Interview with George and Marjorie Kraemer
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Victor Vargas: Okay.
Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with George and Marjorie Kraemer on December 9th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with George and Marjorie about their experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full names for us, starting with George?
George Kraemer: George R. Kraemer and Kraemer’s K-R-A-E-M-E-R.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: Marjorie Kraemer, K-R-A-E-M-E-R.
Franklin: Okay. And George is G-E-O-R-G-E?
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: And Marjorie?
Marjorie Kraemer: M-A-R-J-O-R-I-E.
Franklin: Great. Thank you. So tell me how and why you—did you both come to the Hanford Site together?
Marjorie Kraemer: Mm-hm.
Franklin: Okay, so tell me how and why you both came to the Hanford Site.
George Kraemer: I was at the University of Wisconsin--
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: --in 1955. And I had a friend that was out here. And he told me about all of the deer hunting and the fishing, and all the good things. And he enticed me to come out.
Franklin: There wasn’t much of that in Wisconsin?
George Kraemer: Oh, yeah. But going out West—
Franklin: Oh, right, okay.
George Kraemer: --that was new. And so I drove out in April of 1955. I already had a job out here.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: And I stayed at the dorms—M-5, as I remember.
Franklin: And what was your job?
George Kraemer: I was a lab assistant first.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: From April of ’55 to May of ’56. And then I transferred to drafting department.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: This was at General Electric. And I was in there for—oh, from ’56 to December of ’65.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: And then I was asked to take another position. With—it was actually with Isochem. And it was—oh, engineering analyst, shop engineer, I went through all of those where I worked in a shop where they built vessels for Hanford—for PUREX, for REDOX, B Plant, T Plant—must be one more in there. And I did inspection of them. Fantastic job. Did that for—oh, quite a few years. Then in April of ’75, for another two years, I was a shop planner. I planned the activities of the shop—fabrication shop. And then in July of 1977, I was asked to be manager of this facility—of the shops. They had six separate shops, you know, like machine, tool and die, boilermaker, sheet metal, rotating equipment, welding lab, and all that.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: A fun job, too.
Franklin: Yeah?
George Kraemer: I kind of liked that; that was down my alley. Then in April of ’81, I was asked to manage activities of the design drafting group in 200 Areas. And I had—supervising the unit managers, engineering designers, drafters and engineers. Then in April of ’84, I was manager of specialty fabrication design and fabrication engineering support group. Again, this had drafting, designers, checkers, a few engineers. Then Westinghouse came. And I was asked to be the manager of design services which had all the drafting for Westinghouse.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: Did that for a number of years. And then--[LAUGHTER]—then my manager was a director, and I told him one day, you need an assistant. I said, I’m going to retire in due time, and I said, you need an assistant. And he looked at me kind of odd. But anyway, six months later he called me up, and he says, would you be my assistant? Had a good job. Nobody reporting to me. I did engineering quality counsel, the PRICE program, and Great Ideas, employee concerns, Native American outreach, the Signature Awards for Westinghouse. I wrote a few speeches, some for the president of Westinghouse.
Franklin: Oh, wow.
George Kraemer: It was kind of a good job! Then I wrote a little note here, I retired after 36 years on July 31st, 1991. 36 years, 3 months and 19 days, or nearly 9,500 work days, over 106,000 hours at 8 hours a day and over 6 million minutes at Hanford.
Franklin: Wow, you really broke that down to the very last second.
George Kraemer: But what I’m most proud about, except for that first transfer, all of my jobs, I was asked to take.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: I thought that was—said something for me, anyway.
Franklin: And Marjorie, how did you come to Hanford?
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, he came out, so—[LAUGHTER] And so we were engaged, and I came out in May. And we got married out here.
Franklin: May of—would that be—
Marjorie Kraemer: 1955.
Franklin: ’55, okay. And you guys were married here in Richland, or--?
Marjorie Kraemer: Yes.
George Kraemer: Oh, in Coeur d’Alene.
Marjorie Kraemer: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Coeur d’Alene, beautiful up there.
George Kraemer: Yes.
Marjorie Kraemer: I didn’t work that first summer. I came in May. And then I got a job at General Electric in September, in the finance department.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: And I worked in the 700 Area downtown. And then they reorganized—or disorganized, I used to call it—[LAUGHTER]—and split up. And then I had to go out to the 200 Areas for a few years. And then I quit at the end of 1958 and had our children.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: After they—our son was in kindergarten, I went to work for a doctor in town, a pathologist, for ten years. And then I went to work for Exxon Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Fuels. Which was eventually bought out by Siemens, whom I retired with in 1991 also.
Franklin: Oh, wow. And when did you start with Exxon Nuclear?
Marjorie Kraemer: 1975.
Franklin: Oh, okay, so you spent a significant amount of time—
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right.
Franklin: And did you also do finance and accounting there?
Marjorie Kraemer: Yes, yes, in the accounting department.
Franklin: How—did you face any particular issues as being a woman in the workplace from the ‘50s—
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, let’s see.
Franklin: Especially in that early era, you know, where women were first kind of—
George Kraemer: You couldn’t work overtime.
Marjorie Kraemer: I remember when I worked out in the areas, in the 200 Areas, women couldn’t work overtime. For some reason. I don’t know if it was a union thing or a company policy or the federal government.
George Kraemer: You couldn’t work alone, anyway.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right. You couldn’t work overtime. They didn’t want you to work out there then.
Franklin: And you couldn’t work alone, either?
George Kraemer: Well, in overtime, I remember when I was manager over there, if some of the ladies had to work, we had to have somebody around.
Franklin: Like a male supervisor or just a supervisor?
George Kraemer: Yeah, somebody. Another worker even.
Franklin: All right. Interesting.
Marjorie Kraemer: And it was different, living in Richland, because it was a government town.
Franklin: Right.
