Interview with Marjorie Ann McCormack
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Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history with Margie Ann McCormack on April 27, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Margie about her experiences working at the Hanford Site. ANd for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?
Marjorie Ann McCormack: Yes. M-A-R-J-O-R-I-E. A-N-N. McCormack, M-C-C-O-R-M-A-C-K.
Franklin: Great. And thank you, Marjorie for coming in here to do this oral history interview with us. So I understand that your involvement with Atomic Energy and kind of what became the National Labs and thigns starts before you came to Hanford, and it starts at Oak Ridge. So I’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your time there and what led you to come to Hanford.
McCormack: Well, I took my training, the x-ray training in Knoxville. So then I went to work in Oak Ridge. And the war had just ended, and it was a military hospital still. So all the doctors were officers, and I went to work for a very wonderful x-ray technician--doctor. He was from San Diego, originally, but he was working there. He was just a wonderful guy. But he got mustered out. And they started to fill in the places in Oak Ridge Hospital there with civilian people. So, a civilian doctor who came to work for us, and he was setting up an office of his own in Knoxville. Well, they had two x-ray departments there. One an in-patient, and the other a regular out-patient one. So I was sent in the outpatient one. Well, there was a young man, an x-ray technician who had been in the service, and the two of us were working in this outpatient place. Well, he came to me one day, this young man, and he said, I don’t know what to do, he says. This doctor, radiologist, everyday is asking me to take some very important attachments for the x-ray machine out and put it in his car. So we decided what he was doing was he was furnishing his office in Knoxville with the equipment ther ein the place. Well, that was--he was stealing government equipment. So, he said, I don’t know what to do. And I said, well, you’re married and have children, and I’m single. I said, I’ll go report him. So I did. And somhow or other, he got word, and fired me. And so there I was, at the ripe old age of 23, being fired from my job. So my next-door neighbor was head of personnel. And he said, well, are you going to contest it? And I said, why? I don’t want to work for him. And he doesn’t want me! And he said, well, are you goigng to fill out some papers to send somewhere that you’re loking for a job? And I said, no. I don’t think at this point, I don’t even know whether I want to stay in x-ray or not. But unbeknownst to me, he borught a couple of folders over and filled them out with my help. That’s when I saw them. So I went home to my home in Virginia and sort of though, well, what am I going to do here? And lo and behold, he had filled a couple out and sent them off, and I had an offer for a job in Texas. So I called the number and they said, yes, they’d love to have me. And so I thought, well, fine. But then I didn’t hear anything more from them. And so in the meantime, I got an offer for a job out in Oak Ridge--I mean, excuse me, hold up a minute--out in Washington State. So I wrote back and said, well, yes, I would be interested in your job. And they wrote and said, well, we’d like to have you. So, I got the job here. And I wrote and said, well--it said Richland on the thing. So I went and wrote out there and said, well, where do I come in to? And I can’t find Richland on the map. So they said, well, come in to Pasco. So in due time, I got on a train and three days later, I came to Pasco. Well, to digress a little bit, I had met a woman in Chicago and she happened to ride out with me. Her family was meeting her, and I was supposed to have had a guy--it was the train came in at midnight. I was supposed to have had a driver to take me to a hotel. I didn’t have any--and I called--it was called transient quarter. And I said, do you have a room for Marjorie Hyatt to night? And they siad, no, we don’t have any record of it. And there I was at midnight in Pasco, no driver, no place to stay. Which is--well, where do I go from here? But her lady that I had ridden out with, her family was meeting her. And she realized that something was happening. So she said, let’s hold off a little bit. And when I called and they didn’t have any rooms, they said I could have a room for one night. So they brought me in to Richland and I had my one night at this estate. I was a little confused about that time. I didn’t know whether I wanted to work for these people called General Electric. Was that right, GE, General Electric? And got up the next morning and looked out the window, and they said, there’s a big river, and tehy told me this was a desert! So I went down and I said, is there somewhere here I could eat? And they said, well, across the way, there’s a big cafeteria. You can get breakfast. So I was all dressed up, you know, and I started across this big lot of grass. I’d never seen one of these watering things that turns and sprays. And one of them sprayed me and got me just soaked. Well, that was the end of the line for me. I thought, well, I’ll go back. I’m dying to get back home. And when I opened the door to the TQ, they said, are you Miss Hyatt? And he says, they’re out there looking all over for you. He said, he found the notice this morning that you were supposed to have come in last night and have a room. And they didn’t know where I was. So that was my entry into Richland. But everything was straightened out and I joined the--I got my job and I joined a group called Dorm Club. It was a single club for all the people who--
Franklin: The Dorm Club?
