Page 3 of The Women of Oak Ridge

“School has kept me busy.” Even though it was true, I knew I was making excuses. Earning a master’s degree in psychology was no easy task, but a phone call to my aging aunt would only have taken a few minutes here and there.

She gave me a long study. “Harris said you’re working on your dissertation. I had no idea you wanted to get your doctorate. That’s quite ambitious.”

Her tone hinted at possible failure. “It’s definitely a lot of work, especially now that I’m teaching, but I’m up for the challenge.”

“I’m sure you are, dear.” She smiled. “Let’s get you settled, then we can catch up before dinner.”

I followed her through the living room to a short hallway where three doors stood open.

Two bedrooms and one baby-blue-tiled bathroom.

Aunt Mae led me to the room on the left.

A quilt-covered bed, nightstand, and an old cabinet-encased sewing machine, complete with a wide foot pedal, were the only furnishings. The walls were bare.

“I don’t have much company stay overnight.” She glanced around the sparse room. “Harris is the only one who sleeps in here these days.”

A flash of memory surfaced when I approached the sewing machine, positioned under a window where late afternoon sunshine spilled through lacey curtains. “I remember you used to make clothes for my sisters and me. Matching dresses. Nightgowns. Even things for our dolls.”

Her mouth lifted in a wistful smile. “I enjoyed sewing for you girls.”

Another wave of guilt washed over me. I couldn’t recall ever thanking her for the handmade gifts.

“Make yourself at home.” She turned to exit the room. “We’ll eat around six.”

“Thank you, Aunt Mae,” I hurried to say before she got away. “For everything. I’m happy we can spend some time together.”

The wrinkles on her face softened. “I’m glad you’re here.”

After she left, I retrieved my suitcase from the back seat of the car. The neighbor next door—a woman about the same age as my aunt, I guessed—gave a friendly wave from her place on her porch.

“Hello,” she called across the space, her voice and expression curious.

I returned the gesture and the greeting but continued to the house. While I did hope to talk to people in town about their time in Oak Ridge, especially if they were here during the war, right now I just wanted to take off my shoes and relax.

After I unpacked, made a collect call to Mom from the wall phone in the kitchen, and freshened up in the bathroom, I found Aunt Mae in the living room, seated in a comfy-looking overstuffed chair near the front window. She worked a pile of buttery yellow yarn with a crochet hook.

“I don’t see well enough to sew anymore.

” She squinted at me as I landed on the same sofa I’d slept on years ago.

“But my fingers have crocheted so many blankets over the years, they seem to know what to do on their own. A young couple down the street are expecting a new baby any day, but I’m behind schedule.

I hope the little one doesn’t arrive until I have this finished. ”

“I don’t recall Dad mentioning you were having issues with your eyesight.”

“I probably didn’t tell him.” She shrugged. “I don’t want Harris worrying about me more than he already does. Every time he stops by for a visit or we chat on the telephone, he tries to convince me to move to Boston.”

“That would be great,” I said. “I know Dad would love to have you nearby.”

She looked thoughtful. “It would be nice to be closer to my family, but...” Her gaze swept the small room. “This is my home. I’ve lived in Oak Ridge since I was a young woman in my twenties.”

Her comment was exactly the opening I needed to broach the reason I’d come.

“I was hoping to talk to you about that. Dad said you came to Oak Ridge during the war to work at the plant where they enriched uranium for the atomic bomb. I have to admit I didn’t know anything about the role Oak Ridge played in the war until recently.

” I smiled. “I’ve decided to write my dissertation on the people, especially the women, who worked on the Manhattan Project.

What it was like to live and work in a city no one knew about, and how they felt after they learned the secret.

I’m particularly interested to know if it still affects them today. ”

I thought my announcement would please Aunt Mae, but her face paled.

Her brow tugged into a deep frown. “No one wants to talk about those days. The past is the past. Best to leave it there.”

Dad had warned me his sister was closemouthed about her time in Oak Ridge during the war.

She hadn’t moved back to Kentucky after Japan surrendered, and never spoke to him about her job.

If she had interesting stories regarding what took place behind the high fences and guarded gates of Oak Ridge, I had a feeling it was going to take some real effort to pry them out of her.

“But don’t you think it’s important for people of my generation and younger to know how your generation gave everything you had to the war effort?

” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “The war in Vietnam is what we’re familiar with, but it was different from World War II.

People responded differently to it because of the politics involved.

The respect that came from helping defeat Germany and Japan wasn’t there when soldiers came home from Vietnam.

It’s people like you, Aunt Mae, whose stories we need to learn from.

What you and your generation did was heroic. ”

Her frown deepened. “I’m no hero. Far from it.”

I pressed on, hoping she’d see my genuine interest. “I wasn’t aware Oak Ridge was a ‘secret city’ like Los Alamos until I saw a news story about a woman in London who was arrested for being a spy.

It said she passed information about the British atomic program to the Russians.

One of the history professors at the school where I teach had to explain it to me.

I feel foolish for not knowing about Oak Ridge’s history.

Dad showed me a book about the Manhattan Project, and it said the bomb that was dropped on Japan wouldn’t have existed without the work done at Oak Ridge.

” I paused, my next words sincere. “I’d very much like to hear your story, Aunt Mae.

Not just for my research, but because it’s part of your life. Your history.”

After long moments, she faced me. “Just as nothing good came from talking about what went on in Oak Ridge back when the war was raging, nothing good can come from talking about it now. What we did, what we saw, the confidential things everyone kept to themselves. None of that matters now.” She took a shaky breath.

“Not every secret needs to be told. Some just need to be forgotten.”

Her forceful words and the strong emotions behind them caught me off guard.

I couldn’t begin to guess what she meant.

Yet wasn’t that the reason I’d come to Oak Ridge?

To discover how the secrets involved with the Manhattan Project affected people, including my own aunt?

I’d drop the subject for now, but I hoped to prove to her in the coming days that she could trust me.

Her story, along with everyone else’s who worked on the Manhattan Project, was important, whether she recognized it or not.

“I understand, Aunt Mae.” I reached across the small space between us to grasp her hand. I found it frigid despite warm air coming through the open window. Her fingers closed over mine, and she gave a single nod. We didn’t say another word about it.

Together we prepared a simple dinner of baked chicken and mashed potatoes and settled at the green 1950s-style Formica table shoved against the wall.

Aunt Mae said grace, asking God to bless our family, my studies, and someone named Velvet who was suffering from gout.

Over the meal, I told her about Mom’s art projects and caught her up on my sisters’ busy lives.

We discussed the history-making election of England’s first female prime minister and agreed it would be interesting to see what changes Margaret Thatcher brought to the stuffy British parliament.

Yet Aunt Mae’s life in Oak Ridge during the war was never far from my mind.

Why keep secrets about things that happened over thirty years ago?

From what I’d read, the world learned about Oak Ridge and the role it played in ending the war soon after Little Boy, the first atomic weapon ever used in wartime, was dropped on Hiroshima.

While few of the thousands of workers in Oak Ridge knew of their involvement in creating the bomb while the war continued, the truth came out with President Truman’s announcement on August6, 1945, exposing shocking secrets and irrevocably changing the world.

So why was Aunt Mae adamant about keeping her silence?

What was it that made her hesitant to revisit those extraordinary days?

Young women like her had been so eager to do their part to end the war, they’d left home and family to come to a secret city that didn’t exist on any map.

I very much wanted to learn more about their stories, including my aunt’s.

She seemed more relaxed by the time we bid each other goodnight.

Night sounds came through the window screen as I crawled beneath the cool sheet and turned out the light.

Exhaustion rolled over me, and I let my body sink into the soft mattress.

My mind, however, mulled over the problem of how to get Aunt Mae to share her story.

Although I hoped to interview other wartime residents of Oak Ridge while I was in town, my aunt was the main reason I was here.

I let out a drowsy chuckle.

My friends tended to label me as driven .

Whether or not it was a compliment depended on the situation.

When it came to working hard to earn my degrees, the moniker fit well.

But I also recognized I could come on a bit strong when something fired up my passions.

I’d need to take things slowly with Aunt Mae and build our relationship to the point of trust.

However, I was determined to learn what happened in Oak Ridge during World War II. Not only did my dissertation depend upon it, but my curiosity was now piqued to the point I couldn’t let it go, even if I tried.

My eyes drifted closed.

Images from photographs I’d seen of the Secret City floated across my mind as sleep crept in, but it was the fresh face of twenty-one-year-old Maebelle Willett that filled my dreams.