Marjorie Kraemer: And you had to—you probably interviewed people where you get on a housing list to get a house. And your name comes up, you go down and you look in this little glass deal where they had the list—
George Kraemer: They posted of the new—
Marjorie Kraemer: Posted them, and when you--
Franklin: Oh, really? I hadn’t heard that. Could you describe it in a little more detail?
George Kraemer: Yeah, we put in for housing as soon as we got here. That was, well, in May. They had a posted board. Every week, they’d put a posting out there on the board and say who was eligible for a house. Finally, being the lowest peons out there, [LAUGHTER] we were eligible for a two-bedroom prefab.
Franklin: Oh, okay. I live in one of those now.
Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] Do you? Okay.
George Kraemer: So we got to look at two or three of them. Had to do it real promptly. And we choose one. 706 Abbott.
Franklin: 706 Abbott, okay.
George Kraemer: In Richland.
Marjorie Kraemer: We lived there in town, yeah. It was different, because, well, the house came with appliances. Refrigerator, stove and—
George Kraemer: What was it, $26?
Marjorie Kraemer: $27 a month or something.
George Kraemer: $27 a month or something for rent.
Franklin: And how was that comparative to—like, is that a pretty average rent, or was that a pretty good deal?
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was cheaper because it was government.
George Kraemer: It was cheap. Of course, I didn’t make too much money back then, either. [LAUGHTER]
Marjorie Kraemer: Of course if something went wrong, you just called up housing and they came and fixed it. Or they gave you a new one. [LAUGHTER] You know, a new stove or whatever.
Franklin: Were they pretty prompt?
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: Like, was the service—
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, they were.
Franklin: --pretty good?
George Kraemer: They had a special group, that’s all they did was maintain the homes.
Franklin: Okay. And describe that atmosphere of living in a company town where everyone worked at the same place and, you know, it was landlords of the government. I wonder if you could kind of talk about that atmosphere.
George Kraemer: Well, every Friday afternoon, The GE News would come out. You’ve probably heard of the GE News.
Franklin: Yeah, we have copies of The GE News in our collection.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.
George Kraemer: It was the local one, and that was reading, and they had the want ads in there, which you always went because people were buying and selling a lot of things in that era. The—like she said, I remember the water. The water was—we had both irrigation water and house water. Two separate spigots there. And that was kind of interesting. That all come with our $26 or $27.
Franklin: Wow.
George Kraemer: After about, oh, I don’t know how many years it was, we got a—no, we bought that house. That’s right.
Franklin: In ’58, when they—
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, ’58.
George Kraemer: Yeah, we bought that house. I think we paid $2,200 for it, as I remember.
Franklin: Wow.
George Kraemer: They were appraised maybe $3,000 and then they gave you a discount.
Franklin: Wow.
George Kraemer: And not too long after that, we moved into a two-bedroom—three-bedroom—
Marjorie Kraemer: Three-bedroom, precut.
George Kraemer: Three-bedroom precut.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
George Kraemer: That we bought on our own through the realtor.
Franklin: Was that one of the newer constructions?
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was better construction.
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: It was better construction?
George Kraemer: The prefabs are made out of two-by-twos instead of two-by-fours for structure.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: And plywood—quarter-inch plywood on the inside and outside, and some—insulation wasn’t too good in it, but it had a little bit.
Franklin: Yeah, the insulation leaves a little bit to be desired.
George Kraemer: It’s some sort of paper product, two inches thick.
Franklin: Right. Well, yeah, because those were made, originally, for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
George Kraemer: Right.
Marjorie Kraemer: And they were supposed to not last very long.
George Kraemer: Short-term thing.
Franklin: Yeah, yeah. And they’re still—
George Kraemer: And they’re still in use, yes.
Franklin: Still around, yeah. Yeah, mine has been pretty extensively remodeled, but it’s still—still standing.
Marjorie Kraemer: I do remember when we first came here that Richland had the highest birthrate and the lowest death rate of anyone in the nation.
George Kraemer: We were part of that.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right.
Franklin: And it was likely due to the medical care, right?
George Kraemer: The medical care, a lot of young people—
Marjorie Kraemer: And everybody worked at Hanford and so they—you know, they were younger. There wasn’t any grandma and grandpas around. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Right, other people I’ve interviewed have mentioned that, that when they—especially—
Marjorie Kraemer: There wasn’t older people, you didn’t see them in Richland.
Franklin: Right, there was no one who was retired or—
Marjorie: Right, right.
George Kraemer: No! You’re right on.
Franklin: So it was mostly probably people your age.
George Kraemer: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: And then children of varying ages.
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: Yeah.
George Kraemer: You talk about the other things went on. We had limited places where we could go out and eat.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: Like we had the Mart building. That was a popular place.
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, they had a grease—
George Kraemer: It had a drug store.
Marjorie Kraemer: It had a little diner in it or whatever.
George Kraemer: A little dining area, things like that.
Franklin: Little greasy spoon type of thing?
George Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: And where was that?
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was on the corner of where the post office used to be, on that corner there, across the street. And of course it was kind of like a Quonset hut.
George Kraemer: Yeah, it was like a big Quonset thing.
Marjorie Kraemer: And of course it’s been torn down.
George Kraemer: Remodeled, anyway.
Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Quonset huts haven’t lasted somehow.
George Kraemer: When I lived in the dorms, M-5, for a month? Two months? Before we got married. And I was out here with a friend and she wasn’t out here yet. And then trying to get our food every night, we had to go eat in restaurants every night. It was kind of interesting. Very limited.
Franklin: Yeah.
George Kraemer: Compared to what you have nowadays.
Franklin: Right, or even perhaps where you had come from in—was that University of Wisconsin, is that Madison?
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: Okay. I imagine a college town would have probably had a little bit more to—
George Kraemer: Oh, yes.