McCormack: It was called the Dorm Club.
Franklin: And what year did you come out?
McCormack: 1947.
Franklin: Okay.
McCormack: And from then on, I loved it.
Franklin: Oh, okay. How did you get involved in x-ray?
McCormack: Well, I went to college to be a lab technician, and then I went into Knoxville to go and they had a hospital there. They had an opening for an x-ray technician and a lab technician. And they said, would you mind switching from lab to x-ray first? We have an opening there now. And I siad, well, I’ll give it a try. And I hadn’t been in x-ray three days till I knew that that was what I wanted to do, and I never did do the lab.
Franklin: Oh, wow. So did you spend the war, then, in college?
McCormack: Yes.
Franklin: Okay. And wehre did you go to college?
McCormack: Mary Washington College. It was a division of the University of Virginia. It was in Fredericksburg.
Franklin: Okay. And so you got here in ‘47 and you, besdies having kind of a rough first day, you--so can you tell me a little bit more about the Dorm Club, this kind of singles club, and what single life would’ve been like in the rough-and-tumble town.
McCormack: Let me get a drink here.
Franklin: Oh, sure.
McCormack: Well, when I came here, all the single people lived in dorms. You had to be married to get a house. But they had a lot of dorms. They had, at one end of town, had women’s dorms, and the other end had dorms for the men. And the Dorm Club was just a reason for all the single people to get together.
Franklin: Okay. Was wanting to get out of the dorms, you think, kind of a motivator for some people to get together?
McCormack: Well, we were having so much fun--[LAUGHTER]--that I never heard any complaints that way. The single people just didn’t get rooms. At that time I came, they weren’t sure that Richland was still going to be there, you know, and there was a time where they thought we’d be folding all up. And then the--what was the name of the war about that time?
Franlkin: Korean War?
McCormack: No.
[camera man]: Second World War.
McCormack: So, about that time, the war had fracas with Russia.
Franklin: Oh, the Cold War.
McCormack: Cold War, that’s what I’m looking for, was the Cold War came along and all the sudden, things boomed again. And I was here, came here in 1947 in April, and that summer, they hired 100 new tech grads. And, boy, was that fun. 99 of them were single. [LAUGHTER] And there was all these dorms. And that sort of what spurred things on in the area. The Dorm Club is where we got together, once a week. It was on Mondays. The boys, as I say, lived in the dorms at one end, and we in the other. But there was something going on all the time in the Dorm Club. Every Sunday night, there was a dance. Different places around town, there was two places that had a dance floor and a music nickelodeon or something like that. So that’s where we had the dances. And after a while, we started organizing a few things. LIke there wa s acamera club, and there was a bridge club. There was different kind of organizations. So there wasn’t any reason for anyone to sit around and mope; there was plenty of things to do. The war was still--you know, just finished. The men didn’t have any cars. But as time went on, the fellas started getting cars. And a lot of them were second-hand cars, not what you called the fancy cars, but they had wheels. So that’s when we started doing a few things out of town, like going hiking and camping in the summer. We tried to go to the city when something music or something was being shown, either Portland or Seattle. So we’d go--what’s that?
Franklin: Can you describe an average--or can you describe the room in the dorm for me? What did the rooms look like?
McCormack: Oh! They had singles and doubles. I was never in the men’s dorm, believe it or not. But it was single rooms, and it was a good-sized double room. And it had two beds, windows in the front. We each had a desk and a closet, a chair, and all the linens were furnished, and we had daily--somebody came in every day and made the beds and everything. We had it pretty easy that way. We were comfortable. And I happened to be in a dorm with this big cafeteria, just like walking across this room. So taht’s where you went to eat.
Franklin: For your three meals?
McCormack: Uh-huh. Three meals, yeah. It was a big huge cafeteria. Well, the building’s still there.
