Interview with Betty Norton
Dublin Core
Title
Subject
Description
Creator
Publisher
Date
Rights
Format
Provenance
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Interviewer
Interviewee
Location
Transcription
Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Betty Norton on August 28, 2017 The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-City. I’ll be talking with Betty about her experiences growing up in Richland. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?
Betty Norton: Betty, B-E-T-T-Y. My maiden name was Bell, B-E-L-L. And a lot of this is because of my dad. And last name is Norton, N-O-R-T-O-N.
Franklin: Okay, great. Thanks, Betty. So, tell me, how and why did you come to the area?
Norton: Because my dad came. At the time, we were--well, we started out in Tennessee, and Dad was working for DuPont. Well, he got transferred to Kankakee Ordnance with DuPont in 1942 in October. So we were there about 18, 20 months or so. And then the guy kept telling Dad, you need to go out to Hanford. Well, he’d heard about that scary place out in the desert and everything. And, no, he wanted no part of it. We were from Tennessee and Kentucky and Arkansas. Beautiful country. And he wasn’t about to get that much farther away from family. So, the guy kept insisting, though, and he kept saying, Cecil, I think you need to. So finally my dad said to Mom, well, it sounds like he knows something that we don’t. So, maybe we’d better do it. So Dad got out here. 24 men. Reading my dad’s book, which is absolutely fascinating. He wrote some things--”The things I remember and some I don’t remember” by Cecil Bell. And I think part of it is probably things he didn’t remmeber. But anyway, he and 23 other men were in one sleeping car, coming from Kankakee out to here the first day or two of February of 1944. So they all ended up pretty much being very good friends over the years. One of the guys even was in the other half of our A house, which was on Stevens Drive. In fact, it’s the big one right now across from where the old Sacajawea School was. It now has the big six white pillars and the brick front.
Franklni: Oh, yeah, I know that one, yeah.
Norton: That’s now, the Catholic priest lives ther,e I believe. Or at least he did for years. So that’s the house, we moved into the south end of it. And Mom and I didn’t get there until June. And my two younger brothers and I, we spent probably a couple of months in a hotel in Kankakee because they took our furniture, but then it was stacked up so long that our furniture didn’t get there until June. So we spent all this time in a hotel. Mom and, I was the oldest at ten, and two younger brothers which was heartbreaking for Mom. So when she found out it was still going to be another month, probably in May, then we hopped on a bus and took off back to see, to Arkansas, to see her folks. I can remember, Mom was holding my little brother, and then my other brotehr and I took turns sitting on a suitcase in the aisle, and the other one got to sit in the seat next to Mom. So anyway, we got out here mid-June. And I was reading in Dad’s book, and I didn’t realize it, but they gave him a house plenty early, this big A house at 1221 Stevens. They came with a refrigerator and a stove. Nothing else. But they gave the men, there were three things: a bed, a chair, and a dresser. And that was the furniture he lived with from probably early in April or something like that, till we gt here in June. So, I had often wondered about that, and then I was going through my dad’s boko last night and I came across that. I’d always wondered, you know? Our furniture was sitting back there. But of course the trains were used for troop movement. So, got here, and of course there wasn’t a blade of grass or tree in sight. And of course we’re from that beautiful green country back there. And ther ewere no rugs on the stairs. There were three kids in our half of the A house with wooden stairs. And two, one of the men that came out, they were in the other half with two kids. ANd I thought, later, after having my own four kids, my mother must’ve cried a million tears back there with all of the dust, the sand, the noise, living in a house with somebody else with kids racing up and down stairs all the time. But they stuck it out and then lived here--he died in September of ‘88 and she followed him six months later in March of ‘89. But I stayed here, married a guy that was working out on the Project after he came back from the army. And we had four kids. Then they had five granddaughters. Ten great-grandkids and now I have four great-great-grandsons. So we’re all still here after--ever since June of ‘44. So I remember a lot about growing up but not too much. It was a fun time. You never had to worry about--well, we never even thought about worrying about bad goings-on or anything. I think we were probably in especially safe town, if nothing else. But I remember playing out from daylight to dark, never having to worry about going home. You went in if you got hungry. Other than that, you played outside all day. I remember the mosquito sprayers. And I read on--some gal, many years ago, probably 20 years or so ago, started something--I don’t know if you’ve heard of it from Col High--from Richland High--the Sandstorm?