Franklin: --for, you know. And so what about the night life? Did you ever partake in night life in Richland, or was there much of night life?
Marjorie Kraemer: No. We just—we played, you know, cards and things with friends.
George Kraemer: Yeah, a lot of cards. We had a couple friends out here already. And then we made new friends pretty rapidly. As I said, we had a lot of cards.
Marjorie Kraemer: Played cards.
George Kraemer: Camping. Did a lot of camping. I had a ’49 Ford—
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: --at that instance and timeframe. And the first summer we were here we were about camping every weekend.
Franklin: And where would you go, often?
George Kraemer: Oh, the Blue Mountains, north above Spokane—
Marjorie Kraemer: Mount Rainier.
George Kraemer: Mount Rainier, a lot. That’s one of my favorite places.
Marjorie Kraemer: White Pass.
Franklin: Yeah, it’s really pretty up there.
George Kraemer: So that took a lot of our time in the summer.
Franklin: I bet.
George Kraemer: Winter times were—well, we didn’t go camping. But, again, that’s mostly—we had a lot of cards and games that we played with our young friends.
Marjorie Kraemer: And you hunted a lot.
George Kraemer: Yeah, I did a lot of deer hunting and a lot of fishing.
Franklin: Oh, yeah. Well, you said that’s what brought you out here.
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: I’m wondering if each of you, starting with Marjorie first this time, could describe a typical work day when you worked out on Site.
Marjorie Kraemer: Oh. Well, let’s see. When I worked out in the Area it was a little different than in town, because I had to ride the bus. And of course, I think I got off about 6:00, and of course it was dark. And walked a couple blocks to the bus, and you paid a nickel for each way to go out to the Area, which was about 27 miles. And when you got there in the wintertime, it was dark. And you went in, and I worked in the B Plant, it was. And it was all cement, no windows. So you went in and it was dark. When you came out to go home, it was dark. So you never saw the sunshine until the weekend.
Franklin: Wow.
Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] In the summer, it was awful because not all the buses were air conditioned.
George Kraemer: None of them were. [LAUGHTER]
Marjorie Kraemer: Oh. Well, we had a few, I think, that were.
George Kraemer: Not then.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, gosh. You were just soaked, you know, because it was so hot. 100 degrees, riding in this bus.
George Kraemer: And they allowed smoking on the buses. That was not good for us that didn’t smoke.
Franklin: Oh you guys—both of you didn’t smoke?
George Kraemer: No.
Marjorie Kraemer: No, no.
Franklin: Seems to, probably in the ‘50s, have been more of a rarity than a—or at least, seems like a lot more people smoked then.
George Kraemer: True.
Franklin: Especially, I can imagine, in the wintertime with closed windows, that would be pretty oppressive. So George, what about you? Describe a typical—
George Kraemer: Well, I worked at 2-East for the first nine months or so. And that was like her. Our 222-S lab, no windows in there. Get up early, ride the bus, go to the—where Stores is now, at the big bus lot there. So all of the buses would go into there, and you would get off your bus and take the appropriate 200 Area bus or whatever, 100 Area bus. And likewise, when you came home, you’d come back to that bus lot, get off the buses, and get to your route.
Franklin: Was that time on the bus included in your work day?
George Kraemer: That was my time.
Franklin: It was included in your time. It was not included in your time?
George Kraemer: No, it was not included in--
Franklin: Oh, it was not included.
George Kraemer: No, no.
Marjorie Kraemer: No.
Franklin: So that was just considered part of—
George Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: Was that a pretty fast transition though, from catching the bus by your home to go to the lot to then get on the other bus—
George Kraemer: It was fast.
Franklin: It was pretty efficient?
George Kraemer: And the buses were pretty much on time.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: For some reason, I mostly had express buses where we didn’t stop at the bus lot.
George Kraemer: Well, later on, yes.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: Oh, okay. Interesting. And so then you said you’d get on the appropriate bus to the Area, and then—take me forward from there.
George Kraemer: Okay. We get on the bus there and I went into the lab, and that was an all-enclosed building again, no windows. And I did, oh, nuclear—not nuclear but radioactive waste disposal and things like that. We’d get a bus from 300 Area about once a week or twice a week and they would—not a bus, a tanker truck. Sorry about that. A tanker truck would come in and I unloaded that into some of our special waste tanks out there.
Franklin: Were these the tanks in the Tank Farms, or are these different tanks?
George Kraemer: No, that wasn’t the Tank Farm; that was the special area just for the 300 Area waste.
Franklin: Okay. And what would you do with the waste?
George Kraemer: Well, the tanker truck would back up to a big nozzle, and I’d hook up the nozzles and drain the tanks. Let it drain for an hour or whatever it was, and then go back out and unhook the thing and wave the driver on.
Franklin: Okay. And what would be done with the waste at that facility?
George Kraemer: It was just stored.
Franklin: Just stored. Okay.
George Kraemer: Yes. I don’t think we—outside of doing some sampling, which I didn’t do, that was it.
Franklin: Would that eventually go into the ground then?
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: Okay. And that’s when it would eventually go into the single-shell or double-shell tanks.
George Kraemer: Sooner or later.
Franklin: Sooner or later, find its way there. Okay.
George Kraemer: Yeah. And then I transferred into drafting and that was downtown in the 760 Building.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: Of course that way I could ride to work or walk to work.
Franklin: And that’s like pen-and-table drafting, right? Like on a drafting board.
George Kraemer: Drafting board, yes. That was kind of nice, because I could ride bicycle, walk or take the car, whatever. And I’d get home at least when it was daylight.
Franklin: That seems like kind of an interesting job shift from handling waste to more of a technical thing like drafting.
George Kraemer: Well, yeah, well, what started that, my boss wanted some sketches of flow diagrams and stuff like that. I said, I can do them. I did them, and he was impressed with them, and he says, you ought to be in drafting. And he led the way for me.