Franklin: Oh, really?
McCormack: Yeah!
Franklin: Which building is it?
McCormack: It’s changed into several things, but the main building is still there.
Frankin: ANd the women’s dorms were kind of down by where Albertsons was--
McCormack: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: --right, off of Lee? Kind of around that area?
McCormack: Mm-hmm, Lee Street. In fact, it was Albertsons I think that they tore down and put some of the buildings.
Franklin: Oh, interesting. And so what was--you started work at Kadlec, right, Kadlec Hospital. So I’m wondering if you could tell me kind of about an average day at work? Kind of what your duties were and how you
McCormack: Well, I went to work at 8:00. Eight to five everyday. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with the original hospital there. It was one long building with wings. Government issue. And we had a very nice x-ray department with two rooms, two different x-ray machines, and a portable facility. It was for the workers and for the civilians. Once in a while, something would come up and we’d have a busy day of 100 patients, government ones. Others, it was just the regular people around town, like any other town that needed x-ray business. Good equipment.
Fraknlin: What was it like to--what was recreation like in Richland at the time? Was the Uptown mall here when you moved here? Or was that constructed later?
McCormack: It was a very small town. That’s why the Dorm Club was so busy. There wasn’t much to do. We had two theaters, which the buildings are still there. There is one of them original, the theater group bought the building.
Franklin: Oh, the Richland Players, right?
McCormack: Uh-huh, bought the building and it’s still in use. And the other one just lasted until not too many years ago, and it was torn down. And that’s along George Washington Way, pretty close to where the--I keep forgetting. The big hotel. [LAUGHTER]
Franlkin: OH, yeah, yeah.
McCormack: I was trying to think of the name.
Franklin: No, that’s okay. Yeah, is it the Red LIon, is that the one you’re thinking of?
McCormacK: Yeah. It was pretty close to that.
Franklin: Yeah. And so how long did you work at Kadlec for?
McCormack: I worked at Kadlec nine years.
Franklin: Okay. And did your duties change at all during that time, or were you still a technician for the whole time?
McCormack: I was x-ray tehcnician the whole time.
Franklin: How was it, being so far away from your fmaily? And kind of being single and alone, kind of by yourself in Richland?
McCormack: Well, I was so disillusioned when I left Oak Ridge, and I got out here, and I just felt like I was in another world. ANd I was, really. And I put Oak Ridge behind me and just had a wonderful time here. I actually--you talk about taking somehting out of your brain. I actually forgot the name of that doctor, because he was such a scoundrel. I digress a little bit. They didn’t even wait to get a replacement for him; they fired him. Which was pretty unusual then. So I just couldn’t remember his name.
Franklin: Sure.
McCormack: I didn’t want to think about him.
Franklin: Did you go back home--did you go back to the east coast at all to visit your family the first few years you were here?
McCormack: I went back just about every second or third year until my mother died and until I got married and had three little kids. I didn’t travel so much then.
Franklin: Sure, sure. And I heard that you--one of the people that you knew from when you first moved here was Steve Buckingham, right?
McCormack: Oh, yes. [LAUGHTER]
Franlkin: And how did you meet Steve Buckingham?
McCormack: At the Dorm Club.
Franklin: At the Dorm Club. So he was also living in the dorms, too, right?
McCormack: Mm-hmm, yeah.
Franklin: And you’re still friends with Steve, right?
McCormack: Still friend.s We dated for two or three years. He wa sa great guy, because he’s a local--that being Washington State. We had a good time together, but we just never got married, and drifted away. My birthday--I am one week older than Steve. ANd we used to have birthday parties together. We were good friends, but it just wasn’t meant to be married.
Franklin: Sure, and that happens. Well, that’s realy sweet. So you met your husband, Jerry. How did you meet?
McCormack: By the time he came along, I had moved into a prefab here--I digress again. For a very short time, when I came here, they thought they wren’t going to be here, so they started letting a few places out to single people. So there was a few prefabs. And there was one that had three girls in it. When one of those girls left, a friend of mine took her place. ANd when somebody in the house left, another one took their place. And finally one day, they called and said--me, I’m still in the dorm--would you like to move in with us? So I moved into a three-bedroom prefab. They only had about three of them left, because things had picked up here in this Cold War, and housing was short by then. So I was lucky to be in one.
