 115 degrees. I've seen it 117 degrees here. And now, just look at this last summer, we had a few days of 101 or 103. But the climate has mellowed out with the extremes. Like in '48, the Columbia River froze clear across from side to side. You could drive a truck across it. The same year as the big flood. So the extremes have gone away. And instead of the real dips and curves a sinusoidal curve, it's more shallow extremes. But the fact that they now have Meadow Springs, and they have Clipper Ridge, and West Richland, of course, has expanded from a nothing. When I was a kid there was just basically a few people that liked to have farmland lived out there. There was probably as many people living in Yakima as there was in Richland, because they couldn't build houses fast enough. And those that worked in the 100 Areas or the 200 Areas, it was just as close to come in from Yakima as it was to drive from Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: You talk about a number memories from your childhood, are there any other things, events, or particular memories that really stand out from those early years in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: You had to make your entertainment. And you had to wait in line for everything, including getting a car. Jeez, it must have been '48 before we got a car. And in the Sunday paper there was an ad that said, call a number in Seattle, and get on a list for a Buick. And so my mother did that. And about six months later we got a call and said come pick up your car. We got on a train over in Pasco that just had wood benches in it, and we went over Snoqualmie to Seattle, and got this new '48 Buick, and drove it home over Snoqualmie Pass. People from all over the neighborhood were kind of ogling this car because anybody else that had a car basically were driving some pre-1940 model, because during the '40s they didn't make cars. But that was a vast improvement for us to have our own wheels. But self-made entertainment. When we lived up on McMurray—of course, all these guys that came here from the '30s and '40s, all the entertainment they had as they grew up as kids was self-made also. So playing pool was a big activity. And so my dad bought a pool table over in Pasco, and we had it in the basement. And on the weekend, he and all of his buddies iced down beer and played kelly pool all afternoon, that was the entertainment. And probably that night those same guys, with their wives, had a little potluck at somebody's house and played Bridge. My parents played bridge all the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I wanted to ask you, then, also about your working at Hanford. Hanford for so long focused on production. You mentioned that production, production. At some point, of course, it shifted to cleanup. I wondered if that shift impacted your work at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Well, by the time I left Hanford it was still in a reduced production mode. The writing was on the wall that environmental restoration was the future of Hanford, not production. We fought to keep N Reactor going because it was dual purpose. But especially when they passed the RCRA, or Resource Conservation Recovery Act, that was the first major commitment by the US Government for an environmental cleanup. And they sent that law, or bill, out to all the field offices and asked for the field offices to comment on what effect it would have on their operations. And Dixy Lee Ray was the commissioner at the time. And I must've been a director of safety at the time. So we got together with the contractors and we labored over this. And fortunately, I have a knack of being able to synthesize complicated things into a very concise statement. And when we got through reviewing this, I wrote a letter for the manager of the field office. And it was about this long, and it simply said, this will shut down nuclear pit production for the United States of America. And from that point on it was one lawsuit after another as Congress tried to extend its will on the defense industry. But at the time, like when I was a Rocky Flats, the reason they were so anxious to restart that plant that was the only plant in all of DOE complex that didn't have two--like there was Hanford and Savannah River, there was Los Alamos and Livermore Design Lab. So there was a duality in everything. But when they removed the pit production from Hanford, instead having pit production at Savannah River and Hanford both, they built a new plant at Rocky Flats. And it was the only plant that made pits. And so it was a choke point. And when the FBI and EPA shut that plant down, basically, we had nuclear subs that were out in the ocean with 20 missiles and there was no spear point on the end of the spear. They were not loaded because we were not making pits. So that was why the defense industry was fighting with Congress on the environmental cleanup was because we were not in a good defensible position nuclear-wise during that Cold War years if we had the boomers out in the ocean that didn't have a number of warheads on top of them. And that's why EG&G got the contract because DOE believed that they could restart the plant and start making these pits. So even though the environmental law was saying you should be shifting quickly to environmental restoration at Rocky Flats, the headquarters people over defense programs were telling you under the table, get this plant running. We need these pits for the defense of America. So it was real catch-22 for the management of the Rocky Flats plant. But eventually, it became obvious that they were never going to restart the plant and so everybody shifted into a full environmental restoration mode. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: During your years working here at Hanford, what would you consider some of the more challenging aspects of your job, the work you were doing here, and maybe some of the most rewarding aspects of your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Well, you know--[SIGH] I mean, rewarding is a hard thing to define because that was one of the primary reasons I took early retirement. Let me just use Yucca Mountain as an example. When I hired into the AEC in '67, the United States Government was looking for a repository for nuclear fuel in Lyons, Kansas. So that was '67, and here we are, 2013, and we're no closer to solving that national problem today than we were 40 years ago. So the satisfaction that comes with mission accomplished was always very difficult to achieve. It was more of a case of frustration on my part that the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. If I was going to go any higher in DOE, I would have to go to Washington, DC. Because I was already an SES and that's as high as you could go without a congressional appointment. But the most challenging thing was that when Alex Fremling came in to be the manager of DOE, he brought a complete new, fresh environmental sensitive outlook to the plant. And so trying to deal with the public interface over leaking tanks—106-T was a big bump in my career. I went from a nobody to a branch chief just with one tank leak. [LAUGHTER] But he was very environmental conscious and he was very safety conscious. And so he ratcheted the whole system up, not just one notch, but numerous notches. Because when they built the nuclear industry, they did not have safety standards for the nuclear industry, because it was a brand new industry. So if you looked at the operation of the uranium side, then they used the safety standards of a steel mill and a blast furnace to do the safety standards for Fernald and these other uranium enrichment places. And if you look at the chemical processing in the canyons, they looked to the petroleum cracking industry for safety standards. And if you look to the waste disposal, which was the operation of the tank farms and the burial grounds, it had the same basic safety standards and the interest as a commercial landfill. And so it wasn't until the nuclear Navy was born and Rickover installed a completely different safety philosophy because he was going to have 200, or 300, or 400 sailor—lives were dependent on everything functioning perfectly. And Alex Fremling was bright enough and young enough to recognize that. And he brought that standard into Hanford. So there was just a real crash program on upgrading the operational procedures for tank farms and other waste disposals. Skin contaminations were accepted as—like a guy working on your car, he accepts the fact that his hands are going to get greasy. But Alex didn't accept that. He said, you know, we're going to have zero accidents. And we're going to have zero skin contaminations. We're going to be open with the public on any of these tank leaks. And the problem was we didn't have, really, the skill to measure how these tanks were doing—whether we're losing material or not losing material. And even though you could measure the depth, the interest of whether it was unacceptable to leak was not there. And the reason for that was that when the first tanks were built, they were built in 12. So there's four rows of three, and the separation process was simply a settling process. So the waste would come into the first tank and fill up, and the solids would drift to the bottom. And then it'd overflow into the second tank, another lighter batch of solids. And then it would flow into the third tank, and more solids would fall out. Then it would flow into the ground. And so if you're putting stuff in the ground for ten or 15 years, and using nine exchange properties of the soil to capture the radionuclides, then what's the big deal about a tank leaking a little extra waste? You've already put a billion gallons of stuff into the soil, what's another 100,000 gallons? So that was the mentality that Alex faced with the contractors when he came to Hanford. I give him credit. He single-handedly changed that. And he took on the challenge to do the very first environmental impact statement on tank waste for the whole agency. He was the guinea pig. He was the front runner, or the blazer, for the DOE on environmental issues. And so I honestly think that Hanford, even though, because of the design of the plants, there was no way to retrofit these plants to not discharge stuff to the soil, but there was a way to monitor it better and be more acutely aware of occurrences that you didn't want to occur. Whether it was stuff leaking on the ground on top of the tank, or whether it was stuff leaking into the ground through the bottom of the tank. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: So what time period are you talking about here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: This would have been in late '70s up to, probably, '87. And Mike Lawrence came in '87. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And it's Alex Fremling? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yes, Fremling. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: How do you spell the last name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: F-R-E-M-L-I-N-G. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: So that's when you noticed a shift definitely taking place? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: No question. I was a student of, that instead of resisting these changes, I embraced these changes and I was rewarded for that. But the mentality of the DOE—or it was ERDA at that time, but the mentality of the workers in ERDA were no different than the mentality in the contractors. I mean, we'd been doing it this way for 30 years, why are we changing? He conducted the first operational readiness review probably in the nation for startup nuclear facilities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: How were you able to change that mentality I guess into the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: You know what, I'd say, probably, through the award-fee process. It's through the money. When I first got here, contractors had contracts, but there was never any real evaluation of whether they deserved their fee or didn't deserve their fee. So once we instituted an award-fee process in which we itemized the areas for improvement, then quantified A, B, C or D or F, you could then quantify. If they had $10 million fee that's up for grabs for this quarter or this six month period, you could quantify how well they did to meet those goals. So it was very intense and it was a steep learning curve, but it produced results. And we changed contractors, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Mm-hmm, right. So this was when you would have been in charge of compliance programs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: First, yeah. After I was a branch chief, I was an assistant division director. Basically all of my career was in nuclear operations, especially with the tank farms. And even though I moved over to be the director of safety, and then on to be the system manager for compliance, you were just viewing operations from an independent standpoint. You didn't direct nuclear operations, but you did appraisals, and you did audits, and you did oversight, and you graded a contractor on his performance independent from operations. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Was it during your time there, I mean, at some point of course there were a lot of questions raised about the tanks. And in terms of the public, questions about tanks leaking and that sort of thing. Did you have to deal with any of that sort of thing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Listen, I spent—if I wasn't making presentations to the public or defending our actions to the public, I was doing so in front of Congress. There was constant barrage and it was difficult to communicate because by this time the environmental support groups were springing up to put pressure on DOE to perform and to clean up and to accelerate. And, of course, you control certain things, but you don't control your budget. Congress controls your budget. And so it was difficult at best, and it was contentious. It's constantly contentious because it was like I was speaking in English and they were listening in Greek. We couldn't communicate, because they were just totally upset with what the government had done to end the war. They forgot that what was the end result was stop the war and save millions of lives in the invasion of Japan. And they had forgotten that. And it was just on the bad things that have been done to the environment. And I'd be the first to agree to that--I don't think that in hindsight, if you went back and re-ran it ten times in hindsight, I don't think anything would have changed. Because the same pressure to beat the Germans to the nuclear bomb and the same pressure to end the war in the Pacific would not change. And so you'd only have the capability to do what your technology was advanced enough to do at that time and place. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I wonder if there's anything that you haven't talked about, or I haven't asked about yet, either in terms of your years growing up here as a young child, or your father's work, or your work at Hanford, that you'd like to talk about, or think it would be important to talk about. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: I would just simply say that I think that the people and the contractors in the government, as well as contractors, have always given 100% to do the right thing. And they don't get much praise. And they are constantly vilified because they're missing milestones and stuff like that. But there is just some extremely technically challenging work to be done out there. It's been a flywheel for this site since 1943, and it's going to continue out probably to 2075. But they'll never clean the site up, and they'll never walk away from it. They'll have some 25-square-mile pad out there that has all kinds of markings on it, don't drill here. But they're making tremendous strides in cleaning up the groundwater and removing the stuff along the river. I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that they could clean up all the burial grounds and trenches along the river and the buildings. Each one of those reactors had the facilities enough to run a small city, and now all that's left is a cube. You could paint dots on it or something like rolling dice across the prairie. But I just think it's been remarkable how much they've cleaned up and how safely they've done it. You don't ever read of anybody getting killed out there, or maimed out there, and they're still using a lot of heavy equipment. The safety standards are extremely high and it’s part of the reward, the carrot in front of the donkey. If you're safe and have a good safety record and you make progress, you get your fee. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you very much— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: --for coming and talking to us today and sharing your memories and experiences. I appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Great, thank you very much. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:09:30 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 180 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 Area 300 Area 100 Area Z Plant N Reactor Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Fast Flux Test Facility B Reactor 234-5 Building 222-S Laboratory Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1967-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1967-1988 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Rhoades, Paul Cotner, Wanda Ray, Dixy Lawrence, Mike Fremling, Alex Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jack Rhoades Description An account of the resource An interview with Jack Rhoades conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/16/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 200 Area 222-S Laboratory 234-5 building 300 Area B Reactor Fast Flux Test Facility Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash. Kennewick (Wash.) N Reactor Pasco (Wash.) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX Richland (Wash.) Z Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0bbdf6a73347ae16117663fa3c0f3544.jpg 0a7fbec0d7b9cdbbbc594862f0810905 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4c1debbbefc16cc98b17e2f1e99f32ef.mp4 73c4bc36b7c80cbf73578d12b86dd627 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Philip "Rick" Riccobuono Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Northwest Public Television | Riccobuono_Philip_Rick </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Robert Bauman: Okay. All right. We're ready to get going. So we'll get started. So first we could just have you say your name and spell it for us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Philip Riccobuono: The last name is Riccobuono. R-I-C-C-O-B-U-O-N-O. And it's pronounced Riccobuono, but the "u" is really silent. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Okay. And your first name is Phillip, but you go by Rick. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Phillip, and I go by Rick. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And my name is Bob Bauman. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Is it Don? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Bob. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Bob, that’s right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And today's date is November 6 of 2013, and we're conducting the interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-cities. So let's start by just having you talk about what brought you to Hanford. When did you arrive? Why did you come here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay. I arrived here on March 9th, 1950. I was in an army convoy that brought me from Fort Lewis to here. And at that time the Pass was only two lanes. And I had no idea where the heck I was going. None. They said Richland, Washington. And we left from Fort Lewis. And it was a 24-hour trip by Army convoy. It was a cold, cold place. When we'd come by Benton City, and we could look off to the lights—and I was in the lead Jeep in the convoy with our captain. And he looked over there, and he says, see those lights? [INAUDIBLE] And I said, yeah. And he says, that's where we're going. And at that time I said to myself, oh God, why did you bring me here? And I've been so grateful for him for doing it and bringing me here. And that's when we arrived and we went into the barracks. And then they told us that the next day they would take us out to the forward area. And we had no idea where that was. We knew there were nuclear reactors out. That was about the only thing they said. So we went out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how long had you been at Fort Lewis? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: We spent Fort Lewis over Christmas. It was about three months. We arrived in--let's see--in about October, we left Fort Bliss, Texas by train. We had to load up our 120 millimeter guns that we used for the AAA battalion to guard this place at Hanford, which we didn't know anything about. And we took all our gun training there in Fort Bliss, Texas. And then when we got done, they said, well, we're going to go to the state of Washington to Fort Lewis. And we did that. Stayed there for three months over the holiday, Christmas holiday. And we were all homesick. Cold and snow. And then on March 9th--actually March 8th, they said we're going to go on a convoy, and we're going to go to Richland. And it's going to take us at least 20 to 24 hours because we had a convoy of trucks and a whole battalion of the 519 AAA Brigade was going there. And I was a radio man so I rode up front with the captain. And it was a cool trip. Very slow. Convoy speed is only 30 miles an hour. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And how old were you at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: At that time I was 19--18. I joined the service when I was 17 to get an education, because I had to go to work when I was 13. And I never went to high school. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So when you went to Fort Lewis, was that the first time you had sort of been on the west coast? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: [LAUGHTER] When we just got out of New Jersey was the first time I had been out West. I spent all my life there and the Bronx, New York. And going over to Fort Dix was quite an experience. And they decided to send us to Fort Bliss, Texas for basic. I had no idea that they were going to put me in the artillery. And they did, after our basic training. And then they told us about—the 120 millimeter artillery gun is the first of its kind that we've ever had on the ground, the largest artillery gun that they made. It was never used in war, because it was made later. And to give you an idea of just how big it was, if you want to know that information. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: It takes a shell and a projectile. The projectile weighs 50 pounds, and the shell weighs 52 pounds. When we first seen them back in Fort Bliss, Texas, we're looking at this, and I said, I hate to see the noise this thing is going to make when it fires. And they explained to us it'll shoot out over 100 feet. It is real loud. And they taught us how to do that. But I got assigned to the communications. That's why I was in the Jeep, I told you, in the convoy because I had to operate the radio. And that's why we come here. We had our gun training and came out here, and our mission was to guard the reactors. And they would put us in strategic places. There was only four batteries of guns, each containing four guns. And I was in C of 518. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And so where on the site was that then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The first site, if you're familiar with where the reactors are— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: D and DR Reactor. DR is the one that faces the river, which is still about, probably maybe a quarter of a mile. We were stationed between the reactor and the river. And there was a farmhouse from the original people, farmers that lived there. And we set up our command post there. Set up our four guns, that was our primary set up. And that took us a while. And that's where we were stationed in communication with the other three batteries that were out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how many men was that then at each of the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Well, to each battery it's approximately 115 to 118 if you're at full force. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Okay. And so there was a--you used a farmhouse that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, it was the original house where the farmers lived that they had to evacuate. I felt sorry for those poor people. They had beautiful homes. This was a nice home, and it was still in good condition. And so our captain of the battery—we set up our communications, which they called the command post there in that building. And that's where we maintained the radio and switchboard. So at that time, we have to keep in communications by radio because we had no landlines. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And did you use that the whole time that you were stationed out there, used the farmhouse? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: No, we moved to several sites. After we left there, we moved to the site of F Reactor. Now if you—say you're coming from the south where the reactors and river would be on your right side, it would be the first reactor that you come to. On the road there, we made a left there, in the area of F Reactor. Went about—200 yards is the railroad—we went over the railroad tracks and then set up camp in that area. And that's where we stayed pretty much the other half of the time. We spent over a year, year and a half at DR and then the next time we spent, until I got discharged, was at that communication area. In fact, since then a lot of times I've taken people to the original site in the DR area to show them where our site was. In fact, our baseball field is still there. Actually, we played softball. And the guys, they are just amazed. You mean, that was there 50 years ago? I said, it's still is there! And I showed it to them. But it was--that was our site. We lived in tents. It was always dirty. And as I was telling Dave when he first interviewed me. He asked me how long do we stay out and how we would set up. And the object was to keep you out there three months. The fourth month, the whole battery would get leave into town. So they always maintained three gun sites for protection. That was the plan. And I hated it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: You hated being out there for three months. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Well, yeah. Because you don't have any facilities at all. I mean, to go to the bathroom, you dig a trench out there. To take a bath—you'd die laughing—we used wheelbarrows. Put water in wheelbarrows and take our bath. [LAUGHTER] One time, a friend of mine when we first got there, he was in the wheelbarrow. Now, you got to picture this maybe 250-pound guy sitting in the wheelbarrow. There was no room for water. We laughed. And this is how we bathed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: What about food? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Food, we had our own mess hall and everything, which was transferred out there. And this was all—we had a mess tent, plus our tents that we lived in and stayed in. And all we did was maintain the guns all day long, clean them. What else could you do? And it was real hot. In the first summer in the DR area, we craved ice water. We craved cold water. Now, the patrolmen used to always come by the sites and visit us and talk with us. And they knew what we needed. So they said, give us your canteens. And we gave them a bunch of canteens, and they would take it back to their post and fill it up with ice water. Just a good dose of ice, and brought us back the ice water. That was really a treat. But that's what we did. You did your own laundry out there. You washed your own clothes out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: How did you do your laundry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Well, the same thing. We'd take a bucket of water and just put soap and water and then washed them and hung them up and everything. They showed us how to do, and we did it. And it was all dirty and dusty. It was not the army I expected to be in. In fact, I was out in the service for three years, nine months. I think I only slept in a barracks three months of it. In Fort Lewis was the only time--that's the only time I ever had a barracks situation. But, you know. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So, you said, it sounds like for the most part you were maintaining the guns. That was really the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, that was the main reason. That was our mission. At that time, they had a no-fly zone over the area. No one could fly over the area. What they did do was—if you're interested in it—is that they used to have practice run from bombing from the Air Force coming to Hanford. And our job was to detect them, because we were there 24/7—and that's a phrase they never used at that time. And when they flew here, they would fly here sometimes 2,000 miles or 1,000 miles, the long range bombers, without us knowing it. And we had to find out. We had to detect them. And I'm proud to say that we did most of the time with our radar and our outpost and everything. And they did a lot of that just to practice on to make sure we were on the ball. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Were there ever any incidents where someone flew over who wasn't supposed to fly over? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Oh, yes. I've heard about that. They were watching on radar from the army bases around. Yes. From Fort Lewis especially. We've never really had an incident where I can think of where somebody actually flew over the reactors. Even the jets, you would see the contrail north or south, but never directly over. It was just no-fly zone. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So I would imagine a lot of the time you're doing, taking care of the guns, and there's probably some time where there's really not much going on. How did you pass the time, I guess? Would you stay entertained? Or playing softball, I guess? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: It was kind of fun what we did a lot of times. Sometimes—the worst times was Christmas to spend out there. And we had a ukulele. We would go out there and sing on the ukulele. Besides that. And playing baseball on our time off, even with the officers. I mean, they were just as bored as we were. And they entertained us that way in the day time. But we didn't have any telephones--there were no cell phones--where we could communicate with the people that we knew in Richland. So mainly what we did was maintained guns, did a lot of practice all the time to see that we were on the ball and doing the right thing. And being in communications, it was my job after I became Communications Sergeant to maintain communication by telephone. You had to use landlines between each gun with the radar section. And they did have a scope for an observer to make sure that we were on target. Now, radar was just introduced at that time. And if you're interested, I could tell you how they did it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay. What they did was--a 120 millimeter I think has a--it travels 3,300 feet a second. And it moves pretty fast. The object of it—the projectile was set to go off in mid-air. It doesn't hit a target. It explodes with a timer. It has the capacity to kill anything within 35 feet radius of that projectile. So the object was for the four guns to fire within a 70-foot radius. So anything in that zone was destroyed. But in order to accomplish this, they had to be synchronized to fire at the same millisecond, at the same time, and they did. And they would hit the target every time. The first time. They were really good. It was really interesting how they did it. They'd load the projectile in first in the top portion of a 120 millimeter. To accomplish this--that they fire at the same second and that are timed exactly alike on all four guns—they had to set the timer on the projectile. So in my time when they had training, I used to go out there on the gun and help load. Put the projectile in first. Now the gun--and I think there's about four or five people--four people there—had to set that projectile before we fired. So actually it would be in sequence with the other three that would go off. And to do this, they would get the command to set the timer, and all four guns had to set the timer at the same time, load it, and fire at his command. It was really something to see. I enjoyed watching it. I enjoyed helping loading it. But boy, oh boy. That's why I’m wearing hearing aids today is because of that. And the only time they ever fired them at Hanford was one time in almost three years that I was there, less than three years. Just for settling rounds so the guns would set inside. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: To give you an idea of what they did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how many guns were at each of the sites? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: It was four guns at each side, and we had four sites. Then they brought in another battalion of the 518 and 519 were brought in together. So they wound up with eight sites. And they were all in communication with each other. And they had just one landline that we put in between each other and the command post in North Richland. And we never had radio contact with North Richland, our command post, which they ran the whole thing from downtown North Richland, out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And you worked at the sites by DR-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Our site was by D and DR. I do know where the other sites were. They had one at the Two East Area near PUREX and where the Vit plant is. And then you had one site behind there near 240. We had another site there by the river between K Area and that area. And when we go in town and left just a minimum crew, sometimes you worked there as a minimum crew. You would have to travel to the other sites with the few men that we had for our food. And that's how they did it while the rest of the 100 people went in town and had R & R for a week—for a month actually. And that was the procedure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So I was going to ask you about that part, too. You said--so you would be on for three months and then you'd sort of have a month leave. So, during that month you just go into Richland, and I mean, and what was Richland like at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Richland was very, very small at the time. And I could still remember my first time that I had time off. If you could figure where North Richland is now, very far on top of the hill there--yeah, go by the school, and you go up the hill here? Off to the left were dorms—which two people could live in in those times. It was about two blocks in. Those dorms went from here all the way to the highway. The Bypass Highway, the main, where they meet. But anyway, we walked here to George Washington Way, that two, three blocks to that corner up on top. We were wearing uniform--me and my best friend--and we stood there, and we were looking to hitchhike, but we didn't have to. The first car that came by stopped. And it was a husband and wife and they had their daughter with them. And they said, are you soldiers looking for a ride into town? I said, yes. So they gave us a ride into town where they live. And I still remember their names. Their names were McCormick. And until the day they passed away 30 years later, I still knew them. That's how friendly the people were. Not only Richland. All three towns. And they--what they would do, the people—would invite the GIs on holidays if they were in the area to their homes. They were very friendly. Very friendly. Because being 18 years old, we were more interested in the high school girls. [LAUGHTER] But the town of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco, they accepted us very, very well. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And did most people know what you're doing at the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Oh, they knew we were with the artillery, and they knew we were out their guarding the plants, but we had no idea how those plants worked, how they did it. The closest we was is by DR, the first time when I told you about the house. That was within stone's throw. That's about as close. And then later on, the one on top of the hill by PUREX, at that time—if you're familiar with the process, the fuel elements had to be dissolved. When they dissolve them, they would exhaust it through those big, high stacks that you see. And they would use nitric acid. We didn't know this at the time, but we would see that smoke. A lot of times was light white. But when they were dissolving, they would actually turned rusted color. And this is how they exhaust it. And that's about the only thing we knew. We never did know why it changed colors. Not until after I went to work there. But that's--they didn't tell us any of that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So as young men on leave, were there things to do in a small town--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, a lot of times. What we used to do, like if we had that week, but we still had to have a three-day pass to leave, and we still had a post there to stay in. And the mess hall was still on the main street there—that block that's still there. And we ate there, and we ran to a lot of training. They utilized that time in training and updating us on the training and what was going on. We’d go to classes. And then I--the Korean War broke out, if you want to know about that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: When the Korean War broke out, I was scheduled to be discharged in January. My enlistment was up for three years. But I couldn't. I would--all leaves and furloughs and discharges were frozen because of the war. General Mark Clark was the leader of the West Coast. He's a pretty famous guy. And now we're under a different mode out here. We were worried about in case what would happen if they would have ever try and bomb the Hanford, we didn't know. And they didn't want to lose the personnel that were there that had the experience, like I did, from the beginning and a lot of us did. They kept us there. As the war progressed, a lot of us did volunteer. I was one to volunteer because I was tired of being out there for over two years and living in a tent. If I'm going to live there that way, why not help the country? So I volunteered to go to Korea. It was three of us that did. But we went to Fort Lewis, and they rejected us and sent us back. And we never knew why until years, many years later why they rejected us. We had a reunion, our 50th year reunion—it was that long before we found out! Our 50 year Hanford reunion, we invited our officers that had been here a time that had retired. And one general who was still in command of the west coast came to it. And he said the reason why--that was my question. Why were we turned down? Why was I turned down? I mean, I was healthy enough to go to combat. Because I was really stupid, too, for volunteering. [LAUGHTER] Not really. But anyway, he told us because if we ever got captured by the Koreans, they would torture us to the point that we would tell them the sites. We would know all the sites, and that's what they would want to know. So, and you would give them that information, because that's what they would do to you. And that's why we didn't go, and weren’t unable to go. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So you were sent back here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Sent me back here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Until when and how long were you still stationed here then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, I was stationed here. They extended me for nine months, from January to September. And President—at that time, it was Harry Truman. And he gave us an extension. But during that nine month period, I met my wife. So maybe it was meant to be. Remember I said, Oh, God, why did you send me here? Well, I think he knew what he was doing. I got to meet my wife. We decided to get married whenever that would be. Because I didn't want to get married while I was there. I made that decision to stay here and go to work here. But I did have a very big problem. In the beginning of the conversation I told you that I didn't even go to high school. Minimum education was a high school diploma. And I did not have one. So I didn't know what to do yet. To get a GED diploma you had to have--you had to be 21 for the state of New York. So I went to our recreational captain. His name was Reeves, I'll never forget. Bless that guy. I told him I had a problem and that I wanted to get married, but to go to work here, I had to have a high school diploma. He says, we'll fix you up on that. I says, okay. He says, when do you get discharged? I says, I don't know, but they keep telling us in the fall. He says, well, you're going to get one chance at a test because after that, if you fail the test you would have to wait another year. But you're going to get discharged. So we're going to get it right the first time. Consists of five tests and each takes about an hour. Wow. But he said, don't worry about it. He says, I'll get you to study all these things and everything and you'll be ready for the test. And I says, I got a problem with that, too. He was really perplexed. He says, why? I says, I don't know how to study. And he gave me the funniest look. He says, you don't? I said, no. I says, I never went to high school. He says, okay. He said, we'll take care of that part. I'll teach you how to study. And he did. He babysat me for the next two months, and I passed the test, got my GED, wound up going to work but that took a little time because I was uneducated. And we got married, and I had no job. My poor wife was working. And it was tough. I kept going to the employment office there for General Electric, which was running the plants at that time. They said, we have nothing for you. There's nothing going on. And I'd bug them. I’d go back every week or two. And finally, in the first part of December, I says, hey. You know, there's got to be something. I said, I'll take anything. He says, no, we don't have anything. And then he said, well, we do have one job, but you don't want that. I said, what is it? He says, washing clothes in the laundry. I says, I'll take it. He said, you will? I says, hey, I just got married. I can't find a job. I will do anything just to get to go to work at Hanford because then maybe once I get in I could transfer. And he says, okay. And I did. And that's how I got started. And I worked for a year, and I transferred out. That's another story. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So did your wife grow up here or was she just here working? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: She grew up in Prosser. She was born there in Prosser, went to school in Wapato and graduated from Wapato and became—went to secretarial school and became a secretary and went to work here. And that's how I met her. I met her in town. The only really, what they call a hang out in town was the old mart. It was kind of like a big coffee house, and everybody would gather there. And that's where I met her. They--the girls lived in dorms. They didn't have housing, and they worked out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So you said you--so what was the frame here when you ended your service with the army and then you got the job with the laundry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: How long did it take? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Or what time—year are we talking about roughly? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: December, just two weeks before Christmas. I got hired in 1952. And then I worked there for 38 years and got September 22nd. And our anniversary was the 26th in September. I had a lot of things happening. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So your first job was working in the laundry. Where was the laundry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The laundry was in Two West Area. Soon as you came in through the gate, it was off to the left. We still-I worked there a year and didn't know. I did see--I was wondering what this guy did. He came in to survey laundry bags that came in. And I asked him. I saw him with this thing. I didn't know what it was. Of course, it was a Geiger counter, but I didn't know that. And he was going over these bags. I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm surveying to see if they're contaminated. And I says, oh. I said, contaminated from what? And then he looked at me kind of funny. He says, well from radioactive contamination. That's waste. I says, oh. I says, and that's your job? Yeah. I said, how do I become one of those? What are you called? He said, radiation monitor. I said, wow. I said, that sounds like an interesting. He says, it is. And I never forgot what he did. I said, in other words, they can't do anything without you. He said, that's right. So I put in for it. And I got turned down. The answer was no. But I did go into engineering assistant in metallurgy, which was the fuel elements that they put in there. I did do that work. And then, finally, I met someone doing that work. It was the first time I ever went into a reactor. What we did in that job was to inspect the fuel prior to radiation and then underwater in the basin behind—in the big reactor building. We worked from 30 feet away, put it on a cradle, and inspected that same fuel element so that the engineers could see what the difference. Because when it ruptured it, the reactor would have to go down because uranium is canned to stop that from happening. And when that ruptures, it increased—it becomes contaminating, contaminates the cooling water. And, therefore, they had to divert it to a crib. When that happened and reactors go down. So they were assigned, the metallurgists, to do this to stop this, to find out why they were rupturing. And that's how I got a job as an assistant. It was a nothing really job, but it was kind of interesting. But it was done in the rear face of the reactor where the fuel element was discharged. There again, people would come by and ask us what we were doing. So I told them. I said, we are inspecting the fuel just like I just told you. And this one gentleman came by. And he says, could you explain to me what you're doing? I said, sure. Come on over here. I said, you got to put on a lab coat, the minimum protective clothing, and look down the periscope to see the element and see what it looks like after it's been irradiated. And he looked at that, and he says, oh, that's what they look like up close. And I said, yeah. And I write the description on it, what it looks like after irradiation, the same one that I inspected prior to irradiation. He says, wow. And I says, yeah, the engineers use that information to stop—see what causes ruptures, so they can make them better so they don't rupture and the reactors could run. He said, wow. So every day he came by. Then he asked me, he says, do you enjoy your work? I says, it's fine, but it's not really what I would like to do. He said, what would you like to do? And I said, you know those guys that go around with the Geiger counters and check for contamination of radiation. He said, you mean radiation monitoring? And I said, yeah. I said, I would like to become one of those. He said, you do? I said, yeah. He says, okay. That's all he said. This was the beginning of the week. He comes there again on Friday, and he said, Rick. He says, Monday I want you to report to this here place and gave me the address and where it was at. And I looked at him. I said, what for? He says, they're starting the training class for radiation monitors, and it would take a period of 18 months. He says, you want to become one. You are one, but you have to go to training. It takes 18 months, and if you don't pass, you're out. So you have to do it. I looked at him, and I said, how did you do that? He goes, well, I ought to. I'm the supervisor of it. I'm the director of the whole thing. [LAUGHTER] Needless to say, ‘til the time in my whole career, I had him to thank to where I progressed in the field of radiation. I found out so many things about it. I could keep you here for hours. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: What was his name? Who was that? Do you remember? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I think his name was Preston. I'm not sure. Because then I didn't get to know him. I didn't get out very often to see him, to say thank you. But he got me in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So I wanted to ask you. So which reactors did you work at? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: All of them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I was in B Reactor. And we celebrated our--1962. We reached a milestone in the year 1962. And we held a—we had a little celebration of it. And safety. We had an excellent—zero, no safety accidents, no nothing. And we had a little party for that. In fact, the picture is still there that day that I--that was with me when we had a little scare. And that was in B Reactor, which is--you know what it is today? In fact, I finally got to take my wife out there and showed her what I did. She was just--you know, like you walk through the door and all of a sudden you see this reactor. You've seen B reactor. Okay. It is breathtaking. I wanted to take her around to my office and to the basements and tell her exactly what I was doing. But some of the monitors that were there had remembered me where I helped train some years ago. And they said, we know who you are. So B Reactor was one of them. We only had one that would be on swing shift and graveyard. There was only one assigned there to a crew in each reactor. See? So you are responsible--it's the reason why I enjoyed radiation monitoring—you're responsible for all the work that goes on for the safety of the people to go in there and not—you had to go with them, set the dose rates, airborne contamination, and all that. I loved my job. It was interesting. And this is what we did. And we had a small crew of about maybe 12. But I enjoyed the job because it had substance and responsibility. And you become like a family. Working together, swing, graveyard, and the different projects that come up that you had to do during shutdowns. And they would have crews to come in to help discharge the metal, which was called, what they call a supplemental crew. And so, essentially I worked on all the reactors where they needed. And I did have over ten years. It was very good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Did you have to wear special protective clothing at all when you guys would monitor? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: All the time. We set the standards. That was my job. Set the standards of you say you want to go into zone and do this, I have to ask you why. You had to have a reason when you go into the radiation zone. Well, we're going to do this, and we're going to do that. Okay. This is what you have to wear. You have to be trained in the uses of how to dress and undress in the zone. And we also would send them in to keep time if they've had higher readings and levels and how long you could stay there. Now, they also have changed the program where they trained all the people to do that. But it was my job, essentially, to take care of them. And it was very difficult at first because I was pretty young. I was in like my mid-20s, and then you have maintenance people and other people, that are 40, 50 years old. And you had to be very careful how you handled people. And I was told that that was my biggest asset, to be able to communicate with people. Because you're a service group. And we had to take them into the zone. And a lot of them don't like when a young kid does and tell them this. But you soon learn that, you know, we had to do it because that's your job, and they understood. Once they knew you, they were over the hump. It was interesting. I loved my job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And you said you did that for about ten years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Then we went to separate—they were shutting down the reactors. '65, that year, and when they shut down the reactors, I was going to be out of a job. And the plant manager, and his name was Roy Dunn, he came up to me and called me in the office. And he says, Rick. He says, you've got to get out of here. They're going to shut this down maybe in a year, two years. But we are a different plant. We want to go where you're going to have a job. And I said, where would that be? He said, separations. The tank farms, which you already know about. Without that there, you wouldn't have anybody out there. [LAUGHTER] And so I transferred over there. And when I did, it was a different world because of—in the reactors, you deal with gamma, beta, neutron radiation and beta contamination. But you also have alpha radiation, which is produced only after this fuel element has been irradiated and separated to get Pu-239 creating this alpha. And I had no experience with alpha. Piece of Kleenex. If you had, say, a spot of alpha contamination, as an example. If you put a piece of Kleenex over, it would cover and you couldn't detect it unless it was really high. Then it would emit gamma. Then you could detect it. But that was a rare case. Most of the time, you couldn't detect. And you had to use certain instruments for alpha. And that's what we had to learn in separation portion of that. And that's a whole new ball game from the reactor. It's amazing. Only a government could make plutonium. It was so complicated. So complicated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how long were you over there then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: From '65 to the time I became--until I retired. In my last five years. The building--are you familiar with the PFP plant? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I've never worked there. And being in radiation monitoring that long, I got promoted into management. That was the building that they assigned me to, the most visible building in the world. And that was a lot of fun. You know, it was challenging. Because they're making the final product there. They’re taking a liquid and solidifying for transportation into the fuel element that they want, which is the ammunition for the atomic bomb. And that was my last five years in management there. We did fine. We had a lot of incidents. Like I said, I could talk to you for hours on that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Are there any that really stand out? Any incidents that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah, you want to share one of them? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Two of them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Sure. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The one I want to share with you is in my last year in reactors, and it was in--they ran 24/7. Because we had to make plutonium. They never shut them down unless they had to. All of a sudden, we're going to shut this down for the weekend. My boss comes up to me. He says, I've got a job for you for the weekend. He said, you're going to be working with these personnel, and we're going to remove a fuel element from the side of the reactor. Picture the reactor as a big box. All the elements go out front-back. But this one came in through the side. He said, we're going to remove a fuel element. I want you to take care of that job. I says, okay. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it was the Navy that was doing it. So, I got to meet all these officers. And I says, what are you going to do? What's your plan? And they showed me, explained to me. They used a bowling ball type of a cask, which is about half of the size. It had to fit on an 18-wheel flatbed. But it was about 15 feet up and this one little whole that was only about six inches in diameter or less, sideways. The object was to go send a cable into the cast, into the reactor, hook onto the fuel element, bring it out. But it would be exposed to air about six to ten inches, and in that time, it would release a high level of radiation. And I was there to make sure that we were far enough and to an exposure level that we were able to work with this. We got it done. We were about approximately 100 feet away. And when that came out, it was--it couldn't be more than about 20 seconds to go through by that space and then into cask, then the readings would subside down. They would subside to less than about five, which is workable, so they can transport it. We did. We got done with the job. I think it was about three of them that we got to do. And it took us two ways to do it. We got invited down afterwards for a party at--it used to be called the Desert Inn, that big hotel here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Red Lion. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The Red Lion. No. Is that the one in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah. The Red Lion. Right. So we went over there, and, he says you're always asking me. He said, what we're doing and what it's for. And he says, and I couldn't tell you. And I said, that's right. So during the party, you know, we had dinner and everything. He comes over to me. He hands me the telephone. He says, it's for you. I had no idea who the hell is on the other of that. I got the phone. I said, hello? He said, I'm Admiral Rickover. I said, Admiral Rickover? You mean, you're the godfather of the Navy--of nuclear ships. He said, that's me. He said, I just wanted to thank you. He said, you've done a great job with the men. They all told me what you did. And I just want to personally say hello to you. And he said, I know you had a question, but why. I said, yes, I do. He said, well, I can't tell you why. He says, but you’ll get the answer in about three months. I said, how? He said, just read the newspaper. And then he says, pat yourself on the back for something that you helped do. That was the end of the conversation. I had no idea why. No idea. And you listening to me are probably wondering what it was. I get up one morning, read the paper. The Nautilus submarine went under the North Pole for the first voyage ever. Because of nuclear power, it could stay underwater that long. Where was it the nuclear power fuel elements came from? Come from Hanford. So now I knew. I was real thrilled about that. And I hardly couldn't believe it. But that was one of the best. I've been on a lot of dirty ones there with contamination. But that was the number one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Any other stories you want—any incidents that really stand out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay, we up one morning there. And this is after we went into separations away from the reactors, years later. I get up, and my wife says, they had an explosion at Hanford. I said, what? They said, that's all over the news. It's on national news. I says, they can't have an explosion with the--that's an atomic explosion. I said, that can't be done. They could have what they call a criticality. You're familiar with the criticality? They could have that, but they can't have an explosion as such. So watch the news. I got up and went, oh, sure. What had happened was that they had an explosion. This man got highly contaminated and operated. Very highly contaminated, and they were going to send him to the hospital. But they didn't know. But we didn't know. I called some of my fellow workers, and they were telling me. I was working on the swing shift, the 4:00 to 12:00 shift. So all that morning, I'm listening to that, and the news is going on. And I'm working at B Plant, which is a different separation plant. This happened in the 234-5 building, PFP plant, and I had not been there. So that's what I found out. What had happened was that this operator was working in there, and they had--it was a steam compressor of sorts that they got over pressurized, and the pipe did explode. And in doing so, it wasn't a big--it was just enough to break the windows of gloveboxes that they work in. And when it did that, he had the right protective clothing on, but it hit him in the face. See? And it went through, and he got all highly contaminated from the head down. So what they--I go to work at 4:00. Different area, East and West. I'm in the East Area. And here was my boss standing there. The plant manager standing there. And they says, we want to talk to you. So we talked. My boss said to me—and he is long gone, his name was Bernie Cyrusek. He was our big head honcho, what a wonderful man. He said, here's what I want you to do. He said, you're going to go downtown. They're going to use that new decontamination building. The operator that got contaminated, his name was McCluskey. We want to get that building cleaned up tonight, on the rest of the swing shift and during the night on graveyard by 8:00 in the morning so his family could visit him. You know, your grandfather, your husband. His family wanted to see them. And so I'm going to send you down there. I said, why me? He gave me the simple answer. Because I'm telling you to do it. They're not familiar with alpha contamination, now—remember what I was telling you about alpha? They were working in the 300 Area. They did not deal with alpha contamination, and they did not know what to do. So they had to have experienced people. The ones that went in there brought him in an ambulance and everything. And to make a long time short, we had to go down there. And they briefed us to take two operators with you to clean up the room. And the president of our company, he said, we want you to stay so far away from that building because it's going to have people from the press there. So we're going to wait 'til dark, and then you're going to come around the back of the building. And I said, whoa, whoa. Stop. And he looked at me, and he said, what? I said, you want us to do a job, right? Now you want to handcuff me. You take care of the press. But let us do our job. We're going to do it the way we have to do it. And you're back there. If you think you're too close, you move him back. But we're not going to wait 'til dark, a certain time. We're going to do it. Once we start, we have to go and do it. He looked at me, he said, okay. So they did. And we went in there. And the biggest problem we had: the nurses. They had to administer medicine to him. We got all dressed up, two layers of clothing and supplied air to go in the room. The room is about the size of this room. It's like a part--like watching a science fiction movie, the dark, the lights. Here's a man laying on a gurney. He's bare from the waist up to his head. He's just laying there. And he's got two white pieces of gauze covering his eyes. And the rest of him was bare. The problem was that he got contamination into his eyes. So they were administering water solution to kind of keep flushing his eyes out. That's, you know, the doctors have to be careful there. Of course, it would be puffed up. And he was laying on the gurney. And this nurse was sitting there. Two pairs of cover up. The temperature in there is 104 because they had to shut off—that's the first thing we did was shut off the air contamination. We could not expose airborne contamination to the atmosphere. So we had to shut the air conditioning off. That was the first thing we did. And I looked at that. Like I said, I thought there's a scene from a science fiction movie. Went over there, to the eyes. There's a table there. Some of the men in radiation monitoring were not familiar with how to work with alpha contamination. Okay. You cannot reuse a lot of the stuff, what the doctors were using. And they had all their instruments on the table. So we took the bag and put a box, emptied it out, and just cleaned it out and dumped it in there. And the guy said, what are you doing that for? I said, would you like a doctor to work on you with contaminated tools? No. He said, use new ones. And that's what we did. We got it cleaned up. So we're working back and forth. Every two hours, we take a break and go outside. So I asked them, I says, the nurses. Where are they, the ones that were here during the daytime? I said, are they still here? They said, no. We sent them home. You did? And I said, who surveyed them? He said, the guys did. And I said, were they naked when you surveyed them? They said, of course not. I said, well then you better bring them back, and you better go check the houses. Remember what I told you about that tissue? I said, they've got a bra on. They've got their panties on. I says, how do you know they didn't contaminated under their bra? Any of that. I said, that happens. It happens all the time out at work sometimes you get contaminated in your shorts. So you have to be very careful. It can come back and bite you [INAUDIBLE]. If they say that you got contaminated during incident because you didn't do your job right. He said, well, what would you do? I said, well, right now in the midst of training are some females, the first ones ever to do our job. I said, call them. They know have to survey. And take them with you to their homes and everything to make sure everything's clean. So that's what they did. They got them all checked out. By the grace of God, they did not get contaminated under their bra, to the skin, and we did it the right way. And they were very pleased. They had never thought about that. Well, you know, when you do it as often as I had, I knew what to do. And we did. And we got it done. 8:00, his family went in there. I was ready to go home. We got it cleaned up. We got him cleaned enough so his family could visit. They had to wear protective clothing, but we got it so that the air samples were down below limits so there was nothing exposed to the air. That was my second biggest incident. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: I wanted to ask you. You had at least a few different jobs working in different areas. Did you have a job that was the most challenging or one that was the sort of most rewarding in your years working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: That one there was very rewarding. Because the room was highly contaminated with alpha. It was bad. I mean everything that we had to throw away to be sure and go back and re-clean it and re-clean. We worked on it pretty close to 16 hours. And the two same operators in there. And then we had to bring in the other operators to help us to help them. But they had to do it certain ways because, like I said, they weren't familiar with alpha contamination. Radiation was not a factor, was not a factor at all. See, a lot of people don't know the difference between contamination and radiation. So it was not a factor. You could work there as long as you wanted. But contamination was terrible. And we got it done. And so it was very rewarding to get that and to know that his family got to visit him. And you know, I never got to see this guy or talk to him. But they were very grateful. That was rewarding. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: How about the most challenging work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The challenging part of it was getting it done in the timeframe and teaching the others. And especially the--when I found out that the women went home. I was worried about that. Because nurses have to do their job when they're there. You know, help the doctors. And I wanted to be sure that they were clean and didn't take it home with them. We got that done so that they didn't. That was very challenging. We got that done. But there were other ones, too, but not on that level that is. Because they still talk about it. In fact, I met an engineer that I talked to who’s doing something of how they decontaminated that building. He says, I wish I would have known you before we did it. See, because the building has been brought down. But you have to throw it away. We buried the ambulance that he came in. The whole thing was buried. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Where? Out on site somewhere? Where was it buried? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I forget what area. But they had to cover it to move it. We did not want them to move it as such. So we had the seal it. The first rule of any contamination spread, the very first rule, you have to contain it. You don't do what the Japanese did in that island, I mean, after that tsunami. They forgot the first rule. You've got to contain the contamination. You cannot make it go airborne. That's dangerous to the population. That is what we always keep in mind. And that's why we went over there, and we did that to that ambulance. We wrapped it all up. And, of course, the monitors already had that done before I got there. But what they also had to do was the 30 miles of roadway had to be surveyed from PFP plant to the hospital. You know, you spend time, and you hear the phrase, there's no experience like experience. And in my case that was the case. As I became more experienced, the more I got picked on to do these dirty jobs—which I didn't mind because a lot of times I volunteered. I wanted to see what was going on. I should have been a woman. I was inquisitive. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: I was going to ask you, if you look back at your years working in Hanford, overall how would you assess Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: That's a good question, and I have a very good answer to that. I really didn't know what the answer was until I visited other sites. I knew I was going to get to retire within the year. And then my boss—I mentioned his name, Bernie Cyrusek. I said, you know what I never did is visit another site? I know what we do here, but we don't know what the others do there. Rocky Flats, Los Alamos. I said, I would like to go to that site and visit my peers and see how they do their job compared to us. Well, he said, you're going to get, you know, a year. He said, in less than a year now you're going to get retired. He said, but I'm going to do it because you're in there. So he did. I even got to take my wife, but I had to pay her airfare. And the first place we visited was Rocky Flats, and they went over in to New Mexico and went to Los Alamos. Have you ever been to those sites? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: I've been to Los Alamos. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay. You've never been to Rocky Flats? Rocky Flats had a lot of problems, maybe some I shouldn't--I can't talk to you about. But the one thing that I noticed that they did at Rocky Flats, which was a no-no—We have lunchrooms out at work, the reactor. You're got to have a place to have lunch, right? That's a sacred place for being clean. We don't want anybody eating food that has any possibility of having contamination around. Our lunchrooms were surveyed all the time at work. And I notice this. When we're out at lunch, I'm seeing people with lab coats going in to eat lunch in them. So I asked my fellow managers, I says, why are you allowing this? He said, what? I says, see those people? They have what we call SWP clothing, which is the acronym for them for protective clothing. And he said, well, there's nothing wrong with it. They're surveyed. I said, who surveyed them? He said, well, they do it themselves, surveying. And I said, and you trust them that they're clean, and you're going to go eat right next to them? I says, I wouldn't. I would do it with our own people. I said, why don't you have your own people do it? Well, they won't let us. Well, I says, then you tell them we're not going to eat there You're not going to eat there. Because it should be clean. They should not wear any protective clothing in the lunchroom. That's a no-no. Well, we can't do it. I said, don't give me that. You're the supervisor. You're the manager. You set the rules. The guy above you don't set the rules. He may override you, but you set the rules. It's your responsibility to keep the safety of the people. You've got to do your job, and you're not doing it. He says, I know you're right. And I said, well, then do it because when I report back there I'm going to tell my boss the one thing I didn't like about Rocky Flats. And I did. [LAUGHTER] Los Alamos. They were a lot better. They were a lot better. They didn't allow things like that to happen. They had one thing that they had there that I wish we had had. There were so many radiation zones that we needed to know the exact readings of the airborne contamination, like here in this room. We're breathing this air. Is it clean? What you have to do is go in there with the portable, take the air sample off of that in the room, locate it. Take that sample paper off, bring it in, count the sample, and then we decide what the limits are from what our readings are. But in Los Alamos they had a different system, which I liked. They had probes on the air sample, which this detector would tell you what the level was at a remote area. So wouldn't it be nice to have a room that you could tell anybody at any time what the level of airborne contamination is? Once that alarm goes off, you could shut it down right now. And this reduces the amount of people that might be in there to get airborne contaminated and ingested into their lungs. I said, that's our job to do this. And I think Los Alamos gets an A for that. There's other things, but I won’t talk about that. So when I came back, I found out how really safe Hanford was. When somebody would ask me, do you think it's safe to work out there? I said, do you think I'm a dummy? Am I going to work out there where I'm not safe? One thing at Hanford always did, and I'll emphasize this. Safety comes first. And they did it, and they meant it. And I thank them. Because they taught me that. They taught me that in everyday life. I am very proud of Hanford's safety record. They did a good job. And that's how I found out they were the best one. And it was just the other two. They weren't as good as we are. We're number one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today and talking with us. I really appreciate it--and for sharing your stories and experiences. It's terrific. Thanks very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: You are quite welcome. I really enjoyed it. You just brought back some good memories of my life. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Awesome. [LAUGHTER] </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:10:56 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 179 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview F Reactor DR Area VIT Plant Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX K Area 300 Area B Reactor PFP plant 234-5 building Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1950-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1952-1970 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Dunn, Roy Cyrusek, Bernie Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Philip "Rick" Riccobuono Description An account of the resource An interview with Philip "Rick" Riccobuono conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 11/6/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-21: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 234-5 building 300 Area B Reactor DR Area F Reactor K Area PFP plant Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) VIT Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1f3f2ad4eabfdc6465a8afa210779012.jpg 269c664e01e416ed126dfd99c1175b8c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7daa69ce21ddcd39044ef6f3581c873d.mp4 9cadf5113faa28298003da2a0f4ba0f5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rickard, Bill Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Rickard_Bill Robert Bauman: Turn the microphone on here. Man one: Yeah. Bauman: Okay. Man one: Go ahead and just get comfortable. And whenever you’re ready. Bauman: Okay. All right. We're going to go ahead and get started. I need to put my glasses on so I can see what I’m doing here. So if we could start first by just having you say your name and then spell your name for us. William Rickard: Okay. My name is William H. Rickard Jr. W-I-L-L-I-A-M H. R-I-C-K-A-R-D Junior, J-R period. Bauman: Thank you. And my name's Robert Bauman. Today's date is December 4, 2013. And we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So maybe we could start by just having you tell us a little bit about your background--where you're from, when you came to Hanford, what brought you here, that sort of thing. Rickard: Okay. Well, the first time that I ever heard the words atomic bomb, I was rifleman in an infantry company for the Chinese combat command in a place in China called Chihkiang. Chihkiang was a dirt airstrip. There were about 100 soldiers there. Our main duty was to guard an ammunition dump at an airfield. In August, 1945, I'd been in the Army for 15 months. I was 19 years old. The captain called us together and said that United States Air Force had dropped a bomb in Japan. It was an atomic bomb. Of course, I was extremely glad that the war was over. It was a few days later, I stood on the same airstrip and a Japanese airplane flew in. Only I'd been in the Army in January, February, and March, and April along the Burma Road in China. During that stay in Burma, slept on the ground every night. Kept my M1 rifle with me all the time. When I got to China, I got a bed for the first time in four months. So Chihkiang duty was pretty soft compared to Burmese duty. And when they dropped the atomic bomb, I knew I would be going home. Well, they had a point system in the Army. I think you needed 65 points. And you got points for combat experience and so forth. Well, I was one point short. So guess what. I got assigned to a military police company in Shanghai, China. For six months, I was an MP in Shanghai, which is probably more dangerous than my stay at Chihkiang. But anyway, I finally got home. Like most veterans did, I used the GI Bill to get a degree. I graduated from the University of Colorado in 1950 with a degree in botany. And I got a job at the University of Colorado at that time installing weather stations in the Front Range. While I had a job, I decided to go to school some more, and I wanted to be a high school teacher so I could teach botany and biology. Well, I graduated from Colorado in 1950 and got a master's degree in 1953. And then I decided, well, maybe I ought to think of teaching in college. So I applied for a research assistant appointment at Pullman. So in 1953, Barbara, my wife, and I went to Pullman. And there I graduated in 1957 with a Ph.D. with Dr. Daubenmire. The first job I got was as assistant professor of biology at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. But it was a part time teaching job. The other part was a field research job at the Nevada Test Site. And the purpose of my work at the Nevada Test Site was to study the impacts of atomic explosions on the botanical aspects of the Nevada Test Site—Yucca, Frenchman Flat and Jackass Flat. I worked there for four years and saw the last above ground explosion, which was during the operation of Project Hardtack and Plumbbob. While I was at the Test Site, I met Jared Davis, who was working at Hanford. He was in the biology department and he offered me a job at Hanford. So I moved to Richland in 1960 and was employed by the General Electric Company. At that time, most of the interest was on developing peaceful uses of atomic energy. And one of these was to use nuclear explosion to dig a harbor at Cape Thompson in Alaska. And part of our job there was to get baseline data on the biota of the Arctic, and also to measure how much radioactivity had already been deposited by the years of nuclear testing by the United States and Russia. So that was the start of that. And I worked up there for a couple of summers. And I worked with Jerry Davis there, and Wayne Hanson, Don Watson, and Roy Nakatani, and Leo Bustad, and Frank Hungate. Frank was my boss for a while. And Jared Davis was the boss. But my real interest at Hanford was, although I did the uptake of radioactivity from soil to plants, I was really interested in perhaps getting a part of the Hanford site set aside as a kind of a research park. Had lots of help from various people that thought this was a good idea, particularly Rexford Daubenmire at Pullman and Herb Parker, who was manager of the Hanford Laboratories. We conceived the idea perhaps establishing Rattlesnake Mountain as a research natural area. And with the help of other people, particularly Benton County Commissioner at that time, and the building of the Highway 240 from Richland to Vernita Bridge, that set Rattlesnake Mountain apart from the rest of the site and offers a good excuse to--since it was primarily a buffer zone, that this would be a good place to establish the reserve, which eventually turned out to be the Arid Land Ecology Reserve. Which in 2000, was turned over to the Fish and Wildlife Service as a part of the Hanford Reach National Monument. So most of my research activity was done on ALE Reserve after the work we'd done in Alaska. Bauman: And so what sorts of work were you doing at ALE Reserve? Rickard: Well, the first project we started on was the impact of cattle grazing on shrub steppe. And we did that in conjunction with the International Biological Research Program--yeah, International Biological Research Program, which was divided up into various sections. One part was grasslands of North America. And the ALE Reserve is representative of sagebrush steppe vegetation in the Northwestern United States. There were other sites in New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, Montana, North and South Dakota. And that lasted for several years. Then as time went on, I got older. And most of the work that I did was then associated with environmental impact statements. Even did the first environmental impact statement from what was the WPPSS plant at that time--the Basalt Waste Isolation Program. And I finally retired sometime. I don't know. Can't remember. I was 65 years old. But while I worked for the General Electric Company, I also taught school at an Army barracks down where the bus lot is today. And I taught the first class in plant ecology. And among my students over the years was Lester Eberhardt, Dick Fitzner, and Dennis Dauble, and Brett Tiller, president of Environmental Assessment Services. So for 30 years, I've taught as an adjunct professor at Washington State University in the Tri-Cities. Bauman: And where was that located again, when you first started teaching at the Army? Rickard: It was an Army barracks. That was the building that was the beginning of the WSU campus. One of my first students was Les Eberhardt, Dick Fitzner, which later were killed in an airplane accident in the Yakima Firing Center. But over the years, many people that worked at Hanford had taken my classes. Bauman: I want to go back, if we can, to when you were talking about your work in New Mexico, at the Nevada Test Site—it’s interesting. What sorts of things did you find in your research there? Rickard: Well, one of the first things that--these were small explosions—ten to 40 kiloton range, maybe up to 100. And they fired them one a week. Of course, when you watch one of these things from ten miles away, from a shot that's on a tower, maybe 500 or 600 feet off the ground, first thing you'd see is just a flash of light and then as the ball forms, it's just a whole mess of colors--purple, orange. And then it disappears and a whole lot of activity, just a massive amount of activity. And then things catch on fire. There's creosote bush, yucca trees a mile away just ignite like kitchen matches. And then the cloud develops and the big stem and the mushroom cloud. But the vegetation just disappears. It's just cooked. But even after a few summers, the surviving vegetation comes back. And the physicists at the test site that made these things, people from Los Alamos and Livermore, about the only thing they noticed that after a year or two after the explosion, that the ground was bare and then it would get green. And that was a big surprise to the physicists. But was quite common to plant ecologists, because the plant was Russian thistle. It would blow across the landscape, scatter seeds, and the first invading plant was Russian thistle. Just like at Hanford, where you plow up a field and leave it, what do you get? Russian thistle, and then a whole lot of other plants come in. And in time, it would recover because most of the radioactivity wasn't at the site, it was gone. It went someplace else. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Hmm. Interesting. And then your work in Alaska-- Rickard: Yes. Bauman: What sorts of things did you find in your research there? Rickard: Well, the main thing there was my colleague, Wayne Hanson, he was interested in the food chain of American Eskimos, and the fallout from nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific and Russia and various places. The northern hemisphere got most of the fallout, and in heavy fallout areas, with rain, like in Arctic Alaska. And the flora there was occupied--a great part of it was lichens and mosses, which were the food of caribou. Radioactive fallout comes down with rain and snow. And if you have a long lived plant, it keeps accumulating on the leaves until the leaves drop. And then they hit the ground and decompose, and cesium and strontium, which are about a half-life of 30 years, eventually get into the soil and then can recycle. In Alaska, the mosses and lichens, they don't die right away. And they keep accumulating radionuclides, and builds up so that it has very high levels of radionuclides as compared to trees that drop their leaves, grasses that die. And lichens are an important food of caribou in the wintertime. So they accumulated large burdens of radiocesium. And then the people, the diet of the American Indians and Eskimos of Alaska consisted of caribou meat. So the people had higher levels of radiocesium than people in the United States. That's a health physics concern, which is like Ron Kathren, that's their job. Bauman: Yeah. So you talked ALE a little bit, and your involvement in that. And you mentioned Benton County Commissioner. Do you remember a Benton County Commissioner who was-- Rickard: I don't remember his name, but he loved wildflowers. And at that time, the county was interested in building a road from Prosser to Vernita Bridge. They wanted to go through Snively Canyon. But the Department of Energy didn't think that was a good idea. But we had to convince the county that it wasn't a good idea. And the county commissioner, he decided that he ought to side with the Department of Energy. Bauman: So what was it about—why the desire to create ALE, I guess? What was it about the area that you thought was-- Rickard: Just the desire to create a natural area, probably dates back to the days of Theodore Roosevelt setting apart National Forests and National Parks. And we have nice National Parks in the country--Mount Rainier in Washington, and Olympic, all representing mostly forested areas. Rocky Mountain National Park, Yosemite. But nobody was interested in saving sagebrush, sagebrush grass habitats. This was primarily because sagebrush was not viewed as a useful resource. In fact, it was a pest. And rangeland managers thought it was a good idea to get rid of it. And when the first travelers crossed southern Idaho, they burned it because it provided fuel. But they hated it because it didn't provide any food for their cattle or sheep. So it was then regarded as a pest. And every Bureau of Land Management started campaigns to get rid of it. But before you got rid of it, we had to understand if it had any good. But this was a tough sell. You're not going to sell this, that keeping it has any benefits. But it's also wise if you have a resource that you can destroy it, or at least you ought to understand how it works. It's been here a long time, and learn the mechanics that has enabled it to stay this way. And the biggest threat to the shrub steppe was people. When Lewis and Clark came here, there was several resources in Washington State that people could use right away. One was the fish, one was the forest, the other was grass. So it's no surprise our first white people in Washington used the grass. They brought in cattle and sheep. Then came the magnificent discovery of the plow that now you plow up this stuff and raise crops. You could even raise more crops with irrigation. So it started to disappear. Half the sagebrush steppe in Washington disappeared by 1914. So this resource was getting smaller and smaller. So at least some of the people think that, well, maybe we ought not get rid of it all. And the Hanford site was an unusual opportunity to do this, because people who were farming were moved. This is the first time in history that a productive, cultivated land was converted to a lower use instead of a higher use. Higher uses are urban areas, places like Hanford, industry. Lower uses are cattle grazing. But the highest use of all is probably research and education. So here we have an opportunity where we had towns completely destroyed, abandoned productive fields that are now allowed to go revegetate by themselves. And they have. For the last 70 years it's been slowly changing back to what it would be, but it's been impeded by a lot of alien species that came with agriculture. Among these are cheatgrass, Russian thistle, and others. So it's important to have a place where you can just monitor the changes that take place over time. Bauman: I want to also ask you about something that you're involved in, the National Environmental Research Park? Rickard: Yes. Bauman: Could you explain that, what that was? Rickard: It was the national--all the DOE sites--not all, but most of them--belonged to the National Environmental Research Park. Oak Ridge, Savannah River, Hanford, Los Alamos. I think those are the--and Savannah River, yeah. And the purposes of the park was just to serve as places where we could do ecological research in different kinds of ecosystems. Bauman: So there are scientists at each of those places and parks? Rickard: There were scientists at each--it was never as popular at Hanford as it was with the other parks, partly because ALE Reserve had already been set aside acting as a National Environmental Research park before the other sites. Idaho is also a member. The Department of Energy, as far as I know, decided not to support that, but did support ALE. Bauman: We're going to go back to when you first came to work at Hanford, 1960. Had you been here before? Rickard: I was here--I went to Pullman in '53. And I'd been to Richland. Bauman: What were your first impressions of Richland, have you thought-- Rickard: Well at the time, I thought it was kind of--a lot of other places in Washington I'd rather be. [LAUGHTER] I think it was in August when Barbara and I--we got here in September. No, in '53, Barbara and I drove down from Pullman to Celilo Falls because I wanted to see Celilo Falls before it got covered up by a dam. We stopped in Pasco, and it was 112. [LAUGHTER] 112 degrees in the shade. We decided this wasn't a real nice place. Of course, we'd been at Indian Springs, Nevada, too. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So what about when you came back in 1960 then, what did you think of the place? Rickard: Well, I was impressed, really, mainly with the people. When I worked at the 100-F Area, the first couple of days I stood by the 100-F Reactor and thought that maybe in a few years that this reactor would be closed down and that there'd be Russian thistle growing around the edge of it. The N Reactor closed in 1965. So in the five years that I was here, the F Reactor wasn't working anymore. I thought that was probably a good thing. Bauman: So you worked initially for General Electric? Rickard: General Electric, yeah. Battelle came in '65. Then I joined Battelle, so I was one of the first people. Bauman: So did you work essentially sort of in different places all over the site? Rickard: I did. I was on the ALE reserve at the old Army camp. At the buildings there for ten years, perhaps. I was at 331 Building. When I retired I still worked as part time for Battelle—PNNL then. And in other years, I've worked with the--what was the—NORCUS program. It was a DOE-sponsored, program where faculty and students from the campus here, could be assigned to PNNL and work. And I did that for a number of years too. And many of the graduate students that we had came through the NORCUS program to PNNL. And we had students from all over the country that spent summers here at Hanford working on ALE. We had graduate students that worked on elk. The first studies of elk on the Hanford site were done by graduate students. They had people studying small mammals, bald eagles, deer, coyotes. I don't know how many graduate students from the University of Washington, Montana, Oregon State that over the years actually got master's and doctorate degrees through what was then NORCUS programs. Bauman: So it was a teaching place as well? Rickard: Teaching program too, yeah. Bauman: Wanted to ask you--President Kennedy visited this site in 1963 to dedicate the N Reactor. Do you have any memories, or were you there when he was here? Rickard: No. I remember when he was here, but I didn't go to the celebration. I think I was probably out of town or maybe assigned to someplace else in the '60s. Bauman: I wonder, of the different kinds of work that you did at Hanford, the different projects you worked on, what was sort of the most challenging thing that you worked on, and maybe the most rewarding part of your work? Rickard: Oh, I think probably the most rewarding part was the working with students, working with the actual people. And then I think the day that the Arid Land Reserve appeared on the map. Bauman: Sure. Rickard: That was probably the-- Bauman: And what about the most challenging aspect of your work--was anything that— Rickard: Oh, I never found them particularly challenging. I just took heart--I think one of the professors at Washington State told me, research is about 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. So, it's work, but it's enjoyable. And there's always some satisfaction in learning something you didn't know before, no matter how small it is. I don't imagine it's nearly as important as somebody that discovers a cure for cancer or heart disease or something. But it's pleasant when you can just discover something that you didn't know before. Bauman: So when you look back at your years working at Hanford, overall, how would you assess Hanford as a place to work? Rickard: I think it's been a good ride. I liked teaching, but I enjoyed the research more. I'm more of a researcher rather than a teacher. But I think they belong together. Bauman: Is there anything that--event or incident or something that happened when you were working at Hanford sort of stands out in your memory that-- Rickard: Oh, I think the thing that probably stands out, not in a good sense, but it was when Les Eberhardt--[EMOTIONAL] [VIDEO CUTS OFF] Rickard: I'm sorry about that. Bauman: That's fine. No problem at all. Okay. So I just have one or two more questions. One was, I wanted to ask you about--so you started in 1960. Rickard: Yes. Bauman: I wonder what sort of changes you saw take place at Hanford--either in technology or in what was being done. Rickard: Oh, there's been lots of advances since I started. Certainly computers, GPS, DNA analysis. All these things advanced field research. DNA is very useful now in plant taxonomy. A recent case about the White Bluffs bladderpod. Perhaps you know about the White Bluffs bladderpod, an endangered species. Argument whether it's a real species in danger or whether it's just a variety of a more common species of bladderpod. So I think probably Endangered Species Act has a great deal to do with the desire of people to protect rare endangered species. And certainly, the Arid Land Ecology Reserve does that very well. It preserves samples of native vegetation, and the impacts that people have had on the natural environment. Particularly in Native American people and their view of the environment is much different than the people that want to use the environment. So all these technological advances have helped answer these questions. Bauman: Obviously, at some point, the mission at Hanford shifted to cleanup from production. Did that start happening while you were working at Hanford? And if so, how did that impact what you were doing, or did it? Rickard: Well, Hanford has a long history of recognizing that particularly the production reactors were releasing radionuclides into the river and to the ground. And there was a great deal of concern of whether these radionuclides and associated toxic metals really had an impact on the river and the biota that use the river. Over the years, the number of Canada geese that nest on the islands has been well documented. During the years the reactor operations, geese populations increased. Populations of bald eagles increased. Populations of deer decreased. Populations of quail increased. Even though with the closure of the reactors, some animals have not increased. When you got people work--there was no hunting. There was no grazing. There was no farming. But some of the animals continued to go down. Two of these--one was the sage grouse. Another one was the sage sparrow. These animals, the birds, depend upon sagebrush. Sage grouse eat sagebrush. Sage sparrows, they nest in sagebrush. Although you can destroy sagebrush by plowing or burning, burning has always been a part of the shrub steppe. It always takes out the shrubs. In time, the shrubs comes back. It burns, the shrubs disappear. And if the area is very large, the amount of fire is very small. So that there are substantial populations of sage sparrows and sage grouse that as the sagebrush returns by itself, they move back. Got down to the point where you have a small amount of sagebrush and if it burns, it takes years to come back. And even though at Hanford, it wasn't destroyed by farming anymore, fires have been a tremendous impact. So the number of acres of mature sagebrush today is very small. Not because it's been plowed, but simply because we had a lot of wildfires. And the sage grouse disappeared in 1960. The sage sparrow is nearly there now. So the sage grouse is now up for consideration to be an endangered species. It might be a good idea to restore sagebrush to Hanford, or sage grouse to Hanford by planting sagebrush. Bauman: So I guess one last question then. In your years of studying the ecology of the area here, what was sort of the most significant impact of the Hanford site on the ecology of the area? Rickard: Well, land use on the Hanford site, it's been different. It's different. There's no place else in Washington that ever supported plutonium production. It's the only place where productive land has ever been stopped agriculturally. I think it's important just for us to keep watching and monitoring and reporting this as time goes by. I think that's the future of it. It'll be cleaned up. But we've got to decide what to do next. And in my opinion, I think probably that if we were really interested in saving sage grouse, for example, on the Hanford site, that the best use would be a commercial nuclear power plant. Occupy a very small area. Develop the rest of the land back to habitat suitable for sage sparrows and sage grouse, and use it for recreational purposes. I don't think that the public is going to go for farming or things like that. So a combination of industrial facilities with wide areas of natural habitat would be the most likely use. That's my opinion. Bauman: Well, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to discuss, or anything I haven't asked you about? Rickard: I think I'm pretty well exhausted. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Well I, want to thank you very much for coming in today and sharing your experiences. Rickard: Well, I certainly appreciate your help here. Bauman: Thank you very much. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:42:32 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 194 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 100-F Area Reactor N Reactor F Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1960-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1960-? Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Davis, Jerry Hanson, Wayne Watson, Don Nakatani, Roy Bustad, Leo Hungate, Frank Parker, Herb Kathren, Ron Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bill Rickard Description An account of the resource An interview with Bill Rickard conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-12-4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 100-F Area Reactor F Reactor General Electric N Reactor Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F16b66f3e1c1cb8b8ed294a6dddb21740.jpg ad0e3f5431004fd43548afb7264e924a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fc0f13b96fadf7bb738c566537000019d.mp4 1271c49a08b7d223b0499f5b78e53ec9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Trent, Frank Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Trent_Frank Frank Trent: Well I don't know. Robert Bauman: I just let people tell their stories is really what the primary thing is. I have some questions to try and help it along a little, but--So we're going? Man one: Yeah. Bauman: Okay, great. All right. So maybe before I ask any questions, if I could have you say your name and spell it for us. Trent: Okay. My name is Frank Trent. And I live in Richland, Washington. Bauman: And the last name is T-R-E-N-T? Trent: Yes. Bauman: Okay. Great. And my Name's Robert Bauman. And we are conducting this oral history interview on February 12th of 2013 on the campus at Washington State. Trent: '14. Bauman: What's that? '14. Trent: [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Thank you. You would think by February I would have figured-- Trent: You want to start over? Bauman: No, we're good. I'll just say 2014. It's still this form that has it. There we go. So I wonder if we can start by maybe just telling us what brought you to Hanford. How you came here? What brought you here? And maybe your initial impressions of the place? Trent: Well, I first came here in 1950, in the winter of 1950. And we came over the pass. At that time, it was—there was no Snoqualmie Pass at the time. It was the one out on 410 highway going over the mountains. Closes every winter. Bauman: Not White Pass, huh? Trent: Nope. Bauman: I don't know. Trent: Maybe it'll come to me. Anyway, we came over the pass in the back of a Deuce and a Half truck. And it was a whole company of us. And pre-military set up here. And we came in and there was snow about 200 feet in the air where they plowed it often, blew it into the mountains. And all you could see is walls of snow on both sides. But anyway, we came on in down here and lived in a pup tent. You don't know what those are probably. You do? Bauman: Mm-hmm. Trent: And two people teamed up. And here you had something about the size of a blanket. And it was thinner than a blanket. It was called a--the material was made like a tent material. And we called them pup tents. There was two people. And each person carried a half of it. And then when you went out into the fields or combat or wherever, you set that tent up. And that's where you lived. Well, it was pretty cold here. And we wound up burning anything we can get a hold of. It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves. And these little pup tents, they only had a little opening you could make, or you'd get too much stuff in there--air, cold air. Bauman: Do you remember any specific things that you burned? Trent: Show polish. Anything that would get heat. Paper, shoe polish, anything. And that was the worst I guess. And we had one guy freeze to death. I don't know. It was cold. I started driving a water truck. And I wound up in the back of the water truck. It was a Dodge, 3/4 ton Dodge pickup. And it had a cover on it. So I slept in there. And during the night, the water container froze and busted. And I got water all over there and it froze. And I was sleeping in ice. [LAUGHTER] Me and another guy. But that was the shock of it when you got here was there was nothing here but desert. There was a few trees, but people hadn't started raising too many trees at that time. If they did, they weren't very big. That was my--and when we went out, we went out on the Project and stayed out there for three weeks. They had four groups. One group was off all the time. And the other three was covering around the clock. And we set up 120 millimeter gun emplacements, set up in a diamond formation. And then off to the side in the openings of the diamond formation, there was four 50 caliber machine gun nests. And we could fire. And we did. We fired tracers, and every so often, a tracer would come out. They were timed so that every so many shells, and then a tracer would come out. That way you could follow that tracer with your—aiming your gun. But they were also hooked up to, at a later time, to the radar. And there was radar guided. Anyway, that was the emplacements. And we had a full crew there 24 hours a day. And we went up to Yakima and took our guns with us. Two of them I think is all we took though. They were beginning to set up that firing range up there. And we were doing pretty good at shooting that thing. And evidently, the radar got off a little bit with their calculations. And wound up, we shot the cable off just off the tail end of the airplane. They left. They didn't want any more. They says, we're going and we're ain't coming back. So that's part of it. Anyway, that's the beginnings of my arrival here. Bauman: Where on the site were you? Trent: Are you familiar enough with the old Y? You go through the first barricade, then you drive for, I don't know, about halfway to 2 West, 2 East. Maybe not quite that far, but there's a turn off there. Goes back towards, still 2 East, that 2 East area. And then you go on down and pick up 2 West. And we turned off just after that barricade out there at the Y. It may be two miles down from that Y area, there was a turn-off. And there was dirt, gravel and dirt. That's the old military highway road. And we were back in there probably five or six miles. You could see Rattlesnake very plainly from there. And a later time, when they built that road down through there going out to Yakima—Horn Rapids High Road—and at a later time, why, you could see that road and traffic on it from out there. Because I went out there with a group on our 50th military reunion and we made a new visit there. And cars were going by. Then there was no road back there. Anyway, at that time, if the cars that had been there--we were that close to where the highway's at now. There's a big knoll out there, just a rounded hill of sand. And that was between us and the Rattlesnake Mountain. So that'll give you a general location of where we were. It was A Battery, 518th. Bauman: Okay. So where were you from originally? Had you ever been to this part of the Northwest before? Trent: No. I come out of Harlan County, Kentucky. Lot of hills down there, rolling hills, but nothing mountainous like we know them now. Born and raised on a farm. Family of 17—18, counting me. And one mother and father. And we raised everything we could raise to eat ourselves. And the only thing we bought was stuff like staples that you had to have that you didn't grow. My dad was a coal miner, and the older boys actually raised the foods that we needed. Fed the animals, and ate the animals. And then in, let's see, October the 8th, 1949, I and two other guys from that area joined the service. I rode a bus. It was raining, about 6:15 in the morning. Got on the bus and never looked back. We went from there to Harlan and got in a military bus. And they drove us to Corbin, Kentucky. And that's right in there near Knoxville. And from there, we got on the train. We went to Louisville and then to Fort Knox. So that's how I got to that. Then we spent three or four months, I don't remember, in basic training. And then we shipped out in trucks for this side of the mountain, for Washington. Well first, we came out by train. And then we got into buses and trucks and went up to Fort Lewis, and Fort Lewis over here. We were selected as the first group to arrive in the Tri-Cities to help set up. Bauman: Oh, okay. So how long were you at Fort Lewis then? Trent: Just long enough to not want it. We did a lot of advanced basic training, crawling through mud and dirt and dust. And when you come out of there, you couldn’t see nothing but eyeballs. You was hot and then you put your arm down to crawl forward and then shooting over top of you with tracers. And the dust would puff up and it would stick to you, sweat on your body. So that was an experience. Bauman: Yeah. So you said when you were out of the site, you were there for about three weeks. Then you'd have a week off, then you’d go back. So in terms of food when you were out on site, what sort of food did you have? If you were in the tents all the time? Trent: Well at the beginning, before we really got set up, we was eating what you would call combat type rations. They'd come in containers and it was dished out after it was heated up. Our stove was a Bunsen burner under pots and pans. And we’d go through a line and dunk our mess kit in the boiling water and get any germs off of it that way. And then we ate dinner, and then we come back and had another container we dunked it in and brushed it out. And then dunked it in clean boiling water again. So that's how we kept stuff kind of sanitized. And a lot of people got dysentery from it. But mostly, it wasn't—we didn't have it too bad. Food wasn't too bad. And at a later time, after we got to set up, we had a regular mess tent and cooks. And we ate good. Sand in it, but we ate. Bauman: So did you know anything about Hanford before you came here? Trent: No, and I didn't know anything after I got here. But none of us did. We just knew we was guarding this installation, and we would be on around-the-clock duty. If you were asleep, the alarm sounded, everybody went to their stations. And we had a number of planes come through. And we had to get our big guns on it. And we would track it until they gave us the order to shoot. We only shot one time out there. And that was basically to settle the guns in and orient them so when they shot at something, they got fairly close. Those 120 millimeter shell casings were probably about that long. And the projectile was probably about that long. And they were timed: after you shot one of them into the air, they were timed to the target. And then they blew up. And supposedly it would supposed to knock down anything within a—I think it was 75 yards radius. So it could get anything in four directions. And we come close to getting the target plane. Yeah, it wasn't funny to the pilot, but it was funny to us. Bauman: So then when you had a week off, where did you go? Did you go to town? Trent: We had barracks in town. And that's the barracks here in North Richland. If you're coming up George Washington Way going north and you come to that rise in the road, and then you can level and go down toward Battelle. Just as you cleared the top of the road, there was a steam and boiler plant, steam generating plant just off to the left. And then the road that went by that—that was one of the first roads. We generally would turn on that. All of that area back down in there was barracks. And you can still see some of the pedestals that they sat on. And then over on the other side of GW Way there was—no, I guess it's still on the same side. They just add roads dividing the camp. And we were fairly close to a service station over on the highway, highway Stevens if you're going out to Hanford. We were just off of that a little bit—our outfit was. And from there, whoever was ready to go in and go back out, why, we took off in Deuce and a Half trucks. And we'd go out in a convoy and relieve the other outfit that was out there. And while you were gone, your camp was taken over by a new group. And that rotated. Bauman: So, on sort of a typical day, what might your duties be? What sorts of things might have happened? Trent: Scavenging. We made trips around out there. They probably figured out what we were doing, but they didn't seem to bother us because we didn't have nothing but tents at first. And so we'd scavenge enough stuff until we could put some stuff together to get in out of the wind. We couldn't get away from the sand though. But we did that and then done our duty. And we went off duty in the late afternoon and after dinner, we was off for the evening unless you got an alarm, an alert. And immediately, whatever you could get on, why you got on, and you got on those guns. Got everything turned on and adjusts your azimuth and elevation, and be ready to fire whatever come through if you were told to fire. Bauman: So how long did you have just the pup tents? At what point did you [INAUDIBLE]? Trent: It's probably about two months. And they come in and put up what we called a trip tent. And it's big enough to hold about ten people, five bunks down each side. And then later we put in wooden floors in them, and so we'd raise them up off of the ground a little bit so we wouldn't be sleeping right next to the ground. So, they brought it all out, and we had to put it together. Bauman: And so how long were you doing this? How long were at Hanford in this capacity? Trent: I was out there almost three years, And this discharge here. And by then, I was married and had one kid when I was discharged. Discharged in February of '53. And from that point, I found whatever I could to work at. But it wasn't much for a while. Finally I put in an application for General Electric, and they hired me. And that was my first trip as a civilian out to Hanford. Bauman: You mentioned you got married. Did you meet your wife here? Trent: Yes. Her dad came in '43. Actually, he came in 1940 out to the Northwest. And he went back to Memphis again. And from that point, he was working just across the border in Arkansas, out of Memphis. And some guy come through, I guess from the government, and put the word out, anybody want to transfer or go move to Washington? We've got a project up there we're building, and we need help. Anybody we can get to go. And he came out with that group and worked out here. And a year later, she came out. Well first off, he came in '40, went back and came back in about '43, in '43. And then he was here about a year, and then the kids came out. They came out by railroad, and no supervision. I think she was 12, my wife, 11 or 12. Her mother had—she would have been 12--because her mother had died earlier, tuberculosis. And she came out, and the rest is history. He stayed here and raised his family and worked at Hanford and wound up--one day, they came in and they had nobody that could really read a blueprint and follow it. And so they come around looking, and somebody said, go see Mac. He'll do that. And that was the beginning of his rise, which didn't go very far. He was some kind of a maintenance supervisor out there. And they come and got him and he said, let's see your prints. And he looked at them a little bit. Yeah, he said, I can build it. So they took him over there and he built the building for them with a crew. But they'd already started building. He had to tear it all down because it was wrong. And then after, I don't know, maybe six months, seven, I was in passing, and went into the drugstore at O’Malley’s—you remember where that was at? Okay. That had a little soda fountain in there. And I went in there and me and another guy and ordered a milkshake. And she said what kind do you want? I says, any kind you got. I don't know, just a milkshake. She figured she'd fix me, so she went back there and made me a suicide milkshake. Everything in the fountain went in it. That drink’s pretty good. So that's where I met my wife, 1950. And we were married in December after that. Bauman: That's a great story. Trent: Raised three boys. One of them is a Microsoft jet pilot. Flies for Microsoft. And one of them, well at this particular time, is in Edmonton, Canada—construction manager of some kind, hot spot guy. And the other one, Frank, is working in construction over on the west side. And he is living in Brown's Point in Tacoma, right on the ocean. Bauman: Yeah. So you mentioned at some point you got a job with GE. What sort of job was that? Trent: Anything to get on. I started out doing manual labor and mowing lawns. And I probably had about five or six months of that. And then I was transferred to White--not White Bluffs—Riverton. And I was doing maintenance work and oil changes on the railroad engines. And many times you'd have oil clean up to your elbows. And I don't know what they did with the oil. We drained it out into containers, and they disposed of it. Probably illegally, in these days. And from there then I went to work at 2 West. And I worked T Plant, U Plant,--at T Plant 221-T, 224-T, those two plants. And then I worked also, that was T-Plant. And then U Plant, I went to work down there. They needed people down there, so they sent me down there and done the same thing down there in U Plant, because the areas were almost identical in operation. And then the stuff that came out of there went to REDOX I believe. And they run through the procedures there, separating stuff out and boiling it down to what they were really looking for. And so anyway, we handled a lot of powdered uranium in that 224 Building. And after it was centrifuged, the heavy metal uranium powder was thrown out to the sides and stuck to the sides of the centrifuges. And the liquid was settled back down and drained back out and recycled back through I guess. I don't remember exactly the procedure. And we'd ship that uranium out of there and put it in barrels. And it was shipped out, I don't know where it went to. Maybe some of it went to Oak Ridge, I don't know. And then that was in operations. And we worked the hot zones. And they had us when we'd go into one, we'd have the RAMU people. They'd check you in, and when you had up to your limit on exposure, you'd come out. Go in and take samples and clean up in areas that were really hot spots. Bauman: When you did those sorts of things, what sort of protective clothing did you wear? Trent: Well, we would go in and change into SWP clothing and hoods. We had our regular shoes and we put covers over the shoes, plastic over the covers. And your pants legs were all taped down so that nothing could get through. And gloves, of course. And it was all taped down. And the last thing that went on was a mask. You had a canister of air. And I think you had somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes and you're out of air. You better be out of there, or at least close enough where you could hold your breath and run to get out of there. Yeah, we worked the hot zones quite a bit. Sometimes we'd have to work until we were triple exposed to get a job done. And then of course we was relieved out of that until we were even with the scale of exposure. So that when you back in, why, they basically had you at zero exposure for starting back up. There was a lot of sitting time, because they had to have the people. And if you didn't keep them there, you didn't have the people to do the jobs. So rather than fire them, they'd put them on clean work. And if they didn't have that, you sat in the lunch room and played cards. Then from there—I went in and later, I went from the 2 West Area to the 100 Areas, and was in power operation there--boilers, refrigeration, air conditioning, and pumping stations that pumped water for the reactors. Bauman: So you were at several places on site then? Trent: Mm-hmm. I worked 100 B, C, D, DR, 2 West, not 2 East, but I'd been in 2 East a number of times. 