Franklin: Okay, interesting. What did you go to school for?
George Kraemer: Engineering.
Franklin: Oh, okay, just engineering in general?
George Kraemer: Mm-hm.
Franklin: Okay, and Marjorie, did you attend college?
Marjorie Kraemer: No, no.
Franklin: Oh, okay. How did you gain the training for accounting and bookkeeping? Was it just all on the job?
Marjorie: Yeah, on-the-job training. And you could advance back then. Nowadays if you didn’t have a college degree, well, I don’t think you would go as far.
Franklin: Sure, yeah. Okay.
George Kraemer: Another thing—I also took a lot of classes. GE at this time, they had engineering folks which would give us classes in various subjects.
Franklin: Is that over here in the East Building? Or was it different?
George Kraemer: I can’t remember exactly where it was. Sometimes—I think it was the Federal Building, I think it was.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: Just various things that would help me in my work and help me in my promotions, too.
Franklin: Okay. Interesting. That’s kind of a—seems like so much was provided to workers in terms of training and housing, and I think it seems foreign to a lot of workers today to think of a company being that kind of paternal—caring, paternalistic almost. It’s kind of the vibe I get off that era of Hanford’s history.
George Kraemer: Yeah. While I was downtown in drafting there, we worked on—I was in the piping squad. We worked on facilities in the 100 Areas, 200 Areas, not 300 Areas then. So I got to know pretty much all the areas. And I went out to visit them on lots of times where you have to go out and see what is really there. You go look at old drawings and it may not be the same.
Franklin: Right. Because you’re not looking at the as-builts.
George Kraemer: Right.
Franklin: You’re looking at the older—
George Kraemer: Right, and so consequently, we made a fair number of trips out to the various sites regardless of where they were.
Franklin: Okay, so you got, then, to see the whole site pretty well.
George Kraemer: I think I did, yes.
Franklin: Okay. Marjorie, what was—well I’m going to ask this question of both of you, but we’ll start with Marjorie. What was the most challenging and/or rewarding aspects of your work at Hanford?
[LAUGHTER]
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, [LAUGHTER] I’m not sure how to answer that. It was a good place to work. And it, you know, paid well. And I guess that’s, you know, the main thing. I wasn’t out for some big career or anything like that.
Franklin: Sure. And, George, what about you? What were some of the more challenging or rewarding aspects of—
George Kraemer: Well, you know, we went through a lot of companies: GE, Westinghouse, Atlantic Richfield, Isochem—maybe another one in there. But the fact is, I never lost a day of work throughout 36, almost 37 years. I was never laid off. But I think the most rewarding was being recognized for my work. Being asked to take all these promotions. I think that was rewarding, to me. Must be doing something right.
Franklin: Right, yeah. Great. Did the nature of the work at Hanford ever unsettle either of you? The, you know, just the--
Marjorie Kramer: Oh, you mean—
Franklin: The amount of chemical or nuclear waste or the possibility of—
Marjorie Kraemer: Radiation.
Franklin: --Soviet attack or anything like that. Did that ever—
George Kraemer: Well, you know, when we first moved here, the Army was still here.
Marjorie Kraemer: Camp Hanford.
George Kraemer: At Camp Hanford.
Franklin: Right.
George Kraemer: And they had Nike missile sites up on—not Badger, but—
Marjorie Kraemer: White Bluffs, out that way, didn’t they, across the river?
George Kraemer: Yeah, White Bluffs, and—
Franklin: Rattlesnake?
George Kraemer: Yeah, Rattlesnake! And you wondered about that. Planes would fly over every now and then. But other than that, as far as being attacked, no. And radiation-wise, I’ve learned to respect it.
Franklin: Sure.
George Kraemer: I never got involved in any serious things even though I went into some bad places, probably. But I never had—in the various canyons and stuff of the buildings. But never had any problems.
Franklin: Okay. And same for you, Marjorie?
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, and of course I wasn’t out there all that long. But I remember when we used to travel quite a bit. When we would travel and people would, oh, where do you work? And I would never say Exxon Nuclear; I would say Exxon. [LAUGHTER] Because they thought we glow in the dark, probably. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Right, that seems to be—
George Kraemer: That was very common, regardless of where you went. Like, say, we travel a lot and you stand up and introduce yourself. You didn’t want to say a great deal, because they figured you—they didn’t want to be around you. You glow.
Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] Some people.
Franklin: Why do you think that endures? Because today, even today, that’s—
George Kraemer: Ignorance. Ignorance of radiation, like in the paper here and now, they said, we’re the other Chernobyl. No! There’s not that possibility.
Franklin: Right. Because our problem is mostly chemical.
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: It’s not so much nuclear. I mean, there’s radioactivity—
George Kraemer: Oh, there’s a lot of radioactivity; there’s no question.
Franklin: --but it’s—
George Kraemer: But it’s not going to explode. It’s not that type.
Franklin: Right, we won’t have a meltdown. At least we can say that much.
Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: What are some of your memories of any major events in Tri-Cities history? I’m thinking of like plants shutting down or starting up—
George Kraemer: President Kennedy—
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: Okay.
George Kraemer: --came out here. I can’t remember the year now.
Franklin: September 14th, 1963.
Marjorie Kraemer: 1963, yeah, ’63.
Franklin: Or 17th.
George Kraemer: Anyway, I was there. We all bussed out to—was that 100-N?
Marjorie Kraemer: He was out in 100-N, wasn’t he?
George Kraemer: 100-N, or--?
Marjorie Kraemer: Wasn’t it?
George Kraemer: 100-N, I think, wasn’t it?
Franklin: Yeah—
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, I think so.