Franklin: And how was that different from living in the dorm?
McCormack: Well, we could do what we wanted to. We had the house, and it was completely furnished. The dorm was a dorm, you know, with all those people. We had our own ways of doing things. I guess the interesting thing was, it became this social house for a lot of our friends, because they would come to the house. We couldn’t do the dorm.
Franklin: Sure. Yeah, you didn’t have the space to have people over, right?
McCormack: I’m sorry?
Franklin: In the house, you had space to have people over and the yard--
McCormack: Yeah, it was just a normal three-bedroom house. It wasn’t a huge thing. But the boys in the dorms loved to come, because they were in the dormitory, too, and just had a room. But it actually was a lot of fun there. We had a lot of good times there in the prefab. We could--no overnights, though. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Right, of course. When you moved in, did it still have most of the original furniture and fixtures that it had come with?
McCormack: If you didn’t have it, it was furnished. All the furniture was furnished in this, even to the linens. The oly thing we had to furnish ourselves was our pots and pans and dishes. We sent the laundry out when we wanted; they came and picked it up, no charge.
Franklin: Really?
McCormack: Well, yeah. They paid for things back then. We paid $35 a month for the prefab. And that was for all three of us.
Franklin: Wow.
McCormack: Yeah. And any time anything went wrong, the stove wasn’t working, the lights, we called the number and they came and fixed it, no charge. [LAUGHTER] It was pretty cheap living there.
Franklin: Yeah, I was going to say, that sounds kind of nice. I don’t get that kind of service from my landlord.
McCormack: No. [LAUGHTER] Yeah.
Franklin: So then in ‘56, you met your husband. Right, 1956?
McCormack: No. I met him in 1950. I was here in ‘47 and he came in ‘50.
Franklin: Oh, okay, sorry. You were married in ‘56.
McCormack: ‘56, yeah.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And did he also live in the dorms as well when you first got here?
McCormack: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And did you guys also meet in the Dorm Club?
McCormack: Wel, that’s an interesting story, too. One night one of the fellas I knew called and said could we bring a fella up tonight? It’s his birthday. And I said, oh, sure. So in due time, three or four fellas went and rang the doorbell and marched in. Each one of them had a six-pack of beer on their shoulder. And so I didn’t drink beer, but the fellas did. And so one of them said, Jerry, show us how you can stand on your head on a beer can. And guess what? He did. [LAUGHTER] And then they left. And I never did really know who this guy was. He was just the guy that had the birthday. About, oh, gosh, it must’ve been a year or so later, another friend said, would you like to go skiing with us this weekend? And I said, sure, I’d like to. And we went out to Stevens Pass and we rented a cottage. It was one of those that had the real steep roof and the snow was up to here. So the guy said, let’s go tobogganing off the roof of the chalet or whatever you call it. We’d stand like we were on a big sled, and then somebody would give us a push. Well, I happened to be the one across the top. This guy came leaping up, and he missed with his foot and he hit me in the back of the head like this.
Franklin: Oh, jeez.
McCormack: Well, that was my husband. I knew who he was that time. [LAUGHTER] So that’s how we really met. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Right, right. Oh, that’s funny. And Jerry was a chemical engineer? Right?
McCormack: Yes, chemical.
Franklin: So when you got married, then, you stopped working at Kadlec and--
McCormack: Yeah.
Franklin: And became a full-time--
McCormack: Full-time.
Franklin: Full-time mother and housekeeper, everything.
McCormack: Yeah.
Franklin: And so then I must imagine you must’ve moved out of the prefab. And where did you--so this would’ve been ‘56, so you would’ve gone to another government-run house.
McCormack: Yes, we did. We went to [unknown] house. It was clear across town from where I lived in the prefab. And we stayed there until, oh, about three or four years. And then moved into a--here again I forget its name. And then we decided--our third child was on the way by then, and we decided it was time to buy a house. There wasn’t much choice. We were looking for a special--Jerry wanted a basement and one other thing. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, there were very few houses on the market, but we finally found one that we liked that had what he wanted on it, honestly. He wanted a basement and four bedrooms. That was what it was.