Franklin: Mm-hmm.
Norton: Okay. About--that is an absolutely fantastic thing to have grown up with all these years. There is so much history brought through. The kids start one subject, and then everyone, from all over the world actually can chime in. And I just wish I had thought to find out just how many people she has on her list, because we get things from China, from Japan. In fact, I have a cousin teaching at a university in Japan. But her dad was hte one that laid out, according to this, Georgia Koda, laid out the Uptown area and then helped draw up the plans and build the Carmichael. And my brother was the first ASB president there, Cecil Bell, Jr. And then he went on to be ASB president at Col High--Richland High. Richland High, it’s a hard thing to break.
Franklin: That’s okay.
Norton: You knew who I was talking about.
Franklin: Yeah. The first time I heard it, I was not familiar, but I’m a seasoned--
Norton: Right, but you’ve heard it a few times now in the years, I’m sure. Right. Uh-huh. So, you know, we ran in the mosquito sprayer. We didn’t know anything. We stayed out and played Annie Annover, throwing balls over houses. Loved going down to the park, to the little swimming pool. I could still remember how cold that Columbia River was, because they just piped that straight into the pool down at Howard Amon Park. ANd you got in line, and I think they blew a whistle when it was time for you to get out. So everybody got out of the pool, ran to the back of the line, visited, until they blew the whistle again, and then the next group of people--because you could spend your day just going in and out of the pool, freezing all the time when you were in it. That was one of my favorite things. You could ride the buses, go where you wanted to. We could ride bikes. It was just a fun time. Like I said, I’m sure Mom cried a million tears with all the dust and all of that. But we lived in that house, then, from June of ‘44. Then in ‘49, my dad was supervisor. He was in--it was a machinist. And he got all kinds of upgrades. Well, he was a backhills country boy, and his dad was a horseshoer. What’s that?
Franklin: I thought they called it--
Norton: A blacksmith. A blacksmith.
Franklin: yeah.
Norton: Uh-huh. So Dad knew all that stuff. So when he came out here there were, even in Kankakee, there were a lot of things that he culd do because he knew tempering the fires and all that stuff. So he did real well there working on things that no one else was used to doing. When he came out here, it was the same kind of thing. In fact, it was funny, he came out here before they had any tool sofr him to be a machinist. So they had all these little whelels and wires and whatever they were, motors, that had to be fixed, but he didn’t have any tool.s So he wrote Mom a letter describig everything he needed and sent it to her with money. And then she went and bought it and mailed it back. So he was here working on the Project with tools sent from Kankakee, Illinois, because this big million dollars worth of Plant didn’t have the tool sfor him to work with for awhile. So I always thought that was one of the funny things that happened. But he was real good at inventing-type things. So he did really well. He was in the steam power plant down there, and he was head over that. He knew when they dug the streets and put in pipes, water pipes, he felt at the time, it was the wrong thing because they were only going to be here five years. So he said, oh, they didn’t have to put sand down for all these big pipes and everything. Well, of course they started wearing out. Well, then they would start having leaks, and the bills for people would go up in the air. And I remmeber reading one, well, what he would do is, he would hae a pretty good idea from seeing where the spike would be on the charts that they had, so they could go and dig down there. And he said eh usually could find the broken pipe, no more than two digs. One took him five digs before they could find it. And then the old hotel at the time, all of the sudden, the guy came comlaining--he was the manager--came complaining to Dad because his electric bill had just spiked all of a sudden. All of a sudden, just outrageously. So Dad went back and looked at all the charts to see, and it was about 2:00 in the morning every day, this thing would just jump skyhigh. So he said to the guy, I dont know what’s happening at 2:00 at your hotel, but something is. So the guy said, well, I’ll find out. He went down, and the guy that was supposed to be cleaning all the floors and stuff, mopping them, he found it was a lot easier to hook his one-inch pipe into the big 700 gallon tank that was for the whole hotel, because he’d been using the little 200 pipe that was meant for the kitchen. And so he was using the big one, that made it a lot faster, easier. So the hotel guy set him straight on that so he could no longer do that. He did that. He worked the steam plant for a long time. In fact, he was there--
Franklin: And this was like the steam plant for the City of Richland.
