59 50 4772 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7979506dcf39c0bb292c727b9f9b0e0b.JPG 2c7a6cf253f23a1ad1751be3abceed88 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dave Harvey Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Dave Harvey on February 21st, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Dave about his experiences working on the Hanford Site and helping to preserve the history of Hanford and the Tri-Cities. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Dave Harvey: David Harvey. H-A-R-V-E-Y. Franklin: And D-A-V-I-D? Harvey: Oh, yeah, D-A-V-I-D. Franklin: It’s okay. So, Dave, what is your background and how did you first come to Hanford? Harvey: Well, I got a degree--[LAUGHTER]—oh, gosh, many years ago—undergraduate degree in American history and government in 1970, back at a private university in New Jersey. And then went to—did various other occupations, but then decided to go to graduate school and came out here to Western Washington University in 1973 and was in history. At the end of my two years in grad school, they were just getting historic preservation kind of component. It was mainly just history, government, what-have-you, and the whole cultural resources management, historic preservation—I should call it occupation, for want for a better term—just got going. I mean, the National Historic Preservation Act wasn’t passed until 1966. So it was kind of like the archaeologists had been doing work on cultural resources, mainly—you know, just archaeological, like with the dams out here, with the construction of all the hydroelectric and irrigation water storage dams. So there was a lot of need for kind of emergency archaeology to document before those areas were going to be flooded. So they got into the cultural resources management game a lot earlier than historians, architectural historians, you know, landscape architects and what-have-you. So, initially, I would be on field crews with the archaeologists. In fact, I even went to an actual field school in France at one point. I had a lot of interests in archaeology and I got on some digs and so forth. But more and more, my interest and focus was on the built environment and dealing—especially out here in the Northwest, and of course Hanford’s a perfect example. You have this continuum. Besides the prehistory you have the early settlement and the agricultural landscapes. And everything is much more intact. There’s a lot of public land, so there’s a lot of opportunity to go out and document, because federal agencies are required, under National Historic Preservation Act, to—they’re supposed to be proactive to document. All the cultural resources, whether it’s prehistoric or on the built environment, you know, houses, cabins, agricultural remains, and landscape. It’s just really fascinating. So that’s another attraction for being out here in the Pacific Northwest. And after I got my master’s and then—boy, that was in 1975. Ever since, kind of went back and forth between the built environment and archaeology, but I would say the last 35 years has mainly been dealing with the built environment. Franklin: And when you say built environment, could you define that term for us? Harvey: It would be any aboveground structures. And that could be early settlement remains. You know, there’s that fine line. When you come to an old farmstead, homestead, and it’s dilapidated, let’s say there’s just remains. Well, you’re going to use archaeological, maybe, techniques as well. But essentially you can document it and do—go to the historic record to get your information. So it’s basically, you know, that’s the built environment. But it can be like the government homes in Richland. Let’s say you have over 3,000 government homes. That’s the built environment. And I had a lot of experience documenting those just here in Richland. But out at Hanford, once again, it’s also the industrial Cold War era, Manhattan Project era buildings, and what they call the recent past, which more and more is no longer recent. But at one point when I was working documenting out here for the Pacific Northwest National Lab—that’s what brought me over to the Mid-Columbia, to Richland back in 1993—you know, the Cold War era was basically just ended, and there was a big movement to document these properties before they disappeared. Because technology today—well, even back then, but much more so today—things change so rapidly that you’re going to lose these significant properties and so forth. Yeah. Franklin: Great. So then, the built environment can encompass anything from a single structure to an entire town or— Harvey: Yup. Franklin: Like the Alphabet Homes, to many even thousands of structures connected to a historical event or a historical period. Harvey: Mm-hm. Franklin: Right? Harvey: Correct. Franklin: Okay. So how did you get—why did PNNL bring you out, or why did you come out in ’93 to— Harvey: Well, I had been in Seattle. In fact, I had worked as kind of a consultant, freelance, like a lot of archaeologists had done for decades. But there was a need for historians, architectural historians, to document, as we were saying, about the built environment. So I had projects in Alaska, all over Washington, Oregon, California, and then I found out through the State Historic Preservation Office that the Department of Energy—well, actually Pacific Northwest National Lab, Battelle Memorial Institute that operates the lab—was looking for cultural resources specialists but more dealing with buildings and structures. Because they had archaeologists. This was in 1993, so I applied and my wife and I moved over from Seattle. Franklin: What attracted you about working on the built environment, architectural environment, in Hanford? Or in the Tri-Cities? Harvey: Well, initially, I don’t know if—I think I gained that appreciation after being here for a while. It sure was quite a transition, especially back in the 1990s. And you could talk to my wife about that. But seriously, it was quite different. I mean, I think today, it would be a much larger community and there’s a lot more things to offer. But at the time, it was quite different. All of the sudden, you’re out here in the shrub steppe environment, and I was so used to the [LAUGHTER] marine, wet environment of western Washington, western Oregon. So it took some transition, but I wouldn’t want to leave now. Franklin: Was it also a cultural or political transition, as well, coming from Seattle, doing cultural resources work there versus doing cultural resources work here? Harvey: Oh, yeah! Extremely. And I guess you could say, the Big Sky country. I should actually backtrack a little. One of my quarters when I was doing my masters at Western Washington was with the Bureau of Land Management in south central Montana, south of Billings. I was stationed out of Billings. So I did have some connection with that type of environment, with, you know, the arid west, so-called. But it was definitely a transition. It was a cultural and [LAUGHTER] political. It was just so different. But I think occupationally, you know, it’s—yeah, I think—well, actually, there had been times, like I even worked a project in central Oregon for a half a year back in the ‘80s, the 1980s, where it was kind of a shrub steppe—that was more of the high desert. So I kind of knew what I was getting into, but I think not so much about Hanford. That was a big transition. Yeah. Franklin: Had you heard about Hanford before you had accepted— Harvey: Yeah, and to be honest, I said, gosh, why would anybody want to live—[LAUGHTER] I’ll be honest, because after living in western Washington, it was—the transition—I didn’t appreciate at the time like I do now. And just the wide open spaces and the—I mean, and I’m also looking for personal reasons why we like it over here just from recreational—and so forth. Because we do a lot of hiking and bicycling and so forth. So, yeah, there was a lot of transition going on there. I’m glad we took it. Franklin: Good. What did you first start working on when you came in the early- or mid-‘90s for Battelle? What were some of your projects? Harvey: Well, it had to deal with kind of the Manhattan Project/Cold War era industrial properties. A lot of the concrete block buildings. And of course there’s a lot of prejudice against that, meaning, gosh, how are these significant? You get that question all the time. And of course, we’re looking at the unbelievable scientific contributions, what was going on in these properties during the Manhattan Project and early Cold War. And Hanford was one of the—produced over two-thirds of the plutonium for the country’s nuclear arsenal during the Manhattan Project/Cold War. And all these outbuildings and—I shouldn’t even say outbuildings. But it was kind of—we had to document them because the Department of Energy wanted to tear them down. A lot of them were contaminated, and so they—and part of the Tri-Party Agreement to clean up Hanford, there was this big movement—I think that’s why they needed somebody who had experience with the built environment—with building structures. And there was, I’ll have to admit, a steep learning curve, because I hadn’t worked, necessarily, with these type of buildings. But I caught up pretty quickly. And the scientific and technology, and the unbelievable challenges of what took place. I’m still learning to this day about the Manhattan Project and so forth. And now of course with the National Historic Park, it’s pretty fascinating, and just the contributions. Franklin: What kinds of resources did you use to document those industrial landscape? Harvey: Oh, boy. There were a lot of—a wealth of material, archival material, at the Department of Energy and the different contractors. It wasn’t just in one central location; they did have the central files. And that’s changed over the years, where you can get this material. Of course a lot more is available today than back in the ‘90s. And historic photos. And at that time, of course, you could talk to a lot of long—unfortunate—long-time residents and people that worked out there that unfortunately are no longer with us, but we got to talk to them. Especially a number of the early settlers or immediate descendants of the early settlers. And that was pretty fascinating. Franklin: So you were doing, then, the pre-’43 agricultural documentation as well as the Manhattan Project. Harvey: Yeah. I was remiss; I didn’t mention that. Yeah, and that was—I came kind of at the perfect time, because a number of these people unfortunately are no longer around. But we got to talk to them and their stories were documented, fortunately. Just the contributions. It was just—and that’s the whole part of the removal of over 1,500—it was more like 1,500 families, as well as the Wanapum Indians up at Priest Rapids. Just becoming exposed to this, it was really—I’d never—see, I wasn’t able to or wouldn’t have had the good fortune of being able to be exposed to that over—if we had stayed in Seattle. Yeah. Franklin: And so where—in the timeline of remediation or removal of the buildings, when did your work often happen? Was it right before the building had been— Harvey: Yup. Franklin: Was there ever an outcome where your work had revealed that a building was— Was there ever an outcome where your work may have changed the decision to remove or tear down a building? Harvey: Pretty much no, unfortunately. Most of the buildings since then have been removed. But we were able to document them and also get the artifacts. A lot of the industrial artifacts, we tagged and got them removed. Or if they were too large to remove or going to be too contaminated for storage, then we were able to document them. Photo and— Franklin: So you’re talking now about the Hanford Collection. Harvey: The Hanford Collection, which you’re in charge of. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So can you—what was your involvement with that? Were you there at the beginning of when that was being set up? Harvey: Yeah! Franklin: Okay, so can you tell me how that came to be, within the Department of Energy? So, politically and then what steps you took to document artifacts and bring them in? Harvey: Okay. And I don’t think I answered fully your original question. Franklin: Oh, sure, sorry. Harvey: Let me finish that. No, that’s good, that’s great. We documented the buildings, like you said, prior to being demolished. Because the ones that had been determined eligible—and a lot of them, you know, for the National Register of Historic Places, being federal facilities, this is a federal agency, Department of Energy, which is required under the National Historic Preservation Act. Because they—the Department of Energy, as a federal agency, was required to document and basically take into consideration any properties of what we call historic properties, properties that are listed or determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. So they had to take into consideration that these properties—they could go ahead and remove them, demolish them, or modify them. But if they’re found eligible, and then— Now, fortunately we’ve been able to save B Reactor and a lot of the artifacts from that era from some of the other reactors ended up there. But of course that’s only one of the nine reactors. But on the others—so this all kind of all of the sudden there was a dilemma here, because you’re going to have to go through this extensive documentation process for each building, almost, or at least ones that have been determined eligible. So that’s—we got into the whole Programmatic Agreement where we had a group of buildings that we’ve—no longer eligible—or I should say we determined not eligible so we didn’t have to do much documentation, if at all. Others were eligible but not really significant. And then we had a third group, really significant that required more extensive documentation. That’s kind of in a general sense. So this Programmatic Agreement was with other contractors, other cultural resource management specialists. I won’t go into all that, but that was kind of signed, I think in 2002. A programmatic agreement with DOE and State of Historic Preservation Office. And that kind of streamlined the whole process. Now, as part of that, you had mentioned about the industrial artifacts. That was kind of an offshoot of that, because these are just as important sometimes as the buildings themselves. And it’s not—it could be signs, it could be instruments. It’s not necessarily just big pieces of industrial equipment. So anyway, those—then we would go in and tag these. So it kind of made us aware—at least, at the moment, don’t touch these, and then we’ll decide later on, if they end up being contaminated or if DOE can’t remove them, then at least we’ve made record of it. Franklin: Right, right. How many buildings do you estimate that you were able to perform this documentation of, and/or the artifact removal? Harvey: Well, see, there were a thousand buildings that ended up—but because there was this streamlined, you know, the Programmatic Agreement, we didn’t have to go to each building. We went to a lot of them. But we—some had already been documented, some—if it was just kind of a generic—let’s say Butler Building, corrugated metal or something like that, might have to just take a picture or something like that. And we did visit—like I said, there was other cultural resources specialists for the other contractors: Bechtel—well, there was Westinghouse and then Bechtel—and so there were a number of other contractors. And then part of the—I would say, the largest productive outcome of this whole effort was this book, The Manhattan Project Cold War Era Facilities, that kind of outlines and chapters on each significant--whether it’s military operations, the reactors, the chemical separation plants in the 200 Area; the 100 Area, you have the fuel manufacturing. There were all these chapters done on Site security, and research and development. And there was—I think Tom Marceau was the lead editor, I think it was with Bechtel, and there were about seven or eight of us were coauthors of several of the chapters. Franklin: Okay, thank you. Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: Did you directly participate in the efforts to—any efforts at B Reactor—because I know it was a Historic Engineering Landmark, right, and then it’s gained kind of more recognition— Harvey: It became a National Historic Landmark. Franklin: National Historic Landmark. Did you participate in any of that? Harvey: Some of the research. There was a whole—you know, B Reactor Museum Association, which I’m a member. There were a lot of other people that did a lot more work than I did out there. There was a lot of work to do out here. [LAUGHTER] And that was a great success. We’re also looking to kind of preserve landscapes within the new national historic park—Manhattan Project National Historic Park. So we did some background research that have led to realizing—like out at the White Bluffs-Hanford town sites, it’s a larger area of significance than what’s actually strictly in the park. Franklin: Right, because the park, as of right now, just includes the landmark and not any—not actually any feet around it. Harvey: Right, and those are the pre-’43, like we were talking about. And you have canals—irrigation ditches, you have remains from the ranches and farmsteads and actually the foundations for some of the buildings. But it goes way beyond the actual little communities of White Bluffs and Hanford. And then there’s a pumping plant out there on the Columbia. So it’s—yeah—and that’s what we’re kind of—that’s what we’re facing now. There is, I guess, I think a lot of agreement, especially Department of Energy, that that boundary should be expanded, when we’re telling the story out there. Franklin: Are there any buildings that were remediated that you really wished had been saved for this kind of—something like a public park or for the public to view? Harvey: Yeah. We don’t have anything in the 300 Area, which was the fuel manufacturing. That’s too bad, because you had Building 313, Building 314 and a lot of other labs and so forth. They were all just—they’ve all been removed. Franklin: Why are those important? Harvey: Well, that’s where some of the first fuel was manufactured. Before the cores were made into what they call slugs, and then they were transported up to the 100 Area reactors for irradiation. So they were both built in ’43, ’44. So, yeah, it’s kind of too bad that one of those at least wasn’t preserved. But they were pretty contaminated in the walls, underground. But at least we did get to document them. But there’s not much left in the 300 Area from the era, yeah. Franklin: Are there any buildings that are still up that have been selected for remediation or are in the remediation pipeline that you wish were saved for their historic value? Harvey: Well, T Plant has an active—is part of the park, but that has an active role right now in cleanup out there in the 200 Area, chemical separation plant. I think that’s what your question is, right? Something that’s still standing now? Franklin: Yeah. Harvey: Well, some of the reactors are left, but they’re going to be mothballed except for B Reactor. I think the issue is more that we’ve got about five, six pre-’43 buildings. Now, the bank is pretty much going to be stabilized, the White Bluffs bank, First Bank of White Bluffs. But we do have some—the Hanford High School and Bruggeman’s warehouse and the Allard pumping plant, you know, they could use a lot of work. So at least efforts should go, because we really need to tell that story about the people that were sacrificed—they had to remove for the war effort. Some of the sons that were overseas and they’d gotten note from the parents that they were no longer here, because we had to leave. Yeah, so that will tell that side of the story, which is really important. Franklin: What about any other reactors that you feel are historic—because I know some reactors are kind of very similar to others, right, like D and F are pretty similar to B. But what about N or FFTF? Harvey: Well, N would’ve been really decent. That was the last one, and it was the dual generation, could produce steam for electricity as well as plutonium. That would’ve been—yeah, I would have liked to see that one preserved. Because that was the one where President Kennedy came out in ’63 and dedicated. And then I think you had just mentioned the Fast Flux Test Facility. And that was completed in 1982 and that was determined eligible in the ‘90s. Once again, the recent past. Franklin: Breaking that 50-year—so-called 50-year rule. Harvey: Yeah, because it was found to be of exceptional importance. Franklin: And why was that? Harvey: It was probably the cornerstone of the peaceful usage of nuclear energy, because it was the breeder reactor program, that I think began in the Carter Administration for commercial fuels. It was pretty significant for that. I mean, that’s why it was determined eligible. And we went in—a lot of these, I remember we went in and took videos and so forth. We have extensive documentation as well as photo documentation. But—and to be honest, I haven’t been out there for a good while. I believe some of it’s still standing. But I don’t know—there aren’t any plans to stabilize it. I think it’s going to eventually be totally demolished. Franklin: Yeah, I believe so, too. How long did you work doing cultural resource work at Hanford PNNL? Harvey: Through 2005. Franklin: Okay. Harvey: And then I went into—I had my own consulting firm for a couple years. I actually worked in Katrina for four months for FEMA. So just—in fact, I remember coming back here in 2006 and helping, I think it was Washington Closure at the time, to document more, or finalize the artifacts. What was going to be preserved or—and then we kind of were eliminating, once again, the artifacts that were either too contaminated or too large to preserve. So I had some work on that. And then I went with an environmental consulting firm in 2007, oh, through 2013, 2014, I guess. And since then, I’ve been pretty much on my own again, at my own consulting firm. Franklin: And are you still working on Hanford-related projects? Harvey: Yeah, in fact I have a contract with Battelle, actually through another environmental consulting firm that has a kind of a master services agreement with Battelle. So through that kind of agency or—I was able to get this job with Battelle. And it’s good, because there’s several properties on the Battelle campus that they want to document—they wanted to do this Section 106, National Historic Preservation action compliance work. And the main campus, which is a perfect example of mid-century modernism, I’m working on right now. Another facility in the process of wanting to demolish, so I did the—basically, guiding them with their cultural resource compliance regulations that they have to comply with. Franklin: Which facility is this? Harvey: That’s the research technology lab, the RTL. Franklin: Ah, that’s right. That’s the one you contacted me on. Harvey: Yeah, it used to be the Donald W. Douglas Labs, constructed in 1996. Douglas United—I should say the Douglas Aircraft Company and United Nuclear kind of did a joined venture and constructed that. They had it until ’71 and then Exxon purchased it and then Battelle purchased it in 1982. It was to do a lot of work on fuel fabrication, the technologies behind that research. Franklin: And so how—do you think that mid-century modern, kind of corporate campus environment will be maintained there at Battelle, or— Harvey: That’s the aim. I think they would like me to write up a management plan, kind of a maintenance guide on. You know, because they’re going to be kind of a repetitive type of maintenance things. They don’t want to have to come back every time to the State Historic Preservation Office or go through the whole process. So if we come up with a guide where certain activities that they have to maintain, whether it’s keeping the existing color palette or replace-in-kind, then they don’t have to come back to go through the whole compliance thing. So we—they realized that it is eligible. It hasn’t been formally determined eligible for the register and now I’m going through that process now. The RTL was found to be an example of commercial modernism. It was constructed, like I said in—actually, it was completed in ’67. So we’re in the process of mitigating that now. And with a memorandum of agreement outlining the stipulations to mitigate the property before it’s—Battelle sells it and/or demolishes it. Yeah. Franklin: Do you find a resistance in some circles to preservation of the modern or buildings constructed in the ‘60s and on, especially associated with the modernist style of architecture? Harvey: Oh, yeah! I mean, when I came on with Battelle in ’93, it was even more resistance. Frankly, even with the Department of Energy, which today is not resistant. But, yeah, there’s—we used to call it the giggle factor. [LAUGHTER] They’d say, you want to preserve that? Is that eligible? Why do you have to look at it? And then sometimes with corrugated metal buildings, we might have to go through the process to at least do minimal documentation. And there could have been, you know, with the National Register of Historic Places, under criterion A, if something of significant event or research occurred in that facility, that kind of outweighs, let’s say, its commonness or common construction, which is actually under criterion C. And that can happen. Franklin: Sure. Harvey: But it has to be integrity. Property does have to maintain its physical integrity to be eligible as well. But yeah there’s always resistance, and we find in the long run, if you comply, it’s a lot more inexpensive, you know, less headaches. Franklin: And it’s also more—correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s also more inexpensive to retrofit an existing building, usually, than it is to tear down a building and then move the materials out and then bring in new materials and construct something. Harvey: In most cases. Now, when you have contamination, radiological contamination, there are issues that certain buildings may be—current owners can’t find a new buyer who could retrofit it possibly, because all the sudden they’re inheriting this type of legacy. [LAUGHTER] You know. So that—and we faced that out at Hanford all the time. In some cases, it’s legitimate, and in some cases, it’s just a way—they want to demolish it and move on. Franklin: Well, I think that—would you say that the PFP is a good example of that, perhaps a building—Plutonium Finishing Plant—perhaps a building that is of exceptional significance, but is too contaminated to preserve in the traditional sense of preservation? Harvey: Oh, right. Yeah, we did document as much as we could, but we couldn’t get into certain areas when we were inside. But we did take a lot of pictures of the gloveboxes and the fascinating technology that went on there. Yeah, in that case—I mean, a lot of legitimate concerns. And I think in many cases, in a lot of the buildings and structures like out in the 300 Area, it was underneath the facilities, there was a lot of—in the pipes, there was a lot of contamination. There wasn’t any fear of us walking inside in street clothes to document it. Franklin: Interesting. Can you tell me about your involvement in documenting the Alphabet Houses of Richland? Harvey: Yeah, we—in fact, I live in a Q house. Constructed [LAUGHTER] in 19— Franklin: Did you move into an Alphabet House shortly after you—when you arrived in Richland? Harvey: Yeah, in 1993, we moved into a B duplex, down by Jefferson Park by Jefferson Elementary School. Those were constructed during the Manhattan Project from ’43 to ’45. And then a year later we purchased—you know, we were renting—we purchased a Q house up further north. I guess you’d say kind of the northeast extension of what we call the Government Home district, just south of Newcomer on Harris, and that was constructed in ’48, the whole neighborhood: Harris, Hetrick and Davison, that neighborhood there. So that’s when I became fascinated, what are these government homes? Alphabet Homes. And I did a lot of reading, and then in 1995, there was a history conference here. A friend of mine who’s an architectural historian, a colleague in Seattle, she grew up here over on Horn, just a few blocks from where my wife and I are living now on Harris. And at the time, she came over and her parents were still alive. So we decided to coauthor a paper on just the government home, focusing mainly on the Manhattan Project when Albin Pehrson, the architect that DuPont hired to kind of design—he’d had a lot of experience in some federal housing projects back in the ‘30s, but he also was one of the architects from the Davenport Hotel. He was out of Spokane. He had kind of a varied resume, so to speak, work history. So it was fascinating, the struggles that he had with the Corps who wanted just the minimal—very minimal. People think—actually our architecture style is called minimal traditional style. There are some classical elements to—architectural elements to the Q and R and S houses and so forth, and the M houses. But the Corps really didn’t—I mean, they would have just as soon had everybody live in barracks. And Du— Franklin: Well, and I think the As—is the A the two-story duplex? Harvey: Yes. Franklin: I think the As especially reflect that stripped-down, very basic— Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: --housing with very little ornamentation. Harvey: Oh, I know! And they’re even—the Qs and Rs—of course the S is two-story, has a little more features, architectural detailing. But—so that really got me going, doing this paper, and did kind of a follow-up then on the late ‘40s. And then you’re getting into more of the suburban ranch-style houses with the later Alphabet homes: the Ts, U, V and so forth. So it’s kind of interesting to see how the town did change and adapted more to suburban tastes as we get into the postwar period. You know, garages were built; no longer had the car compounds where people had shared parking, off the street but behind. And you used to be—access for service vehicles—delivery vehicles in the back. But now everybody has fences and so forth. You can still see places that have those car compounds, that still exist in some of the government home areas. So that’s kind of my introduction to the government homes. Since then—you know, of course there have been a lot of tours. CREHST—the CREHST Museum led tours for a while, and there’s other people involved. In fact, I think this month—next month in March, there’s going to be a tour of one of the government homes. Franklin: Were you involved at the CREHST Museum with the tours? Harvey: Well, the individual, Richard Nordgren, he does a lot. He and I talked extensively, and I gave him some information. Because I learned a lot from him as well. No, I never was actually part of the tours. I’ve given kind of informal—and then all this kind of led to the establishment of the National Register Historic District for the Gold Coast—it’s Gold Coast Historic District, which is about 200 homes. Does not include my neighborhood, because a lot of the houses across the street have been changed for people wanting better views of the Columbia River. Because I’m across—I’m on the west side— Franklin: That also, though, doesn’t include, I’ve noticed, some of the—how do I put this—some of the more blue collar homes, like the duplexes, the As and Bs, but also the—I live in a prefab, a two-bedroom prefab which was brought in kind of against Pehrson’s wishes— Harvey: Oh, right, about 1,800 of them, I think, yeah. Franklin: Yeah, and they were used primarily more for blue collar workers than white— Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: So I’ve noticed even there in the historical record there’s more of a focus on these kind of—the upper end of the Alphabet Houses. Harvey: Right well, see, I think initially Pehrson wanted a mixture of management and operation employees who lived there, involved in the operation. But what happened was the ones that were closed to the river, and that’s how they got the name Gold Coast, because the management personnel, the upper end, during the—well, in this case it would be when some of the homes just at the end of the war or postwar, they wanted these preferred locations. So, Pehrson’s kind of utopian view, mixture, didn’t really hold much water for long. [LAUGHTER] There was a mixture of housing types, but I think in the long run, it didn’t bear that much—he wasn’t able to keep that intact. And what happened after the war, of course, and then with our neighborhood, you got a lot of the professional occupation, the doctors and dentists moved in. And that’s another reason it was called the Gold Coast. And for the area just south of where we are. And now, to answer your question, yes, because a lot of the more blue collar were more in the central part and southwest. I guess we had to pick an area where you had to have at least 60% intact of what we call contributing. There was a lot of leeway: you can replace the windows, but you had to keep the dimensions. Because our house is pretty intact. We have all the original dimensions. We have different window material. So there was kind of that, and I think we ended up about 65% of the 200-plus buildings were found to be contributing. So, like I said, you usually have to have at least 60 in district. Franklin: Did you work on that nomination? Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: Oh, okay. So how did you—did you survey each house? Harvey: Well, we had—a lot of volunteers went out. We took pictures of every home. In fact, it was all over the city, not just what became the Gold Coast. But I helped write up the context, the historic context, and reviewed the statement of significance. I mean, a city—there were a lot of people involved. So I kind of assisted on that. Franklin: Did you find the homeowners to be pretty amenable to the effort to list on the national register? Harvey: Yeah, because, well, you see, national register’s more of an honorary. Unless they were going to use some type of government funds for restoration of their homes. Then they have to go through Secretary of the Interior guidelines for architectural detailing and documentation and so forth. To keep within certain attributes, to keep the original architectural integrity as much as possible. But otherwise, it’s mainly honorary. There aren’t that many funds available now. But it also—it’s mainly like if the federal government wanted to come and put a highway through or something. Then, if it’s a historic district like that, then they have to take into consideration, hey, this is a national registered district. Now, local landmarks would have a lot more teeth, like you have in the city of Seattle, you have a lot of neighborhoods that are historic districts that are landmarks. That’s a lot more stringent. And Portland—I mean there’s a lot of communities. Spokane would be the nearest to us. Well, I shouldn’t even say that. I think maybe Walla Walla and Ellensburg. And you can see economic revitalization goes hand-in-hand with—all of the sudden people take pride in, they’ve got a historic home. Now, we did a survey—I remember, we had a public meeting with the State Historic Preservation Office, we had the city, and I would say 85% were not in favor of a local landmarks ordinance. They liked the idea of a national registered district because it was honorary. But basically if you have a house in there, you can change it right now. The chance of it ever getting de-listed, someone would actually have to make an attempt to contact the keeper of the register or the State Historic Preservation Office— Franklin: And change a bunch of houses—change enough houses to—it would actually have to be a concerted effort— Harvey: Yeah, and to actually get it de-listed. Now, who knows, maybe in the future there’s enough chance—now some people, I have noticed, though, have tried to keep the style of homes that are in the Gold Coast District, so that’s good. Franklin: So when you were talking about local listing, is that the same as a certified local government? Harvey: No, that’s—CLG—there’s a lot of benefits to be a CLG—Kennewick is—because they get these grants, block grants, to restore—maybe take off the exterior corrugated metal that was really popular to put on nice brick facades—you know, this was a popular thing back in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. And now they got to—and if you go on through downtown Kennewick, it’s an amazing success story. Franklin: Right, where a lot of that restoration has happened down there. Harvey: Restoration—and you have to follow Section 106 guidelines and Secretary of the Interior guidelines. And I was on the design review board for about five years. So that would be the benefit of being a Certified Local Government. And you have to maintain historic register of properties and so forth, yeah. So that’s different, yeah. Franklin: Did you find that, overall, the people that—when you were working on the national register, the people who lived there in the Alphabet Homes knew and appreciated the history of the Alphabet Home and generally wanted to—wanted to preserve that kind of history? Harvey: Yeah, I think most people even today. I’m trying to think the date when this happened. I think, gosh, it must have been at least ten years ago. Yeah, yeah. We had the State Historic Preservation come over for a meeting and I was on the State Advisory Council on Historic Preservation at the time. So we had them come over and there was a public—we had our public meeting which included the Gold Coast. Yeah, I think there is a lot of—the level of government, they came around. [LAUGHTER] The city government. Franklin: What about the neighborhoods that have traditionally been more renters or lower income, like a lot of the neighborhoods—thinking about where I live in more central Richland that is mostly As and Bs and then prefabs. Harvey: Right. Franklin: I’m wondering—did you—was there ever any surveys made of those? Harvey: Mm-hm. Franklin: Do you think they have a—do you think there’s a historic district to be made there, or there’s enough that it has historic integrity? Harvey: Well, I think we did look at some other areas of the city but that didn’t reach that 60% plateau. And that’s why we picked kind of the area—and then we had kind of that whole theme, that so-called Gold Coast theme. But there are a lot of other cities, communities, across the country where you have so-called blue collar neighborhood or industrial neighborhoods or neighborhoods in transition from industrial—now maybe people coming in and restoring the lofts and so forth, where you do have a lot of pride in that. And you have like automobile rows—they’re looking at Columbia Drive over in Kennewick as part of that. So I think you could still— Franklin: That’s the old state highway, right? Harvey: Pardon? Franklin: That’s the old state highway, Columbia Drive? Harvey: No, that’s the one through the park. This would be—maybe it’s not Columbia Drive is not the right term. It’s just adjacent to the downtown Kennewick, the historic downtown Kennewick partnership. I thought that was Columbian Drive, but-- Franklin: I could be wrong. Harvey: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: You’ve lived here a lot longer than I have. Harvey: [LAUGHTER] But they have a so-called automobile row or stretch, so they’re trying to appeal to that and put in signage that’s more kind of complementary to that era. But I think there are areas all across the country where you have the so-called blue collar, but you might have a higher degree of rentals. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be maintained, but in some places they’re not, so-- Franklin: Sure, oh, and, well, that’s just-- Harvey: Probably, I mean your neighborhood. Franklin: That’s part of the economics of the people that own them versus the people that live in them. If you rent, you have less impetus to do a lot of home improvement. If you’re looking at it as a money-making property, you have less impetus to invest in that thing long-term for its aesthetics and its historical integrity. Harvey: Yeah, that is definitely true. Now, of course if you get into apartment buildings—yeah, that’s different. And you have those in central Richland, in some communities, we have a large apartment building could be eligible for the register, and it’s still all renters in those buildings. Franklin: Sure, yeah. Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. Ah. Sorry, I’m trying to think. We’ve covered a lot. Harvey: Yeah, yeah, this has been great. Franklin: So what do you currently—so, right now you said you’re currently working on the Battelle campus. Harvey: Right. Franklin: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention? As it relates to Hanford history or Tri-Cities history? Harvey: Well, the more recent development, when President Obama signed the establishment for the Manhattan Project National Historic Park which takes in Manhattan Project properties here and the pre-’43, as we mentioned, as well as selective properties in Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. And I got to—I was chosen with Tom Marceau here at Hanford, both of us went back to Washington, DC for the Scholars’ Forum. Which was real big—and you had scholars and people working in cultural resources, historic preservation, at all three sites there as well and of course Department of Energy— Franklin: Who else was a part of that? Harvey: And the National Parks Service. Excuse me? Franklin: Sorry, who else was a part of that forum? Harvey: Oh, gosh. [LAUGHTER] Trying to think of something—the names—the Atomic Foundation, Cindy— Franklin: Cindy Kelly. Harvey: Cindy Kelly. Because she worked here for a number of years, both with one of the contractors and with the Department of Energy. So she’s been very active with the Atomic Heritage Foundation in DC. And, oh, Ellen—Ellen’s last name—she’s out of Los Alamos. Ellen McGehee, she was there from Los Alamos. The Oak Ridge folks, I did not know as well. Franklin: Were there anybody who had authored any works on Hanford—Bruce Hedley or John Finley? Harvey: Yeah, thank you. In fact, John Finley and Bruce Hedley, both from University of Washington were there. They actually were the ones that set up—they commented—they were kind of the commenter on my presentation back in 1995 when we did the government homes. So that’s when I first met them. And then John—they both have written a number of books on the Atomic Frontier, the Atomic West and Hanford. Excellent books. Franklin: What about—was Kate Brown a part of that? Harvey: And Kate Brown was there. I’m glad you keep mentioning these names because—but also we were expecting the author—he wrote little landmark books on the Manhattan Project and the building of the bomb. Franklin: Brian Sanger? Harvey: Well, there was Sanger. He wasn’t there, but he was supposed to be. But there was another gentlemen—ah, can’t think of the name. You keep telling me these names and I’ll remember. But—and then there was the Park Service, a member of the-- Franklin: Who chose the people to be present at this Scholars’ Forum? Harvey: Well, I think each of the three communities submitted names. Franklin: Okay. Harvey: Colleen French with the Department of Energy submitted Tom’s name and myself, and we were accepted. Franklin: Oh, great. Because I’m just kind of—you know—there’s some people that have renown or certain reputations here, and Kate Brown’s is often a name that’s used—doesn’t always have polite adjectives coming after her name is mentioned or her book is mentioned. So I was kind of curious if you knew how she became involved with that forum. Harvey: No. Franklin: Or if there was any kind of cross-currents or anything—any kind of—how were the proceedings of the forum? Harvey: Oh, I was going to say—there was—I mean, we looked at it as the National Historic Park, there’s many stories to tell in the Park Service. Some people wanted it to be a celebratory-type thing. You know, we built the bomb and helped end World War II. And others saying, you know, no, it should be—it’s more of a commemoration. Let—the Park Service is good at establishing the parameter, the context, and then the visitors make that decision. There’s an internment camp—in fact, this was just the 75th anniversary of the internment of Japanese Americans, and there’s an internment camp in eastern California, near Bishop, I believe. And once again, that’s kind of—they’re telling the story that some might say was not a most glamorous part of American history. Franklin: Sure. Harvey: But we’re showing it. And when we talk about Monticello, we talk about the slaves. So the Park Service is really good. And that’s kind of—we struggled with that kind of—the type of themes that we should be—how the Park Service should be telling the story. Franklin: Can I ask how you personally came down on that issue, whether the park should be one that’s more celebratory or— Harvey: No, I— Franklin: Or one that’s— Harvey: I think just a commemoration. I think each—you know, it’s a lot of significance. We all know about the negative aspect of the Atomic Age, but it is one of the most significant events of the 20th century, by far. And it’s had great technological benefits. It also led to a Cold War and now—which [LAUGHTER] is still—with the spreading of nuclear arms is one of the—oh, I would say, one of the most dangerous things occurring in international politics. Franklin: Yes. Harvey: And as well as the contamination aspects, too. Of cleaning up the legacy. Franklin: Of course, which is still ongoing. Harvey: Which is here at Hanford. But at other places, too. You realize you had workers in a lot of Manhattan Project, early Cold War facilities that all of the sudden they’re realizing—Department of Energy—wait a minute, these people were also, I guess you could say fighting in the Cold War. And now you know, they didn’t have any protections at the time, and are we going to care for these people? Yeah, yeah. Franklin: Right I’d like to ask you something that might be controversial, and if you don’t want to answer— Harvey: Okay. Franklin: I’m fine with that. But, this is a question I don’t have—really feel like I can ask very often. There’s a lot of rhetoric, especially here, that—often-repeated rhetoric that dropping the bomb was necessary to ending World War II. However, most historians agree that dropping the bomb was not necessary to avoid the invasion of Japan; in fact, the Japanese had wanted surrender, were willing to agree to let the emperor abdicate as long as we wouldn’t kill the emperor, and that the bomb was dropped to intimidate the Soviets into more concessions in Eastern Europe. But Truman, over the course of his life, inflated the number of American lives that the bomb would save, and he didn’t even mention it saving lives until 18 months after the bomb was dropped. So with that in mind, do you agree or disagree with the statement that dropping the bomb— Harvey: Well, I see both sides. I mean, you talk to people whose sons were onboard ships going to Japan, ready for the invasion. And so it might be hard to convince that family [LAUGHTER] that the bomb wasn’t a good thing. Also, supposedly—I can’t remember the number we had—50,000 soldiers that were prisoners of war. Supposedly they were all going to be—if we invaded the mainland, they were all going to be killed. And so you hear that, and you say, well, it was a good thing. And also, but at the same time, you do a lot—especially Leslie Groves and others figured, oh, the expense was unbelievable expense at the time. And to justify, maybe we needed to drop this bomb, and quickly, before there was peace. And then I’ve heard about Truman, 18 months later, to kind of more justify. And there was a lot of cover-up on the after-effects of nuclear fallout, for want of a better term, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for the people that were exposed to it, and generations after that. There was kind of a lot of hush-hush. I mean, obviously, the word got out. Franklin: Right, it’s kind of hard to hide that. Harvey: Yeah, in fact, I went to the signing when we were back for the Scholars’ Forum back in DC, and Sally Jewell, who was the Secretary of the Interior at the time, I think her mom was one of the first nurses that went over there. Franklin: Oh, wow. Harvey: Yeah. So where I come around personally—I know General Eisenhower (who became President Eisenhower), he wanted to have a demonstration. Take contingent or—the government of Japan at the time, the military figure, take them out on a boat and show that okay, we’re going to drop—do the dropping of the bomb. Franklin: Kind of like a peaceful demonstration— Harvey: Right. Of course, at the time, we didn’t know what was going to happen after you drop it. It could have been a chain reaction, you know, you read a lot of—so, believe me, I’m not ducking the issue. I really—I can see both sides. A lot of historians feel it was necessary. But then you read the side that it was kind of to show the Soviets we meant business. And also to justify all the expense during the war. Franklin: Sure, it would’ve—could’ve been seen as this major boondoggle, had all this money been spent on something that had never been— Harvey: Well, right. Franklin: --never been used. Harvey: But I’ve heard Truman didn’t lose much sleep over his decision. Franklin: Sure, sure. Harvey: In fact, I think even Oppenheimer went and met with him, and I guess he—you know, it’s too bad what happened to Oppenheimer, his loss of his security clearance. Which eventually I think he got back later. But it was that whole kind of Red Scare during the ‘50s. Franklin: Yeah. Well, thanks, Dave. I guess what I’m hearing from you is that it’s complicated. Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: Which I think like any good historical issue worth discussing, we often have to leave it with, well, it’s complicated. Harvey: Well, I’d like to actually— Franklin: There’s no easy line. Harvey: --to do more research on it, personally. That’s why this profession’s great. I tell my wife I learn something new everyday, not necessarily just in my profession, either, but even so. You can say that about many professions, but being in the history and architectural history field, just pick up something new to read everyday or research angle. Even stuff that I’m doing now, I’m learning more about the history of the area. Franklin: Well, you know, Dave, thank you for all of your efforts in preserving the history of Hanford. Harvey: Well, thank you. Franklin: And I think we’re all excited to see—the national park coming in really is a game-changer in a lot of aspects, bringing in a lot of legitimacy. And we’re all very excited to see where that goes and hopefully the park boundaries will increase and it’ll really get kind of—you know, the park service will have that space to tell that kind of complicated story— Harvey: Well, you know, it’s the heritage tourism. It’s a boon. That’s why there’s so much support—bipartisan support throughout the state, not just here. But I think—and there’s that Atomic Trail, where people go visit these sites now. It’s— Franklin: We found something that democrats and republicans can agree on. [LAUGHTER] Harvey: Yes, one of the few things. Franklin: Well thank you so much, Dave. Harvey: Thanks, Robert. Franklin: Yeah, my pleasure. <a href="https://youtu.be/C9bRLrIWLWc">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Pacific Northwest National Laboratory B Reactor 200 Area 100 Area 300 Area 314 Building 313 Building T Plant D Reactor F Reactor N Reactor FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility) PFP (Plutonium Finishing Plant) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1993- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1993- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dave Harvey Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Historic preservation Nuclear reactors Conservation and restoration Description An account of the resource Dave Harvey moved to Richland, Washington in 1993 to work on historic preservation of the Hanford Site. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02/21/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jim Buske Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Are you ready, Tom? Tom Hungate: We’re rolling. Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Jim Busk on September 12, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Jim about his experiences at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Jim Buske: Okay. It’s Jim Buske. Franklin: Buske, sorry. Buske: B-U-S-K-E. Franklin: Okay. Buske: And the address? Franklin: No, no, no, no address. And is Jim short for James? Buske: No. My given name is Jimmie. I-E. Franklin: Okay. J-I-M-M-I—J-I-M--? Buske: M-I-E. Franklin: Okay. So, Jim, tell me how you came to the area, to the Hanford Site. Buske: Well, Uncle Sam decided he needed me here. So, that’s how I got here. I was in the Army at the time, and I was due to be sent to Alaska. And I got as far as Fort Lewis and come to find out they were so far ahead on sending the replacements up with the same job number that I had, that they were just dividing us all up and sending us all over the world, really. I ended up, along with, I think, five other soldiers at that time being sent to Camp Hanford, Washington. Franklin: Okay. Let’s—if you don’t mind, let’s back up a little bit. Tell me, where and when were you born? Buske: Oh, I was born in Stockton, Illinois, October 11, 1934. Franklin: Okay. And when did you join the services? Yeah. Were you drafted or was it— Buske: I volunteered. On November 29, 1954. Franklin: Okay. Had you been to Washington before? Before you came to Lewis and then came over to Camp Hanford? Buske: No. Never been to Washington. Franklin: What were your first impressions of Camp Hanford when you arrived? Buske: Well, a whole lot different than it is in 2018. When I first got here, it was very hot and dry. There was—if you didn’t water something, it just didn’t grow. The population was way down from what it is today. Quite an area, actually, today. It’s surprising. But vineyards and things like that were still somewhere in the future. Franklin: Where was Camp Hanford located? Buske: Well, the camp itself? Franklin: Yeah. Buske: Okay. The headquarters—and it was part of what they called 5th Group, which is about the size of a regiment, I think. But being anti-aircraft, which was our mission, we had groups instead of regiments and brigades, and batteries instead of companies. I was in Headquarters Battery of the 83rd AAA Battalion Nike Missile. Franklin: What was your job? Buske: Well, I was a—the Army told me I was a wheeled vehicle mechanic, but I knew better. When I got out to the permanent spot where I was stationed, I was assigned to a grease pit, just changing oil and greasing vehicles. That’s really about all I was capable of, but they thought I was a mechanic, so that’s what they called me. Anyway, shortly after I got there, the dispatcher was assigned to motor sergeant school. So he left and I became the dispatcher. Franklin: Like radio dispatcher? Or, sorry— Buske: No, just a—it’s a paperwork job where you kept track of maintenance and assigned vehicles to certain areas. It was a fun job, really. Franklin: What was the purpose of Camp Hanford and the Nike Missile Program? Buske: [COUGH] Excuse me. Well, of course, Hanford in World War II in 1943, along with Oak Ridge, Tennessee were the two main nuclear—atomic energy development places in the country. Hanford made plutonium for the A-bomb. It was one of the A-bomb types. It was a real weird place, because, to this day, if someone says, where were you stationed, and I say, Camp Hanford, I just get a blank stare. [COUGH] Excuse me. It was just a hush-hush thing. When I got my orders to Camp Hanford, Washington, I thought they were talking about Washington, DC. Being from Illinois, I thought, well, I’ll get a delay in route and stop by home and see Mom and Dad and the siblings. They put me on a Greyhound bus from Fort Lewis and I went over the Cascade Mountains and right into Richland. That was it. Franklin: How much did you know about Hanford when you—and how much did you learn about Hanford when you were stationed here? Buske: Well, to begin with, I knew zero. I found out that it was really a serious mission that they had. It sounds, maybe, grandiose, but we had just an early warning board, they called it. It was a Plexiglas outline of the whole west coast, all the way from the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands, clear down to the border with Mexico. We were the defenders, supposedly, of this whole area, along with several other Nike missile outfits. They were posted—I think there was one up in Seattle at that time and others around. But people didn’t talk about them very much, but they had quite a serious duty to perform. It was pretty hush-hush. Franklin: So your job was not just to protect the Hanford Site but to protect a much larger area. Buske: Correct. Franklin: But you were stationed at the Hanford Site. Buske: Yes, mm-hmm. Franklin: How long were you at Camp Hanford? Buske: A little over 19 months. Franklin: 19 months. What did you do for R&R? Buske: Well, you probably have never heard of the Kennewick Highlands Dance Hall? Franklin: A little bit. We have a little bit about it in our archives. But, yeah, it’s gone now. Buske: When we would get a pass, which you could get every weekend if you didn’t have duty, we’d come in from the area and—actually, right across the road from here, and maybe up or down a little bit, but there was a drive-in movie theater. That was real popular then. Of course, they had their dollar-for-the-carload nights like most of the rest of them did. That was a very popular thing with the soldiers. There was a few bars that were, I think beer and wine bars, that if you were over 18, you could get beer. It was just really—we enjoyed getting acquainted with the local people. They were very receptive to us. Primarily, the biggest share of them by far worked on the Hanford Works, out in the same area that we were stationed in, you know. But you just tried to blend in as much as you could. We never—to my knowledge—never caused any problem or created any trouble. We were treated accordingly. The people took us in real well. We were grateful for that. Franklin: Yeah. Could you describe what a Nike missile site—what goes in, what kind of buildings are there, how big is it, how many men? Buske: Well, okay. Typically, a battery, which is the equivalent of a company, is maybe 150 soldiers at a given site. Their primary mission was to maintain and operate the missiles in the event that they were needed. So maintenance was performed, alerts were held constantly. In Headquarters Battery, we did pretty near all the service work that was required: either vehicles or had all the personnel records and administrative duties. It was small enough to be a pretty close-knit group. Everybody knew their job and did it. And it was more or less almost like a nine-to-five job, except you didn’t go home at night. You just went to your barracks and sacked out. Our barracks were actually 12-men huts. Prefab huts. Which, shortly after I got here, before—I don’t think I’d been here a week, and they had a pretty bad sandstorm. The first morning I woke up and got out of my cot and I stepped right into a sand dune that was on the floor right next to my cot. Luckily they never had too many of those sandstorms. But it was very, like I say, very hot and dry. We were treated good. We didn’t have a lot of harassing and things like that. It was almost like a nine-to-five job, just about. Except it didn’t end at five. Franklin: Yeah. So there was the main headquarters, and then I assume there were sites. Buske: Correct. Franklin: Around. How many sites were there, around—missile sites around the Hanford Site? Buske: Okay, good question. We were Headquarters and we had actually four batteries: A, B, C, and D. I don’t know, maybe you’ve heard this, but D Battery was the one that wasn’t too far from where we sit right now. It was out on Rattlesnake Mountain. I think Highway 240 goes up by that way. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Buske: And it was just as you’re going northwest, it’d be off on your left-hand side. We were responsible for them, but I think actually they were probably over 50 miles away from headquarters—from our company. But you had to—when you cross on the ferry across the Columbia and went up the cliff side, and started north, you went right past C Battery. These were all probably around 150 soldiers per unit. Straight ahead was Headquarters and part of A Battery. But that was just the launcher platoon part of it. The headquarters for A Battery was up further north towards the direction of Moses Lake, but not near that far, but up on Saddle Mountain. And they tried to put the radar units for each battery on high ground so they could cover a lot more sky. Franklin: Sure, sure. Buske: For defensive purposes. So the Saddle Mountain was a pretty high elevation. But they controlled the missile sites down by where we were. Then if you went further down the road about maybe 20 miles was B Battery. Each one of those sites, if I remember right, had four missiles that were actually capable of being fired. Which, thankfully, never were. But anyway. We were really spread out. Franklin: Were you—did you have cause to—did you visit each one, were you rotated through? Where were you stationed, respective of all those different batteries? Buske: Well, in my particular situation, we were all in the battalion headquarters. Franklin: Okay. Buske: So all the maintenance work came to us and we were only capable of a real basic maintenance program. Otherwise, they came back to the rear, to ordnance for overhauls and more complicated repairs. Franklin: Where would that be? Buske: Well, I think, if you’re describing it from here, it would be north on George Washington Way. [COUGH] Excuse me. And you’d come into the base camp and the headquarters were just to the left of—you’d have to turn left off George Washington Way and then head north again, and the group headquarters was, oh, maybe a mile. From here, I would guess maybe around three or four miles away. That was the headquarters for the whole Hanford facility, really. Franklin: For the Army part of the Nike missile sites. Were there any incidences or surprises while you were out here? Buske: Militarily, or--? Franklin: Yeah. Buske: Well, there was one that was really sad. Headquarters of A Battery was up on that Saddle Mountain, but it was just like two-thirds of the battery; the other third were with us down by battalion headquarters. Our mess hall supplied all the food to them, up on the Saddle Mountain. So we had what they call the chow run. As a dispatcher, I’d write out the paperwork and I’d supply—assign the vehicle, and they would haul the food up there usually at noon. It would have enough food for the noon meal and, I guess, maybe breakfast or something. And in between, like, for the third meal, they’d have cold cuts or something like that. But this chow run was everyday about noon or shortly after. The one noon, I wrote the guy up a trip ticket and off he went. About half an hour later, we found out, he’d gone over the side and got killed. I don’t think they ever did really determine whether he was going too fast or he fell asleep or—anyway, there was nothing underhanded about what happened. It was just an accident. The other one that comes to mind was more—looking back, it was more humorous than anything. They had, in probably late summer of 1956, they had a nationwide, maybe global-wide, I don’t know, operation called Operation Crackerjack. It was SAC-based—SAC aircraft, and the airplanes or whatever were trying to attack us like our enemies would do. Our mission was to theoretically not allow that to happen. Shoot ‘em down or whatever. Of course no one fired anything live. But just before that, one of our leading officers was a strict believer in everybody should know everybody else’s job and be capable of filling in when needed, blah, blah, blah. So he had people like me and some other people from the motor pool doing radar work. Which we knew nothing about. [LAUGHTER] Well, anyway, we were in the main radar location and I was assigned to the early morning board. It had the whole post with the Aleutian Islands and everything. It was, oh, about maybe three feet wide and five feet tall or something like that Plexiglas. I had to stand behind that with headphones on and listen to all this information being rattled in my ear. I didn’t catch most of it, and the ones that I did catch, I really didn’t know for sure what they said. But they would give the coordinates of a bogey, and I was supposed to put an X on the board and then write backwards—because the duty officer up on what they called the bridge could see it from his direction and looked okay. But it was all totally confusing to me. And I wasn’t alone. There was several others of us that really loused up bad. Well, anyway, the officer on the bridge, they called it, he was looking down here and I remember finally he said, Buske, what are you doing? And I said, sir, I don’t have any idea. So he said, well, you might as well come up here and sit with me then, because you’re not doing any good down there. So the whole operation went—while I was on duty, I was watching with the officer-in-charge, doing nothing, really. And the actual—I didn’t know it at the time, but a plane flew right over us, and nobody knew who it was. Needless to say, that didn’t bode well with the higher-ups, wherever they were. So I think it was about a week or two later, the orders came down later from higher up that we were going to have this exercise again, and this time we would get it right. And everybody knew what that meant. If it happened again, heads were going to roll. So they held it again in about a month, and it worked like clockwork, supposedly. Nothing got within about 800 miles of us, and everybody did their job. They knew what to do and they did it. But those two, I remember that, especially that Operation Crackerjack. We just laughed about it. Because we knew it wasn’t working well. When people were looking up and saying, what is that up there? Well, it’s an airplane, but we don’t know whose it is! Whether it’s ours or the enemy. That wasn’t supposed to work that way. No. But anyway, it was mostly just a job and you did what you were supposed to do, and tried not to be noticed, really. They always said if you were real successful, when you got out of the Army, one of your commanding officers was still saying, hey, you. He didn’t know your name. They’d say, if that was the case, then you were successful. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: How long were you in the Army, total? Buske: Just two years. Franklin: Oh, just two years. So Camp Hanford, then, was the majority of your— Buske: Yeah. Franklin: --of your service. Buske: Absolutely. Franklin: And when did you leave? Do you remember when you left? Buske: When I left Hanford? Franklin: Yeah. Buske: Well, it was November 28, 1956. Franklin: And where did you go? Buske: Back to Stockton, Illinois. Franklin: And what did you move on to? Buske: For career? Franklin: Yeah. Buske: Well, I got back home and I had been a tool and die maker apprentice when I first went into the military. So I went back to work with the same company, and finished my apprenticeship and became a journeyman tool and die maker. And ended up working for that same company for over 41 years. Franklin: Wow. Buske: It was good duty. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah, I bet. Let’s see here. A lot of my standard questions for working at Hanford don’t always apply here, so let me see what does fit in. What were the most challenging and rewarding aspects of your work here at Camp Hanford? Buske: Well, I think we tried to make light of what our responsibilities were. But I know that, in my case, and in almost everybody else that I knew, we were really concerned about what might happen and how to help us defend our country. And, maybe it sounds hokey, but we really believed in what we were doing. We weren’t out to cause trouble, but we didn’t want it to happen to us, either. Korea hadn’t been over with all that long, and there were a lot of combat veterans in our ranks at that time. They were really held in high regard, because they had been through a lot more than we ever would. We gave them credit for that. I remember one of our staff car drivers was talking to me one morning and I don’t know how we even got started on it, but he told how they were overrun one night in Korea. He held up his shirt and showed me. He had a cigar—scar on his stomach in front and another one, he turned around, in the back, where he had been bayoneted in his sleeping bag. The only way he survived was by playing dead. You know, when you hear some things like that firsthand—you know, these are people that could very easily not be here. Our motor sergeant was a real conscientious, very nice guy. World War II veteran. There was a lot of them in our outfit, too. He told me one time about in Europe, he was right on the frontline and they were in a town in, I think, either France or Germany. Anyway, there was a lot of street fighting going on. He got to a corner and when he came to the corner, went around it, right on the other side was a German soldier, just like him. Each one went for their weapon, and he got his first. He shot the other guy and killed him. Of course they had to always search them for any valuable papers or anything like that. He was telling this pretty matter-of-fact-ly, and he said, I found out he was almost identical in age, he had a wife and the same number of kids, boys and girls. He said, it was just weird how we were the same. And it’s just because I was just a little bit quicker it was he that went down and not me. I never forgot that. I thought, how things turn out. A lot of times it’s just a reflex. He wasn’t real proud of what he had done, but he didn’t have any choice. It was either him or me. Anybody that has an experience like that has to be looked up to, I think. Franklin: Yeah, I agree. What would you like future generations to know about working at Camp Hanford, being in the Army, during the Cold War? Buske: Hmm. Well, I think a lot of us wondered sometimes what the reason was for some of the orders that came down. Whether it was just to make work kind of a thing, or whether it really served a purpose. We may have wondered or even doubted, but we did it anyway, because we knew that we weren’t the ones in charge. Somebody else was calling the shots, and when you were told to do something, you tried to do it. I remember, the first Fourth of July I spent out there, there was three of us that had gotten there about the same time. Fourth of July in ’55 was a pretty long weekend, like three or four days, a holiday. Our motor officer, who was a crusty old—oh—warrant officer. He was really a nice guy, but he liked to pick on new people. He told us when they left—when he left to go back for home here in Richland for the weekend, that they’d like all the fence posts around the motor pool facility whitewashed by the time he got back. There was an awful lot of fence posts that were kind of like railroad ties, so they had to be whitewashed on all four sides. I remember, it was beastly hot. And nobody else around to tell us that we had to do this, really. But he left those words, the orders, so we did it. And when he got back at the end of the holiday weekend, he was almost aghast that we had gotten it all done. It paid off supremely, because we were on real good terms with him after that for the rest of my duty. And that’s how I made dispatcher of the battalion’s motor pool. That’s good duty. You got things pretty much easy after that. Franklin: Yeah. Buske: But I mean, we could’ve found a lot of ways and reasons why we didn’t get it done. But we never thought about that. He gave us a job to do and we did it. Franklin: Great, well, Jim, is there anything else you wanted to say about your experiences at Camp Hanford? Buske: Well, Robert, it’s been a long time ago, and there aren’t too many things that I can remember that the locals knew anything about. Because I guess I’ve just outlived them. But I remembered how well we got along with the people here. I didn’t get involved too often with church, but it was—every time I went, I was really welcomed and we never took advantage of them, and they never chastised us. I think they kind of realized that we were there for a reason, and it wasn’t because that’s where we necessarily wanted to be, but that we were sent there. So you do the best you can with what you got. But I think the area was really—it was quite an experience. Franklin: In what way? Buske: Well, you realize you have responsibilities, and I guess you grow up a little bit. You find out that getting away with something really doesn’t solve much. It seemed like it’s always lurking there in the background somewhere. But I don’t know, it was just maturing deal. I got to play a lot of softball and we played in a town league in 1956. We won about as many as we lost. But it was a lot of fun meeting the locals on the ball field. It was a good time. Franklin: Good. I do have one more question. When did you—so when you came out here, you just knew you were coming to Camp Hanford; you weren’t really sure what it is you were going out to protect. When did you learn what was being made out at Hanford and its connection to World War II and nuclear weapons? Buske: Wow. Well, I, for one, was here a while before I realized it was—actually, I think the whole facility then was kind of under the rule of the AEC. Those people didn’t fool around. We always recognized them, because they were the suit-and-tie people. But they were the police that really had a lid on things. And they always said that if you—we could have our civilian car out where I was stationed, but if you were in the car, like, from our unit, we could drive over to Othello on that dirt track road. And they said, don’t worry about if you have a breakdown, because you won’t be there very long until somebody will show up. That they had the eye-in-the-sky airplanes flying around a lot. As long as you were moving, they didn’t pay much attention. But if your vehicle stopped—and I don’t know this to be a fact, but—they said, you’d be noticed right away, and somebody would be out there wondering why you weren’t moving. So it was really kind of hush-hush. It just kind of soaked in on you, I think, really how important it was, what you were doing there. Pretty hard to put into words, but it was, you weren’t in a foxhole, but you were still kind of on the frontline. Franklin: Huh. I think that’s a really great way of explaining it. Buske: Well, oh, why, thank you. This is a new experience for me. Franklin: It is for most people. Well, Jim, thank you for coming down and sharing your experiences out at Camp Hanford with us. We don’t get a chance to interview too many people that were out there, because so many people like yourself who were stationed there and then moved away and didn’t come back. Unlike Hanford workers, many people came here, put down roots here. So I appreciate your information. That will really help us kind of reconstruct that camp which was torn down decades ago when all those sites were decommissioned, decades ago. Buske: One of the things that I did remember, and the standard procedure was, if you were going out to George Washington Way to 5th Group Headquarters and then went a little further to your left as you’re going that direction, you hit the main road, which I think maybe turns into 240 now. And you went out maybe three miles, something like that, which was where the barricade was. When we first were assigned here, we got a temporary barricade pass. Just a piece of paper, really. But you got that while you were being processed, they called it. We heard that we were being checked on back in our home towns, and were we subversive, and blah, blah, blah. Usually it took about a week or a little more, and then you got this permanent card, like a driver’s license, that sort of thing. But that was your barricade pass. And when you came in from the forward area, you were issued a barricade pass—your barricade pass, which is an ID card thing, at your own headquarters. And then when you got back in the rear, you turned that in to a quartermaster or somebody. He took your barricade pass and gave you bedding so you could make your own bed up. And when you got ready to go back into the forward area again, you turned in your bedding and you got your barricade pass back. They put you on a bus and you got out as far as the barricade and an MP came onboard the bus and checked everybody. Because your picture was on there and the whole thing. If you didn’t produce that barricade pass, you were put off the bus. Like I say, it was about three miles out in the desert. And I never knew of anybody that it happened to, but they claimed that somebody got put out the bus right there. And you get back out to headquarters the best way you can. But the situation really was, it didn’t happen twice. But it was really kind of a procedure. And we found out later that we had been checked back home. They had certain people that would ask about your character, who are you, blah, blah, blah. Franklin: Right, interview friends and family and probably even pastors and stuff like that. Buske: Yeah, it was a confidential clearance, they called it. It wasn’t “secret” or anything like that. It made you feel kind of a level above. You passed. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right, like even a level above what the Army would’ve asked you for, yeah. Interesting. That’s really interesting. Tom, did you have any questions? Hungate: We haven’t heard a description of the installations. You said there were four missiles there. When were they installed, when were they removed, and what were they like? You mentioned doors opened. Franklin: Yeah, could you describe the installations, what you know about the missiles, when they were there and what they were like, what shape and size--? Buske: Okay. Well, actually, everything was there before I got here. But, like I say, each battery had four of these in-ground launchers, they called them, and they pointed straight up in the air when they were fully operational. Actually, I never got down into below-ground where the missiles were. There were four launchers per battery. So, if you figure with the four batteries, there’s 16 that were ready to go at any one time. And I remember seeing the TO&E, or Table of Operation and Equipment, for the whole battalion. They said at one time we had over a hundred Nike missiles capable of fire, reload, fire, reload. You know, I don’t know how long it took to reload, but it had to have been pretty fast. Yeah, I didn’t know much about any of that stuff when I got here. And I didn’t know much more after I left. Franklin: I know before the Nike missiles, there were anti-aircraft placements. Were those still in operation when you got here? Buske: Yes, they were. Franklin: And that was also part of the larger Camp Hanford. Buske: That’s right. That’s a good point. There were at least three 120-milimeter gun battalions and each one of those had different batteries of anti-aircraft capability. They would go down to, I think, White Sands, New Mexico or someplace for training to take their guns down there—and they were huge, by the way. 120-milimeter gun is a large weapon. And they would bring them back and then set them up and fire them to settle them in, they called it, to make sure that all their readings were correct and everything. And when they fired them, we could hear them, and you could almost count to ten, and way up there, all of the sudden you’d see a little puff of black smoke, like flak, you know. And I’ll tell you, it was up there a long ways. 120-milimeter could really get up there in altitude. Not as high as we could with our Nike, but they had a job to do to. Franklin: But they actually got to fire theirs off, though. Buske: Yeah, yeah. It was exciting for us, because we never got to fire our weapons. Franklin: Well, that’s probably for the best. Buske: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. The overall is pretty good. But it was real good duty, because, like I say, it was small and you knew the mess sergeant and he knew you. Franklin: Is this the first time you’ve been back to this area since you left in ’56? Buske: No, actually, it’s the second. Franklin: Okay. Buske: The first time, we actually went—it was before the state highway went through or anything. But we got out to where the headquarters were, and the way I could tell was—one thing that never changes out there is the horizon. I could look and I could remember seeing what the horizon looked like from a certain spot. And I found the spot, and it also had a few trees around it, which is kind of unusual, too. And I thought, well, boy, no way to really tell for sure, but I think this is where the motor pool was. I got to looking around, and everything was—you get that kind of a weird feeling, you know. Wife was standing there, and I said, I really get a feeling about this, and I’m going to pull some sand here a little bit and see if what I think is there is there. I dug down in the sand, oh, maybe six or eight inches, something like that, and I came to a concrete curb that was yellow on the top. And it was the top curb of my grease pit that I worked in and I had probably painted the top of that curb with yellow paint. This is probably, oh, at least 15, 20 years after I was there. But—oh, a funny thing, maybe as a final, but when I was in that grease pit—like I say, the Army said I was a mechanic, but I knew better. And I had a good buddy that had a truck. It was a civilian-type truck but it was a supply truck or something. He and I were talking one day and he said, my wife’s windshield wipers are not operating right. Do you suppose you could fix them? And I said, well, yeah. It’s kind of a challenge but I’ll have a look. They were vacuum wiper blades, so it can’t be too complicated. So he said, when can you do it? And I said, well, it’s getting to be late afternoon and I’m not busy. Let’s take it in there and have a look. So he drove it in and got it running and I started pulling hoses off to see if that was where the problem was, if the vacuum part was leaking or whatever you know. Well, anyway, I probably pulled off more hoses than I should and when I replaced them I didn’t replace them—well, anyway, it got so bad, his truck wouldn’t even run. By this time, it’s quitting time, and our motor officer—this crusty old warrant officer had a fetish about emptying out the building every evening, so it shows everything was done. Well, we had to push it out and push it back onto the deadline. Next morning, we came in and I went to one of the mechanics that was a real mechanic. He was a good friend, and I told him what had happened. I said, you suppose you could help me out? He said, oh, I don’t see any problem there. So he goes over and he starts monkeying around. And the truck wouldn’t run and he replaced this that and the other. Didn’t take him ten minutes and he had it running like a charm and the wipers were running like they should. And he said, well that’s great, thanks a lot, and off he went. It must’ve been a good week later, I was down the grease pit and all of the sudden, I could hear this cackling and giggling and tee-hee-ing and I remember looking up out of my grease pit and all I could see was legs outside the door. There were quite a few pair of legs out there. I thought, I don’t know what’s going on. But I came up out of the pit and walked out and looked and they’re all standing out there by my door, looking up and just laughing and giggling. So I went out there, and here’s the warrant officer and the motor sergeant, and they’re all looking up there. And I looked. The sign painter for our unit, who was pretty good at what he did, painted this nice, real big sign up there, over my door, said, Buske’s Bay, Drive ‘Em In, Tow ‘Em Out. Everybody was getting a kick out of that, so you can’t fight it. I started laughing, too. From there on, I really got along well with everybody. It was a nice experience. But I kept telling them, I am not a mechanic. They said I was, but I know better. That was a funny experience. Franklin: That is funny. Anything else, Tom? Well, Jim, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us. Buske: Well, I appreciate the opportunity. When you mentioned this, it pleased me to be able to have a bit of nostalgia with you. Franklin: Oh, good. Buske: It’s fun to be able to reminisce. Franklin: Good, good. Okay. <a href="https://youtu.be/ZetcgDDzSbA">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Camp Hanford Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1954-1956 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1954-1956 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jim Buske Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nike-Zeus missile Military bases Description An account of the resource Jim Buske was stationed at the Camp Hanford U.S. Army base from 1954-1956. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 09/12/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7dd799360abfc66852f2e8bd64a904b2.JPG 2f19963384c5700bd5650f9f99cc92f2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Steve Buckingham Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: I’m just going to try to remember it— John Stevens Buckingham: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: --as best as I can. Okay. Are we ready? Lori Larsen: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an interview with Steve Buckingham on February 21, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Steve about his experiences working, specifically at the T Plant, on the Hanford Site. And for the record, Steve, could you state and spell your full legal name for us? Buckingham: It’s John Stevens Buckingham. B-U-C-K-I-N-G-H-A-M. Franklin: Okay. Buckingham: And you don’t need the John Stevens, but— Franklin: I suppose we could skip it. Buckingham: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Just a quick recap, you did an oral history with us several years ago— Buckingham: Yes. Franklin: --where you talked about your life— Buckingham: At Hanford. Franklin: Your early life, and then your life at Hanford. So this is specifically will be about T Plant because we’re trying to gather as much information related to T Plant as we can, as there’s a push to include it, perhaps, in the Manhattan Project Historical Park, and bring some protective legislation on it and documents like a Historic American Engineering record and things like that. So, Steve, if I remember correctly, you came to the Hanford Site shortly after World War II. Buckingham: Right. Franklin: Correct? And tell me about how you got here. Buckingham: Well, I started at Washington State in 1941, right out of high school. Went from—I graduated from Raymond, Washington. And of course, the war started; the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor that fall or winter. I was able to finish my freshman year and my first semester my sophomore year. But after the war started, the campus was just overrun with people looking, trying to recruit candidates for different programs. I tried to get into several programs and finally got into one with the Air Corps; they were looking for future meteorologists. So I enlisted in the Air Corps. My mother wouldn’t sign off on me, because I was still only 17, but Dad signed and let me go ahead. Then just shortly after the second semester started, they called me to active duty and sent me down to Reed College in Portland for pre-meteorology. So I spent a year down there in Reed. Reed was kind of an interesting situation, coming from a rather conservative Washington State College, at that time, to Reed where you could smoke on campus, smoke in classrooms, go up and visit, go up into the girls’ dormitory anytime, very little restrictions. But it was an education, and I must say, Reed has a very fine education. I think the best. We took the standard classes we were taking. We took math, physics, oh, some history classes, and some literature classes. I was there for a year, and then the Air Corps decided they didn’t need any more meteorologists. So I applied again to communications in the Air Corps. They sent me to, oh, officer candidate school in Seymour Johnson Field, South Carolina and I was there for about four months. And then went up to Yale University where I went through communications and received a commission as a second lieutenant in communications in Air Corps. They were looking for people with a pretty good educational background, particularly in math and physics, because they were developing radar at the time. So I applied and they sent me from Yale up to Harvard where I went through a three-month course in electrical engineering. [LAUGHTER] And then transferred down to MIT, where I then worked developing radar for another six months before they finally sent me down to get ready. By then the war had ended. [LAUGHTER] They didn’t know what to do with me. So I ended up at Kirkland Field. All we were doing is bombers coming in from the—oh, retired bombers were coming in; we removed the radar equipment from the bombers before they put them into storage down in Arizona. And finally they let me go back to college. So I had a year-and-a-half of college to finish. And I got my degree with all sorts of majors. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And where did you finish your schooling? Buckingham: At Washington State. Franklin: And what was your degree in when you— Buckingham: My degree was what they called general. But I had majors in math, I had a major in physics, I had a major in chemistry. And a major in English. Franklin: Wow. Buckingham: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Quite a renaissance man. Buckingham: Oh, yeah. But it was fun. I was able to graduate in 1947. Franklin: Okay, so kind of in the beginning of that GI boom. Buckingham: Yeah, the GIs were just starting to come back onto campus. And we came—I got a job here in the analytical laboratory. They were developing the REDOX process. Franklin: And, sorry, what year did you come to Hanford? Buckingham: 1947. Franklin: 1947. And your first job was at the analytical lab. Buckingham: Analytical lab. The REDOX process was really kind of a—it was a new innovation into the technology. Because it was a solvent extraction process, where the old bismuth phosphate process that was the original process developed from Seaborg’s laboratory experiments, was kind of—well, they couldn’t recover the—you know, when they irradiated the uranium in the reactors, they only made two or—I think it was four grams of plutonium for every pound of uranium that went into that reactor. Franklin: Yeah, that sounds about right. Buckingham: So it was—just wasn’t very—and that uranium went back to the waste storage tanks. So it was—they were beginning to try to look for a new way to also recover the uranium at the same time they were getting the plutonium out. We were—the engineers were working very hard on developing this REDOX process. And it was—unfortunately, they were using ammonium nitrate as a salting agent in the solvent extraction process when Texas City blew up. So—[LAUGHTER] Franklin: I’m sorry, could you—I’m not familiar with that. Could you talk a little more about—they were using ammonium nitrate in the bismuth phosphate process? Buckingham: Yeah. That is what is called a salting agent, to help extract the uranium and the plutonium into this organic phase. The organic is methyl isobutyl ketone, was the extractant. The whole theory of it was we could extract the plutonium and uranium into this organic phase, and then in the next step, we could use—change the valence of plutonium and separate the plutonium from the uranium. It was a very good, clean process that was really—one of the very early solvent extraction processes ever developed. Well, this—they began constructing the REDOX plant out there and so the development work was kind of winding down, but they didn’t want to get rid of us, because they knew that we were going to be working on that REDOX process. Franklin: And the REDOX process, that was—was that specifically to recover the uranium and— Buckingham: And the plutonium. Franklin: And the plutonium. Was it to recover the uranium from the tanks, or was it to process new fuels? Buckingham: New fuel. Franklin: Okay. Buckingham: All new fuel. Franklin: So it replaced bismuth phosphate. Buckingham: Yeah, we replaced the old bismuth phosphate process. Franklin: And what—that took place in the REDOX facility, right? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Not in the T Plant. Buckingham: Not in the old T Plant. But they needed to put us someplace, so they sent several of us out to being shift supervisors out at both the T Plant and the B Plant, which were identical plants. Franklin: Right. As well as—was the U Plant also identical to— Buckingham: U Plant was identical, but it was never used as a solvent extraction—as a facility for that. That came later. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. I’d like to back up. So you mentioned this ammonium nitrate that was used in bismuth phosphate. Was that also used in the REDOX process? Buckingham: That was the one that was used in the REDOX process. Franklin: Oh, in the REDOX process. Buckingham: The REDOX process. Franklin: Not in bismuth phosphate. Buckingham: No. Franklin: You’d mentioned Texas City explosion? Buckingham: Originally, the salting agent to help in the REDOX process to help extract the uranium and plutonium, they used what was called a salting agent. This is just to help push it into the organic phase. Well, the original salting agent we were using was ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate—[LAUGHTER]—used in gunpowder. And there was this rather horrible accident down in Texas City that—so they had to begin looking for a new salting agent at that time. And that’s when they went from the ammonium nitrate to aluminum nitrate. Franklin: Hmm. Was aluminum nitrate more efficient, more stable, or both? Buckingham: Well, it was not explosive like ammonium nitrate. It was more stable. It worked very well. So they—but there was quite a little bit of work redeveloping the necessity of using the aluminum nitrate. So there was about a year delay in the startup of the REDOX process. And that’s when I was at T Plant. Now, the T Plant, it was kind of fun. We weren’t real hard-pressed because the Cold War hadn’t started yet. So it was kind of laidback then. The people who worked out there—we were working—it was three shifts a day, seven days a week. So it was a—I was on C shift. But it gave us experience working with real material out there, because we were still separating plutonium using the old bismuth phosphate process. Franklin: Oh, okay, good, that’s what I was going to ask you about that. So when you got there in ’47 and you were stationed at T Plant—while the REDOX process was in development, you were still processing with bismuth phosphate. Buckingham: Bismuth phosphate, yes. Franklin: I’m wondering if you can, as easy as you could for a layman, kind of walk me through the bismuth phosphate—what makes the bismuth phosphate process and what makes it unique? Buckingham: Well, the bismuth phosphate process is what—in chemical engineering, if you have just a trace of an element that you’re trying to separate out, you often have to use an additional new inert material that will help increase the volume of the precipitate. And the bismuth phosphate process, essentially what we were doing was precipitating plutonium phosphate, but we didn’t—there wasn’t enough volume, so we added another element called bismuth that would increase the volume of the plutonium that precipitated. Then we’d have to do another precipitation to separate the plutonium out of the—with another precipitation process, to precipitate only the plutonium. Franklin: So first you would kind of bind the bismuth to the plutonium and then pull that out. Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: And then you’d take that much more refined—you know, refined—because you’ve stripped out the uranium, the transuranics, and then— Buckingham: Because if you could change the valence state of the plutonium, which wouldn’t then precipitate. Franklin: And how would you separate the bismuth from the plutonium? Buckingham: We would oxidize the plutonium to—let’s see if I can remember—it was in the four state in the first separation where we were first separation. Then we would oxidize it, we’d reduce it to the three state, which wouldn’t precipitate, then, in the next step. Franklin: What are the states that you’re talking about? You said from the four state to the three state. Buckingham: Oh, that’s the valence state. The oxidization state of the plutonium. Essentially—that’s essentially the way that plutonium is separated from the uranium in all the separation processes. We change the valence of the plutonium from four to three. Franklin: And that refers to the position of the electrons, right? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. It’s been a long time since I’ve had chemistry class. You’ll have to excuse me. You can imagine as a historian it’s been quite a while. Okay. These terms are familiar to me. Okay, so, what kind of equipment would you use to do this work? Buckingham: Well, in the—similar in both the original bismuth phosphate process, of course the fuel came up from the 100 Area in cask carts and they were put into a dissolver. And in the dissolver, we would first have to remove the aluminum cans that the uranium was canned in, in the reactors. Then dissolve the mixture of uranium and plutonium with nitric acid. And this was usually done as several steps. That’s when the brown fumes used to come pouring out of our stacks. [LAUGHTER] Then after it’s dissolved, we would then add this bismuth, dissolve bismuth nitrate to the mixture—to the dissolver fluid and precipitate a mixture of bismuth phosphate and plutonium phosphate. The plutonium was then jetted out to the Tank Farms and then we would redissolve—or we would redissolve that precipitate and precipitate the—change the—oxidize or reduce the plutonium to the three state, which then wouldn’t precipitate in the bismuth phosphate. We’d have to—I think there were—in the T Plant, there were 40 cells. That meant 20 steps of going between the precipitating the plutonium down and precipitating the—just cleaning the plutonium up. And each step, of course—in the original dissolution, the uranium and a lot of the fission products were removed in that first precipitation step. Franklin: The stuff like the transuranics and things—? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: So like the cesium and strontium—what other kinds of fission products— Buckingham: Oh, there’s just a whole pile of fission products that were developed—formed in that, during the irradiation process. Franklin: Like iodine— Buckingham: Iodine, and oh, good grief, a lot of them that—the bad ones was strontium-90 and cesium-137, of course, because they’re highly radioactive. But there was a whole stack of them in there. Franklin: So the plutonium’s kind of buried in all of this, right, and it’s the goal, but it’s one of the smaller products. Buckingham: Smaller products. Franklin: What kind of—you said about 40 cells, 20 steps. What kind of equipment were in the cells? How— Buckingham: Well, in each—let’s see, in the first two cells, there was a feed tank, of course. There was a centrifuge, a continuous centrifuge. And a receiving tank. And I’m trying to think what all went into that second cell. They would work together, and I think the feed tank might have been in the adjacent cell. The walls of those cells were about 15 feet thick of reinforced concrete, because of the radiation. Franklin: Between you and the cell, right? Buckingham: Yes. Franklin: Because you were doing all of this work remotely. Buckingham: It’s all done remotely. Franklin: Right. And did you ever have direct viewing of— Buckingham: No. Franklin: --what was going on in the cell? So how did you—I guess one of the questions people would ask, is how did you know— Buckingham: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: --what was going on, and how did you know if things were working correctly or if there was a problem? Buckingham: They had a microphone in the cell and you could hear those centrifuges turning. Franklin: Oh, wow, okay. Buckingham: And they made very distinct noise when they finally ran out of fluid. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, okay, so that’s how you would— Buckingham: That’s how you would tell. And those operators got to be very clever on detecting when it was time to go onto the next step. Franklin: How would you transfer material from one cell to another? Buckingham: Everything was transferred with air jets. Franklin: Air jets. I’m having trouble visualizing that. What other applications do you know that air jets were used in—like, how does an air jet work? How would that— Buckingham: Well, it would just—well, it’s like an aspirator. Franklin: Okay. Buckingham: I guess that’s the closest you could come to, is like an aspirator. Franklin: Okay. So that would kind of—would it push or pull the material through each cell? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Did it push and pull or did it--? Buckingham: Essentially pushed it from one tank to the next. Franklin: Okay. I imagine that through this process, I know that the highly accountable material was the plutonium, but you would want to sample to make sure that things were going right, and that your—that the amount of plutonium you were producing was matching the calculations of what should be— Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: --what should be produced when the fuel was irradiated. So how would you take the samples? Buckingham: Well, there were samplers between—from every one of these tanks. And it was circulated around through a little cup, up near the surface of the tank. [PHONE RINGING] Buckingham: And between the tanks, essentially, is what they were. And it would—they’d go in and sample it—they’d recirculate through until they thought they had a fair sample. It was for a certain number of minutes and all that kind of stuff. Franklin: I would imagine those samples would be very radioactive. Buckingham: They were sampled in what was called a doorstop. It’s a little tiny pipette. [LAUGHTER] In quite a bit of stainless steel, about four inches in diameter. And there was a little insert inside that that the pipette would go down into. People would have to go in—actually go into the canyon to sample these different tanks at different times. We’d have to sample the receiving tank to make sure we weren’t dumping a lot of plutonium back into—out into the waste tank, and to also get a feel for how much plutonium was being moved and so forth. So, those first samples were pretty hot. They had to be handled behind—we had what was a special device in the laboratory that we would sample those tanks with those pipettes out of. Franklin: Wow. Did you ever have to go collect a sample? Buckingham: Only once. Franklin: I wonder—could you describe that for me? Buckingham: Well, you had to put on coveralls, wear a face mask, we weren’t on oxygen—we weren’t on air at that time. Now they even have to put on air supply. But it was really kind of interesting, because at the back of the T Plant there were these entries into the different levels. You’d have to call the dispatcher to tell her—tell them that we were entering, and they would then start timing you, let you know how much time you had to go in and get that sample, and get in to the doorstop and then get it back out so it can be delivered to the lab next-door. Franklin: And that’s because you would be receiving a dose-- Buckingham: Yes. Franklin: --when you were in there. How much time could you be in the canyon? Buckingham: Oh, you could be in there maybe 20 minutes. 20, 30 minutes. Franklin: Oh, wow. Buckingham: The cells were so thick, the walls of the cells were so thick, even the lids were offset on steps so that you weren’t getting an awful lot of radiation in there, but you were getting quite a bit. And then of course, when you get the sample up into the pipette, moving it into the doorstop, you were getting a bit of a dose. It wasn’t fun. Franklin: You said you had to put on a face mask and coveralls—how thick was all of that? Buckingham: Well, you had to put on two pairs of coveralls. Franklin: Two pairs of coveralls. Buckingham: Two pairs. Franklin: Okay. Buckingham: And boots, gloves. Let’s see what other—a hood. You were thoroughly dressed. And then you had to be checked out, of course. There was always an RM person there, making sure you didn’t have anything on you when you came out. Franklin: And RM stands for--? Buckingham: Radiation monitor. Franklin: Okay. Similar to—is that what today would be called an HBT? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Was RM the standard terminology at the time? Buckingham: That was the terminology at the time. Franklin: But same basic— Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Same basic job, okay. I’m wondering, I’d like to step back for a minute and I’d like to ask you about the first time you saw the canyon, the T Plant. I’m wondering if you could describe the building, but also how you felt about it, you know. Your impressions of the building. Buckingham: Scared. [LAUGHTER] Buckingham: That really was. I was just absolutely confounded about the whole thing. Franklin: Why? Buckingham: Well, the building was 800 feet long. Franklin: Okay. Buckingham: About 30 feet wide. And a third of it was, or a good portion of it was below ground level. And then a long—one side of it was what they called the operating galleries. And this was where the people, the operators, sat. And they were the ones who—there was also as long as that gallery was where they had the tanks that they fed the new chemicals in for the separation process. It was—there’s then a crane ran the whole length of the building. And the crane was operated behind a concrete wall and it was a lead-shielded crane. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: How did the person operating the crane see what they were doing? Buckingham: Through optics. Franklin: Such as? Buckingham: Just like a telescope. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, wow. Buckingham: And they were canny. Those crane operators were canny. I think they had a second sense of feeling where that crane hook was. But they could see it. Franklin: Did they also use television as well? Buckingham: No, that—television was hardly invented at that stage in the game. Franklin: Okay. Buckingham: It was strictly optics. Franklin: Was television, CCTV added to the processing later? Buckingham: Later on, yeah. Franklin: Do you know approximately when that was? Buckingham: Oh, gosh, it wasn’t until—well, they were no longer using the bismuth phosphate process when they finally got television. It wasn’t until, oh, gosh, I would say well into the ‘70s before we even had the idea of using much television. Franklin: Okay. Had you ever seen a building like the T Plant before? Buckingham: Never. Franklin: I’m wondering—you mentioned the brown fumes that came out. Could you describe the stack? How tall was it, and--? Buckingham: Well, the stack was about 50 feet tall, and of course it was part of the ventilation system. Now, the dissolver would—any time you dissolve a metal in nitric acid, you’re going to get NO2 off. The original processes, we did not try to do anything about that NO2. We just booted it out into the atmosphere. You could always tell when they were—we were very closely regulated when we couldn’t dissolve—that was why there was a weather station out at Hanford. If the weather was not good for dissolving, we couldn’t dissolve, or they’d have to drown the dissolver to stop the reaction. Franklin: What would be bad weather for dissolving? Buckingham: High winds. Franklin: Because it would be variable where it would go, or--? Buckingham: Yeah. They didn’t want too much of that stuff to leave the Hanford Project. You know, even after running out there for quite a number of years, there was a big ruckus about all the radiation that came from Hanford causing downwind cancers and all that good stuff. And that’s when they did that very extensive study of how the radiation went from Hanford. There was a row of samplers built for about 30 miles around Hanford to detect—if they could detect anything coming from radiation. And then also that’s when we got into the REDOX process. They decided they would try to recover a lot of that nitric acid. So we put in absorbers so that the fumes weren’t as brown coming out of the process after a few years. [LAUGHTER] And they did a very extensive study of the atmospheric dispersion of stuff around. Gosh, there’s so many studies on all that. And also, down on the river, we had—University of Washington had a fish hatchery where we were studying the effect of any—well, it was started out the effect of the water through the reactors, how it was affecting the fish. And also they were beginning to study what’s happening to the cooling waters and so forth were just put into cooling ponds. [LAUGHTER] We had some pretty hot ducks out there at one time. [LAUGHTER] But— Franklin: Hot how? Buckingham: Radioactive. Franklin: And how did they become radioactive? Buckingham: Well, you know, there’s—we were trying very hard to not discharge anything to these surface ponds. But there were always leaks. And somehow or other, radiation always managed to get into some of these ponds. And some of them became fairly grossly contaminated over the years. And also, that’s when they began looking at the amount of—the effect of groundwater under the separation plants. We knew more about what was going on underground than most people know about what’s going on on the surface. Franklin: Right, because of the worry of contaminating the groundwater, right? Buckingham: Yeah, they didn’t want to contaminate the groundwater. And that was pretty important. Also, where’s the groundwater going? They know it’s going towards the river. And how long is going to take? And certain radioisotopes were moving faster than others. Which was a big concern. So we were doing a lot of studies on that. Oh, I don’t know. It’s just amazing the studies that were going on. You know, there was also a pretty good-sized animal farm down there by F— Franklin: F Reactor, right? Buckingham: F factory, yeah. [LAUGHTER] And also the hot desert, the hot poop out in the desert from the animals that had gotten some—the Cold War got started through all this period of time. It was to get that plutonium out of here come hell or high water. And we were running out of waste storage tanks, and we didn’t have any—this is when we went through a procedure of trying to precipitate enough of the bad active radioisotopes in the waste storage tanks to be able to keep running, keep our space going. Some of these things didn’t really work out too well. But we were making plutonium. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. Some of what things didn’t work out too well? Buckingham: Well, some of what—we were precipitating some of the higher radioactive isotopes in the tanks by adding—oh, let’s see, what was it that we were adding? Gosh, I can’t remember now. Oh, dear. We went through so many different processes that it’s kind of funny. Then we also went through the process of wanting to recover all that uranium that we had put out into those waste tanks. Franklin: Right, I was going to ask you about that. Buckingham: That was when we revamped U Plant. Franklin: And that was specifically for recovering— Buckingham: Uranium. Franklin: Uranium. And I’m wondering if you could—I’d like to go back a little bit but end up there, but go back a little bit. You, I imagine, when you came in ’47, you worked with a lot of people that had worked at Hanford during the Manhattan Project, right? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: How many people were still around from the Manhattan Project when you started? Buckingham: Oh, I would imagine maybe a couple thousand. We didn’t have a big crew here, but there were quite a few people here. Of course, DuPont had just left when we came. They left in January, and I came in June or July. Franklin: Okay. And you worked for General Electric? Buckingham: Yeah, it was General Electric was the one who was running the facility at that time. Franklin: And were any of your fellow engineers—had any of them been around in the Manhattan Project? Buckingham: Yeah, most of them. Most of the people we were working with had been here during DuPont. Uncle DuPont. They were very proud of Uncle DuPont. [LAUGHTER] And we were actually still operating under DuPont procedures. Franklin: For the processes? Buckingham: For the processes. Franklin: How long did you continue to operate under those procedures? Buckingham: Oh, I think we must’ve operated under them for over ten years. Franklin: Oh, wow. Was the uranium that was going into the storage tanks during World War II and a little after, was that a concern at the time, in terms of recovering that as fuel and/or worrying about the space in the tanks? Buckingham: Well, it was more concerned about—it was a fuel that was usable. Uranium was becoming a very valuable product at that time, because there was a lot of work going on with power reactors, the building of—looking at the possibility of using power reactors. There were several companies getting into building reactors. This was going to be the new power thing of the future. Franklin: Right. Buckingham: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Because it puts off so much heat, right? Buckingham: Yeah! Franklin: That was the major attractiveness to producing power, would be to generate steam. Buckingham: And we actually put so much radioactivity in some of those old tanks that they were boiling. Those old storage tanks. Franklin: Like, as in the material was actually boiling. Buckingham: Actually boiling. Franklin: Wow. Buckingham: That was from the decay of a lot of the radioactive material. And, you know, we also recovered—went to a recovery of strontium-90 and cesium-137, because these were going to be valuable isotopes that could be used. In fact, there were a lot of the -90 isotopes used to run beacons up north. Franklin: Beacons? Buckingham: Yeah, radio-beacons because of the heat generated from those strontium-90. Franklin: Oh, okay. Those would be used in arctic environments. Buckingham: Yeah, for arctic environments where you couldn’t depend on sunshine in the middle of winter. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. Wow. Buckingham: So, we went—that’s one of the things that was kind of fun in my later work, I went into this organization called Process Chemistry where we were looking at all these different isotopes. And there was a whole array of them that we thought were going to be valuable isotopes to use. That’s why they repurposed the old bismuth phosphate process B Plant into recover strontium and—[LAUGHTER] strontium and cesium. Franklin: It’s pretty amazing that they used plants which had been made—I guess when they were made, correct me if I’m wrong, but the final process hadn’t been quite decided when DuPont was constructing the T Plant and B Plant, right? They had an idea but they hadn’t settled on the specifics. Buckingham: No, the only way you could extract something like that—the extraction process was not really new. It’s used in chemistry laboratories. It was an ether extraction. Well, you know, ether is not very friendly material to use. Franklin: No, it’s very flammable, right? Buckingham: Yeah, very flammable. But when they discovered this methyl isobutyl ketone from the REDOX process, it was a whole new field of chemistry that was coming in. Not only usable in nuclear material; it was usable in a lot of metallurgical processes. Franklin: What did you call that? Something ketone? Buckingham: Methyl isobutyl ketones. Hexone. Franklin: Hexone, okay. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I’m just going to try to write that down as well as I can spell it. It’s pretty amazing that these, T, and B and U, designed for this one process were able to be kind of retrofitted for all of these different jobs. Was that because the uranium recovery wasn’t all that different, or was it because these buildings were— Buckingham: Well, the uranium recovery was actually kind of off-step to the future of the PUREX process which used tributyl phosphate as an extractant. We used just a more dilute tributyl phosphate as an extractant in the uranium recovery process. Franklin: And PUREX was kind of the final process at Hanford that—like, it was kind of the final evolution of that, what had started with bismuth phosphate, right? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. And that PUREX process, correct me if I’m wrong, was used in other facilities? Buckingham: Now it’s used all over the world, yeah. And it was actually invented here. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah. Right. Because we have the building that bears its name, right? Buckingham: Yeah, right! Franklin: I wanted to ask you a few more questions, some of the ones that John had written—John Fox had written about T Plant. But I had one question before that. When you’d finished—when the material had gone through the cells— Buckingham: Yes. Franklin: --and you’d separated out the plutonium, what was that final—and I’m talking about when you first got here, with the bismuth phosphate process. What was the final product? Buckingham: Well, it goes through all these stages in the old bismuth phosphate plant. And then we transferred it over to the 224 Building, which was right behind the plant. And instead of using bismuth phosphate to precipitate the material, we used a lanthanum fluoride precipitation. And this was a little bit cleaner and a little bit more straightforward. Then that material from the old lanthanum fluoride precipitation was essentially a—well, we precipitated it as a hydroxide, plutonium hydroxide. Then dissolved that and shipped it down to the old 231 Building, where it was then just plain concentrated down to make a kind of—well, it wasn’t a paste exactly, but it was a very concentrated solution of plutonium nitrate. Franklin: It was some kind of—like a thick liquid? Buckingham: Very thick liquid. Franklin: Like a sludge? Buckingham: It was essentially a sludge. Franklin: Interesting. Buckingham: And that is what was then shipped down to Los Alamos. Franklin: When was the decision—when did we switch from shipping the semi-liquid to the solid puck or the powder forms? Buckingham: Well, it was—the plant down at Los Alamos was undersized. And they needed a bigger plant to make a solid form, and that’s when they began building the Dash-5 Plant. And good grief, that started in—seemed to me like that started in the ‘50s. Franklin: Okay. So I want to go to some of John’s questions and I’ll try to skip them if I feel like we’ve already talked about them. Buckingham: Sure. Franklin: So how long did it take to run a batch through the T Plant canyon? Buckingham: Oh, it took maybe a week. Franklin: Okay. That’s all? Just one— Buckingham: About a week, yeah. Franklin: So it was shorter than what it took—the time it took to irradiate the fuel in the reactor. Buckingham: Right. Franklin: And is that why they didn’t—why T Plant could handle the material from the three reactors? Because I remember they’d built the three reactors in the Manhattan Project, and then built three identical canyons— Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: --but only T Plant ran the bismuth phosphate process, correct? Buckingham: No, T and B Plant. Franklin: T, oh, and B. Okay. Buckingham: Yeah, the two plants. They didn’t need U Plant. Franklin: Okay, it was U Plant they didn’t. Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Because it took about, what was it, like 30 days to run fuel through the reactor? 30 to 90? Buckingham: Yeah, I think they were in the reactor 30 days. Franklin: And then cooling time. Buckingham: A little bit of cooling time. But we were able to—the two, B and T Plant, were able to handle all the output from the three original reactors. But then they began building more reactors. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: What reactors were under—what reactors were at Hanford when you first got to the Site? Buckingham: B, D and F. Franklin: And then the other six were built while you were working? Buckingham: Yeah, then they began—oh, the began to build a replacement for B— Franklin: D. Buckingham: And that was C Reactor. Franklin: Oh, C, right, okay. Buckingham: And then they began building the super reactors, K-E and K-W. [LAUGHTER] Then they began building N Reactor for the dual purpose. So. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And then somewhere in there is DR. Buckingham: DR. Franklin: And H. Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. How long did the process take—I guess, I’m trying to—so this follows the how long did it take to run a batch through the T Plant question. I think this is a sub-question. How much more time in the 224 and 231 Buildings? Buckingham: Just a few days, actually, in the 224 Building. Franklin: And what was the 224 Building? Buckingham: Well, that was where we then went from the bismuth phosphate to the lanthanum fluoride. Franklin: So that was kind of like a finishing— Buckingham: Yeah, it was finishing the bismuth phosphate process. Franklin: Did that building have another name besides the 224? Buckingham: No. 224 is all we ever used. Franklin: Okay, and then 231 was a further finishing? Buckingham: That was where it was just concentrated to—that was the final step. Franklin: Okay. And did the 231 have another name, or was it just 231? Buckingham: Just 231 Building. Franklin: Okay. Gotcha. Buckingham: And it went from there into the shipping containers that they shipped it to Los Alamos then. Franklin: So did it take an additional several days in each building? Buckingham: Yeah, just several days. Maybe could’ve taken a week or so. But they had to start—I don’t think it took much more than a week to get it through 231 Building. Franklin: So, a week—conservatively like a week for each? Buckingham: Yeah, it was—well, there were steps that they would go through and you didn’t have to wait until they finished one step to go—another step could be coming in right away. Franklin: Okay. I’ll just put a week or so. That’s a pretty—so the entire process, we could say, would probably be somewhere in the realm of two to three weeks— Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: --to take the irradiated fuel and have the shipment ready for Los Alamos? Buckingham: I would say it would take less than three weeks. Franklin: Less than three weeks. Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Interesting. How many days were there when you couldn’t dissolve the fuel sludge because of weather conditions? Buckingham: Oh, it wasn’t too bad here. You know, the climate here is not that bad. It’s just—I would guess that there was probably, in a year there might be less than two months. Franklin: Okay. Buckingham: Total. Franklin: Sure. Buckingham: Because it seemed to me like we were constantly—I don’t know whether we were cheating or—[LAUGHTER]—sitting on the edge of—and I don’t know who ever really decided why we couldn’t dissolve. Franklin: Oh, that was my next question here, was who—how was this decided? Buckingham: I don’t know if it was the meteorologist decided. I have no idea who made that final decision. Franklin: Gotcha. How could you tell when each step of the process was completed? You mentioned earlier about the centrifuge noise. Buckingham: Well, the— Franklin: How—sorry, go ahead. Buckingham: Well, in the—they would have to—it took quite a little while to move clear through the old bismuth phosphate process. I would say that it took—it could take up to—it’d take a good hard week of 24-hour days in there to get clear through. If you took one batch and ran it clear through. But, you know, all they have to do is get out of that first two cells and they could bring another one in. So, they were following on very closely. We did— Franklin: How did—oh, sorry. Buckingham: Go ahead. Franklin: Oh, I was going to say, how would you tell in the later cells when it was time to move that material on? What other types of tools did you use? Buckingham: By samples. Franklin: By the sampling? Buckingham: Yeah, by the sampling. And also the point at which—they could tell pretty well when they finished that lanthanum fluoride, they could tell when to move to the next position where they were then precipitating the hydroxide. Franklin: Okay. What about in the T Plant, though, in between cells, how would you know when it was time for the air jets to move a particular batch through? Buckingham: Well, they knew the volumes that they were moving through because they used things that told the volume of what the volume of the tank was. There were bubblers in the tanks. And they could tell pretty well when one step of the process was over with and they were going on to the next step. Franklin: Because you had mentioned earlier that they would use microphones near the centrifuges to tell when the centrifuge was kind of out of liquid because it would emit this particular tone. And so they would also use other measuring devices to tell each volume and things like that? Buckingham: Yeah, they knew the volume of the feed tank that they were pumping out of, and the volume of the waste tank that was being received into. They could—there were ways of doing that. Franklin: How would you read that? Would that be in the operating gallery? Buckingham: It was in the operating gallery. Franklin: And how could you read that volume through 15 feet of concrete? Buckingham: They used what they call bubblers. They’re two pipes going down into the tanks that they could measure by the air pressure going in how much—what the reading was on the—that all showed out on the chart up in the operating gallery. Franklin: Oh, so would it be the pressure of the air— Buckingham: The pressure of the air. Franklin: --hitting, going into the tank would tell you the volume and you could get the volume. Ah, I see. So that was a way, I suppose, to keep an active measurement, but also to—if you have air going in, you don’t have anything coming back. Buckingham: Right. Franklin: Right, so you’re not introducing radiation anywhere in the operating gallery or something like that, okay. Buckingham: No, no. Franklin: Because everything—correct me if I’m wrong—a big concern was kind of keeping everything contained but also having—was pressure a concern in the cells, for example, having a pressurized environment where if you had a leak, the air would rush in and not rush out? Buckingham: Well, of course they were under a slight lower pressure than the outside air pressure, because they had fans sucking the air out all the time. And they went through—later on we had a pretty good filtering system. Before, they were just using—they had just pits with fiberglass filters. Franklin: And later on they went to HAPA filters. Buckingham: Went through—yeah, we went to better filters. Franklin: Interesting, okay. How reliable was the instrumentation? Buckingham: I would say it was very reliable. Because they were using just standard equipment that was used in all sorts of industry around the world. Franklin: How did the introduction—this is my own question; I don’t know if it’s going to fit in here, but—how did the introduction of transistors and things change the layout of the operating gallery? I imagine that that would’ve changed some of the components used. Buckingham: I can’t remember that it actually changed it very much. We would get a little bit better instrumentation coming in, and— Franklin: Was there any special instrumentation designed for this process? Buckingham: I don’t think so. I think we just used standard equipment that was used in any—like, in the oil industry. You know? Just standard. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Sure, sure, sure. You mentioned that you entered the canyon once to take samples. Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: How often, though, did crew enter the canyon? Yeah, how often did people take samples? Buckingham: Well, I would say they had to go—we were working on 8-hour shifts, and during an 8-hour shift, I think they made at least one entry a shift. Franklin: Okay, one entry— Buckingham: But it could’ve been a little, few more than that, depending on our pressure of getting something out or— Franklin: And you said they would typically stay about 20 to 30 minutes in the canyon? And was there a strong cut-off? Buckingham: I don’t think so. I can’t ever remember anybody complaining too much about being in there too long or— They kept pretty good track of it, of course. Franklin: Right, well, I’m sure it wasn’t a place where people would want to go and hang out all day. Buckingham: No. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: How often did you need to change or replace jumpers in a cell? Buckingham: Not very often. Franklin: And, actually, let’s back up, because I realized we hadn’t really talked about—I’m wondering if you could describe a jumper and what it is, what its— Buckingham: Okay, now, in each cell, there would be tanks or equipment. And on each of these, there was a nozzle, many nozzles. If, in fact, you looked into a cell—and then, these connect to an identical thing on the walls of the cell. If you look into one of those cells, it almost looked like looking into a bowl of spaghetti. And the crane operator could go in and remove these jumpers as needed. And it wasn’t too terribly often that they would have to go in. If a piece of equipment would fail, they would have to pull it out. To do that, he would have to know which jumpers to take off. [LAUGHTER] They have to be taken off in a certain pattern, because some of them would be down hidden, down underneath. But, I tell you, those guys were clever. Franklin: Yeah, I bet. Well, especially doing it through optics, too. Buckingham: And we would—we took a few large samples, too, out of the samplers. And they would—the crane operator bring a big cask in and set it next to the sampler. Then when he needed to get to pick the crane up, he would get the hook swinging, so he could get it and snag the bale on the big sample and pull it out. Franklin: Wow. Wow. Buckingham: I rode with the crane operators one night, just for about two hours, just to see what they were doing. And they were good. Franklin: What kind of equipment did they use in the cab? Was it a typical kind of crane, or was there any special equipment? Buckingham: It was just pretty much a simple kind of crane. But there were—let’s see, what—there was on the crane itself that operated, it had an impact wrench, two hooks. I can’t think of anything else that they had in it. But the impact wrench, they’d go down and be able to get onto these jumpers. And be able to—that was the way they got these, when they had to replace anything. And it was really rather unique situation. Franklin: So in some ways the jumpers were kind of—they were like the piping between the cells, or kind of like— Buckingham: They were the piping between the cells, all the electricity, all the instrumentation, everything had to come through those jumpers. Franklin: But what was being treated didn’t go through the jumpers, right? Buckingham: No. Franklin: That went through the stairs. Buckingham: Well, if it was going from one cell to the next cell, it had to go through one of the jumpers. Franklin: Oh, okay, so the jumpers were kind of like dual-purpose, that they carried, like you said, the electrical cables and things like that, but then other jumpers would also carry— Buckingham: Liquids. Franklin: --various liquids through. Would they carry just the precipitating agents, or would they carry the fuel, the irradiated— Buckingham: The irradiated stuff. Everything. Franklin: So you really needed to know which jumper was carrying what. Buckingham: Yes. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Were they clearly marked as to which were hot-- Buckingham: Yes. Franklin: Or like wet and dry jumpers? Buckingham: Well, not particularly, hot, wet and dry, but you knew what jumper did what. Franklin: Okay, it was pretty clear to the crane operator what— Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Okay, gotcha. And how long would it take to change or replace a jumper in a cell? Buckingham: Oh, I would say they could do it about—I would say within half an hour, they could do it. Or half an hour to an hour, they could do a lot of changing out in a cell, depending how complicated the equipment was that had to be moved and that time. Franklin: Yeah. Okay. How did you dispose of contaminated jumpers? Buckingham: They’d be put into a burial box. Franklin: Describe a burial box. Buckingham: Well, as I recall, they were usually—depending on if it was a very radioactive jumper, for example, they would try to put it into a coffin-like container, like a—but it has to be something that they can pick up and move out of that canyon. So it can’t be too awkward. As I recall, it seemed like just a lot of them were plywood. Franklin: Oh, wow. Buckingham: Depending on how much radiation. Of course, they could be flushed out in— Franklin: And where would that be stored, where would it be buried? Buckingham: Out in the burial ground. Franklin: Okay. What was the burial ground like when you started at Hanford? I imagine it’s probably different from the burial grounds today. Buckingham: I don’t think so. I think they were the same. They were out there near the separation plants. They were just big trenches. They would, depending on what was being disposed of in some of them, they actually brought them in on railcars. Built a siting out there for all the failed equipment in as close as they could get it to the pit, and then use bulldozers or something to pull it over into the pit, and start backfilling it. Franklin: Hmm, okay. Buckingham: You stayed out of the area when it was being done. Franklin: Yeah, I bet. Did any items removed from the cell contaminate the canyon floor? Buckingham: Yes. But that was always something that, they tried not to do that, of course. Franklin: When that happened, what would the procedure be to— Buckingham: Well, then they had to—if there was any contamination that got out of the cell itself, it had to be cleaned, cleaned up. Franklin: How would it be cleaned? Buckingham: Oh, could be sprayed down with water or acid or something. Flushed out. I can’t remember any time that there was anything seriously lost out of any of the cells. But it could’ve happened. Franklin: Okay. Who kept track of the amount of product so you could tell if the yield was within acceptable limits? Buckingham: There was a bunch of people down in headquarters that did that. I don’t have any idea who did keeping track of it. The engineers didn’t. Franklin: Okay. But I’m sure you furnished your sample results, or—were the sample results when you took samples, were those used to determine the amounts of—because I imagine, that would be a primary concern, right, would be the proper amount of plutonium was making it through the process. That would—because they would—for each fuel element, you would get so much plutonium out of that. So you would want to recover as close to 100% as you could. Buckingham: As much as we could, right. And I don’t know who kept track of all that stuff. There was—it went into the operating offices up in—and there was somebody in there that did something with it. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Okay. Were there ever any unusual incidents worth mentioning while you worked there? Buckingham: Well, yes, one time during a windstorm, a steam pipe fell. That was one that was a little exciting because it ruptured when it fell. And let’s see. A lot of those, you know, a lot of those jets were run by steam instead of air, too. Let me think if there’s anything else. Oh, we had a pretty bad—blew a bunch of ruthenium out of one of the stacks one time and we had a lot of contamination around the old REDOX plant on the ground. Franklin: How did the ruthenium go up the stack and leave the facility? Buckingham: Well, ruthenium is pretty volatile. It was a problem. It was one of our radioactive isotope problems for REDOX facility. Franklin: Oh, but that’s specifically REDOX and not T Plant? Or did that happen— Buckingham: It wasn’t so bad in the T Plant. We didn’t seem to have any real serious problems there that I can recall. Franklin: How long did you work at the T Plant? Buckingham: About a year. Franklin: Just about, so ’47-’48 timeframe? Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: And then you went to the REDOX plant? Buckingham: Well, REDOX was just on the verge of getting started; they were working on it. Then I went down and just worked on 300 Area in what they called the standards lab for about a year. And then went into the process chemistry. Franklin: After bismuth phosphate was—because bismuth phosphate was kind of retired as a process when REDOX came online. Buckingham: Yup. Franklin: Correct? What other missions did the T Plant have in its life that you know of? And were you involved in any of them? Buckingham: I wasn’t involved in any of them. I think it essentially—well, Battelle ran some experiments up there, but I don’t think they were using the plant; I think they were using what they called the head end. It was where they were checking ventilation kind of stuff. So it was used for—a lot of it was used for ventilation studies. Franklin: Was the head end where the fuel elements came in, or— Buckingham: That’s where the fuel elements came in. Franklin: Where the train would back up and— Buckingham: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. Okay. Is there anything else you wanted to say about T Plant? Buckingham: Well, I like to always—when I was doing tours, I would tell people that there was only something like four grams of plutonium in each one of those fuel elements that was put into T Plant. So it was really a—they had to add this additional chemical to make it—to help separate the plutonium out. Franklin: To kind of find it, right, in all of the— Buckingham: Yeah. And the process worked successfully. Also, you know, when you stop to think of all that engineering that went into that scale-up, it’s really kind of mind-boggling. Because we just didn’t really know how things were going to go. [LAUGHTER] I— Franklin: Did you—oh, sorry. Buckingham: I think that the mere fact that they were able to do it is a— Franklin: Would you consider it comparable to the engineering feat of building the B Reactor? Because—is there a comparison there, because there had been a small graphite reactor that was scaled up to be the B. And is the same kind of true with T? There was this laboratory process that was proven, but had not been done on that scale. Is that a comparable— Buckingham: That’s comparable, yeah. They didn’t—I don’t even think they had a laboratory at Oak Ridge that they were doing anything with this scale on. Franklin: Is the T Plant kind of the—kind of the same—what’s the word I’m looking for—kind of the same thing to chemical engineering as B is to nuclear reactors? Would you say it’s a milestone? Buckingham: I’d say it was a milestone, then, because, well, there was almost every chemical process you could think of that was being used in it. Franklin: Right, and it played this really crucial role in this process. Right? Because it feels like the reactors are kind of—you know, they get a lot of the coverage, but this chemical separations process is crucial. Buckingham: Oh, good heavens, yes! We had to get that plutonium out of that element somehow or other. You just don’t go in and pick it out with a pair of pliers! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. Well, is there anything else that you wanted to add about T Plant or—reflections on your year spent at the T Plant? Buckingham: Well, mine were really pretty minimal, and being just in the laboratory out there doing the analytical work, it was an experience. [LAUGHTER] It was the first time that I will say that I was using some of my experience that I received in analytical chemistry at good old Washington State College. [LAUGHTER] In fact, I went to tell—went over to visit one time, and I mentioned it to my analytical professor, I told him, he says, now I understand why you were such a stinker in the lab of having things well-organized and in place. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: You hadn’t quite appreciated it at the time, right? Buckingham: Yeah, because, you know, we were using micro—you couldn’t use a large sample. You had to use—we were using very small samples for everything because they were so damned radioactive. Franklin: Right, so you really had to have everything calibrated properly— Buckingham: Properly. Franklin: And well-organized. Buckingham: And you were very careful with everything. You had to have a neat desk, a neat bench, to get anything done. It was an experience, I will— Franklin; Great, well, Steve, thank you very much for coming. I know it was only a short period of your work at Hanford, but thank you for going into such detail. It’s really important to capture this information and make the case for preserving the T Plant. Buckingham: Well, I feel like there’s so many little odds and ends that are just being forgotten. I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done here over the years. It’s just—to me, it’s just something that’s unbelievable. Unbelievable in science. Franklin: Right, yeah. Well, testing out all of these new processes. Buckingham: And the other scientific work that was being done here on the radiation and the movement of radioactive nuclides around and everything—gosh, we did a lot of interesting things. We had wells dug out there by the weather tower that we were trying to study what it was doing down under the ground. I think we knew more about what was moving around— And I feel kind of angry when they start belittling some of the stuff that was done. It’s—it just—in the whole study of the environment that we’ve done around here is, to me, is unbelievable, the work that they’ve produced. And the transportation of radionuclides in the plants that’s still going on. Franklin: Well, Steve, thank you so much for coming and talking to us about T Plant. Buckingham: My pleasure. I think I kind of jumbled a lot of stuff around. Franklin: No, I understand—I think I understand what was going on there, finally, a little bit better than—because I tried reading the documentation and it’s a little—I appreciate you putting it in a simpler form that, you know, even a historian can understand. [LAUGHTER] <a href="https://youtu.be/fP_QO-P7Jg4">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview REDOX T Plant B Plant U Plant F Reactor PUREX 224 Building 231 Building B Reactor D Reactor F Reactor C Reactor K East Reactor K West Reactor N Reactor DR Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1947- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Steve Buckingham Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Plutonium Uranium Solvent extraction Chemistry Radioactive waste disposal Description An account of the resource This interview with Steve Buckingham is part of an effort to record the history of the T Plant, a facility that processed irradiated fuel from the B Reactor. Using the bismuth phosphate process, T Plant operations were able to extract plutonium from spent fuel rods. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02/21/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F40dfecfcfb14b42ffd68426733942f40.jpg ed6e594965bb469d8310a1facdddd049 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dennis Brunson Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: All right. We are ready. Dennis Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Dennis Brunson on October 18, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Dennis about his experiences working at the Hanford site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Brunson: My name is Dennis, D-E-N-N-I-S, Brunson, B-R-U-N-S-O-N. Franklin: Great. Okay, so the best place to begin is the beginning. So when and where were you born? Brunson: I was born in LaGrande, Oregon. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: In 1943. Franklin: And how did you come to Washington? Brunson: My family moved my junior—beginning of my junior year of high school to LaCrosse, which is up towards Pullman. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Brunson: My dad was a foreman on a cattle ranch. Franklin: Hmm. Brunson: That’s where I— Franklin: Was your dad in the cattle business for most of his— Brunson: Yeah, he was a farmer and we owned a meat market in eastern Oregon. That’s how I got up here. Franklin: Okay. And then you went to high school in LaGrande? Brunson: No, in LaCrosse. Franklin: In LaCrosse, sorry. Brunson: I married my high school sweetheart, who was a year ahead of me. I was a football player, and I had some success at playing football, and had been given an offer to play football at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, back in the day when they had an outstanding football program. On my way to that end, I damaged my neck severely in a football game—my last football game in high school, and I could no longer play football. But I was already—had plans to go to CBC, and I followed through. So I came to CBC, and I took a class there that was a special class that Boeing had initiated, basically, to produce illustrators for Boeing Company in Seattle. They didn’t have near enough technical illustrators. So I went through that program and found that there was a pretty high need for illustrators, and they used them here at Hanford as well. So my wife worked for General Electric, and her boss at the time and my future boss played golf together. We had planned on going to Seattle to start my career over there, and ultimately, I was hired to come to work at Hanford as an illustrator for Vitro Engineering Company. Franklin: Okay. And so what kind of projects did you work on while in this first job at Hanford? Brunson: Okay. I did a lot of—because I was an illustrator and artist, I was put in the piping department, which was a large section, because they were retooling the Hanford site at that time to process chemicals. My first job, basically, was as-built drawings. I would go into zones where the pipefitters had recreated the new version, and I would go in and follow blueprints to make sure that what went on the final drawings was the way it was built. And oftentimes, there were things that the designers couldn’t see. So they would get someone like me to go in and sit and draw all these things out, and double-check and make sure that it was as-built. That wasn’t always an easy task, because some of the zones we were in were very hot. And we would have to draw with coveralls on, and head gear, and gloves. It was a slow process. Franklin: How would—so obviously, all that gear can be cleaned, but what you’re drawing on, then might also soak up radiation as well? Or--? Brunson: Well, there was a possibility that you could be contaminated, and they were very careful, which I was thankful for. I always had a radiation monitor with me. If something in the atmosphere was airborne, he knew about it, because he had an indicator. We would get out of there. That happened a few times, but it wasn’t all that bad. Franklin: What kinds of—did you work all over site doing these as-builts, or is there any building or buildings that come to mind? Brunson: Well, in the 200 Area mostly is where I did that. In the T, U, and B Buildings, I think they were, at that time, they were retooling the Canyon buildings, or some of the cells for processing thorium. That’s what, basically, what we were doing. When I wasn’t doing as-built drawings, I worked as an illustrator and a design draftsman. I was trained well to do that, and I really enjoyed it. Franklin: When did you start this first—when did you start at Hanford? Do you remember what year? Brunson: Yeah, it was 1964. Franklin: 1964. And how long did you work as an illustrator and doing the as-builts? Brunson: For that—during that phase of my career, it was two years. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: I worked there two years, and then I went back to my wife’s family farm, and we leased one of my father-in-law’s ranches and tried to make a living raising wheat and sheep and cattle and all of that. Franklin: What was the reason for that change? Or, why—why did you— Brunson: Why’d I leave Hanford and go back to the farm? Franklin: Yeah, why-- Brunson: Well, it was an offer that I couldn’t refuse. My father-in-law was having health issues, and he came to me and said, hey, I need some help. So we did what we had to do. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: And we tried to make a living, but—you know, I was glad that I had a connection at Hanford. Because in 1970, we came back and moved to Richland and started with WADCO Corporation as a technical illustrator. Franklin: WADCO. And what does—do you remember what WADCO stands for? Brunson: Well, it depends on who you were talking to. It was Westinghouse Advanced Development Corporation, but the locals here called Wild Ass Development Corporation. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Brunson: Because they had a way of getting things done. Franklin: Ah. Brunson: My reason for being there—I was hired as an illustrator, because they had taken over the FFTF design and management. It had been in thought process for several years prior to that. They took over, and there were services that were provided to the contractors here. But they had a difficult time—Westinghouse, or WADCO had a difficult time getting what they needed in the timeframes that they were being asked to deliver. So they had to go out and get some service people of their own to keep that flowing. That’s how I came in. I was the first illustrator they had. Franklin: First illustrator. And I noticed a lot of the material you brought in today—which we’ll show some of that later—I noticed a lot of that pertains to FFTF. Brunson: Yes. Franklin: So it seems you were married to that—that was a large part of your illustrator, or graphic design work, was for that reactor. Brunson: Yeah. When I started with the WADCO, and when I—that melded right into Westinghouse—it was the same parent company; they just changed the structure. I went from there until Boeing took over. That was 17 years. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: So I did that for 17 years. That’s the reason I have—my very first job at WADCO was another gentleman and I were asked to go down to Safeway and buy a 50-pound sack of flour. We went out to the desert, and there was a post out there where the center of the reactor core was. This was before they scraped anything away. We made a big giant X in the sand, and made it nice and tidy so that from an aerial photograph, it appeared to be a giant X. X marks the spot, for this—that was prior to the—for the first excavation. So that was the first thing that we did—I mean, that was noteworthy. The next day or two after they had photographically recorded that, they came in with the earth moving equipment to start the lay-down of the bottom of the reactor. Franklin: Wow. Brunson: And so that’s something that I did [LAUGHTER] that was unusual. Franklin: So you were there right at the genesis— Brunson: In the beginning. Franklin: Yeah. Literally at the center of the— Brunson: Center of the project. Franklin: Center of the reactor. So what other kinds of work did you do in that 17-year span for WADCO? Brunson: Well, I started out as an illustrator, and we worked night and day, seven days a week. Forever and ever and ever it went on. It was a wild ride. But we produced visual aids, slides and viewgraphs, and posters for poster sessions. And a lot of them. In addition to that, we also created an ongoing report of activities because we were building something new that had never been done. So we had, in addition to the graphics department, we had photographers and editorial staff, and the typing pool, and all of the support that is required to put out reports—technical reports. It was a large group. We were asked to create a history as we went along. That was—we were part of a national lab, and it was—that was something you had to do. It’s in record form somewhere, if our computers can read it. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I believe a lot of that material is actually in hard copy in our collections. Brunson: Yeah. It is, yeah. Franklin: I’ve gone through a lot of FFTF boxes. Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: So you were the first person in this department, then. So how big did this department end up becoming? And did you take a supervisory role? Brunson: Yes. At one time, we had around 25 people in that particular graphics department. I started out as an illustrator, and then was promoted to senior illustrator, and then supervisor, or art director. And then in a short while, I was promoted to manager of media services, which included the graphics department and photography and audio-visual, which was one tight group. As time went on, over a few years, I was assigned other management in the communications department. And that’s what I did. Then when we—after 17 years, when Boeing came to town, things—when we went into Boeing, I worked—managed several departments. The photography, audio-visual, motion picture group. So anyway, I’m getting off track. Franklin: No, not at all. Brunson: That’s kind of the trail that I had through the process. The entire time that we were working there, I’ve seen other groups that they provided a service, but were never considered, or they never felt like they were part of a team. That was the one nice thing about that graphics and photography departments—you were part of a team. We were involved with just about everything that went through the company. We were appreciated by the management, because they’d have been in trouble without a good group of people who were cooperative and willing to work every night, and into the wee hours of the morning, and still come back the next day and smile about it. And it was fun. You have to remember that people like in those kind of service departments, by and large, they’re people that are getting paid good money to do their hobby. Franklin: Right, right. Brunson: So the photographers loved it. They loved the challenge of going into a hot zone and taking pictures. It was something they looked forward to. It was something they could learn from, and create new techniques to do a good job. So that’s a pretty good base for contented employees, if you can have that. We were fortunate that most of us were about the same age, and we had fun, we had potlucks, we did all the things, we were rewarded for our efforts by the company, by the management. So it was a feel-good—we felt good that we provided service. I brought here 40 years of samples of work that we did that is proof. Franklin: Right. Brunson: And it’s something that the people who were in those type jobs can take this to a potential new job, say, this is what I do, here it is. And it’s something that you can look at and see. Most all of us retired or are retiring from that line of service—everybody’s gotten older, of course. And now everybody runs the computer. That’s the way it—that’s how it worked for us. Franklin: Right. Yeah, a lot of your material—a lot of those materials are in the Hanford Collection. Brunson: Yes. Franklin: And are identified as being very historically valuable. So I think that’s a testament to you—to the work of your group. Brunson: Yeah. Well, the models—you have so many fantastic models in your collection. And I don’t know that you have more than what I saw in the walk-through the other day at the open house. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Brunson: I suspect that you have more of them somewhere, because there was a lot of them that we produced. Franklin: Well, what’s in the collection right now is everything that’s been identified to be put in the collection. If there’s models somewhere else, they just aren’t part of our collection, so the DOE hasn’t put them in the collection. Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: I hope there are, too, because they’re very—they have their own preservation challenges, but they’re very engaging. Brunson: Yup. Franklin: People really like the models. So you worked for Westinghouse for 17 years. Brunson: Mm-hmm. Franklin: So that would have been from ’70 to ’87. And then saying ’87 is also significant, because that’s our kind of shutdown of production year. Brunson: Mm-hmm. Franklin: So who did you work for, or—describe that transition to your new— Brunson: From Westinghouse to Boeing? Franklin: Yeah. Brunson: That was—in my eyes, I was very, very disappointed that we went to work for Boeing. We were given away to Boeing as part of the contract. Boeing was given all of the services: photography, video, graphics, printing, publication services—those were all part of the deal. Westinghouse gave—Westinghouse and Boeing partnered. The Westinghouse part of it, they took a bunch of labs from Battelle—or gave some to Battelle—I’m sorry. Battelle had a wonderful photography department and graphics department. They, along with the Westinghouse services, were all given to Boeing. Boeing—it was Boeing Computer Services—and the manager there wasn’t all that familiar with what we provided for the site, and wasn’t all that interested in finding out. He didn’t last very long, but the new management came in and they provided—they were good. They were a good company to work for at that time. But they—because of that, people like myself—I went there as a manager of the graphics department, and was quickly asked to go work and put out a big fire at the publications, printing and reproductions services group, which was a large group. So I was there for a year, managing that group. When the manager of photography and video, which was 65 people—professionals there, he decided to retire early, so I was asked then to go take care of that group, which was a challenge. I really liked it. It was a real good challenge. We had several large groups throughout—down this part of Hanford. We were asked, basically, to reduce that by half, as far as the square footage and all that. So we did a lot of consolidating and all that. And at the same time that that was going on, we were sort of downsizing. It’s when the digital world suddenly was upon us, and we were challenged. We had one of the nicest color labs, in the Federal Building, that was in the Northwest. It was fabulous. And we had the large black-and-white lab in the 300 Area. Franklin: Sorry, can you just describe what a color lab and a black—you mean for reproduction or for photographs? Brunson: For photographs. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: It was quite complex. And what I guess—I can give you an oversight of that, but it would really be great if you can get someone—Dan Ostergaard or someone like that—to sit in this chair and give you a real version of the macrographs and things that they did, as it relates to fuel—the nuclear fuel production. It was a whole new world, and it was an unusual world that they lived in. But by and large, we had photographers—and this was a collection of probably ten really high quality, well-educated technical photographers that provided service for the site. That included hot cells. We had permanent staff in the 200 Area that provided really hard work, as far as recording things in cells where they were doing testing and what-have-you. We had a couple guys that flew aerials every week. They would fly and take pictures of the development of our—whatever was happening on the site. We had—the black-and-white lab was in 300 Area, and they produced all of the negatives, they processed, they did a lot of the printing. They did color printing as well in the small scale. But in the Federal Building, we had a full-blown color printing process that went on there. You could do photographs that were six feet wide and 40 feet long. We had that ability. That work was done mostly for public relations type activities. I mean, that was—they did a lot of macrographs, and that’s—you take a fuel pin, or a piece of fuel—carbon—put it under a million-volt electron microscope, and enlarge that pin up to like four feet wide, and it’d be done in sections. We had folks in the lab that would cut all these things apart and put them back together. It’s kind of hard to describe unless you have a picture of it. But they ended up being this big macrograph that they would then re-photograph and reduce down, and that was—they used that for the research on what happens to nuclear fuels when it’s irradiated. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brunson: So it was a technical process. Photography and graphics both were the last people in the line when something had to be—a report had to go in, or somebody was getting on an airplane to go to D.C. or Virginia, or Europe or someplace for a critical meeting. They’d change and change and change right up to the last minute, and then dump it on us. And our challenge was to produce something that met their needs in the remaining wee hours of the morning. Franklin: Mm-hmm. You mentioned it earlier, so I’d like to go back to it—can you describe—because the digital revolution, right, affected us all in terms of our computer use, but I imagine especially it would have affected the photography and graphic arts departments. Brunson: Yes. Franklin: So I’d like you to kind of talk about those—that change. That whole transformation of that technology. Brunson: That was a process that we all went through, depending on what seat we were sitting at the time. I’ll start with graphics. In the graphics department, we had assigned a young lady the job of gathering the data for our first computer systems. She was looking at things on the PC side and on the Apple side. At that time, the Macintosh had software that was user friendly. We all—we went that way with the Apple—Mac. Franklin: In many cases, they’re still often the— Brunson: Understand. Franklin: --computers of choice for graphics and audio-video. Brunson: Certainly. But what we ran up against, especially with Boeing—Boeing saying, no way, we’re not going to go with anything Apple. You can kiss your Apples goodbye, because we’re not going to go that route. But they didn’t have the software development on the PC side that met our needs. So we’d keep putting them off and putting them off. I know some of their departments now are all back on that side of the fence. But that went on in the graphics side, but on the photography side, it was a real struggle, because our photographers came from the old school—film—and fortunately we had a few guys who were advocates for the digital end and helped us stumble through that. It was a rough journey. But it changed everything we did. We—a group of 75 people—there are now zero photographers at Hanford that we know of—that I know of. They’ve all went by the way of—they’re extinct. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. And the technology now is—you might not get the same—always the same quality— Brunson: No. Franklin: --but now that everyone has a camera for most purposes that you can document a lot of the history out there. Yeah. So how did—so on the graphics side are you talking mostly about CAD software? Or is that—what kinds of software did you— Brunson: Well, we used— Franklin: Did you use for the graphics software? Brunson: We used FreeHand and Photoshop and those types of Illustrator-type softwares. [SIGH] I’m drawing a blank here. You can cut this out, I guess. Can we stop just a sec? Franklin: Yeah, sure, of course. Brunson: Okay. Get my head on straight. Franklin: Yeah, no worries. Brunson: Where I was going. Ask me the question again. Franklin: I was just—what kinds of software did you primarily use in the— Brunson: Oh, okay. In the graphics side. Franklin: In the graphics process, yeah. Brunson: It was, on the Mac side, it was FreeHand, was our base—when I was heavily involved with it, that was the base. On the PC side, we used Corel Draw, and we used Illustrator and those were kind of the basic ones that I was familiar with. Franklin: When did you feel—because computer power has almost exponentially increased since the invention of the microchip. So when did you finally feel, from a professional standpoint, that these computer technologies were on par or had surpassed a lot of what had been done, then, by analog technologies? Or did you ever feel that it was that way? Brunson: Yeah. When I was at the end of my career—I left there in 2008—by about that time, we were overcome by good technology. Before that, some of the new guys that came in who were really well-trained, it was—they made computers do things that you wonder, how in the world did they do that? You were kind of glad you were getting old. [LAUGHTER] I’ll give you just a brief—at one point when I was with Lockheed, I was asked to go to work on a proposal in the Washington, DC area for the FBI. We were there most of the summer, about 35 days, 40 days, I guess. Franklin: Wow. Brunson: I had familiarity with—a lot of experience with FreeHand. So the last thing I was told before I left was, oh, by the way, they don’t use Macs. They use Corel Draw on PC. I looked at him and I said, I’ve never done any Corel work. Well, you better get started! So I’m getting on, packing my suitcase to go put my life on the line in Virginia or Maryland. So I had a real learning curve, the first week there. And I made it. I got so that I really liked the program. But it was—everything’s about the same, except it’s a little different. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right, you might—the basics are probably pretty easily transferrable, but there’s the details and special features. Brunson: Yup, that’s exactly it. Franklin: So how long did you work for Boeing, and when did Boeing transition? It went from Boeing to Lockheed? Brunson: Boeing to Lockheed. Franklin: And when did that— Brunson: I think that was nine years later—I think I worked for Boeing for nine years before Lockheed came to town. I think. [LAUGHTER] I have it written down somewhere. Franklin: Right, no, that’s understandable. And you worked there until May 2008? Brunson: 2008. Franklin: Can you talk about the—so you worked for Westinghouse—Westinghouse Hanford, Boeing, Lockheed Martin—can you talk about the—I mean you talked a little bit about the attitude between the change in contractors, but was that a—was there kind of like a culture change as well? Brunson: Oh. Franklin: And did your group have to kind of readjust, or were you sheltered from the larger storm of contractors, contractor change? Brunson: Well, we—in a group like—in some groups it was no problem at all, no hassle, nothing to worry about. In our groups, we worked at a level in the company where we were part of—we were part of all the stuff. So when we lost our mothership so to speak, there were hurt feelings and there was a lot of unknown canyons to go down, as far as—we worried about it. We worried about it, that these changes breaking us up and tearing us apart, and it always seemed to do that to some extent. The Lockheed was different than the others—Lockheed Martin—because they were still tied to Lockheed Corporate. There was a Hanford and a Corporate. And half the stuff that we did, we were working for Lockheed Martin Corporate, but we were here. It was—there were a lot more challenges for our organization, and it was more contractor-supported than it was Hanford-supported. I was kind of the Hanford guy. Franklin: Right. Brunson: For years. I was an art director, where most of the old Hanford numbers—everything would come to me, and we would then, you know, get it done, and get it filed correctly and all of that. But there were times, like when I went to work for on this FBI proposal, that that was purely Lockheed Martin. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: So that gave people like me a chance to learn other things and do other things, and it made a better person out of all of us, because we got to do things that—we were tied to the Hanford fence previously. So I don’t know if that answers your question or not. Franklin: Yeah, I think that answers it really well. Brunson: But you have to remember, whenever a contractor came in to take over, there was a proposal. You know, the Department of Energy or AEC or whoever we were at the time, they said, hey, you guys have been doing this work for x number of years. We want to see whether we can get it done cheaper. So every time that happened, every time somebody else took over the contract, there’s things that were lost that we were used to. Whether that was good or bad—most of the time you thought it was bad, because that’s not the way it’s always been done. Just fear of change. There was a lot of downsizing that went on. So groups that had had 65, 68 people in them, suddenly they were down to 20. That meant people went somewhere else to work. So there were layoffs. Franklin: Right, because as you mentioned, a lot of the point of this bidding and contracts was to get the work done at the lowest price. Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: So there’s an incentive there to cut costs when and where you could. Brunson: Yeah. When we transferred—I’d been at Westinghouse 17 years, and I provided quite a bit of work for the proposal. My manager, who was [UNKNOWN], she was the manager of technical communications at the time—she went back to Pittsburgh and worked for almost six months as part of that team. I took her job during that timeframe. We were so excited that we won—we won the bid—and come back and find that—sorry, guys, you’re not going to be Westinghouse anymore; you’re going to Boeing. That was very disheartening to those of us who had been branded with the Circle-W on our butt. We were disappointed and feelings were hurt. Franklin: Right, right. Brunson: It caused all kinds of trauma for a lot of people for a short time. Franklin: Speaking of branding, for work done on the—did each contractor have its own kind of corporate branding that it used on all its own publications, used at Hanford? Did you have to learn a whole new set of corporate graphic identity each time? Brunson: Yes. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: Oftentimes—and there were also—Department of Energy had their own branding, if you will. So there was always a little muddy water about the use of logos and the use of the fonts that were used, the different kinds of fonts, and the colors, and all of that. It was an interesting journey. I’ll put it that way. Franklin: Brand identities, almost sacred. Brunson: Well, it was. Westinghouse, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin all had extreme control on their—they had someone at headquarters that had an eye on everything we did, because we were always getting our hand slapped. You can’t do that. Franklin: Well, let me tell you, it’s the same here. Brunson: Yup. Well, that’s-- Franklin: Everyone’s interested in preserving their brand identity. Was the majority of your work—or I guess maybe can you describe the balance of your work—was it public, for public consumption, or private consumption, or a mixture of both, the work that you did at Hanford? Brunson: It depends on at what phase of my career. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: There were times in the early part of the career that everything that I touched went into a report or a presentation for the site. Franklin: Okay. So for internal consumption? Brunson: Internal. As time went on, some of that—at that time, most of it was, you know, you had to have a Q clearance to be there to begin with. Most everything was pretty private because, on FFTF, that was a new technology and we didn’t do an awful lot of sharing with the public. But then, as time went on and you started doing other things in the career path, you got to do things that were more fun. Public presentations and work for the science centers and things like that, and displays and what-have-you. Franklin: Did your group do work for the Hanford Science Center? Brunson: Yes. Franklin: Okay. How involved were you with the Hanford Science Center? Brunson: As required. We had projects that we would work through. There were several contractors that provided the same service. FFTF, we did a lot of models, as you already know, for FFTF because it was all new. It was new technology, it was a new thought process, and it was new. We had a lot of visitors from throughout the world. We developed the Science Center in the 400 Area out at FFTF that ultimately became the CREHST museum. They moved that building down, downtown. Franklin: Was that the same building that Allied Arts is in—that’s the former CREHST, right? Brunson: No, that’s—CREHST is just a couple notches down. Franklin: Sorry, I’m pretty new to the area. I moved here after CREHST had closed down. So the CREHST building, though, is a former site building? Brunson: It was built on at the 400 Area on a little ridge overlooking the reactor. Franklin: Oh. Brunson: It was put up in a hurry, and we built beautiful displays in there. You could go off—you could drive out there without a badge, and you could go in and go through the Science Center, the Visitors Center, we called it. FFTF Visitors Center. And it told the entire story; we had visual presentation, we had like six projectors that showed these—you could sit through a 30-minute 35-millimeter slide presentation with sound and all that. Franklin: Wow. Brunson: So that was—and that’s where most of those models were ultimately ended up. Some of them were actually in the reactor building itself, where visitors would come in and you could use—you couldn’t go in there because it was hot, but you could look at this model and they could point out various activities that were going on. Franklin: Did you do any work at all at the CREHST museum? Brunson: Personally, I did not, but our staff did. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: Mike Reisenauer did a lot of work for the museum down there. He built a lot of displays at Lockheed Martin. Franklin: Right, because I know that some of the items in our collection from that CREHST Museum were donated by Lockheed Martin. So that’s why I thought there might have been a— Brunson: There were a lot of the things that were in the basement there, which you never got to see, but there was a lot of material that we had created for other displays in the Lockheed Martin Center. We had a building out at the Richland Airport that was—we had a complete model shop in there. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brunson: And that’s where a lot of that stuff was manufactured. Parts—I wasn’t—I never did work in there, but we were—we managed that. It was what it was. Franklin: Right. Brunson: It was as required, we did it. Franklin: Right, right. Is there anything else that I haven’t asked you about that you’d like to mention? Brunson: Well, one of the things that I thought about in coming out here was that in the beginning, prior, you know, in the 50s—the 40s and the 50s, there were very few illustrators. There were very few technical illustrators who knew what to do. There were a few, but on the Hanford site, that often was—that type of work was performed by sign painters. That was a whole new world. It was—a lot of the big visuals back in those days were done by the sign shops. There were a number of sign painters at Hanford. I never did find out how many there were, but each area had two or three or maybe about as many as five sign painters. Franklin: Yeah, we have a lot of signs in our collection. A lot of hand-painted signs. Brunson: Yeah, but a lot of them—I mean 99% of them—weren’t painted on a board or on a piece of metal. They were painted on a tank or a wall or a series of pipes. They became pretty crafty. Sometimes there was a little head-butting that went on between the crafts, you know—you guys can’t do that. Well, yeah, we can. Look, we did it. Well, you’re not supposed to. Well, no, you’re not supposed to. So there was some near-issues with union—or labor and non-labor activities. But the early sign painters were really good artists. The ones that we formatted—or that we faced with, they were really good artists. They were hardly ever recognized as such. Franklin: When did that profession—when did the sign painters start to kind of fade away on the Hanford site? Brunson: Well, they still have them, but now they all have the digital—everything’s digital, and vinyl cutting. I mean, it’s kind of like a graphics shop now. Franklin: Well, I imagine that would’ve been folded kind of into graphic design. Brunson: Yeah, but it never—to my knowledge, it’s never ever—you know, there’s these guys, the ones with x’s on their stomachs and those that have zeros on their stomachs. To my knowledge, they’re still a separate entity. Franklin: Interesting. What kinds of tools did you use as an illustrator when you were doing these drawings and things? What kind of—did you have access to a pretty wide array of tools, or what? Brunson: Well, yes, we did, for the time. At the time, we did. In the early days, we had typesetting machines that had—it was the black-and-white film and we had fonts that were big, and you’d spin it around—if you were spelling something out, you’d spin it around, and then you’d expose it, and it would be exposed to a tape that was going through a photo bath which was all self-contained. It would come out the other side in these long strips—you might have 50 feet of it. There was always problems with the process, too. But we would dry that—or it would come out and it would dry. Then we’d put it through a machine that was a waxer. It would wax the backs of it. Then we’d put it on our drying boards—big Hamilton drying boards, with a long straightedge on it, and we’d cut out all these letters. Then we’d lay them up on the board a line at a time, and clean them up, and then send it to photography to have a photomechanical transfer, which was a black-and-white print. So, a-ha, here it is. Or you could get that same—like the film that I have over here, that is a clear photo—it’s a positive, film positive. And then you can either lay that over another graphics that was airbrushed, or you can paint the back of it, and that was the one that we found on the shelf back on our tour through there of the interim K storage—an illustration. That was an evolution. We went from doing airbrush drawings that was very, very time-consuming. I brought my airbrush and some of the tools. And it was kind of a one-time deal. Back then, to be an illustrator, an artist, you had to be an illustrator and an artist. You couldn’t fake it. You had to know what you were doing. So if you made a boo-boo, you were in trouble. And if somebody who was a good illustrator, but they were clumsy and sloppy, they didn’t last very long, because you couldn’t afford to have him redo it and redo it, you know? So that took a lot of pretty good artists out of the picture, because they couldn’t do what was required of them. Franklin: Right. Well, this sounds like it would be a great time to take a quick break and set up to view some of the materials that you brought. Brunson: Sure. Franklin: To kind of illustrate—literally—your work. Brunson: Okay. Franklin: So we’ll just, we’ll shut it off and then we’ll— [VIDEO CUTS] Brunson: Well, I’ll give it a shot. I’ve done this a few times over the years for schools and what-have-you where I have the thing in my—I have a big studio, I have it all laid out. It’s kind of awkward this way. But basically, an illustration is done—or was done at that time—our client, an engineer, would contact us and come in with the stack of drawings where they needed an illustration done, and what they kind of wanted as the end product. And what we would do is assign it to an illustrator, and he would start by doing a rough pencil sketch after looking at the blueprints to say, is this kind of what you want? Yes, that’s what—he’d come back, and after an initial rough, and then he would start ploughing through all the data. Basically, its drawings were to scale and oftentimes a cutaway to show how it worked. But it had to be accurate, and it had to be the right scale, which was kind of a unique part of the job that we did. The way we would ordinarily lay it out would be we would use all the tools we had in our tool chest to lay it out and to draw it. We would use mechanical pencils. This is a pencil sharpener. We would lay out the drawing, we would ink it then, with—once it had been approved, we would transfer it to product that was—or paper or vellum that was of high quality, or even Mylar. And then we would ink it with fine pens that would—haven’t used these for several years. [LAUGHTER] But they were varying size ink pens. Very accurate and very easy to work with. These have been around for a long time. I’ve owned this set since the early ‘60s. Franklin: Wow. Brunson: But when the illustration was laid out and done, and the engineer took a look at it, we would ask him to tell us what he wanted on a copy—a blueprint copy, to put the words on it that he wanted on it, the title. And in the beginning, the titles were normally put on with a paintbrush. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Brunson: And oftentimes red tempera paint, like we used to use in grade school, you know. It worked easy and it went down well and it looked nice. Any really fine illustrations—I should say the fonts and the wording, oftentimes if it was really important, we would use this setup, which is a template that has an indentation, and we would put one of these type of pens into a little bug. This is called the bug. And it would line up in the track. We would follow this—it’s difficult to show on here, but the line would—you would follow the lettering—I don’t know, is this going to show or not? But it would—you’d be producing a—it would be—you’d lay it on—let’s— Camera man: Can you move it around? Franklin: Maybe we can—can you flip this part of it? Can you put this over there? Brunson: Do what now? Franklin: Hold it like that. But like—maybe hold it like that so they can— Brunson: Well, yeah, that’d be wrong, but that’d be putting it down below. It’s difficult. Ultimately, what it amounts to is that you’d have a—it would be laying down on a surface, and—[LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, sorry, we’re not really set up for the visual displays. Brunson: But anyway, this— Camera man: If you don’t mind, maybe I’ll just get closer. Maybe that will work. Emma Jo Rice: Okay, perfect. Maybe flip it and tell him to use that? Or what do you think? Camera man: Let’s try just to get closer to it. Rice: Okay. Camera man: So I have to—just a second here. Yeah. Move that out of the way. Okay. Brunson: That do it? Well, this, basically is a stylus that follows the shape of the letter, and above up here, a pen would be laying down the letters one by one. You’d move this around until you developed a sentence or a word, a callout. So this was—it looks awkward, and it looks like it’s time-consuming, but it isn’t. In reality, it goes real quickly. And there’s—sometimes there’s boo-boos, if you aren’t watching yourself, you’ll misspell something. It’s easily done. But that was one of the—this was a nice advance, because we used to do it all with a red sable paintbrush. That’s how we’d put the lettering on the illustrations. So this type of information was giant leap forward. Then once we started getting photo paper, that enabled us to—technology just kept advancing this about as fast as we could keep up with it. And we’d buy stuff, and before the year was out, it was obsolete because something else had come along. So thank goodness, it enabled us to provide a better end product. This was just basically an illustration of—we have a photograph, a colored photograph, of one of the illustrations that shows this. I don’t know what more to say about it than that. Franklin: Okay. No, that’s great. So maybe now we’ll—do you feel comfortable, now that we’ve shown this, do you want to move on to the photographs? Brunson: Sure. Franklin: So what we’ll do then is you’ll sit where I’m sitting, I’ll kind of come around to the side. We’ll get the music stand up, get it focused on the stand, and I’ll come and bring some of our materials over here. And then we will-- Rice: Does that go down any more, or just tilt it? Camera man: That works. Rice: Okay. [INAUDIBLE] Brunson: I don’t even know who that was. Rice: I think that should be okay. Brunson: Can you— Rice: It’s actually positioned—it seems so simple, but it’s really [INAUDIBLE] What do you-- Brunson: Yeah, that’s— Rice: If you want to— Brunson: No, we can— Franklin: [INAUDIBLE] to where you’re at. Rice: Sure. Franklin: Oh, no, I’ll just be behind. Rice: Okay. Franklin: Right here. Okay. Are we ready? Camera man: Yeah, yeah. Let’s go ahead. Franklin: So this is—why don’t you describe this illustration first. What it was, where we would have found it. Brunson: Okay. This was part of the fuel development activity that was an ongoing process at Hanford for nuclear fuel. I picked this one out because it was an attractive illustration. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Brunson: There were techniques that were used on this work where I—in this particular way of putting lettering on. You’ll notice the lettering, that the callouts that identify it and the title on this, those were all—this was about a 32 x 40 inch illustration. It was a black-and-white cutaway illustration in perspective. And it was then transferred onto an illustration board, and it was airbrushed. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: Which was a time-consuming process. This whole—an illustration like this would probably take a week, a week-and-a-half to do. And it maybe changed several times during that whole process. This was an advanced technique, because prior to using these type of tools, this was often done with a paintbrush. Franklin: Wow. Brunson: Which didn’t have the same sharpness and same quality. This is a very attractive illustration. Franklin: It is. Brunson: And it’s very well done. It was, again, an airbrushed illustration. Franklin: So then, just to reiterate, the lettering on this illustration was put on there by the same method that you demonstrated there with the stylus and the guide. Brunson: Yes, that is correct. Franklin: And so that allows, I imagine, for a lot of kind of quality control over, and consistency— Brunson: Yes. Franklin: --throughout the illustration not to distract from the information being presented. Brunson: And the bad thing about doing the lettering on something like this: after you’ve already done all of this, and spent a week in that process, to have a boo-boo with the paintbrush or a bug, it was a disaster. You had bad dreams about things like that-- Franklin: Oh, jeez. Brunson: --if you’re an illustrator. Franklin: So one of the next ones, kind of a personal favorite of mine, one that’s in our collection of the FFTF, I’d like you to talk about this publication. Were you in charge of the design of this? Brunson: Well— Franklin: Oh, here, can we— Brunson: I wanted to see what was in it. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brunson: And see—I didn’t even—yeah, these were— Franklin: Did you do the cover of this? Was this part of your group, or--? Brunson: Yes, yes. Yeah. Franklin: Okay. So kind of describe if you can remember, kind of the thought that went in—this is a very kind of futuristic-looking, digital—but with this kind of realistic photo dropped on it. So kind of maybe describe the kind of the thought process behind this cover. Brunson: Well, it—I didn’t personally draw this—or lay this out. David Beckley, I think, was the illustrator that did, and he was very, very talented. This was in celebration of the first three years of FFTF in operation. It was kind of a bragging tool, if you will. It had—there was—one, it was expensive to do. Back in those days, it was expensive to do something like this. And it borderline pushed the edge for what was legal to do, as far as colors and all of that. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brunson: But internally—this, of course is an aerial view of the FFTF Reactor that we put in there. Same illustration. And basically, went through and set all sorts of—oh-ho, there’s an illustration that I did. Well, not only did I do it, but nearly every other person that worked on the FFTF project had some dealings with this, because it changed so many times. But this is an illustration that I did. There was another illustrator who did this little section, this building here, Ron Wick, who retired recently from Supply System. He helped with that, and I did everything else. We submitted it, and it won an international award. Franklin: Wow. Brunson: But it was—this was just basically a recap of the construction milestones and the various activities as they were being—these major components as they were being installed. So it was a classic—this brochure won an award as well. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brunson: For that time. Franklin: Yeah, it’s very visually appealing with its photos. Was the cover—was that done with—was that a—did computers create this cover, or was this kind of analog reproduction of kind of a digital—I guess that’s— Brunson: Yeah, it looks digital, doesn’t it? Franklin: Yeah, it looks kind of very Tron. Brunson: This is probably the third or fourth version, and I think those kind of things evolved. This was a good product. We were all proud to be part of that association. Franklin: Okay. So the next one is another one that we mentioned. We’ll see how we can get this to stay. Might have to come and—oh! All right. Wow. Brunson: Well, that’s pretty well— Franklin: Yeah. It might make it there for a minute. Actually, I’ll probably-- Brunson: We could probably—well that—I think that shows it pretty well. Franklin: Yeah, it sure does. So why don’t we talk about that—so this is the illustration that you said won an award. Brunson: Yeah, it did. And it was done—this was drawn and, of course, like I said, we did so many variations of this drawing. It was inked and this part here, the building itself, was a film positive. It was a giant, clear film with black lines on it. And then we painted on the back of it with acrylic. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: And it was kind of what Disney’s cartoons did. That’s where we kind of developed this thinking of that aspect. It made life a lot easier. It was so much faster than airbrush. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: So this is kind of a step up from airbrush. This was 32 inches wide by 40 inches long. It’s actually out of that proportion. This is an illustration of this core that was also 40 inches long. Franklin: Oh, wow. Brunson: And these were 40 inches long. And we did all of these illustrations, time and time again. The background here was done with opaque watercolor. And then this unit was laid on top of that. That’s how it was done. It was—at that time, that was kind of the state of the art. Franklin: Right. Sounds like there’s a lot of different techniques that go into this, different processes. Brunson: And this was all done with sponge. I mean this part down here was just a sea sponge and various colors of dark and light paint. Franklin: Oh, wow. Brunson: And the sky—the actual original, the sky was a little nicer than it is here. But that’s, of course—that’s kind of the setting. So this was in Nuclear Engineering as their centerfold of the year— Franklin: I’ll show that cover real quick. Brunson: --for International Nuclear Engineering. Franklin: Oh, that means you’re top billing right there, the FFTF Foldout. Brunson: Yeah. I was always proud of that. We all were. Rice: That’s a hand-painted title? Franklin: So this is a hand-painted title here? Brunson: Yeah, this is a paintbrush. Red sable brush. You just hand-lettered to make sure that you’ve got it. You lay it out on a piece of paper so you know exactly the center of it and where it’s going to be, and then go in with a light pencil and pencil it in so you had your spelling correct. Because it’s pretty—I’ve even misspelled my name a few times, when you’re concentrating on doing it. So that’s just me. So it was laid out in pencil and then you just hold your breath and start painting, after you’ve scribbled on a piece of scrap for a while to get the feel. If you didn’t do that every day, it was kind of pot luck. Franklin: Right. Brunson: And down here, again, these were done with the bug. Franklin: The stylus? Brunson: Yeah, with the stylus. Rice: So why were some of the titles hand-painted? Brunson: Well, one, they were large. Rice: Mm-hmm. Brunson: You know, some of them were this tall on these illustrations. There wasn’t really any other way, at that time—that we had—that you could create that. Rice: Mm. Brunson: So that was just part of the timeframe. Franklin: That one’s great. Rice: That’s awesome. Franklin: So let’s do—talk a little bit about this. Brunson: Yeah, this was interesting. This—Hank Krueger was one of our cartoonists for years out there. Had a very distinct style and a personality that was—it was great. He was really a character. The Hanford News was, like it says, serving the Hanford family. It came out once a week, and it had all sorts of information in it regarding the state of Hanford. This was a Christmas—it was actually security—it was a security statement about where’s your badge? Franklin: Yeah! Brunson: I’ve kept this for years and years. I’ve shown it a lot. So it always tickles me to see it. Because everything about it has something to do with safety. And that’s how you could justify doing something like that. Franklin: Mm-hm. Brunson: Because an illustration like this doesn’t happen overnight. It took a little—it costs a little to do that. But the Hanford News, for years, the whole back page of it was ads. It was kind of like the free ads that are in the Tri-City Herald today, you know. So there was always a lot of interest in buying a boat or duck decoys or an end table or something. Consequently, it kind of distracted from the work being done on Fridays. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Brunson: So they normally wouldn’t produce—they wouldn’t hand it out until quitting time on Fridays. Franklin: Oh, okay, right, yeah, that makes good sense. So here we go. This might be a little small, but here we have some of the ads here. Right, so cars for sale, wanted. And these were all for—did it cost to, or were these all free ads? Brunson: These were all free ads. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brunson: But you had to be on site. You know, for sale, and wanted, and trade, and free, and commuter pools. So it was a great service. Franklin: Right. Brunson: And all the contractors got it. So it was a great deal. Franklin: Right, yeah, I can imagine that this would have been important. Brunson: But that was part of what we did as well in the graphics department. Rice: [INAUDIBLE] the next one? Franklin: So, here we go. So this photo has you in it right? Brunson: Yeah, that’s me. Franklin: Over on the, second from the left? Brunson: Yeah, I’m the non-president male. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, this is a picture of the president of Westinghouse Hanford Company. His name was Al Squires. This is the team that we finally pulled together after years of actually working on it, the Final Safety Analysis Report. FSAR. It was a major, major activity regarding the safety of the operation of FFTF. Franklin: Wow. Brunson: It was a big job and a lot of people supported it. We had a special activity where they thanked us and gave us cake or something. [LAUGHTER] This was the team that was in charge of the management of it. Franklin: So—this one? Rice: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Rice: [INAUDIBLE] Franklin: Yeah. This is kind of different. Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: And all of these—all of the things we’ve scanned—all of the items Dennis brought, and then others we’ll make available with the interview on our website. So why don’t you tell us a bit about—this seems a little bit different from— Brunson: Well, there was a time when the PRTR Reactor building in the 300 Area, it was the Plutonium Research Test Reactor. It was a little domed building in the southeast part of the 300 Area. They decided this would be a great place to do work on the Star Wars activities. They were actively pursuing this when we got a new President, and it all went down with one big flush. But during that timeframe, we had a lot of illustrators that got to do some neat drawings about potential activities in space. So it was indeed a Hanford— Franklin: Project? Brunson: Project. Franklin: So the new President you’re talking about, would that have been—so it was George HW? Brunson: No, it was before that. It was back in the Carter days and times like that. Franklin: Oh, okay. Okay, so this predated the Star Wars—Reagan’s STI. Okay, but this was some of the-- Brunson: Yeah. We got excited about it for a while, but we just—it didn’t pan out. So that’s— Franklin: That’s pretty exciting. Rice: Yeah. Franklin: Pretty exciting picture. So this here—let me— Brunson: I don’t know if you can see that—no, that’s-- Franklin: Summary Description of the Fast Flux— Brunson: This is called a HEDL-400. HEDL was Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: We were basically in charge of the Fast Flux Test Facility. Franklin: Does 400 correspond to the area? Brunson: It is—well, I assumed that it did. It was the 400 Area. But inside, that’s—this is the—that’s the negative for that FFTF—the big one— Franklin: Oh, okay! Rice: Cool! Brunson: And they handed this to me in celebration. That was in 1981, when this was produced. Pat Cabell was the editor-in-chief, and I was sort of his whipping boy. Doing illustrations for all of the—and putting the book together. Are you able to see that? A lot of the illustrations in here, I did a lot of these illustrations. And a lot of us in the groups did them. But this is the interim decay storage facility that you have an illustration for over here. Franklin: Right. That’s right here, yeah. Brunson: This was the black-and-white version of that. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: That illustration that you have was done with the film positive and we painted on the back of it. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: I put a six-foot-tall cowboy down here in the corner to show scale. Franklin: That’s how large this is. Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: Okay, great. Brunson: So this basically is the bible of FFTF, as far as how it’s constructed and how it was finalized. It’s kind of an as-built. Franklin: Okay. Oh, great. Do you have the Ron Kathren— Rice: Oh, yeah, yeah. Franklin: Yeah. That might be a good one to—I don’t know if we want to go through every single one. Brunson: No, that wasn’t my intent. Franklin: No, but we will make all of those available. Rice: Did he go into detail about how that whole thing was produced? Franklin: This one? I believe so. Brunson: Yeah, pretty much. Franklin: The airbrush and the— Rice: I didn’t quite catch that. I know the other ones— Franklin: So, how do you—Husco--? Brunson: Huscoubea. Franklin: So this is kind of Tri-Cities history, and-- Brunson: Yup! Franklin: WSU Tri-Cities, but also Hanford, in the way of the Joint Center for Graduate—so why don’t you talk a bit about the Huscoubea and your contribution to— Brunson: Yeah, this was—there was a fellow who—his name was Trent—who worked at WSU. Frank Trent was his name. He was a maintenance guy, and he was an artist. He was asked to come up with a critter that was part husky, part cougar and part beaver. They were initially going to use it for the first graduation—the diploma—as kind of a logo. And he struggled with it, and then he came to me and said, hey, can you help me? So I came up with a black-and-white version and they liked it. So he then came back later and they had me do an oil painting of it. So this is part of an oil painting that’s a little bit larger—I mean, shows the river bank, and the river in the distance and all of that. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Brunson: And it hung here at the college for years, and I think somewhere it’s still hanging. I hope. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And so here’s another. Brunson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: We’ll have to come up here—and so—a little more. This is Professor Emeritus Ron Kathren who’s been interviewed by us, and Herbert Parker Foundation, long-time health physics professional and proud Coug, holding the oil painting of the Huscoubea on our 20th celebration, which I think would have been in 2008 or 2009. Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: So this was the final painting, then. Brunson: That’s the painting. Franklin: --that was done. Brunson: It hung in this building upstairs, as you came in. For years and years it was there. Yeah. I used to come out here for art classes at night and on the weekends. It was—it always hung there and I was always so proud of it. It was an unusual illustration. Franklin: Yeah. It’s probably maybe the most unusual college mascot-- Brunson: [LAUGHTER] Rice: Yeah. Franklin: --I’ve ever seen. Brunson: It didn’t last for long. Franklin: Okay, so this will be our last one here. Both of them? Rice: Well, the hand drawing probably. Franklin: Okay. Rice: I don’t know if it will show up, though. Oh, okay. Franklin: It looks like it will. So this obviously isn’t a final, right? Brunson: No, that’s considered a rough. Franklin: Okay. Brunson: That was—we did an ongoing—that was a main—a big part of our activity at Hanford in the graphics department was safety and security. Franklin: Right. Brunson: And it kept a lot of people employed, because they’re always wanting something new to—it was very—they were real serious about safety and security, which is great. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, when you’re dealing with nuclear reactors. Brunson: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. And the Hanford safety record is very well-documented. Okay, well that’s great. And—that, yeah. So, Dennis, thank you so much for coming. Brunson: Well— Franklin: And sharing your story and walking us through the process. Brunson: This was fun. Franklin: Oh, great. Well, thank you. Brunson: I could probably keep this up for a couple hours! [LAUGHTER] If you didn’t have something important to do. <a href="https://youtu.be/pXttl755HyE">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 Area T Canyon B Canyon FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility) 300 Area Hanford Science Center 400 Area PRTR (Plutonium Reclamation Test Reactor) HEDL (Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1964- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1964-2008 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dennis Brunson Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Technical illustration Radioactive waste disposal Nuclear reactors Description An account of the resource Dennis Brunson moved to Richland, Washington in 1964. Dennis worked on the Hanford Site from 1964- 2008. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/18/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. Relation A related resource <a href="http://hanfordhistory.com/collections/show/12">Oral History Metadata</a> https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9824ec8966bf981ce8951152b797944e.JPG bf9b93cefcb51ac53d04c8b194cee864 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Walter Braten Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Walt Braten on January 18, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Walt about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, could you state and spell your full name for us? Walt Braten: Okay. I’m Walter James Braten. And it’s spelled B-R-A-T-E-N. Franklin: And Walter is--? How do you spell “Walter”? Braten: W-A-L-T-E-R. Middle initial J for James. Franklin: Thanks. And do you prefer Walter or Walt? Braten: Walt is fine. Franklin: Okay, great. So, Walt, tell me how you came to the Hanford area. Braten: I had been working at a job that became more and more less-satisfying and I was looking for something else. I went into a gun store and talked to the people I’d been visiting with. I said, where’s so-and-so? And they said, well, he’s gone to work for Hanford. He’s got a great job. And I said, really? Tell me about it. And so he told me to come to the Federal Building and look into becoming a patrolman. So I did so, and after a time, they called me and asked me to come down for an interview, and then hired me. As a Hanford patrolman. But they have classes for people to prepare to be patrolmen, and it wasn’t going to start for some weeks. They said, would you like to come work just any old job we can scare up until the job opens—the training starts? So I said, sure, and I became a delivery guy, running around delivering phone books and all kinds of stuff. And then the training started. And we had several large books of how a patrolman should dress, how long their hair should be, and all the details of their job. After going through all that, we had also a lot of physical training. We had to climb a ladder that was held up by cables and that spooked some of the would-be patrolman. And carry heavy weights and run a certain distance. I did all that. And they hired me. So then I had a training session and it was physical and also information. I had to run a mile in a certain length of time and all that. And I did all that, even though I’d been working at desks for years before. I wasn’t quite as zippy, and I was a little older than most of the other would-be patrolmen. And I had a pretty good time, and I enjoyed the job. Lots of shooting and knowing what we should do and not do in a radiation area. Then I was hired and at first, I was—I think they called it a red badge or whatever—they didn’t give me a gun until I had some training. So mostly I just let cars in and out of the plant. I had to look at their badges, look in their lunchbox, look in their purses, look in their trunk and wave them on. And that, you can imagine, that got pretty boring. But they had other jobs, like tactical response team and traffic and working at the computer, person in charge of letting people in and out of the plant, making plutonium. And also they had a boat, a jet boat on the Columbia, and they had a helicopter. And I applied for everything. So I worked traffic, and I worked running the computerized protection for the Z Plant. And generally had an interesting time. Franklin: Okay, what year was it that you started out at Hanford? Braten: Oh, gee, I don’t remember. Franklin; Do you remember the decade? Braten: Pardon me? Franklin: Do you remember the, like, kind of a guess or like a timespan, what decade it would have been? Braten: Well, see, I’d say I was in my 50s. And I was born in 1930. Franklin: Okay. Braten: So—and then I stayed about 15 years. Franklin: Okay. Braten: At Hanford. Franklin: So that would’ve been like the late ‘70s, early ‘80s? Braten: Yes. Franklin: Okay. So you became a patrolman in your 50s. Braten: Right. Franklin: That is kind of an—older, I think, than the average person who—kind of, new patrolman. Braten: Yes. But I was able to do it. And I had a degree in—a bachelors—and I was accustomed to working with people in the other jobs I’ve had. So I had a good time. We had to be very careful and not make mistakes and let someone in who shouldn’t be in. And on everyone’s badge, there was information on their level of security and which plants they would be allowed in, and some other things. So it was imperative that we keep the security. Because this is extremely important; it was plutonium. We had to beware of the enemy, of course. Probably knew as much about it as we did. And we had to be aware of the love triangle where somebody wants to kill somebody at the plant. That had happened in another plant, many—out of state here. Franklin: Are you talking about the—oh, the lady—Karen Silkwood, is that--? Braten: No. Franklin: Okay. So—sorry, explain this “love triangle” thing a bit more. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this. Braten: Well, if somebody is involved with someone not their husband or wife and the party being cheated on could decide to kill himself and the Romeo. This is what one person did, I was told. And they had a mess to clean up. Franklin: Do you know where that had happened? Braten: I was told it was in Idaho. Franklin: Oh, okay. So— Braten: This is all gossip. Franklin: Sure, hearsay. Braten: And then there was the disgruntled employee who’s going to be fired and wants to be vengeful and destructive. So we had lots of drills in the middle of the night. After I got on working as a traffic person—I liked it because I could run around. I had certain places I had to check. But they’d announce, intruder at certain place. And I would immediately accelerate, tell them I was coming. They had patrolmen involved in certain positions and jobs in that situation. At first we didn’t know if it was real, and then they made it real—let us know that it was a—I mean, let us know that it was a drill. Because we were going in loaded, with M-16s and pistols and shotguns and—for real. And we’d have some exercises. They brought in some people out of state with lasers on the weapons, and we could shoot at each other and disable and “kill” the other person. This was excellent training. We had a good time doing that, except when they’d have me walking around to be the first guy to get shot. That wasn’t fun. Anyway, our jobs were much like night watchmen at times, going through the buildings, making sure someone hadn’t left their coffee maker on or water running or anything that shouldn’t be happening. We also were checking for breaches of security. We had some file cabinets that had combinations on them, and they contained secret documents. If I went in the office and tried the handle and pulled it open, that was a breach. And we’d have to call the supervisor to come in and inventory the contents and so on. So that made us popular, too. Franklin: Did that ever happen? Braten: I didn’t find any. We would pick up their desk blotter and look under it, because we were told some people wrote their combination there. So we tried to think, as human beings, open the desk drawer if it was not locked and just look. That kept us busy all night. In one of the plants, they had a flood and the water brought up radiation out of the tile. And when I went in, I had—they called it SWP. They had booties and clothes and we went in and I managed to get my feet contaminated. They called it getting crapped up. Franklin: Yup. Braten: That delayed the normal routine. Periodically, we’d have an hour in the middle of our day to exercise. They tried to keep us physically fit and aware. And doing it right. There were dangers, of course, with contamination. If we went on top of any of the buildings, we had to get surveyed, because the bird droppings were radiated, would contaminate our shoes. We just had to deal with this existence of something invisible, odorless, tasteless, but it could kill us. Franklin: Sure. Braten: I enjoyed the job. We would examine the people driving in with their glove compartment and trunk and whatever. And when the busses came in, we’d hop on. Many of the people were asleep. Sometimes, I’d say, welcome to Disneyland West, and wake them up. I have to look in your purses and check your badges. One time, I looked at a guy’s badge and there was a woman’s picture on it. And I said, what’s this? And he said, oh, I got my wife’s badge. She’s got mine! So, we helped him go into the outside of the place he wanted to go in, to the guard’s station, where his manager could come up and write him a temporary badge. And his wife somewhere was going through the same process. We had some problems with people sneaking in, back when the coyote pelts were valuable. The animals on Hanford were tame, and they would come in and shoot them. So we patrolmen had to roam around in the dark and try to catch them. We never did. But I think two patrolmen managed to bump into each other in the dark. We had a helicopter that was French, had a heat indicator, could fly over and see people or animals. That helped a lot. Franklin: Were there any breaches or anything while you were working as a patrolman? Braten: No, not really. We were warned that the peace people would might sneak in and try to make a scene. But that never happened. That I saw. I don’t think it happened at Hanford. Mostly, it was people who were lost. They’d come into the Hanford Barricade and to the T where if they turned left, they’d go down to the Columbia, and turn right, they’d come back into town, or straight ahead into the Hanford Area. We had one guy show up—I didn’t deal with him—who was bound and determined he was going to go straight ahead because he had gone straight ahead, and by God there was a ferry in there. We told him, no, he couldn’t pay his toll. If he’d go out, turn right, and go down to the Columbia, and if there wasn’t a great big bridge, please come back and tell us. He didn’t come back, so he must’ve found bridge. But ignored the “come back and tell us.” Sometimes people would show up and dancing about really needing a restroom. They’d want to come in our guard shack if we’d let them. We weren’t supposed to, but often we did. We were well-armed and—I felt safe. Franklin: Kind of hard to turn down someone in need of a restroom. Braten: Some young woman about to have an accident. Franklin: Yeah. Braten: We had to use our common sense. And then I worked traffic for a while. Took training, breathalyzer training and radar training. Franklin: Was that traffic on the Hanford Site? Braten: Just on the Hanford Site. The management downtown would just have a cat fit if we stopped anybody outside the Project. They didn’t want us getting involved. We had to leave Hanford and go over to where there was a pump station, and there’d been some vandalism. So those working patrol would have to drive over there and look around. They were getting alarms downtown, and so we’d all rush out there. Turns out, it was an owl’s nest, and the mama owl would fly in and out and trip the detector system. So that was an example. Crawling around in the cactus and whatever, wondering what’s ahead was kind of tense. But it was just an owl. Franklin: You said you had to search people when they came in and out of areas. Did you ever find anything—oh sorry. Braten: We had a thing, you now, that would detect metal. And, well, sometimes people would mistakenly leave things in their cars. I opened a guy’s car once and there was about a metric ton of ammunition and stuff. Of course, you don’t enter Hanford with ammunition, guns, cameras and so on. And he said, oh, my dad’s a reloader and he borrowed my car. Well, he had to take—he or somebody had to take all that stuff down to the Federal Building. And he’d had to go down there later on to explain why and get it back. Another time, somebody had some guns, he’d been out shooting. One time, a guy had a flare pistol. A guy tried to leave once with his pickup truck full of sheet lead. I said, what are you doing? He said, well, I’ve got a pickup truck and it’s icy now and I wanted some weight to hold me down to get home safely. I’ll bring it back. I said, no, you can’t take all that lead out of here. Put it back. Stuff like that. Most—one guy had a missile. Turned out it was a model of, I think it was under Rockwell—a model that he’d taken off somebody else’s desk and was trying to sneak it home. That caused some excitement when we called in, there’s a guy with a missile here. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Braten: Once I hit a deer while on patrol and disabled a car, and I had to call that in. And I said, this is Braten working 2-4 and I hit a deer. And there’s a silence, then all kinds of excited communication: are you all right, where are you? And it was embarrassing. But anyway, somebody came and examined the scene. They later sold that car in their junk car sales they had at Hanford. That was broad daylight, and the deer just jumped up in front of me and ran across the road. Must’ve been unhappy and wanted to commit suicide. Anyway. There were times of a little excitement. Sometimes we had brush fires that were really dangerous. We had to control them and maintain security. People would park along our fence and take naps. And I’d see them; I’d have to wake them up and see what they were doing and send them on their happy way. That’s very—normally very humdrum. Franklin: Yeah. Had you heard about Hanford—so, you were not born—you’re not a native of Washington. Braten: No. Peoria, Illinois. Franklin: Peoria, Illinois. And when did you move to the state of Washington? Braten: Let’s see, it was in the early ‘60s. Franklin: Okay. Braten: I came out here to work as a missionary in Toppenish with the Native Americans and the migrants. Franklin: Okay. Braten: That’s how I got here. And I taught public school. Franklin: Had you heard about Hanford before you came out to this area? Braten: No. Franklin: No. Had you heard about the—I assume you would’ve heard about the Manhattan Project? Braten: Yes, yes. Franklin: When did you first become aware of Hanford? Braten: When I talked to that friend about a job that he had, an acquaintance had, that’s the first I’d heard of Hanford. And with my experience of being a juvenile parole counselor, et cetera, they might hire me. And I had—of course, I had a degree. So that’s the first I heard of it. I knew nothing about it. Franklin: When did you first learn as to what was being made at Hanford, and did it ever worry you to be working so close to atomic material? Braten: No. I learned what was going on when I hired on. And they gave us extensive training on contamination—surface contamination, airborne contamination. How could we get hurt, what we had to avoid. And if an area was marked, omit. Don’t pick up anything. If you see a big piece of rope or a mask or whatever, don’t pick it up. Notify the people who knew how to deal with potential radiation. So I knew nothing about it until I came. Franklin: What was one of the most challenging aspects of your work as a security guard—patrolman, sorry. Braten: Running. We had a captain who believed in running. I teased him and asked, Ralph, don’t you want anybody who’s going to stand and fight? He was an ex-marine from the Vietnam era. Anyway. Running was a challenge, a physical challenge. I could shoot. I was refused as a Navy chaplain because of my vision. But at Hanford, I shot expert, day and night, with the pistol, the rifle and the shotgun. That was no—that was fun. That was no challenge. But running was. Some of the training was a run, fall, shoot, run, fall, shoot. And I just couldn’t keep up to become a tactical response team member. I could, a regular patrolman. But that physical was the most challenging. And paying attention, not getting bored. Not getting lax. Not getting sleepy in the middle of the night. Franklin: Yeah, I imagine that would be very difficult, especially when you’re—what kind of shifts were you on? Were you on mostly nights, or did it vary a lot? Braten: Well, this was horrible. And totally unhealthy and everybody knows it except Hanford, apparently. We’d change shifts every week. And not in the same order as day and night. So we’d work a week in graveyard, and then a week in days or a week in swing, and year after year. It was really difficult. Oh, and we had a couple days off on what they call long change. That was hard to be rested. Franklin: I would imagine trying to switch from day to graveyard or vice versa with just a weekend to make that switch would be really trying on you. Braten: Well, occasionally—I don’t know what the other patrolmen did, but occasionally I’d show up on my day off. [LAUGHTER] And they’d either send me home or let me work. Franklin: That’s funny. What was one of the most rewarding aspects of your job as a patrolman? Braten: Well, occasionally, I’d—when I was out running around outside, I’d be able to help people who were stalled. The thought that I was doing something for our country. We were in the Cold War, back when our presidents negotiated, and we were making plutonium. And we and the Russians were playing chess. If you do this, we’ll do this. So don’t do this. And it worked. We didn’t have World War III. We had a lot of skullduggery and little brushes here and there, but we avoided World War III because we were well-armed. We had missiles in the air. We had weapons that would blow the smithereens out of wherever we dropped them. We had all kinds of missiles and submarines and in silos and in ships. I felt that I had a part in that, that I was protecting America. That was rewarding to me. Franklin: You eventually found a different—you quit being a patrolman. And how did that come about? Braten: They examined us physically every year and they gave us a psychology test. They didn’t want people running around with guns who had a loose wire in the nuke plant. Franklin: Makes sense. Braten: Yes. Well, at one of the tests, this doctor said he thought I had stress asthma, that if I was running around in an exciting time, I might have to stop and cough. I never experienced that, but they wanted me to stop being a patrolman. So they said, we’ll find you another job. Of course, they didn’t; I had to find a job. And I looked into quality control, which is about as popular as being a patrolman. You’re telling people they’re doing something wrong or have to stop sometimes because they have goals to benchmarks and stuff to achieve. And I enjoyed that. And that’s that packet of certificates I showed you. At first they trained me by follow-him. And then they got real busy and sent me to hundreds of classes, and one long one, about a year, about how to examine wells, if they were good. With the different kinds of wells. So I enjoyed that, being a quality control person. Franklin: Around what time did you become a quality control person, do you remember the era or—you know. Braten: Well, it was—let’s see, when did I leave? I left when I was 62. I was born in ’30, what does that make it? Franklin: ’92? Braten: Somewhere like that. Franklin: Early ‘90s? Braten: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Okay, so— [WOMAN OFF-SCREEN]: But you quit in ’93. So it was the late ‘80s. Braten: Oh, it had to be before that, if I left at ’93. Franklin: Yeah. Braten: Okay. Franklin: My bio here, it says—okay, so, you spent several years then as a QC. Braten: Right. Franklin: Which is what they call it. Braten: And I wanted to change because I thought I could make more money in communications. They sent papers around advertising the various openings. I went for an interview and the lady who interviewed me thought I was well-suited. I had a degree in English and speech and all this other stuff. And after we worked together a very short time, she decided she didn’t like me. It was—my feelings were the same. Anyway, she said I could apply for another job. We weren’t supply for another job for something like six months or a year, but she said I could start immediately looking for another job. And I finally retired. But then they called me back periodically to work as a QC again. But at my inflated wages. So that was great for me. Franklin: So you got the QC as the communications wages. Braten: Right. And of course, I was getting my pension, too, from having retired. So I worked various weeks when they wanted me and needed me in quality control. And I worked all the plants and places where they’re making models and experimenting. That was interesting, I learned a lot. Franklin: Did that work take you pretty much all throughout the Site? Braten: Yes. Franklin: At that time? Braten: Patrol did, also. Franklin: Right, so you have a pretty good knowledge, then, of the whole— Braten: Yes and no. I was in all the plants; I knew what went on. But if Russians tried to torture me to tell them how we made plutonium, I couldn’t tell them. Everything was still in that wartime need-to-know. You needed to know your job; you didn’t need to know the whole thing. And that was a mistake. I didn’t pay attention; I should have and learned all the other things. Because the security was lessening all the time and I could’ve done other things. They had jobs for locksmiths and laundry and—you know, everything. Map-making. So it was a pretty good place to work; you just had to mind your Ps and Qs. Franklin: Yeah. Can you describe a typical workday as a quality control officer? Braten: Well, I’d come roaring in from where I lived in Yakima or Sunnyside at the last tick of the clock usually. I would check in and see if there’s anything pending that I needed to go right away. Then I would go over to wherever we were working and suit up and go into the hot zones and look around. I’d be a pair of eyes and look for things to do, to look at. Every box where they made plutonium had gloves, lead-lined gloves. Each glove had a date on it and had to be changed out within a certain time. Well, sometimes, I would go into these areas and pull out the glove enough to where I could read the date and do the whole area and find gloves that were past their due date. They called these snapshots surveillances, and they could be solved either satisfactory, unsatisfactory corrected immediately, or unsatisfactory. And nobody liked the unsatisfactories. So I’d write up a surveillance and right away send copies to the people I should. Also, we had steel drums containing contaminated tools and other items. And these were—I had to inspect the drums when they came in to make sure the inner lining had a zinc coating. These, then, would be numbered, the lid and the drum. And when they had radiated material—radiation-contaminated, they would put a big bag in it and put the material in it. It wasn’t supposed to have liquids and some other things. And then they would seal it and then the outer rim had to be torqued and put pounds. And then a little pop-valve was torqued in inch pounds. I had to watch them while they did it, and the torque wrenches had to be calibrated within a certain time; I had to look at that. And sometimes tell these well-paid operators what they were supposed to do. As you tighten the ring, you’re supposed to hammer it with a mallet, and tighten it and hammer it. I said, now you hammer the ring. And he took the torque wrench and went, wham! I said, no! So we had to get another torque wrench while that one was recalibrated. So I did hundreds of those. And they took them out to a big pit and lined them up and then covered them with I don’t know how much dirt. They’re supposed to last hundreds of years. We also had attempts to create places where they could last even longer than that that were thwarted various ways. Anyway, so, I was busy inspecting drums, I was busy doing—if they called over and wanted somebody, they had a new job going in, and I had a little stamp with my number QC that I carried around. And I’d have to go in and watch them while they did this job. I’d look at the work order, what steps they were to do, and where I was supposed to verify it, and then I would. And then I’d stamp it and initial it and date it. So I did a lot of that. When the plastic shop made—they called it a greenhouse because it was made of plastic. It wasn’t green, but you could see through it. They would seal that to the front of a glovebox where they were making plutonium, unbolt it and open it up. And we were on supplied air, or tanks, and they would fix whatever needed fixing. Sometimes—one time, they had a broken front of the thing made of some kind of thick—it wasn’t Lucite, but of that sort. It had a couple of ports, a port down here, and where you could reach in and work. They came, I watched them while they drew up a plan of it. And I stamped that off. When they announced it was ready, I went in, they took off the front, had everybody sealed, you know. And they got the new one and they had turned the model over and the holes were all in wrong places. And this stuff costs a mild fortune. So they had to put the broken one back on, seal it all up, measure it and make sure, and then go make one right. That was an interesting time. They couldn’t blame me, thank God. Another time they did blame me. Somebody decided I should carry a Top Secret stamp and in the various steps in the making of these hockey pucks, plutonium, I had to watch while they made it. And when it first came in, I stamped the paper—the card that went with them, Top Secret—or Secret, not Top Secret. It was supposed to stay with that item. Well, the operators and managers had never had that to contend with, and they didn’t care. A whole bunch of those tags got lost. Well, anything marked Secret that gets lost, we have people from God in Heaven and whatever, in demanding to know what happened. So I had to go all over to wherever there was plutonium stored. When they made it, they put it in a double bag and then a tin can and you could feel the heat when you took hold of them. You couldn’t feel the radiation, but thermal. Well, I must’ve examined hundreds of them, exposing myself to find those. I found them everywhere in a little red wagon they used to haul them around, and on the floor, and on the wall. When they summed it up, they blamed quality control— Franklin: Of course. Braten: --for the security breach. Which I thought was a crock. Anyway, no one cared what I thought. I was a grunt. So that was quality control. We were a second pair of eyes, we were trying to help them do it right. We were sometimes unappreciated, but—oh, another time, they had some counterfeit bolts that were marked as though they were hardened enough to hold a great weight or twist or torque. But they were counterfeit; they were from China or somewhere. And they were mild steel and they would break. We found them on hoists, man-lifts, we found them everywhere. And for a long time, that was my job, going over and everywhere there was a hex head bolt, look at it. And you could tell the counterfeit by the counterfeit stamp, the way they arranged the markings. So we had sacks and sacks of them, and they said they were going to have us send them somewhere. Finally they said, junk them, we don’t want them. And we had a ton of those things. But we replaced every one of them with an accurate bolt. They apparently had gotten in the aviation industry and all over America. Franklin: Oh, wow. Braten: So we would test things. They had a container for shipping plutonium pellet—they call it a pellet or whatever. They’d drop it and see if it would break and so on. So we were doing, anytime they were testing anything, testing the elevators with weights, testing the hoists. We’d put on a hardhat, like that was going to help if anything broke. And watch them. So anything they did, quality control was there. They were very, very concerned about confined spaces, because people have died—one suck of breath and they die. You got to wear supplied air and have somebody watching you, or you can’t do it. So I’d have to go, and there was a supplied air job, standing up on the surface and watch. Also, they had boxes on all kinds of machines to turn it on and off, and they had a way to turn it off and then put a lockout device on it so somebody couldn’t come along while the guy was inside working and turn it on. They were lockouts. Well, they had a lot of education on it, and they had all of us QCs roaming, watching every place that was being worked with the lockout device on. And we made everybody keenly aware of that. We didn’t hardly find anything like that wrong, because they want to protect themselves. We went behind the scene for accidents. High voltage box blew up and melted copper and stuff blew all over everybody around it. They would send us films about the Valdez and every other—the place where the poisonous gas got loose in India. They’d examine every accident, why did it happen, how could it have been avoided, and they would show us those films to try to forewarn us of how it could be avoided. We had a person scalded because this area had been shut down and it was turned on. For some reason when they shot the steam in, it blew up and scalded a guy. They examined, very carefully, any accident, because they were very security-conscious. They didn’t want anybody hurt. Some of the Navy guys came in, nuke people. Of course they thought they were great stuff. I was dying to ask them, how many people a year get killed in the Navy by accidents? How many people at Hanford? None. So if you’re going to tell us how to do it, we’ll consider it. We didn’t have a choice, though. They were high muckety-mucks. You know, irritating things. We had fun with the PAC system. We could hit a number and talk in the phone and all over the area, we could say we need a QC at a certain point, and we’d all hear it. Sometimes people would mess with that, too. But anyway. Less I contaminate myself— Franklin: [LAUGHTER] What were the most challenging aspects of being a QC at Hanford? Braten: Doing it right. I didn’t have the eyes of eagles, and sometimes I had to look at a tag or something from, through a walled-off area and see it. So I thought of bringing a small monocular, binocular. I usually was able to do it. But I had a little trouble seeing some of the things. And I had to keep in mind what were the steps, what was I to do. And that was challenging to do it right, because I felt like, well, somebody told me that if a QC knowingly okays something and it’s not okay and somebody gets hurt, I could go to prison. Well, that made me highly motivated, even more than I’d been, to do the job right. Not because of punishment; because I wanted to. It was sometimes a challenge to interpret and to deal with some of the personnel. Most of them, we had fun with. I mean, not hilarious, but we treated each other like people. Occasionally, a patrolman would get badge-heavy and ruff, ruff, ruff. But most of us realized we were working with our friends and neighbors. We were going to do the job, but we weren’t going to jump down anybody’s throat. Franklin: What about the rewards? What was the most rewarding aspect of being a QC? Braten: I guess it was being part of a team that was doing something worthwhile. We had excellent rapport with our other patrolmen, mostly. Once in a while there’d be an oddball, but we were carefully screened and then have the written, and examination with the psychologist every year. If we screwed up, we heard about it. We could get time off, we could get fired. So I thought it was good to work there, with good people doing something worthwhile. There were irritating things. There were rattlesnakes out there and a few other hazards. But running into a deer when you’re driving 80 is really exciting. Or an owl with your windshield. You had to be careful, stay awake. Franklin: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about some major events that took place while you were working at Hanford. Braten: Okay. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could tell me how Chernobyl impacted Hanford and the community and your work there. Braten: Well, we were told—somebody told us, I don’t know TV or Hanford, that we should take iodine tablets. We were keenly aware that this stuff was circulating in the clouds, radiation. We kept close tabs on what was going on. We didn’t have to have much to do with it; we just had to deal with it. The most troublesome was the blowup of Mt. St. Helens. It dumped stuff that was the size of tiny, you could breathe it, to beach sand. We couldn’t stop with our duties and we couldn’t not drive. We had to put filters on our air filters, and we had to drive our cars in there through that. So I put filter material over my air intake and hoped I wouldn’t ruin my engine. We had to be careful driving in that poor visibility. On places it was ruining the paint on our cars and whatever. But we had to come. That was keen—we had to come. Whether it was a holiday or a graduation or whatever, we had to be there. So, it made us, whatever, committed, you might say. Maybe with a little grumbling, but committed. Franklin: How did your job change at the end of the Cold War, when Hanford shifted from production to cleanup? Braten: Well, I had changed jobs, of course. But there was an air of freedom and relief. Because we knew we’d be a target if there was war, or even without war, for espionage. Anyway, I think we went into a cleanup mode. They had tumbleweeds out there, lots and lots of tumbleweeds. But they were contaminated. What they were going to do was collect them and burn them. Well, they couldn’t burn them, because it would put radiation in the air. Then they brought in bales—like farm machines, to bale them. So what they did was, there’s a lot of sand out there, they built walls along the roads with these baled tumbleweeds to keep the drifting sand from drifting over the road and needing to be cleaned up. We dealt with the radiation and the potentials, and tried to lead normal lives. We found out the drinking water in our headquarters in 2-West was possibly contaminated. So, they had that changed with bottled water. And I didn’t know what they did then. There were interesting quirks. We had a big company picnic every year. That was fun. We’d get together and put races and picnic. And occasionally the management would call us all to a big meeting, and they would bring in buses and send us all somewhere downtown. And management would tell us what they wanted to tell us. The theory was they were helping us be onboard and take ownership—that was a big word. They were telling us what was going to happen. We really didn’t have any say-so in it, except yes or— Franklin: Right. Braten: But I liked working there. Occasionally I had problems, but I perhaps shouldn’t discuss them. Franklin: You can if you want to. Braten: Just—some of the—sometimes somebody in management would fuss at us without cause, just because they could, I guess. We, in patrol, were told that we were paramilitary, and saying pseudo-military just to have fun. But we had excellent weapons and excellent training. And we took pride. Some people would call us rent-a-cops. People who didn’t want to obey simple rules. You’re going to work there, you’re going to be searched. You’re going to have to obey security. And I felt like saying, you know, you should go to work for McDonald’s. They don’t have to put up with this stuff. But they’re getting super pay and they begrudge every day, every time they came in or left. At Christmastime, people would bring in, for gift exchange, wrapped gifts. As they came in, they had to unwrap it and show us what’s in there. You want to feel like a Grinch. Franklin: Should’ve just brought the gift and some wrapping paper. Braten: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. That’s funny, though. I could see how that would be tough to do gift exchange in a secure area. Braten: Right. Franklin: Yeah. Could you describe the ways in which security and secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? Braten: Well, of course, as a patrolman, that was part of our job, to see that the rules were obeyed. The badges we had that told all the stuff, we weren’t supposed to wear them out in public or be photographed. It was Hanford. It was secret. I had no trouble—I didn’t want to blab about anything. We had somebody in management in security that blabbed. Somebody came in and said, hey, my sister down in California says you got Uzis now. We didn’t tell anybody. Oh, another thing, the security around the plutonium plant, we didn’t tell our wives what was going on. But one of them gave a newspaper report and even brought reporters through. And I thought, what?! Anyway. It wasn’t for me to question. I just wondered in my mind that it wouldn’t be the way I’d run a war. Franklin: Different standards, I guess, for different levels of management. Braten: Oh, yes, most of the management was really good. Just once in a while, somebody’d be a cross patch. We weren’t always angels, either. Franklin: I’m sure. Well, you could talk about it now, because what are they going to do, I mean, fire you? You know? Braten: Burn something on my lawn or whatever. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] I don’t think they’d do that. I think they have bigger problems to worry about right now. Braten: Well, it was handy, though, when we were going to Europe, my wife and I, for a vacation, I could call Hanford at a certain number and tell them where we were going. And they could say, okay, and they would say, well, when you’re in this country, beware of this, this, this. So they gave us a heads up about potential dangers. Franklin: Mm. Kind of like the State Department publishes those periodic reviews— Braten: Oh, do they? Franklin: Yeah, of different activities, like, meant for tourism. Like, if you’re going to this country, beware of x, y, z. Braten: Gee, I didn’t know. Franklin: Oh, yeah. It’s on their website. Braten: We just went for a big trip a couple years ago. Franklin: Oh, okay. Braten: Anyway. Franklin: My last question is, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Braten: Well, mostly you hear complaints about radiation release. People who moved in down wind and felt they were contaminated. My feeling is they should’ve known we were not making popsicles. But anyway, I guess I’d like them to know that we filled a niche in history where we helped prevent World War III. And that we furthered research in nuke medicine and a whole bunch of good things evolved from Hanford. So, I’d like them to know the good things as well as the contamination. We have to deal with the waste and we have to deal with radioactive materials and for a long time, it has to be secure. So I’d like to know some of the good that we did. Franklin: Great. Well, Walt, is there anything else that you’d like to add before we wrap up? Braten: I guess not. I liked the jobs. I was grateful for the jobs, I was grateful for the pay. They gave us lunches when we had to lunch over—forced overtime. They gave us uniforms, did the laundry, you know, a lot of nice things. And a lot of training. I appreciate that, and I think we did a job that America needed to have done. Franklin: Great. Well, thank you, Walt, I really appreciate your taking the time to interview with us. Braten: Well, you’re welcome. Thank you for being interested. Franklin: Okay. Yeah, very much so. <a href="https://youtu.be/5MKr2OtELwU">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1978- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1978-1993 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Walter Braten Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear reactors Nuclear waste disposal Description An account of the resource Walt Braten moved to Richland, Washington to work on the Hanford Site as a Patrolman. Walt worked on the site from 1978-1993. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 01/18/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2dfabc7cdd127876e2887c8b732f24cc.JPG 28eb938062eb4770c1b8f122a4933867 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tom Bennett Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Tom Bennett on September 18, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Tom about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. For the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Tom Bennett: Full name is Thomas J. Bennett. T-H-O-M-A-S. Middle initial J. And then Bennett, B-E-N-N-E-T-T. Franklin: Great, thanks. And do you prefer Tom? Bennett: I go by Tom, yes. Franklin: Okay. Bennett: Unless it’s academic circles. Franklin: I’m fine with—casual’s fine with me. So, Tom, tell me how and why you came to the area to work for Hanford Site. Bennett: I graduated from UCLA in 1964. My goal was to get a long ways away from the Los Angeles area. The final choice was between Houston where they were doing the man on the moon which was another five years before that happened, and Hanford, which to me, it was exciting because it was nuclear energy. Franklin: What was your degree in? Bennett: Engineering. Franklin: Engineering, okay. Just basic engineering? Bennett: Yeah, well, UCLA thought they were way ahead of everyone. In your junior and senior year, if you were an engineering major, you had to take two courses in electrical engineering, a course in nuclear engineering, a course or two in mechanical engineering. They tried to spread everything, because someone had done a study and they observed that people who were a mechanical engineer, five years later they were working as a civil engineer, and vice versa. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bennett: So they tried to make it real broad. And then I went to University of Washington, I got a master’s degree in nuclear engineering and then a doctorate in civil engineering from WSU. Franklin: Oh, okay, and when did you finish up at WSU? Bennett: ’88. Franklin: ’88, oh, okay. But you weren’t in school—were you in school that entire time? Or were you working? Bennett: No, I worked at Hanford from ’64 to ’70, but I took ’67 and ’68 off to get the master’s degree from University of Washington. And then I went over to WSU between ’87 and ’88 to complete my doctorate. Franklin: Okay. [CLEARS THROAT] Sorry. Tell me about your work at Hanford. What did you do? Bennett: Well, I started off in the 300 Area. You had to—they had a trainee program, I think it was. You had to work someplace while you got your security clearance. We had the badges. The first one was a red badge, then a yellow badge, then a green badge is when you finally had your Q clearance. I worked at 300 Area; I remember working with Bill Bright and Carl somebody. They had a machine there that they took plutonium in a gassed-out container and then they had a smasher that would—when it was red hot and it’d been out-gassing for an hour or so, they’d have the smasher come down on it, and they wanted to get 99% theoretical density plutonium. Franklin: So you mean to like turn it into a solid? Bennett: Well, it was already a solid. Franklin: Already a solid. Bennett: But they heated it up to red-hot and a little tube came out the top and then they cut the tube off, and the smasher came down and crushed it. So, good thing it didn’t blow up, too. Franklin: Yeah! What amount, were we talking grams, or— Bennett: About a kilogram. Franklin: A kilogram. Bennett: I think. Because if they get too much, it goes critical on you. Franklin: Right. And what was the purpose of that? Why— Bennett: I don’t know. Well, a guy by the name of John Burnham, I think it was, it was his idea to do this smashing. He got all kinds of credit for it and awards and so on and so forth. It was his pet project. I wound up working there to start with. Franklin: What did you do there? Bennett: Watched. Franklin: Just watched, just observed? Bennett: Pretty much, yeah. Franklin: Okay. I wonder if you could tell me about the—talk a little bit about security, since you mentioned Q clearance. Security and secrecy, what was that process like and how long did it take? Bennett: I think it took about six months, but I didn’t know anything about clearances when I came here. But you had three different colored badges, one was when you start and then you get partially cleared. You get another color. And the green was the final security clearance. I believe they were called—what, do you have—you’ve talked to other people about this, haven’t you? Franklin: A little bit. Bennett: What do they call those clearances? Top secret or something like that? Franklin: I don’t—yeah, I’m not a clearance expert. Bennett: Yeah, one of the first colors was yellow and one was red, and then green was when you finally could go out in the Area and work. Franklin: Right, okay. So what did you do after you got your clearance? Bennett: I had three or four of the three-month assignments. One of them was at the 300 Area with the crusher or smasher. And then another was at N Reactor, I believe. It was the new production reactor at the time. And I think I had one at B Reactor operations. Because I remember they put me on—they had ABCD shift. And you worked six days and then seven swings and then six graveyards. And you got one-and-two-thirds days off between swing and night and then after you did the graveyard, you got four-and-two-thirds days off to come back and start the ABCD shift over again. What I remember about that was I could not adjust to it. Some of these guys had done it for 20, 30 years and they got along fine. I could not adjust to the graveyards. Franklin: And that’s where you would be there overnight, right? Bennett: Well, you’d be there from midnight ‘til 8 in the morning, or 11—well, it took an hour to get out there and an hour to get back, so whatever your shift was, you wound up doing ten or 11 hours. Or if you have, I don’t know what, half hour for lunch, maybe it’s 12 hours to do eight hours. Franklin: Wow. Bennett: It was more than the eight. Because the ride out was an hour and the ride back was an hour on the buses. I know I was not real happy with the salary, because it wasn’t as big as I thought I was worth. But they said, well, Tom, you can ride the bus for 50 miles for a nickel. Oh, well, if that’s the—I assume that was the economy, so that the money I made would be a lot. Franklin: Where did you live when you worked out there? Bennett: 2009 George Washington Way. Franklin: And what was that, was it a house or apartments or--? Bennett: It was a house. I meant—I tried to find it on the way in, but I didn’t—I was past it, the 2300 block before I saw it. I’ll see if I can find it on the way back out. But first I lived there, and then later on, I lived at 2404 Concord, I lived at 1408 Perry Court, and eventually bought a house. Franklin: Did you live in any Alphabet Houses? Bennett: F Houses? No. Franklin: Any Alphabet Houses? Bennett: Yeah, I know what, B, B, D, F. No, I lived at 2404 Concord—2009 George Washington Way was the first one, and then at 1408 Perry Court for a while, and then eventually wound up at 2404 Concord, and that’s the one I bought. Franklin: Oh, okay. So when you were working out these graveyards at B Reactor, what was your job, what were you doing? Bennett: What I remember is, since I was kind of a trainee, I’d go through the records. It was really fascinating to me to read about the early days when they started Hanford up, they had no idea what was going on or how big it would have to be. Enrico Fermi was out here. The old guys were here then that had been here when he was here, and they called him Henry Farmer. But interestingly the older guys were doing the work and the young guys were telling them what to do and how to do it. Franklin: Really? Bennett: Yeah. Franklin: And why was that? Bennett: Well, this was during the war, World War II. People had to have jobs. If you were in the Army, if you were young, you were in the Army or the Navy or the Air Force or Marines. And if you were older, a lot of them, I think 50,000 people came up here to work at Hanford. They had a big camp out there someplace, fenced in where you lived. Well, what I remember doing was reading the historical records about when it started up. I know it was because of Fermi that first they were going to have just the circular—well, B Reactor, what is that, 1,004 tubes? Franklin: 2,000 tubes. Bennett: 2,000 tubes? Well, originally we were going to just have circular form, because that’s the most efficient. But Enrico Fermi made sure that they had the corners, the tubes. And sure enough, the, I believe it’s zirconium that when they started up, everything went great and then all the sudden, phew, everything went down. Franklin: The xenon poisoning. Bennett: Xenon! Yeah, the xenon poisoning. Fermi figured that out. They figured it was xenon. They put more, they filled up the rest of the tubes, the corners, and that was enough to overcome the xenon to get things going. And you’ve been out to B Reactor, haven’t you? Franklin: Yes. Bennett: Yeah, and you see how big that thing is, and they built that, what, 60, 70 years ago? It was quite a deal. Franklin: It was. I’m wondering if you could describe a typical work day out at B Reactor when you were out there. Bennett: Well, I’d ride the bus out there. The older guys on the bus, they played cards all the way out there. I thought, these guys are kind of crazy. But then six weeks later, I’m playing cards right along with them. I learned how to play pinochle. I didn’t know anything about, virtually nothing about cards. But it cost me quite a few nickels but I did learn. I got to be as good as the rest of them after a while. I thought it was kind of weird, because these guys would play cards all the way out, during lunch they’d play cards, and they’d play cards all the way back, for nickels. Pinochle for nickels. Eventually I was in there with the thick of them. I do remember at N Reactor, a fellow named Milton Lewis. He had been a teacher at UCLA when I was there and I ran across him again. They had three guys there. One was Milt Lewis, another was Warren Macadam and the third was Roy Shoemaker. And the workers there nicknamed them the Shoe, the Jew and the Shrew. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] I’m wondering—stories about the bus are great. What was your day-to-day job at B Reactor, besides reading up on the history, what were you tasked with doing out there? Bennett: Well, it was cold operations. They ran the reactor, they sat there and watched the reactor go. From time to time they’d have to refuel it, and I’d watch that, be on the front face. Like an idiot, I wondered what was inside the tubes, so I looked inside one when it was empty. And then I realized, there’s probably radiation coming out of that into my eyes, probably not a real good idea. But I’m a young kid, 23 or 24, not knowing anything. But that was— Refueling was one of the things. Around back—well, when the tubes or the fuel elements, when they’d been irradiated enough, they pushed them out the back, they went into a little pool that was 20 feet deep. And you’d go around back—not while they were discharging them, but afterwards, you could go around back and you could look into that 20-foot pool and you could see the glow. It had a greenish-blue glow from the irradiated fuel elements. And they’d sit there for a while, then they’d take them to the 200 Area and process them. Interestingly enough, 2,000 pounds of uranium would make two pounds of plutonium, or maybe one pound. I mean, it was extremely small percentage. Franklin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bennett: When you think of the 200 Area where they did all those separations, how much—well, they put the things in double-shell tanks, now those tanks are rotting, it’s leaking into the Columbia River. All this is still going on and it’s, what, 60, 70 years later. Franklin: Did you ever go out to the 200 Area at all? Bennett: No. Well, I drove by it every day on the way to work. Franklin: Sure. Bennett: But I didn’t go and look at it. I knew they had tunnels. When they built it, I remember from reading a long time ago that they were going to have to use remote control to handle these things, so they used a remote control to build it. Then how deep were those troughs, those trenches? Were they— Franklin: Oh, I don’t remember off the top of my head. Bennett: I remember reading about it. They were long. Franklin: They were very long. I think they were something like 20 feet deep and then 40 feet wide. They’re all cells and they’re all—yeah. Bennett: Almost a mile long or whatever they had, yeah. Franklin: Yeah. Really, really long, yeah. Like several football fields. Bennett: Right. Franklin: Yeah, huge. So you worked at 300 Area and then N and then B. Did you work anywhere—and how long did you work at— Bennett: Each assignment, I think, was three months long. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bennett: And I think I had three or four of them. Franklin: Then what did you do after that? Bennett: I worked at—I believe I worked at N Reactor. And then I left in ’67 to go over at University of Washington to get a master’s degree. Came back in ’68. And from ’68 to ’70, I’m pretty sure I was at N Reactor. And that was exciting. They were producing power as well as plutonium. Franklin: Yeah. What was your job then at N Reactor? Bennett: I was called nuclear engineer. I worked for Roy Shoemaker. There was seven or eight guys in the group. What I noticed—because I noticed that all the new engineers that came in, in six months to a year, they were gone. I was just aware of it, sort of in passing. Then after I went and got my master’s degree and came back, instead of working for the old guy, he’s gone now, Shoemaker is, but he’d been an engineering instructor at Oregon or Oregon State, one of those colleges. When I came back, I worked for Paul Cohen. He was a young guy; he was 30, 35, something like that. He had a fairly good-sized group. I think—this was back in I think the 300 Area, it was downtown. I worked for him. And the contrast between working for Shoemaker and working for Cohen was like between night and day. I understood why all those guys left Shoemaker after I worked for a good supervisor. I was a brand-new kid fresh out of college; I didn’t have any experience, didn’t know who a good instructor—or good teacher from a good—what do you call it, supervisor from a bad one. But after I had two supervisors, I realized why all those guys left after they’d been there not very long. Franklin: And what was it about Shoemaker versus Cohen that made it—made people leave so early? Bennett: Well, one of the things was Shoemaker had a pet. He’d give the same assignment—like a college professor—he gave me an assignment he gave his pet. And I remember, I was fairly good at math, so I figured out an exact solution to this thing. And this other kid, the pet, he did an approximate solution. He came out to my office—I was out in the Area a little bit. It was a different building. It wasn’t the N Reactor building; it was an outbuilding. He came out there, because he had an office inside, and he wanted to know all about my performance of calculations for such a thing. Eventually I figured out he wanted to know what I’d done because I’d done a better job than he had and he was the pet. This didn’t go over well with him. Franklin: Oh, so kind of playing favorites, playing people off— Bennett: Well, he’s playing favorites but the un-favorite did a better job than the favorite did. So the pet didn’t like that. Franklin: Yeah, I bet not. Bennett: But then that didn’t happen with Cohen. Cohen was a very good supervisor. Franklin: And you worked with Cohen at N Reactor as well? Bennett: No. I wish I could remember—wish I had those sheets that I lost, because it would tell me where I worked and when. I can only remember three of the four assignments; I don’t remember what the fourth one was. Franklin: That’s okay. Bennett: It’s been 60, 70 years. Franklin: So when you say nuclear engineer and working with a group of people, what kind of job is that? Is it a lot of calculations work, are you in the control room--? Bennett: Well, one of the things we did, we had a—we put a bunch of thermocouples in the back of the reactor in a tube. We wanted to get the heat distribution. It was a tube-in-tube fuel element. They had about an inch diameter tube that went down the middle, then they had some struts, and then they had another tube outside it, which was kind of an interesting arrangement, so they could get water flowing between the two tubes. We wanted to get the heat distribution of that, so we set up the thermocouples to measure the heat, and then figured out how hot it was getting and we could use that to improve the design for the next generation. It was that type of work. That’s one assignment I remember. Franklin: Oh, okay. Do you remember any other assignments? Bennett: No. Franklin: Okay. Bennett: I did like doing the math, though. Figuring out that—you get the regular dimensions and the tolerance, plus and minus, so you figure out all the variations and how much difference there can be from smallest to largest and how much fluid would go through it and what the approximations are. Franklin: Cool. And then after ’70, did you leave Hanford? Bennett: I went to WSU to work on a doctorate. Franklin: Oh, okay. And when did you start that? Bennett: In ’72, I believe. I think I was there from ’70 to ’72. Do you remember, Mary Ann? Okay. Because I worked from—I went to work in January or February, no, late January of ’64, and I worked there until ’67. Then I went over to University of Washington, ’67, ’68. Came back in ’68 and ’68 to ’70, I worked here at Hanford. And then ’70 to ’72, I taught at WSU. I taught statics, dynamics and fluid mechanics during those two years at WSU. Franklin: Okay, and that’s while you were working on your doctorate? Bennett: Right. But they gave me a title, pre-doctoral teaching associate. I taught those three courses. And took classes, too. Franklin: Okay. And then you finished your doctorate in ’72? Bennett: ’70—no, ’88. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bennett: Yeah, I didn’t—how—what—I’m trying to remember why I didn’t—there was a reason I didn’t finish it in ’72. I’ll think of it later and tell you. Franklin: Sure. And then were you at WSU that entire time? Bennett: No. Just ’70 to ’72. And then I went to—I took a one-year temporary teaching assignment at a community college, Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake. I went there for one year, because Big Bend had finagled themselves a contract in Germany. What they did was they taught Army guys, well, servicemen, they gave them classes so they could get their—before Big Bend went there, they got GEDs. Big Bend had the bright idea of instead of giving the Army guys GEDs, they’d give them actual high school diplomas. This brought a lot of money in to the college. Because, you know, high school diplomas are a lot better than a GED. I used some of that money to start a circuit writer type program. Between ’72 and ’79, I think it was, ’78, I taught computer classes in 17 different high schools all the way from Cooley Dam in the north to Connell in the south and east and west from Quincy to Washtucna. Franklin: Oh, wow. Bennett: Remember I talked to you earlier about when you first started? My first year of doing those computer classes, I thought I’d really done a good job. And I looked back at it three or four years later, I was ashamed and embarrassed at how little I’d done the first year. Once it caught on. And at that time, Big Bend had a music teacher named Wayne Freeman. He had some kind of contacts with Hollywood, and he’d bring in people from Hollywood. They had what they called a play. What did they call—do you remember the names of those plays, Mary Ann? Mary Ann Bennett: Musical production. Bennett: Musical productions. The first time he brought Leonard Nimoy up and he played Oliver, played the lead role in Oliver. For eight or twelve years while Freeman was the music instructor, he brought these Hollywood-type people up. And they’d have a play, they had a 700 or 800-seat theater and it was packed for all four or five performances. Franklin: I was going to say, I imagine that’d be a pretty big deal for Moses Lake. Bennett: Oh, big deal. And that was the time I was doing the high schools and I’d have my high school classes come down to it and they just—they loved it. It was great. Franklin: When you say computer, were you working with mainframes and that kind of thing? Bennett: That’s what they had started off with, upper-left-corner-cut carts. You’ve seen them. Franklin: I’ve seen them. Never had to use them, but I’ve seen them. Bennett: Well, I would carry—I had a pickup truck. I would take the key punch machines to the high schools, and the kids would punch out their cards. I’d take them back and run them through the computer, and take them back with the output. And then they’d go back until they got them to run. That was a big deal then. But that was, what, in the ‘70s? It was long before they had the personal computers. Everything was mainframe. Franklin: Yup. So did you ever come back to working at Hanford? Bennett: No. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bennett: No. I did that high school—what was really interesting to me was the only kids in these high schools that would take these classes was the top 2% or 3%. The kids that would go on to Harvard or Yale or BYU or some big type, University of Washington. These were really, really bright kids. I knew that they were smarter than the kids I was teaching at Big Bend. It took me a while to figure that out, too. Because I realized later that all I had was the top 2% or 3% of each high school. But I knew—why is it these high school kids are smarter than my college kids? Well, because they’re the top of the line. Franklin: So what were some of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of your work at Hanford? Bennett: Well, being involved with what ended World War II was a big thing to me. Because my dad was in the Philippines getting ready to take part in the invasion of Japan, which they figured, if that did happen would’ve been a million casualties. What was it, the Civil War only we took 750,000 from both sides in four or five years. I mean that would’ve really been bad because of the atomic bomb because of the crash program. In some of the reading I’ve done, what they essentially did was they took 50, 60 years of automatic research and condensed it into two or three, and the result was the atomic bomb. Franklin: Sure. So that was very rewarding to you, to be involved in kind of the continuation of that? Bennett: And what I thought—I thought it saved my dad’s life, probably. Franklin: What about the most challenging aspects? Earlier you mentioned that the graveyard shifts were pretty challenging. Bennett: Yeah, that was challenging. I couldn’t—I realized I couldn’t do it. I thought I was Superman, but I’m not. Franklin: Was there anything else that challenged you out there? Maybe the structure or some of the work or--? Bennett: Well, I thought it was exciting to do that type of work. And I enjoyed it and liked it. Franklin: Were you there when—no, you got there in ’64, so you weren’t there when Kennedy visited. Bennett: No, no, I wasn’t. But he had been out there. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. Any memories of like the social scene or local politics in the Tri-Cities and Richland when you got here? Bennett: I remember a guy named Mike McCormack. He lived right behind us. Near, a block or so from George Washington Way. But he eventually got elected to Congress. I don’t know how long he stayed. Do you remember? Have you heard of him? Mike McCormack? Congressman Mike McCormack? Franklin: I’ll have to take a look at that. Bennett: I know he was in the state house and state senate and then he got elected to Congress. In the ‘70s, I’m pretty sure. Franklin: Okay. I’m wondering if you could describe ways in which security or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? Bennett: Well, I did read a lot about the—when I was doing those three-month assignments, there was a good deal of focus on security. Like I said, it took several months for me to get my clearance. You had to go through gates and somebody would check. If you didn’t have your pass, you didn’t go through the gate. That was for every place. Franklin: Did you ever forget your pass? Bennett: No. But I do remember when I was on these assignments, because I was a trainee, I did not get holiday pay. So during one graveyard shift, I was home sleeping and I did not work that day because they’d have to pay me time-and-a-half. But at 3:00 in the morning the guys out there called me, wanting to know how I was doing. You know, that type of humor. You sleeping okay, Tom? We’re getting paid holiday pay, you’re not. Franklin: How come you didn’t go back to Hanford after going to WSU? Bennett: Well, I took the one year temporary assignment at Big Bend. And like I said, they had the money from Germany. So I spent the next six or seven years teaching high school kids at like 17 different high schools. By then I was pretty much associated with the community college and I worked there until 1990. I left to get my master’s degree and somebody else took that program over and it collapsed. And I just taught at Big Bend until 1990. And then—I’m trying to remember what I did from 1990 to 2000. Mary Ann: You ran for office. Bennett: What’s that? Mary Ann: You ran for office. State representative. You ran for office. Bennett: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn’t—but that didn’t—that was just one run. What work was I doing? Mary Ann: You worked at Boeing. Bennett: Oh, that’s right, I did from ’79 to ’81, I went to Boeing, worked there. They were developing the 767 and I got to be senior engineer in tool design. That was really fun, working for Boeing. I loved that. Franklin: I bet. Bennett: When I went there, they just built this great big huge building. Somebody said, come on, we’re going to tour the building. So I went on a tour of the building. It was empty. At Hanford, they had all these programs, they’d schedule when it’s going to happen, they get stretched out, stretched out, stretched out. Something that was supposed to take two years would take ten. At Boeing, there’s an empty building, they’re going to do the 767. That was 1979, I went to the empty building. In 1981, airplane number six was rolling out the door. They have their schedules, they keep them. They said, if you don’t get your assignment done, you will stay there until it’s done. The one guy had to stay there for 36 hours. I went and talked to the supervisor. He wasn’t any good after 15, 16 hours, why’d you keep him 36? The supervisor says, Tom, do you know how much Boeing has to pay every day they are late delivering an airplane? I had no idea. $50,000 per day for a late plane. You have an assignment, you get that done or you stay until it’s done. So that was a different attitude and atmosphere than I’d had at Hanford. Franklin: Interesting. I guess that’s kind of the difference that a private company would— Bennett: Commercial. Franklin: Yeah, commercial company would take on a project versus— Bennett: You get an assignment, you get it done. Franklin: Right. I should’ve asked this a lot earlier, but I’m just kind of curious, how did you hear about Hanford? When you were in college and you were looking at places to go work, how did you hear about Hanford? Bennett: They had a job fair at UCLA. No, no, wait a minute. I went to—I think it was in Canada, there was a job fair I went to. That’s where I found out about Hanford. Which was back in United States and in Washington. Franklin: Right. Bennett: Which was where I lived anyway. Franklin: So they had like a booth or something there? Bennett: Yeah. Franklin: That would’ve been General Electric at the time. Bennett: Mm-hmm, it was General Electric at the time. But I went to a job fair, that’s how I found out about it. Franklin: Okay, interesting. So my last question is, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Bennett: Whatever you can get out of them. Franklin: What? Bennett: Whatever you can get from all the people that worked there. I’d like them to know that. Franklin: Okay. Bennett: Are you going to do a summary of this when we’re all done? Franklin: What--? Bennett: Of your own? Franklin: What do you mean? Bennett: From what you’ve learned. You’re learning a lot of things, interviewing people like me. Franklin: Oh, yeah, yeah, I do. Bennett: And you’re going to put it together like Ken Burns did with his Vietnam thing? Franklin: Maybe. These— Bennett: That’s what I’d like to have them know, is your Ken Burns approach to this. Franklin: Okay. Well, we collect these and create—we do this more to generate primary sources, then researchers go through our archives of these interviews and draw what they want. It takes a lot of time to set these up and do them, so I don’t have as much time for writing as I would— I guess I’m asking you, if you kind of give me the opportunity to tell future generations what was the most important thing about being at Hanford during the Cold War? What would you like them to know about working in plutonium production during the Cold War? Bennett: It was exciting and dangerous at the same time. And like I say, I’m just one real small piece in it. I’d like to have them see the big picture. Franklin: Sure. Did you ever feel any danger being, either occupational or working at a site that was so important for the national defense effort? Bennett: Well, I do remember when we worked at the assignment where they smashed the hot thousand-degree plutonium when they compressed it. One day the alarms went off, and they all went off. Franklin: The radiation alarms? Bennett: Yeah, the radiation alarms. And Clarence Munson, I remember he was there, I asked him, what’s going on? He said, well, maybe we’re all crapped up. That was the expression, crapped up, for being irradiated. I think that the alarm had just misfired. But it was—everybody was scared for a while. Franklin: Sure. Did you have protection on, or were you just wearing a dosimeter? Bennett: No, you wore white. White. You had to have a radiation badge and then you had a white coat and you look like somebody in a hospital. Franklin: Right. Did you ever have an instance where you did get crapped up or a small amount or were contaminated? Bennett: Well, when I worked at N Reactor, I had several what was like fuel elements on my desk, I used them for paper weights and stuff. I didn’t realize there’s probably a lot of zirconium in those things and that’s not good for you. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bennett: So I probably got some exposure to zirconium that I didn’t need. I used them for weights. I thought I was young and strong and I’d do like that with them. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] That’s funny. Funny in kind of a— Bennett: Stupid way. Franklin: Yeah. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming and interviewing with us. I really appreciate you taking the time out. And thank you for sharing your stories about Hanford. Bennett: Okay. Franklin: Did you have anything else that you wanted to add before we— Bennett: I’ll probably think of all sorts of things on the way home. Franklin: Okay, well, you can always send us an email. Bennett: And if I can find those papers that describe everything I did at Hanford, I can probably go twice as long as I’ve gone now. Franklin: Sure. That’d be great. Maybe you can— Bennett: Now, who—where would I go to get that, do you know? Franklin: Oh, to get copies of the papers? Bennett: Copies of my—somebody kept track, because they gave them to me at one time. Franklin: Oh, goodness. I don’t know. We’re just—here at WSU, we’re kind of on the outside looking in. Bennett: Okay, where’s the inside now? Franklin: You know, it’s all run by Department of Energy. MSA is the main contractor. But I just—I don’t know— Bennett: Where’s the Department of Energy headquarters? In the big building downtown, the Federal Building? Franklin: Yeah, yeah, Jadwin, yeah. Bennett: Jadwin. Okay, that’s probably where I should go. Franklin: Records, yeah. That would be, that’s where I’d start. Bennett: Do you have a card? Franklin: What’s that? Bennett: Can I have one of your cards? Franklin: Sure. Yeah, we can get you that. Yeah. We good? [VIDEO CUTS] [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Okay. Bennett: When I was in the 300 Area, they had these fuel elements. Anyway, the guy had two of them, and he said, here, Tom, take these. So I was going to put them together. This was a trap. They had a guy on each side of me. They grabbed my arms like this. They said, if you had put those together, you’d see a blue flash and be dead in ten days. That was the type of coarse humor—kill a guy. Franklin: Jeez. That’s a really serious thing to joke about. Bennett: It is! Well, I didn’t—and that’s part of the reason I did so much study when I was doing the rotating things. I wanted to find out what— Franklin: What could kill you? Bennett: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: Wow. Mary Ann: There was also the beryllium. Bennett: Yeah, well, it was beryllium? What did I say, zirconium? Well, it’s beryllium I think gets in your lungs and screws you up. Franklin: Yeah, yes it does. Bennett: And they use beryllium to assemble those fuel elements. Franklin: Yes. And they use them in the can monitoring units as well. Bennett: Yeah. Franklin: Yup. We have one of those in our collection and it took quite a lot of paperwork to get it to be released. Because—I mean, it’s inside a spring—you’d have to take the thing apart to be exposed, but, yeah, it’s—beryllium’s not something to play around with. Bennett: True, true. Franklin: Okay. Bennett: Yeah, I’ll go over to Jadwin and find out. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. <a href="https://youtu.be/alBP3Gpds0g">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area N Reactor B Reactor 200 Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1964- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Tom Bennett Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear engineering Civil engineering Nuclear reactors Radioactive waste disposal Nuclear power plants Description An account of the resource Tom Bennett moved to Richland, Washington in 1964 to work on the Hanford Site. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 09/18/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fddb4db3c62c60689139f55445db0af3b.jpg 98b8ca0aa60801a6fe319d88a15c2b43 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edward Beck Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Edward Beck on July 31, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Ed about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can state and spell your full name for us? Edward Beck: Edward D. Beck. Last name is B-E-C-K. Franklin: And Edward? Beck: E-D-W-A-R-D. Franklin: Okay. Beck: Do you need my middle name? Franklin: Sure. Beck: Domenic. D-O-M-E-N-I-C. Franklin: Thanks. And you prefer to go by Ed? Okay, great. So, Ed, tell me how and why you came to the area to work at the Hanford Site. Beck: Well, I graduated from the University of Utah in 1973. Mostly worked in Salt Lake City doing various things. The year I graduated, there weren’t too many jobs in environmental biology, which was my degree. For a while, I worked for the state health department and then I went to work for the University of Utah in research. I later went to work for the Department of Public Safety; I was the University of Utah’s first industrial hygienist. And I started that job in March of 1981. I was starting a family; I got married in ’73. When our last child was born, it was my daughter, we were still living in Salt Lake City and she came down with a case of e. coli. Probably, we think, from an undercooked hamburger at a fast food restaurant. It was a really severe case: she spent 90 days in the hospital. It was really, really hard. I could go into a lot of detail. But I thought that I just—I had a lot of financial pressure. I was fully insured, but medical insurance was still a quagmire in those days, too. And so I decided that the best thing to do—state employment is not top dollar. And so I started looking around for where I could find another job that would make more money. I was working at the University of Utah—had been working up there for several years as the industrial hygienist—and the Department of Energy had a bunch of beagles up there that they were doing research. They were feeding beagles plutonium and americium, you know. Then they would sacrifice them and see what was cooking inside, cause of death, and what that radiation really did to the beagles. So, there was a guy named Dr. Edwin Wrenn, he was the head of the program for that. He was an MD, PhD. He was in charge of that program. So I would go up there and I would work, I would do his health and safety as industrial hygiene. All of the sudden, I guess you’d say, his department, the department of radiobiology was sacrificed to bring in new money, more money, for research in genetic engineering and stuff. So I think Huntsman came in, the Huntsman center for cancer, and there’s a bunch of other researchers they brought in with more money. So they did away—they dissolved the department of radiology and they started—they had to get rid of the beagles. The beagles had been living in kennels that were on cement, and the cement was contaminated from all their droppings. So the thing we were doing, we were cutting up the ceramic and trying to keep everybody from being exposed. And we were shipping it to a place called Hanford. Gosh, I’d never seen that before. At the same program, they also had a bunch of rooms that they were doing radiation research on, and they used to—they did several experiments there with the beagles and several types of what they called deep body, looking at the bodies to see where this stuff was located in their organs. They had some metal rooms that were built with battleship steel before the first atomic bomb so they were completely clean. That didn’t mean much to me at the time; I thought, well, that’s all well and good. But these buildings had to be torn down, too. And they were also sent to Hanford. They make up—right now Battelle has this—or they did when I retired—they have this center, actually, I wouldn’t call it a center. It’s a suite where people go and they sit for 30 minutes and they have these sensors go over their bodies and they see where they have any radiation deposited deep in their body. It’s a very sensitive thing. This battleship steel from before World War II was a very, very scarce commodity in the ‘80s. I mean, they were making all this stuff, or—DOE was more interested in, and Battelle was more interested in the battleship steel than anything. So it was shipped to Hanford and it now comprises all the shielding on that building that they’re still using today. Franklin: Ohhh. Beck: So that, you know, Dr. Wrenn, he was a little—he felt bad that his department had been sacrificed— Franklin: Do you know how to spell his name? Beck: W-R-E-N-N, I think. His name was Edwin. We kind of formed a good relationship because he was called Ed and I was called Ed, so, you know. When I was assigned to the hospital up there to do safety and health, I did a lot of work for him. They also worked with pigs. The department of artificial organs was there. You know, Barney Clark, they put the artificial heart in him, he was the first one ever, and they did it at the university. I was working there when they did that. But I used to go and measure all the noises, all the noise levels from the beagles in the kennel when they were feeding them. I made people put on hearing protection, because it is deafening. Absolutely deafening. Well over OSHA standards. The pigs were, too. You’d pick up a pig and they’d squeal. You can ask anybody at WSU who works with livestock how much noise a bunch of livestock can make in a building. To me, that was very surprising. But Dr. Wrenn told me, he says, you know, if you’re looking for a job, he says, you’ve had all this experience here, and he says, you might want to apply at Hanford where we’re sending all this stuff. It’s federal and I know they use a lot of people like you. Since you’re looking for a job, that might be a great place to apply. So I did. I did some research on it, and we didn’t have computers in those days really. I remember I was collecting—I was getting MSDSs—Material Safety Data Sheets for the university over a computer. Kind of like a fax machine and it was really primitive compared to what we’ve got today. So, I did some research and I applied with Hanford Environmental Health Foundation. I found out that they were doing all the occupational safety and health for the Hanford Site. So I sent my application in, and they sent it back and flew me out for an interview. That’s how I got here. Got the job, and I worked for—I started work August the 14th of 1989, and I’ve been here ever since. I worked for a lot of different contractors. Franklin: Sure. Beck: When HEHF went out of business, it was kind of a—it was a situation where they wanted to cut costs, I believe. And there’s a lot of politics involved in these situations. So they eliminated HEHF’s contract and they gave it to someone who, I guess, could do the work cheaper and better and that kind of stuff. So then I went to work for other contractors out in the area. But when I first came here in ’89 we were still making plutonium. It was not soon after that, though, that the Site was shut down and they started cleanup. Actually, when I interviewed, they were telling me that was coming. N Reactor was still operational and stuff like that. But they were saying that the handwriting was on the wall that they weren’t going to be making any more plutonium. Franklin: But they still knew that they would need you, though. Beck: Well, they did. Franklin: I mean, they were still actively hiring even though production was shutting down. Beck: Because they knew it was going to be a cleanup site, and any person who knew anything about Hanford, and I did, knew that they would need a lot of industrial hygiene folks. And there were a lot of people who were here that were industrial hygienists already. They’d been here from the beginning. I go to church with several—with at least one, whose name is Alan Lilly, and he was here before I was. Franklin: What was his name? Beck: Alan Lilly. I think I’ve given his name to the woman that I talked to about this interview. I think she might’ve called him already. She asked me for names of people I knew. Franklin: Yeah, we’re always trying to work those personal referrals because those are very generative. Beck: So, when I came here, HEHF did all the industrial hygiene. Not the safety part, but the industrial hygiene for the entire Hanford Site, all the contractors. Franklin: Can you explain that difference to me and anybody who might be watching? Beck: Well, safety and health, I guess you could look at as one big overall. It’s like “medicine,” right? You’ve got a pediatrician, you’ve got a brain surgeon. So as I see it, safety and health is kind that banner of “medicine.” And then underneath it, you’ve got health physics, which is closely allied but still different with usually different degrees. Then you have industrial hygiene and then you have like safety professionals. Industrial hygiene would be exposure to things like noise, particulates, vapors, solvents, those kinds of things. There’s light, various different types of light. Laser. Lasers can be—I was the laser safety officer at Battelle before I retired, for about five years. So there are a lot of things that you can be exposed to on the job that the industrial hygienist would measure. We usually did that with sampling pumps. It was very difficult at Hanford, because you always had the possibility of contamination. Franklin: Radiological contamination? Beck: Yeah. You’d collect it with your sample. Like, for instance, suppose that you were working in an area where there was a particulate that you wanted to collect. You’d have these little plastic jobbies called cassettes that you’d put on the end of a sampling pump. They’re connected by tubing and they’re attached to the person’s lapel. So they’d go in and they’d do their work and you’d collect, you’d pull air through that. And that gives you an approximation of what their exposure is. And OSHA requires that kind of sampling. That’s the basis for the exposure limits for OSHA for many chemicals. If it’s a particulate, you do it with a cassette and filter. If it’s a solvent, you do it with what’s called a sorbent tube. At the time, you did it with a sorbent tube. Things have really changed; they’ve got a lot of very, very nifty ways to sample now they didn’t have back then. Noise, you do with just a regular microphone and a recorder that records the noise levels. All those pumps have to be calibrated with class 1 calibration, so it’s very accurate. Then you’d send it to a lab. You’d take those cassettes and whatever tubes you used, and you send them to the lab. They have to be analyzed, but you can’t send them to any lab if they’re contaminated, because you’d spread radioactive contamination where they’re contaminated. So, we couldn’t use just any industrial hygiene lab. So that was what 222-S was for. That’s one of the things they did. They did the contaminated samples. People that worked at Hanford in industrial hygiene, and people that work in other radiological companies that do sampling, we had to find ways around—if you wanted to know if a sample was contaminated radiologically or not, you can’t tell just by looking at it. Franklin: Sure. Beck: So what you do is you collect two samples side-by-side, which the people working for General Electric probably didn’t have to do. One sample would do, because they were sure theirs wasn’t contaminated. You’d collect two samples side-by-side and you’d send one over to the rad—radiological people. They’d scan it doing a slow scan to see if they could detect any radiation on the filter. If they detected radiation on the filter, or if there was any contamination, then it would go to 222-S lab. If they didn’t detect any radiation on the sample, then you could send that out to another lab. It was actually checked three or four times before it went offsite to make sure nobody made a mistake, because DOE had already seen what they could do to laboratories when contaminated samples were sent. And people said, gee, we didn’t know. I even saw that while I was working at Battelle before I retired. But there were a lot of things that happened, too, where everybody’s going, wow, how’d this happen? So, anyway, that’s the basis for industrial hygiene and that’s really what we did at the Site. We also did sampling for a lot of the power plants that were onsite. There were coal-fired power plants. Franklin: Still in operation? Beck: No. No, no, no. They took those down. Those were shut down; they didn’t operate—I think it was about three or four years after I got here. I can’t remember exactly when those were taken down. But there were—1970 was when OSHA came into being. I graduated from college in ’73, and EPA came along not long after that. EPA had some requirements for power plants, for coal-fired power plants. DOE had to comply with those. They had an air quality program in the State of Washington and we had to comply with those. So we had to do what was called isokinetic sampling. You’d have to actually climb the stacks, those big smokestacks, and do sampling. You’d have to put samples in stuff, sampling apparatus. We used glass lines with—you’d put grease on the fittings on the lines to make a seal, and we’d go up there and sample those. Usually, we were a couple hundred feet up. When the wind was blowing, it was cold. And those things would move back and forth so you couldn’t always keep your glass tubing together. If that glass tubing came apart because the wind was blowing a bit and those things were moving, you know, you’d have one over here and one over here and this would move in a different, you know, so it would pull it apart. You’d have to start the sampling all over again. So we had to pay careful attention to how we did that. Franklin: How would you get up there? Beck: We climbed ladders that probably weren’t OSHA compliant. They didn’t require the fall protection then that they do now. We did everything that was required for safety. But stuff progresses over years. You know, you get better and better at it. That’s one of the things I didn’t like so much. I’ve climbed those towers and it didn’t scare me being up that high, but it did—when wind blew, boy, it was cold. It was not a good place to be. And you couldn’t pick the day you sampled, necessarily, for wind. Franklin: Oh, yeah. Beck: Not always. You’d try. But they couldn’t predict the weather as well as they can now. And Battelle used to predict all the weather on the Site, you know. They still do as far as I know. They had a lab out there. A building where they had Battelle meteorologists, they were there 24/7. I think they still might be; I’m not sure. I think they might have a lab 24/7 doing weather forecasting and stuff. Franklin: Wow. Beck: Just in case they have an incident or something like that, they know where the plume might go or know where fires might go. I think that, as I remember, that was probably a really, really good thing we had that going on when we had the big range fire out there. You probably heard about that. Franklin: Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Beck: Well. I was working out in the 200 Area. HEHF had dissolved and I had went to work for Waste Management. Waste Management had a contract out at Hanford to do many things. They day of the accident that started that fire, I was out at 200 West. I was out not too far from T Plant. I was out by the Yakima gate, kind of facing the Yakima gate, and I was inspecting a chemical storage, I guess you’d say, I don’t know what you’d call them, but they’re like the storage boxes that you see on trains that go back and forth that got the doors that open. We were putting a lot of chemicals and stuff in there, and as I remember, the painters were kind of complaining when they opened the door, they’d get chemical odors. So we were taking a look to see how we could collect samples and see what they were exposed to. And I heard the accident. I heard the collision that actually started that fire. And I heard this pop or bang. It was a distant thing. I looked—you know, you can’t see anything from the distance I was at. But not long after that, fire started. Later I heard that it was probably caused by that accident that I heard, that’s how fire got started. So when the fire really got going, I think I was out there the day after. It’s been a long time ago; hard to remember exactly when the days I worked. But I didn’t work out there for very long, because they closed the Site down and only the required people were out there. So when the fire finally was done, we all went back to work out there, and it was very different. There was nothing but dust and I guess you’d say ashes. The fire had come really close to the place I had my office. I can’t remember the number on the building. But it had come really close and actually some of those buildings had been scorched. I mean, they got really hot. They kept the fire—DOE had done some really good things. They had a lot of fire alarms around the buildings, and they put big rocks everywhere to keep the contamination down. Because when the wind blows, if you have any radioactive contaminant, it blows around. Franklin: Right. Beck: So you could almost pick the areas that had some ground contamination out there, because they were full of big rocks. Around Tank Farms, there’s big rocks. I mean, they’re everywhere. Like beds of rocks. So when the wind blows, it really stops the movement of any contamination. You’d have the RCTs that would go around with their meters, and that’s all some of those guys did was just constant surveys to see what the contamination was going. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the stories about the tumbleweeds being contaminated. At the time when they started to burn those tumbleweeds and the smoke was radioactive, they soon figured that out and quit burning the tumbleweeds. Almost all the mice had radioactive. They actually had some people from Battelle that used to go out and collect animal specimens on Site. They would come in and analyze them and they would tell them what the contamination levels were. But you’ve probably heard that story, I would suspect. Franklin: A little bit, yeah. Beck: Yeah. Well, those, when I went to work for Battelle, I was supporting those people that used the firearms to go out and collect some of the animals. Franklin: Oh, okay. Beck: Yeah. It was— Franklin: I’m wondering if you could tell me a little more about that. Beck: Well, some of that might not—might be classified still. I’m not going to say much. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Okay, sure, sure, sure. Beck: There’s things I’ll be very careful with in this interview, because I had a security clearance for many years. I don’t keep up with what has been declassified and what’s still classified. Franklin: Perfectly understandable. Beck: But things that are common knowledge, like the collecting the specimens, deer, rabbits, things like that and all kinds of plant stuff, that was done probably from the 1940s. But it was done much better in later years. I don’t know when they really started collecting those samples. You’d have to do research on that. But it was definitely going on when I went to work for Battelle. I think it was 2000— Franklin: And you were seeing or hearing reports of even then collecting specimens that were radiologically hot? Beck: Yeah, well, they would go out and see what they could find. Let’s see. That’s probably not classified. We had a situation with Hanford. I was still working at HEHF at the time. So it would be before I went to work at Waste Management, which I think was 1999. Not too sure; I think it was. They had a hydrogen sulfide smell out around Tank Farms. Tank Farms had odors for a long time. If you worked out there—we did a lot of sampling around Tank Farms. You’d pick up stuff in the air all the time, even in the old days. That’s because the risers—this might be my own personal opinion. I don’t know how much fact there is to this. But over the years, I always picked up this reason for why they never could put those exhaust stacks up in the air. Because if you were to put some high exhaust stacks up in the air from those tanks, you’d dissipate a lot more of those, and people wouldn’t smell it, and it wouldn’t be a problem. But to do that, you have to change your air quality permits, and that’s pretty tough to do and it would pretty hard to get the State of Washington to buy off on it. It’d be pretty expensive, because you got to put special filters. I mean, even now, those tanks, those underground tanks, they have special filters on the exhaust so that they can keep the contamination level down. You don’t stop the vapors, but you can certainly stop radioactive particles. Well, anyway, so they shut the entire Site down because of that hydrogen sulfide smell out at Tank Farms. And everybody was on, I believe they went to airline respirators or actually SCBA respiratory protection. As an industrial hygienist, you’re also very involved in respiratory protection, because you choose the respiratory protection, you make sure the mask fits. It’s all got to be to OSHA spec. You know, DOE, because they’re a government agency, they really aren’t under OSHA requirements. They’re like the Army. They’re like the Forest Service, the Parks Service. They’re really not governed by OSHA. OSHA was a law that was mostly just for people that weren’t government. I mean, you can’t tell somebody who’s in the Marines that he’s got to wear hearing protection because his rifle makes too much noise. I mean, that’s probably not going to go, because the Marine needs to hear his buddies, right, and he’s not going to put on hearing protection to save his hearing. I mean, you can see the Army operates a bit different. Franklin: Right. Beck: So most of the military and most of the government agencies are exempt from OSHA. DOE didn’t have a lot of their own standards, so they rolled over and accepted OSHA, a lot of the exposure limits and so on and so forth. But it wasn’t up—when I first came here, it was a little—It became more formalized as we rolled along, but in 1989, they were still doing pretty good on it, but there was a lot of things that they just weren’t required to do. So they later wrote those things in. But at any rate, we had this smell out at Tank Farms. This is a long story, but I’m getting to this— Franklin: No, no, no, no. Beck: This contaminants. It’s a story that I’ll never forget. So, they put us on 24/7 shifts at Tank Farms. All of HEHF’s industrial hygienists had to work graveyard and daytime as did all the other health and safety people. We all went on. That had not been the case. There were a few health and safety people that worked staggered shifts, but most of us worked day shifts. So we found ourselves out at Tank Farms. Myself and another industrial hygienist who worked for HEHF who now works at Battelle, [LAUGHTER] we were riding around in a car and going from place to place at Tank Farms and taking chemical measurements all night long. Everybody was—it was kind of crazy. There was SBCA respirators. And then they stepped down, a few people were allowed to wear cartridge respirators that you can still take the vapor out of your breathing zone, but if it’s at a certain level then you’ve got to go to the airline because it’s considered to be dangerous. Well, that’s what OSHA says, anyway. They’ve got these exposure—these limits. Well, went out there one night, and I’m walking through one of the facilities out in Tank Farms. And I see this big—there’s a pop machine and a candy vending machine in this area. I see this big V shape cut out of the concrete. It’s gone. I hadn’t seen that before. I said, gee, I wonder what happened. So I started asking people, how’d that happen? And they said, well, what happened was we found that the mice were going here and running along the wall. You know where the wall and the floor come together, you’ve got that 90-degree bend straight up and down. Well, they had mouse dropping and urine and it was hot. Then they found that a mouse—later on they found that a mouse had gotten up in the candy machine and there was contamination in the candy machine. So the candy machine gets removed. That’s going back to what I was telling you about the contaminated animals. Yeah, you just knew, if you dropped something on the ground at Hanford, you almost never picked it up. If you dropped any pen—I don’t know how many ink pens the government bought for people, but ballpoint pens, they were laying on the ground a lot of places. You knew why they were there. You just couldn’t be sure, when you picked them up, if you did pick them up, they were clean, and you didn’t want to do that. Because when you go out of a zone, you’d have to survey out. If you contaminated your hands, it was a big deal. So if you dropped something on the ground, rather than pick up the pen, you would prevent further contamination. That was part of the training, that you don’t be picking up things that could be potentially contaminated. So we didn’t pick up— I mean, it was a well-known fact that the tumbleweeds and stuff that grew in a lot of places at the Hanford Site—because there was ground contamination—would become contaminated and they’d have lot of radioactive isotopes up in the tumbleweeds. They first thought that they’d go around and they’d reduce the fire hazard by burning the tumbleweeds, so they picked them up in a truck, you know. They had this truck, I think that was—I don’t know how they burned them; I can’t remember exactly. I think they actually embedded some sort of a truck or designed one so they could keep the tumbleweeds in this truck, keep the sparks from going and causing other fires. Everything is required to have a survey—everything out there that goes into any type of a zone is required to be surveyed. As I remember the story—you’d have to talk to somebody who remembers it better than I do—but the RCTs were surveying that operation in that truck, and they found that, lo and behold, the smoke was coming from the tumbleweeds, and any particulates made by those tumbleweeds were radioactive. So I don’t think that burning of tumbleweeds lasted very long. So we don’t do it anymore, I’m sure. But anyway. Franklin: Yeah, now, when I’ve been out there, I’ve just seen them, they get piled up in the ditches and along the fence lines. Beck: And usually hauled away. Franklin: Usually—yeah. Beck: They put them in the landfill and usually bury them. You know, it’s—you just assume that if there’s one contaminated—if you just find one, say, in 100 acres, you would assume that potentially you could have more. So they just all get collected and buried. Franklin: Sure, and you don’t know where they came from, so. You know? It’s the nature of the beast. Beck: And the same with the animals. We used to laugh about it a lot. How do you keep a jackrabbit from staying on the Hanford Site? He’s eating vegetation that may be contaminated, may not. So anything he takes in gets bioaccumulated, stored in his body, you can probably find it. Now this little bugger, he wants to hop over, maybe he even swims the Columbia River, I don’t know. But suppose he gets somewhere. I don’t think that’s a serious issue, but I think it’s one that they’ve been watching. They’ve always watched. Franklin: Sure. It makes sense. I’d like to ask you about the history of the HEHF as you know it. How long were they in existence before you joined them? Beck: A long time. I came to work in ’89, and they were the medical group in 1969 when the McCluskey accident happened. You’ve probably heard of that. Franklin: Yes. Beck: Okay. Those were the docs that treated him. They used chelation therapy? Franklin: Which is? Beck: Which is they give you IV. IVs of salts that will go out and grab onto certain chemicals in the blood. They do that for heavy metals, too. It doesn’t necessarily have to be radioactive. There are people who might have mercury or lead or something in the blood, and they can do that sort of therapy. What it does is it makes chemical complexes. They get it out of the blood and it’s excreted. So that was pretty successful, as I understand it. Never had been done before, that I was aware of. At least that’s what I was told at HEHF. You know, I told the young woman that I talked to on the phone that I scheduled this interview that they used to have lead-lined bathtubs. For accidents. And the McCluskey was the first one who was ever, I think, put in a lead-lined bathtub. Those were located about, I don’t know, a couple hundred feet behind Kadlec. In a—you probably heard of that before? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Beck: Well, I was the guy—I was one of the industrial hygienists used to go in there, because the bathtubs were made of lead. You want to make sure there’s not a lot of lead contamination. You do get oxidation of lead, right ? Franklin: Sure, yeah. Beck: So we’d go in and we’d do what we call swipe samples and we’d have them analyzed for lead and make sure there was no excess lead dust, or not a lot. See, the medical staff or the people being treated to be exposed to. So I used to go in that facility once or twice a year. And so did a lot of other HEHF employees. But I’d never see that facility before, but I’d actually seen the bathtub where McCluskey was—I think it was the bathtub where he was actually treated. But they had these bathtubs and they put the person in it and they’d try to decontaminate him. And the people that did the decon—decontamination—they had the lead that would shield them while they did the work. And they wouldn’t—they’d take turns to limit their dose. They’d move around. So HEHF was here in 1969 when that happened. We had our 65th, I think, anniversary when I was still working for them. Which would’ve been prior to—I don’t know, exactly. That may not be right. I don’t know how long they were here. Maybe it was Battelle had their 65th anniversary when I was working for them. I was working for Battelle when they had their 65th. I don’t know how long HEHF was— Franklin: Okay. Beck: You’d have to research that out. But they soon—I started to work in August 14th of ’89. When I went to work for Waste Management, there were few of us left. Soon after that, the contract was put out for bid, and somebody else won the contract. So then HEHF went out of business. I mean, there’s other people to do the contract, but I actually gave several names of employees that still live in the area to that woman I talked to. She’s hopefully trying to get them to come in for interviews like this, or maybe even meet them for lunch. They meet every month on the fourth or third Thursday for lunch. Franklin: Oh, okay. Beck: A lot of the people that have been worked for HEHF longer than I did. I really didn’t work for them that long. I worked for them for ten years. But there were some people who worked a long time. They’re still here. Franklin: Maybe we can come and give them a presentation. Beck: Yeah, I really think those guys—I don’t know about the docs. I think the docs that actually did the McCluskey treatment stuff, they may have passed already. I don’t know where those guys are. I never met any of them, other than just when they’d come back to visit HEHF after they’d retire. You know, they’d come in the office and I got to shake hands with them and that, but I didn’t know— Franklin: You didn’t work with them? Beck: Didn’t work with them. Franklin: What—oh. Sorry. What other types of activities and people did HEHF employ, besides industrial hygienists? Beck: They employed doctors, and most of the docs were occupational physicians; they specialized in occ med. That’s a specialty usually—at the University of Utah, when—I took some graduate classes for industrial hygiene and we were in the division of occupational medicine, which is a part of family and community medicine at most medical schools. So almost everybody that goes to medical school does a rotation through family medicine and they get probably three months’ worth of rotation through occ med. These docs would’ve specialized in it. There was a guy named Dr. Culkeeny, for instance. He was—I still consider him a great guy and one of my best friends, and I don’t know—he comes back from time to time. But he was a retired Navy physician that worked on aircraft carriers, nuclear powered aircraft carriers. He was a very, very knowledgeable doc. Those were the kind of people that they went after and tried to find. When I first came to HEHF in 1989, we had, I think it was either a one-star or two-star general that became the head of HEHF, and he was an MD. He was a medical doctor. He came from the Air Force, I think. His name was Dr. Neider. He’s retired now. I think he’s still living here in the area. I know that there’s a guy that I worked with at Battelle that married his daughter. So I think he has grandkids and I think he’s still in this area. But, gosh, I haven’t seen most of those people. There’re some of those people that work for HEHF working for the medical contractor now. They’re physicians’ assistants. I think my exit exam when I left PNNL when I retired—everybody gets an exam, you know, when you quit or when you retire you get an exam on record to see if there was anything wrong with you. Actually, one of those PAs did my exit exam so I had a good time telling her, a lot of reminiscing of old times. Those lunches—there was a lot of reminiscing at those lunches about what we used to do and some of the outrageous things we used to have to do on site that we thought, like climbing those stacks. Ha. Got to tell you, that was a—it wasn’t a high point in your day when you had to do that, but it had to be done by somebody. So we were the ones that—some of us; not everybody. Franklin: So it sounds like the nature of your job was largely having a lot of a presence out on site, being—not a lot of lab work, but a lot of going out in all different times of the year and sampling—what were some of the challenges of a year-round position like that? Beck: Well, the weather. We’d work out in, it’s going to be 108 degrees next Friday. Like I told you, Trench 84, very interesting trench. It’s a burial trench out in the Area. I worked out there when I worked for Waste Management. This is just to point out how the weather really affects things. The heat out there, when you’re in that trench, we measured just a temperature off an ordinary thermometer of 114, 115 degrees And it was a trench they’d dug out with Euclids, which are those big earth-moving machines, that you just drive and they just keep digging the—and then they drive up and they put it on top. And then they’d move those big reactor components from all the nuclear ships that they deactivated, and move them in there. They never cover them up—they’re going to cover them up at some point in time, but they have to leave them uncovered so that the people that are part of the treaty, the Russians, number one, can fly over with their satellites and still count those reactor components. Because that’s how you prove they’ve taken the ships out of service. That’s part of some treaty; I was never sure which treaty. They even had to be painted specific colors so that the satellite can see them. But it got so hot out there in the trenches that you couldn’t paint them, the reactors, until—as a matter of fact, we tried to paint them in April one day and the paint was drying so fast, it was popping off. It wouldn’t stay on the reactors, it was that hot. Franklin: Wow. Beck: It wasn’t that hot. It was like 90-something degrees, but it was—they were black underneath. They had kind of a black tarp covering on them. So when you prepped those—and we had professional painters, you know, who would go up on scaffolds and try to paint those things. They’re huge. Wouldn’t fit—one of those probably would be a challenge to fit in this room. They move them with big cranes, Lampson cranes. If you’ve ever seen one of those, you ought to—that’d be something to really televise, for this show, I think, as part of the history. Because they move them out—they close all the roads on the weekends and they put these big trucks, I don’t know how big these trucks are, but they weigh like 200 tons or something like that. Franklin: Oh, wow. Beck: And they’re contaminated. So they put them on these trucks and they truck them out and put them in that trench. Push dirt underneath them. And they’ll be buried there for—yeah, that’s Trench 84. It’s a well-known trench. I don’t think it’s classified or anything because everything that we used to work on—used to have to have a security clearance to work in there. Franklin: Pretty sure the cleanup tour now goes right by—I’ve seen that. I’ve seen what you’re talking about. Beck: You’ve seen those big things? Franklin: Yeah, they’re huge. Beck: And some of them are bigger than others because some come out of cruisers, some come out of destroyers. But they’re huge. Franklin: They’re huge. Beck: And they’re very hard to paint. Franklin: Yeah and there’s many of them. Beck: They are very hard to paint, let me tell you. Franklin: Oh, I imagine so. Beck: But anyway, it was a 115 degrees down there one day. You have to send people out to work for 20 minutes and then they come in and rest for 30. Because they’re in their anti-Cs. Franklin: What’s that? Beck: Well, it’s anti-contamination clothing, usually a pair of coveralls, and then some, like, a plastic suit or—I guess the way you describe the suit—actually, the name of the suit escapes me. But you sweat. Boy, do you sweat. You wear another pair of shoes. You wear your boots and then you wear plastic over-shoes over that. Then you wear a coveralls and you tape it around the bottom and you wear your other—so you’ve got about two layers, sometimes three. Your rubber boots, you’ll have that much water in your shoes from your sweat. Franklin: Wow. Beck: It’s icky. [LAUGHTER] I’m going to tell you, when I first came here in ’89, it was hard to get used to. It really was. And I have a little sensitivity to heat exhaustion and heat stroke now from the Hanford Site, because sometimes even the safety people—you wouldn’t realize it; it sneaks up on you. You just, before you know it, you’ve got a headache, you’re feeling sick to your stomach, and that’s heat exhaustion. Heat stroke comes later. But you want to stop it before it ever gets there. That’s one of the bigger challenges. Then in the winter, you freeze. It’s really cold. The wind blows like crazy. There are days you can’t collect samples. As an industrial hygienist, the wind’s blowing like 40 miles an hour, I guarantee you, your samples will be worthless. So you don’t sample it. Do you stop work? Well, OSHA says you should know what your employees are getting exposed to. But how do you do that? And actually, I think, when the wind starts blowing, usually more than ten miles an hour, we would not collect samples, because if you’re outside, it can blow dirt in picked up with the wind that these guys weren’t creating. They’re still exposed to it, but it really kind of, what you’d say, salts the sample and makes it maybe a little higher than what it should be. They also had to shut down any heavy lifting. They used these big cranes on the Hanford Site. Since I was a certified safety professional and a certified industrial hygienist, I did safety—I did IH and safety both, and most people did. I mean, there are some safety people out there that just do safety and don’t do industrial hygiene, but I think most IH folks used to do both. I’ve done both on my career of 31 years, safety and health, I’ve done both. So you’re doing the lifts out there with these big cranes, and usually you’re—well, you’re lifting all kinds of things. But hey have these leaded drums that they put waste in, other isotopes in and plutonium. They weigh 5,000 or 6,000 pounds. They lift those up. Well, if the wind’s blowing more than ten miles an hour, all lifts are canceled. There’s a reason for that. They get swinging. Do you want to try to stop 5,000 pounds of—whatever you pick up can be moved in the wind, and you just don’t want to have— So, lightning. When lightning comes close, within 30 miles, a lot of that stuff gets shut down because those cranes are just lightning rods. But it goes inside. So you have a lot of things—I mean, there’s a lot of people that put up with lightning. I mean, in the Midwest it’s worse than here by far. So a lot of people deal with lightning. But our winds, if you’ve ever seen the wind blow around here, it can get to be a big deal. I remember the first year I was here in 1989, I came in August. That November or sometime, I think before Thanksgiving, we had winds that knocked down all the trees down in the park along the river, tore up signs and everything. I remember sleeping that night in my house, the same one I’m living in now, and I thought the roof was going to come off the house. The winds were like 85 miles an hour. Franklin: Wow. Beck: I mean, you went up to the Area the next day, and boy, there was a lot of changes. That’s how the contamination really moves. [LAUGHTER] Could potentially go off-site. Franklin: Sure. Beck: Anyway. Franklin: Wow. Earlier, before we started the interview, you were also telling us about how the shift from providing large drums of water to bottled water and I wonder if you could talk about that briefly. Beck: Well, I’ve already mentioned one of the biggest challenges we have in the weather realm is the heat. And heat exhaustion and heat stroke is a big-time deal; it can be very serious. It’s like the Army used to find, if you didn’t have good food and good boots, everybody gets calluses on their feet, the Army doesn’t go very far. If they get sick and they’ve got dysentery, bad water, bad food, the enemy doesn’t need to fight you, right, because you’re done. You’re pretty much done. Same thing when you’re working in the workforce like that. You take out half your workforce with heat exhaustion, heat stroke. And it takes a while to recover. And sometimes, it takes IV therapy, if they’re really, you know, if people are really sensitive and they’re like I am. I’m 66. I have to watch what I do. Not only have I been sensitized out there at the Site, but I also have to watch what I do now because the older you get, the less your body cools itself. I mean, there’s lots of things that are different. So you’ve got to be smart about what you do. So we used to have to try to prevent heat exhaustion, heat stroke. Hydration is key. But when you’re in all those layers of anti-contamination clothing, right, and you sweat a lot, not only is it key, it’s crucial, in my opinion. So there was a time when I came out here in 1989 that we were accomplishing this, the hydration part, by having 5-gallon containers of chilled water with ice in it. We had to make sure it wasn’t contaminated; it was clean; that there weren’t any viral-borne illnesses or anything that people would get, because that’s bad, too, and people don’t want to drink it anyway. So we had these containers that were purchased that were used for nothing but that. They were sanitized every day at the end of shift with a Clorox solution—chlorine solution. They were rinsed and they were put in an area that was clean to dry. Turned upside-down, sitting on things, so they would air dry. And then in the morning, way early in the morning—some of these shifts, because it was hot, we’d alter the shifts and you’d start work at 6:30, maybe 6:00 in the morning, maybe even earlier. And then you’re done earlier in the day, and that also helps. Franklin: Oh, yeah, I bet. Beck: For those of us that had to drive out there 35 miles, it wasn’t terribly helpful. Because that means you have to get up at 3:00 in the morning to get out there. That was the other thing in the summer: your schedule changed a lot. But at any rate, they had some of the craft that were union employees that would fill these things up with ice and water and monitor them all day, and would also sanitize them and clean them at night. And they’d do other things in the day, but that was part of their duty. It’s very difficult; you got 15 people working in an area doing something and you’re trying to count these 15 people and make sure they’ve had enough water, enough fluid. How do you do that? It’s kind of hard, because you’re—to not get too complicated and take too long, if it’s a contaminated area, you can’t do that anyway. Because they’re on a respirator and they’re not allowed to eat and drink. So that’s a big problem. So a lot of times, they have to take breaks and they have to maybe take off the outer layer of their anti-Cs, they have to survey out, then they get to go sit and cool down. Now, a coffee break takes about 45 minutes when you do that. Because they get their clothing off, they get surveyed to make sure they had no contamination, then they get to go sit and drink the water. That’s always kind of hard to say, well, how many cups has this guy had, how many cups have you had? Because you’ve got to have so many ounces in so many hours. Franklin: Sure. Beck: But when bottled water came, we eliminated the cost of those jugs and the ice—because it had to be ice that was drinkable. We still kind of gave them drinkable ice, but we got the bottled water, we just put all the bottles in kind of like a big plastic tub with ice in it, let them cool down. Each guy, each individual would go and get six bottles of water and write his name on it or whatever, however many bottles. And we would count the number of bottles he drank and he would, through the safety officer on the Site, he would require that those people bring the bottles to you, and show you that they’ve—you couldn’t stop them from pouring it on the ground the moment you saw them, but if you saw them doing that, they were done working. Franklin: Right. Beck: They just were. Because if someone goes down in a contaminated area, if they pass out or they get sick, then you got to have the Hanford Fire Department come in and pick them up. It’s just—it’s a huge issue and there’s lots of risks to that. People get hurt. You want people making good decisions. You don’t want people feeling light-headed and not feeling good. That’s going to happen anyway, maybe, because it’s just so blasted hot. You want to try to get them as good as they can be. So bottled water, as a safety person, I thought bottled water was one of the coolest things that came around. It really made our job a bit simpler. And I think overall for the safety and health of the people that worked out there, they could have as many as they wanted; we didn’t restrict the bottled water. But, golly, I mean, we absolutely knew for a fact that that guy was really at low risk, or lower risk, for heat exhaustion because he’d had all the water he needed. Franklin: Right, you were able to measure it, basically. Beck: Yeah, you could measure it instead of just guessing at it. How much—did he drink the entire cup or did you drink half of it and throw it away? That was kind of important. Franklin: So you said in ’99, HEHF was shut down. And then you moved to Battelle shortly after that? Beck: Well, HEHF was shut down, and I had to have a place to go to work. Because my job was going to end. I think what happened there was that most of the contractors thought HEHF was too expensive. I mean, they were each given $2 or $3 million a year for health and safety, I think. What you had to pony up from your contract was proportionate to the employees you had, right? And each time a doc examines somebody and they each got to handle a physical, you know? Say there’s 12,000 or 15,000 employees onsite. I don’t know how many there ever were. I know that Battelle themselves employs around 4,500 workers. But if you have that many employees, and they’re all getting exams, it’s constant money. They all thought that they could do it different and cheaper. So HEHF, their contract was put up for bid and somebody else won the contract. Then there’s other people that left. They were using their own physicians, putting them on the records. So I’m not sure exactly what happened, but the crux of the matter was they started doing their own industrial hygiene and safety and they were hiring on people. They actually hired many of the HEHF staffers. We were kind of at a premium because we’d been here a while. We had our clearances already. Security clearance costs—I don’t know, they told me once it used to cost $10 grand for a year. I mean, they have to maintain it. They check on it every year. I had a Q clearance. I don’t know if that’s similar to what the politicians who’ve been in the news recently with the election have. But, you know. They check. They check all the time. So if you have all those things already done and your training’s already done, you don’t have to be trained and receive all the rad training. I mean, you have to have the annual refresher but you don’t have to go for the two-week course. That costs a lot of money, to send people for a two-week training. Then, wow, we get this person and he’s actually been out here and he knows where T Plant is, and he knows where this is? And you might have an idea where things are buried where other people have forgotten, okay? Give you an example, those tunnels that just collapsed? We knew they were there. For a long time. And I believe that used to be classified. Obviously they’re not because they’re in the news. But we used to walk across them all the time; we knew they were there. How anybody could’ve forgot they were there and let them deteriorate is—but anyway. Another story. So I needed a place to go to work, so I first went to work for Waste Management. Probably of all the contractors, HEHF was the very best at it, and that was the very best job I ever had. I was devastated to see that job go. I really was. Because it was the—when you go to take graduate courses in industrial hygiene, it’s the cat’s meow to have occupational health nurses, and occupational docs and industrial hygienists and safety people all over the gamut, all going in and talking about John Smith who’s got this problem, how do you think he got it? And then going out and sampling for it. Man, that was good. It was just like graduate school, just like—a lot of companies work—well, anyway, that ended. And so I went to work for Waste Management. I think Waste Management was probably the second best company at Hanford I ever worked for. Franklin: Why was that? Beck: Management. The manager I had was—he was fabulous. I just can’t say enough about him. He was—his name was Gordon Meaney. He was a great guy. He was a great guy. Then I worked—something happened with the politics. There again, these contracts out at Hanford, they’re all full of intrigue and drama and politics and whatever you want. Follow the money, you know, but. Fluor Hanford wasn’t getting along with Waste Management for some reason. So they swallowed up Waste Management. We didn’t get choices; we were Fluor Hanford employees. I mean, we had a choice: go find another job or work for Fluor Hanford. Because Waste Management was done. Maybe they’ve come back to the Site; I haven’t paid much attention. Franklin: Do you remember when that was? Beck: Oh. Franklin: You got notes? Beck: Well, I just have some information here. If you’ll pardon me, I can’t remember dates really well. Franklin: No, that’s totally fine. Beck: I know the date that I started, I stopped working for— Franklin: It’s not a crucial thing if you can’t remember it. Beck: Oh, I can. I worked for Waste Management until November 15th of 1999. November 15th of 1999, I became a Fluor Hanford employee. So, it was in the late ‘90s that they had this little problem with Fluor. I don’t know what it was. I used to kind of think I knew, but the years have gone by, you know? It’s not the most important thing I ever thought about, but it happened. So I only worked for Waste Management for a year. I worked for Fluor Hanford for a year. And then Fluor Hanford was probably the worst job I ever had. I worked for other companies that had worse management but I don’t know when. I mean, I’m not trying to trash them; I’m just saying. I was matrixed out in the area to six different projects. I read about it this morning before I came, because I sent my letter of resignation, I sent it by email. The human resources specialist that I sent that to wrote me an email back saying, why are you leaving? So I wrote this discourse why I was leaving. I was matrixed to about six projects; I had three different managers I was responsible to. It got so bad, I mean—I want to say this nicely. There were managers that would schedule meetings at the same time, or maybe I’d have a meeting from 1:00 to 2:00 and this guy wanted a meeting from 1:30 to 2:30 or whatever. They would write me nasty letters and put on my evaluation that I didn’t attend meetings. But I had conflicts. These managers, it’s like the current political administration, if you’ve been noticing what’s been going on in Washington, DC. They were warring against each other. I was absolutely amazed. I said, look, guys. I’m matrixed to all these projects. If you guys want to have a meeting with me, I’m more than willing to attend but I can’t be two places at once. Well, where’s your loyalty? Do you have a loyalty to this plant, this project, or what? What do you mean loyalty? I’m going to lose my job one way or another. After a while, I just said, you know? So I applied for Battelle. It was a job that was in town. No more driving. I mean, I didn’t really mind the drive out there. But they actually drove me from the Site, the bad management and their attitude. Gosh, a nine-hour day was not enough for them. I had to do ten hours a day, four days a week. When I went to work for Battelle—I retired at Battelle, so. When I worked for Battelle, things changed a bit on my safety and health slant, because I was the first industrial hygienist for the University of Utah. They were in research, laboratory research. Well, Battelle is laboratory research, too. So they hired me for my experience in laboratory research. Franklin: Mm. So you kind of ended your career where you started. Beck: I ended my career where I started. Much happier. Battelle had good management for the most part. Franklin: What types of projects did you support at Battelle? Beck: I supported—I don’t know how they’re organized now; I haven’t really kept up with it since I left. But Battelle had different directorates. My last directorate where I retired from was NSA, or the national—NSE, excuse me. The National Security Directorate. NSA, the National Security Administration, after 9/11, that’s where they got most of their money. Working there, working for Battelle, you know, I’d heard that most of the money was in NSD. From time to time, everybody at the will of the government goes through budgeting crises at the Site, particularly Battelle. I was energy science and technology directorate. ESTD was the one I first supported. They were more subject to losing money through the budget. So I was working, the day of 9/11, I was working, still supporting ESTD and I was over in PSL when the—actually, I was home when I heard that 9/11 occurred, you know, the planes and everything. I was in PSL when that tower collapsed. Franklin: Wow. Beck: And I was with a bunch of ESTD people, and they said, man, this is obviously terrorism. We were all talking about it. And they said, wow, now would be the time to change directorates, because I’m never going to get—National Security Directorate’s going to get a lot of bucks. So I changed and went to work for the National Security Directorate and, boy, did we ever get money. So they do all kinds of research. NSD is almost completely classified. There’s some things that aren’t, but by and large, that’s all I can tell you. Don’t mean to be cloak-and-daggered, but I don’t know what’s—because I would go in to do inspections and some things would be covered with cloths and sheets and I would be told, you can’t see this. My clearance, I had a Q clearance, it wasn’t even high enough. Franklin: Oh, wow. Beck: So, I mean, there’s some of those things. But the Energy Science and Technology Directorate does research into load handling for the power grid. They’re really famous for that. They’re working on battery technology. When I worked at the University of Utah in the early ‘70s, I actually—I worked as a research specialist until I started working for the Department of Public Safety where I was the industrial hygienist. My boss there was the chief of police for the university police. So before that, I worked for a project that was funded by a government agency called ERDA. Any of you guys heard of ERDA before? Franklin: Energy Research and—yes. Beck: Energy—yeah. Franklin: I know the acronym. Beck: It was DOE but not on steroids. Franklin: Right, they were pre-DOE, right? But post-AEC. Beck: Right. And I was working on a sodium sulfur storage battery. The military was funding it. Ford Motor Company was funding it for electric cars. The military was really interested in having a good storage battery where they could have electric motors in tanks. They could mount tank offensives and stuff without making noise. Like when you fire those big diesels up? Oh, the element of surprise is not there. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. No, it’s very different when a Chevy Volt goes down the street than even a regular car. Beck: I drive a Prius and I have to be very careful in parking lots because people don’t hear you. Because I’m totally electric when I get rolling. After I back out and I’m just going really slow, I’m on total battery power. And unless I’m making noise going across the asphalt, I can sneak up on people. And they look up and you actually scare them. You know? Franklin: Yeah, that’s happened to me. Beck: You have to be really careful. Well, anyway, so, they have five different directorates at Battelle. Battelle used to do research on water going through the dams and the fish. They used lasers to do that research. They have special things that they’ve built to simulate dams and they made special little floats that are smolts that they run through the—and they did these different aeration things and they had these lasers that they can actually see what was happening to these smolts. Because it takes pictures, so many frames a second, with the laser beam. I mean, it’s pretty cool. That sort of stuff’s not classified. When I worked there, I was the laser safety officer there for about five years. So I inspected all the lasers, made sure as best I could that we were operating them correctly and safely. There was one time in DOE that DOE had eight or ten accidents within a couple years where people had damaged their eyesight, lost their eyesight or were otherwise injured from lasers. So they got a really big deal on laser safety. They actually sent me from Battelle to Stanford. DOE has a lab at Stanford. And they gave us additional laser safety training. Franklin: Oh, wow. Beck: So they use a lot of lasers at Battelle. They use it at NSD, too. NSD, they use lasers for classified stuff, too. So if you’ve ever wondered how our drones are so accurate. Chk chk. [LAUGHTER] And that’s enough said. Franklin: No, and they are very accurate. My last question is what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War and cleanup? Beck: Well, I’d like to go back just a step further. I’d like to go back pre-, say, World War II, say. During World War II and just after. The men that worked here at Hanford were absolute heroes. Because when you look at the history and you look at the exposures—try to document and calculate some of the exposures of these guys. They were every bit as brave, and, man, they were—I mean, B Reactor and some of the things that were done, they didn’t know if some of those things were even going to work. They didn’t know how they were going to work. They knew a little bit about radiation, but they didn’t know the doses they were going to receive. And they didn’t have any way to measure it like we do now. So I’d like people to remember that, boy, those veterans that worked and made the plutonium—whatever you consider about the atomic bomb, the two that were dropped—the people at Hanford that made the plutonium for the second bomb, they were heroes. Those guys really gave. And after that, during the Cold War, there was more of that. You know, McCluskey was hurt in ’69 and there was a lot of injuries and a lot of exposures. We’ve got beryllium exposure, sensitization of beryllium from machining triggers and from the rods that went into the reactors that got beryllium on them in some places. And there’s all kinds of other illnesses that these guys have gotten, right? That they got protecting our country and they got by ending, by winning the Cold War, essentially. I’m a member of Cold War Patriots, and I think they’re right on. Wasn’t so much my generation, but the people that worked back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s, those are the people that really won the Cold War, in my opinion. And when the wall came down, when the Soviets—that wall came down, that was—I have no doubt that was a direct result, at least in partial of what was done here at Hanford and at Oak Ridge and at Lawrence Livermore and all the DOE labs. There’s 12 of them. You know, there’s more research, I think, done in most of the DOE labs than the rest of the universities put together, realistically. Most of those, most of these DOE sites are associated with major universities. It’s quite phenomenal what the Department of Energy and these labs and the Hanford Site and other places have done. I mean, yeah, there’s contamination and there are things that happen. But, man, there was a lot of stuff that was done that needed to be done and was done. I’m just—it’s kind of cool to be associated with it, actually. And it wasn’t a big deal, actually, from ’89 to when I retired in 2010 or 2011, it’s not a—we did a little. But it was those people before ’89 that were really, really—I think every time I go somewhere and I tell people about Hanford—where’s Hanford? What did you guys do? I’m on an airplane or I’m telling a relative. All my relatives in Denver think, you know, hey, you glow in the dark. Well, you talk with them about it and most of those people—the only thing they have, the only conception they have is how inhumane the atomic bomb was. I’ll give you, it’s a wicked weapon, but—they probably shouldn’t have killed—I don’t know. But those guys did what they were told. They did the very best they could, and there were some great, brilliant people that did this. There’s brilliant people working on these DOE sites today. They certainly get marginalized by the people in Washington, DC that don’t even know what’s going on. I’ll get a little political here, and I’ll tell you that I read an article recently that when the current administration came in, the guy who’s the head of the Department of Energy, they went out in Washington, DC, the head office of the DOE, they reserved all these parking places, and they got everybody ready to give these people that they thought from this administration would come to get all kinds of information, to get information on what do you guys do? Because the previous administration had done it, the administration before that had done it, the administration before that had done it. [WHISPERING] Nobody even showed up. [FULL VOICE] So the camera can hear me, nobody even showed up! It’s disgraceful. I’m sorry? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: No, no, that’s okay. Beck: I just say, you guys don’t even—you’re voting on a budget, you want to cut DOE’s budget. You don’t even know what the labs do! I mean, if you’ve got an opinion, that’s okay. But be informed. They didn’t even show up; it was like, well, we know exactly what you guys do and it’s nothing and it can be done away with. It’s just crazy. I think the future is in these small nuclear reactors, these pod reactors. I do not think solar and wind is going to replace coal-fired power plants. If we’re really going to have an energy renaissance, if we’re really going to get on a good energy program, we’re going to have to get on nuclear energy. It’s the only option. There are some people that will have some cold showers and they’re going to figure that out. I really believe that. So I think DOE, well, DOE labs, these labs that they have, the 12 of them are the ones that are going to make that happen and happen really well. And I think it can be done safely. I don’t know why people are ignoring the Department of Energy, it just—it baffles me. But, see, I’m one of the outspoken people that believes in nuclear energy and everybody else, I mean—I get people that just—[LAUGHTER] They’d like to beat me up, frankly. So, any other questions? Franklin: No, thank you so much, Ed. You know, I did have one other question and I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask—what did your wife do the whole time that you guys were here and that you were working out on Site? Beck: Hmm. Well. She raised the family. Did a great job. This is our 44th year of marriage. We’ll be married 44 years August the 18th. I’ll tell you one funny thing about coming here. When I got the job, and I said, you know, this is a really good job. The reason it was, I got a 50% salary increase when I came here. Franklin: That’s pretty significant. Beck: That’s from working at the University of Utah. It’s a little bit, deals with the risks that were here, but they also paid very well. So I said I think we ought to go. So we sold our house and everything. Well, we came for the house hunting trip. We had—[LAUGHTER]—so I get the family in the van, and I drive them from Salt Lake City. And we come down over Cabbage Hill, Cabbage Mountain which is by Pendleton. Wow, this is beautiful! This is just beautiful! We go out through the wheat fields, you know? I-84. Wow, this is nice, this is nice. Then I turn on 82. We go across the Columbia River. Oooh, this is good! Look at that dam! Look at the water! Then we come up to Kennewick, and she says, where are the trees? She says, where are you moving us? She says, there’s nothing green! And I said, well, when they flew me for the interview, I says, it’s green from the air. I says, they’ve got lots of corn fields and stuff. And then I—I didn’t know much about the place, so the house hunting trip, I rented—I stayed at the Motel 6 in Pasco. You’re on fixed income, they give you so much money for a house hunting trip. I shouldn’t have done that, but I thought, Motel 6, usually they’re pretty good. Not a really good area, and we got in the van, and the sun came up the next morning going to get breakfast in the hotel and she says, gee, I hope there’s a better part of town. So we ended up over by the mall. We bought—we’re living in the same house that we lived in, we bought that house in ’89, we’re still there. She raised our three kids, they went through high school here, they went through college. One went to WSU, one went to UW, and the other one was an National Merit scholarship winner and he got his choice of where he wanted to go, so he went to Arizona State. Then he got his PhD from University of California San Diego. Franklin: Wow. Beck: So. We had two transplants in that time because of our daughter having e. coli, she lost the use of her—she had destroyed her kidneys, and that’s another long story. But I donated a kidney in ’90 and then my wife donated one in 2003. So that’s basically what she did. She did home hemodialysis for six years after my daughter rejected my kidney. Until she was in good enough health that we could do the transplant, give her a kidney. That’s what I was going to tell you about health insurance. It was—this is an off—you know, I don’t know if you want to stop the camera, but this is, I think is kind of important for the where we came from and where we are now. I was at the University of Utah and I chose this program for insurance called the Preferred Provider Program. I mean, it started, it was new, they were starting all kinds of things back in the ‘80s. This is in ’81. So FHP had just come on. FHP I think is still in California. But for a while, FHP was our insurer, then I chose this Preferred Provider Program. And I thought, well, in the state of Washington there was no—you could not exclude previous illnesses. What do they call that now? Tom Hungate: Pre-existing. Franklin: Pre-existing condition. Beck: Pre-existing conditions. The law in Washington with all the insurance was no such thing as a pre-existing condition. And they paid well. Well, at the University of Utah, I was on a preferred provider program. When my daughter got sick, she spent 90 days in hospital, 30 in intensive care. The doctor that took care of her was from the medical school there. He was a specialist. He was a nephrologist. Because she started losing—hemolytic uremic syndrome can destroy your kidneys, and it did destroy hers. I was deeply in debt to that man, because he wasn’t one of the preferred providers on that program, and I didn’t know it. He was the only game in town. He was the only guy that could take care of her. He was on faculty at the University of Utah and he was insured through the same—he felt so bad. He says, I do not believe what’s happened. This is back in ’85—well, actually, ’87. He says, I don’t believe this could be happening in our country. How could this be? He says, you owe me this much. Because the insurance company wouldn’t pay because he had to sign up on the dotted line, you know? So he wrote off that entire amount of money I owed him, which was lots. Franklin: Wow. Beck: And so—and I had a lot of other expenses, too. I almost declared bankruptcy. So then this job—I started looking for another job because I had to pay off the bills. And we came to Washington State. One of the reasons I came here—I was interested in working at Hanford and I had a lot of experience to give them, but also they pay high salaries and there was no pre-existing conditions on their health insurance. And to move anywhere else would’ve been suicide, economic suicide. There was a time everybody was telling me, well, you ought to divorce your wife and if you do that she’ll be able to get medical assistance from the state. They were telling me to do that. I said, no, I’m not going to do that! But that was—there were a lot of people that were thinking and probably did do that to solve the—and then they’d just live with their wife, anyway. They were divorced, but— Franklin: Sure, to get—to be legally single. Beck: Anyway. That’s another—I think that’s kind of important. So, when my daughter lost her kidneys, use of her kidneys, we’d been living here for about ten years, she had about 10% left. We were told when we went over to children’s hospital for a physical that she had to have a transplant. So then I donated and I was working at HEHF at the time. So I donated, and since it was my daughter, the medical insurance covered her because it was a pre-existing condition and it paid for my hospital stay and my removal of my kidney, you know, and all of that. It was just so much better system. And then she rejected mine, and so she was on dialysis for six years and she was such a young age, she was in grade school at the time, that my wife wanted her to have a really normal, as normal a childhood as possible, and not have to go to a dialysis center with adults where the prognosis is not that good, and most of them are—you know, this is a little girl, she’s just seven or eight. So she went to Children’s Hospital and learned how to do dialysis herself. They trained her at Children’s to do dialysis on our daughter. We installed a dialysis machine in our basement. I got a water softener, I can put out a stream of water like that, still. You don’t need one like that, but I went over to Pasco to their dialysis center and I asked the engineer there, I said, what kind of water softener did you use? Because they said, you’re going to have to have a really big softener to do this, because it’s a lot of water. I paid the big bucks, we got it put in the basement and my wife dialyzed her four times a week for six years. Franklin: Wow. Beck: And that’s pumping blood through a filter. It’s not just pumping water. They have a type of dialysis where you can fill up a sack inside, but we actually did it, blood dialysis. That’s what she did when she was here. She couldn’t work. Franklin: Sure, no, that makes sense. Beck: But that was a good thing because Hanford paid so well. And I’ve never been in debt since. Franklin: Wow, that’s great. Beck: So, I don’t know, I’m pretty emotionally attached to this part of the country. Franklin: No, there’s a lot of good reasons for that. Well, Ed, thank you so much for coming and taking the time to interview with us today. Beck: You’re welcome. Franklin: Okay. <a href="https://youtu.be/cy9XisqownE">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview HEHF (Hanford Environmental Health Foundation) N Reactor 222-S Laboratory 200 Area 200 West T Plant Tank Farms B Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1989- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Edward Beck Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Animals in research Industrial hygiene Radioactive contamination Radioactive waste disposal Nuclear reactors Description An account of the resource Edward Beck moved to Richland, Washington in 1989 to work at the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation (HEHF). An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 07/31/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Faa1003ff17632ae0ae464a2e9db9f111.JPG 12ab3d1f4ce99cc9fe66593f8bf4bb23 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed James Bates Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with James Bates on October 3, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Jim about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? James Bates: Okay. James M. Bates. J-A-M-E-S, B-A-T-E-S. Franklin: Okay, great. Thank you. Bates: It’s not difficult. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: No, but you just, you never know. So tell me—so, you’re from the area, right? Bates: Yup. Franklin: Okay, so usually my first question is, tell me how and why you came to the area. But you were born— Bates: I was born in Pasco, went to school in Kennewick, graduated from Kennewick High in 1970. My dad, when I was in junior high school, brought me out to the Battelle Northwest groundbreaking ceremony. My dad was involved in local politics quite a bit; in fact, he eventually became mayor of Kennewick for several years. But he got me interested in the lab when we came out to the groundbreaking ceremony and the discussions of what was going to be going on in the labs kind of caught my interest. I mean, I was in junior high, so there was a long time to change my mind, but I kind of stuck with that as my goal. Graduated high school, went up to WSU, joined the mechanical engineering department. Got my degree, got a job offer from Battelle, came to work one month after graduation, stayed here 35 years. Franklin: Wow. So did your father work for Hanford, or was he just kind of— Bates: No, well, he was—right after he got out of high school, back in the late ‘40s, he worked on construction of some of the waste tank storage, the single-shell tanks. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bates: He worked out there about two years. But he eventually got diverted into auto parts and managed the NAPA store in downtown Kennewick. So that’s where I worked in the summers, doing inventory. [COUGH] I’m fighting a cough right now, so. Franklin: Oh, sure. And so what was your first job when you came out to Battelle? Bates: Well, they had what they called in those days a science and engineering rotation program. It was where you hired in and spent three to six months in various departments where they had openings. I actually started in the facilities department. Good bunch of guys there, still friends with a lot of those guys, and worked there about four months. It gave me a real good chance to learn what the lab was all about. I was modifying facilities for various sections, groups, departments, as project needs changed. So I got to know a whole lot of people around the lab. One of the departments that caught my attention was the fluids engineering section. When they had an opening, I transferred in there and stuck with them for 34 more years. Franklin: Wow. So I’m wondering if you can—just because I’m kind of a layman when it comes to this—if you could describe to me, what is fluids engineering and fluids dynamics? Bates: Well, understanding fluid flow, phase change, pressure drops, Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid behaviors, like I mentioned, multi-phase flow. All of that played very much into understanding the water cooling aspects of our production reactors out here. In fact, I got on board when they were trying to upgrade NPR, the New Production Reactor, which was actually N Reactor. We were trying to bump the performance, the thermal output of that reactor, as well as the production capability. So we had a chance to refurbish a lot of the old thermohydraulic loops that were used for designing the fuels on the old production reactors, the B, C, D Reactors. We upgraded that facility and began to do a number of tests related to the N Reactor. Critical heat flux correlations, these sorts of things, which helped them improve the fuel design for the reactor. Franklin: So, if I’m understanding, you kind of drew on the work done to increase the productivity of the single pass reactors. Bates: Yup. Yeah. Franklin: And transferred that to the closed loop system of the N Reactor? Bates: Yeah, I mean, we did work—factory did work on some of the work on the steam generators used that were eventually used to power the civilian power plant out there. But I mean, this test loop chases its roots way back to before I was born, 1950, ’51. They had loops out there to help them with reactor design. They kind of fell by the wayside in terms of use until we refurbished them, got them back online. But we had a high pressure loop out there capable of full reactor conditions, 2,500 psi, 650 degrees. We had five megawatts of power available to us through both rectifiers and motor generator sets. We used electrically—resistance heating to simulate the nuclear fuel rod bundle thermal output. So it was quite interesting for a young guy, just out of school, used to working on tabletop-scale experiments. I mean, this loop was 100 feet long and 100 feet high. [LAUGHTER] Pretty impressive to me. Franklin: This was located on the Battelle campus? Bates: At the old—no, this was out at the 189-D area. It was a reactor support building in the D Area complex. Franklin: Okay. Bates: So it involved a—when I was out there sitting in my chair at the loop, I was 50 miles from home. It was quite a long commute. Franklin: Yeah. And so by this point, all the single-pass reactors were shut down? Bates: Pretty—not completely. They were getting into those issues of thermal output and getting state permits. I can remember one time, in fact, we lost our permit to even do the thermal discharge from our test loop in the middle of a critical program. So how are we going to cool this thing without any river water at our disposal? So what we came up with was we pumped the river water out one pass through our loop, stored it in the old emergency cooling tanks out there that were in the 190 Tank Building. Gave us 5 million gallons’ capacity to store until we got our discharge permit back. Then we opened the valve and let it back out. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, that’s to return the water to the river. Bates: To return the water back to the river, yeah. Franklin: Was that permitting process kind of part of the growing environmental movement? Bates: Oh, yeah, very much so. When I first hired on, Hanford kind of had free reign on what we could do out here. We didn’t even pay for power. I’d fire up five megawatts of power supply and there was no meter on it. I wouldn’t’ve wanted to pay that bill, but— Franklin: Yeah, right. And where was that power coming from? Bates: It was coming off the grid out here on the Site. We had a big motor generator set—I forget how many horsepower it was, like 200 horsepower—that we used to turn AC power into DC. DC power being much better for this electrical resistance heating that we were doing. And we also had silicon-controlled rectifiers, SCRs, we called them, that about 4 megawatts out of that unit that turned AC power into controllable DC power. I remember every time we had to come online, I had to call the guys at the substations and say, we’re throwing the breaker. Get ready, we’re coming online. Because if we didn’t give them warning, it looked like something was failing, and we’d shut the substation down. Franklin: Oh, because of the immense amount power to be drawn. Bates: There was a big power draw all of a sudden. Franklin: Because that would look like a massive— Bates: Some kind of a surge going on that was unexpected. So we had the phone number pasted on the wall there, before you throw the switch, call these guys and let them know we’re coming online. So it was a—when that motor generator set was running, it was pretty impressive. Sounded like a jet engine running, just off to the side of the control panel here. In fact, I think that’s why I have hearing loss, over sitting there next to that thing for so many hours. Franklin: Sure. Yeah, I bet there’d be a different industrial hygiene— Bates: Oh, well, we didn’t have any noise surveys in those days, when our health people finally came out and did a survey, they said, man, that’s about 108, 110 decibels. You shouldn’t be spending more than two hours a day in that environment. And I says, well, let’s see, I’m 14 hours and going for today, so. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That’s really loud. Bates: Oh, it is, it is really loud. I mean, we sat there with hearing protection on just to keep from getting a headache. But there was no requirements for limits of exposure or how many hours we could spend in that environment. Franklin: Wow. I’m wondering if you could talk about how that permitting—that level of safety and permitting increased during your time out there. Bates: Oh, it was orders of magnitude. Basically, when I first hired on—in fact, I brought the documents—we wrote our safety documents and we ran them—basically, our operating procedures and what the hazards were. We wrote that all down, and we got it approved by Gordy Halseth. He was the single safety officer for Battelle in those days, he and a couple secretaries and clerks. I mean, if you go out and compare that to the size of the safety department that’s out there now—there must be probably 50, 60 people now doing that same job, just because of the increasing requirements. Basically, in those days, we’d invite Gordy out and give him a tour and get him to bye off. One signature, and we were on our way. The stuff we were doing—I mean, this is 2,500 psi, 620 degrees—is dangerous. We were careful because we knew it was dangerous, not because somebody told us we had to be careful. [LAUGHTER] So, you know, if somebody tells you that stove is hot, you don’t touch it. You don’t have to have it written down somewhere and sign off on a procedure. But, yeah, the changes that went on increased the efforts required to get project plans approved, safety documents approved, hazardous materials documents approved. All this became a much larger fraction of what we had to do in order to do our experimental work. So I got a little frustrated with it towards the end of my career, because it was just taking so much time. The ultimate objective, as stated by our safety people, was zero accidents. I kept saying, there’s no such thing. Probabilities play in, and things are going to happen. I told them, the people working for me, the most dangerous thing they do all day is drive to work, statistically. So I said, do you want me to tell them to stay home? Well, that’s not what we’re after. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Could you see, on the flip side, though, could you see any tangible benefit to that increase— Bates: Oh, yeah. If you read the old records of how much the production reactors warmed up the river, for example. When all of the production reactors were online, they could warm the entire Columbia River up by four to five degrees. Which, when you go out there and watch that river flowing by, that’s pretty amazing. Franklin: Right, and that could have some real cascading effects on different ecosystems. Bates: Oh, yeah, yeah. And of course, you mentioned the once-through cooling. When a fuel element ruptured, you began to wonder what was going into the river. Franklin: What other kinds of improvements or changes did your work lead to with the reactors, single-pass and then the closed loop? Bates: Oh, for example, we worked on improving the pressure drop performance of the spacers that hold the reactor rod bundles together. Any time you got a pressure drop through there, it’s a loss of energy, essentially. So we were trying to improve the performance of the spacer and the mixing behaviors downstream of those spacers. Because if the flow characteristics aren’t proper and you don’t get proper cooling to the rod, you’ll get a hot spot, and that limits how much you can ramp the power up. So, both the physical and the fluid dynamics of that flow were very important to how much power you can get out of a fuel element. So we worked on that a lot. In fact, these pictures I’ve got show huge control panels where pressure drop was what we were measuring. We used to use old mercury manometers in those days. Franklin: What is that? Bates: It’s where you measure, like, for example, a barometer. The old mercury barometers used to measure atmospheric pressure by how far it pushed a mercury column up in a tube. Well, if you put high-side pressure, low-side pressure and see the difference in that, you can determine how many psi pressure dropped. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bates: So the electronic transducers were just beginning to come onto the market. Which we eventually replaced all of that with. Franklin: And what is that, just something that electronically measures the pressure? Bates: Yeah. They use piezoelectrics, for example, is one way of making a pressure sensor. I got to live through all of that, where we went from manually recording manometers on a panel into our log book to tying it into an Apple computer-based data acquisition system and doing it all electronically. You got to remember, when I went to work out there in 1974, there were no desktop computers. My slide rule got a workout the first couple years. [LAUGHTER] And then eventually the company came through and gave us all HP calculators. Which were just beginning to come on to the market. Franklin: How did that change your work? Just that one tool, that one tool change. Bates: Oh, drastically. As an old school engineer, the thing I noticed, comparing it to the young engineers coming on board, when you work with a slide rule, you have to keep, basically, order-of-magnitude answers in your head. I mean, the decimal point doesn’t show on a slide rule. So you got real good at anticipating what a reasonable answer is to an engineering problem. The young engineers that were coming in that were all digital or computer, they’d come in and show me the answer. It was off by four orders of magnitude. I said, that can’t be. There’s no heat transfer coefficient that high. You know? You got to keep in your mind what a reasonable answer is. I’m afraid that that tendency still exists today in our computer-based engineering world. Franklin: So you’re saying, then, that kind of precision of the calculator took away some of that educated-guess work. Bates: It took away that, like I said, the engineering judgment. You start believing all the numbers the computer spits out with no basis to reject them as reasonable or unreasonable. Some of the older engineers I worked with, like Dale Fitzsimmons and Frank [unknown] and that, these guys were working out there working about the time I was born. They had the ability to do on the back of an envelope, so to speak, very good calculations. Things that we wouldn’t even attempt to do today. Obviously they were approximations but they gave us design parameters so we could go out and buy pumps and things to do the job. We just didn’t have all that software. In fact, the very first computer that was used out here was an analog computer that used manual jumpers on an array of resisters. Franklin: Wow. Bates: It was very crude. But because there’s an electrical analog for heat transfer, you could mock up a heat transfer experiment electronically and get some basic answers. Which we always had to confirm experimentally. Franklin: How long did that practice continue of generating basic answers to then confirm— Bates: Oh, I mean, right up until the time I retired, we were still doing very detailed studies on turbulence—I mean, turbulence is something computer models can’t model very well. Every turbulence model out there is empirically derived from experimental data. There’s no first principles that can model the chaos of turbulence. And that’s very key to heat transfer, for example. So, even with some of the reactor design codes that are being used now—which other people in our group were responsible for developing the COBRA codes, the VIPER codes—these probably don’t mean anything to you. But in the nuclear industry, they’re key to designing and analyzing accident conditions and so forth. A lot of the empirical models that are in those codes came from our experimental work. Franklin: Are those acronyms, COBRA and VIPER? Bates: Yeah, yeah, yeah. COBRA, I’m trying to—Coolant Boiling and Reactor Accidents. I’ve got it, it’s in the old history documents here. They became words to us over the years; you kind of lose track of where they came from. Franklin: This might be an off-the-wall question; I’m just kind of curious. We have a—I found a box of archival material the other day that referenced something called a TRUMP computer program. Bates: Yeah, I remember TRUMP. Franklin: Okay. I’m wonder if you could— Bates: That wasn’t something I was familiar with, but it was competitive with some of the things we were developing. Our group over the years split and merged many times, but we always had an analytical branch and an experimental branch. There was a lot of things that went on during the split in terms of code development, but we in the experimental group weren’t in the meetings with on a daily basis. Franklin: Why did they split and merge so many times? Bates: Oh, it was basically a growth and—when funding grew and it got too unmanageable, it was a logical way to split the group into two management. Because section leaders couldn’t manage 50 people; I mean, that gets a little cumbersome. So we’d split it into two 25-peron groups for a while. Then the funding would dry up and we’d merge. We also, as did every company in the country, we went through the management style-of-the-day process, where we grew management and contracted it. Someday I always wanted to go back through my org charts and chart how many management people there were at any given time as a function of time. It changed a lot. I even got—boy, when was it? Late ‘80s, I guess, early ‘90s, I got asked to manage a group. I did that for about four years. But I found that management was a totally different animal than the technical work I liked to do. So when the opportunity came when they wanted to merge, I gave up my management position very willingly. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That’s great. I’m wondering if you could kind of track or tell me how larger national events play—kind of affected your work. I’m thinking of the drawdown of the Carter administration? Bates: Yeah, when Jimmy Carter said, basically, no more nukes, that was a huge transition for us. I was working on a program at the time related to understanding liquid metal breeder reactor natural circulation cooling. I’d spent three years designing, building and getting ready to run tests on this very specialized test section. We were some of the country’s experts at that time in laser Doppler anemometry, which is an optical technique to measure fluid flow. Franklin: Sorry, could you say—laser Doppler— Bates: Yeah, LDA for short. Laser Doppler anemometry. Franklin: Anemometry, okay. Bates: Yes. In fact, when I first came on board we were putting together LDA systems from components we bought from Edmonds Scientific. I mean, big lenses and stuff, and we’d build all the mounts and it was kind of a do-it-yourself. We were doing things very unique at the time. Franklin: And you were using this to measure—because I see on my bio sheet here, working with lasers and tools to measure coolant flows, right? Bates: Yes. Franklin: Measuring heat and— Bates: We put a mockup of a reactor inside of a test section with quartz windows in it so we could shine through. I built quartz windows that were good through 1,000 psi of pressure so we could measure at-reactor conditions. Some of the first measurements of that—in fact, I published a paper on some of this and got accepted to an international symposium in Portugal. I went over and presented what we were doing. It was pretty neat. I got put in the bound volume of proceedings. It was a very fun experience. But LDA was kind of my first love for about ten, 15 years of work. In fact, LDA became so popular as a research tool that there were several companies started to sell those systems. Thermal Systems Incorporated, TSI, out of Minneapolis. They consulted with us quite a bit on how to improve systems. Eventually marketed complete operable systems you could buy out of a catalogue, as opposed to our home-built systems. Franklin: Kind of taking what you were doing and standardizing it or kind of— Bates: Yup, yup. Franklin: That’s really interesting. I mean, who doesn’t want to work with lasers? [LAUGHTER] Even today, I think people still do. Bates: It’s cool stuff. I wish I had some of those pictures that—I’ve been retired ten years and a lot of my stuff has kind of disappeared. But we’d have the photographers come in and take a picture of all the mirrors and lenses and things we’d lined up on a layout table to make this LDA system work. It was pretty neat stuff. Franklin: So I want to go—just ask you—so the LMBR, the liquid metal—you were doing work then to support the FFTF. Bates: Yeah, and then Jimmy Carter said, no more. Well, in a matter of three days, I went from fully funded for three straight years on this program to having zero dollars. They called and said, end of program, box it up and send it off. Most of it went to excess; some of it got transferred to another lab. And I had to find something new to do. So one week later, I went from working on liquid metal breeder reactors to working on solar energy storage. Franklin: That seems like quite a—it seems like-- Bates: It was traumatic to me. And our whole group underwent a similar transition. Franklin: How can you move to solar energy storage? Bates: That was popular in those days. Alternative energy—price of oil was creeping up. Franklin: Still is, though, kind of, right? Bates: Well, still very interesting. A lot of these things we were the first to look at them as alternatives. Some of those now are becoming standard grid power. Solar cells, for example. That was a little—our fluids group didn’t work on the solar cells area, pretty much; that’s the electronics people. But we were working on solar concentrator mirrors and developing proper fluids to circulate through those things and capture the thermal energy, run it through a turbine and produce power. Franklin: Oh, wow. Did that research ever amount to any industrial application? Bates: Oh, there were experimental facilities around the country that utilized that technology. I don’t think it ever got to as large a scale as some of the solar cell farms that exist now. You know, they got five-megawatt farms, ten-megawatt farms. The solar salt pond concept that we were working on was a good idea but it had a lot of technical difficulties. One of them being materials. Those brines are very tough to contain and very corrosive, and the materials get very expensive very fast. You got to use—stainless steel isn’t good enough; you got to go to the Inconel nickel-based metals. Pretty soon, the economics don’t make sense. Franklin: You can do it in a laboratory— Bates: You can do it in a lab, but the scale-up process is difficult. Franklin: Right. So, you mentioned that you used LDA for ten to 15 years or so. Bates: Yeah. Franklin: And I’m wondering, what came after that? What did— Bates: Well, like I said, once they commercialized those systems and—we did a lot of work for Electric Power Research Institute, which was a consortium of utilities to how to improve reactor performance, improve safety— Franklin: And this was for energy reactors, right? Okay. Bates: Yes. These are energy reactors, commercial reactors. Franklin: Commercial reactors. Bates: So we got very much involved on the non-government side of reactor research. At the time, Battelle had a contract that allowed us to not only work for the government, but work for the private side, what we called our 1831 contract. Franklin: Right. Yeah, I’m familiar with that number. Bates: So we could go out and sell to—we actually marketed to the various reactor vendors to do research with these tools that we’d developed, primarily for the production reactors. We did research for Westinghouse and Babcock and Wilcox, and most all of the reactor vendors at the time. So it was a good business. Worked hard. When you get on the private side, the budgets are more constrained and the schedules are tight. Many a time, we’d put in 24 hour days. We’d take our sleeping bags out to D Area and grab two-hour cat naps as we were— Franklin: Oh, wow. So you were still working out in D Area then—would this have been in the ‘80s and ‘90s? Bates: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Up until—I forget when we closed the building there. They told us they were going to knock down—starting the Site reclamation process, and we had to get out. I wrote Madia a letter to say, these are very valuable tools you’re throwing away and they will never be recreated because they’re too expensive now. But it fell on deaf ears and we basically walked away from that facility. We did recreate some test facilities in the 336 Building in 300 Area. It was a big highbay building that was left over from the days of the Fast Flux Test Facility. I was responsible for building a big waste tank storage simulation facility in 336 Building where we started developing tools to monitor tank levels and tank mixing and tank retrieval. We tested some of these robotic concepts for going in and retrieving tank waste, which are being used now. I mean, the tank retrieval going on right now has a lot of technologies that we investigated in the 336 Building at a reduced scale. Franklin: Oh! Bates: So it’s pretty rewarding to see some of that stuff. Also, Vit Plant, we were in on the early days of the mixing concerns of the tanks in the early days related to the Vit Plant and the treatment of the tank waste. For example, the pulse jet mixer problem, which is still very much in the news, holding up portions of the design. We did a lot of pulse jet mixer studies in 336 Building. I read these technical articles that are still coming out and they’re still doing some of the very same things I was doing back in the late '90s. Franklin: Right? Bates: These problems are very difficult. Nobody’s ever tried to mix fluids—well, the kind we’ve got out in these tanks. Very complex. Franklin: Yeah, I don’t know a lot—what I know is there’s many different characteristics, like there’s solids and semi-solids and they all have very different— Bates: They behave—what they call non-Newtonian fluids. When you start worrying about transporting non-Newtonian fluids and transporting the solids fraction in that fluid, like the plutonium particles and other radioisotope particles, these things settle out in the wrong places, you got problems. Franklin: Right. And a lot of these things will react to heat in different ways. Bates: Oh, the chemical—the tanks, we used to refer to them as a periodic chart soup. I mean, they’ve got a little of everything in them. And just the characterization of that waste is a very difficult problem. Franklin: Sure. You mean how to— Bates: Understand the chemistry that’s going on. I mean, you probably remember the SY-101 Tank with the hydrogen generation problem. That’s something that we worked on. Franklin: Actually, I’m not familiar with that. I’m wondering if you could tell me about that. Bates: Oh, it’s one of the old double-shell tanks. They started noticing that the level was going up on occasion. And then it would go back down. Well, what was happening is, due to a chemical process, thermolysis, they call it, hydrogen was being generated in rather large bubbles in that tank waste. When the bubble got big enough, it would burst to the top. The headspace in the tank would go above the flammability limit for hydrogen and if there were a spark from whatever source, you could have a rather major disaster. Franklin: You could have a tank blowup, basically. Bates: Which did happen in Russia. I don’t know if you’ve ever read any of their—they had some incidents like that. Franklin: Yeah, they had a major incident in the ‘50s, right? Where they had a-- Bates: Yup, I don’t know the exact date, but they had a-- Franklin: Yeah, where a cool—a waste tank blew up— Bates: They ruptured a tank, right. Franklin: Yes, and it killed a lot of people. Bates: Well, of course when DOE found out that they had these hydrogen events in these waste tanks, it was all hands on deck, we got to solve this problem. Franklin: Right, we’ll likely have the same— Bates: Right. So a lot of our computer models got diverted to modeling that situation. We on the experimental side got excited about coming up with mitigation techniques. How can we improve the mixing? How can we prevent this hydrogen bubble buildup problem? That consumed us for a number of years. Franklin: Yeah. Was it solved? Bates: What’s that? Oh, yeah. SY-101 was eventually solved and the hydrogen release problem was mitigated. Franklin: What was the solution? Bates: Well, I think—you’re going back, really testing my memory here now. Probably better to read some of the technical reports on this, but they did a lot of transfers in and out of the tank. Add liquid, bring contents of several tanks, get the chemistry to a more acceptable condition, and improve the monitoring and the mixing. They basically got it to where the hydrogen is still being generated, but it wasn’t being stored and released in these periodic events which can lead to—you know, if you save up the hydrogen for a couple of months and release it all in a single event, the concentration goes up drastically. But we came up with mixing techniques that allowed it to do a slow release and keep the concentrations down. Franklin: So it’s still building hydrogen— Bates: Oh, yeah. Franklin: --but it’s not in these massive bubbles that then— Bates: Well, that thermal generation of hydrogen is always going to happen. The chemistry can’t be changed. But you got to prevent it from building up to concentrations of concern. So hydrogen generation is a problem they’re dealing with in building the Vit Plant. They don’t want any incidents like that to be occurring in the process lines of the Vit Plant. Franklin: Right, because they have heat there. They could conceivably spark it. Bates: Well, yeah. You don’t have to necessarily heat it. I mean, these isotopes self-heat. [LAUGHTER] They will generate hydrogen. So that is very much on the radar screens of everybody doing design work now. But we were in on the early days when the problem first came to light. Franklin: Did that problem—sorry if you mentioned this, but did this problem come to light—that came because of discoveries here at Hanford, not because of the Russian incident. Or was it kind of—did they kind of inform each other? Bates: The Russians didn’t publicize much of what was going on. I mean, they didn’t write technical papers that we could reference. So it was a problem that was understood—I mean, the chemistry and the generation of hydrogen was understood, but the physical characteristics of the waste and how it could retain this hydrogen in bubbles, that was all pretty new stuff. Franklin: Okay. Bates: We had to understood the mechanisms by which it was happening before we could go about coming up with a fix to prevent it from happening. Franklin: Sure, sure. Bates: So, took a lot of—there was a lot what I call grade-five engineering going on out there to understand this problem. We had chemists and physicists and engineers all collaborating on a daily basis to, what’s going on here? And we got to solve this problem and it can’t wait. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I’m wondering if—I’d like to ask you about a couple more events and how they impacted you or if they did. I’m wondering, did you ever work on any of the WPPSS reactors or do any work for WPPSS? Bates: Oh, I did work for them. We did some, for example, I was in routine business for a while of doing flow meter calibrations, and they have a lot of large flow meters out there. Out at 189-D, we had what we called our low pressure loop with very large pumps. We could do flowmeter calibrations there in the lab up to couple thousand GPM. Franklin: What’s GPM? Bates: Gallons per minute. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bates: In fact, at one time we did a flowmeter calibration for the City of Los Angeles that we needed a million gallons per minute. We fired up a couple of the old K Reactor river pumps. This flowmeter was in a pipe that was six-and-a-half feet in diameter. This was largescale engineering. And actually did a flowmeter calibration for the City of Los Angeles so they’d know how much water they were pumping into their domestic water supply system. So we got involved in all kinds of little tangents, because of the capabilities we had. Franklin: I’m wondering how Chernobyl affected you and the Site? Bates: [LAUGHTER] In my mind, Chernobyl was the beginning of the end for graphite moderated reactors. The emphasis was on shutting those things down. Franklin: Right. And that’s what was at Hanford. Bates: I lived through Chernobyl and I lived through—I was working when Three Mile Island happened. Franklin: Oh, right. Bates: I got to go back and visit Three Mile Island about three or four months after it happened. Franklin: Why was that? Bates: Trying to understand how that happened. And, as you know, I think it finally boiled down to operator error. They closed some valves that shouldn’t’ve been closed because they didn’t understand the thermohydraulics of the reactor. So once we understood that and could simulate it with our codes, they started doing extensive training to the operators so they understood how this worked. Trained their whole—changed their whole training procedure for reactor operators. Made a big difference. [LAUGHTER] They needed to understand the very—the subtleties of what was going on in a reactor. If the operators had got up and walked off, the reactor would’ve been fine. The automated systems would’ve done the right thing. They overrode some of those and caused a problem. Anytime that we—we had enough expertise in our group, anytime there was a reactor problem, we usually got involved. Even the Fukushima tsunami damage over there, some of our people went over there and spent time with the Japanese helping them to resolve—look into that problem, what could be done about it. So a lot of history in our group in helping the world with nuclear problems. Franklin: Yeah. Did you ever get to—did you ever go to the Ukraine or Russia after— Bates: No, unh-uh. A good number of our people did. We certainly got involved with some of our personnel in the Chernobyl encapsulation project where they were trying to put the big dome over the reactor to prevent the further spread of the contaminants. I forget the name of that project; again, there was an acronym. But, yeah, our people got involved in that, too. Understanding airborne transport of contaminants and particulates. There’s still efforts going on in that area. That problem is not going away anytime soon. Franklin: How did the transition between production and then the signing of the Tri-Party and the beginning of cleanup, how did that affect your research and your efforts? Bates: Well, we had a lot of good tools developed. I mean, a fluid is a fluid. Nuclear waste is a very interesting fluid. Just trying to come up with simulants for it is very difficult. We spent years trying to develop formulations that can, in a cold environment, allow us to do testing with properties of fluids that are similar to what the waste exhibits. That’s a difficult problem. Many a day, we were out there mixing up different batches of waste simulant. It’s a very dirty job because it involves a lot of fine particulates and clays. Many a day, I came home, red dust head to foot. [LAUGHTER] But we eventually came up with some very good simulants, and they’re being used not only here onsite but other labs doing similar research. So those were interesting days, too. Franklin: How was morale onsite with the switch from production to cleanup? Bates: Oh, obviously when you put—for example, like that project, I put three years of my life, night and day, long days— Franklin: Are you talking about the FFTF project? Bates: Yeah, where I was working on the natural convection cooling of—basically, an accident condition analysis of LMFBRs. I mean, I traveled to vendors all over the country and worked with them to develop hardware and come up with special pumps and instruments. I designed a test section with sapphire windows in it. Each of those sapphire windows was $10,000 and I needed like 20 of them. We only installed two or three of those windows and the balance of them got shipped off to excess. I mean, that’s not good for morale. [LAUGHTER] We had to have the sapphire because of the frequency of the lasers we were using to do the LDA work. You can’t use normal glass, or even—and quartz wasn’t strong enough to stand up to the conditions we were testing, so we had to use synthetic sapphire. Yeah. So, I had to work with the vendors to come up with the production techniques and how to machine these into our special shapes. Anyway, I had half-a-million dollars in hardware that was ready to run a test and I never got to run a test. So, yeah, there were similar stories all around the lab where it was this transition was very difficult. Franklin: You mean the end of the ‘80s transition from production to— Bates: Yes. The end of the ‘80s, the death of the nuclear industry so to speak— Franklin: The ending of the Cold War. Bates: The transitioning—yeah, the end of the—as some of our folks used to say, once the Soviet Union proved to be such an unreliable enemy, when they split up and the wall came down, and production became less important, and the environmental movement of course. We had to clean up this mess. That was a transition for all of us. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah. Was there a lot of enthusiasm for this new job? Bates: Yes! As you get into it and find out just how complex it is. I mean, it’s not like opening a can of soup. I mean, you got to understand the problem first and that takes a lot of research. Then coming up how we could best simulate it, how we can model it, both computationally and experimentally, a lot of challenges. Franklin: Yeah, I bet. I’m wondering, how did that transition affect the Tri-Cities as a whole? Bates: Well, Tri-Cities, you know, has undergone numerous transitions. The biggest one was when they shut down the WPPSS reactor construction. Housing prices tanked and tens of thousands people leave town. Franklin: Because there were supposed to be three reactors here, right? Bates: There were supposed to be three, right. The remnants of the other two are still out there. In fact, I’ve been involved in numerous visits out there of saying, what else could we do with these things? I mean, there’s all kinds of pumps and piping. We were looking at it for additional test facilities. Franklin: Oh, okay. Because they just walked away from construction, right, when it defaulted? Bates: Yup. Yup. Yeah. Several monuments to stupidity out there. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I like that. Oh, that’s good. I love hearing about these things from people who were out there. Bates: You can imagine being an engineer out there working on getting a new reactor online and saying, oh, never mind. You can go home; we aren’t going to do that now. That’s hard on people. You commit your lives to it and now you got to go find something else to do. Franklin: Right, and you wonder if that’s really the best fiscal choice. Bates: Yeah, oh, yeah. Franklin: Because you spent all this— Bates: Well, I mean, in hindsight, would it have been better if we had had those reactors online and we didn’t have to burn as much coal and oil? Now that global warming is the big concern? I think there might have been some different things done. Franklin: Yeah, that’s kind of always that tension. I know the nuclear industry, that’s one of their main talking points now is that it’s carbon-free. Bates: My best example I always bring up is France. They’re 85% nuclear. They’ve closed the fuel cycle with reprocessing. They don’t have too much of a concern about generating their carbon footprint in the power production industry. We could’ve been there, too. But we made some wrong turns. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I’m wondering kind of two questions back-to-back, kind of one’s a flip of the other. What were the most challenging aspects of your work at Hanford over your 35 years? Bates: Challenging aspects, oh. Because we’re a research institution, we’re always doing things for the very first time. Anytime you have to invent the hardware to do the research, that’s—you can’t just open up a catalogue and order three of item A and three of item B and go do your test; you have to design it first. That puts a lot of pressure on you when the budgets are fixed and the schedules are fixed and you’ve got to come up with an answer. That’s the nature— Franklin: In fact a lot of the stuff you’re building then gets later put into catalogues, right? Bates: Oh, yeah. We generated quite a number of patents and so forth in the process of building these things. But nobody ever factors in the fact that this has never been done before, and you want me to give you a fixed budget, a fixed schedule, to get this job done? I found that tough. And I’m sure people today are still challenged with the same difficulties. Everybody wants to know when you’re going to be done and how much it’s going to cost. Franklin: Any notable successes or failures in that aspect of kind of building this hardware for the first time? Bates: Oh. You learned a lot from your failures. Franklin: Yeah. I’m wondering, is there an example that comes to mind? Bates: Oh. Phew. Well, the one I always remember that was kind of traumatic to me is, I mentioned those sapphire windows we were building. I was doing a test for basic energy sciences in Washington, DC, trying to understand a basic concept called thermal [UNKNOWN] vapor generation. This is where, for example, in a reactor blow-down condition, where you superheat a liquid and you wanted to understand how the process of turning that flash into steam. Well, I had to get visible access to my blow-down venturi nozzle. And I built one of these sapphire windows. It was about 20 inches long, three inches wide. Cost me—I forget what the number was, $60,000 a copy for these windows. I took it out of the box. We had special silver plated gaskets designed. I put it on there, put the frame on, tightened the first two bolts. Cracked it right in the middle. [LAUGHTER] I went down—first I went home, because I was done for the day. The next day, I went back and went down and talked to our machinist down in the optical shop, and I says—I forget his name; I think his name was Doug—what can we do here? He says, well, I can take those two broken pieces and turn them into two smaller windows. So I went back and redesigned the test section with two small frames. It was cheaper to rebuild the metal parts than it was the windows. And we made that one window into two small windows and proceeded to get the test done. But [LAUGHTER] those are the kind of days where you go, yeah, we should’ve checked the dimensions on that retainer before we tried the assembly. I trusted that the shop had gotten them right, and they were slightly off. So you learn lessons there. I never broke another window. Franklin: I bet! [LAUGHTER] Not at $60,000 a pop. What were the most rewarding aspects about your work? Bates: Oh, what I found was coming to work every day, up until—you’re always working on something different. I didn’t get stuck in a rut. For example, Boeing made me a job offer that was very lucrative, but I found out I would be designing landing gear struts. And I just thought, could I do that for 30 years? I don’t think so. Franklin: Was this at the beginning of your--? Bates: Yeah, this was at the beginning of my career. The reason I went to work for Battelle is because of the variety of the work they were doing. My example I always used to tell our—when we were actively hiring and brining interview candidates through is, I said that simultaneously I was working on liquid metal fast breeder reactors and peanut dryers. I worked half the week on peanut dryers and half the week on fast breeder reactors. Franklin: Like for industrial—like, agro business to dry peanuts. Bates: Yeah, like, salted-in-the-shell peanuts. Getting the moisture out of those things is a difficult job. And especially trying to do it and conserve electricity and natural gas in the drying process. Franklin: So that would’ve been some of that 1831 work. Bates: That’s some of that 1831 work, yeah. So I had to put—I had two different hats. Doing that simultaneously was sometimes a little traumatic to switch gears. But that kept it interesting. There wasn’t a day I didn’t come to work where I thought, there’s something interesting to do today. There’s not many jobs you can have that are that way. Franklin: That’s great. Bates: In fact, I shed a few tears when it came time to retire. Franklin: Yeah, so I wanted to ask you about that. You retired in 2008, and what was the impetus for—because you’re still a young guy. So what was— Bates: Well, my wife and I love to travel. We’ve been to Europe, I don’t know, 18 times. We love the history and that. Trying to squeeze that in with a 40- to 60-hour work week is pretty tough to do. When we first got married, we said, let’s set our objective on trying to retire early so we could do some things while we’re young enough to enjoy it. So it was tough. I had two sons, and trying to put all that money away and meet that objective to retire early was tough. We stayed in our old house and didn’t upgrade to a new and bigger house like everybody else. But we made it. Best decision I ever made. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Do you miss the work sometimes? Bates: Oh, yeah. In fact, back a few years ago, I was kind of hoping to go back to work. But the rules were that I couldn’t go back to work until age 62 once I took the retirement package. They had rules in their contract that they couldn’t rehire retirees. Those have since been changed; I could work now. But we’re kind of lacking in experimental facilities out here now that I would be interested in working on. I still tell my old section manager that if you ever get the budget to rebuild some experimental facilities, I’d be happy to come out and help. [LAUGHTER] But just don’t ask me to write a safety plan. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, red tape. So I guess two questions left. I’m wondering if you could describe the ways in which security or secrecy about what you were doing at Hanford impacted your work. Bates: Oh, I mean, secrecy—when I first hired on out there, it was still very hush-hush. Everybody out there had a Q clearance in those days. And we worked on some things that we couldn’t write papers on. We were doing a lot of leading-edge stuff, but we didn’t go off to the conferences and present our findings. We got involved in the tritium production, supporting production. That was a very big project. But, boy, very closely-controlled. Classified computers, classified phone lines, classified fax machines. I mean, communications were very tightly controlled. Franklin: What did you do for the tritium project? Bates: Oh, there were some thermal aspects that our group got involved in. I mean, I can’t—even now, I can’t talk about a lot of this stuff. I mean, just because I retired, it doesn’t King’s X my security requirements. We worked on some stuff for the military that related to weapons; we worked on stuff for kinetic projectiles—I mean, this is really interesting stuff. Made my day. But we couldn’t go out and write papers about it and put it in the general literature. So it’s much different than a university environment where it’s publish or perish. If we published, we’d perish. [LAUGHTER] So, a lot of people we hired—we hired some, not retired, but professors that wanted to come work in research. It wasn’t an easy transition for them to come into the classified environment, where you have to be so careful. We had a couple people that just never did make the transition. Franklin: That’s still a constant tension within university research, when it deals with—for Army applications or things that are export controlled, there’s always that—the export control office fights with the—and how freely—that kind of tugs at the essential purpose of the university, which is to create and disseminate information. Yeah. Bates: I got a little exposed to that as an undergraduate research assistant up at WSU. Professor Clayton Crowe up there was working on some experimental simulations of underwater rocket launchers related to ICBM rocket launchers from submarines. We were trying to mock up some of that stuff. I got a briefing on how much we could say and couldn’t say about some of this stuff we were working on. That was kind of my introduction to working in a, it wasn’t what I would call classified, but it was certainly sensitive information. I was able to handle it; I tried to take as much satisfaction I could from just what I was personally working on. I didn’t want to—resume building wasn’t what I was after. Some people don’t have that same priorities, I guess. They want to make themselves look good rather than just enjoy the work they’re doing. I mean, publishing is still encouraged, highly encouraged. That’s the only way we really got of advertising our abilities out here. Franklin: There’s kind of a tension there, too. Bates: Oh, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, over the years, I’ve probably published 20, 30 papers. And enjoyed going off to the conferences and interacting with our peers and learning new things. For example, there was a yearly LDA symposium held in Portugal. We usually had somebody there for about the first five or six years that that conference was held because we were doing leading-edge stuff. It was fun to share the information with people. Franklin: And probably fun to go to Portugal, too. Bates: Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s worse places in the world. The first time I went over there, it was really interesting. Bottle of water was a nickel and a beer was a nickel. So you can guess which one I drunk. Franklin: Right. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, that’s great. [LAUGHTER] My last question—of course, not, like—on your off time, right? Bates: Oh, yeah. In fact, we went over and did—the conference was over the 4th of July holiday. I actually presented my paper to 2,000 people on the 4th of July. So, I took a comp day the next day, and we went and tour Lisbon. Franklin: Fun. My last question is—what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and working in Tri-Cities during the Cold War? Bates: Being a lifelong resident of the Tri-Cities, I’ve not known any different. It’s not like there was any kind of trauma involved with moving here and seeing the big nuclear symbols and the Richland Bombers. That’s just normal to me. And I think if I were to tell somebody, it’s a very stable community, it’s a very healthy community. There’s a lot of interesting things going on. And what we’re doing out here has the ability to diversify into many different areas that make a difference. I’m sure by the time we’re done with the Vit Plant, 50 years out in the future, we’re going to be doing some things with that technology that will impact commercial aspects of our economy in all kinds of ways. But when you do leading-edge stuff, you make a difference. So I guess that would be a short summary. Franklin: No, that’s great, thank you. Bates: I think there’s a lot of personal satisfaction in that. Like I said, when we were doing the early days of LDA, it was an idea that came out of University of Minnesota, and we got one of their PhDs to come out here and go to work for us and bring that knowledge, and we continued to develop it and make it better. It eventually became a commercial market, selling literally hundreds of these systems to research institutions all around the country. There’s a lot of satisfaction in that. So it goes from a concept to a standard tool. That’s where I got my kicks, anyway. Franklin: That’s great. Well, Jim, thank you so much for coming and talking about your work. Bates: Yeah. Okay. Franklin: It was really amazing. Bates: Okay. Thank you. Franklin: Yeah. Awesome. Bates: Go Cougs! Franklin: Yeah. Go Cougs. <a href="https://youtu.be/5UAoeTFmc8A">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor C Reactor D Reactor N Reactor 189-D Area 190 Tank Building FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility) 336 Building 300 Area Vitrification Plant WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply Systems) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1952- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1974-2008 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Bates Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Mechanical engineering Nuclear reactors Nuclear power plants Radioactive wastes Radioactive waste disposal Nuclear reactor accidents Description An account of the resource James Bates was born in Pasco, Washington in 1952 and grew up in Kennewick, Washington. James worked at Battelle Northwest from 1974-2008. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/03/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4482eb9cc8865dfcc1b2696f3ddb6cf9.jpg 108617a13f2edd12e51e5d10624b874a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O'Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Del Ballard Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Del Ballard: I’m not accustomed to this, so you get what you get. Douglas O’Reagan: All the better, all the better. Sometimes we get some rehearsed answers, that is fine. But all the better if somebody gives me something that they haven’t exactly honed their exact phrasing on. Ballard: We just put together one for the BRMA history—history of BRMA. That was all written out, so it was—but I’m amazed at how much insistence they have at no corrections, no—[LAUGHTER] Pretty trying. O’Reagan: Okay, great. So let’s start off here. First of all, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us? Ballard: Well, my first name is Delbert L. Ballard. Leo for center. D-E-L-B-E-R-T, B-A-L-L-A-R-D. And I go by Del, commonly. O’Reagan: All right, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview here on February 18th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Mr. Ballard about his experiences working on the Hanford site, living in this community. First of all, can you start us off just—walk us through your life in sort of a brief term before you came to this area. Ballard: Well, I was raised on a dryland wheat farm in Montana, so I know what work is all about. And I was a student in a little high school that was only seven of us in our graduating class. So I was sort of a country boy, and went to college at Montana State University. And I graduated from there in 1951. Just prior to that, the General Electric Company, of course, had been there to do interviews. They were scoping for—recruiting for engineers and I was a civil engineer graduate. There was other recruiters through, too. I had an offer from a San Francisco shipyard, and another from the Soil Conservation Service in Montana. But I wanted to get a job with GE. So I’d had the interview, but no really positive award or recognition that they were going to give me an offer. They were interviewing a large number of people. So graduation day came around and I still hadn’t gotten a letter from GE. But the mail came that morning, and lo and behold, there it was. So I was really pleased at that. So my initial job right out of college was coming to Hanford and working for General Electric Company as a rotational training—in the rotational training program. They had hired that year, the previous year, actually ’49, ’50 and ’51, they had hired about 300 or 350 tech grads. And I was one of the later ones getting here; I didn’t get here until July. So most of the good jobs were assigned. But in the rotational training program, my first assignment was a rather mundane assignment to the transportation department. Next one was a more interesting job with the inspection department. That was over in the shipyard in Bremerton. At that time, Hanford was undergoing I believed what they called the Korean expansion. The Korean War was underway and in full force at that time when I got out of school. As a matter of fact, I thought I was going to be drafted, but I tried to enlist and—I’m diverting here a little bit, but—tried to enlist in the Air Force to be a pilot, but my eyes weren’t good enough, so I got rejected for that. [LAUGHTER] So when I knew that the GE job was a deferred job, I thought, well, that’s an alternate I’d just as soon pursue. So anyway when I got here on the rotational training program, that’s what it was. Individuals were assigned to different locations for training purposes and for filling job needs. The second assignment was, as I said, inspection department in the shipyard in Bremerton. At that time, they were fabricating—the shipyard was fabricating the biological shield blocks for the C Reactor. It was one of the expansion efforts at Hanford, increasing the production capacity. So that was an interesting job over there at the shipyard doing inspection and learning a lot about inspection techniques and components and so forth. Another month after that, I was rotating around the Seattle area inspecting other components that were being manufactured for the C Reactor. C Reactor, as you know, was the one that was built right alongside of the B Reactor out at Hanford. It started up in ’53, I believe. But out of the rotational training program, I was assigned into construction area out in the 300 Area. They were fabricating laboratories for building the laboratories out there. Radiochemistry, radiometallurgy, pile tech, machine shop, and a library at that area of the Hanford—300 Area was just under construction. So I got assigned to help in the field engineering in that job. It was an interesting project. I learned a lot there in that job. And from there I went into other project engineering work, including in later years, the K Reactors were under construction and I was involved in laying up the graphite of that reactor, K East Reactors. I stayed in project engineering with GE all my life—or all my employment time was with GE. They left here in ’64. Yeah, Battelle came in ’65. Two of the projects that I followed after K Reactors, one of them was the critical mass lab in the 300 Area, which was a facility for evaluating critical shapes and sizes for plutonium missiles. It was a research job, research facility. That project was a lump sum construction and plant forces for the completion of putting the process equipment in. The next job I had was the High Temperature Lattice Test reactor in the 300 Area. That’s a reactor that probably hasn’t gotten much publicity. It was a small graphite reactor. But that was a job I was very proud of, because I was the sole project engineering function at the time. The design was done by an organization that was just brought on as GE was being phased out. It was the Vitro Engineering Company. They had a detailed design of the job, and the construction was done lump sum, and then J. Jones did the reactor installation. I can tell quite a bit of detail about that reactor, if you’re interesting. [LAUGHTER] But it was an experimental facility also for evaluating different lattice spacings for graphite moderator reactors. It was electrically heated—it operated up at 1,000 degrees centigrade, so that graphite, looking through the peepholes in the reactor, you could see white hot graphite, which is sort of an interesting thing to see. But that project was not large in comparison to today’s funding levels. But it was a three- to four-million-dollar project. I finished the job and closed it out with less than $200 left on the books and no overrun. [LAUGHTER] So I got a commendation for that job, which I was quite proud of. But from there, then I diverted into other project engineering jobs. One was in Idaho Falls. We had a test facility over there, putting in test loops in the engineering test reactor. That was closer to reactor operations type work. We had to modify an operating reactor. But that was some of my interesting project years before I got into jobs later on, which was the FFTF and the FMEF. Fuels and Materials Exam Facility. I always make the statement that every project, or every job that I worked on up until the FFTF was completed and put into operation. Every project after FFTF was shut down and closed down before it was completed. [LAUGHTER] So that was kind of a breaking point for me. Hanford, of course, reached its peak in production, and I can talk something about that as far as reactor operations is concerned. But I wasn’t really in operations, I was in engineering, and had jobs all over the Project. So I never was tied down to one location. It was interesting. So I had an interesting career in a lot of different projects. I enjoyed my work, and had a good time and a good married life and I can go into that, too, if you wish. O’Reagan: So you say you were with GE this whole time? You didn’t switch over to different contractors as they came in? Ballard: Well, yes—no. I just with GE until they left. O’Reagan: I see. Ballard: And then Battelle came in ’65. So I was with Battelle for ’65 until ’70 when Westinghouse took over the Breeder Program. Initially, Westinghouse was just brought in for the Fast Flux Test Reactor, to manage that. And I happened to be working on a development job. That’s one I haven’t mentioned yet. [LAUGHTER] When Westinghouse came in, I was assigned—that was my first manager job. I had a group, or a section in the 321 Building in the 300 Area, and a job which was identified as the hydraulic core mockup. And we designed, built and operated models to evaluate the design configuration for the FFTF. So we built water models to look at a lot of different features: the reactor vessel arrangement, and the core arrangement and the structure. And the inlet planning and outlet planning. We built several models. The two biggest ones were the inlet model, which evaluated the sodium distribution in the inlet planning and feeding characteristics for the fuels channels. I worked on that job for seven years. And then during that time, of course, FFTF came under construction. Our group actually influenced the design which was being done by Westinghouse back east. There was a lot of the features in the arrangements and shapes of the vessel and the flow distribution and the core that was determined by that hydraulic core mockup test facility. Then when they started putting the reactor together, I was assigned to construction out in 400 Area. I spent the whole year inside the reactor vessel, helping the engineer put the parts together. One of our humorous comments about FFTF was, from our perspective was FFTF, do you know what that stands for? Yeah, it sounds for feel, file, to fit. [LAUGHTER] Fill all the tight tolerances and all the arrangements necessary to make everything fit and throw it together. It was well-engineered and well-designed, but it was still—engineering problems had to be resolved in the field. So that was another interesting project. Following that, then I spent seven years on the FMEF, the Fuels and Materials Exam Facility, designing and coordinating the design—the management of the design, which was done by an off-plant architect engineer. And there, again, that was a project that was not completed. It was shut down when the Breeder Program was curtailed. So, following that, I could go into more details where we did for various and sundry work, but it was all toward the new mission for the Hanford site, which was cleanup, starting in that field in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I retired, officially, in ’89. But I worked consulting for four years after that. So my career actually spanned from 1951 to 1994. O’Reagan: How disappointing was it when FFTF got canceled? Ballard: Pardon me? O’Reagan: Was it disappointing when FFTF got canceled? Ballard: It was very discouraging, yes, that they were going to close it down. When they drilled a hole in the core support structure, like drilling a hole in my heart. [LAUGHTER] Matter of fact, I’ve got some pictures to show that I was the last person in the FFTF vessel before they closed it up and started it filling it with sodium. Matter of fact, after that closure—after the photograph that I have, I’ll be happy to show you—they had an accident with the fuel charging machine which went up to the top of the travel and the upper limits which failed and it dropped down on the core and broke some of the components that I was so—[LAUGHTER]—proud of getting installed properly. Core support structure. And we had to go in there and do some repairs. But then I, after that, I left the FFTF and went to work on the design of the FMEF. [SIGH] O’Reagan: Did life sort of change day-to-day when you switched these contractors? How different was it working for these different companies? Ballard: The only change that I could see was the difference of the color of the paycheck. [LAUGHTER] As a matter of fact, when we transferred from—let’s see if I can remember which contract that was—was it GE to Battelle or Battelle to Westinghouse? I don’t remember, but the end of that day, we were terminated and I happened to be at a party down in one of the local pubs which I didn’t very often frequent. But somebody said, who do you work for? And I said, at the moment I’m unemployed. Because that was the day we left one contractor and started with the next one. But the transitions were quite smooth, I would say. I mean, of course, policies changed and your managers changed. At one time, in a two-year period when Westinghouse came in, I think I had 13 different first level and second level managers above me change without in those two-year period. So there was a lot of personnel changes. But a lot of us working closer to the ground floor, there was very little change. O’Reagan: So, let’s back up a moment. What were your first impressions of Hanford and the area? Ballard: Well, I came here in the summer—it was in July. I got here on July 3rd of 1951. I was assigned to the barracks out in North Richland—women’s barracks as a matter of fact. That’s when all the dormitory rooms were filled up in Richland for the men’s dorms. So I was assigned out there for my quarters. The next day, I learned that you didn’t have to drive the buses around, you could ride the city buses or the plant buses. Plant buses, to ride to the area was five cents, and city buses, I don’t remember whether they were five cents or free. I rode that bus the next day that I went to work, and it was 105 degrees that day. And I thought, my lord, what have I gotten myself into? [LAUGHTER] This is horrible temperature! But I was young and willing to accept anything that came my way, so I guess I didn’t think it was too serious a problem. O’Reagan: How aware were you of the mission of Hanford before you came here? Ballard: Very little, probably. I knew that it was working on the war effort, but at that time, nobody really—well, yeah, I guess it was known they were producing plutonium or weapons for atomic weapons, but as far as the details concerned, I knew very little. As any engineer—young man right out of college might be. Because I didn’t know what the plant—the structure was. But they gave—they told us and we got the information from the co-workers and the other students. It was quite interesting, because all the youngsters that were working, everybody—not the majority of people, but a large percentage of them—were fresh graduates. The older bunch were the 30- and 35-year-olds working on the site. That’s when I met my wife shortly after that in ’53. But we were married in ’53. But I met her in ’52 at a social that was put on by YWCA, Young Women’s—YWCA organization. They had church-sponsored dinners one night a week and that’s where we met. So we’ve been married for 62 years now. O’Reagan: Were there a lot of those sort of social events? Ballard: A lot of those that happened. As a matter of fact, the organization—I was the third set that the president and the secretary of that organization got married. [LAUGHTER] She was the secretary when I was the president of the organization. [LAUGHTER] Which was sort of comical, I guess. O’Reagan: What sort of things did you and your wife do in your spare time in the ‘50s and ‘60s? Ballard: Well, I guess bridge playing was one, and social events. We went—there was—they had a group that she was involved in called the Fireside Group that had functions and went camping and things like that. But we played a lot of bridge then. O’Reagan: Where did you live? Ballard: Well, I was living in the dormitories, of course, when we were married. I lived in North Richland in the women’s barracks for a short time until the rooms became available in the dormitories in Richland. That’s where I was living when we got married. Of course, housing was another whole story. You had to put your name on a list to get a house. They were all assigned by the government. All the housing was, of course, controlled and owned by the government. So you had to get your name on the waiting list to get a house. We were fortunate; we got a duplex, a C house up on Wright Avenue. I got that assigned in less than a month before we were married. So when we were married, we had a two-bedroom duplex house up there available. That’s where we moved in and lived there until 1957 when the government decided to disperse the property. They started selling vacant lots in 1957. We were a junior tenant in the duplex, so we couldn’t make an offer on the duplex. The senior tenants had the right to buy the duplex. So I was quite aggressive in my ownership philosophy, decided to buy a lot. We purchased the lot on Newcomer, the first property that was sold. And we built a house. I started building in March of 1958. As a matter of fact, we built—our house was the third privately built house in Richland. We had a house and were living in it before Richland was incorporated. They incorporated the city in July of ’58. That was of course the second official designation as a corporation because Richland, of course was a corporation—I mean an incorporated city before the government took it over in ’43. We built that house and I have pictures that I brought of the fact it was one of the first ones in Richland. And we’re still living in the same house. I don’t know what that says, but [LAUGHTER] I guess stability for one thing. O’Reagan: Were you involved in local politics at all? Ballard: In what? O’Reagan: In local politics at all? Ballard; No, not really. They asked me a few times if I wouldn’t run for the city council, but I never did. No, I’m not a politician. I didn’t want to get involved in that. O’Reagan: So you described a number of different jobs you were doing over the first two decades or so that you were here? Could you walk us through, at least for one of those, what was sort of an average work day like? Ballard: Well, let me see. There was one—I guess all of them were similar in a lot of respects. I was doing—on those jobs, I was doing project engineering. And that meant the coordination of, and the I guess you’d call it management, although there was, of course, the organization like GE, there’s so many levels of management that comes through that it’s a little hard to say you managed it, because you have so much supervision and overhead actions that are taken on a project, for example. But on most projects, the engineer—the project engineer would write the project proposal based on what the technical department would have as input for a required facility, for example. Like the high temperature lattice test reactor, the physics department had specified the programs that they were involved in would want to look in more detail at the lattice spacing in graphite reactors, for example. So they would write a document which would specify what their objective was and what their basic criteria was for that facility. And project people would issue—maybe take that and issue an order for another group to do the detailed process—conceptual design, or do it themselves. We’d do it sometimes on small projects. We had projects all the way from modify one laboratory all the way up to a whole facility. So it’s hard to describe the same process for all of them. But it was office work, engineering work. Some of the times I was in a design group where we actually doing detailed design work. But most of my work was in the project engineering field where we were seeing the work done by others. Or specifying details or managing the people that were doing the detailed design work. But it was office work, and of course when construction started, that’s when the project engineers were more in control, because they were directing the contractors as far as the field work was concerned. It was always an interesting job, an interesting challenge, I thought, preparing contract bid packages. Office work, lots of times the projects were out in the field, of course, out in the Area. We’d drive government cars to go to work. That was an advantage. Of course being in engineering rather than operations where you had more control of your time from the standpoint of individual management. Because we’d use government cars for transportation. We didn’t have computers in the early stages, obviously. When they came out with DSIs, Don’t Say It In Writing, that was a big move, too. [LAUGHTER] But certainly a lot of progress and a lot of technology changes over the years. O’Reagan: How much were security or classification a part of your work? Ballard: Well, it was certainly in overview all the time. All the documents, if a job had classified work on it, you had to get the documents classified, and follow the restrictions for those particular elements or documents, whatever’s involved. Most of the time, of course, construction was not too rigidly controlled or administered, I guess. In later years, because the, for example, research work was not really high classified. Most—a lot of it wasn’t. But it was something that was always there. Of course the badging was always—I remember one time incident I had which was funny—rather humorous. I was in a meeting out in one of the hundred areas, in a back room in some building and we were having a discussion. All of the sudden a door burst open and two patrolmen came in and said, where’s Del Ballard?! I’m over here. [LAUGHTER] Hey, come with me! They took me by the arms and whisked me outside and outside the badge house. I said, what’s going on? What’s the problem? They said, you don’t have a badge! I said, what do you mean I don’t got a badge. I looked at it and it was somebody else’s badge—name on it. They had given me the wrong badge! [LAUGHTER] So they were, I guess, vigilant in their control. But some of the times you thought it was a little overreach. It was always there, that’s for sure. O’Reagan: You mentioned a couple jobs not necessarily at Hanford—I think you said Idaho Falls at one point, or other locations around? Ballard: Yes, we had a project—I guess I sort of skipped over that—in the Engineering Test Reactor in Idaho Falls. The fuels people here—research people—wanted to do some testing in the Engineering Test Reactor with certain issues or problems that they were trying to develop from the fuel technology. So we put in two high pressure loops over there. Again, I was the project person on it. I didn’t do the design work, I did the procurement and the construction management. Philips Petroleum was the operating contractor over there at the Engineering Test Reactor. So I went over there and saw that those loops were completed and put in place and in operation. It was in 1958. I spent, well, most of that year over there, back and forth. My wife was really unhappy, because that was the year that we had started our house. So I had—coming home on weekends and trying to keep that sorted out. Because we had a foreman working with the carpenters building the house. So it was kind of stressful for her. Yeah, and then I had to go back for the next year after that for some cleanup work on the project. It was another project that was managed by Hanford, but installing a reactor over there. O’Reagan: I’m curious how sort of insular Hanford was, versus how much it was common for people to get advice from outside of the Area, or to travel to different facilities and learn what they were doing, or share what you were doing with others? Ballard: Well, I think that’s probably more prevalent in the technical field than it is in the construction area. Yeah, there certainly was in a nuclear complex, there was—and we did have travels. I did visit some other sites. Occasionally the laboratories on some of the projects we had. But most of that was done by the technical department, not the engineering department. O’Reagan: How much has the community changed, and in any particular ways during the time you’ve lived here? Ballard: Well, it’s gone from a small community to a much higher-traffic area than it used to be. But the people say it’s still pretty mild. Of course I’ve traveled to Los Angeles quite a bit; I had relatives in Los Angeles. And I’d grow accustomed to that mainly down there too. But it’s still—the Tri-Cities is still a nice place to live, I think. It doesn’t have a lot of the big city hubbub that other places do, but it certainly has changed a lot from what it was when I came. My wife came in 1944. Of course that was when it was sand and dust piles and no trees and no grass. It was a lot like that when I came, too, although it was developing. But the first few years that the Manhattan Project workers were here, they had some pretty rough goes. Of course the government would operate a city was an entirely different situation than we have now with private ownership and private management of the company—or local management of the company there. When the government operated the city, it was—you’ve heard these stories before, I know. Even lightbulbs were changed by the employees of the government. [LAUGHTER] So that was a big change. But when we got married we were renting from the government but as soon as they sold the houses we built our own and were on our own. So we’ve lived pretty much as a private city in all of our married life. So that hasn’t been a major change. O’Reagan: Anything else—nothing else in particular I’m fishing for here—did anything else come to mind, as far as changes in, I don’t know, spirit of work at Hanford or changes in the communities? Ballard: Well, the government management of the Hanford site has certainly undergone lots of changes, much as our society has, I think, over the last 50 years. When GE operated the plant, I felt and a lot of us felt that the program was defined in general in scope and the contractor was given a block of money and there they went. They did the job. They didn’t have the oversight or the detail management or the daily exchange as much with the government, I think, as they do now. I think that’s been a change in philosophy or change in detail of management more. A lot of it is because the public’s been more closely involved. Like the different committees that are involved in the oversight with the DoE that they didn’t have at that time. Of course when the Manhattan Project started, it was even further away than that. Nobody outside the Project knew what was being done. They were building the atomic bomb and nobody knew was done except the organization involved in it. Now, anything the government does it’s public knowledge and has 100 different reviews over a period of a decade before they get anything done. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Of course all these decades we’re talking about here are during the Cold War, and nuclear weapons are wrapped up in a lot of that and nuclear power. Was that ever something that was on your mind, or that were you aware of? Or was that just something that was going on far away? Ballard: No, I think the Cold War and the conflict with Russia was well-known because of all the cautions and concerns about the atomic weapons and people—during the crisis that peaked in the early ‘60s and we were in hard conflict with Russia. A lot of concern about what might happen. It was a different era and there was a lot of awareness of the potential that there could be a nuclear conflict. O’Reagan: Did it ever impact your life, or your wife’s life more or less directly? Ballard: Well, I don’t think we—we thought we were protected, we thought we had the national security to take care of it. And I guess we didn’t really worry about it—it was something you didn’t really dwell on, I don’t think. Although they told the students and the kids—some people did build bomb shelters. My neighbor, Dr. Petty, they had one at their house under the lawn in the front yard. When they built the house, they put in a bomb shelter. O’Reagan: [INAUDIBLE] Ballard: Nobody knew about it but them, but I knew about it. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Did you ever see the inside of the shelter? Ballard: I never was in it, no. But I know it’s there. O’Reagan: Let’s see. So I guess we’ve sort of covered this. Could you describe the ways in which security and or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? Ballard: Well, I guess from the work that I did in the engineering specifications and drawings and documents that related to projects, we had to worry about the classification on them. You had to worry about the access—access to different projects at different facilities. Of course you had to have the right clearance. So it was a restraint on work in some respects. But it wasn’t a major impact, I don’t think. O’Reagan: In more recent years—well I guess I don’t know how long—you’ve been working with the B Reactor Museum Association and other groups interested in the history of the local community. Can you tell me how you got involved with that and sort of the history of that? Ballard: Sure can. I retired in ’89. And then as I said, I went back to work on a part-time basis. But during that period, the Environmental Impact Statements had been written, and the mission at Hanford was changing from production to cleanup. All the documents and all the philosophy that was being disseminated was, we were going to tear everything down and dispose of everything in the Project. I was the representative to the Tri-City Technical Council. It was a group of only local affiliate—all local agent—sections or groups from the technical society’s engineering—civil, mechanical, electrical, nuclear, women’s organizations—all the technical organizations had what they called a Tri-City Technical Council. And we met monthly and addressed the issues for technology dissemination or issues that might affect the community from what we might recommend or so forth. From that group, we learned—we knew what the DoE was getting into, transition-wise into the cleanup of the site. They were going to tear everything down. And we said, well, we don’t want that to happen to some of these historic facilities. The B Reactor, for example, was the world’s first production reactor. And it was very consequential from the history, both of our nation and the world, as far as that. And also the kick-off for nuclear power. So we said, we ought to do something about that. So we formed a committee. I was one of the people of that committee. And we met in July of 1990, was our first meeting. We talked about an organization and how we might form a group that would lead toward the preservation of B Reactor. We decided to form an association. So we had an attorney draw up our bylaws and we formed an organization called the B Reactor Museum Association. We got our state corporate action—I forget what word they use to describe the initiation of the organization in January of 1991. But I consider the organization being formed in 1990. And our objective was to educate the public about the historical significance of B, and to do what we could to preserve the reactor, to see that it was preserved. To gain access and to develop exhibits and so forth for the exhibits. So that was where we started, was way back in 1990. And all during the decade of the ‘90s, we were meeting and fighting with the Department of Energy because they had milestones after milestones that were established on the cleanup and disposal of all the reactors. B was put into the list later on, but it was always on the list for cocooning, as all the reactors would be. We got those milestones extended over the years. And finally, with persuasion and meeting with legislators, Sid Morris and I met with Sid Morris and—I don’t remember the year now, but it was one of the first times that he was sympathetic for the theme that we preserve the historical relic. And of course, later on Doc Hastings. We had many meetings and persuasions with all the legislators. Of course, Cantwell and Murray got on board over the years. It later progressed into the fact that we want to have a study to see if the Parks Service could preserve it. One time during the late ‘70s, I believe it was, several people thought that the REACH would be the only chance of preserving the B Reactor. They would be the ones that would sponsor the tours and provide for the access and so forth. I said, no, I said, I don’t believe that. I said, I think we want to get the Parks Service involved because I don’t know that even the REACH is going to have the muscle to do it. So we got meetings with the legislators and we got a study authorized for the Parks Service study. That was after two or three years of trials and tribulations. It was finally approved. When the Parks Service first came out—you’re probably aware of the fact that they didn’t have—they just had Los Alamos as the sole main site for the park. And we said, that would never sell. It had to include all the sites: Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Hanford. So they revised their study and made it a three-site park. It was eventually approved and then later legislation—Doc Hastings and Cantwell got the park legislation authorized. BRMA of course has been involved—has been the agency chipping at their heels all the way through all this. [LAUGHTER] We finally got credit for it. For many years, they didn’t really recognize BRMA as the organization that made it happen, but I think we had an awful lot to do with what made it happen. O’Reagan: Were you ever associated with any of the other local history-related groups? Ballard: Well, yes. We were affiliated with the CREHST museum. We worked with them and the REACH also. But we were the ones that were pushing—BRMA—the B Reactor specifically. We still have a lot of partnerships. We had memorandums of understanding with DoE and the CREHST and with—I guess we don’t have one with the REACH but we still meet with them. Matter of fact, they’re working on this new exhibit for the Cold War exhibit. Of course they’ve got—there’s four of us from BRMA that are on those meetings, but there’s a lot of other community leaders involved, too, obviously. And that was what happened is we were the—BRMA was the organization that was in the trenches early on. But later on, the whole community and the region and the legislators all got on board. So there was a lot of emphasis and support for getting it preserved and getting it converted, or made into a national historic park. Have you seen the plaque out there at B Reactor that says we’re the ones that initiated the plan to preserve it. So, yeah, I’m quite proud of that. I was one of the founding members of the organization. O’Reagan: Why did it matter to you? Ballard: Well, it’s important, I think, to preserve the history. It’s a significant part of the nation’s history. And if it’s going to be educational for the—a good place for the students, the young kids to come up and learn what the nuclear industry’s all about. I still say—and I’ve said for twenty years—that—I don’t know how many years down the road it’s going to be, but I think nuclear power’s going to be a major source of energy. Commercial electrical as well as all the other fields—medical and research. It still has an important place to play in our total nation’s history, I think. And we need to know how it started and what problems it caused. Let’s not generate those again. O’Reagan: What would you— Ballard: So that’s the story that’s going to be told in the park, and I think a lot of people—that’s some of the emphasis. People come out and see the comments in the paper, all the negative comments. Well, that’s true, but the story’s still there and needs to be told. O’Reagan: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford or living in Richland during the Cold War? Ballard: Well, I don’t know. It was a challenge, I guess. The success—I’m glad that we developed the bomb rather than Hitler. Like how Fermi said, he said when he was working on fission in Italy in the late ‘30s—the 1930s, yes. He always said he was eternally grateful that he didn’t learn how to control fission then. He said if he had have, Hitler would have started the war with them, rather than us ending the war with them. So I think they need to know what the conditions were at the time that the Manhattan Project was built and what the world was undergoing at the time. O’Reagan: What else should I be asking about? What else is there that we should discuss? Ballard: I don’t know! I think I pretty well spilled everything I know. Unless—I don’t know. I could mention about my—as you know, I was not here during the Manhattan Project. It was over when I came in 1951. My wife and her family was a different story. They came with DuPont in 1944. So her dad was a DuPont employee and he came out here at that time and saw the conditions in employment problems that they had at that time. He was a machinist and had actually directed the tech shops out there for many years. So he probably—that family has more history of the Manhattan Project than I do. Mine is just history. It was—I’ve had an interesting career and I guess I’ve enjoyed it here and it’s been a wonderful place to live. I think it will continue to be if we have people that keep our city from growing into something that it shouldn’t be. [LAUGHTER] But I guess I don’t have any new subjects to talk about unless you have new questions. O’Reagan: I think—that’s my list for now, but thank you so much for being here. Ballard: Well, it’s been a pleasure. O’Reagan: All right, great. Tom Hungate: I had a question. O’Reagan: Please. Hungate: One of the jobs you had—you had a wide variety of jobs; all of them sound fascinating to me. Ballard: Oh, they’re interesting, yes. Hungate: One caught my ear, because I’ve seen these. Tell me what it was like when you said you worked on the K Reactors to lay—you said you were laying up the block. Tell—describe what that process was. Ballard: Well, I wasn’t involved in that deeply as a lot of the fellows were. I can’t remember his name right now, but the primary engineer that had the graphite technology. That graphite was machined in the 101 Building. Well, actually the old reactor’s was in the old 101 Building in White Bluffs. They built a new building, the 2101 Building in the 200 East Area which was specifically for the graphite machining and layup—test layups. Those blocks were built to very tight tolerances. The graphite came in in square blocks from the manufacturers and they had to be machined to the final configuration. Those tolerances were very, very tight, like plus or minus two mils or five mils at the most. The blocks were basically four-and-three-quarters inches by four-and-three-quarters inches by 40-some inches long—the main block. After they were machined to very close tolerances, they were test stacked in the 2101 Building, laid up ten tiers to be sure that the tolerances of the assembly were precise. And from there they were packaged on pallets in sequence that they would go in, in reverse sequence, so when they took them off they were ready to be stacked up. And then they were shipped—brought into the reactor vessel, lowered down into the open process area in the center part of the core and pulled off the pallets and just stacked, piece by piece. There’s pictures available that you see of the old reactors. There may be some of K Reactors too, I don’t know, but show inside the reactors when they’re laying up with the blocks. Of course everybody’s in whites. Your cleanliness control’s very important. And of course, obviously, sequence was very, very important, to have all the blocks in there. But from my perspective, I just watched—I wasn’t doing the work, I was just part of the process that was putting them in there. It was very closely controlled and very temperature controlled—well, no, I don’t know about the temperature. The building was under limited temperature control. But the cleanliness was strictly controlled, and the workers of course had been assigned with each pallet that came in, they knew where it went and how it was to be laid. But that was the same process that was used in all the reactors for graphite layup. But that’s amazing, the way they built those things. You have all the penetrations, like—I can’t give you the numbers. K Reactors were bigger than the old original reactor. The original reactor had 2,004 process tubes. You probably all know the story of that, too. [LAUGHTER] But what I started to say was, the alignment of the holes in the blocks, of course, had to line up with the holes of the penetrations of front and rear faces precisely when they put them in. So it was like putting a watch together on a 40-foot-square [LAUGHTER]—40-foot cube. Very precise work. O’Reagan: Were there any mistakes? Ballard: Pardon? O’Reagan: Did you ever see any mistakes? Ballard: Well, no, but if there were they were corrected as they went, because they had two or three levels of inspection verified that they were going in properly. There may have been some, I don’t know. I was not in direct control of that job. I was more on the K Reactor, I just was in oversight. I don’t remember what my position was at that time, but—the B Reactor, for example, you know what happened there when they started it up? It died because of the xenon poison. They didn’t have enough neutron flux levels to override that poisoning effect. That’s when they had to add the additional fuel channels outside the original 1,500 that they had that the physicist said was adequate to drive the reactor. So that was an interesting job. They had to—the later reactors, they had more knowledge of what the requirements were. So the design wasn’t—it didn’t create a problem on initial startup like B Reactor did. O’Reagan: We were trying to outline or highlight—what sort of innovations came out of Hanford, what sort of inventions did you see—what new knowledge or techniques did you see created at Hanford? Ballard: Well, there again, you need to talk to the physicists and chemists and people that were in the fuel design areas. There were so many changes made to the fuel designs. They went from—of course these were only applicable to the graphite reactors the modern fuel originally were eight inches long when the distortion that occurred in the graphite, that was because of the structure change due to the radiation in the graphite. The channels were distorted to the point where some were so crooked that the eight-inch channel—the fuel wouldn’t go through the channel. SO they went to four-inch people—four-inch long fuel assemblies in some of those bad channels. And then of course another knowledge was the design of fuel assembly, you went from strictly external core where they just had an annulus of water around the outside cooling the fuel assembly. It went to a center core; they had internal cooling—a flow channel through the center of the element. But as far as the physics of the elements, they went from totally natural uranium, originally 238, all naturally derived with 0.7% 235. They went to some enrichment in the reactors to increase the power level. But there was physics changes all along, as far as being able to control and just knowledge of impurities and what the effects were in the nuclear physical—the physics involved in the reactor. But of course, then the Breeder Program, we didn’t talk about that. There’s a lot of advancements made there. FFTF was a marvelous machine and it produced a lot of new information from greener technology. That FFTF was—I spent ten years on development—seven on development and three on construction, so. But I wasn’t—I’m not a physicist and wasn’t into the technology as much as the people—I was more into construction, design and construction. O’Reagan: A lot of knowledge there, too, that you—hands-on knowledge. Ballard: Well, I always pride myself on being able to fix problems. We had a lot of things on assembly or putting the stuff together that just—problems or interferences or arrangements that weren’t thought of in design that we were able to resolve in the field, and that’s why I got into—I’ve been building houses for Habitat now for the last 15 years. [LAUGHTER] It’s a little different from putting reactors together, but I get a lot of comments from the instruction people in Habitat. This is not a reactor; we don’t need to have those tolerances. [LAUGHTER] But I say if you make it right, it looks a lot nicer and it goes together better. O’Reagan: All right, I guess that’s the list of questions I’ve got. I guess we’ll end it once again. Ballard: Okay, well, appreciate. <a href="https://youtu.be/-GxJwHtD_CQ">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview C Reactor B Reactor 300 Area K Reactor K East Reactor FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility) FMEF (Fuels and Materials Exam Facility) 321 Building 400 Area 2101 Building 200 East Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1994 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Del Ballard Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Civil engineering Nuclear reactors Breeder reactors Description An account of the resource Del Ballard moved to Richland, Washington in 1951. Del worked on the Hanford Site from 1951-1994 and was influential in the formation of the B Reactor Museum Association. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02/18/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Donald Baker Location The location of the interview Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Don Baker on April 5, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Don about his experiences working on the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Don Baker: My name is Donald E. Baker. It’s spelled D-O-N-A-L-D, initial E., last name B-A-K-E-R. Franklin: Great. And do you prefer to go by—I should’ve asked you before—Don or Donald? Baker: Don is fine. Franklin: Okay. Baker: Either one, I’ll respond. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Okay. So, Don, tell me how and why you came to the Hanford Site. Baker: Well, I had heard very little bit about Hanford. But early in the school year, June of—well, it was probably March or April of 1951, an interviewer from Hanford came to the University of Idaho. And I was a graduate student there at the time. I was interviewed for work over here, and then eventually ended up hiring on. I reported for work in Richland on early June of 1951. Franklin: What was your graduate degree in? Baker: My graduate degree was in chemistry. I was part of a group of probably over 200 recent graduates that came in that year, hired on with General Electric. General Electric was the contractor at that time that was in charge of the entire Hanford Project. Franklin: Wow. Okay. Did you have any idea—did you interview for a specific job at Hanford, or--? Baker: No, I didn’t. At that time, really, there was not a lot known to the general public, because it still was a very classified operation that they were running here. So, I just assumed that with my background in chemistry that I would find some interesting work here. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Baker: And I certainly did. Franklin: Yeah. Did you have any other job offers, or had you interviewed in any other places before you--? Baker: No, I really was interested in knowing more about this. This would probably have been my first preference, and definitely after I knew more about it, I knew that I had made a good choice. But the conditions here were, shall we say, a little rustic at that time as far as living conditions. When I reported here, I was offered living accommodations in a barracks-type dormitory building in north Richland. I was there for approximately, oh, maybe two or three weeks. During that time, we were given orientation, lectures and so on. And at the end of that two or three weeks’ time, I was offered to do some work in off-site inspection. Now, offsite inspection was a group of engineers that were following contracts where equipment was being built for Hanford. Quite a ways away from chemistry, but nevertheless, it sounded like an interesting opportunity for me, because it could give me an opportunity to see just what the real world was like, as far as how equipment was fabricated. So, after being here for only about three weeks, I packed my bags and was off to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to a plant that was fabricating approximately one-cubic-foot containers for some work here at Hanford. This was in a foundry-type place where heavy vessels were fabricated. This particular company was known for their huge beer processing vessels that the tanks were made for making beer that were glass-lined. They were made out of carbon steel, and then they would go into a huge furnace where a glaze was put on the inside of the tanks. That was quite a ways away from the type of work that Hanford was requiring them to do. They were making approximately a one-cubic-foot vessel to extremely tight specifications that the people found hard to believe or understand when they first started the job. It was a stainless steel tank that had an off-center pipe in it. It was made to very tight specifications, dimensionally to within one-thousandth to three-thousandths of an inch. And it had a special fitting on the top to connect to equipment that it would be used on here at Hanford. It had to be leak-tight so that it would only leak approximately one cubic centimeter in 30 years. That’s tight. And also, cleanliness specifications that were really unheard of. After the container was fabricated, it would be fired in a huge tank-like furnace with hydrogen present. That would turn this into a shiny metal vessel. From that point on, it could not be touched with bare hands. This was really, really difficult to impress on the people that were fabricating, because they were used to handling anything with whatever old leather gloves they had. Because there was to be no fingerprints or anything like that on there, and it was to be completely clean. Well, that went well, because as soon as they figured the inspectors that were back there would reject anything that they saw was handled without white gloves, they caught on in a hurry, and we had no trouble from then on. The job was completed, and they did an excellent job on making these containers for us. The next assignment that I had after that—that was about three months that we worked on that particular contract. I then went to an aluminum company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They were making aluminum process tubes that would be used in the reactors out here. It was really interesting to me to see the way that they proceeded to make these. They would start out with a billet of aluminum, oh, maybe three or four inches in diameter, with a hole through it. By successively pulling that aluminum through dies, they would reduce it from the original dimension down to a process tube that was approximately an inch-and-three-quarters in diameter and roughly 42 feet long. Not only was it a long tube, it had ridges at about 4:00 and 8:00 to support fuel that would go in there and allow for water circulation all the way around the fuel. So as they would draw this, these little ridges would gradually go down until they were exactly where they were. And also there could be no twist in this, so if the ridges were at 4:00 and 8:00 at one end of the tube, they needed to be at the same location at the other end of the tube. But they were very experienced in dong this type of work, and they proceeded to do a fine job for us. After the tubes were inspected and approved for shipment, they would slide like a cardboard sleeve over the outside to protect them, and then these were placed in long wooden boxes. Now, we hear a lot about recycling, but at that time, it wasn’t in everybody’s vocabulary. But they needed some wooden boxes and somebody out here at Hanford said, you know, we had had some previous orders of these tubes, where are the boxes? And they said, oh, these boxes have been surplused and somebody comes in and they have an auction out there and bought them all up. Well, it turns out that the very boxes that we needed were in a surplus yard out in West Richland. The people here, recycling on their mind, contacted that person, bought them back from him after he had bought them here, shipped them to the plant that was manufacturing the tubes back in Pittsburgh and they loaded them up. Then they had to go in a special rail car. Normally, boxcars have side-opening doors. This had to have an end-opening doors on it, so that the tubes, forty-some feet long could be put in this 50-foot box car. Then a bulkhead was built in the end of the railcar in there so the load could not shift. It was stacked to probably about eight, nine feet high in the boxcar and shipped out here and unloaded out here on the plant. So it was interesting to see how they proceeded to do this. This would’ve been in 1951. Interestingly, that was about the time that commercial household aluminum foil came onto the market. It was much in-demand, especially for the holiday season in December there. The employees and people of this plant could buy a thing of aluminum foil at the company store there when it wasn’t available commonly in the supermarkets and so on. But some of these things, you know, we take for granted now that they’ve just always been there. But this company was making all kinds of things, including process tubes for use at Hanford. Franklin: Interesting. Baker: Then, after that project was completed in three or four months, I think, that we were there, I was assigned to another one in Ohio. The process tubes on the reactor go in through a steel tube that is called a gun barrel. This gun barrel is approximately, I would say maybe seven or eight feet long. It had stepped areas on it so that radiation could not stream out of the reactor; it would be stopped by the steel, different intervals long there. Again, this was something that had to be made to within at least a one-thousandth to three-thousandths clearance on every dimension. It was made of steel. The company that had the contract to make these could not fulfill their contract. They failed, and the contract had to be taken away from them. They were months behind, and they had created a huge pile of scrap and that was all to show for their experience. So the contract was canceled, and it was given to another company that was doing work exclusively for the US Navy. In fact, they even managed to get some of the special tooling that was only available that belonged to the US Navy, and it was applied to our job. They put the job—they got busy on it and came through beautifully, and they were able to use these. Because the construction, really, it was essential. They couldn’t put the process tubes in the reactor that was being built at this time until these components were in place. So, it was pretty straightforward once they got the right people working on the job. Again, they came through and provided what we needed out here. So, this pretty much takes care of my first year of employment here. I came back to Hanford, and I was at that time, I still did not have my security clearance. So I was assigned, though, to the B Reactor area and worked with an engineer there on an efficiency study for the power plant. Some of these seem a ways away from chemistry, but, nevertheless, we did do chemical analysis on the combustion products from the coal plant. They were looking for just small improvements on the efficiency, because coal was a big expense for here as far as producing steam. The steam was needed to heat the facilities out there, but it was also used as part of the high pressure pumping system for the reactor. They had an electric motor, and on that same drive shaft was a steam turbine. So if the electric motor lost its power, the steam turbine would pick up the load and supply high pressure water to the reactor until it would get cooled down. So it was a backup for loss of electric power as well. So I worked at that, and about six weeks after I started in on that project, my security clearance came through. That’s what I’d really been waiting for and I got notice of that in the morning, and in the afternoon, the engineer I was working with, my manager, took me over and showed me B Reactor for the first time. And, of course, I was quite impressed with what I saw. It gave me a chance, too, to see where some of these components that I had observed being made across the country, where they were being used out here at Hanford. So after we finished the steam plant study—and by the way, we found out that they were doing a good job as far as the operators. There wasn’t much that we could uncover that would improve their operation. The thing that really made a difference was with the quality of coal that they were buying. If they bought coal that was of low quality, cheap, they didn’t get good results from it. So that was kind of what we learned from that. But at least we knew that no further improvements could be made as far as we could tell. After that, I spent some time, oh, three or four months with the reactor operations group. Then, I was offered an opportunity to do work on graphite research. Graphite had become a really, really big problem. It was going to be limiting the life of the reactors, and they could see that that was exactly where things were headed. This was, again, in 1952. So, they had two large groups of people, a graphite research and a graphite development group, that were studying what to do with this problem. Meantime, DR Reactor had been built, because they could see its lifetime was fast approaching end-of-life, and the plan was that they could then just switch the water plant when D was shut down over to DR and just move on from there. Well, as it turned out, with all this intensive effort, they found ways that they could minimize the expansion that was incurring in the graphite. Up ‘til that time, they had been keeping it nice and cool with helium atmosphere, you know, and everything. As it turned out, the graphite was really being damaged more by those low temperatures than allowing it to go a little higher in temperature. Because every time a fission reaction would occur, a very energetic neutron, over 2 MeV neutron would be generated, and this would interact with the atoms in the graphite and cause it to swell. So by operating at a little higher temperature, you began to relieve some of these problems. But there was a tremendous amount of research that went into there. We would be putting—I was then with a group that would be putting samples in the reactor, taking them out at six weeks to two month intervals, and measuring them in the 300 Area laboratories, then returning them back to the reactor. This way, we were able to learn a lot about what was happening and how to make the reactor measurements so that we could improve the operating characteristics of the plant. In addition to physical measurements, expansion and so on, they measured the conductivity. This was one of the areas that I got pretty heavily involved with. How well the graphite would conduct heat determines, to a large extent, what the temperature’s going to be in there. So, typically, the traditional method was to take a large cylinder of graphite, put a heater in it, and measure temperatures in it as a function of power input and all that. So, it was about that time that somehow or other, I ran across some work that was being done at a US Naval research laboratory in San Francisco area. So I contacted the physicist down there and asked him about it. He invited me down there. He says, I can’t tell you exactly how or what we’re doing with this, but he says, I can show you our equipment and you can take it from there. So, it was a different approach and exactly what we needed to measure the thermal conductivity of graphite from the reactors out there. What they used was putting a pulse of heat into a very small piece of graphite, smaller than the size of a dime. They would put a pulse of heat in there and then measure how fast that heat pulse traveled through this thin sample. From that, you can derive the thermal conductivity. Just what we were looking for. We were able to build equipment that would go into, from the front face of the reactor, go into an opening in the reactor where the process tube had been removed. The saw would rotate 90 degrees and remove a plug of graphite from the inside of that graphite channel. Then we would take that into our lab, slice it up into pieces, and we could tell exactly how the conductivity was changing from the area where the cold processing tube was in contact with the graphite, to out to the edges of the graphite blocks. This provided us a lot of data that hadn’t previously been available. So we built the equipment here to do that type of measurement. They were using flash tubes as the pulse heat source, but it was flash tubes that would be used for aerial night photography. So these were pretty powerful flash tubes. But approximately a year after we started using that technique, lasers were developed. Then we started using pulse lasers, which were a big improvement. From then on, it was pretty much a standard way of measuring conductivity on small samples. In fact, because that capability was available here, one of the things that had been done was to recover a large amount of technetium. Now, technetium is not available in—normally, it’s an element in the periodic table—I don’t remember just which number, now—but all of it that ever was available, if it was, had since decayed. I think it has about a 4-million-year half-life. Very long half-life. But it is a fission product, and they were able to process enough fission products to come up with technetium that could be converted to the metal. And one of my engineering friends out there worked on this project for quite a while. So we got to talking one day, and I said, what are the chances that I could get small piece of that technetium? He said, just fine, we could make that available to you. So, I was able, then, to report for the first time the thermal conductivity of technetium and report it in the literature. So, I really had some interesting assignments along the way. Much of the work on graphite was documented in a book called Nuclear Graphite. It was compiled, edited, by Dr. Richard Nightingale, brought together a lot of information on radiation damage in graphite material. This led into—well, I’ll go back a step there. Battelle came on the scene in 1965. So my employment then changed from General Electric to Battelle. Franklin: Because you had been working at Hanford Labs, right? Baker: Yes. I was working at Hanford Labs at the time, so that part of it went to Battelle, the research side of it. We continued to do graphite research until about 1968 or ’69. At that point, Westinghouse was given the contract to do some preliminary work on the Fast Flux Test Facility. We had a pretty good handle on the graphite problems at that time. There were still, though, questions on materials for using them in a much higher flux environment in the Fast Flux reactor. So we were assigned the task of doing some testing with boron carbide. Now, boron carbide is another interesting, very high temperature material. It has a melting point of about 2,350 Celsius. Incidentally, the graphite—to go back a step there—is made from petroleum coke and petroleum distillates, some of the byproducts of processing petroleum. When it’s just in the form of coke, it’s similar to the charcoal that we might use in our barbecue. But if it is mixed with other carbonaceous products, made into graphite, and then heated up to 2,700 to 2,900 degrees Celsius in electric furnaces, it will turn it into this material that is used for electrodes in electric furnaces. Electric furnace melting is common in the steel industry. When it came time to produce all the graphite that was needed for the reactors out here, already in industry there were a lot of people who knew a lot about graphite, because they had been in the process of making this into electrodes for many years. So then we—to get back—we moved into the boron carbide research, and work was done at testing facilities in Idaho. The problem with boron carbide is that it produces a helium—an alpha particle, a helium atom for each neutron that it captures. Boron-10 is an excellent absorber of material to use in controlling reactors. But it does have the disadvantage that it produces gases. So, the boron carbide is made in the shape of small pellets about half-inch in diameter. When they’re processed, some of the helium is retained in the crystal structure of the boron carbide pellet, but the rest of it is released into the steel pin that contains it. So, eventually it pressurizes the pin and limits how long a control rod will operate. So, our assignment was to figure out under what conditions the helium gas was released and what improvements could be made to make the boron carbide control rods last as long as possible. There was also another thing that was unknown at that time, and that was if a tube should fail, and if there was sodium flowing past it, would it wash out the boron carbide pellets that was in there or not? Well, we actually set up an experiment to do that. With some facilities back at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, they were able to flow sodium over a simulated failed pin and we could examine what happened. So, this was the type of work that involved high temperature materials that turned out to be the career that I worked on. It was chemically related, but very materials-oriented. I found it to be a fascinating career to be associated with. It really was something where there were a lot of problems and a lot of challenges. So we were able to supply the answers to a lot of that. So that worked pretty well continued up until the mid, oh, about 1986 or so, when I became involved in a group that was doing experiments in the FFTF. There was a need for information on fusion energy at that time, as to what kind of materials could be used in what they called the blanket of a test machine that was being designed. So, we were able to work with Canadian scientists and Japanese scientists on coming up with a design of an experiment that would be placed in the FFTF. This was probably one of the most difficult, most challenging experiments that I had in my whole career working at Hanford, because the experiment was fully instrumentated so that you could follow everything that was happening, and yet it had to be completely failsafe, so that if the experiment failed, the reactor could continue operating without shutting down. We succeeded in designing the experiment. The Canadian scientists were extremely helpful in designing part of the tritium recovery, because tritium is what we were producing in these tests. Every bit of tritium had to be recovered. We had a large glovebox, it was about 12 feet high with multiple glove ports. We’d reach in at different levels and operate valves and equipment inside of it. Many challenges, and it operated absolutely perfectly the whole time, and it provided a lot of data. Battelle was responsible for compiling, reporting the data at many conferences. The experiment continued until, and an experiment was in place when Hanford received the orders from the Department of Energy that the FFTF had to be shut down and we had to terminate our experiments at that time. But it seemed like we really got a lot of important information as a result of the experiments that were done. It turned out to me to be an exciting career to be involved with. So that kind of summarizes quite a few years of interesting work at Hanford for me. Franklin: What was the tritium used for when that was being created? Baker: The tritium eventually was used for the weapons program. But it was more of a byproduct of a material that was being used for control rods. Because control rods were used in all the reactors out there. Since it could build up pressure inside of the tubes, we needed to know how much. There even was some work that we were involved with in putting a metal sintered—like an escape valve—on some of the pins so that as the gas would be produced, the helium could be released without allowing sodium to go back in. But it was not highly successful and we gave up on that after not too much experimental work. But the combination of sodium being a reactive metal, as it is, we had a lot of challenges, too. Oh, another interesting part of the graphite work that we did was, in addition to looking at dimensional changes that were causing the graphite to expand and contract, in some cases, too, after a certain point, it would contract. So, you had peaks and valleys in a channel through the reactor. They tried to go in and bore that hole out so that it would be easier to slip a process tube through. And in some cases, they were successful, but the graphite, after it’s irradiated becomes extremely hard. They had to use carbon tools to even kind of—we use carbon tools all the time in the laboratory; otherwise, metal saw blades just wouldn’t do it. We had to use diamond blades to cut into it, it was so hard. But we also were interested—once they learned to use a gas mixture: a mixture of CO2 and helium to adjust the temperature. This was the key to controlling the expansion that was limiting the life of the reactors. Once we started using that, then we needed to know, in a radiation field, will carbon dioxide react at a different rate with carbon? Because at a high temperature, CO2 plus carbon will produce carbon monoxide. So we put together our own high-radiation-level cobalt source in the 300 Area. I went out looking again, it was the recycle route. We found a surplus tank that had been used for—was going to be used for some separations processing work, but it was no longer needed. It was about eight feet in diameter and approximately 15 feet tall. We found a building in the 300 Area where we could dig a hole that deep. In fact, we dug it a little deeper than that, and managed to prepare a tank-type facility to make Cobalt-60 irradiation source. The tank was just about even with floor level; went down 14 feet. Filled with water, and had a barrier all the way around the top of it. Filled with distilled water, because we didn’t want to have some of the corrosion products that will happen if you have aluminum in contact with mineral water. But loading it with cobalt was another challenge. We started out with about 15,000 curies of cobalt, which gave us a pretty good source. But it wasn’t what we really needed. So over approximately three or four years, we were able to increase that to 630,000 curies of cobalt-60. That is a lot of cobalt-60. At that time, it was probably the fifth largest cobalt facility in the United States. It had produced radiation levels of approximately 17 million roentgens per hour. It was—without the water shielding over it, the radiation would’ve been lethal in fractions of a second. But, with 14 feet of water shielding us, we could look down at the blue glow, and we would have our experiments suspended above that would go down into one- or two-inch tubes, right down to within an inch or two of the cobalt. The cobalt rods were approximately 16 inches high. The cobalt was made locally, out in the K Reactors. Transporting it was another interesting challenge. We would ship it in from the reactor area in a lead-filled container cask. The container—the cask would be located down into the water, the lid removed, the cobalt elements would be placed into it, the lid would be placed back on the container, it would be brought to the surface of the water, then with all that—it was approximately 40 inches in diameter—with that much lead around the cobalt, we could approach it and they would put very secure bolts in the top of it. But then, it would be removed from the water, and we had an eight-hour time limit to get it from the 100 Areas down to the 300 Area and into water again. Because there were limits on how much heat could be absorbed in the lead shielding. So we had a crane capable of lifting several-ton cask that was set up ahead of time. A section of the roof on this building was removed, the cask would be lowered down through the roof, down into this water-filled tank that we had. We remotely took the cap off, took the cobalt-60 elements out, and we had our own cobalt-60 source for examining materials to see what the effect of gamma radiation would have on the materials. Quite interesting. Whenever they had that shipment, patrol cars would be stationed at each railroad crossing, and the patrol cars stopped the trains while the trucks went through. Franklin: Wow. Baker: But it was planned in advance, and everything worked fine. Franklin: What kinds of materials were you testing next to this cobalt thing for gamma radiation exposure? Baker: We were testing such things as camera lenses, for example. But mainly its justification was to see whether the cobalt—the gamma radiation would enhance the reaction of carbon dioxide with the graphite. Would there be more reaction going on as result of the gamma radiation present than not? What we found was that it wasn’t really significant; it was primarily a temperature-controlled reaction. So we already were aware, pretty much, of what the limitations on the graphite temperatures would be. We had thermal couples to measure—and there were thermal couples also that were built into the graphite moderator stack at the time the reactor was built to measure the temperatures. But on one occasion, we did make a periscope—one of the other engineers that was working in this graphite group made a periscope that fitted into the front face where a process tube had been removed, and it matched up against the seal where this gun-barrel-type-arrangement that penetrated into the graphite stack was. That slid in there, and the light, the glow from the graphite went down a series of mirrors, was reflected back to the other one and back again. So we had a periscope that we could physically use an optical pyrometer and measure the temperature of the graphite using that kind of a device. It was probably the first time—first and only time—that we were able to look into an operating Hanford reactor. But the engineer that was involved with that was a very talented individual. He came up with something that no one else had thought of doing up until that time. Franklin: Wow. And what year would that have been? Baker: That was probably in abut 19—somewhere in the late 1960s. Franklin: Late 1960s. Wow, that’s really quite amazing. Baker: Yeah. No, it was probably earlier than that. Probably early ‘60s. Probably around 1960, ’62, something like that. Franklin: Oh, wow, okay. So cobalt, then—cobalt’s a gamma emitter, correct? Baker: Yes, it is. Franklin: So 14 feet of water, then, was enough to blunt the gamma rays, to be able to observe that? Baker: Yes, it was, mm-hmm. It absorbs that radiation. It’s an ideal material because you can look down there and see what you’re doing. You have to have long tong manipulators to work with things, but it has a very penetrating gamma ray that’s emitted, I think it’s around 1.5 MeV. So it’s a very energetic, very penetrating ray. Some gamma rays are—beta particles, for example, do not penetrate like a gamma ray would. But it has a short half life; as I recall, it’s something around five years? 