Franklin: He came to dedicate part of the steam generating—
George Kraemer: You know, incidentally, I did the first working drawings, the scope drawings, of the piping of the major process piping of 100-N.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
George Kraemer: That was a fantastic job. I know one time I did my drawings, got them and they decided, hey, that’s classified, after the fact. I had to go through, collect all of my drawings and everything and then I had to secure my drafting boards and stuff like that.
[LAUGHTER]
George Kraemer: But we did it.
Marjorie Kraemer: And I can remember in the 703 Building when I worked downtown in 19—I think it was ‘55 or ’56—Ronald Reagan came. Because we had the General Electric Theater.
Franklin: That’s right!
Marjorie Kraemer: And he came through our building and was talking to everybody.
Franklin: Did you get to meet him?
Marjorie Kraemer: Yes, uh-huh.
Franklin: Okay. And did you also? Did he go to the Site?
Marjorie Kraemer: No.
George Kraemer: I don’t—
Marjorie Kraemer: I think you were out in the Area.
George Kraemer: I was out in the Area then. I don’t think I—I knew he was here, obviously. He was on—he toured some buildings, but I didn’t get to see him.
Franklin: That’s pretty—that’s interesting. I’d heard he’d come, but I hadn’t met anybody who actually really—
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, he came through our 703 Building—
Franklin: Oh, okay. So I imagine that was—
Marjorie Kraemer: Where finance was.
Franklin: --quite an interesting thing to have a Hollywood celebrity coming to Hanford. And so did you both go to see President Kennedy when he came to dedicate the N Reactor?
Marjorie Kraemer: I didn’t get to. Did you?
George Kraemer: You were not working at Hanford then, I don’t think.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right, no.
George Kraemer: But anyway, the whole company [LAUGHTER] all the people were there that could be excused. They just bussed everybody out there.
Franklin: Right. And were you one of those people?
George Kraemer: Yes, I was one of them people.
Franklin: Can you kind of describe that scene?
George Kraemer: Well, he was on the podium which was quite a ways away from me there. And he gave quite a talk, you know. Of course the excitement of hearing your President—or seeing your President was kind of interesting. And I really don’t know what he said anymore.
[LAUGHTER]
George Kraemer: But I thought that was a major highlight. Another one, probably, is when General Electric decided they were going to leave.
Franklin: Right. And that was in mid-‘60s, right?
George Kraemer: ’65, probably.
Franklin: Yeah, that sounds right.
George Kraemer: ’66, maybe.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, I think so.
Franklin: So describe that. How was the mood around Hanford and around Richland? Because General Electric had been so prominent.
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it affected George quite a bit.
George Kraemer: Yeah, it affected my pension.
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Ah.
George Kraemer: Quite a bit. You know, I worked for over 36 years, and for those ten years that I worked under GE, that’s not included in my final pay—pension.
Franklin: Interesting.
George Kraemer: So I get—I don’t know. Very little a month for those ten years. It’s in a separate pension fund.
Franklin: Ah. Why is that? That seems a little—
Marjorie Kraemer: Because you were under—
George Kraemer: The government works in strange and mysterious ways. And there were lawsuits and stuff like that, trying to get them to include our years in the master plan.
Marjorie Kraemer: It was—one of the main reasons was you weren’t 35 yet.
George Kraemer: That’s another thing, yeah, I wasn’t 35 yet. That was a condition to get vested.
Marjorie Kraemer: That was the cutoff to get that--
Franklin: Right, right.
Marjorie Kraemer: --included in your seniority.
Franklin: So you could start to invest, right.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right, vested. Anyway.
Franklin: Wow.
George Kraemer: And of course the big thing when Westinghouse came over to retake all of the—together—you know, GE split up and then we had various split-up companies, and then all of the sudden we’re back together again.
Franklin: Yeah, it seems like—one other person I interviewed a little bit ago remarked at how the contracting agency, the government doesn’t always seem to know—like, it tries one big contractor, and then it tries to split it up a bunch, and then they go back to one big contractor, and then they want to split it up a bunch. So I’m wondering if you—either you or both of you—can talk about that shifting of contractors and how that impacted your work and your life.
George Kraemer: Well, in my case, same job. [LAUGHTER] Same boss, same everything. There wasn’t much new. Different name on the paycheck, obviously.
Franklin: But your unit stayed pretty intact throughout the change?
George Kraemer: Yes. There were no major reorganizations at first because of the takeovers of the different companies.
Franklin: Okay. And, Marjorie, what about you—so you worked initially those first few years, and then later on you worked for Exxon Nuclear, which—was Exxon Nuclear, were they a contractor or a subcontractor, or were they just aligned with—
Marjorie Kraemer: They were a private company.
Franklin: A private company, okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, they just made nuclear pellets.
Franklin: So they were like a service company for Hanford?
Marjorie Kraemer: No.
George Kraemer: No.
Marjorie Kraemer: No, no, they made nuclear fuels for reactors all over the world.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So they weren’t a Hanford company.
Marjorie Kraemer: No, they were private.
Franklin: So they were just in the same industry—
Marjorie Kraemer: But—
George Kraemer: Yes.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, and so—and it was Exxon.
Franklin: Right.
Marjorie Kraemer: It was Jersey—called Jersey Nuclear when I first started out.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: And then it was Exxon. And then they changed to Advanced Nuclear Fuels under Exxon.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: And then Siemens bought them in 1989, I believe.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: And I worked for them for a couple years. Nothing really changed. And then I retired with Siemens Corporation.
Franklin: Okay, interesting.
Marjorie Kraemer: Which was a really pretty good deal, because they have really good benefits. German companies do.
Franklin: They are very well-known for that, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right.
Franklin: Yeah, that sounds like a pretty decent deal.
Marjorie Kraemer: I think they worked half-time, because when we wanted to call them up in Germany and talk to them about something, it seems like they were either on vacation or they had a holiday. [LAUGHTER] They were never there.