Norton: Uh-huh, right. Blew the whistle everyday at noon. Was one of the things he got to do for many years. In fact, somewhere in this book, I should’ve written that down instead of marking it. But when the plant was finally torn down in ‘65 or--no, it must’ve been much earlier than that. So, anyway, he was doing that. So then after that went down, though, then he went out to stores. So then he spent the rest of his time out there.
Franklin: When you say went out to stores, can you--
Norton: That was the big stores building out on, just as you’re coming out into the Project where they used to have all the buses around down there and everyhing, I think.
Franklni: Okay.
Norton: Yeah. So he was there until he retired in February of ‘75 when he turned--but he felt that when people needed something for something that broke down, they needed it immediately; they didn’t want to have to wait and get it on a list. And so Dad would let them come in with their list of what they needed, pick it up, get the order filled, and take it. Well, this went on for a few years. It wasn’t their rules, but the guys that were in charge never said anything because Dad got along so well with all thepeople and had no problems with them. Got everybody satisfied and happy about it. Well, then he mentioned a name, but I don’t remember it and I wouldn’t say it. But he was just a couple of months or few months or minutes or so before Dad retired in ‘75, a new guy came in and he was going to have it his way. People were going to have to send in an order and in three or four days, it woudl get to them. Well, Dad knew this would not work. So he finally told the guy--oh, and then they came in and took out--there were two telephones, so people could call right to the desk and get the things that they needed ordered and get them out. Well, then one day, some guys came in and started to take the phones out. And Dad said, you’re not going to take those phones out. And they said, well, it’s an order. ANd he says, no, you don’t. So anyway, I guess, he talked to Mr. Big and told him, said, you’re not taking those phones out until I leave in two more weeks. If you want to ruin it after that, you can ruin it. But this is what people need. And this guy says, that’s not according to the rules. And Dad says, well, you either leave those phones when I leave or you get rid of me at the same time. So, they left the phones in for the two weeks till Dad lft, and then after that, they went back to this where people had to send in their list they wanted, wait till it could be fixed up several days later. So he was glad to get out of there by that time. He was a very special person. I would say he’s probably one of the most-liked people here. He got along with people all the time from when he started. That was why he got his first job with DuPont. Because he was friendly with a little lady that ran a grocery store there, and she knew the big guys. Well, Dad and his brother-in-law had gone over there and visited in the store. And that’s when he met my mother. So, when they were just about to give up on ever finding a job, she said, well, you take this over to--and I think the name was Brown--over in employment. You come back tonight and you get the letter that I’m going to write you, and you take it to this guy and only this guy. And Dad worked from then, 1932 or so, until ‘75 without ever losing a day’s pay. And was liked by everybody. He really, like I said, he could fix anything. So he fixed little motors that nobody had been able to figure out. He could--there was one section in here on something when they needed something with a sharp point, well, the metal wasn’t--whatever they do with it, tempered right or something. Well, he knew how to temper it right because he’d been shoeing horses with his dad ever since he was ten years old or so. So he told the guy
Duration
Bit Rate/Frequency
Hanford Sites
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Files