Franklin: Four bedrooms. And what was--the house you finally purchased, was it an Alphabet house, or was it newer construction?
McCormack: It was a D house.
Franklin: Oh, a D house.
McCormack: Uh-huh. And they only made about six or seven of them.
Franklin: Yeah, that’s not a very common one.
McCormack: So that was why it was nice, because it had space and it was a prefab--it wasn’t a prefab, I mean. It was a government house, but it was bigger and a little bit better-built, I think. And we’re still in it.
Franklin: Oh, wow. That’s great. I wondered if oyu could talk about the experience of going through the privatization of Richland, when the governement sold off Richland in ‘58, and how richland changed from being a government town to being a private town.
McCormack: Well, you know, it happened gradually. The houses were sold, and I don’t know that there was a great deal of difference in the town, really, except that people were in the homes. Most of them who had bought the homes, they owned them istead. But then there was a lot of remodeling started, because you couldn’t do that until the house was in your own hands. But there was quite a bit of remodeling. In fact, the prefabs, it’s hard to find a prefab that hasn’t been remodeled. You know, there was 1, 2, 3, you know that. And it was hard to find just a little old one-bedroom one, like there were any of the prefabs.
Franklin: Oh, sure, yeah, I live in a two-bedroom prefab, and it’s been extensively remodeled. Which makes sense. Jillian, who you met earlier, she lives in one that has been much less remodeled. It’s probably not original, but it’s much closer. And it’s very different. It feels like two totally different houses, even though they’re exactly the same size. From the outside, they look almost exactly the same.
McCormack: Well, you understood why, when we got one, and only three or four single gals who had one, how much it meant to all the fellas to have a house to go to. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Oh, yeah, I lived in dorms in college, and I imagine, gathered from your experience, sounds like the dorms here must’ve been a bit like college dorms.
McCormacK: That’s an interesting, because my husband says, being in the dorms was like being in college with classes and with money.
Franklin: I was going to say--because everybody has a job, so you can actually afford the beer.
McCormack: Yeah. No classes and money.
Franklin: Taht’s interesting. LIke grown-up dorms. For--
McCormack: Well, they still had rules and regulations, like no gals on the second floor, I guess.
Franklin: Oh, sure.
McCormack: I was going to say, I never was in one of them, but boys, as soon as they could, they got out and bought--or got into a prefab or something like that. By that time, they were starting to make a few buildings. A single man could get that. A single wouldn’t couldn’t, but they allowed to single men to get in. And if you had two men. And that was the first time for the fellas getting out of the dorms.
Franklin: Yeah, it’s really interesting to hear at that time about a group fo single women living together, because the image of Richland then is such a family town, or of single people living in dorms. But three single women living together, do you know, did that ever cause a stir, or was anybody ever concerned about your safety or anything liek that?
McCormack: well, it was a pretty safe town. [LAUGHTER] It really was. Yeah, pretty safe town. But there were some people--I know one couple got married and they couldn’t get a house and she came to me and said, why don’t you girls move back to the dorm and let us have the house? And I just looked at her. Are you kidding? But she was serious.
Franklin: I bet she was, I bet she was. And so you raised three children in Richland. And what was that--do you think their childhood was different from your own, or--I mean, because Richland’s kind of a unique town in its--everybody kind of works in the same place and many of the houses are very similar, and I’m wondering if you could kind of contrast that with your own
McCormack: Well, see, I--living here with three boys was--I don’t think there was anything really too different from, like, if I had my three kids in Virginia. They went to school a block away, and the church was not too far. It had a lot of advantages, really. You know, I’ve never thought about it that way. But they’re good kids, so I guess we raised them okay. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Sure, yeah. Yeah. And so they all went to the local schools and everything, Columbia High--?
McCormack: Yup. Yeah, we live right by, a block away from Jefferson. And tehy went there and then they went over to--what’s the one across the--junior high, and then Hanford. In fact, our oldest son was the second graduating class from Hanford.
Franklin: Oh, from Hanford Hihg. Oh, so right over here by where we are today.
McCormack: Yeah. But it was sixth grade and then two or three grades. I don’t know why I can’t remember. And then Hanford High.