Franklin: Any memories of the, like, social scene or local politics, or just any—you know, either before the great selling, you know, the privatization or afterwards in Tri-Cities? Or actually, let me be more specific. I’m wondering if either of you can tell me about some of the protest activity that took place, or if you remember that, in the beginning in the late ‘60s and end of the ‘70s. Both kind of the protests that were pro-Hanford and anti-Hanford.
Marjorie Kraemer: No, we never did get involved in any of them. I didn’t.
George Kraemer: I didn’t, either. There were no major protests that I really remember. I know one time, there was a few of them along the road when we went out before you get to 300 Area. They couldn’t get out very far then.
Franklin: Right.
George Kraemer: But I didn’t really take too much interest in them. I figured they weren’t hurting anything.
Franklin: So the Tri-Cities up until the late ‘60s was pretty segregated in terms of where African Americans could live. Even though they could work at Hanford, they couldn’t always live in Richland for a while. And I’m wondering if you guys could—did you observe that kind of—
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: --that Civil Rights action and kind of some of that segregation before the Civil Rights?
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, I remember that there were a few blacks—I don’t know what you—blacks going to the high school and stuff when my daughter was going. Well, the Mitchells were here, you know.
Franklin: Right, CJ Mitchell.
George Kraemer: CJ Mitchell.
Marjorie Kraemer: And Cameron Mitchell was in my daughter’s—
George Kraemer: Daughter went to school with him.
Marjorie Kraemer: And she was good friends with him, you know.
Franklin: Right, and he was one of the first—
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right, and—
Franklin: --people to get someone to sell him a house in Richland. He had a lot of struggle getting that.
Marjorie Kraemer: And I don’t know what they did with the housing—government housing—if they gave it to—I guess maybe they didn’t give it to black people.
George Kraemer: They had no choice then.
Franklin: I believe they had to live in east Pasco until the ‘60s.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yes. I don’t think they could live in Kennewick, either.
Franklin: No, Kennewick--
George Kraemer: Kennewick was very bad.
Franklin: Yeah, they had the sundown. The sundown laws.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yes, right.
George Kraemer: Yes. When we first moved here, I’d become good friends with an African. And we used to play cards with him, and go places with him. I thought we were well-accepted.
Marjorie Kraemer: But he lived in Pasco, didn’t he?
George Kraemer: Yes. He did not live in Richland.
Franklin: Oh, right.
George Kraemer: But—I said it was very plain to us, that—I say, Kennewick was very bad. And they didn’t even want to go to Kennewick, the colored folks.
Franklin: Right.
Marjorie Kraemer: And they were supposed to get out of town before, like you say, sundown.
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Yeah.
Marjorie Kraemer: Which is not very nice.
George Kraemer: But, you know, it’s not nice to say, but they knew their place.
Franklin: Right, well, yeah, they knew where they could go and couldn’t—where they were welcome and where they were not. Yeah, that squares pretty well with the historical record. Thank you for that.
Marjorie Kraemer: When our daughter—after she graduated from high school, she went to WSU. And then she graduated from there. She got a nursing degree, and she went to Seattle and worked. And one of her comments once when she called me up, and she says, Mom, we really led a sheltered life in Richland, you know? [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: That’s interesting. I wonder if you could unpack that a little bit more. What would have been so sheltered about Richland for her?
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, I think, you know, she went to Seattle and got a job. And her first job was in the King County jail. She was a nurse in the clinic. And she saw all these prisoners and—
George Kraemer: Not the best clientele.
[LAUGHTER]
Marjorie Kraemer: Right. And that was one of her comments after she called me up—called me up and said, you know, we really led a sheltered life, after seeing all these homeless people and skid row, and—you know. It’s just different.
Franklin: Right, because I imagine Richland would have been a pretty solid middle class, mostly white—
Marjorie Kraemer: Right.
Franklin: Still is majority, but mostly white, middle class. Pretty safe. If you didn’t work at Hanford, you didn’t live in Richland until 1958. And I imagine after that, it was pretty slow to change where most people who lived here worked at Hanford for—
George Kraemer: I think the police had a good—made their presence known, in a good way.
Franklin: Sure.
George Kraemer: And I think that was the difference between Seattle living and outskirts of Seattle or wherever she lived.
Franklin: Well, I imagine it would be in general an easier community to police where you knew everyone worked in the same place.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right, right.
Franklin: Everyone knew—or a lot of people knew everyone else, and you know it was—
George Kraemer: But crime was very low.
Franklin: Sure, sure.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right.
George Kraemer: First of all, you know the folks have clearances, things like that, that’s going to get a better grade of people. Because they went through all the rigmarole you have to go through.
Marjorie Kraemer: I saved one of those questionnaires, those Q clearance deals. I still have it. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Oh, yeah?
Marjorie Kraemer: And I left—when I filled mine out, I left two weeks of my life off of this—[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Oh, no.
Marjorie Kraemer: Of course it came back and they wanted to know where I was. [LAUGHTER] I was in transit to out here or something.
[LAUGHTER]
Marjorie Kraemer: And so they wanted to know—
Franklin: Those forms went back, what, like ten years or something like that?
Marjorie Kraemer: Oh, it was—
George Kraemer: Renewed or unless there was a need to upgrade.
Marjorie Kraemer: When I first filled it out, of course I was only like 20 years old. So I didn’t have that much to have to put on it. But they went back, and people told us, you know, we were from a small town and of course they told us, these people—
George Kraemer: Right.
Marjorie Kraemer: They were asking about you and all this—
Franklin: Right, calling around.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right.
George Kraemer: They were wanting to know what was going on.
Franklin: Right. Yeah, I know, that’s—
Marjorie Kraemer: Wanting to know where you went to school and where you worked back there. [LAUGHTER]
George Kraemer: I first got an L clearance when I came here.