2 West, I think that's about it out there, Riverton of course, at the beginning I was in Riverton. That's the old railroad station that hauled stuff in and out of Hanford. Bauman: So of those—of the different places on site that you worked at different jobs that you had, did you have one that you enjoyed the most? Trent: I enjoyed operating equipment--boilers, steam engines, pumping water, of course, electric, diesel generators. We had on our river pump station, we had pumps down there that'd pump 105,000 gallons per minute each of water. And if something happened to those pumps, then the diesels come online automatically. Now the diesel size was the PT boat that John Kennedy used when he was in the service. They were two diesel generators of the same size that came out of the—or were installed in the PT boats. And they were pretty good size. They would pump the same amount of water as the big electric box. The lines, I don't know what size they were now. I seem to remember 100, 102 inches in diameter. Pretty good sized piping. And if something happened, the scram, why, of course, they had to have water and generally pumped through with the diesels if something happened to a pumping station. So you always had backup. There was one incident in the 200 Area's power house. We had a backup generator down there generating electricity to use in case of power outages or whatever. And they were set on automatic standby. And my father-in-law was at that with his crew, was there doing work in that area. And it was in an open, kind of an open area. The showers were in that general area too. Never had a problem with any of those diesel generators. And they were in there eating dinner. They set a row of lockers up to separate the area. And that was where they ate. And that's where they went in and took showers before they went home. Or they come out of hot zone, they still had to take a shower. And they were in there having dinner, and for some unknown reason, nobody hung around. They ate their dinner, and they got up and went out back to the job and whatever they were doing I guess, early. And the generator tripped and came online. There was something wrong with the governor. And a diesel generator when it turns loose like that, and it can't get fuel from one place, it'll get it from another. It went on up to critical speed and blew up. And it embedded metal about three inches into concrete, solid concrete. So that's how bad—it could have wiped out everybody in that room. It wiped the room out. All their lockers and everything, that was gone. But that was one of the incidences that I remember that happened. Bauman: Do you have any idea roughly what time period that might have been? Trent: Phew, no, I don't. It would've been in the low '50s, early '50s. Because he went to work there in 2 West when I first came here. Yeah, his crew worked 2 West, 2 East. So they rotated around, wherever they were needed. But that happened to be in the 2 West Area where that generator blew up. Nobody was hurt. Pure luck. Bauman: Earlier when you were talking, you mentioned that when you were in the army stationed out here, you didn't really know anything about Hanford or what was going on? Trent: Well, we know we were guarding the installations there. And we knew that workers came in by buses and left by buses. And then later years—first you couldn't drive a car out there of any kind other than government. And then later years of course, that was relented and people could drive out there to their area. But mostly we were in and out of there in buses. And we came in nothing but bus to the 1100 Area, which is over here, off of Spangler, south of Stevens. And we came into there and unloaded there in a big parking lot in there while we had our cars parked there. So that's the routine. Everyday, we get up, the buses come through town and picked you up, all you to the 1100 Area. You changed to your area bus and get on there and it'd take you to right straight to your area, and off of there and check you through the security. And the same way when you come out. Security would check you out, you'd get on the bus, they'd haul you home. Bauman: Was there at some point that you ended up driving your own car out? Or would you take buses? Trent: I did a couple of times, but it wasn't worth it. There's too much fuel. But fuel was cheap then, compared to now. Still, you had to—and we came out when John F. Kennedy came out here. The whole family went out. And I was at that time working at 100 N Area. And we got 100 N Area up. And I was on duty the night they went critical and put the reactor in operation. That was the first dual purpose reactor, 100 N. Bauman: Do you have any specific memories about when President Kennedy was here? What the day was like, or remember anything about him arriving? Trent: The only thing I know is we were--they had the place set up for visitors to come in. And they had a lot of chairs. And a lot of it was standing room only because they didn't have enough chairs. They were getting ready to build the Washington Public Power Supply System’s generating system out there. And the pumps, those pumps I swear that they were longer than this room, each pump, steam-generated or steam-powered. And that was 109 N, was that generating place. And people were rotated shift-wise the same way—ABCD was the shifts. And of course, the fourth one was off. And then while that one was off, a spare would come in. So actually it's five crews. It was interesting. I worked water side of it for a lot of years. We had one guy that worked out there that was scared to death of something he couldn't understand. And he could not understand the big piece of equipment operating. And he was scared of it. And one night on duty—our shift was, and the chief engineer said Frank, can you get down to 181 real quick. I says, well, yeah. So anyway I headed out, grabbed the first pickup I could find in the parking area there and drove it down to 181. Both diesels were running backup. Don't know what happened, still don't. Anyways, I found him. He was sitting back in a corner away out of sight of the diesels. He was standing there in a corner shivering, just scared—petrified. So I got him out and put him out in the pickup. And I say you stay out there and let me take care of the problem here. So anyway, I guess I took care of the problem and then got him out there. So I got the generators under control and asserted the diesels under control, put them back on automatic and standby. And then the other pumps of course, got them going in the order I was doing the job. And I went and got him back out there. And when I reported in and wrote the incident up, he came to me, I don't know, very short time thereafter. And he says Frank, I'm going to quit. He said, I'm married, I've got three kids. I can't get into the military. And that's what I want to do. So he said I'm going to divorce my wife and I'm going to volunteer for the Coast Guard. And he did that. And the next thing I know, he put a transfer in from the Coast Guard into the military, army. And they accepted him. So he got into the military even though he was married. And a few years down there, well I guess it was nothing but two or three years, or a year or two. Anyway I got a call from my son who was a warrant officer flying helicopters down in Louisiana, Texas and Louisiana area. But anyway he--I guess, yeah, it was Texas. Killeen, Texas. He said do you know a Dave Eggar? I said, yeah. He said you won't believe this, but he's the guy in charge of training us in these helicopters. [LAUGHTER] And he had went through the school, learned how to fly the helicopters, and wasn't afraid of them at all. And he wound up leading that group that my son was in through their training program. And my son flew choppers down there. He already had his private pilot license. He got that before he got out of high school. And anyway, he spent his time in the military and he started flying with them. Wound up at his own company with two jets and a chopper and a little fixed wing, twin engine plane. And then 9/11 went and wiped him out. His business went to nothing. So then he started with putting his pilot's license out there, his experience in getting letters out. And he got a call one day from Microsoft people and went to work for them. He's still doing it, all over the world. Bauman: Yeah. I wanted to ask you, you had mentioned when you were in the army here and you would have you week off, you stayed in barracks. Once you got married, what sort of housing did you have? Trent: The first house we got was a small--I think it was about a 20-foot trailer, used. And a lot of the early Hanford people would move trailers in out there. And added onto them as a matter of fact. But as they had kids in a small trailer, where do you put them? You put a room on it. And that's what we did, we lived in that trailer. And then we lived there up until I was discharged. And then we bought a trailer. And I was working for a guy that didn't like the idea of me buying a trailer. It was a single wide. But it was about, I don't know, probably 50 feet long, somewhere in that. It may not have been that big. It was big enough, it had three bedrooms. And bought the trailer and moved it in and set up in and fat, dumb, and happy. But he didn't like the idea of me working for him who was selling trailers and buying it from somebody else. So he fired me. [LAUGHTER] So that was our first home. And then we were forced to move out of the place out there next to the Battelle area, just south of Battelle. We had to move out of there because I wasn't in the military anymore. When I did go to work for GE, we got a house, prefab. I think it was a--first one was a two-bedroom. And then we got a three-bedroom house. And we lived there until they started selling the town back to people. And I was interested. They set it up in blocks. So they would complete the transfer of one block by contracts to the owner that lived in it. And some of the prices were, for the two bedrooms, were like $2,500. And three bedrooms was just slightly more, like $3,000, $3,200. And I don't think any of them ran over $5,000, any of the homes. And lo and behold, I got an eviction notice. I was laid off in between. And two days after they evicted me and I got out of that house, they sold my block. So I didn't get a house. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, that was kind of how we got started. Finally, I left here and worked down in Colorado for about a year and a half, two years. And put in a transfer back there, a transfer or quit and came back to—I was out here on vacation a week's vacation, ten days I guess. And I dropped by the unemployment office and they said yeah, we'll put you back to work. So anyway, I went down and terminated. Gave them my notice and came back out here and went to work. And I worked there until—see I don't remember now, '50—hmm. Late '60s, because I left the project completely in '68. And I was out there one day and boss came in and said, Frank, he said, I understand you talked to so and so. He’s an instrument guy, a contractor that installed instrumentation and tubing for those instruments. I don't remember his name. And he told you were a job was at. And I said yes, he did. Anyway, he said, did you go down for an interview and talk to those people? And I said no. He says, why don't you do that? I said why? I was working at Battelle. Well, he said, you never know. I said yeah, I can go down and talk to him. I went down and interviewed. Went on back out. Still hadn't heard nothing from him and boss came by again and asked me about it. I said, don't know, just sat in there fat, dumb, and happy waiting for things to happen. And then his boss came down and he says Frank, you take that job if they offer it. And after three months, if you decide you don't like it, you come back and we'll put you right back where you're at. You won't lose no seniority or anything. Lo and behold, it was the beginnings of the university here in North Richland. And I came down here and they put me to work. Punched out construction and—helped punch out construction and get them out here. And got everything in operation and moved the staff in. And the rest is history. I left here in 1995, right at 30 years retirement. With military, I had more than enough time for—I think it was a year and a half. 27 and three-quarters or something like that years--and then of course I had five years of service to attach on so, retired with 30 years. Bauman: When you look back at your time looking at Hanford, overall how you assess Hanford as a place to work? Trent: Well compare that to where I came from, and it was a gold mine. Because we were hand-to-mouth. And we had to raise everything by hand or horses or whatever, and some cows, and raised all of our eats and stuff like that. So, we worked. We didn't have no spare time. From the time I was seven, I had a hoe in my hand working. And my brothers, the same way. Girls took care of the house, the boys took care of the outside. We had a pretty good sized garden. And we also had large acres of corn and beans, cornfield beans, potatoes, large patches of potatoes. So we have plenty to eat. Never did lack stuff to eat. But when you look at the lifestyle, and you didn't know where your next shoes was going to come from or your clothes, because money—cash money was hard to come by. And dad worked the coal mines, so he didn't make a lot, but enough to feed his family and keep going. So it was pretty nice to get out here where you can make a decent living. I think I was making--I think I was making about $75 a week, net out, when I first started. Bauman: When you first started working for GE or for--? Trent: With GE, yeah. And I also worked the 300 Area. And I helped start up the Sandcastle out here, Battelle where they're at now. The first buildings, there was three of them. And I was down there to get the equipment started and get it running. So I did that until the union got me and forced me out. So that was another reason it made my decision easier to leave there. I had four layoffs from Hanford due to cutbacks. And seniority, it didn't matter who you were or whatever. Seniority won. The other guy sat there and laughed at you and said I told you. You'll be out there working your tail off and he'll be sitting on his fanny reading or whatever. Doing his job, but nothing extra. You get a guy that would get in there and work, it didn't matter. If you didn't have the seniority, you were gone. So I got caught in four layoffs. No, three. The fourth one I quit and came down here. But it was a nice way to make a living. Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today and telling us about your experiences both in the Army and working at Hanford. Appreciate it. Trent: Same. Bauman: Thanks very much. Trent: You bet. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:56:19 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site ca1950-2014 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. ca1950-?, ?-1995 Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Y area 2 West 2 East T Plant U Plant T Plant 221-T 224-T 224 Building 100 Area B Area C Area D Area DR Area 200 Area Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Eggar, Dave Kennedy, John F Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Frank Trent Description An account of the resource An interview with Frank Trent conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-02-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-8: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 100 Area 200 Area 224 Building B Plant Building 200 East Building 200 West C Reactor D and DR Reactors General Electric Housing Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963 Richland (Wash.) SCRAM T Plant U Plant Washington Public Power Supply System (WOOPS) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fcf048689636f43deed4c23ae7d4d4d14.jpg dc383eed74d4438fdac9c7ad9c068eca https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3841380e69217cef6aa70840d8479a53.mp4 e48c0d6128bcde0bbba8a20ce7f31cef Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tyler, Bill Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Tyler_William Robert Bauman: Now you can give it right back to her? William Tyler: Yeah, I plan on it. Man One: Exactly. All right, get this off your face there. Bauman: Does your daughter live here in Richland? Tyler: She lives right across the street from me. Bauman: Oh, does she? Oh, there you go. Well, you can really give it to her then. [LAUGHTER] She can't avoid you. Tyler: Well in fact, we work together at HAMMER. Man one: I’m rolling. Bauman: All right. Well I think we're ready to get started. So let's start by having you say your name and also spell it for us. Tyler: My name is William T. Tyler. W-I-L-L-I-A-M, T, T-Y-L-E-R. Bauman: And you go by Bill? Tyler: Bill, yeah. Bauman: All right. And today's date is August 28th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start, if we can, by maybe having you talk about what brought you to the area. When did you come to work at Hanford, and what brought you here? Tyler: We came out here on vacation from Oklahoma in 1947 to see my dad's brothers and sisters. And we were going to stay for a week or so. And my dad applied for a job here and got it, and we stayed. I thought it was the end of the world. This was not a pretty place in 1947. But I went in the Navy in 1950, got into the nuclear program and came out here in 1955. Went to work at Hanford. Worked as an HPT until '82, I believe. And then I went into management in health physics. Bauman: So HPT, you mean health physics technician. Is that was HPT is? Tyler: Uh-huh. Sorry. Bauman: That's okay. So how old were in 1947 when you came on vacation? Tyler: I think I was 15. Bauman: Okay. What sort of job did your father get? Tyler: He worked in transportation. Bauman: And you already had aunts and uncles who came here? Tyler: Yeah. Bauman: So you said you thought this was the end of the world. What do you mean by that? What are your first impressions of the place? Tyler: [LAUGHTER] Well, my first impression is we got here July the 5th. And my aunt and uncle had a little cafe on downtown Kennewick, on Kennewick Avenue. And it was about 104 degrees out. And we were driving down the street looking for it. And my dad says, man, I wouldn't live here if it's the last place in the world. And back then there was not a lot of trees. There was in Kennewick, and a few in Richland. But every time the wind blew, it was dusty and the tumbleweeds flew, and a lot of dust storms. In fact, they call them termination winds. Because everything was booming out in Hanford and every time the wind blew, people didn't like that and they'd just pick up and quit. So they called it termination winds. Bauman: Do you know when your aunt and uncles came here? Tyler: My aunt was born here in Kennewick. My uncle came out here in '37, '38, somewhere along that area. Bauman: Oh, okay, so you'd had relatives here before the Hanford site. Tyler: Oh yeah. Bauman: And so when your family first came in 1947 and you dad got the job and stayed here, where did you live? Tyler: We lived in Kennewick for a year. And then we got a house in Richland in 1948 at 635 Basswood. Bauman: That was a government home then? Tyler: Uh-huh. It was ranch house. And we moved in Thanksgiving Day of '48. And my future wife moved in next door the same day. I didn't know that was my future wife, but it turned out to be. And I still live on Basswood. Different house, but-- Bauman: So did you go to high school here then? Tyler: I went to Kennewick. I started in Kennewick because that's where we lived and I didn't want to transfer. So I rode the intercity bus every day to Kennewick and back. I graduated in 1950 and then somebody in Washington wanted me to join their services. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So how would you describe, outside of your first impression, how would you describe the community of Richland in late '40s, early 1950s? Tyler: It actually—it was a very good place to live. I didn't realize it at the time. It was smaller, much smaller--probably 5,000 people in each of the cities. It was a good place to live if you could ignore the wind blowing and the dust storms and that sort of thing. But it kind of grows on you. I know I wouldn't live anywhere else. Bauman: In those early years when you were here in the '40s and '50s, do you remember any particular community events that stand out in your mind? Tyler: Yeah, Atomic Frontier Days, the Grape Festival in Kennewick, and then the fair. Nothing big or spectacular, but it was something to do. Bauman: Can you describe Atomic Frontier Days a little bit? What sorts of things-- Tyler: Well, normally they had a queen and a parade of course. And it was just kind of a—I don't know how--just a parade and kind of a get together type thing for the people that lived here. Bauman: So let's talk about your work a little bit now. You said you started working in '55. Tyler: ’55. Bauman: So can you talk about who you worked for at time and a little bit more detail about what sorts of work you did? What area of the Hanford site you worked in? Tyler: Okay, I started February the 22nd, 1955. And my first work assignment was 200 West Area tank farms. And then I went up to the REDOX facility which was a separations facility. A couple months later, then I went to U Plant. And then I went to T Plant, which were all separation facilities. And then I went over to PUREX in December of 1955. That was prior to startup. We started up our first spiked run was I think March or April of '56. And I worked there until '62 I believe. When I worked there, we also was switched with the 100 Area HPTs, or RCTs, or radiation monitors for exposure reasons. Because they got a lot more exposure than we did, so we would switch with them. And I got to work in all the 100 Area reactors except N when they were running, and some of the 300 Area. Bauman: So just about everywhere? Tyler: Yeah, I worked basically in every facility out here except 234-5. Bauman: And so was GE the contractor? What contractor did you work for? Tyler: GE. They were the prime contractor. And they left here in '66 I believe. Then Rockwell and Westinghouse and Fluor Daniel and MSA. Bauman: So as a health physics technician, what exactly did that mean? What sorts of things did you do on a daily basis? Tyler: Well as you know, there was a lot of contamination, radiation. And our job was to set the dose rates if people were going into a radiation area. We would go in, set the dose rates, stay with them. Got to make sure that the dose rates didn't increase while they were in there. We surveyed them out when they were done with the GMs and alpha detectors to make sure they didn't take any contamination home with them. And that was our prime responsibility. We maintain control of personnel exposure rates and their contamination, if they had any, and made sure that everything was as clean as we could get it. That's the short and sweet version. Bauman: Yeah. And you did that, obviously, at all these different areas you worked at on the site? Tyler: Everywhere, inside, outside, burial grounds. Bauman: Were there ever any incidents while you were doing this where people did have excessive exposure or anything along those lines? Tyler: Yeah, there was a lot of them. When GE came here--well, they were the prime contractor. Back in those days, you really couldn't talk about your job. You could say that you worked at Hanford and that was pretty much it. But yes, there was a lot of good memories and bad memories. Some really high exposure rates almost on a daily basis, because everything was running. And what will go wrong probably does. And it was very interesting work. It was something different every day. It's the kind of job that you look forward to doing and working. I did. I really enjoyed it. Bauman: So what was the process or procedure if someone had an overexposure? Tyler: Well, you had your dosimetry, which—Battelle read that. So you know what they got. And that's the record that's with you forever. At that time I think we worked--[PHONE RINGING] Shit. We worked under a 50 millirem per day limits, or 300 a week. And sometimes you would exceed that. But we were issued dosimetry everyday when we came to work. And you had a film badge which was read I think once a month. But they kept a running record of your exposure. That's why when we, when 100 Area radiation monitor--[PHONE RINGING] Hello. Can I call you back, Ian? Okay, thanks. Sorry. I don't know how to turn it off. Bauman: So we're talking about the dosimeter-- Tyler: Yeah, they kept records of all your exposures. And then every month they would send you a copy or let you know what it was. But if before the end of the year was out, if you were running short of exposure, then they would transfer people--particularly the radiation monitors--to different areas. And they what they were doing was using our exposure instead of--and letting their people cool down a little bit. It was just a way of equalizing the dose rates to the personnel. And it worked good in theory. And there was some--and I probably shouldn't say this—but there was some little minor ripples in the water, because people accused the other people of hanging back and now I got to come save you, that sort of thing. But it was all in fun. Everybody knew how serious the job was. And that was just part of their job. Bauman: And so how long did you work as a health physics technician then? Tyler: I think until 1982 and I went into management in health physics. At that time, they called us managers. And I was the manager of East tank farms until 1988. And then I transferred over to the West Area environmental group and took that over. My responsibilities were all of the outside radiation contamination areas. Burial sites. '89 I retired. Came back three months later and went to work in the environmental restoration part-time. And I did that until 1995. And then when Bechtel came in, I left there and went back to health physics side and become a evaluator at HAMMER for radiation protection, which I still do. Bauman: So you still work for-- Tyler: Two to three days a week. Bauman: So you mentioned earlier the sort of secrecy of some aspects of Hanford. Obviously secrecy, security were a very important part of. I wonder if you could discuss that at all, any ways that impacted your work? Tyler: GE had a very rigid plan of how they wanted things to go. And security of course was top secret. If you went—and a few people did--they go down and have a beer at the bar and they get to talking. And you never know who you're talking to you. And there was cases where people didn't have a job the next morning. Because security would overhear them. And you were pretty much done. So people didn't talk about their job. They didn't even talk about it with their family. Security was very strict. When you—well, for instance, when you go to work in the morning or if you're on shifts, same thing. You would catch the bus at the bus lot. Get on the bus, go through the barricade at the Y. If I was going to PUREX, we'd go up, pull in to the front gate of PUREX. You'd get out, off the bus. Go through the badge house. Pick up your dosimetry. Go out. Get back on the bus. The bus would pull inside the gate. Get back on the bus. Go down to PUREX. Get off the bus. Go through their badge house. And they would check your lunch bucket and all that. And then go into the building. And then in the evening, just reverse that process and back out again. So they were very strict. If you drove your car, you could not drive it past the main gate of East Area. You parked outside. And when you could drive inside, security would check the glovebox and the trunk and whatever was in the car. So it was very regimented. Bauman: I wanted to ask you about, in 1963 President Kennedy visited for the opening of the N reactor. I wondered if you were there and have any memories of that event at all? Tyler: I was not there because I was on shift at that day, or I probably would have been. Bauman: Mm-hm. Obviously, one of things that happened with Hanford is the shift from focus on production to focus on clean up. And I wonder if that shift impacted your work in any way? Tyler: Yes. Like I said before, I was the manager of East tank farms. And my office was at Semi Works, which is in 200 East Area, which was a pilot plant for PUREX. Semi Works was running. We were doing strontium cesium runs. But then when the edict came out that we were going to phase out and clean up, one of the first facilities--well I think it was the first facility—that we started tearing down was Semi Works. And D&D did the work. But we shut it all down and demolished the building and just imploded it in place. Built a dirt berm over it, cleaned it up. Most of the cells and the tanks are still in place, but they're full of grout. And then there's concrete over it. And what we did was tear down—this was approximately a three-story building with three stories underground. So when we tore down the building—it had a lot of piping and columns—we tore down the building and left the west wall standing. And we filled everything we could get inside like the basement and concreted it in place. And then we undercut the west wall. And this is probably four foot thick. And got a couple of Caterpillars and chains and hooked it over the top of the west wall. Pulled it down over like a lid. And then dirt berm over it, and there it is. And the stack that was there—the exhaust, the big stack—they imploded that and laid her right alongside the building. One guy did that. We deconned it first, and he came in, and a dynamite expert told us where we was going to put the stack and put a stick out on the end in the ground like they do now on the TV. And laid that stack right down on that stick, all by himself. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So that definitely did make for significant changes then, the shift from production? Tyler: Very significant, because that was kind of pilot test for all the other anticipated deconning and decommissioning they we're going to do, which is still going on. Bauman: Let's shift now and talk a little bit about HAPO. I wonder--I know you've been involved with them quite often. I wonder if you can talk about your involvement when you became involved in HAPO and how that came about? Tyler: Well let's see. First, HAPO was a GE acronym which stands for Hanford Atomic Products Operations, which was the name of GE's part of this. GESA, which is another credit union down the street, was the General Electric Supervisors Association. GE was very particular about their managers or supervisors were a step above the blue collar worker. And I think they still maintain that. If you were a supervisor, it's white shirt and tie. And you don't fraternize with--So when the credit committee wanted to get started, that's the name they chose, just HAPO. And it's '53. And I was looking at one of the early--the record book. And I think there's five or six of the charter members of the first—that I worked with that were radiation monitors just like I was. But I never joined HAPO until my wife was--she likes C First. And I never joined HAPO until I think '71. And then a friend of mine that I worked with talked me into getting on the committee that approved loans, credit committee, which I did. And then I got invited later to go on the board of directors and got voted in and been there ever since. I really enjoyed it. It's a great credit union. Bauman: So is it the board of directors then, primarily is it either current or former Hanford employees? Tyler: No. It used to be when we were federal, you had to work out here to join HAPO. And then they relinquished or changed the bylaws so that anybody could join HAPO. If you give them $5 and signed up, you were a member for life. But initially it was you had to work here to join. Bauman: And you said you didn't join until '71. What led you to decide to join at that point? Tyler: The guy I carpool with, one of them, convinced me that I should do that. [LAUGHTER] And I didn't like C First. I never did like C First. But my wife liked them because you got at the end of the month, you got all of your checks back. And she liked that. But I joined HAPO and started my own checking account. And then she finally joined shortly after I did. And now the rest is history. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So, I know you weren't part of the formation of the credit union. But I wonder if you can talk about it a little more? If you know more, were the employee unions at Hanford involved in the credit union, establishing that? Tyler: Yes. Bauman: And anything you can talk about that? Tyler: Helen Van Patten was one. GESA started it first. And then the blue collars said well, we got to have one of those. The first store was down by the Spudnut Shop. I think we had one or two employees. And everything was in a ledger, handwritten. Joe Blow borrowed $25. It was very basic. But fortunately, it kept growing and membership increased. Bauman: So the unions saw it as a way to provide credit union opportunities-- Tyler: Right. Bauman:--for blue collar workers or laborers or whatever? Okay. So I want to—going back to your work at Hanford, what are some of the more challenging aspects of your work, and maybe some more rewarding aspects of your work? Tyler: That’s a good question. Probably one of the most challenging was the responsibility when you're out on a hot job where the contamination levels are great and the radiation levels are great, and you have a whole crew of people. It challenges you to--it's always in the back of your mind that something's going to happen and I'm not going to see it, or I'm not going to catch it. And somebody's going to get overexposed. And that's always in the back of your mind. Because--and I have to beat my own drum here for a bit—radiation monitoring and health physics now, whatever they are, it's a very challenging job. You're responsible for--you're taking care of people. And they trust you. And they expect you to look out for them. And it's a lot of responsibility, but most everybody accepts that gladly, because they know how important it is. Because you're responsible for--you could get somebody really overexposed, and who knows what the consequences are? As far as rewards for that, I think is the satisfaction of when the job is done, that you knew you did your best job. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got overexposed. Nobody got contaminated. And the job got done. Bauman: Were there any events or incidents or anything, sort of unique things that happened during your time working at Hanford that sort of really stands out to you? Tyler: When I first hired in, like I said, I went to REDOX. One of the problems they had shortly before I got here was they had a ruthenium—they ran some ruthenium and they played it out in the stack. And then it broke loose. And it kind of went out in the desert and on the ground. And you had ruthenium chunks of—it looked like white paper that built up on the inside the stack and then finally broke loose and fluttered out and went everywhere. And one of my first jobs with a GM and a walking stick was walking out through the desert and finding these things. Little specks, big specks, didn't have any trouble finding them. [LAUGHTER] They were very hot. And I remember we used the KOA cans from T Plant, which were little round cans, metal cans about that big around, about this high with a snap-on lid. And that's what we put them in, with dirt for shielding. And then buried them. But there's been a lot of incidents of hot burials from PUREX. I remember some where we used a burial string. We used a locomotive, a whole bunch of flat cars. And then at that time, they'd build big wooden boxes. And I recall one big one that had enough lumber in it to build two B houses. Huge—it sat on two flat cars. And we put it in, and we took readings over the top of the tunnel as it went out of the tunnel towards the burial ground. And it read greater than 500 R. And as you know, 500 R for an hour is a lethal dose rate to 50% of the people, 60%. And then you go down the railroad track behind B Plant, pull it across the highway which patrol barricaded the road. So you pull the string across the road and then back it into the burial ground. And then you had to sink—this box was built on skids. And a big long steel cable lay on another flat car, three or four flat cars away from it. So you would pull that. And you would pull it down into a burial trench. And the Cat would be down there ready. And the train would back up and they would grab that cable, put the eye on. Hook it to the Cat. And then the Cat skinner would pull the cable off. And the train would move up until the boxes sit here and the cables here. And the Cat's down here pulling. And then we'd get up to the--and there was a dock where you could slide it off. And you would turn that box and pull it in. Pull it down into the trench, down to the other end, wherever you wanted it. Unhook the Cat. Leave it. Pull the Cat out. And then they would backfill that box. And that's the way they did the burials. And it worked great except when the box collapsed unexpectedly. Bauman: Then not so great. Tyler: Yeah, that's not a good--that happened once or twice. Bauman: During your years working out there, were you ever concerned about your own safety, health, protection, in any way? Tyler: Well as stupid as it may sound, no. I never was. Because I always figured I knew what I was doing. And I received some very good training in the Navy, which helped. But I never worried about it. I always trusted me. Bauman: Were you a member of a union when you were working at Hanford? And what union was that? And I guess, what sort of relationship did the union have with management here at Hanford during the time you were here? Tyler: Good and bad. [LAUGHTER] I used to be chief steward for the radiation monitors. I went through two negotiations. And after the last one, I decided I didn't want any more of that. Chief steward's a thankless job, but somebody's got to do it. Bauman: What does that mean exactly? What—chief steward-- Tyler: Well, you're the union rep plant wide for all of the HPTs. And I had this grandiose idea that I could just change everything. It's a great idea, but it doesn't work. It's a job that somebody has to do. And it's a job that is thankless. Because somebody's always mad at you. Whatever you do, in some of the people's eyes, you could always do better. And it's just not a good job. [LAUGHTER] But I enjoyed it. You learn a lot. And you learn both sides of the fence--how the company thinks and how the union thinks. And then you try and compromise. Bauman: Were there ever any times you were here where there was a strike or any sort of-- Tyler: Two--'66 and '76. Bauman: And were those sort of across the site? Tyler: Yep. And in '66, after we settled the '66 strike, GE left. Bauman: Was that one of the reasons they left? Tyler: Yeah, well, they had planned to leave. And then that's when--because when GE was here, they were the only contractor. And then when they left, they kind of broke it up into the 200 Areas and the 100 Areas. And it's always been different contractors, not just one prime contractor. Bauman: Do you remember what some of the key issues were in '66 and '76 in terms of-- Tyler: Wages. Wages were always the key issue. Well, I take that back. '66 or '76 was, they were going to do away with the buses. And that was a key issue for everybody. It didn't happen, but it was a--that was when they spent all the money redoing the bus lot. And then a couple years later, they did away with the buses anyway. But we did get air conditioned buses. Before we had old buses, the old green buses. Well like the ones sitting down at-- Bauman: The CREHST Museum? Tyler: Yeah. Those were some of the newer ones. The older ones were international buses that looked like a truck. Cold in the winter and hot in the summer. But they worked. When they did away with the buses, see, that did away with a lot of jobs in the bus lot. Maintenance, everything there, which was a lot of people. Bauman: So part of that was about jobs and issues of transportation? Tyler: Mm-hmm. Bauman: Anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about or that you think we should talk about? Tyler: Well, we've covered pretty much every--well, we've covered pretty much everything I think. I don't really know what you're looking for. Bauman: Just your experience. That's why I wonder if there's something that you experienced some event or something that I haven't asked you about yet that you think would be important to— Tyler: Well. When I retired, I took the first early out and then got bored to death and came back. When I was in the environmental group in West Area, a good friend of mine was an environmental manager outside the site. But he talked me into coming back part time and become a waste shipper and a waste handler. Which was--I'd never done it. I knew what it was. But I finally relented. I enjoyed it. It's entirely different. Because I was kind of burned out on radiation protection, and I wanted to do something different. Didn't want to retire, but I wanted to do something different. So I went to the classes and become a certified waste shipper and a waste handler. And we took care of all of the sites outside of 200 East, 200 West. All the burial sites, all the drilling sides, the river, pretty much everything. And it was very interesting. Until '95, when I decided I didn't like the contractor. [LAUGHTER] And I went back to health physics. Bauman: Most of the students I teach now were born after the Cold War ended. Obviously most of your career, the Cold War was going on during most of the time you were working at Hanford. So I'm wondering what you think would be important for young people today and people in future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Tyler: I'm trying to remember. We had the strike in '66. And there was almost another strike four or five years later. In fact midnight was the deadline when we were supposed to go on strike. And at 11:30, we got a notification that the President had put a stop to the strike because of the situation with the Cold War thing. And I think that's the first and the last time that ever happened. But as far as-- Bauman: So then about 1970 or so? Tyler: Early, yeah, '71 or '72 maybe. No, it was before that, because I was still on shift. It was probably '68, '69 maybe. But as far as the Cold War, it's still going on in different forms—my personal opinion. You look back at history--and I've lived through a lot of it--nothing has really changed. Like what's going on now, and the Bible says there'll be war and rumors of war. And that's correct. Because whatever our President does—whatever he does is going to be wrong in a lot of people's eyes. It's kind of like if you don't do it, you should have. And if you do do it, you shouldn't have. [LAUGHTER] It's a different type of cold war. Instead of—we used to worry about Russia. And I'm not too sure that—maybe we should still be worrying about Russia and a lot of other countries that--Things have changed. But they haven't—the basic things that caused the Cold War hasn't changed. There's all kind of weapons. I don't know. Bauman: All right. I think that's all the questions I have for you. Tyler: Okay. Bauman: I want to thank you for coming in today. Tyler: Thank you for having me. Bauman: Pleasure to talk to you. Tyler: Good. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:47:27 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 244 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 West Area U Plant T Plant 100 Area 300 Area 200 East Area Tank Farms Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1947-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1955-1995 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John. F Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bill Tyler Description An account of the resource An interview with Bill Tyler conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear waste disposal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-8-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-18: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Bechtel Building 200 East Building 200 West General Electric GESA (General Electric Supervisors Association) HAMMER HAPO (Hanford Atomic Products Operations) Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Richland (Wash.) T Plant Tank Farms U Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd83f3c4d7f86b6e52d6cbf8bf71d5112.jpg e7da9ff9782316d22c5ae28c305ce461 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8e0756e3663c4eed74b608601031114e.mp4 7aec6edb4ebd55efc217150d9f8e2d36 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jerry Yesberger Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Jerry Yesberger: I go by Jerry Yesberger, Jerry, J-E-R-R-Y, and then Yesberger, Y-E-S-B-E-R-G-E-R. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Robert Bauman: All right. Thank you. My name's Robert Bauman, and today's date is December 9th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So Jerry, let's start maybe by having you tell us when you first arrived in the area, what brought you to Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Okay. Well, I was born and raised in Colorado. Went to University of Denver, and I graduated with a BS degree in 1950. And let's see here. Then I worked for a short time in Colorado, mainly because I wanted to come back from the state of Washington—to the state of Washington. I was in the service from '43 to the end of '45. And I spent some time in the Seattle area and everything, and I really liked it. And so when I got back to Colorado, I applied for jobs with State of Washington and everybody. Then there was an opening at Hanford. And at that time, everything here was General Electric company, as you probably already know. There was no contractors other than GE, and they ran the community. And everything—there wasn't anything other than GE here. And my first job at Hanford, which lasted about five years, was in the public health department, which we had most of our activity concerned for the community here, rather than the site, although there were some activities during that that we were asked to perform, such as—oh, I can remember that I'd been out to the site for some things to do with health matters and so on that I was asked to do the work on, and I did. And after about four, four-and-a-half years, the city became a city away from General Electric company, and I wanted to stay with Hanford. So I applied—well, I don't remember how exactly I got there, but the radiation protection department in Hanford Laboratories at that time. And again, this was a time when everything was one site. There was no contractors other than General Electric—offered me a job in radiation protection. And my radiation protection time lasted an awful long time, because I retired in early--oh, gosh. Say, it was 19—but anyway, I had 36 years' service. [LAUGHTER] And my first job was out here in the 300 Area, and GE at that time gave new people an awful lot of training. And I was trained as a health physicist. And I spent, oh, gosh, the first few months training. And I spent, oh, gosh--they had a project here called 558 Project, and what it did was go through the old reactors, all of the old reactors and replaced the tubing in the reactors. And each one of these assignments lasted, oh, three to four months. So we started out in B Reactor and finished there. And my job was I had a crew of radiation monitors working for me, and we worked shift work, because there was a big, big construction job. And it took about three to four months in each of the old reactors out there to go through these, replace the tubing, and so on. So I followed those from B to C Reactor to 100-DR to 100-H to 100-F doing the same thing, essentially, because we went through there. And then following that time, I went back into 200 West Area, where I worked on projects and so on. And rather than work--I didn't have radiation monitors work for me then, but I had always assigned projects myself to work on. And I did that in the--I have worked in every area on the project out here, with the exception of FFTF. I did not work, and I did not have an office there. But every other area I had an office and these things. So it was kind of really a broad orientation program and so on. I want to back up just a little bit. In the service, I was in the Coast Guard. And this was from '43 to '46. And I was a pharmacist's mate, and again, the training was real, real good. And the last year or so, I was on a ship, USS Aquarius, and it was an attack cargo ship. And our job was to take troops. We had Marines that we had aboard, and we had training to have them land on something. And boy, they really trained us. To make a long story short, we got an assignment, and we knew we were going to move our ship. But we didn't know where or what for. But it turned out it was that they were preparing to invade Japan with troops. And I never saw so many ships in my life, where we all had troops, and we were ready to train. And we practiced getting on these landing barges, and, of course, I was a medic, so I had to go in with the troops. But I never had any real active duty due in that time, prior to that time, because I was always out doing these other things. But we were ready to go in, and so we had actually moved into where we would make our move, and guess what. The Nagasaki bomb was dropped. Well, of significance there is the plutonium on that bomb was made at Hanford. So that was really an interesting aspect of it, and I've always been so, so, so, so interested in that aspect of the thing. Well, shortly after that, the war was over, and everybody was discharged. And then that's when I came back and went from there, like I said, prior to this. But I thought that was an interesting aspect of this whole thing. So I worked for the General Electric Company for about five years in radiation protection doing all of these things I've been telling you all about. And again, I had very, very, very good assignments. Probably my most treasured assignment was I was the health physicist for biology, out in the 100-F Area. And I spent a year out there, and that was because of all the animals--the pigs and the dogs and everything, and my job was to write radiation procedures for them to do where the monitor and I had radiation monitors reporting to me out there during that time. Well, following that—I don't know how this developed, but the Atomic Energy Commission, which it was at that time, got my name, and they asked me if I would be interested in federal employment. So in the 1st of January, 1960, I switched jobs from the General Electric Company to the Atomic Energy Commission. And my job, there it turned out that I was a headquarters person, because we were doing what they call compliance inspection of people that are used in the state of Washington, Alaska, and Washington. Anybody that had a license for radioactive material, they had to be inspected. I was one of these inspectors. And it was a very, very interesting job. It involved a tremendous amount of travel, however. And we were always—when I went up to Alaska several times to inspect people, and there were only for us in this whole division, by the way. [LAUGHTER] So there was only two of us that made any inspections. And so I liked it. I like it, because I like people. But I worked at that, and it turned out that we were called Region 8 Division of Compliance, and it consolidated with Region 5 in California. So I didn't want to go to California. So I was offered a job with Atomic Energy Commission here in the Richland operations office, and I stayed there until I retired for my service. But I was with—most of this time, by the way, where I was transferred, I was in the health and safety division at RL. And at that time, there was no—we had one manager for this whole site at Hanford. We didn't have, like they do now, one on for the 300 Area, and all this kind of stuff. So we had our own health and safety division, so our entire--everything we did was associated with Hanford. And so that's where I finished my career in 19--with the federal government. I did work, however, two years after retirement for a company called MacTech, and they were a contractor to DoE to work on specific problems and so on. And I worked with them for a couple of years. And I also worked on the employee compensation program for about a year, and then finally retired. That's kind of it in a nutshell. I hope I didn't confuse you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: No, no. I do want to go back and ask a couple of questions. So when you first came to Hanford in 1950, what was your first impression of the area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well it was a shock. Number one, I had never been in eastern Washington in my life. I got a job offer, and I thought it might look like Seattle, but it didn't! [LAUGHTER] So that's my impression. But I wouldn't trade this area for the whole state of Washington now. I love it. We raised our family here, and I'm a big booster of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: When you first arrived, where did you live? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, my first housing was a dorm for about three months, and then we moved into a B house, which was a duplex. And we lived right across from Lewis and Clark School here in Richland, and we lived in there for a year or two. Then they sold the houses here, and a fellow that I worked with down here, he didn't want to stay here, so he was living in a ranch house, which I bought. And I'm still there. [LAUGHTER] And we live on Torbett here in Richland, and we've been here ever since. We had one child that was born in Denver, and then our other three, and we finally had a girl, which I was so happy for. I love girls. [LAUGHTER] And she lives here, by the way. And she's the only one that lives here, and she's a special education teacher for the handicapped at Richland School. That's what she got her degree in. And she loves the work, but I couldn't do it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember how much you paid for that house? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: We paid about $6,500. We sure did. And prior to that, they furnished the oil, the painters, everything that was here was done for us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember what your rent was on the B house? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah, it was about $30 a month. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: $30 a month. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you have any other memories of the community in the 1950s, what it was like at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, yeah, somewhat. One of the things that mystified me was that we lived in Richland, but blacks could not live in Kennewick. They would not rent to--you couldn't buy a house in Kennewick if you were black. And that always, I thought, was unreasonable, because we had several blacks that worked with us in the AEC here that were wonderful. And I still don't have any--I love them all. I like everybody. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So when you were AEC, they weren't doing the hiring of African Americans there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: No, they hired them. Oh, yeah, AEC, there was no question on that with the government, but boy, you couldn't live here. And we had several blacks in our division, and it worked out great. No, the community--do you live--I mean, do you folks live here? Well, when we got here, there was nothing north of Van Giesen. Nothing. And so boy, did we see that grow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Yeah, I imagine you’ve seen a lot of change and growth. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: The week we got here—well, let's see. It was about--I lived here for about, well, maybe three months in the dorm, until we got housing for my wife in that B house. And it was great, the idea of that housing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Yeah. What was the dorm like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: I didn't have any problem. Of course, I missed my family. We had a boy at that time living in Colorado, and he now lives in Snohomish. And again, we had the big army camp in North Richland, where we had just thousands of trailers and everything. And that was quite a sight to see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So you said you first job was working for the health department, or public health? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, it was the health and safety. Yes, it wasn't the health department at that time, but it included their functions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: What sorts of things—that first job, what sorts of things did you do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, we used to do all kinds of inspections, of course. But restaurants, schools, the water department in Richland, just broad health things that required health overviews. So that was the job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: You were working for GE, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: How many people were working in the health at that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, we probably had 20 or 25. We had a doctor that was in charge of us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And then you said you went into radiation protection, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes, from that function. And the main reason is because GE—went to a community, rather than being GE-managed. We had to elect a city councilman. It was a city. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember what your thoughts were about that, about Richland becoming an independent city at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: No, I think we all accepted it. It was good. Obviously, when you work like that, you're interested in benefits. And I think that swayed a lot of it for me to stay with GE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Right. So when you moved to radiation protection then, you said you had to have a lot of training at that point? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And for the jobs you were doing, did you have to wear special protective clothing at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Can you describe that? Sort of what sorts of things you had to wear. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, basically, they're just white coveralls as the one here, and they're still using the same white coveralls out there, just like we did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: How about security at Hanford? What was that like when you first came? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I think it was very tight. It was very tight. They really stressed security and safety. Safety was—in my estimation, my experience, General Electric was the most, the best contractor I ever worked for in my life, because they had emphasis on safety and health and really stressed it, you know. Much better than possibly they did in later years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So was there sort of ongoing training for safety? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, yes. Very, very, very, very--GE was very safety-conscious, and they were so good to their employees. You never read anything about anything happening in the newspaper or anything like that. They got it to their employees right away, and it was a pleasure. And the rest was a pleasure too, but not like--I miss GE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And you talked about, was it the 558 project? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: With changing the tubing. So what was your job? I know you went to each different reactor as they did that. What sort of things were you doing for that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: My particular job was I was what they called the radiation supervisor. And so I had about eight radiation monitors with me all the time during each outage, and we went from one to the other. And their job was everything had to be monitored just like they do now, in and out of the areas, and move it, and take it to disposal areas, and everything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So was it monitoring the employees’ exposure rates? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes, monitoring the employees and the jobs that they're doing, because we had to develop the radiation work procedures, which they were working at. And this would vary during the whole outage. And they were very tight at first, and there was any grinding or anything or heat or anything, you had to have special requirements for that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So of the different jobs you had and the different parts of the site that you worked at, was there a job or something you did that you found the most challenging, and/or something that was the most rewarding of the things you did at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, probably the most rewarding job I ever had here was Hanford, was I was here with Richland operations office, and during the americium accident in 1955, I think it was, and my job, at that time, was--as a matter of fact, I got involved in that particular incident at about 5:00 in the morning after it happened at 4:00. And I went out with the doctor, a fellow by the name of Dr. Breitenstein, and he and I went out and met Mr. McCluskey out in the area, before they got me into the decontamination center. And my job was really I represented RL in the whole aspect of the care of that patient during the months and months that he was here. Because he was confined, couldn't leave, and everything. And my job was to--as a matter of fact, I came right out to see him every single morning that he was in there, and we became very, very, very, very good friends. And it turned out I was a pallbearer when he died. [LAUGHTER] And it was a rewarding experience, because to begin with, he was such a great guy, and he accepted all of this and was never down, but he couldn't hardly see. He was grossly contaminated. And my job was to keep people at RL down here, the Richland operations office informed of what the situation was with him, and to notify headquarters, keep them informed, because it was a real significant accident, the worst we've ever had at Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So you mentioned that he had suffered probably with his vision. What other sort of injuries or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, what happened, he had put his hand in this glovebox out in 234-5 Building, and it exploded, and came out and hit him in the face. So he was just so grossly contaminated, and he had to have a radiation monitor with him every hour that he was down there. And I became so familiar with that accident and everything, and I felt it was the most rewarding for me to have something like that to do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember about how long he had to stay hospitalized? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, yes. He was down there for probably a year. A year. We got hot food. It was provided to him by Kadlec Hospital down here, and he had a nurse with him down there at all times. And his wife was living down there with him also. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And where was he then? Was he at the hospital, or was he- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, there was facility at the back of Kadlec Hospital, which is no longer there. And this facility was called Emergency Decontamination Center, and he was there. They had beds and everything in there, showers and everything. And it was a specific facility for that case, to tell you the truth. And it's since been torn down, which I think was a mistake, myself, because if you ever had another one, you couldn't have been a better facility for it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: You mentioned you were in close with him, and were a pallbearer at his funeral. How long did he live? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: He lived about, I think, about three years. And then he died of a heart attack. It wasn't radiation. But he certainly had radiation in him that would cause cancer if he had lived too much longer. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Are there any other incidents or sort of unusual events that happened when you were working at Hanford that kind of stand out in your mind at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I happened to be a trained accident investigator, and I had to go to school and learn all this kind of stuff. And I probably investigated more accidents than anybody ever has at Hanford. But we’ve had fatalities, and we had big spreads of contamination. We had several things that cause it, plus, we also responded to off-site accidents. And I had what we call a radiological assistant team that reported to me, and I went out on those where there were trucks that would spill radioactive material, where there was--this is kind of a little odd. I probably shouldn't even mention it, but you'll appreciate it. But we had a truck of uranium billets overturn on Lolo Pass, and these billets weigh 15, 20 pounds, but there's hundreds of them in this truck. Those things went all over the highway up here in Montana. I responded to that one. And one of the things that I was never trained on was guns. But, well, we were up there probably about a week recovering all of those billets that spilled over, because they all had to be accounted for. It was very strict on that. But we were out from town out on this pass someplace, and somebody had to sit in the truck with a gun at night to make sure nothing came, if anybody came from the highway or anything like that. Well, they gave me a big shotgun. I don't even remember what kind of gun. I couldn't have shot that damn thing if I'd had to! [LAUGHTER] And I still can't! [LAUGHTER] But that was kind of humorous. But we couldn't have the guy that could shoot be there all the time. So we all spent about three or four hours a night out there by ourselves. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: How long were you out there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: We were out there a couple of weeks. But I responded to lots of--the worst probably the most one that I responded to as the team captain was we had a spread of contamination at the University of Washington at the reactor. And I actually, again, there was some plutonium that came from Hanford that they were analyzing up there, and there was a spill. And the reactor at the University of Washington was greatly contaminated with plutonium. And I had a team. I had three or four people that went up with me to respond to that, and we were there two or three weeks there helping them get that all in, and we did. We got it all cleaned up, but there was some minor depositions. But boy, if that thing would happen now, the way it's anti-nuclear, it would be horrible. But this happened to be in spring break when all of the kids were away. So we lucked out on that on that thing, but we all had to wear protective clothing that two or three weeks while we were doing that. But I was the team leader on that particular accident. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember what the time period was when that happened? What year that might've been? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, gosh, I can't remember that. But I responded to probably 30 or 40 spills and so on that were all over the country in Oregon and Washington. And then we had spills in Oregon that we had to go down to, because at that time, the state didn't have people for that function to overlook at that. So we did their work for them. And I did that for, like I say, about four or five years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So did you usually respond if it was like material that had come from Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: No, it could be anything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Could’ve been anything, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Could be anything. I loved the job, and I loved the people, because I like people. But it was so much travel. I was always gone from Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So that was probably one of the more challenging aspects for you is just all the travel. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah, it was. We had young children, and it seemed like I couldn't go out and come back, there wasn't a million things broke. [LAUGHTER] So that's the way it went. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: I wanted to ask you about President Kennedy's visit in 1963, if you went to that that day. Do you have any memories about that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I got two memories. I got a call after that article was in the paper from the Seattle--no, she was from, I think, a public relations firm down here, one of them, that asked me about it. So I told them everything I knew. So I told them about this one friend of ours that happened to get up and shake Kennedy's hand. Well, of course, they were interested more in that than were what I had to say. [LAUGHTER] So the big article in the paper, he gives his report. He didn't even mention my name. [LAUGHTER] No, I didn't care. But my son-in-law was there when they called too, and they quoted him in the article and everything. But poor me. No, I wasn't looking. I wasn't really looking for my name to be any place. [LAUGHTER] Yes, I was out there. It was, of course, it was in the fall when he was here, not long before he was assassinated. But it was such a hot day, and I think all of Richland went out to it. There was just car after car going out to that area, and some of them boiling over from the heat and all this kind of stuff. But it was a very, very excellent program. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So as you look back at your years working at Hanford—how many was it? Thirty-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Gee! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Something like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: About 36. It was 36. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Well, as you look back at those 36 years, overall, how would you assess Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I thought it was excellent and very safety-conscious. It couldn't have—in my aspect—been a safer place to live in my life than I did here at Hanford. And like I say, I worked in all the reactors. I worked in the separation plants and everything, and it was interesting. I think it was rewarding, the fact that you could clean up stuff. So it makes me real--we had such excellent facilities out here at that time. But all those buildings are gone and torn down, and they could've been used for so many things now. And I think that was a really big mistake. But they didn't ask me. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Well, is there anything I haven't asked you about that you think would be important to share or talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, you know, I don't know. I think you might want to look at my submittal in the Parker Foundation on that thing and see what I said at that time and the answer to their questions and so on. It went well. And I just feel so fortunate to have been here all this time and be so lucky and still be here. I'm the luckiest guy in the world, and I'm very happy that I was at Hanford. I've got several awards while I was here for my work. One of them I do want to show you, because I'm really probably real pleased, but I was elected a fellow in the National Health Physics Society. I received awards, several from—I was president of our local chapter of the Health Physics Society. I received several awards from those people. I was really well thought of while I was here at Hanford. And I was real pleased. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So were you involved in the Parker Foundation as well? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes, I've been on it since--I still am. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you want to talk about that, like how you got involved with that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: I was asked to join it by Dr. Bair, who is still there. And I know you know about Ron Kathren. Everybody knows Ron Kathren. Well, I play cribbage with Ron Kathren every Wednesday at my house now. We play cribbage. I just think he's such a great person, and such a great health physicist, that I was so lucky to know him. And they asked me to join, and I've been real active, until this business with my wife, which I took a leave of absence. And I haven't been able to go there, because I can't leave my wife. But I still pay my dues and go there, and it's been a good organization. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming today in this cold weather and coming and letting us talk to you. And then maybe we could get a shot of your award that you brought in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, okay. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:39:12 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 195 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 200 West Area B Reactor C Reactor 100-DR 100-H Area 100-F Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1950-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1950-1970 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Bair, Bill Kathren, Ron Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jerry Yesberger Description An account of the resource An interview with Jerry Yesberger conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Richland (Wash.). Public Schools Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/9/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-18: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100-DR 100-F Area 100-H Area 200 West Area 300 Area B Reactor C Reactor Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe14e4177541d86d726108ff0ae769395.jpg 09ca8e040f8702ef5a35ef159d767c68 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9c057bb8e9f110352e26b93ab36a49ec.mp4 6baf716dfe1500e5c0f22fb821d2eb4a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Young Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Northwest Public Television | Young_John </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> John Young: R. Young. J-O-H-N R Y-O-U-N-G. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Robert Bauman: All right, thank you. And today's date is October 22nd of 2013. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: I'll agree on that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Okay. Sounds good. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: So let's start by having you tell me when you came to Hanford? What brought you here? How you got here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: When did you come to Hanford—to work and Hanford, and what brought you here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: You want the whole story of how I got to Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: It'll take me 15 minutes. I wrote a letter up to here after I saw an article in the newspaper saying they were looking for employees. And after that, they accepted me from the standpoint that they would find out whether or not I was qualified. And for the next two months, the FBI and other agencies went through my history and got information from my doctor and so forth. And in early June—well actually, yeah—they finally decided that they would offer me a job. Or they offered me a job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: And so where had you been living before you came here? What year was this, also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Where were you living before you came here, and what year was this that you moved here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Oh no, I didn't have any employee but here before. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: But where did you live before you came here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Where was I working? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Where did you live before? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Oh, I lived in Albany, Oregon. And I worked there as a carpenter because my dad made houses. So anyway, when I found out that I was supposed to arrive on July the 8th, I started from home on July the 7th. I wanted to be sure that I got here. Now, something I should tell you now is that during that spring, the Columbia River was at its highest violation you might say, or amount of water, in history. And it had wiped out parts of Portland. And there were only two bridges on the Columbia River, in the United States. One was the Bridge of the Gods down by Portland, and the other one was a bridge up by Canada.[LAUGHTER] So I didn't have any choice of how to get here. So when I left home, I drove up to Portland on back country roads because the main roads up to Portland were all wiped out by the water. Got to Portland. It was 17 miles east to the Bridge of the Gods. And that was actually a very funny ride because the road I was on the south side of the river and railroad track were the only two things on that side of the river. And I could drive along there and look out over the top of the rails on the railroad, and I could see that the flood two feet below the top of the railroad. Anyway, I got to the bridge safely. Went over the bridge, and I knew that the road on the other side going east from the Bridge of the Gods grows gradually up the ridge on the north of the river and eventually goes over the top of it and go down into the Yakima Valley. And I got about halfway up that ridge when the engine on my car blew out. [LAUGHTER] And fortunately it was right at a little town there that had some place where they could fix my car. So I spent the rest of that day there while they were working on the car. And they got the car ready for me by 8:00 the next morning, which was the 8th. So I drove on up over the top of the ridge down into the Yakima Valley, because I knew that if I could get into Yakima, there's a main road coming from Yakima down here. I got down to the bottom of the hill there, started towards Yakima. And I got two miles, and they found out that there's three feet of water over the river—over the road, pardon. So I turned around, went back. And there was an industrial area there. And I found a guard there and said is there any way I can get down to here. He said oh yeah, go back up to the road to Yakima and then go east. And when you get down, about 30 miles, there's a bridge over the river. So I took it and went in to Richland, getting there about noon on the 8th, which was fine for my getting there. So I ate my lunch, went into the Federal Building--which was only a one story building at that time—and I found out where the manager of personnel--well, new in personnel were. Walked down to his office, walked in his office. And he had about five desks in there. He was on one of them right by the door. And he was busy working on it. So I stood there, I'll say, for over a minute when he finally looked up and saw me. So I reached out my hand to him and said who I was. He stood up. He opened his mouth wide. And he stood there for over a minute, utterly amazed. When he finally got himself together, he said, how in the world did you get into Richland? What had happened was the management of Hanford had concluded that nobody would get into Richland for the next month. And that's why he was so astounded that I got into town. There was a [INAUDIBLE] if you want to call him that and overlooked the fact that I was a westerner. And I can go anywhere in this country that I want to, because I was raised on a cattle ranch down in Central Oregon. And I knew where to go through the, I'll say, backwoods. And that's how I got there. So anyway, their question then became, what are they going to do with me? Because they'd shut down the orientation class for new employees, so I couldn't go to work out in Areas. What were they going to do with me for a month? Now the first thing they did is they got me a room out in the barracks in North Richland. And then they told me to report to the production scheduling office in the Federal Building the next day, which is a top secret operation. And the purpose of that office was to determine which tubes in the reactors should be discharged the next time they had an outage at the reactors. And consider that there's 6,000 tubes out there. They had a new calculation system because they had a calculator which was designed to do that calculation to tell them what the amount of uranium was, or the amount of plutonium was in those process tubes. And such a method of calculating did not exist anywhere else. It was a special calculator designed by Marchand. Well anyway, I spent the next month in that office. I had a copy of the manual for Hanford—it was a top secret copy. And I could read that and find out everything that went on in Hanford in their manual. And then at the end of that month, when they finally opened up their orientation operation, I went through that process. And then I went out to the 100 Areas to go to work. I was assigned for six months at B Reactor as an assistant, well, operator for the reactor. It was a training period. It's a General Electric process. Any time the General Electric Company—at that time anyway—hired a new employee that had an education, they would put them out into one of their operations or many of them to give that person training on what to do in the job that they're going to get. And when they got through with the six month part that I was out there, they then assigned me to day work out in the 100 Areas. And I spent the next 17 years out in the 100 Areas as a senior engineer, one of the few that they had out there. Now I had to earn that title of senior engineer. But I was working on increasing the productivity of the reactors, reducing the cost of operating reactors, reducing the amount of radiation well, affecting workers out there—things of that type, for 17 years. At the end of the 17 years, they started shutting the reactors down. So I resigned. Went to the 300 Area and joined several organizations down there. [LAUGHTER] You know, there's so many of them floating around there, it's funny. And I spent 33 years mainly working in the 300 Area. But what I did was such things as licensing nuclear reactors, seven of them on the east coast of the United States. Congress had decided that all of the nuclear power plants in the country should be licensed. And the AEC, when they got that, they said well, you should work in the East because we don't want any bias. So those seven reactors are spread all away from Florida clear up to Minnesota. And after that, that was just a typical action for, oh, about one year. I was still an employee here. And if you want to know what I've done for the rest of that 30 years I spent at Hanford, I've got it listed here if you want it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: This is something that I've had. I filled it out as appropriate just so I could answer questions of the type that you've made. And if you want to make a copy of this-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Oh, sure. Yeah, we can do that afterwards, yeah. That’d be fine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: But you see there's—oh, what is it--about 15 boxes all in there. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: I want to go back to when you first arrived in the area in 1948. Is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What did I do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: You first arrived in the area-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: I just arrived in '40--well, you mean in the Northwest? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: No, I mean in the Richland, Hanford area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: In Richford, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: What sort of housing did you have when you first arrived? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: There were in Hanford at that time, large buildings--some of them still exist--which had multiple rooms for people. And some of those buildings could hold as many as 25 people. And I was single. It was very handy from midtown. It's not out in the sandy places they talk about in this article. [LAUGHTER] But that sand, he talks in there so much—a couple of times anyway—actually was not Richland. Except for little locations where one building might be built. Most of Richland was grassy. And if you're in Richland, you're not getting any sand blowing around. And if you read their article there, they talked about the sand when there were on construction locations. Well that's normal throughout the whole state of Washington. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: So what your first impressions of Richland when you first got here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: When I first came in? I got a story for you that you're going to wonder if you want to publish it. I, like I said, drove into Richland on the 8th of June and got my lunch. Ate my lunch, went into the office there. And I guess I told you that this fellow said how in the world did you get into Richland? So from that time on, I was working. And I was working out in 100 Areas. The first six months, I was working at B and D Reactors. And my position was assistant shift superintendent. See, they had shut B Reactor down for, must have been four years because they wanted to keep it available in case they had to get some more plutonium for the military in a hurry. And that was the only time I was on shift. After that, my work was what you might call typical engineering. You can call it nuclear engineering if you want to, but it's general types of engineering—reducing operating costs, increasing production, reducing the radiation doses to employees, those types of things for 17 years. Ended up as a senior engineer. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Of the different sorts of jobs, different parts of the Hanford site that you worked on, was there something that you found most challenging, most difficult, and/or something that you found sort of most rewarding about what you did? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: I don't understand your question. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Well, you had at least a few different jobs. You worked in the 100 Areas, right? And then you worked the 300 Area. Where there certain things that you did that you found sort of more challenging, or more difficult than others? And were there certain aspects or certain jobs that you had that you really found especially rewarding, that you really enjoyed a lot? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: The main difference was that when I was working in 300 Area, the reactors were reactors of the types that were used everywhere else in the United States. The Hanford reactors were very specific reactors because their only purpose was to produce plutonium. Whereas the other reactors in the United States were primarily built to produce electricity. It's a different design. And it also had more, shall we say, more opposition by the public. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. And that's a subject that you might want to address, because the people who are supposed to be the experts on radiation generally refused to use the information which says that low level radiation is beneficial. That makes a lot of difference. That low level radiation is so beneficial. In my case, I got 15,000 radiation dose. All of it was low level radiation. There might have been some high level in there, but I can only tell you what the badge has, you know? [LAUGHTER] And that's something that you might want to mention in your articles if you publish them. There are numerous people here, particularly in Hanford, that refuse to recognize that fact that low level radiation is beneficial. And like I say, there are scores of documents that say that low level radiation is beneficial. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: You talked about your badge. I wonder if could talk about safety at Hanford? Did you have to wear any special clothing equipment of any kind to do your work? What sorts of ways was safety sort of part of what you did? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well, I was cleared for every type of limited information. I got that when I told you I went into that one office on the first day. That was a top secret operation. And top secret gives you access to anything, assuming you had a need for it. I spent—let's see, how long were we in Oak Ridge? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Woman one: One year. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: One year, yeah. I spent one year in Oak Ridge on a committee which had somebody for every one of the AEC outliers, you might say. And the purpose was to determine where to protect their materials could be manufactured if somebody needed them. In other words, if you want high level radiation dose or something. I was dealing with people from every one of the major AEC outsides. But I would have ranged all in the various types of work that involve radiation. For instance, I was a manager at preparing environmental impact document for fusion reactors. And that document was presented in a meeting to the international fusion organizations in Germany. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: About what time period was that? Do you know? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Oh, my. Let's see. That must be about 1990. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: During your years working at Hanford, were the any events, incidents, events, special occasions, things that sort of stand out in your mind from your time working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: You mean the reactors involved? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Oh, could be, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Yeah, we head one out in the 100 Areas. For essentially all of the reactors, when they milk the reactors, they—of course the reactors are made out of graphite. They ran tests on graphite and so forth, and they learned that they could operate the reactors with a fairly low temperature of the graphite. You get too high temperature and you know you might hurt the material. And as we started raising the power levels of the reactors out there, the graphite started expanding. And the result was that in some of the older reactors like B Reactor, the graphite expanded enough that it pushed the shields off the outside of the reactor. Well, push them apart you might say. And the result was that the radiation inside of the reactor was leaking out through the crack at the top of the far side wall on the reactor. And there was a line of radiation going out that crack out through the wall in the far side of the reactor and then up into the air. And the result was that there was about a 20 mR radiation dose on the ground outside of the reactor. And that's one thing I worked on. They went back into the files of the DuPont people. And by checking through those files, they discovered that if we raised the temperature of the graphite, the expansion would stop. And if you go too low, the graphite would reduce in volume. And so we had to go through a special study to try to figure out what this would do to the reactor. And the result was—you see, the normal tube in the reactor was straight through the reactor. But when the graphite started expanding, the tube went up in arc and came back down because the highest temperature graphite was in the center of the reactor. So we figured out what was the proper temperature of the graphite—of actually of the gas in the reactor. And we ended up with the top tubes in the reactor going in, going down, going up, going down, and coming back up and going out the back. That's the type of things you ran into doing something like those reactors. And by doing that, it sort of drove the people replacing process tube on the reactor having to figure out how to get the tubes in the [INAUDIBLE]--[LAUGHTER]--through the reactor. If we had not done that, eventually the reactor would have fallen apart. In other words, if we hadn't figured out what was causing the problem—because this reactor would just keep expanding, and finally that outside shield would fall over. Or we'd have to somehow rebuild the shield up there to keep it in place. That's just a typical job that you'd have. You might spend six months on that. I had another one. I was working with a fellow who is an expert on water purification. And see, we were cooling the reactors with Columbia River water. It had to go through the water plant to clarify the water to get the sand and what have you out of it. And when they first designed the reactors, DuPont had discovered that if you did not have the right concentration of materials in the water going through the reactor, the tubes were bending up into two inside the reactor. And in order to prevent that happening, they were use the sodium dichromate in the water on the reactors. One part per million or something like that, but it's still, we're spending about, well, over $1 million a year buying that material. And I was working there with a fellow who was an expert on operating water treatment plants. And we got together and looked at this sodium dichromate that was used as we said--and we were buying that by the railroad car load. And I think the total cost was a $1.4 million a year for that one material as I remember it. And we looked at the price of it. And we looked at the price of buying the two components for making that material. And we had enough equipment in the water plants that we could make that material, the sodium dichromate. So we bought the chromate and the sodium, and we cut the costs in half from about a $1.4 million down to $700,000 a year. So we saved $700,000 a year. That's the type of things you work on. All types of things you get involved in. For instance, when they built the reactors back in World War II, there was a shortage of steel. So many of the pipes, particularly the ones underground, were not made out of metal. And when you heat and cool the other types of pipes, they start leaking because they crack open. So we had to figure out how to solve that problem or reduce the amount of sodium dichromate getting into the Columbia River. We worked it out, reduced it considerable. Those things get a little complicated. I don't want to go through all the detail. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: So it's involved a lot of problem solving? Your [INAUDIBLE] anyways right, problems with the reactor or whatever you would work on solving those issues. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: If there were problems with the reactors, then you would work on solving some of those issues, work on solving the problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Yeah. In other words, you have really two plants there. One was a water plant to provide the water to the reactor. And then the reactor was the other plant. Now what you do with the water, what you get out of that, is just how you get it back into the Columbia River with a minimum of radiation. And you know, that raises an important thing that I haven't mentioned it to people here in the Tri-Cities. I kept records on what the radiation was in the Columbia River. And when we were running the reactors out there, we were running, you might say, tons of radioaction into the river. Yet the amount of radioactivity in the Columbia River here at Richland was essentially zero. It had disappeared you might say, or bee diluted if you want to put it the other way during the travel of the water from out there by the reactors into here. And when I see these articles in the newspaper about they're worrying about the fact that there's radiation out there in the 200 Area and it will leak out into the ground seven miles or something like that from the river, I'd be willing to bet that there wouldn't be much radiation getting down to Richland. And the other thing is that it would be low level radiation, which is beneficial if it does get down here. I don't know if you want to put anything like that in what you publish because the nuclear engineers don't want it to be published. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Overall, how was Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Overall, how was Hanford as a place to Work what did you think of Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well to me, that was a typical job, In other words, I had to travel 35 miles to get to my work. But people do that all over the country. It was an interesting job because we were working on increasing our knowledge of the subject. It's different than running one of these dams out here where you're generating electricity you know. All you're doing there is pushing a button once in a while. But by doing the right things out there, we saved millions of dollars. And we also reduced, you might say, the effects of radiation on anybody by making sure they didn't get any high radiation doses. But the most important thing about it is that we were, you might say, at war with the rest of the world. As long as we had to make that plutonium and reap you might say, keep Russia at a distance. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Is there anything I haven't asked you about in terms of your work at Hanford that you'd like to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well no, other than the fact that once I went to work in the 300 Areas, I worked all over the United States. Because I happened to be, you might say, an expert on nuclear reactors. A good example is that the government decided they wanted to have every nuclear reactor, I'll say described, to be sure what it is and how much radiation so forth is involved. In other words, if they did that, they licensed them. And that was quite an interesting job, because I worked on seven reactors back on the East Coast. And of course, I worked for one year in Oak Ridge. And that involved all of the AEC facilities. Bauman I want to thank you very much for coming in today and sharing your experience with us. I really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well, always glad to be helpful. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young; I would like to see the facts published in your story that low level radiation is beneficial. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: I'm making these, we're making these available for anyone to look at, the [INAUDIBLE] stuff. Thanks again, appreciate it. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:39:31 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 193 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 100 Area B Reactor D Reactor 300 Area 200 Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1940-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1940-1990 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Young Description An account of the resource An interview with John Young conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/22/2013 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-15: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 200 Area 300 Area B Reactor D Reactor Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F97490d9e79c8febc2de1b17e5e26f8c8.jpg 07eda7b2596d03a375bf7346cd2e54f2 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0081049bc8617dc74d91077007529331.mp4 289c09266dfd9d74741cd3dcbd18f45b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bill Decker Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bill Decker Description An account of the resource An interview with Bill Decker conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F765994dd921c91eb053787d613d46dc8.jpg 16a97e6dcda82388432112b119202e26 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe7571cdcd4734f62fb4055782c2a8ebd.mp4 bafcb78950404349c3e160f0d590ce45 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bill Kennedy Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bill Kennedy Description An account of the resource An interview with Bill Kennedy conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6d1399b27916dd5ec2646fdea94cfdf0.jpg 4d18af5d2a912b3c9382f4de8cd59003 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F84b51170a0a057f293a80eb6a4ea3769.mp4 86d389ba8c63a7491cf4de7dd24ce2b9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed C.J. Mitchell Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with CJ Mitchell Description An account of the resource An interview with CJ Mitchell conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fec967f4d78f4f451955c140895f5b7e2.jpg 3a08b04cf344b9cf90ac3214ae236de0 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fea927b6485455a4852b0ca42cb552440.mp4 6d91626745c8df0071c79d33c8ec3fcc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed George Greger Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with George Greger Description An account of the resource An interview with George Greger conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F752985ef89ddfb05340c9c61880e3ced.jpg bcd5fbfbf8b6881935c4d8740e87e45a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd3a0d5dae4362573ee96fac2d26b8cf2.mp4 2408e3bcb2d9670ad5c1555f3b4a7da3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Chuck Elderkin Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Chuck Elderkin Description An account of the resource An interview with Chuck Elderkin conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fddffc58635cc7016df42ace81212991a.jpg f739ce8953a137171255777099492201 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F93ac8f3560c4f5a1c325fb10d359aa2e.mp4 d06bdcebfb6b9c077c801860cf99b824 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Larry Cadwell Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Larry Cadwell Description An account of the resource An interview with Larry Cadwell conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4b3aa15b538860c7f59b7c10347f2eb0.jpg 79472a5b899296e075da2258adef590c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ffafe73d0113f10e9dd2ba4567a2f4210.mp4 a79f64e15bc6eda1942c6625971cdc2d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dave Ottley Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dave Ottley Description An account of the resource An interview with Dave Ottley conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6ec3e8f4ece16fe2f8e90a40e794f465.jpg 5cf3e70b4428b5caeafb4070bcbe656e https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F01546f5dc61b7dd087c005e7be022894.mp4 4c412857203994da1f60ff4e6cffcafa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Cecil Drotts Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Cecil Drotts Description An account of the resource An interview with Cecil Drotts conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3a2b5f7ec27956c1226d34a3d8ec2791.jpg 8a9c4ac345fed2216eec9ad2bd5ab99a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6fea084811862488e4e8cc81a09c98a1.mp4 9e0a947bd9a2c175e5f8ec125edca10a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Don Bihl Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Don Bihl Description An account of the resource An interview with Don Bihl conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe010761b47ac7cc54f579735db5c770a.jpg 2f425c361102f419df01cfc683b2a3f6 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2548701e4c6492a286ec7c7c33ee0640.mp4 3e9fb1701f202198c16a0255163944b6 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David Hess Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with David Hess Description An account of the resource An interview with David Hess conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1bdee6527964e6e504429b8a3fb3c4e2.jpg 0e1d43357bd9268e8223fea3cb56af6b https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2d0ee5d0ec221220c2ec9eadc8d68c1d.mp4 fb2e0b2309c5d043c13e3b3108643540 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Marv Smith Description An account of the resource An interview with Marv Smith conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F16450808db71ebd15ff4719aa6166c13.jpg 5d674811c65a8a6774d6ad3f0d6732a8 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff798812af5c01fa8ae4b5e77009e7866.mp4 1f2059d9037ef1939104d60bc7095846 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jack Cline Description An account of the resource An interview with Jack Cline conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6728e02b345beccd4eb7557299128682.jpg 4831b26e1991b658b856e435ac2cc04f https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fcb200b6bdd2f570456b129758b5fce90.mp4 2f6e8c505ddbeb2ded71195d822875bb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jack Fix Description An account of the resource An interview with Jack Fix conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F160f57694fbb3da57edbf85bf116add8.jpg baf97352530f42b8edc8966b865e0b3e https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fdef8e3247e523a68f08cd0780b3a80a8.mp4 db092048b58d3687019f885c2f45567e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Gene Schreckhise Description An account of the resource An interview with Gene Schreckhise conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F62d9a8436aa68d523231a11c1fd12550.jpg cf654522f54074b7e9a73043a1991e80 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fdef6f13f1b87c38a2583f8f2fa20db09.mp4 88d26c6ec37bd9e2ea23d63fb95e1ccd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Carl Corbit Description An account of the resource An interview with Carl Corbit conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F45444ea0142e2dc0ec92d67b2abc7a3d.jpg b9a583fd12524f3367b63c40dbbb4d3b https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd8c3701adc70e39ed8e42e917f4555dc.mp4 0dd337652ce77439fb7e1b45ee365fe6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Gene Carbaugh Description An account of the resource An interview with Gene Carbaugh conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F136b57b49802c62e334499fb23250059.jpg a73bc7c6ab1251eb09868a60b00e43d3 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8832d07538c7cedca9e98754d3d6d5f5.mp4 31f99181e731a987de313d7dc5528804 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Lyle Wilhimi Description An account of the resource An interview with Lyle Wilhimi conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fc538f9cddd2fe35226bc7f90e5fa53c7.jpg e34dce850b70eb7cdc4fdb568455d93d https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F68879a00eec05785241baab005775d87.mp4 b47600b1f0b114df663c92fb3fa1c3d0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Robert Scherpelz Description An account of the resource An interview with Robert Scherpelz conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2d12e511c0f98a1b679e62e5b732df6f.jpg a25b3c33a6df6a53d897a963aef6d585 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6b9f5558f656637cb3b93737c55c1a03.mp4 4027a5553d6ebc76f09062dc2ec2eab2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Vicki Berndt Description An account of the resource An interview with Vicki Berndt conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F73ed6904e8bdb10d60adbbd8b53d5126.jpg 2ace5ce7188e14cf6751f6d03687db79 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd390e5346e92760d98ca808d5f292871.mp4 bf113e7981c42640a50f5a2e54a92080 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Tony Adaline Description An account of the resource An interview with Tony Adaline conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fa04663b210fdfb1278673dce9cbdf72d.jpg 1f9da566f5bb72a143e3f26220eecc63 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff8b069635fc42200e42972b2f1f49653.mp4 2c822e2349653b920084093d7e02b9c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Matt Lardy Description An account of the resource An interview with Matt Lardy conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fbdb57e3dde017cbadd86868b92a0470b.jpg 9237d328797326bdef996fbdcd9744a0 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F53e87e2e7c39cdc09f0dd01015dde2d3.mp4 20b1d5b96c767eca2a539e427c62a42f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ted Poston Description An account of the resource An interview with Ted Poston conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F15c0c1471a0b29d2fd8063e13b1816b3.jpg b0d99ba52ee6be7de7282e29ce7b86d7 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F027104bf25ad44bc778e4964058b35c1.mp4 3512d866ed13b9fbe343f9f8692d0364 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with William Pennell Description An account of the resource An interview with William Pennell conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3c6536134e23b49c4d123c5d5f5fec82.jpg 2ac6d2164a282e80110a4f394a33c1ed https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F428e2a8933e60283aeab84d6169c1e86.mp4 80337064f89893720ccda5ac421cb3bc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Walter Wilson Description An account of the resource An interview with Walter Wilson conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7e463ce61507106df8bccff30a3efaf7.jpg 60df77db663d1fd6738da6e5b17ccd3d https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fb5925324ee62156330e030ffebe83482.mp4 938cb7e10e59a093fc99433024b1d210 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ed Tupin Description An account of the resource An interview with Ed Tupin conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7d0cc48e35c1699bf3e2ceb5504081e6.jpg 267ef4f8ad23eb01b28ca54bbcf5fb3a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8bdd191b516948b8551df906cb3e95b8.mp4 63d203336c6e92d208527e36058af974 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with William Tyler Description An account of the resource An interview with William Tyler conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fbe017a467d7ab32dc0d5db80712a8f57.jpg 1337fd559f6af6ee8c63ef8a01ed0104 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7d248f55af196ae30b8c63e48a7a14f4.mp4 eccb246ba5acd6dc92f3d1b17b41ba52 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ned Wogman Description An account of the resource An interview with Ned Wogman conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F86f4b8ef9b4f5b6c6aac3ba5f2435bdd.jpg 93aa1b2083ed7a999121244510383aec https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff6c5567a91e58d2928cdcf7bcda4637d.mp4 93cc7bae99c98893e487e90a63f6afb4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Terri Aldridge Description An account of the resource An interview with Terri Aldridge conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff98c16ca3e81eec79d4de278d394d717.jpg 750ec2ddf7b8fc9ea3033e0678630c5c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fb4f533ace02f0c661ea46bbf9868ad00.mp4 08f5360560e7df16a4176fc6a54b87c1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Elsa & Trudy Description An account of the resource An interview with Elsa & Trudy conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F712db5c75473a99e3dbf4664f6f10242.jpg f9aba4c53b6f6ba762f9e423cfcb49df https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd045615a1d2760d5c969f0523b0cb44a.mp4 79ba2bc7213c3768ca0e9682f30654ea Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Sydney Proter Description An account of the resource An interview with Sydney Proter conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fc30dd86cc5da96b5f7ade08ffac61fba.jpg 52f1b411e04e6f5720a642dfe6518f9c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F73a2751762ddec149c67aa731b479a52.mp4 64a165fc137c2ff8c37fbe7419ffc0f9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parker Foundation Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Nuclear science; Richland, Wa.; Hanford, Wa.; Parker, Herbert, 1910-1984 Description An account of the resource "The Herbert M. Parker Foundation collects valuable personal perspectives from key individuals who worked in radiological and environmental protection at the Hanford site in the early years of its development. Since 2004, student interns have recorded interviews from health physics and related science professionals. These historically valuable interviews document their personal experiences, observations, contributions and ideas. Several of the distinguished professionals who have spoken at the Annual Herbert M. Parker Lecture are also included. The videotaped interviews and accompanying biographical sketches will be made accessible to the public." See https://tricities.wsu.edu/parkerfoundation/ParkerHistory Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Nels Laulainen Description An account of the resource An interview with Nels Laulainen conducted by the Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Herbert M. Parker Foundation at Washington State University Tri-Cities