Franklni: Sure. Did Hanford’s role--because you knew what was being produced at Hanford when you came out to work for GE, right?
McCormack: Yeah.
Franklin: Was its role in the Cold War ever--how did you feel about that, and did it ever concern you, having a family here, for your own safety, being so close to not only an area that produced plutonium, but also what might have been a target in case of hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union?
McCormack: Well, things were still pretty secret when I first came here. Of course I was at Oak Ridge, see, for a while. And the day I hired in was the day that peace was decided. So it was still pretty army-like. You had to get--are you familiar with Oak Ridge?
Franklin: Not very.
McCormack: Well, the whole area, the town and everything, is enclosed down there. And you had to go through a gate and show your pass, even for housewives. Well, here, it was different. Here the town was wide open. They couldn’t--you had to work for somebody here, but you weren’t enclosed in a fence or anything.
Franklin: Sure, people from Kennewick could drive in and visit somebody from Richland and vice versa without having to go through anything. You couldn’t get out to the Site without--
McCormack: No, uh-unh.
Franklin: --you had to have a bus.
McCormack: You had to have the bus--the pass and everything to get out there.
Franklin: Sure. Do you remember anything, any kind of civil defense measures, or did you ever have to practice evacuations or duck-and-cover, things like that?
McCormack: Well, every now and then, the whistle would blow. But we never had to evacuate or do anything. BUt still, every now and then, they still ring that whistle on a certain day.
Franklin: Yeah. Do you remember President Kennedy’s visit in 1963? To dedicate the N Reactor?
McCormack: Yes.
Franklin: Did you go out to see him?
McCormack: No, I didn’t get to. I had to stay with home with the three kids, and my neighbor went.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
McCormack: Yeah, I missed that.
Franklin: Oh, sure. Were ther eany other events or incidents that happened at Hanford or in the Tri-Cities that stand out to you?
McCormack: When they stold the houses, that was a big event?
Franklin: Yeah? And you guys weren’t in your house long enough--were you on the priority list for the house that you lived in at that point?
McCormack: The house we bought?
Franklin: No, in 1958 when they sold the houses, were you the resident that could buy that house?
McCormack: They had just said they were up for sale, and the people went over to see it were ready to sell it. By that time, they must’ve bought it themselves. And they were ready to sell it. They were moving on to another place. By that time, they were building houses out north, and they were building a new house out north. And we bought the house from them.
Franklin: I’m wondering if--could you describe the ways in which security or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work at Kadlec?
McCormack: Well, didn’t bother me, because I had a pass to go out there. But that was the only way I had one is because I had the [unknown] business. But you just didn’t go out there. You could go as far as the fence around ther,e but unless you had a pass, you just didn’t go.
Franklin: Sure.
McCormack: Like, there was one special time they opened it up for a day and the wife could go out to the Area. That’s the only time in all the years my husband worked that I was ever in his office.
Franlkin: Really?
McCormack: Mm-hmm, closed.
Franklin: Yeah, sure. And do you remember when that was?
McCormack: Give me a clue. [LAUGHTER]
Jerry McCormack: I’m not sure. Around--maybe in the ‘80s. I don’t remember.
Franklin: Oh, so much, much later.
Jerry McCormack: Much later, yeah.
Franklin: Okay, that’s really interesting.
McCormack: But things were still tight that way.
Franklin: Sure. Wow. That must’ve been interesting to see, finally, kind of where--to go out there and see where he’d been working for all those years.
McCoramck: IT was. Yeah, it really was. I finally got there one time.
Franklin: One time. Even though you had been here longer than he had.
McCormack: Yeah. Well, I didn’t have any reason to be in his--that way.
Franklin: Sure, oh yeah, of course.
McCormack: So then they just made this very special day for the, whoever they wanted to to go out, and that was it.
Franklin: Sure. Any other major events in Tri-Cities’ history, like some of the plants shutting down and kind of--do you remember that time as well from kind of the concern over what would happen in the late ‘80s when they shut N Reactor down?