Franklin: Is that a lower or higher—
George Kraemer: That’s a lower grade. And then as soon as I transferred into drafting, I had to get a new clearance, a Q clearance, again. Which I had the rest of my time here.
Franklin: Okay, interesting. Were they still any—I’m always a little fuzzy on my dates with this—were there any Atomic Frontier Days parades when you were here?
George Kraemer: Oh, yeah.
Franklin: Or were those over by the time that—
Marjorie Kraemer: No, they were here, and in fact, Sharon Tate—
George Kraemer: Yeah, Sharon Tate was in that.
Marjorie Kraemer: One of the first few years we were here, she was the Miss Tri-Cities.
Franklin: Oh, really?
George Kraemer: Yes.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah. Her dad was at Hanford, you know, Camp Hanford. He was an Army--
Franklin: Oh, that’s right, because I’ve always heard she was an Army—kind of an Army brat. Oh, really? That’s really interesting. I’ve oftentimes asked—I used to ask people about that question and it would miss a lot, so I kind of stopped asking about Sharon Tate. But that’s interesting that you remember seeing her?
Marjorie Kraemer: Oh, sure.
George Kraemer: Yeah, I remember they had parades down the main—one of the streets. I don’t remember which ones now.
Franklin: And you guys went to the Atomic Frontier Days and all of that?
George Kraemer: Why, certainly! Yes.
Franklin: Yeah, those were very colorful and kind of interesting events. Kind of wish I could have seen one of those in the flesh. Great. And so—gosh, you guys have already run down so many of my questions without even me needing to ask them.
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: But I still have a couple. Could you describe the ways in which security and secrecy impacted your jobs, respectively? I’ll start with Marjorie.
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, you just knew that you weren’t supposed to—you know, I was in finance. And so I saw all these numbers and all this stuff. And you just knew you weren’t supposed to talk about things like that. But other than that, you know, it didn’t really affect me all that much.
George Kraemer: Well, I know, going on vacation or something like that, or going back to Wisconsin. We’d go quite a bit. And, what do you do out there? And you know, in general terms you tell them. But I was trying to remember some specifics. I’m sure there were some to do with security.
Marjorie Kraemer: It must have been very hard to work here in the ‘40s. [LAGUHTER] You didn’t know what you were doing, you know, you were building all this stuff.
George Kraemer: Yeah, we knew what we were doing, you know. What we were making and all this thing.
Franklin: You could talk about it to your coworker.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right.
Franklin: And not be afraid of being evicted from your home and losing your job.
George Kraemer: I remember looking at an old paper. It said, big headlines: it’s bombs.
Franklin: Yes. Yes, that’s the Richland Villager from right after the Nagasaki bombing, yeah. Interesting. Do you remember, were there like searches or did they search people on the buses?
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: Well--
George Kraemer: Going home. [LAUGHTER] A lot of times you just had to open your lunch pail up, and make sure there was nothing in it.
Franklin: You didn’t have any atoms in your pocket or anything?
George Kraemer: Yeah.
Marjorie Kraemer: They didn’t always look.
George Kraemer: They didn’t always look, but every now and then they’d have a search day.
Franklin: Okay. Kind of keep you on your toes.
George Kraemer: And of course all of the cars at 300 Area where the major barricade was. You had to stop, open your trunks if you drove a car. And then if you went into the various—200 Areas, 100 Areas, you had to stop again or you parked your car in the parking lot outside and walked in. And if you went into the various buildings, like PUREX or like in the lab where I was there, you had a number and a radiation badge, and your name and a number you were assigned. When I went to 222-S, it was number ten. I must have got some big wheels for a number or something like that. I was ten. They would look you up to make sure in their file—they’d look at, make sure the picture matched you.
Franklin: Wow, and that would be every time you’d come in?
George Kraemer: Every time you went in the building there.
Franklin: Wow. That’s very tight security.
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: When you—you said you had to go around the site a lot—how would you get around once you got—so you took the bus in, but how would you get from one area to the other?
George Kraemer: Engineering department had cars—government cars.
Franklin: Okay. And so then you’d just—could only travel in—
George Kraemer: And we just traveled in government cars out to the various facilities.
Franklin: Okay. When did the bus service stop?
George Kraemer: Good question. Let’s see.
Marjorie Kraemer: Late ‘60s?
George Kraemer: Hmm. Probably in that era.
Marjorie Kraemer: Because when we built the new house, and it was in 1966, and you still rode the bus then.
George Kraemer: That’s right.
Marjorie Kraemer: So I think it was in the late ‘60s.
George Kraemer: I would say in the late ‘60s, it was.
Marjorie Kraemer: Or early ‘70s.
Franklin: And so then—
George Kraemer: And there was much frustration.
Franklin: To much frustration?
George Kraemer: On a lot of people’s part. Including mine.
Franklin: Really? Why was that?
George Kraemer: I loved that bus ride. I mean, I loved going out there for—it was changed to, I don’t know, 50 cents or something. It was higher price, anyway. The nickel was just to pay insurance and liabilities. But—so I had to drive my car out or get into a carpool, or whatever.
Marjorie Kraemer: But then for a while, they stopped the service in town picking everybody up, and then you could go to the bus lot and catch a bus. For a while, for a few years.
George Kraemer: Yeah, they stopped the rounds through town.
Franklin: Okay. That’s such an interesting structure of life, to have everybody in one town that all catches the bus, and—
Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] And work at the same—
Franklin: You know when the buses are coming and everyone kind of depends on it, and—
George Kraemer: Yes.
Franklin: That’s just such an interesting—seems almost kind of foreign to a lot of people today. And so you said that was kind of a chagrin that the bus—is that because you liked just not having to drive, or not—
George Kraemer: I liked not having to drive. I knew that I had to be outside there at 6:00 or whatever it was every morning. And it was there. It was—
Marjorie Kraemer: You could read, you could do work—you could do all sorts of things.