McCoramck: Well, I don’t think it was like ti was when I first came here. They really thought that this whole plant was just going to quit. When I got there, DuPont had been from the beginning was here, and it was so soon after that that we were still using some of DuPont’s stationery and stuff. I mean, that’s how close it was. They hadn’t even--General Electric hadn’t even been there long enough to get some paper in from us. So it was pretty early in the game when I came here. But I don’t remember any big catastrophic things happening. You think I’d remmeber these things, I suppose, because I’ve been here 70 years this month. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Wow, tha’ts quite an anniversary.
McCormack: Yeah.
Franklin: Well, great, my last question is just what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War?
McCormack: What I would like for them to know? That we were concerned. Everybody was concerned. But we coped. Everything geared up. When I first came here, we’d have maybe, I don’t know, I’d say an average day of maybe 30 to 40 patients. Then all of the sudden, there was streams of men going out, lined up to get into x-ray. They were hiring as fast as they could. That was, I think, the big change. That was pretty soon after I came here. But since then--well, the talent’s grown so much, too. It’s hard for me to realize how small a town was when I first came here, because it’s grown so gradually over the years. We had, maybe, one or two grocery stoes, and one dress shop, and one barber shop and a couple other things, and that was it. If you wanted to go anywhere, you went to Pasco. Kennewick was only about--in fact, Richland was a little bit bigger than Kennewick. So that was where we went to shop, was Pasco.
Franklin: Right, right. Because Pasco was the oldest town.
McCormack: Yeah, and it was the big town. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin; The big town. That’s so different. I guess now, they’re each so large that you wouldn’t really need to go to the other for any--
McCormack: No, each one has plenty of everything now.
Franklin: Yeah. That’s really itneresting. I’ve only been here for a little bit, so I--
McCormack: How long?
Franklin: Just about a year-and-a-half.
McCormack: Well, you’ve got still a lot of things to learn around here, haven’t you?
Franklin: Yeah, I do.
McCormack: IT’s growing so fast, this town, that it’s just hard for me to realize it was this little three towns that I caem to 70 years ago.
Franklin: Right.
McCormack: That’s a long time.
Franklin: Yeah, I bet, I mean, just the roads and everything are different. So, Margie, is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t covered today?
McCormack: Well, let’s see. The Dorm Club is what was probably the nicest thing that could’ve happened to us bunch of single people. Because we all got together and we partied and we went to plays, and we went all over. We were all pretty much the same age. And we all became friends, and a lot of us ended up marrying each other. I don’t know, I think I’d say, my life here, that little dorm club is the thing that made me want to stay here.
Franklin: Kind of like a family away from home.
McCormack: Yeah.
Franklin: Because most of the people in that--almost everyone in tat club was not from the area, right? You were all from all over the country.
McCormack: Well, he--my husband--being the Washingtonian was the odd one. Everybody else was from somewhere else.
Franklin: Right, kind of scattered across the US.
McCormack: Yeah.
Franklin: Yeah, I bet. That sounds--especially, too, in a town where there weren’t--no one had any grandparents or any real relatives here to speak of, right? Even just the families had their own family unit.
McCormack: Well, you had to--they just didn’t allow anybody in. And I supposed if you had a house, married and had a house, and had a mother to come live here, but that was different. But we single people, we were here on our own.
Franklin: Right. So the Dorm Club really kind of would’ve een your lifeline.
McCormack: Yeah.
Franklin: You know, to some kind of normal life.
McCormack: Well, I loved the West. I grew up in the mountains, and I loved the wide open spaces. And that and the Dorm Club were what kept me here.
Franklin: Interesting. Well, great, Margie, it’s been really wonderful to talk to you and hear your story, your experiences. I just want to thank you for coming out here and talking to us today.
McCormack: Well, I appreciate the offer and I enjoyed it, too. And hope I gave you a few little insights as to what our life was like here in the big city of Richland.
Franklni: The big city of Richland. Yeah, I think, just hearing about being a single person and a single woman in Richland is really interesting and kind of a differetn stories than a lot of the other oral histories.
McCormack: Yeah, well, you know if I’d gone to the place in Texas was a city, it woudl’ve taken me forever to make the friends I made here overnight.
Franklin: Right, right. Yeah, that close proximity and that close--well, that’s great. Well, Margie, thank you so very much.
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Hanford Sites
Dorm Club
N Reactor
General Electric
Years in Tri-Cities Area
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