George Kraemer: When I was manager out there for a while, I could do a lot of work on the bus.
Franklin: Ah.
George Kraemer: I had my own philosophy. I did not like to take any work home. I had my briefcase and I would do a lot of stuff on the bus. That was 45 minutes of uninterrupted time, and I could get a lot of my work done.
Franklin: Oh, I bet. Yeah. Interesting. What would you either—both of you, sorry—what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? And I’ll start with you, George.
George Kraemer: Well, I think you’re doing part of it. [LAUGHTER] Let them know what’s going on. And you know, the kids never really knew what—really, what we were doing, I don’t think, in detail. Yeah, they knew in general. As I look back at the government—not too impressed.
Franklin: Really? Why is that?
George Kraemer: The stuff that goes on out there now—when we were—I was working, I felt I was doing a job. Things were going out—in the shops, things were going out the door. We were making things. Things were happening. I was proud of our work. Now I begin to wonder how long—you know, the Tank Farms have been undergoing their thing for years, and it’s going to be another amount of years before they do anything. It’s—not enough things are happening.
Franklin: Okay. Interesting. Marjorie, what about you? What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War?
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was just such a different sort of life, you know. You were kind of protected, I guess. You know, everybody, like, knew everybody, and you all worked at the same place, and your kids went to the schools in town. You went to the doctors that are in town. It was just a different sort of a—
Franklin: Right, like your daughter had said maybe a little protected, sheltered.
Marjorie Kraemer: Sheltered life, yeah.
Franklin: It’s so interesting to me because—George, the thing you said about feeling like you’d done something—I’ve heard that from other interviewees who had worked in that transition period, who had worked when Hanford was producing and felt a real sense of accomplishment. And then kind of felt like it was mired down during cleanup and that the mission’s unclear, the work doesn’t progress. And Marjorie, it’s always been amazing to me to hear that, that it does seem like a really safe and peaceful place, but when you look at it kind of on—there’s a flipside to that, though. It’s amazing that there’s this safe, peaceful place next to nine nuclear reactors.
[LAUGHTER]
Marjorie: And you know—
Franklin: And you know, like a major target in the Cold War.
Marjorie Kraemer: Well, I guess that’s true. I don’t know. You just--
Franklin: But I think those two can exist side-by-side. That it could be, you know, a place of production but also of danger and a place of safety but also—you know, and of security. I just—it’s—there’s a lot of contradictions in Hanford that I think are really interesting that get brought out in these interviews. So thank you. Is there anything that I haven’t asked either of you about that you would like to talk about?
George Kraemer: No. I’m sure I’ll think of some when I get home.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: That’s very common. That happens all the time. I get emails a lot from people like--
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: --I wish I had said this.
George Kraemer: Oh, let’s see. I think when I was a shop engineer out there in the shops, best years of my life out there. Again, I felt proud that we were doing something, things were going out the door. I was responsible for a lot of critical measurements and things of—the jumpers, the tanks, and everything that we did in the shop. And then troubleshooting. There was some failures out there and I would go out to troubleshoot to see how we could fix things. Contaminated vessels and things like that. But those were good years. Best years I had out there. Management was good, but there are a lot more responsibilities. But those worked out, too.
Franklin: Right. Great.
Marjorie Kraemer: And I think the schools were—you know—were good.
Franklin: Right.
Marjorie Kraemer: The kids had a good education, had good teachers.
Franklin: Right, I’ve heard that a lot that people—there were a lot of well-educated people that worked at Hanford and at first Battelle—Hanford Labs, and then Battelle and Pacific Northwest National Labs. So that there was a high focus on education and—
George Kraemer: Another thing is, probably more so than now, but the school sports. Didn’t have too much else to do, so there was a lot of basketball games and football games and soccer games and all that sort of things that people went to. And they really supported the high school sports.
Franklin: Okay. You think that’s more then than now.
George Kraemer: I think more then than now. There was less to do.
Franklin: Right, it was a little more of an isolated community.
Marjorie Kraemer: Right. And of course this year they went to the—
George Kraemer: Well, this year’s different. [LAUGHTER]
Marjorie Kraemer: --the tournaments. But when our daughter and son were in high school, they were always going to tournaments. And I always had to take kids and chaperone, you know?
Franklin: Oh, yeah, yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for coming.
George Kraemer: Ah, it was our pleasure.
Franklin: I see that you’ve brought some things. Would we be able to scan those and keep them with part of your—with your interview?
George Kraemer: You can have those. That’s my work history.
Franklin: Okay, great, we’ll scan this and put this with your interview, too.
George Kraemer: And she’s got some pictures there, too.
Franklin: Are these family pictures, or--?
Marjorie Kraemer: No, these are pictures of—
George Kraemer: No, they’re--
Marjorie Kraemer: Out at Hanford. This is one when I worked out at the Area. This was a million man hours without an accident, you know?
Franklin: Oh, wow, okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: And they had a fashion show. And this is me right here in radiation outfit, you know, that we modeled the—we modeled the outfits they wore in the contaminated labs and all that.
Franklin: And which one are you? Are you the one in the white cowl?
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, I’m the one right—with the—
Franklin: Okay.
Marjorie Kraemer: All covered up.
Franklin: Yeah, kind of a little hard to tell. That’s great. That’s a great picture. Ah, yup, General Electric Photo Division.
Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: Yeah, would we be able to scan these and put them with your interview?
George Kraemer: Yeah.
Franklin: That would be wonderful. Okay. Great. Well, thank you again, thank you both so much. ITts been a really excellent interview.
George Kraemer: Good!
Marjorie Kraemer: Thank you.
Franklin: You did good.
Duration
Bit Rate/Frequency
Hanford Sites
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Years on Hanford Site
Names Mentioned
Sharon Tate
Files