5.7 years, I’m not sure of that. So, half of it would decay. After we’d made the final really big load, we had 630,000, that was pretty much maxed out, as far as the amount of cobalt in that facility and they just continued to use it, probably for at least 25 years after that, exploring effects of gamma radiation on various materials. Franklin: Because then after a certain point, so much of it would’ve been decayed that it’s— Baker: Yeah, a certain amount of it would be decayed. But it still was being used at a time when they started to—well, I guess the cobalt had been removed; the facility was there when they were cleaning up Hanford. Now that facility’s been completely removed, the building and all traces of it, now, I think are gone. But it was used for quite a while. Franklin: That glow you were talking about, that’s what’s called Cherenkov’s radiation? Baker: That’s is the—that’s the name. It’s due to the interaction with the structure of the water, the absorption produces a blueish glow. Have you ever seen that? Franklin: Not naturally, no. I’ve seen photos of it. Baker: It’s beautiful. Now, I think that the reactor, possibly, at WSU, it is a form of a trigger reactor, is it not? And I think that there probably is a similar glow with that, with the reactor that’s over at the Pullman campus. Franklin: Oh, wow. I’ll have to—maybe I’ll get the chance to see that someday. Baker: Sometime when you’re over there, it would be interesting to drop by and have a look at that facility. Franklin: Yeah, it sure would. So you said that you worked on this project with the cobalt and everything at FFTF up until the mid-‘50s, right? And then what did you do after that, after the project— Baker: Well, it was about 1969 when it went into the boron carbide work. The boron carbide work continued until 1986. At that time, I became a part of the group that was doing the design for the joint experiments with the Canadian and Japanese scientists on blanket materials, absorbent materials, for use in the FFTF. That’s when we started designing that facility. I think what made this work so interesting was that usually we were in on the design phase of it. And then followed it through from the fabrication of the experiment, getting all the approvals, safety approvals and so on, actual construction, inserting the experiments into the reactors, starting them up, and collecting the data. So we could see, from start to finish, how the project went. I think this had a lot of value, because that way there was feedback. You could see how you might have done a project in a different way, and it would suggest other ways of doing things. I think, many times, a designer may not have that privilege of being able to see the end result and knowing whether the decisions made in the design were the best ones to make. So I found that that was really an exciting part of doing the work to see something through from start to finish. Franklin: You’ll have to forgive me because I’m not a—I just want to make sure I’m following and understanding everything correctly because I’m not a nuclear scientist. When you say blanket materials, what is a blanket material? Baker: A blanket material is the material that was proposed to go around a fusion energy machine. Now, fusion energy has been—its advances have been very slow and very difficult to come by. But right now there is a fusion machine that is being built in France. But they need to confine a plasma to get the fusion of deuterium and tritium, or various elements at the low end of the periodic table, to fuse together to release energy. The fission energy comes from the process of fissioning elements at the high end of the periodic table. In fusion energy, the work that is being done, they are proposing that there would be an intense field of neutrons present, and that some of these neutrons could be absorbed in what they call the blanket. The blanket was the area immediately surrounding where the fusion is taking place. So we were just doing materials, evaluating them, to serve as materials that could surround—that would be in the area surrounding a fusion energy device, and absorb these neutrons, thereby making some tritium that could be circulated back into the fusion machine so it could be making some of its fuel. Products typically—lithium, when you bombard lithium with neutrons, you will produce tritium from that. So many of the materials that have been proposed have followed the use of lithium. So the work that we were doing in FFTF was examining potential materials that could be used in a fusion apparatus. Franklin: So that’s not shielding, then, that’s materials to help, I guess in a way, moderate the reaction, but capture that tritium to recycle back into the— Baker: Exactly! That’s a good way—it would be a way of producing more fuel that could be used to fusion, yes. Franklin: Because fusion is bringing the atoms together, right, which produces an immense amount of energy— Baker: That is true. Franklin: So is that blanket material there also there to capture that enormous amount of energy? Or is that just to capture the other atoms made by this fusion? Baker: It’s more, I think, to capture the neutrons to provide a feedback of process for fuels to make more tritium atoms to put back into the process to keep it going. Franklin: Oh, wow, wow. Baker: So that was the purpose of working on those materials for that. Franklin: Oh, that’s really fascinating. So now we’re just—France, you said, is building the first fusion reactor. Baker: Yes. There are other nations—I’m not sure which nations now are involved, but France has been behind this for a long time. Interest by the United States lagged for a little while, oh, probably ten, 15 years ago. They had cut back some on the support for that. But then some advances were made, and it looked like it was really something that the United States should be involved with, so they are still a participant in the fusion energy research that’s going on. Franklin: How long did you work on this blanket material project with Canada and Japanese scientists? Baker: Well, it went from 1986 until, I believe the FFTF reactor was shut down in 1992. So that six-year period was when we were working with the Canadian and Japanese scientists. The Canadians had much experience in tritium work, because they use heavy water reactors. The heavy water reactors do produce some tritium in the process. So some of us took classes up there in how to safely handle and capture tritium. What the Canadians came up with, their contribution to this project was that in the FFTF, when we would be irradiating these materials and making tritium, we would be able to adjust the temperatures and look at how fast the tritium was released from the material, depending on the temperature and what other gases were present. This sort of information. All of the tritium that was produced, it had to be—it was swept out of the reactor, a helium line went in with extremely high—less than one part per million of impurities in the helium, because we didn’t want any activation of any impurities in the gas to be swept out of the reactor. And that gas, the sweep gas, that went down over the samples, came back out, went into all the instrumentation that was in this large glovebox. So, we had to capture all of the tritium that we made. None of it escaped to the outside at all. So the Canadians came up with highly efficient materials that were combination of zirconium and some other elements to capture that tritium. They would actually form hydrides or trihydrides as a combination that they would react with and tie it up so that it was a stable compound. It would—since the tritium has a very soft beta emission, we would typically have maybe a couple thousand curies of tritium in a tube that was approximately an inch-and-a-quarter in diameter by about 12 inches long. But it was completely shielded; you couldn’t detect any information on the outside of the capsule, yet it contained huge amounts of tritium. But it was all captured, and that’s what the glovebox—it contained all of the materials, the chemical materials, that were needed to capture the tritium. Franklin: Wow, that’s interesting. So the hydrogen would be able to sweep up, basically, the tritium and become tritium-laden, then? Baker: Yes, that’s right. The helium— Franklin: Helium, sorry. Baker: The helium would sweep out all the tritium. In some cases, if we used a little bit of hydrogen mixed in with this ultra-high-purity helium, then we’d be able to sweep it out much faster. It seems like the materials would react with our samples and we would sweep it out so we would see rapid releases of tritium from the material. Which was important information to have, because if you’re going to extract this from a fusion machine, you might want to know how to get it out of your compounds faster. So those experiments continued on, then, until FFTF shut down. And then I worked for about three more years after that on instrumentation for the waste tanks out at Hanford. Much of it was involved with that tank that would periodically release bursts of gas. Franklin: The burping tank. Baker: The burping tank, yes. That was instrumented, too. They had various kinds of gas instrumentation installed right there at the tank. The controls for it were in a trailer park right next to the Tank Farm fence. So we had continuous monitoring on that. I was involved in some of the operation and maintenance of the helium gas analysis equipment. Franklin: Oh, wow. Baker: So I worked on that until I retired then. Franklin: And you retired in 1995? Baker: ‘95, yes. Franklin: So, what, 44 years. Baker: 44 years I had worked out there. I can think of nothing in the way that I really want to change. I always felt that we were working very safely. I feel that we really had a good knowledge of what we were doing at the time. Franklin: Sure. I want to come back to a couple things you mentioned earlier. Maybe just ask you more about the social/cultural aspects of living in Richland. So when you mentioned you’d moved into a dorm for your first few weeks here in north Richland, which I imagine—those were dorms for the Hanford construction camp, right? Baker: Yes, they had used some for that and some for other workers, because all of the housing, even in downtown Richland, was controlled by the government. So you got on a list and you got high enough priority, then you could move to a more desirable location. So by the time I came back after traveling around the country for a year, I’d moved up on the list and was eligible for a dorm in downtown Richland. These dorms were built on Jadwin between Swift and—what’s the next street north of there? Not Symons. Franklin: Williams? Baker: Williams, yeah. The dorms were located in that general area there. And then there were some other dorms for the women employees that were down approximately where the Albertson’s store is now. Franklin: Right, right. We have photos of those. Baker: Those were the two locations fro those. I was in the dorms for only, oh, maybe about three years. Or, not the dorms. Yeah. The single dorm rooms. And then I was able to get an apartment on Gribble Street. There were some apartments along there, and I rented an apartment there for a while until I then later bought my own house in Richland. Franklin: Your dorm—so, were there mess halls that went with the dorms, or were you—did they have kitchens? I’m wondering if you could describe the dorms for me, kind of how that living arrangement worked. Baker: The dorms were single occupancy rooms. You know, as a matter of fact, there may still be one of those in use in the City of Richland. Franklin: I’ve heard there’s one off Jadwin. Baker: On Jadwin. It is—where is that, I can see it— Franklin: Someone told me— Baker: It’s on Van Giesen. Franklin: Van Giesen, right, right. Baker: I think it’s on Van Giesen between George Washington Way and Jadwin. Franklin: Yeah, they said it’s by the 7 Eleven. Baker: Yes, there’s a 7 Eleven on the corner of Jadwin and Van Giesen, and about halfway down that block, on the north side is one little building. I think it still may have rooms for people that rent that just want a dorm-type room. Franklin: Interesting. I drive that way home everyday. I’m going to see if I can find it. Baker: I’m going to look again, too. Look and see if it’s not still there. Franklin: Because those would’ve been the Alphabet House dorms, right? I think they were the J— Baker: No, I think they were—even—they were mostly—Ms and Ws. There was an M-1, M-2, M-3. I lived in M-5 for a while. And the women’s dorms were similarly numbered W such-and-such. Franklin: Right, the Army gets very creative with its naming system. Baker: And there were some restaurants and cafeterias in Richland. One of the cafeteria-type operations was on that corner, just across from where the Federal Building is right now, at the corner of Knight and Jadwin. It was on the southwest corner. They had a large eating facility in there. But that was pretty much the way that—the dorms were all right. One of the things that I do kind of remember there, you know, you’re going to have a mix of all kinds of people in a dorm like that. Well, one of the occupants decided he was going to make some homebrew. So he brewed up this and then put the caps on it and everything. He had his own bottle capper. And then he put them under his bed in the room. Well, this tends—especially if you haven’t processed it right, it will generate some CO2 gas. Franklin: Yeah, it will. Baker: In the middle of the night, these started going off, almost simultaneously, more than one. So as the cap would blow off, the beer would come out, it would soak all the bottom of the bedding. When you walked down the hall, you would think that you were in the local tavern, because it really smelled of—so, he could no longer hide the fact that he was making some homebrew in his dorm room. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. Did you say—you mentioned that there would be all kinds of people in there. So was it a mix of blue and white collar workers or people of all different jobs? Baker: Yes, it was. It was kind of a mix of blue and white collar, mm-hmm. It really was. Franklin: And it would’ve been all single men, right? Baker: All single men. And single women. Some of the women worked at the hospital, they worked in the schools in Richland. But, yeah, that’s pretty much the way it was. Franklin: I wonder if you could describe to me your first impressions of Richland, coming in in June of ’51, coming into this government town where there was no private property and everything was government-owned. Baker: Yeah. Well, it was really foreign to my way of thinking. But it seemed like—there was real effort, once the property was sold. People could buy their homes and businesses were encouraged to come in to make it more normal. But it was not—it was unusual circumstances to be in. And you really didn’t have the freedom of choice, shall we say, as to what you could do. You knew that if you were in the government housing that you were only qualified for certain types of housing, depending on how long you’d been here, your marital status, whether you were single or married, whether you had children. If you had more children, then you were entitled to a house with more bedrooms. People just kind of adapted to what the conditions were at that time. There really were a lot of young people at the time that were living here that were attracted to this area. They were a very enthusiastic group. There were a lot of social activities, groups that even to this day still exist. There was a ski club that was very popular with the young people. Sometimes they would take off for, especially a three-day weekend. We could get on a train at Pasco, go to Spokane and switch to another train, and go over to Missoula, Montana and ski at Big Mountain at Whitefish. We would arrive over there about 5:00 in the morning and go out and have a full day on the slopes for a couple days. Then jump on the train, get back in. That first day back was kind of rough, though, because we were getting in early in the morning and have to get to work at 7:30 in the morning. But it worked out fine. Other times, there were bus trips, chartered buses took us to Sun Valley for skiing, some of the mountains up in Canada. It was really a lot of fun. Border crossings were fairly simple at that time. You’d come back and they weren’t supposed to—they were only supposed to bring a certain amount of alcoholic beverages back from Canada because of the alcohol laws in the State of Washington at that time. So when we’d be coming back, typically, a border security officer would step inside the bus and look and say, well, did you have a good time up here? Yeah, we had a good time. Okay. That was the end of it. They wouldn’t check to see whether everybody was within the limits allowed or not. But you never knew when they would check. But the security was very much unlike how it is now as far as border crossings. Franklin: Yeah, kind of a different time, huh? Baker: Yeah, a different time. Franklin: You mentioned there were a lot of young people. Did that strike you, that there weren’t a lot of established families at Hanford? That most people here—because you had to work at Hanford to live in Richland. Baker: Yeah, that seemed—but I think—the town was pretty full. It was an unusual condition, but it seemed like there was always so much going on with this group of people, that they made things happen for themselves. I recall—this was back in probably the early ‘50s, we had an engineer join our group working on the graphite. He was from the Boston area. That man continually complained. There’s nothing to do, there’s this, there’s that, I don’t have, I can’t go to see the latest operas, I can’t—and we said, you know, there’s a lot to do here—and there was. But he complained so much, people reminded him occasionally: well, you can always go back. And certainly, sure enough, he only stayed here about three years. He couldn’t take it. He was the type of person that needed that big city environment to exist. It just wasn’t the place for it. And so he left. And the area was probably better because we didn’t have him around complaining. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. Was the Uptown finished by the time you got here? Baker: It was underway—it was just kind of being developed, yeah. The stores were going in and they were gradually—but it was about that time when the Uptown was being developed. But there was a lot of—still, a lot of sagebrush around. Even when some of the ranch houses were built out on the west side along the bypass highway right now, they would frequently run into large groups of rattlesnakes that would be locally in one area. They would have to get rid of them. There were some things here, you know, that you wouldn’t expect. But rattlesnakes were— One of the things that they had to be careful even in the 300 Area, if some of the buildings had a crawlspace underneath where the maintenance personnel would have to climb under there to work on waterlines and steam valves and other things, and they had to be extremely careful, because there was—Well, one time right in 306 Building, I was working out there one evening. Working late. I was on the second floor, and the only other person was a janitor who was working on the first floor. All of the sudden, I heard this scream, and I thought, what is going on?! Did somebody break in and attack that janitor? I knew it was the janitor. She was absolutely panicked. She was up against the wall in one of the restrooms that was downstairs. The entrance to the restroom door was within two feet of the outside door. A rattlesnake had come in from the outside and made its way into the restroom. She went in to empty the waste basket; she picked it up and she was facing this rattlesnake. She froze and just let out this scream. I went down there and saw what was under control, and she couldn’t hardly talk. So I said, well, we have a way to handle such situations. Don’t worry. We called the person that really—when this sort of thing happened, there was always somebody in the power plant there—the steam plant, that could help out. The person was really an accomplished snake handler. He came over with a plastic bag inside of a wastebasket. He approached the snake, put the wastebasket and plastic bag over it, gently pulled the plastic bag up around it, captured the snake in the plastic bag, and proceeded to walk out the door with this rattlesnake. The last that ever happened. But, oh, that janitor and I, we often joked about that incident. But at the time, you know, it was very serious. Franklin: Oh, sure. Baker: But the outcome was fine. [LAUGHTER] The snake was returned to its desert environment. Franklin: Right, right. Well, I mean, they were—they did predate humans here, so— Baker: Oh, yes, yes, and there were a lot of snakes. Well, in fact, I belong to a mountain climbing group that typically every January 1st would climb Badger Mountain. They still do. On January 1st. One year, we went out there, and it was kind of a warm sunny day. We were all surprised to see a rattlesnake sunning itself out on a rock on the top—very top of Badger on that January 1st day. So, I couldn’t believe it, but I actually saw it happen. So you do have to be a little careful, I think, to this day, climbing Badger, not to venture off too far from the trail into areas unless you have high boots on and are prepared for encountering a rattlesnake. Franklin: Wow. No thank you. Baker: Me, either. Franklin: What other kinds of social activities did you partake in in Richland? Baker: Well, one of the activities that I really got involved with was what was then called the Richland Opera Group. They put on one or two Broadway-type productions. I usually worked behind the scenes: sound, lighting, that part of the stage group. But I appeared, I think, in two shows in a walk-on-type situation as part of a crowd scene. I think that was in Fiddler on the Roof, was one of them. But anyway, that was a really good group of people. In fact, it happened to be the place where I met my wife. She was playing in the orchestra at the time. So there were activities if one wanted to—you really didn’t have to search very hard to find interesting things to do. There was no lack of things for me to do. I didn’t have the feeling at all like the Bostonian, that I needed to get out of town to find some entertainment. Franklin: When did you meet your wife? Baker: Pardon? Franklin: When did you meet your wife? Baker: It was probably in the late ‘60s. First she was frequently playing in the orchestras and I was working on the shows. So that was the place where we met, was through the light opera group. Very—it was a fun group and entertaining group. You never were quite sure how the shows—there were some shows that involved a lot of children, like The Sound of Music, they would double cast the show, because in one case I remember just about two weeks before the show was scheduled to go on, the measles—there wasn’t all the vaccines then, and one of the kids in the group caught the measles. But they were over it by the time the show was ready to go on stage for the audience. It was something that—always some surprises along the way. Franklin: Right, kind of shook everybody up. Did you ever buy an Alphabet House or live in an Alphabet House? Baker: No, I didn’t. I had considered it at the time, but I bought one of the newer houses, then, when I finally got around to buying. I lived in the apartments down there for probably about eight years or so, and I thought, oh, this is kind of stupid. I might as well be living in a house of my own and I could do what I wanted with it. So that’s what I did. I got busy with that and became a homeowner. But there were still the interesting things, a lot going on if anybody wanted. I got involved with amateur radio operations, became a part of that group, and served with some emergency communications preparations groups. To this day, the amateur radio operations are a part of the emergency center that we have in south Richland down there to serve as a backup. Because in many times, they will have the equipment battery operated or even generator operated power sources that can be used for emergency communication. Because I think a lot of people feel overconfident with their cell phones nowadays, but cell phones, after all, also require electricity to run. Franklin: They do, indeed! Baker: Oftentimes, the amateur radio can get through when other communications may fail. It was part of the technology challenge, I think, of some of these things. I went ahead and studied and progressed through the range of licenses that you can get to be licensed. Had my own station and so on. I get busy with other things like my work. But still, I am a licensed operator and have some equipment to get on the air with that. Franklin: Oh, cool. Baker: Yeah, it’s—like I say, the things—it seemed that I tended to move toward the more technical aspects of even the recreation and the social, where it was the technical side of the light opera shows that I participated in. But I always found—I never lacked for something to do. I always found something that was interesting to do. Franklin: Did this radio service start out as a civil defense measure? Baker: Well, it dates back a long, long ways, where the certain frequencies were set aside more for experimentation so that operators could come up with new equipment, new developments, antenna improvements and that sort of thing. So continuing to this day, there are certain frequencies that are set aside. As times have changed, and we’ve gone more to digital communications, there is a digital mode of communications that I’m working on right now to try to get that on the air that involves very little power. If you could imagine something two to three watts, barely the amount of power that it takes for a nightlight, and use that power on a transmitter to talk to Europe, is I think something that I want to do. And it’s being done all the time right now. But that’s the sort of things—you know, again, there are people that continually work on contesting to see how many others they can talk to, whereas others are looking at the equipment, and how to improve what we have. So, there’s something there, even if you want to, you could do digital TV. There are some frequencies set aside for amateur radio experimenters in that field as well. Franklin: Oh, cool. [VIDEO CUTS] Franklin: --company? Baker: The Savanna River—oh, yeah, the company that was— Franklin: In Milwaukee— Baker: A.O. Smith. They’re the ones that make the water—I think to this day they, they make glass-lined water heaters. They used to. Franklin: You’re saying A-O or ale? Baker: A. O. Letter A, O, Smith, S-M-I-T-H, was the company. The other—Alcoa was the company in Pittsburgh that I referred to. Franklin: I’ve heard of—Alcoa’s a big company. Baker: Oh, they’re big. Yeah, generally they went to experienced contractors that they knew could do the job for them, they would do a good job. Franklin: Oh, sure. Baker: You know. And some of them were difficult— Franklin: We ready? Okay! Just a couple more questions. I’m wondering if you—I want to ask you a couple milestones in Tri-Cities history. Do you remember any of the Atomic Frontier Days parades or Richland Days parades, and did you go to any of those or— Baker: Oh, maybe a few of them. It seemed like the Atomic days parades didn’t last too long. It seemed to quickly became a Tri-Cities area event. Then with bringing the boat races in and so on, it was something that was more that the whole Tri-Cities event. Again, it was perhaps an unfortunate event. I was working with radio operators, again, providing emergency communications at one of the boat races. This was probably back in the late ‘60s, perhaps. Unfortunately, there was a lot of drug activity going on at that time. I was attached to a Red Cross first aid group. Someone in a group came and asked for help from the Red Cross that someone had crawled under a car, and somebody else had jumped on the hood and had come down. The person had a head injury from this person jumping on the car. The Red Cross person evaluated the situation right away and wanted to call an ambulance for help. The friends would not agree to this, because the person was on drugs. They said, if you call them, he’s going to be charged with drug usage. They held off, probably for at least a half an hour. They finally relented and said, well, maybe we’d better just take a chance and call and have it checked out. And they did. But after that, the boat races never had the attraction for me. I was really disturbed by the action of some people that would endanger the life of a friend just to protect them from a drug charge. I never participated in any more radio activities with the boat races. That was the end of it for me. Franklin: I’m wondering if—do you remember the JFK visit in 1963 to dedicate the N Reactor? Baker: Yes, I do remember that time. It was very exciting to have the president here for that. Franklin: Were you there that day? Baker: I did not go out to it, but we saw the caravan moving out. It moved right past the 300 Area and went out to the dedication ceremony. But, yes, that was an exciting time for the Tri-Cities, for sure. Franklin: What do you—what about, were you here for President Nixon’s visit, as well? Baker: I don’t recall much of that. But as a part of my amateur radio activities, I had attended a Northwest convention in Seaside, Oregon. They have one of those every year. We had a speaker there that had been the radio person on Air Force One for several presidents. I think he had served in that position for over 30 years. He told us that he was on the flight that took Nixon to China the first time. Franklin: Oh, wow. Baker: And he said that he got a call in the middle of the night. He said, Air Force One has to be ready to go all the time. Any time you want to go. He got a call late in the evening and they said, be ready to go, we’re leaving in something like two hours. And we’ll be at the airport or wherever it was supposed to be. And he said, well, what kind of clothes shall I take? Can’t tell you. Anything I need to do? Just be there. Even the person that will be on the plane with the president didn’t know where they were going until he was on the plane with the president and discovered that they were going to China. That’s how secret that particular operation was. But he traveled with several of the presidents and he had some really interesting tales, as you can imagine someone that served that long, and had an interesting job. Franklin: Yeah. I wonder if you could ruminate, maybe, on the Chernobyl accident and how it affected the community here and how people—or how you reacted to it and how others in the community reacted to it. Baker: Well, we were really—we didn’t know that much about the Russian reactors. We knew that they had graphite-moderated reactors, the same as we had. There was a great concern, because one of the topics that I did not mention earlier was that in the process of graphite being damaged by neutrons contacting the atoms in the graphite crystalline structure, sometimes the atoms would be displaced. Graphite has a crystalline structure, a layered structure. So sometimes atoms would be displaced, and this would eventually cause some of the overall expansion that we were seeing. These atoms, as the temperature was increased, could return to a more stable lattice position, and in the process release energy. This energy was called stored energy. Now, there was an incident in stored energy that happened at wind scale. It only went for a small area in the reactor, and then it kind of self-propagates for a while, and then it terminates, depending on the conditions. But we knew that there was a chance for one of these temperature excursions. I believe that, well, it was related, too, to the Chernobyl incident, because they had some temperatures that went up quite high in that incident, and undoubtedly some of it was as a result of graphite damage—the energy being released. So we had monitored that situation in Hanford reactors for a long time. So some of these samples that we would take out of there, we knew that there was very little concern at that time of releasing stored energy, because we had raised the temperatures enough in the reactor that this was no longer a problem. It’s only when the graphite is operated at a low temperature that stored energy becomes—can become a serious problem, and one that you have to be aware of. So the Chernobyl, we were aware of what was going on. But it had a little different dimensional situation. It had some unfortunate design characteristics that weren’t—looking back now—the best thing to do in the design of a reactor. But there was great interest here in seeing whether we would have any problems related with graphite. And it turned out we didn’t have to do anything differently than we had been doing for years before that. Franklin: But this stored energy, if enough of it was in the reactor, could cause—could release enough heat where the reactor itself could overheat? Baker: Definitely. That is the case, yes. Franklin: I see. Baker: There was a small reactor, I think a Brookhaven reactor, and that was an air-cooled reactor. So it didn’t operate at high levels for a long time, but nevertheless, it was definitely a concern with the people reacting that, because it’s the low temperature, long time periods that will cause that stored energy-type damage. Franklin: Interesting. Wow. Baker: Yeah. Franklin: One of my last questions. So, you were—I think your career is really remarkable because you came here in this kind of early ‘50s when the construction’s ramping up, and then you saw the eventual draw-down and probably the fight to save the different reactors, N and FFTF, and you were still working here when the decision was made to shift from production to cleanup and that whole mission changed. I’m wondering if you could describe your overall feelings and recollections on that shift between cleanup and how it affected you and how it affected your coworkers, the people you worked with. Baker: Yeah. Well, I think that we could see that with the shutting down of the reactors that the place would be entirely different. It was hoped by many people that there would be more power generating facilities built here by Energy—WPPSS at that time. But that wasn’t to be. I think many of us were encouraged to see that something that should’ve been done much earlier in the way of processing the waste was finally going to be recognized and people could move forward with that task. The approach that they’ve taken has been a long one and a very costly one, but they are making progress to converting that waste from a liquid form to a solid form for storage, and I think everyone is very happy to see that happen, wants to see it proceed as quickly as can be. But as far as the research opportunities, even though there were budget uncertainties along the way and as we see the reactors were shut down, it seems like there was always something else for us, a next step to see in the way of the research side. Like the FFTF work, and Battelle was steadily increasing their staff on research and doing other types of research, both government and private. So it still seemed like a good place to work and be and this area has so much to offer. It really does. And so most of us didn’t give too much thought in moving immediately because we were afraid that the place was going to just deteriorate and go back to sagebrush. We could see that there was more ahead for the Tri-City area and stayed here and enjoyed it until now. Franklin: So are you saying that there was a general feeling, at least among some of the workers, that the cleanup—that dealing with the waste problem should’ve been tackled earlier on in the cycle? Because you said you were happy that something which should’ve done earlier was finally being done. Do you think there was a general feeling that that should’ve been handled earlier on than kind of waiting—making that the main focus should’ve happened earlier--? Baker: I think a lot of people felt that way. Because everybody knows that there was a finite lifetime to these tanks, and they were well beyond their designed expectancy, you know, that they would be a suitable place to store waste. So I think that they were really wanting to see this proceed. The facility that they’re designing out there is extremely complicated. Savanna River has been vitrifying waste for quite a while, but on a smaller scale. It will be good to see the facilities out here finally end up producing solidified waste for storage, because it definitely needs to be done. We can’t keep it in the liquid form forever like that, without expecting deterioration in the tanks and so on, the very sorts of problems that we’re experiencing right now. Franklin: Sure. I wonder, how did you—living and working at Hanford through so much of the Cold War, did you ever feel an immediacy of the Cold War on your work, or did you ever feel that your work was linked to different events in the Cold War? How much of a presence of that was in your life? Baker: Not really a lot—we didn’t really think too much about that. Our focus was more short-term, perhaps, solving the problems at the time. The one of getting the graphite expansion, which was limiting the life of the reactors, was a big, big effort to solve that. So on a day-to-day basis, I don’t think that the result of this and its tie-in with the Cold War—didn’t seem to have a big impact on the people that I associated with. Franklin: Mm. And my last question, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Baker: I think that they should know that, personally, I felt that I was working in a very safe environment. I did not feel that I was endangering my health in any way during that time. Sincerely, they had very ambitious schedules going on to meet, but nevertheless, it was always done with safety in mind. I think that bears it out, because we have had excellent safety record here. So I feel that I was probably safer working here than in some industrial environments. I really do. Franklin: Well, Don, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time— Baker: You’re welcome. Franklin: --to come and talk to us today. Baker: Yeah. Franklin: Great. <a href="https://youtu.be/oHe1y9saIWg">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor D Reactor DR Reactor 300 Area FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility) 100 Areas N Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1995 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Donald Baker Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) West Richland (Wash.) Chemistry Nuclear reactors Radiation Description An account of the resource Donald Baker moved to Richland, Washington in 1951. Don worked on the Hanford Site from 1951-1995. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/05/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Eugene Astley Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Eugene Astley on December 5th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Mr. Astley about his experiences working at the Hanford site. And for the record, can you state and spell your name? Astley: Yeah. Eugene Astley. That’s E-U-G-E-N-E, A-S-T-L-E-Y. Franklin: Great. So let’s start at the beginning. Tell me how and why you came to the Hanford site. Astley: I was working in General Electric back in Schenectady in the research labs. Loved my job there, but in 1954—the winter of ’53, really, it was like 30 below, and I decided to walk into work. That wasn’t going to work. Hated the weather. So, when I walked in the building, I walked up to the top, and walked in the boss’s office and said I want to give you a month’s notice. I’m leaving. I cannot stand this weather. Summer’s even worse. [LAUGHTER] So, I was sitting in my office and a couple weeks later, when Dave McGlenagan[?] who’s the recruiter for the laboratory walked into my office and said, are you Eugene Astley? I said, yeah. He said, I understand you’ve given notice to General Electric Company, and there was a notice put out to all subsidiaries and whatnot that they thought this person should be retained in the General Electric Company. We have a project out at Hanford. I said, yeah. I said, you’re not talking about taking me out there in that damn desert, are you? I was raised in Portland, Oregon. I mean, nobody lived in that part of the world. [LAUGHTER] So, he talked me into coming out, and then they explained that they had a group called design, and they were thinking about perhaps adding a new production reactor, which would be the ninth one, I guess. Yeah, the ninth one. And that the physicist who had been in charge of doing—was on this particular design team, which they called a core design, had left. So they wanted me to fill that position. I’d never before worked in any such project or reactor or anything. I told them, I don’t know anything about reactors. And they said, well, you did your master’s degree in studying gaseous diffusion, which is the basis of all the theory we’re using for reactors right now. And you’ll find out, except for terminology, you’re an expert. [LAUGHTER] So I came. And so then I slid into this design group, and then the idea of the production reactor—new one—came along. They asked us to design a concept. We were a group of about eight people. And I was the chief physicist of all the physics on the work. We got going on that. I came on up with the idea that this really ought to be different from the Hanford reactors as we know them, because it ought to be a dual-purpose reactor, one that produced electricity. And I said it’s going to be about 3,000 megawatts thermal, and we can probably produce around 1,000 megawatt electric, which would be a great addition. That’d bring in a lot of income, and it would pay for—more than pay for—the operation of the plant. So you’d be getting your new plutonium free. Of course, GE management thought that was great. So that’s the way it went down. And then about, I think, two years later, when we were well into the design and pretty well doing it, it came to the attention of the Atomic Energy Commission more directly about what exactly would the design look like. As soon as the word dual purpose came out, they said, what do you mean by that? We’re going to produce electricity. Uh-oh! So, it turned out that Bill Johnson and Al Grenager and I were then called back to testify before the DOE—the AEC first and then Congress. Because the democrats were controlling—they thought it was a great idea. Republicans were against any government getting into the power business. They already had too much with TVA and Bonneville. So they were dead set against it. So we testified on what a great thing would be for helping to lower the costs of plutonium. We were still in the Cold War, so we thought it was still needed more. So I came back, and about three weeks later, down came the word that there was a compromise made politically, so that we would be allowed to produce enough power to run the reactor only. But that in view of the fact that things sometimes change, we want you to also design it so that at some later date when they decide producing 1,000 megawatt electrics would be feasible, go ahead and design it as a dual purpose anyway. But design it so that the first operation would be like lower temperature water, 350. Of course, that just blew our mind, because that was absolutely stupid. [LAUGHTER] I mean, because you had to design the thing to operate with 700 or 750-degree water. So that really increased the cost of things and what you could do and what you didn’t have to do. But nobody had ever designed a turbine to run at 350 degrees. Okay? Because the pressure’s so low, you end up with a monster. When you walked—when we finally built that thing, you walked in it, people that had designed turbines would ask, what is that? It had no relationship to anything anybody had ever conceived. You walked in, looked at the turbine, what’s that? [LAUGHTER] And of course at those pressures, the steam you’re producing is very wet, which is also deterrent. And you have to redesign the buckets to collect the water and drain it off. I mean, it was an abortion. And it made it very difficult to design. So it took special precautions, it entered into physics that I had to start designing some new physics and mathematics to handle the damn problem. Because they turned out that—at 700 degrees, if you have a tube burst, then the pressure comes out and wants to blow the stack apart. So, the first thing the engineer said, we got to groove these graphite blocks so there’s a place for the steam to go on out, and then we’ll bleed it out of the reactor and dissipate it in a very large area. But all of the sudden now, from a physics standpoint, now I’ve got neutrons wanting to stream out that way. That had never been handled before, so I had to figure out how to handle that from a physics standpoint. It turned out to be mathematically difficult. We didn’t have—you know, the computer we had was a 650, which was about 1/1000th as much as the computer in your cell phone. [LAUGHTER] I mean, you know? No memory. It was horrible—mechanical-type thing. Franklin: Right. With tapes—the reels. Astley: Yeah, punch cards. Franklin: Punch cards, right. Astley: So then I’d have to get in and say, okay, I’ve put this thing in bucket number 5A, and where am I now? I’m over here, so I should spin the thing this direction so I’ll have a shorter time to get back to the memory spot. I mean, this is by today’s standards, this is below most computer people’s mind, thinking that’s what you’re doing. Actually had to tell the drum which way to spin? Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Astley: You know? Franklin: Yeah. Astley: Anyway, we got that, we finally did design that. It was in dead run for a number of years and produced enough energy to do itself. But of course it got shut down before anything ever came of producing electricity. But that was a good case of where philosophies between the two political parties actually designed a reactor. That’s just—not good? [LAUGHTER] I can understand where—because I was republican also. I can understand where they were coming from, but it still made sense from the standpoint of saving money for the country. Franklin: Right. Astley: You know? Franklin: Yeah. Astley: So I thought it was a good thing to do. And I didn’t think of it in terms of really putting the government further into it. But they were afraid that it would set a precedence for all further government operations and that type of thing. It would be invasive from that standpoint. Franklin: So their opposition was more ideological, and you perhaps had a more kind of practical viewpoint— Astley: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: --on that. How did you solve the problem of the neutrons bleeding out? Astley: I did it by going to cylindrical. At that time, you really had two choices, spherical or cylindrical. I got to looking at cylindrical geometry, and then I remembered from my graduate work that the engineers used cylindrical—I mean their theorists did. And that instead of, in physics where we’re using spheres, you use Bessel functions, and they were using Hankel functions. And I’d never really used a Hankel function. But they’re just as powerful for cylindrical geometry as Bessel functions were spheres. So I used that kind of a mathematical approach and cobbled up some—and then imposed upon it a radial geometry at the same time to make the math work. So it was kind of interesting, because what you did was increase the albedo and lost a lot of neutrons out, which then was important. You know, what did our shielding have to look like, and how much more does that make it that we have to enrich the fuel to be able to sustain the fission? Franklin: Oh. Did the reactor ever operate at 700 degrees? Because I know they put the steam generating station—the WHPSS station— Astley: Well, what they did was they didn’t build the second part of the turbine. Franklin: Oh, okay. Astley: They just built the turbine to be able to do its job. Franklin: Right. Astley: And then later they could come on in with the normal turbine and move the old one back and go with the new turbine. Franklin: And did that happen? Astley: No. Franklin: Oh, okay. Astley: Never happened. It was still politically impossible. Franklin: Do you kind of connect it with that reactor—do you remember JFK—were you present at JFK’s visit? Astley: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Franklin: I’m sorry. Connected with the N Reactor, were you present at JFK’s dedication of the steam generating facility—the steam processing facility? Astley: Yeah, I think so. I barely remember that, you know. Franklin: Oh, okay. Astley: That was not part of anything that I designed. I told them what the parameters had to be, but it was up to the engineering part. Different group of people. Franklin: Okay. So, tell me about the Fast Flux Test Facility and how you came to design that. Astley: Okay. Well, then, I had—in 1960 then, I was promoted out to handle all the maintenance and maintenance engineering for the eight reactor operating—operating reactors. At that time, when they pulled me and said they wanted to do that, I said, you know, I’m a physicist. I’m a theoretical physicist, in fact. I’d done some experimental work, but I really am not a guy who knows much about maintenance. And they said, precisely. That’s your problem. We think you have real management capabilities; you need to learn more about other things. [LAUGHTER] So they said, it’s our opinion that to a certain extent the pressures on the reactor manager are so hard to never shut the reactor down, and when it does shut down to get it back on its feet, that the maintenance tends to be a little bit more crude than we would like. And we’d like to have a little more technology put into it. So that sounded a little more interesting. [LAUGHTER] But I ended up with like 1,000 pipefitters and millwrights and machine shops and stuff like that that I was in charge of. That was my first experience with dealing with the union. Franklin: Okay. Astley: Which was a broadening experience, certainly. Franklin: I bet. Any notable experiences when dealing with the union? Astley: Not good ones. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Astley: They—one of the problems there again was politics. The unions were very strong with the democrats. So if you were tried to get hardnosed and have a strike, you just—the top management got a call immediately from the president or vice president, that type of stuff, saying, we understand that, you know, what you’re trying to do, shut down our production? You can’t do that; give them what they really want. That was their sort of philosophy. So they ended up with a lot of—which was very difficult for me, because I was also then working with these people. And when you up in the front face when a tube failed—leaked—then you had to pull off some big bolts on the thing that held the tube in. And then you had to pull the tube out, so the union argued that handling the tube was pipefitter work, but handling the big phalange was millwright. So you had to have both kinds of people up there at the same time, taking radiation, when one guy would have been able to do it. Then of course, they say, well, we’re all suited up, so we’ll just wait while the other guy does his thing. So he had 50% work. So those kind of things went on, that it made it difficult from a management standpoint, because we had very strict rules about how much radiation people could take. You had a daily limit and a yearly limit. So one of the problems I had was trying to manipulate the forces so that I didn’t ever overexpose people. The front face had a lower radiation level than the rear face. So the front face would be like ten MR per hour, and the rear face might be 200 or 300. So that was also a logistical problem that was—I don’t know how many people thought about those kind of things, but those are important, you know? We had a three-R limit for everybody, so, the problem was then that when we got to the point that it looked like maybe we’d either have to hire some people, then I went over from another manager running the reprocessing plants, I could borrow some of his people to even out the radiation exposure. Franklin: Wow. Astley: So it was those kind of problems at that level that were very difficult, and later on were even more difficult, because it turned out that there was a—they redesigned the tubes, which had little—a round tube with little things on it poking up where the fuel could be centered—not really centered, because you needed more flow on the top than the bottom. But they redesigned those and redesigned them wrong. So they ended up getting them up too close, and the top of the tubes, the temperature of the water was too high so it started to erode all the tubing. At some point in I think it was 1963, we had to re-tube six of the reactors, which was 12,000 tubes. At that time, it took an hour-and-a-half to do one tube. Franklin: Wow. Astley: You know? Franklin: Yeah. Astley: And they said that we can’t do that. You got to get that down to like 30 minutes. So I ended up inventing a device for them that worked real well. When you have aluminum tube, you put a phalange on it. So you can put a gasket and seal it. To do that, the millwrights would go on up with three tools and put the first one in and bang it with a small sledge, which would do it. Then they’d do the second one a little more and the third one. And the problem was that some of the millwrights were very strong, and so the third one they’d really rap it. Those tended to crack. Franklin: Oh. Astley: So they had a lot of time like that. So I invented a—which turned out to be kind of fun, because of the problems involved—but I got the idea that—I’d been studying something, and I read at that time that if you move metal fast enough, it wouldn’t know it’s been moved, so it’d be stress-free. Wouldn’t crack. So there at that time for the weapons program were putting an explosive charge in and blowing a bubble on something. So I thought, hey, why don’t I do that. So I thought, I’ll modify a .45 automatic and have a blank. That gas pressure—which I read up on—was enough then to—if I had a rubber thing back in there, a mole, I could go in and pull the trigger and—shew—you’d have your phalange. 20 seconds, not an hour-and-a-half. So that blew the whole thing apart. We managed to get down to 15 minutes a tube. Franklin: Wow. Astley: That thing—that worked. But then, of course, as soon as I started to talk about this, safety people got involved. And then, even worse, the security people. Because, you said, you’re going to talk about bringing a loaded weapon on board with ammunition? We don’t do that. Only guards are allowed to have weapons. [LAUGHTER] So I think it took me two months to finally persuade whoever all’s involved that I could bring this in. And then it turned it out that I had to have a special safe to put the gun and the bullets—even though they were blanks and all that. And then we had to have a guard, that every time we took it out would go on up on the front face to make sure that somebody didn’t use the weapon somehow or other to kill somebody, or—you know, it was, I mean, little things like that that got to me. Kind of difficult for theoretical physicists to deal with. Really wasn’t—[LAUGHTER]—something--my feeling was, what a bunch of bullshit. I mean, trying to get a job done! And we got it done, and then everything was confiscated and done something with. Franklin: Wait, was there a specific—did you give a specific name to that tool? Astley: I just called it an explosive installing tool. And the word explosive didn’t get me off to a good start. It was very descriptive, unfortunately. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Yeah, I could see how— Astley: And for that I was awarded one share of General Electric stock. Franklin: One share? Astley: One share, right. Franklin: Wow. I assume that’s split into a couple more by now. Astley: I think so. [LAUGHTER] So anyway, there I was out there running maintenance when I got this call. Of course they knew my background, so—in fact, I was in charge of core design before they pulled me from being a physicist to being the supervisor of the core design group. So I had a lot of experience in that area. So they brought me in and Albaugh told me that he wasn’t sure where we wanted to go, but he said, I’ve got kind of a thinking here. He said, I really think that the way things are going, that the next reactor’s going to be a fast reactor—a breeder reactor. And so it sounds just off the top of my head, he said, that maybe that’s something you really ought to take a hard look at in this study. With only two weeks to do, I went to the library. For some reason, all’s I remember is the microfiche or something they called it, I don’t know. But at any rate, started running my eyeballs out on these things where I’d be looking at things that’d been photographed and trying to read about fast reactors. So I finally came to the conclusion that at that time—I found that Oak Ridge, which was the head of all fast breeder reactor stuff and running the Idaho operations, had EBR-I running as a test reactor. They had proposed to Congress that they wanted to build another one called FARET—F-A-R-E-T. About the only thing different about it and ERB-I is that they copied everything, except they changed the lid so they could get in and refuel easier. I thought, that’s a mistake. As long as you’re going to build a reactor, you ought to try to also make it more facile for doing its job of looking at exposure of fuels and materials. Also, it had such a low flux level that essentially what they had was if they had wanted to take ten years, find out what happened to this material in ten years, it took them ten years. It seemed to me that what you needed to do was get the flux up by at least a factor of ten. And then we could get ten years’ worth of experience in one year, and be real serviceable to the industry. So I then came back into Albaugh—this was after about a week—and I said, here’s what I think. But, I said, to go further any more, I think, so see whether this is possible to make something ten times as fast with the technology we got, I said, I really need to put together a concept. I said, I can’t do that by myself. I need an engineer to help me. There’s a guy on your staff that actually worked at Fermi Reactor, which is a fast breeder reactor built by—out of Chicago. Edison? Edison Electric, maybe. Can’t remember what—anyway, the head of that thing wanted to always lead the parade. They built it and didn’t understand the graphite swells as it—so that was a big fiasco, because after about—you know, I don’t know, six months or a year the whole thing cracked apart and couldn’t be run anymore. So I got a permission to do that. Then Albaugh said, well, go ahead and put together three or four people, whoever you need. And he said, but I can’t pay for it; I don’t have that in my budget. So he said, I want you to just go out wherever they are and talk whoever the manager is into loaning you somebody, and they pay for it. And I said, okay. But, he said, remember this is all secret. You can’t tell them what this is for. Franklin: Why was it secret? Astley: Because nobody knew General Electric was going to leave. Franklin: And what year was this again? Astley: That would have been ’64. Franklin: Okay. Astley: I’m sure—maybe they were thinking about it in ’63, I wasn’t in on it. But by the time I got knowledgeable about it, it was like July ’64. Franklin: And that was before most of the employees knew, right? It was still pretty secret at that time. Astley: GE was pulling out, period. Franklin: Right. Okay. Astley: So they were—I think there’s like, maybe three or four people of theirs—a couple at DOE, the highest guy running it and the next guy down. So it was a real super-secret project. So it was kind of awkward to go into a guy a couple levels higher than I was and sit down and tell him I needed to use his—like, Les Finch was an example of what I considered to be the best engineer on the planet that I knew, that I needed him. But I couldn’t tell him what for. You know? [LAUGHTER] It was—when I told Albaugh, I said, I don’t—gee, I’m not even sure that’s possible. I can’t tell him something. He said, well, he says, no, you’ve got a reputation for being the best pirate at the Hanford anyway. So you ought to be able to handle it. [LAUGHTER] And I did. I got together a group of four or five people. They then gave me a couple months. So it took me about 60 days of this group and we came up with a concept. I turned the patent in on it, got a patent on it. Then we actually came up with a design. In fact, I have a thing, it’s about this thick—when I left there they gave me a montage that essentially shows the reactor and all the kinds of parts that we devised. It was a beautiful thing by a designer I had on there that was an incredible draftsman. Did everything in ink, never made a mistake. Franklin: Was that Dennis Brunson? Astley: Beg your pardon? Franklin: Dennis Brunson? Astley: I didn’t get that. Franklin: Was that Dennis Brunson? Astley: No, it was Andy Anthony. Franklin: Oh, okay. Astley: Incredible guy. I mean, he did everything in ink, and he did it once, he did it fast. And he had an incredible ability to visualize three-dimensionally. So he would sit on my meeting, and we’d discuss, and I’d discuss what the core had to look like. Which, I’ve said, okay, we need more room, because that’s the big problem. We’ve got room on the top face of this reactor. And when I was down having lunch one day, I ordered a milkshake, and then I saw her lift up the thing to pull the straws out. What happens then is that the straws fold out. Okay? So you have a matrix of straws, which—I got back thinking about that. That’s a way to get the things apart and still have a dense core. Okay? Franklin: Ahh. Astley: So we designed the core that way. We only had to tilt the tubes like about eight degrees. That gave us a lot of room up there by the time you got up to where you wanted to work. So that was part of the design. That didn’t turn out to be—it wasn’t allowed to go through. The reason was that we were left alone. The head of the—I don’t know—well, I’ll tell you, because, I mean, what can they do? [LAUGHTER] We ended up with a big political problem within the AEC. The guy that was heading the AEC was in bed with Argonne, because they were the breeder reactor. So the fact that we came on in saying we wanted to build a reactor at Hanford and replace the FARET was absolutely objectionable to him. So I was called back to talk to him and explain what we were doing, why we were doing it, why the FARET wasn’t any good and whatnot. So he listened to the whole thing, I go back home. Three days later I get a letter—telegram from him saying stop and desist all work on the FFTF, whether it be private funds or public funds. Franklin: Wow. Astley: Okay? So I sat down with Fred and he said, well, why don’t I see what I can do. So he called his friend who was this guy’s boss, who had—I can’t—I got a moment where I can’t remember his name. Very famous physicist out of California. But he and Fred had been roommates together getting their Ph.D. And Fred’s wife had married his secretary. [LAUGHTER] So he called him up and he said, well, that’s interesting. So he called the AEC—the head of the commission itself, who are a group of congressmen that ran everything. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Astley: One of the congressmen happened to be interested in our concept. So he called us back there and he and Fred and I sat for about four hours talking about what we had in mind. So then we told him about—showed him these facts. And he said, well, I’ll take care of that. So what they did was fired him! Franklin: Wow. Astley: Okay? [LAUGHTER] Then word came down: continue with your work. And gave us a deadline for getting in a proposal and all that kind of stuff. I was left alone, totally, for a year. No guidance from the AEC. We were totally on our own while they were hunting to replace him. So they finally replaced him with Milt Shaw, who was Admiral—was he an admiral then? No, I think. Yeah, he was an admiral then. Admiral Rickover? Franklin: Yeah. Astley: So he came on in then. And then it took him a year, putting a staff together as he thought he needed it, along the Rickover-type thing. It was actually two years into the whole thing where we had finished the preliminary design. I was in the midst of putting out proposals to get the architect engineers in, when I got called back there to meet Milt. Then about two or three weeks later I came back and made a presentation where we were. And he said, no. He said, you don’t understand the problem. And I said, what problem is that? [LAUGHTER] He said, politically it’s very difficult right now to get the money I need to go forward with a prototype breeder reactor. So what I’ve got is this reactor. So I’ve got to make it—we want to make it as close to a prototype breeder as we can. And I said, if we do that, it’s going to sacrifice 90% of its ability to do the kind of work we really want to do for studying materials, which is our proposal. So we won’t be—the flux will be lower, and we’ll be back to looking like a modified or better machine than EBR-I. But I said, that just doesn’t make any sense to me. He said, I understand your technical problems. That hasn’t anything to do with the problem. I can only get so much money. I said, if we do that, we can’t do this reactor for the cost that we’ve pledged to do. I said, I have no idea what it will be costing, but it’s not going to be around $100 million. I said, it could be $200 or $300 million, I think. He said, well, you know, your thinking isn’t important to me; I’ll take care of that problem. So we finally received orders that we couldn’t skew the core. He said, who’s ever heard of a commercial reactor with a skewed core? He said, that doesn’t make any sense to me. You want—I said, it’s only eight degrees. I don’t think that’s going to make a bit of difference. Well, he said, we want the core straight. So, then he said, now, in order to do that, the people who really know how to do that is Westinghouse. You know, the whole background was Westinghouse—his background. So he said, put out a—why don’t you go out for proposals to design the core to at least three different people including Westinghouse. And then he said also take a look at Idaho, which was essentially part of the same group of people. Then said, and throw General Electric in. So I was forced to do that, which meant that we were that back starting at scratch. Two years’ worth of work down the drain. So that went on—I guess that was in late ’67. So by ’68, we had that work done, redoing everything. And then he said, okay, now—the next thing he said is we’re going to have to put all the sodium exchangers and whatnot inside the dome, because that’s what we’ll have to do with the prototypes. And I said, that’s going to make the dome be bigger than any dome anybody’s ever built in the world. I said, we can’t just say we’re going to do that until I get a chance to talk to people, like Chicago Bridge and Iron is probably going to have to do the job, or the Japanese. Don’t want the Japanese, he said! Okay. To find out if they can do this. You’re talking about equipment, and your equipment can only do so big. So I went back and talked to them, and found I was right, that they couldn’t do it. But that they could build a piece of equipment to do it, provided that the AEC wanted to pay for it. So I came back to him, and I said for $50 million they can do it. He said what’s the $50 million for? A machine. You’re handling these huge things, and they got to be cylinders. They don’t have any equipment—cranes and everything. So he said, okay, well, that’s no problem. So that’s the way it went. It kept going that way. In late ’68, I finally hired Bechtel to do a cost estimate for me on where we were. It came out about $455 million. [LAUGHTER] So I wrote a letter to Shaw and told him, the costs on this project are totally out of bounds. I said, every time we turn around, I get instructions from your staff to add this or add that. It just keeps going on and on and on. I don’t know where we’re going, but I said, for my study, we can probably go back to $150 million to $200 maybe, and keep most of the things you want. But, I said, you got to stop your people coming in and asking for anything without having a meeting back there to decide whether this is something we can afford or is really important. I said, you just got to stop everybody coming out there with their gut feelings and druthers. Okay? Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t sit well. I got called back there. He just really dressed me down. [LAUGHTER] Everybody later told me the whole floor evacuated it was so loud, him yelling at me. Franklin: Wow. Astley: So I came back and thought it through. Then I came in by Albaugh, who was the director of Battelle and told him—I mean Saul Fawcett, who was the director. And I told him that I really felt at this point, the costs are so far out of control, and I showed him the letter I got, that we needed to withdraw from the project. Now, this is nowhere in anybody’s record, so I don’t know what you want to do with that information. It caused a meeting, and then finally, Fawcett and Albaugh and I went back to the board of trustees and told them why we wanted to do this, and they gave us approval to do it. We then set up a meeting with AEC. Came back there, and in the meantime, Shaw had gotten so irritated at what I’d done that he decided that I wasn’t under proper control. So in the meeting, he said, what I want to do now at this meeting, see, I want to reorganize like I’ve done down at so-and-so. The laboratory will still be responsible for funding—handling the funds, paying the paychecks—but Gene Astley will then report directly to me, running the lab. So Battelle had nothing to do with any of the technology—anything else—just handling—so he said, you’ll still get your fee, et cetera. And Fawcett finally said, I think I can—if you’d let me say a few words here, I think we can get over this problem immediately. So Shaw said, yes, okay. He said, we’re formally asking you to find another contractor to run the project. Shaw said, you can’t do that! And Fawcett said, why can’t I do that? He said, because that’s not what I want. And he said, furthermore, why do you want to withdraw? He said, we have a tax problem. And we felt that—my understanding—I’m not sure whether we did or didn’t. But at that time, we were a not-for-profit. Not a non-profit, but a not-for-profit. There’s a distinction. You can—you’re allowed to pay people bonuses and things of that nature, but—so then he also said that it’s not entirely clear to us that that’s in keeping with the Battelle will. So then Shaw said, okay, fine. He said, that’s it. We’ll find one. But he said, no matter who we find I want to reserve Gene Astley for—if it turns out to be Westinghouse or GE or whoever, that he then be available for those outfits to hire him so he could continue to—so even though he got really pissed at me—[LAUGHTER]—he still wanted me. And Fawcett just stood up and he said, I’m sorry, but Gene Astley—we have other needs for him, and he is not going to be available. So that ended the meeting. So then they found—and he went to his office—Shaw—and immediately called Westinghouse, and didn’t go out for bitter or anything. Just turned the whole project over to Westinghouse. Which is very irregular. Franklin: Yeah. Astley: You know? So they sent a crew out there and it was kind of funny, because the guy that took over, he was talking with the paper and he said—they said, isn’t this going to be a problem with a big transfer right in the middle? You resign? He said, never fear. And I won’t name his name, but he says, so-and-so’s here, happened to rhyme—[LAUGHTER]—he got replaced about six months later. So that’s how the FFTF got going. It did turn out to finally be constructed. Its flux level’s very low. I think it might have been just slightly higher than the EBR-II. But it did a lot of work, ran successfully. Never had a problem—safest reactor in the world. They did retain all the safety features. One of them was a very important one. I don’t know whether you care about this, but the fast reactor, you know, if you have—somebody pulls all the rods out in a thermal reactor, the power level goes up pretty fast. But it’s not an explosive thing. It just goes up enough where it melts everything down. Franklin: Right. Astley: It doesn’t really explode. But in a fast reactor, that’s not true. When you pull all the rods out of a fast reactor, the power level goes up in seconds. Franklin: Wow. Astley: Microsecond. Okay? Dynamite takes to the—so it’s faster than a dynamite, okay? So that is a major problem design. So what that means is, mechanically you can’t do a damn thing. Nothing can respond in that period of time. Just to detect it takes you longer than that. You know? Franklin: Yeah. Astley: So the question we had with the FFTF was what do we do about that? It was funny—one winter I came—I went to work and I put up the garage door, and there was water and ice all over the floor. My water heater had been in the corner, put in the garage, and it was so cold, and the door had been open, left a little bit, and it froze the damn thing. So the safety valve went off. And when I got back, I thought, you know, that’s a good concept. So when this thing happens, this huge explosive force—and I had calculations to go on by the Army, who was doing experiments on what it takes to blow up cylinders and spheres and stuff. So I had a lot of data on what kind of explosive force. So I said what we need to do is have a safety valve of some kind, so when that goes off, the first force blows it open. So we’ve destroyed it; the core’s now going to get hot, it’s going to melt down, but we know how to handle that. But the explosive we’ve got to be taking care of. So I said, I don’t know how—how do we do that. Well, this engineer I had came up with a beautiful idea. He said, well, what I can do is design the bolts that hold down the lid so that that force will pass through the elastic limit and they’ll break and the lid will fly off. Perfect safety. And it’s simultaneous, almost. The pressure gets too high, and it blows. Perfect. So then all’s you had to do is design a big concrete container around it with enough volume to take that expansion. And then we had a core catcher down there that we could cool so that we wouldn’t do the China syndrome where it melts down and goes to China, so to speak. So those kind of things were all put into it. We had a couple physics things to go on at those speeds that were esoteric, but that also helped to cut that explosion down. [VIDEO CUTS] Eugene Astley: Coefficient. Camera man: I’m ready. Robert Franklin: Ready. Can you start that from the beginning? Astley: Huh? Franklin: Can you start that story from the beginning? We’re rolling. You were at a meeting with US and Russian reactor designers. Astley: The Russian was up there explaining the fundamental design of their new reactor group, which included the design of the Chernobyl. He explained what they were doing, and it was obvious to me then, you know, that—in our reactors we under-moderated them because then you get a negative temperature coefficient. So the reactor hopes to—tries to shut itself down. Theirs is going to make it worse. Okay, so, I can’t get up and say anything about this, because if I do, one of the—they say, why are you doing that? Well, I can say, you know, to have a negative temperature coefficient. But I’m not allowed to help them. And furthermore, if you under-moderate, you increase the production of plutonium. And the fact that those physicists didn’t figure that out, it blows my mind, you know? Fermi figured that out. [LAUGHTER] So anyway, in this meeting, then I stood up to ask them a question. And immediately, the guy that’s standing behind him walks up and takes the microphone. Now, this guy gave a speech in really quite good English. And he says, I’m sorry, we’ll let you know that although he can speak English pretty well when he’s practiced it to give the English speech, he really doesn’t understand English very well. So I will interpret for you. So, he answers my question with nonsense. He doesn’t know anything about anything. [LAUGHTER] And so there was no exchange. And then later we had a meeting where you have some drinks and you can mingle around and I hunted this guy down again. And immediately this same guy shows up. So he’s going to conduct the conversation between us. Franklin: Right. Astley: Anyway, later on, that was the Chernobyl. And it had the positive temperature coefficient. Of course it went blooey. You know? Our reactors weren’t like that, but very difficult to explain that to public. Gain any believability. So the scatter was still there. Then we whittled down the reactor. But there was no radiation, because even those reactors were—all our commercial reactors were built with negative temperature coefficients. It’s a safety problem. Everybody in the commercial world was either trained here at Hanford or back at Westinghouse at [UNKNOWN]. So that was sort of long ingrained to us to try to make it as safe as you can be. And that you don’t want to melt something down. That’s an economic problem, not a safety problem. But that’s never been—we’ve never been able to convince people that have a gut feeling that it’s an atomic bomb. And those are the people who prevail. Because those words are much more receptive to get attention of the public. Franklin: Yeah. Astley: Then I guess, as maybe you’re a historian of a type? Well, here is the thing that I think, if there’s one thing in my life that still peeves me—when I got moved from GE, I had a Super Secret clearance. Not just the Q, but one above it. Because I knew how much plutonium we were making and how many caps we were making, bombs we were making, that kind of stuff. And so I had gone out of the library when I had this N Reactor, and looked for—searched things. And I saw some stuff by Fermi. And so I got two of his workbooks, brought them back and started looking. And he had a couple of ideas—particularly one that helped design the control rods, because a control rod is so black. You know, it absorbs all of its neutrons in about that much. And we didn’t have any diffusion—[UNKNOWN] didn’t work for that. And he had some ideas about how he might approach that and how he did approach it. And then he went on to talk about a bunch of other things. You know, ti was all his own handwriting. And he’d scratch out and say, dumb idea. Now, he’d go on and it was a beautiful thing to read. So, when I went to GE, I tried to check those out and take them into Battelle, to take them. But I had lost my clearances. Said, you can’t have them. But if you get a clearance—so when I went over there, I applied for clearances and got them. Six months later, I go back, but some kind of a thing came out from AEC that a certain date type things were no longer considered classified, so burn them. So they burned. Franklin: They burned Fermi’s personal notebooks? Wow. Astley: That irritates me. Franklin: Yeah, that irritates me, too. Especially because I’m an archivist. Astley: Yeah! Franklin: I deal with people’s personal matters and archival material. That’s really a tragedy. Astley: Yeah. But you know, one of the geniuses of our time. Wouldn’t have probably made it without his help, his guidance. You don’t preserve something like that? It’s pretty irritating. Franklin: Yes. What year—when exactly did you come off the FFTF? You said that Westinghouse took over FFTF; were you off the project then when Westinghouse came on? Astley: The which Franklin: Sorry, when— Astley: Oh, when they were breaking up? Franklin: No, you mentioned you were designing FFTF and then Westinghouse— Astley: Took over. Franklin: Were you off the project then? Astley: I asked to get off the project, and— Franklin: Okay, and what year was that? Astley: Probably early ’69, I think. Franklin: Okay. Astley: And so it just happened that the guy that was running the other department, a big one, decided—he was a statistician of note in the world, and that’s really what he liked, and it was really distracting. He didn’t get enough time to work on his own stuff. So at the time that I became available then, a friend who also knew this was going on, and so there was a spot for me to move on, still reporting to him. So I took over, applied theoretical math, applied theoretical physics, world economics, that type of stuff. It suited me pretty well. Franklin: And that was at Battelle? Astley: At Battelle, right. Franklin: Okay. And what other projects did you work on after FFTF? Astley: Well, then I left Battelle in ’71 and joined Exxon Nuclear. Franklin: Oh, okay. Astley: And became vice president of Exxon Nuclear making fuel. Plus a lot of other things. And during that time, then, I started up the Exxon Nuclear centrifuge program, and also the laser enrichment program. I had both of those. And both of them did very well. The centrifuge project got enough so that we actually bid and won a contract with—I can’t remember whether it was still AEC or—I’m a little confused on timing between AEC to DoE. Can’t tell you. Franklin: Yeah, sure. Astley: One of those guys asked three different organizations to bid on making 50 centrifuges at a cost, fixed price contract and deliver them to Oak Ridge. So they could determine whether or not somebody other than Oak Ridge could make something or [UNKNOWN]. So we bid on it, fixed price. Built them, delivered them within six months. That was our first large [UNKNOWN] They were then put into Oak Ridge and into their cascades, and they were running—they ran for a whole year when they decided to then implement the next stage, which was to build 5,000 of them. In the meantime, Boeing and Goodyear were still negotiating with AEC. And saying that, hey, these are too developmental. No way can we built at cost. So they came out with a new bid. We bid on it. We were the only ones that had any manufacturing experience on centrifuges. We put on a fixed price bid again for the 5,000. And Goodyear and Boeing finally gave up on bidding the 50 and had the same problems with bidding 5,000. Then they opened up the bids and we were eliminated on the basis that we didn’t have manufacturing experience. That we were Exxon, we were chemical engineers, et cetera, whereas Boeing and Goodyear were hardnosed mechanical people. So we were knocked out of that bidding. So my project was shut down. Which was rather hard to take. Since we were, at that time, still at—our centrifuges we made for them up running well, gave them no problems. They started up, they were never shut down in that year. And we had better statistical data than Oak Ridge did on the ones that they had had made. So that knocked us out of that. At that time, we—and I had already gone to the board of directors of Exxon and sat in their thing and got approval to go forward with a $1.5 billion project. Two phases--$900 for the first phase and the rest for the second phase to build an enormous centrifuge phase, which would then put Exxon into the commercial enrichment business, instead of the government. And our prices were going to be 30% lower than theirs, which I thought was a good thing for the American public. But it wasn’t. Franklin: Why wasn’t it? Astley: Because President Carter was in charge. I had a friend of mine who was on—a good friend—who was one of his cabinet. I asked him one day, I told him how we’d got cut out. And I said, I can’t understand that. I mean, what’s wrong? What made that decision? Couldn’t have been [UNKNOWN] And he said, well, don’t tell anybody—and he’s died since, so he’s not in jeopardy—but he said, I sat in the cabinet meeting and it was explained to us by the head of the AEC at that time what the situation was. And they felt that they wanted to work—they were going to award us the contract immediately, but contingent to negotiate with the other people. So then Carter said, who did you say? And they said, Exxon. And he rams his—bam! Exxon’s already controlling the damn energy of the world, I don’t want them meddling in the reactors also [UNKNOWN]. Find some way to disqualify them. That’s what really happened. There’s no record of that. Franklin: Yeah. Astley: So it’s not very—I guess you’d call that the height of hearsay. And then about four months later, they shut down the laser plant. And we came in at that point, the boss offered the AEC to continue to operate that, since it was very promising. And it was going to make [UNKNOWN] like 30%. You know, that’s even better than centrifuges. And he offered to operate the plant for a dollar a year, just like DuPont did at the beginning, and continue the thing. And then he said, when the plant first gets on its feet, I’d like to be paid back for the $80 million I’ve invested in this in the operating profits. AEC said, no. We don’t want you involved in this. So they went and said, [UNKNOWN] buy out all your equipment for ten cents on the dollar and we’ll transfer it down to California. Because they’re also experts on lasers. So they shut that down. And a lot of politics involved behind the scenes on this whole nuclear business, which it seemed to me that I had a little black cloud that way. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, there’s kind of a common thread running through a lot of your stories. Astley: Yeah! But that was really the—to try to explain how that laser enrichment worked is a little difficult. Franklin: I’m sure. Astley: For somebody that isn’t technically trained. Franklin: That would be me. Astley: Yeah. That’s all. But that was a beautiful project. But I had already gotten—and then I also had already gotten [UNKNOWN] to go forward with the first step of a fairly large prototype for $50 million. So I had the total board behind me. And in fact, when I went in front of the board of directors at [UNKNOWN], I was supposed to give a thirty minute talk. Because I had to go to the board because I was asking for $1.5 billion. If it had been less than a billion, I could have gone to the management staff instead. That would have been too small for Exxon to worry about at the board level. The only company to do that. In fact, they’re allowed to round their income tax off to the nearest dollar. I think probably things have changed, but—anyway, during that, at the end of an hour and a half, and I’m still talking about this project. Finally, the chairman puts up his hands. Fellows, he said, we’ve kept Mr. Astley here for an hour and a half. He was only supposed to be thirty minutes. I don’t think any more questions we’ll learn any more. And he’s told us everything; we should have enough information at this point whether to go forward with this. And [UNKNOWN] who’d just come back from being Treasurer for whoever was—I don’t remember who it was then—Ford, maybe? Ford, probably. Yeah, I’m sure it was Ford. He’d taken a leave of absence to be Treasurer and came back. He’d just—finally he says, you know, to the chairman, he says, Mr. Chairman, we have enough information to go forward. Let’s show these goddamn AEC people how private industry can do the job. [LAUGHTER] So I got my money. But it didn’t prove to be a giant sinkhole for Exxon. But those kind of things were going on that made my life interesting. Franklin: Yeah. When did you leave Exxon? Astley: I left Exxon in ’83. They were going direction—they wanted to get out of the nuclear business. And they didn’t mind continuing the fuels business because we had such a good reputation for—I think we bid on business since at least ten years. Never had a fuel failure. Anybody who ever produced, which nobody else in the world could claim. And we knew how to make fuel. I was heading up the fuel plant here in Richland at that point and the one in Langer, Germany. But I had other projects going which were very successful and they shut those all down to concentrate simply on fuel. So I’d sort of worked that, and about that time I got a call from Sandvik and they, [UNKNOWN] he said, I’m retiring, and I’d like to talk to about taking over for me. And so I did. It sounded like a good [UNKNOWN], you know? I guess my feeling was it was going to be a lot more fun to be a big fish in a little puddle. So I went in ’83 and retired from there in ’91. During that time, here’s the technology that we—you know, at that time, Sandvik was building nuclear fuel tubes from zirconium for three different companies. Babcock, Wilcox Combustion and Exxon. So that was a direct application of nuclear information. Because the design of all that came from having worked for Hanford [unknown]. And so during that time, it became obviously that the world was shrinking and that there was too many people looking for too few fuel tubes. So I put the company into titanium. And I found out that the aircraft people were moving strongly toward titanium tubing for all of their jets. So I started that as a diversification. And I told Sandvik that I thought within five to ten years that we were very likely to have no more work. I said there’s got to be consolidation. And I thought, ten, twelve years, French bought out Exxon—or Germans began it and they bought out the Germans. And now the group was French, running that plant there. And exactly it happened, so Combustion Engineering was bought by Germans, I think. I can’t remember who. So all of our customers were no longer, so we had no zirconium. So all we did was titanium. And while I was there, I was glad that personally the titanium golf shaft, utilizing nuclear energy technology. Franklin: What is that? Astley: Golf shafts? Franklin: Yeah. Astley: You know, golf. Franklin: Oh! Astley: And when I came in, 99% were using steel. And there were people trying to make using fibers which weren’t very successful. So I introduced titanium and got—the guy I made a friend of, the chairman of TaylorMade who had invented the metal clubs—got him interested in taking a look at titanium heads plus then matching them with a titanium shaft. And got his whole staff there to agree that this shaft was better than anything in the market. But it jumped the price of shafts. I had to charge $18 a shaft. They were paying 50 cents. So that was a big change. And I managed to get that settled in. He said, hey, we’re in a big fight. A driver costs somewhere between $90 and $100. And if you try to get over $100, suddenly they start shying away because they’re pretty much the same. They claim different. But at any rate, I said, well, that’s not what you want to do. I said this gives you the chance to have something that’s uniquely different. So instead of just charging for $18, I mean $99, make your clubs sell for $199. Because you have something to sell. And he said, yeah, he said, you should have been my marketing manager. I said, well, I am, I’m trying to sell you titanium. But anyway, I went out to dinner with him and at the end I said, okay, you’re really enthused about this. So I said I need an order from you. And he said what would you like to have your order start with? And I said, I’d like to start with at least 25,000 shafts the first year. And I’ll give you an exclusive for the first year. So he pulled over a napkin from the bar sort of thing, and he writes on it, I agree to buy 50,000 shafts from Sandvik special models at $18 a shaft with exclusive rights for one year, signed his name. So I took that back to—only way you could do this would be private industry. Go back to my [UNKNOWN] and say hey, here’s the order I just got. He’s a Mormon, doesn’t drink. He said, this looks like a stain on a cocktail napkin to me. And I said, yeah, that’s where I got the order. So he photographs it or something and puts it in. But I imagine if I had been trying to do something at the AEC, that might not have flown. Franklin: Right, yeah. Astley: [LAUGHTER] They’d have at least 15 regulations [UNKNOWN] Franklin: And they’d need it in triplicate, too. Astley: Oh, yeah, right. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I wonder if you could talk about living in Richland during the Cold War. And working at Hanford during that time. You’ve mentioned some previous experiences with Russian scientists. I was wondering if you could talk about how the Cold War affected you and your work and your family. Astley: I think it really didn’t affect us a lot. I lived in north Richland and I built a home there. I think the thing that was interesting was that, first of all, of course, by ’54 there was enough of Richland. So what we used to call the termination winds were not so severe anymore, because we had all the trees and the houses. So it was a little bit more protected. So that didn’t—although even then, we had some pretty fair gust storms compared to now—really bad. And at that time, you didn’t have all these fancy windows. They were all sash windows, so they leaked like a sieve. So every time we had a dust storm, the inside of the house was covered everywhere with a little layer of dust. And I would say that perturbed my wife. [LAUGHTER] And all the other wives. Because that meant a lot of work, you know. It wasn’t as if you just go in and dust something. I mean, the whole damn place had to be vacuumed. All the windows, everything that had a surface. And it wasn’t a minor thing. You could write your name in everything. Fraknlin: Wow. Astley: So that was something, I think, that certainly most of the females probably had to do the work. The kids didn’t care. I think they were kind of oblivious of everything in terms of the Hanford experiences. So I didn’t see much effect there. But in 1960, then, I guess they were probably DoE by then but I’m still not sure. But they then decided to, with the Corps of Engineers, to sell the town and get out of being <a href="https://youtu.be/GBNkByNJDys">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview N Reactor Fast Flux Test Facility Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1954- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1954-1991 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Eugene Astley Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear reactors Nuclear power plants Breeder reactors Description An account of the resource Eugene Astley moved to Richland, Washington in 1954. Eugene worked on the Hanford Site from 1954-1991. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/05/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. 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Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jack Armstrong Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Are you ready? Tom Hungate: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Jack Armstrong on May 30, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Jack about his experiences working on the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Jack Armstrong: My real name? Franklin: Sure. Armstrong: Okay. John Armstrong. J-O-H-N, A-R-M-S-T-R-O-N-G. Franklin: Great. But you prefer— Armstrong: Jack. Franklin: You usually go by Jack. Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: And so Jack, where and when were you born? Armstrong: February 25, 1942. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: In Ilion, New York. Franklin: Ilion. Is that in Upstate? Armstrong: I believe it is. I’m not real familiar with it. I was two years old when we left there. Franklin: Sure. So tell me how and why you came to the area. Armstrong: Well, my dad came here in ’44. We came in to Richland, and we rented part of a B house down on Douglas in Richland. Then later on, he got offered an H house, which is located at 407 Delafield in Richland. We lived there until they passed away, and then we sold the house. But then of course I had a brother which was a machinist out at 272-W in West Area. And my two sisters, one’s in Arizona and one’s in North or South Dakota. And I’m here. Franklin: Okay. And so why did your father come to the area? Armstrong: He was working for Remington Arms back there, and he heard there was some jobs out here, and he moved here and got on. He actually retired at PUREX where they got the little problem there. But I didn’t know anything about it or anything like that. He never talked about it, like a lot of them didn’t. Franklin: Even after the war? Armstrong: Yeah, it was just, he had a job. Just like when I got on out there, I just took whatever I could get, which was in the mailroom and the carpool out at 100-N in ’63. I saw Kennedy fly in to break ground. That was quite an experience. And then, over the course of years that I worked out there for 39 years, I held about seven different jobs, because I got bored where I was at. I did road crew, I did bus driving, storage delivery. I just had the best of it all, as far as I was concerned. Franklin: Right on. So no idea of what your dad did? Armstrong: No. Franklin: Do you know what he did at Remington? Armstrong: I have no idea. Franklin: Okay. Sounds like maybe something with machining maybe, because he worked for a gun— Armstrong: I don’t know. All I really know is that at PUREX he was mixing some chemicals and he was pushing some levers or something like that, and he was mixing some chemicals to do something. I didn’t understand any of it. Franklin: Sure. How long did your father work out at Hanford for? Armstrong: Oh, I have no idea. He’s been gone for quite a few years. Franklin: But it was well into the Cold War, though. Because PUREX didn’t—I believe PUREX came around in the early ‘50s, and so— Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: So, tell me about, what were your first impressions of—I know you would’ve been very young, but what were your first impressions of Richland and the Alphabet Houses and kind of the unique community here? Armstrong: Well, there was a lot of the barracks. A lot of the barracks that people would—and in fact, my dad was telling me about out at Hanford where they had confiscated the property out there and all that. It was just so much going on. In fact, you look at Richland today to what it was before, and you wouldn’t even recognize it. There’s a lot of history that the older people still hang on to. The 703 Building down behind the Federal Building, I mean, that all just engulfed that whole area, and it just changed so much. How many times has the post office moved from where it was, and stuff like that. That’s one of the things that I remember, right, I mean, every time I come into Richland, something’s changed. But it’s been interesting, the growth. I don’t know, I get a lot of questions about that. But I moved to Kennewick and I’m glad I’m there. But I had to drive al the way from up near the Home Depot all the way out—and lucky I didn’t have to drive all the way out to the Area like some of the people did. I think this bus service that they got rid of might have been costly to them, but the thing is, it sure saved people a lot of fuel, a lot of—I mean, we were busy just keeping the roads clear when it was the winter time. And trying to get people to work and stuff like that. But the buses took a lot of that away so that it was easier for people to get on a bus and go off to work. Franklin: Right, and there just wouldn’t be that Hanford traffic— Armstrong: Right, right. Franklin: Yeah, if the Hanford bus service was still around. Armstrong: Yeah, yeah. So it really, I mean—and then, of course, along came the hours that was limited on drivers to drive. So we couldn’t do any of that. We had to go home, take a rest for six hours or eight hours or whatever, and then come back. I gave up my CDL when I retired. I didn’t need it anymore. Franklin: Oh, okay. Armstrong: But I was one of the first ones that ever got it. And I was proud of that. Franklin: Oh, that’s great. And so how long did you—do you remember when you moved into the H house? Armstrong: Oh, gosh. I was so young. Franklin: Right. Armstrong: I don’t remember. Franklin: What schools did you go to? Armstrong: I went to Lewis and Clark, which, none of it’s there. And there used to be, right there on Fitch, when you run Fitch right into the school ground, there was a building there, and I can’t remember what it was. It’ll probably come to me later, but that was right there at the end. Collum was the one that T’ed right there. And I’d walk over to the school and go to school. Then I went to Carmichael, and I went to Col High and graduated in 1960. Franklin: Okay. Do you remember anything about when Richland privatized? Did your parents purchase the home that you were living in, the H house? Armstrong: Yeah, we did. Yeah. And we dug the basement out and added to the basement and all that, compared to what—most of all the houses, the B houses and the A houses and all that had part of a basement that was still dirt or sand or whatever you wanted to call it. Franklin: Right. Armstrong: But, yeah, a lot of good memories. Franklin: Yeah, well, can you share a couple with me? Armstrong: Well, we just basically—in fact, I still have association/contact with some of the people that lived in the neighborhood and have gone over and helped them out and do different things, repair things for them and stuff like that. But I get over to the neighborhood. My brother built the carport on the side of the H house for my dad for the car. And it’s still standing, and it’s doing great. But life goes on and everything changes. Franklin: Yeah. Armstrong: But other than that, we used to be able to walk over—well, over Wellsian Way there used to be a pond there that they used to stock fish with. And we used to walk over from the house and fish in there every year. And then they—it was a kids’ fishing pond. And they turned around and covered that all up and put businesses in there. And so on like that. A lot of things have changed that I think they lost their hand on it, because it would’ve been something that the kids today would’ve had something to do. And so— Franklin: Do you remember much about the incorporation, or kind of the general attitude of the town, how people felt about the government kind of getting out of the housing business? Armstrong: I don’t really know too much about that. I know that I didn’t even consider buying a house in Richland. My first marriage, we bought a house in Richland, and then when we divorced, I went, moved over to Kennewick. That worked better for me. But I still know a lot of the streets and which way to go and all that stuff. Franklin: Right. Do you remember—do you have any memories of doing civil defense drills when you were in— Armstrong: In school, we were, in Lewis and Clark, we’d always go in and line up in the hall and lie down and put your hands like over your face and all that stuff. Yeah, that was interesting. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Because you would’ve been in school, then, really during that high point, the real high point of tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. Was that ever talked about often? And was it still—how much did you know about what went on at Hanford at that time? Armstrong: I had no idea. Franklin: No idea? Armstrong: I had no idea. But I know that I was working at Safeway, that I was a carryout— Franklin: This was during when? Armstrong: This was when I had graduated from high school. Franklin: Okay, so in the early ‘60s? Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: Yeah, and I went and I went into the Navy and went in—I was a reservist for six years and two of it was active. Wouldn’t ya know I get stuck in Hawai’i at Fort Island. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Fort Island. Armstrong: Yeah, I know. So I was there, and my brother got brother duty and came on the ship that I was on for a while. But I came back and I got on at Safeway and was still a carryout. Then, somebody said, well, you ought to apply out at Hanford. Just get anything you want, just to get in. So anyway, just happened to be lucky that the gal I was married to, she worked at Fashion Cleaners over in Kennewick. This guy that interviewed me took his suits in there. So anyway, he went and told her before—after I got the interview done and everything. And he said, well, he’d call me tomorrow or the next day. So anyway he goes by the Fashion Cleaners, which I don’t even know if it’s still there, but he said, well, he’s got the job. So I got that, and once I got in the door, I had different things that I was able to get into. Franklin: Right. And so what was your first job out on Site? Armstrong: That was mailroom and the carpool. I took care of lubing the vehicles to the garage and stuff like that, and also delivering the mail to 105, 1100 Building, let’s see, I can’t remember the other ones. But there’s numerous buildings there that I would carry mail to, and I had that responsibility. I had a clearance where I could have people sign for things that they were mailing from one place to another, and I would make sure whether they were Secret or whatever, and I would deliver them. I had no idea what was in there, didn’t care, just delivered it. And then there was a guy that they were going to be laying off, and this guy was a control room controller. He couldn’t do it down in the Federal Building in the mailroom, so he wanted to switch with me so that I could do the mail down there, and he could possibly get—And then everything fell apart for him, but I walked right into it, because I got the job downtown and then I put in for a lube and tire job. Yeah, it was a lube and tire job out, there at 1170 Building. And I drove bus for five or six years and totally loved it. It was a ball. Franklin: What did you love about driving bus? Armstrong: What did I like? Franklin: Yeah, what did you love about it? Armstrong: Well, you got to know the people. It was just a lot of fun. I got rotated around the areas, so I would be able to—I had to know all the routes. In fact, the thing is is what a lot of people don’t realize is that all those bus drivers had to memorize the routes in town. Richland was the only one that would take the routes through the town. So, it took a while to know them forward and backwards. If somebody changed the color of their house or something like that, you had to make sure you knew that house was changed colors so you didn’t want to make a wrong turn. Plus, then you had the routes out in the areas, which you had to run. They had it set it up to where when you get to the main gate, one goes this way, and one goes this way, and they crisscross and then they meet up at the front of the Area. Some of those drivers get out of some of those buses leaving there and get back in the bus and go back to town. Then they’d be off for four hours during the day and then be on in the afternoon to go back up to pick up their bus and bring the people in. Worked real good and I really liked it a lot. Then I turned around and put in for the road crew. And I did that for five or six years, totally loved that. Franklin: Describe road crew to me, what kind of activities— Armstrong: Okay. You pump septic tanks out there. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: It’s not the best job in the world, but somebody’s got to do it. Then, we patched sidewalks, roads, small things that we did. Sprayed weeds out there. Since then, they’ve turned around and put it in to where they have a little more advanced equipment to do that. Believe it or not, we were out there with an old tractor on the front of a tank, and there was somebody on the back with a hand wand, and somebody was driving the tractor, whether it was me or somebody else. We’d drive through and spot-spray or whatever we were doing. Since then, they’ve actually went and put helicopters or whatever out there, and they spray and do so much quicker job and better job than what we can do. But we pretty well did it all. Especially when wintertime came, we had some salt mixed in with the sand, so that it wouldn’t freeze. But the thing is that a lot of people didn’t understand—and I learned a lot from this guy from Idaho, he was my boss for a while, and he said that actually, he said, the salt only works down to a certain degree, and after that it’s no good. And then they had dry pavement blades, which they finally eventually got away from. But they were, I thought, a lot more cost effective, because you didn’t have the shoes down there that would wear out. But they changed—with everybody they switch out with managers and stuff like that, everybody’s got a different idea. But we would—we’d be out there all night, trying to keep people to where they could be safe going out to work. There was one night that I was called out there and it was just below the east hill. We had heard that there was a gal that was coming from the power plant there at West Area. We all knew her. She was coming down the road and slid off the highway. Anyway, I was the only one out there, and I was going down the road, and I thought, well, I’ll stop and see if I could help her. Well, I put on the brakes and I didn’t stop. I mean, I had a whole load and everything on, and I was just sliding down the highway. I got out and had to hang on to the dump truck because it was so slick out there. So I finally figured out that that’s what was going on, so I started sanding there and that helped. And there was another time that a lot of people were having—they called it the first railroad crossing past 300 Area, and we were told that there was people having a heck of a time making it out of that little hill. So anyway, I whipped around and started spraying the sand right down in front of them, and they just all started moving. Made me feel really good, like I did something right, you know? It’s always nice that you get appreciation from people like that. But it just gave you so much enjoyment, doing a lot of that stuff. Some people out there had a lot of that with some of the jobs they did. That’s one that I really liked. But I’d just get bored after a while and decide to jump into something. I got out of the road crew and ended up going into the warehouse that all the main stuff came in there and they got sorted by the storekeepers and stuff like that, and then it would be put—we’d put it on our truck. We’d have 28-foot trailers with side racks that would lift off, and we’d turn around and deliver it to the different places that we’d go to. I was delivering to 200 West for about, I think it was about six years—16 years. 16 years, I did that. Franklin: Oh, wow. And that’s where you got your CDL? Armstrong: I actually had to get it—I think that’s where I got it from, yeah. Franklin: How was that? How was the warehouse work? Armstrong: It was okay. We would load up—well, they came up with the idea that they all needed water out there in the Project. I never agreed with that. But they would say that some of the pipes were rusty and all this kind of stuff. And they’ve got all kinds of filter plants out there and all this. We took a tour, the wife and I, and the guy went by with our bus, and he was saying, well, they’re building a filtration water plant here. I says, oh, is that for the water, so you don’t have to buy bottled water? And he says, no, it’s for something else. And I thought—there was one trailer that specifically started that, years ago. The big 5-gallon—and they’re heavy. The thing is you’d take a pallet or two out to somewhere and deliver it to them. Well, people were having to lift them and put them on top of their little cooler things. But it gave us a job. We did a lot of janitorial supplies out there in the Area. Paper. You name it. I had a combination of steel and some of the paper goods and stuff for different trailers and stuff like that. I enjoyed the big part of that. I had a lot of people that, when I was gone, they were glad I got back. There’s several drivers that had that same situation. When I retired—there’s a lot of people that still call me. And say, you know how this is, you know how that is. And I say, yeah, but I can’t help that; I’m retired. [LAUGHTER] But I tried to make friends with people that I worked with and stuff like that. I enjoyed most of it, I really did. But I’m finally got it through my head that 39 years was enough and that was it. Franklin: Okay. Yeah. How did—did working out there change when Hanford stopped production and kind of moved—the Tri-Party Agreement was signed and moved into clean up? Did that affect your job in any significant way? Armstrong: No, not really. The machine shops were still going out there. We’d haul steel out there. The real—in fact, my brother ended up—he was a machinist and he worked there at 2-West at 272-W. He was given the job to set up in 300 Area that used to have a machine shop down there and set it back up with him and another guy. They did a lot of machine work down there. A lot of it. So it really didn’t change too much. There was always special things that had to be made. And I was amazed—I would go into the shop to make my delivery where he worked, and I was really amazed some of the things they can make. It just took me—I couldn’t believe it. There was different things that he could do that I couldn’t even think of doing. But then, of course, he probably couldn’t jump in the truck and deliver like I do, either. But the thing is, you see so much that other people do. I would go into PFP, where the Plutonium Finishing Plant was, and they would check me up and down and everything else. And I’d meet the storekeepers that would take the material as I went into the area there. And it was just so much that you had to be an in-between, between the warehouse and the people that you were delivering to. The thing is is I enjoyed that part. I always have enjoyed that part. So it’s just like the buses, the same thing. It was so much fun. I was glad I got out of it before they shut everything down, because all those drivers that didn’t have seniority went out to the Area. That was extra driving and all that kind of stuff. They took all that away, because they used to be able to get a certain amount of money toward the fuel that they were having to drive out to the area but they took all that away. I can’t remember what they called that, but it was some extra money that they were getting, and then they took it away. Franklin: For folks that have to drive out there? Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: Like a mileage cost. Armstrong: Oh, yeah. And the thing is, one time—well, since we all got moved down—I got moved down to the warehouse, the guys out in the Area would need to call some drivers to drive out there and get some of the salt on the sidewalks and stuff like that. They were wanting us to get in our private rig and drive from the warehouse, or from where our house was, all the way out there. And I decided after the first time I went out there, I says, no, I’m not going to accept that. Because if I get stuck out there, they’re not going to pay me anyway, and I’m going to have to pay for a wrecker to get me out. So there was no real consideration, you know, for the person that was going out of their way to do their job. But if they turned around and have a government rig sitting there, and I got in it, I’d get paid. So your private rig, whole different ball game. Franklin: Right. Armstrong: I think they’ve taken a lot away from some of the people out there. And the machine shop, I think it’s gone out there. They moved it over to Pasco, and all the guys with it. So there’s a lot of changes. But maybe they didn’t need it, that’s the whole thing. But so many things have changed. The wife and I took a couple of tours out there, and she really enjoyed it, because she’s from the other side of the mountains. So, this was all new for her. Of course, I could explain some things to her, but some things the narrator had to explain because so much of it’s just changed. Franklin: Which tour did you take? Armstrong: We took the B tour. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: That was the best one I could tell her to do, because you get to see just about everything. In fact, the old bank down there at Hanford, I don’t know if it’s still there or not. I know they fenced it because people were going in there and taking things out of it, I guess, or whatever. But you used to be able to see the deer and the elk and all that stuff. Years ago, there was horses out there. They had it in their mind that they had to get rid of the horses because too many people were going down to the river and watching them. That happened. And that was bad, because I really enjoyed, when I had to run down through there, I could maybe see the horses. Franklin: Oh, yeah. Armstrong: But that’s when, even 100-F was even working. I was delivering to that one time. That was a long time ago. Then when they’d come out with saying that there were alligators or something. I think it come out here, about ten, 15 years ago, something like that. And I had no idea there was anything like that. The beagles were there, and, of course, they were down at 300 Area too. But I never knew that much about any of that stuff. I don’t know, I just thought I had a good time when I was there. Franklin: Oh, great. And so you said you retired after 39 years, so that would be— Armstrong: 2002. Franklin: 2002, okay. So, let me see here. We’ve covered a lot of my questions. Oh, we talked about JFK’s visit. Were you working on site when JFK came to visit the N Reactor? Armstrong: Actually, I was in the audience with everybody. Franklin: Oh, okay. Armstrong: I was out there at 100-N. Yeah. Franklin: And what do you remember about that day? Armstrong: Oh, I remember standing there and watching the helicopter coming across the Columbia River. And you know how you get that feeling, your hair standing up on end? And that’s about the way I felt, because it was so neat. I really liked the guy. It was just a neat experience that I went through. Franklin: Yeah. Armstrong: It was good. Franklin: Okay. I’m wondering if you could describe the ways in which security or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work in any of your jobs. Armstrong: It—[SIGH] Well, there was one time that they actually brought the dog in, down there at the warehouse. And they would go through the packages, just walk the dog through there. They started doing that before I left. It was amazing what the dog could do. That’s what sort of blew me away. We had a picnic down near the pumping station there, North Richland there. There was a park down there. They had the dog there. And the guy took the clip from his pistol and stuck it out in the parking lot on top of a wheel. And that dog walked right over there and found it. Never saw him do it or nothing. And I thought, wow, that’s cool. So they were really emphasizing that, that you don’t want to bring anything on there. I asked the guy, I says, well, if I had a pistol in my pickup that I drive to work, would I be in trouble if you found it? And he said, well, it’s on our property, so you’d want not to have that. Well, there’s some people that do that. Anyways, it worked out, I went home that night and made sure I didn’t have anything under my seat. [LAUGHTER] But the thing is, some of the things that the average people don’t know that those dogs can do, and that’s what they relied on. There was one incident when I was driving out to 100-N, there was a guy named Cotton, he was a patrolman. He was charged with letting a van come through the barricade. Because there’s a lot of vehicles in the morning going through there. So anyway, I went from 100-N over to 100-D and I noticed this van sitting off to the side of the road, like, there’s people over there trying to tie something down. And I went over to D and did something, came back, went to 100-N, went in and told the patrolman I saw a van sitting over there with some people tying something down to the roof. I said, they don’t look like they belonged here. So anyway, gave him my name and everything. Well, then I got a phone call. They charged their own patrolman with letting them through. They had no proof of it. It was really sort of funny, and I hope I don’t get in any trouble with this, but it’s a long time ago. But the thing is, I went down to the Federal Building and they had a hearing with Cotton. They had me as a witness. They said, well, which way would you have thought that van would’ve come in, the Yakima Barricade or the Wye Barricade? I says, I have no idea. I said, I don’t know. I know it was aimed towards 100-D, but I don’t know which way they could’ve come in. So anyway, these guys were bringing charges against Cotton and they said, well, you’ve got to say that he was the one that did it. Well, no, I can’t say that. So anyway, we went to take a break, and those guys that were in the Federal Building, they had their badges like here. Or no, they pulled them out of their pocket and put them on them when they went through the security thing. And I said, why aren’t they wearing them all the time? That’s what we have to do when we’re delivering mail or whatever. And the union person that was defending Cotton said, don’t say anything. We’re doing fine. [LAUGHTER] I says, well, that makes me mad. They have these ideas, but they don’t follow through on them. So—do as I do, not as I say, type-thing. It just gripes me to no end. But he got his job back. And he thanked me very much for that. He says, you stood up for me. He says, they were going to can me. And he was old enough to retire, but he just didn’t want to retire. So, he’s probably gone now, but I felt good that I was able to help save his job. Franklin: Any idea what the people in the van were doing? Did that ever come up? Armstrong: I think they got through and somebody just didn’t do their job. That’s all it was. Plain and simple. Sometimes, they would pull you off to the side and just go through your whole rig. You would never know what was going to happen. It didn’t matter if I went through there two or three times a day. They would still check you out. And that was just their job. If you went out there to Dash-5—sometimes I would have an escort that had to ride with me just to go inside the gate. Probably no further than from here to the parking lot. And then I’d turn around and get it unloaded and then head back to town. But you just never know. And that’s what they have to go for, you know, just to be able to check you, you have no idea they’re going to check you. Franklin: Sure, I mean, that’s the whole concept behind randomized screening is that it makes everybody want to play by the rules, right? You never know if you’ll be the one who gets checked. So what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Armstrong: Well, I don’t know. I didn’t get too bad in what I did, but I’ve had a little bit of cancer on my nose and a few things. I’m going down to a Jewish hospital in Denver every two years. I’m beryllium sensitive. That just allows me to be able to go—I pay for it, they reimburse me. So far, I’m in pretty decent health. And I’m 75 years old. I never thought I’d live that long, but you never know. [LAUGHTER] But, no, it’s a good-paying job. I can’t complain at it. They did some benefits and stuff that they changed and stuff that before I retired, I had 15 weeks of vacation that I was able to stack up. I got up to 20 weeks of severance pay, which made a pretty good little pot when I retired, so that helped me a little bit. And I don’t know if those benefits keep going with some of the people that are working out there now. I know a lot of jobs have went away and stuff like that. I’m just glad I got into it and did what I did and had a good time doing it. Made a lot of friends. So that was pretty good for me as far as I was concerned. Franklin: Okay. Great, well, thank you so much, Jack. I really appreciate you taking the time to come down and talk to us today. Armstrong: Glad to. Franklin: Okay. Awesome. Armstrong: Thank you. Franklin: Yeah, thank you. <a href="https://youtu.be/FvH0d5gUtQ0">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 272-W PUREX 100-N 706 Building 1100 Building 1170 Building 300 Area 200 West PFP (Plutonium Finishing Plant) 100-F 100-D Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1944- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1961-2012 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jack Armstrong Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Civil defense Civil defense drills Description An account of the resource Jack Armstrong moved to Richland, Washington as a child in 1944 and worked on the Hanford Site from 1961-2002. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/30/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9b10d9b58437486ee4cc1650b8118b29.JPG ec91cca70202c2f3af686cb3c2b19dc1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dennis Armstrong Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Okay. Are you ready? Dennis Armstrong: Go for it. Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Dennis Armstrong on May 24, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Dennis about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. For the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Armstrong: Dennis A. Armstrong. A-R-M-S-T-R-O-N-G. D-E-N-N-I-S. Middle initial A. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Okay, great. So, Dennis, how and why did you come to the area to work for Hanford? Armstrong: Well, I thought about what kind of answer it might take to really answer that, and it probably goes clear back to high school days. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: I did something along with four other friends. Went to an open house that the Washington International Guard had in Spokane, and ended up joining the group. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: Got assigned into a aircraft maintenance group, and learned how to like airplanes. At that time, Washington Air Guard was a fighter squadron. Very close-knit group of wonderful people that I was proud to be associated with for six years. Reason that kind of influenced why I came to Hanford is because all through my four-and-a-half years at Washington State University Pullman in mechanical engineering, I had it in my mind that I was going to go to work for somebody making airplanes. And in my senior year as campus interviews were underway, in those times, it was not unusual for almost all the big companies to come to campus to do interviews. Not so nowadays. But at that time, I picked out aircraft companies. And I got some pretty good offers. Know airplanes, know how they work, know how they get put together. And I got even some exceptionally good salary offers. I showed them to my advisor, and he said, Dennis, you’re a pretty independent thinker. Just to tell me you did it, go talk to at least two or three other companies besides aircraft people. So, I go up to look at the campus interview schedule, and I picked out two, three companies, including a scheduled interview from General Electric. Not knowing whether GE made toasters or waffle irons or what, to wherever I was going to be interviewed from, I went in kind of blind, and found out it was a representative from Hanford. Franklin: Ah. Armstrong: It happened that in my work at the Washington Air Guard in the maintenance shops, I enjoyed metalworking, including—well, I was primarily doing sheet metal work and aircraft structure work. And we had a couple nice lathes that I enjoyed working with. Just nothing else, to learn how to work them. And I ended up getting a job at the department of mechanical engineers, two years running, as senior laboratory instructor in the machine shop. So, expanding on that, I did a special senior project on machinability of metals. So that came up in the course of my interview with Doug Tilson, who was the representative from GE. And he says, I’ve got exactly that job right now. I need a candidate for it. We want to hire people into our tech grad program, they called it. And yet I’ll promise you a machining research job, first assignment, if you choose to come with us. So they sent me a letter, and not quite the high salary I had from the aircraft people. But I showed these to my advisor, and he said, that’s a given. Take it. So I went back and it happened that in the dorm that I had lived in, I had a couple friends whose parents had worked at Hanford, so I knew a little teeny bit about it. Never been here. One time, one of them had brought me over to Richland, before I ended up accepting the GE offer. That time—of course, GE was still the predominant employer at Hanford, and I saw nothing of what really going on at Hanford, but I’d learned a little bit about Richland and kind of liked it. And having grown up in Spokane, I thought, why on earth do I want to go to Los Angeles and work for North American Aviation on airplanes, when I’ve got something right close in Washington State? And they offered me a job that was right in a piece of line of work that I had enjoyed, and wrote them a letter and said I’ll take it. And, well, I went through a couple questions, like, tell me more about this machining research job. And they said, well, we looked at your paper and I’ve even shown it to the people doing it, and they would like to have you come, but that’s about all we can tell you. Okay. I showed these papers to my advisor and he says, that’s a given. Take it. Franklin: So, sorry, I’d like to just ask, that’s the second time you’ve said that and I wrote that down because I wanted to explore that further. Why did your advisor feel that that was a given? Armstrong: Oh, he went on to say, I’ve been in the aircraft industry. Very structured engineering. You’re an independent thinker. Get in with some company that’s not quite as structured as the aircraft industry is. And I had no way of knowing other than to listen to him. And then couple that with the fact that here I had an offer close by. Home was still Spokane. And kind of pieced it together and my advisor knew those links and kind of felt that this would be a good placement for me. Franklin: And were you from Spokane originally? Armstrong: Yes. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: And that’s how I ended up in the Washington Air Guard in Spokane, because I’d gone to high school in Spokane and wheat farming country south of Spokane. Franklin: Yup. Okay. So describe coming to Hanford. Armstrong: Well, I show up, and here there’s 50 other brand new hires and we all report into the building. I forget the number downtown; it was in the old 700 Area. It was GE new employee processing. I would find out I was the only one that had been already named to an assignment. They had the greases on the skids and I was given a badge and said, tomorrow morning, you’ll report out to this place out at the edge of the Earth called 200 West Area, to a building called 231-Z. I had no clue what that meant. Or even what the assignment was yet. But they described and spent all the rest of the balance of that day in terms of processing me in and getting papers signed and all this stuff that goes with orientation. Next morning, a fellow named Tom Nelson, who was supervisor of metallurgy development, eventually became Battelle, but for General Electric, metallurgy development operation in 231-Z building, he came downtown, picked me up, took me out 231-Z building. And I met a fellow there who I was assigned to to do a project. His name was John Rector. I learned that I was to produce a document on a machinability state of the art of machining plutonium metal. I’d, of course, never heard of plutonium metal before. I got my Top Secret clearance at that time. And they took me over to 234-5 to the production line and I saw what the whole purpose of Hanford was all about, in making parts. At that time, we made weapon pieces here. Not commonly advertised today, but it was not secret then. And still isn’t. But— Franklin: What kinds of weapon pieces were made? Armstrong: The plutonium core for the thermonuclear devices. Franklin: Okay, and so before—how long had Hanford been making weapon pieces? Armstrong: The history goes—of course, you well know from your study of the origin of Hanford—was to make plutonium metal to be sent to Los Alamos for assembly into the Nagasaki weapon. Franklin: Right. Armstrong: They continued to make them at Los Alamos up until like ’49, 1949, at which time this famous 234-5, or now called Plutonium Finishing, that was the name given to the plant later. That was built solely for the purpose of converting plutonium nitrate to metal. And metal—they call them buttons, the product—buttons into cast pieces and machined pieces for the weapon cores. And that started in like 1949, ’50, here at Hanford. And then a few years later, they built a parallel plant at Rocky Flats. Yet I think in the early years, best I knew, Hanford made three-quarters of the production, and Rocky Flats a little less than a quarter. Still Los Alamos made a few, but the stockpile was primarily made at Hanford. And then the balance started shifting a little more to Rocky Flats, until mid-‘60s when all the production went to Rocky Flats. Well, anyway, back to my pathway. Here I was, being told to learn all there is to know and put it down in a document on machining plutonium metal. And they had had a fella out from General Electric Schenectady who was a machining expert, and he had just left to go back to GE. And he was concentrating on traditional big production, like tooling forces and horsepower to make cuts. I walked through the production line, and they wanted emphasis on accuracy. Not what the program was gearing toward. They wanted emphasis on surface finish. And I turned around the program being done by metallurgy research people, and ended up putting out a document on how to get the finest surface finish we can be able to do with the lathes they had in 234-5 Building, which happened to be some of the finest that existed in the world. So, I wrote that document. It happens to still be classified. I’ll never see it again. Yeah, that leads me to a thought on classifications at Hanford. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I do. I used to think weapon design was the big secret; it really wasn’t. It happened that Hanford production rate was the big secret, and manufacturing technology was right behind it. So, we physically protected manufacturing technology higher than the design of the devices. Which is what you see nowadays in how close is Iran to making one? And you can betcha they’re farther ahead than our politicians think they are. Anyway, enough said. I put in four months writing that document, got published, and a fella, name of Les Brecke, who ran the production line in 234-5, invited me to come over and spend an assignment there. Still on the GE tech grad program. I had a friend that had wanted me to come and spend an assignment with the K Reactor design group, too. And I thought, well, I’ve been in one thing. I think I’ll take the K Reactor design group. And I did that. Down 762 Building, through the winter, so I didn’t have to go out to Hanford during the winter that first year. And I participated in designing a flexible horizontal control rod for the K Reactors. Was eventually fabricated and put in. At that time, operating problems with the reactors was secret. You actually got one of these flexible rods in your inventory at the museum backup storeroom. And I’ve got one of the three whole pieces of bonded carbide to go in it, because I ended up making those pieces later. I’ll get to that in a second. That was a fun assignment in terms of really designing a product and getting it approved and getting through design approval from the rather rigorous design approval process. So then I talked to Les Brecke again and said, do you still want me? And he said, absolutely, I’ll take you any time you can get here. And I ended up as my third assignment, then, in the GE tech grad program of going to production line at 234-5 Building. Two—oh, go ahead. Franklin: Sorry, I just—for those that may not be—including sometimes myself—who may not be well-versed in the numbering system— Armstrong: Oh, that. Franklin: What is—so earlier you said 231-Z and that— Armstrong: 231-Z was an original building that DuPont built to process the plutonium nitrate. And when that was moved over to the PUREX and then 234-5, which I’ll describe a little more later, the 231 Building was turned into a metallurgy development laboratory. And that eventually became a branch of Battelle when GE diversified. Franklin: And so 234-5, does that have a more common name? Armstrong: Well, the more common name is Plutonium Finishing Plant. Franklin: Okay, so that is the PFP. Armstrong: PFP. Yeah, that name, interestingly, wasn’t coined until after the weapons mission. Franklin: Okay. Armstrong: The original, it was just called 234-5 or Dash-5 or Z Plant. Never had a word name associated with it. It held a special clearance to even get in the door, you had to have—it was kind of a soft top secret clearance, called a blue tag clearance. You got a model of one of these badges there in your museum. Today, no one carries that clearance anymore, but that’s what it was, was access to weapon data processing. Franklin: Okay, my last question, what year did you come to Hanford? Armstrong: Oh! 1963. June of ’63. Franklin: You came in 1963. Armstrong: Yes. Franklin: Okay, I just wanted to establish that. Armstrong: And that was, I guess going clear back to the beginning of the story, when I joined the Air Guard when I was still in high school, that was like the 1958 timeframe, see? So all through my WSU timeframe, I was in the Air Guard, thinking of going to work for aircraft people and it wasn’t until ’62 or so that I started in the interview process to eventually take permanent employment. And then the pathway that I described, the interview from the General Electric Company here. It turned out to be here, but I didn’t know it at the time. Franklin: Gotcha, okay. Armstrong: So here I am, now, in the, it was called weapons manufacturing operation. Franklin: And this was with Les— Armstrong: With General Electric Company. With Les Brecke. Franklin: With Les Brecke, okay. Armstrong: So we did two things. We were the receiver of the plutonium button, which is the finished plutonium chunk coming from a simple term called the button line, which is part of the production in this Z Plant, or 234-5 Building, across the wall into the machining. Or first, casting. We casted this. It’s a metal just like you can cast and pour any other—lead, brass, bronze, iron. The process is quite similar. Casted into a shape, machine it to a final product, goes through inspection and package it and send it to the assembly plant. Franklin: And where was the assembly plant? Armstrong: They went first to Rocky Flats in Denver, and then down to Pantex in Texas where the final assemblies were all put together. Franklin: Right, right. Okay and so—sorry, go ahead. Armstrong: My job—the name of the group was called weapons fabrication, and my job was to overview the machining. They had just bought the set of very fine lathes that didn’t quite work as good as they thought they should. First job was figure out why. It was a kind of a combination of electronics problem and hydraulics problem that I think I solved because we made them work. So through ’63, ’64, ’65, I was in charge of those lathes pumping out parts that went to inspection. And then eventually shipped. I enjoyed it. I really did. I didn’t realize how good a job it was until it was all over. And one of the saddest things I had to do in the course of my career, we had set—we were setting with literally a five-year top secret plan of production, how many parts we were going to make every month for five years. And it went to zero overnight. Franklin: Mm. Why was that? Armstrong: : Political. Politics. Franklin: What year—when was that? Armstrong: Mid-’65, late-’65. I can’t tell you the politics of it. But the idea was save some money by shifting all the production and casting and machining over to Rocky Flats. Close down Hanford production. So that hit the newspaper and we were in one of the first major cutbacks at Hanford. It happened that the person I’d worked with in 231 Building, John Rector, had a hobby doing manufacturing in his basement. Of course, it wasn’t but the first weekend I was over to house, seeing what he was doing. He was doing stuff in his basement that was beyond a lot of capability of big production shops. He came to me and said, we’re out of a job. I was promised a position in the maintenance group. I didn’t quite know how I wanted to do that. I’m sure I could’ve negotiated something into design engineering. But John said, been my plan someday to start a full-time business. And if you want to partner with me, let’s do it. We did, and we operated out of his basement for three or four months while we built Western Sintering Company. It’s over on Stevens Drive, still running today. So I turned in my resignation to GE and we started Western Sintering Company. I enjoyed it. I truthfully enjoyed the independence of a small business for seven years. I’m still good friends with the people that run it today, including the family. I left under good pretense. And the reason I left was Atlantic Richfield, the employment relations fella named Bill Watson came to me and said, we need an engineering manager for East Area/West Area. Oh. Well, you’ve been selected to be the first offer. Oh, interesting. I’d never mailed out a resume or anything. I was selected by some friends, that when the opening was there, they scrubbed a bunch of names and came to me and said, the job is yours if you want it. And I took it. So I became the engineering manager of East Area and West Area, plant engineering. Franklin: What was so attractive about the job that you wanted it? Armstrong: Working with people. I think I saw this particularly in the production line in 234-5 Building. I was frequently being the fabrication engineer of a production operation where we had rotating shifts with five different supervisors. I was the guy that ended up as shift relief now and then. We had the finest operators that existed at Hanford. They were all hand-selected, good people. And I enjoyed working with them. They were all good to work with. So I thought, here I got a chance to work with engineers. At first I was put into a group that had about eight engineers. And then I took over from Walt Engels, who had chosen to retire under the Atlantic Richfield shingle, and took over a larger group of close to 75 people, including planning engineering for each of their established operating plants. At that time, we were still running PUREX and B Plant and 234-5. You asked about the Plutonium Finishing name to Z Plant, and that was done as kind of a last ditch, after our weapons mission was done. Rename the plant, try to get some other business here. And we did several projects. We did a couple plutonium fabrication test ingots for the Navy. And we did some plutonium heat source things for NASA. And we took in half a dozen jobs in that plant. We even made the first of the sabot units for the Army, the ones they fired over in Iraq. Those happen to have been secret when we made them. But then later they come out, the uranium sabot units for the artillery shells for tank cannons. Anyway, that was the approach to naming it Plutonium Finishing, as advertising capability out to the world that we could handle plutonium. It really was no other capability. But the bottom line, there wasn’t very many people who wanted to go out and hire that kind of work done, either. Franklin: Right, especially with the Cold War being over. Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. Armstrong: It wasn’t until five or six years later that the plutonium uranium mixed oxide fast reactor fuels business came into play. Otherwise that would’ve been a natural for takeover by that building. But it wasn’t understood then. So, at Western Sintering, like I say, I enjoyed it. We made our own machinery. Franklin: And what did you primarily make? Armstrong: Small mechanical parts, cold compaction of metal powders into shape. And the sintering process is a furnace to diffusion bond the cold compacted metal powders into a finished structural piece. In terms of things common folk think of, little gears, little bushings, little bearings, little—and I say little because we were somewhat limited by size. The bigger the part, the bigger the press. We had made our own up to 200 ton, and that could make a part of about two-to-three square inches of surface area. Otherwise, little parts can make them pretty fast on the small ten-ton press. We actually made some ten-ton presses for the nuclear fuels industry. Primarily Westinghouse and General Electric and even Areva out here. Back then, they were Jersey Nuclear. And we sold 34 of those things around the world, including four of them to India, and two of them up to Canada. Pretty well established a name in terms of a good operating machine for that particular industry. As I say, Atlantic Richfield came to me and offered me the job of plant engineering manager, which I took. At that time, the B Plant fuels—excuse me, the strontium cesium encapsulation plant was just in final design stage and not working very good. It happened that Les Brecke had been assigned over to that building, and here I was, previous good stand with him, and suddenly I’m in charge of making his equipment that didn’t work work again. Which we did do, as a group, a team. Ended up packaging the whole inventory of strontium cesium capsules that’s now in the reservoir. It’s been sitting there for 50 years now. 40 years. Anyway, however. So, at that time, Atlantic Richfield was pretty good a contractor to work for. I’d even rank Atlantic Richfield a little higher than General Electric in terms of wanting the people to understand they worked for Atlantic Richfield. Had good relations there. If they’d have stayed a contractor, I’d probably have stayed there. It happened that they chose ten years as the contract limit, and Rockwell, new contractor, and couple things happened at Rockwell outside of Hanford. The B-1 bomber went down the tube when Jimmy Carter canceled the project. And another parent company they had, called Atomics International was doing reactor research to eventually build some gas-cooled reactors. That was pretty much down the tube. So Rockwell sat there with two sources of their own people. They brought in quite a few to Hanford. And I was told that my job would be replaced by one of them. And I could go to project management, which I did. And I didn’t care for the project management, because I enjoyed the design work, and particularly the kind of design work we were doing which was plant troubleshooting. Every week we’d have a plant managers’ meeting of all the different site plants. Whoever’s in trouble, I could solve it and—I could put my team onto it and solve it. That’s the way we were set up to do it. And I laugh at the current problem of the PUREX tunnel collapsing, because I had exactly the same issue happen back in the ‘70s. It happened that there were a bunch of low level waste disposal units called cribs. There were stacked Douglas fir timber underground, meant to be just a big void space to send low level liquid waste. People out monitoring the desert where these cribs were came back with a report over the weekend that one of these cribs had collapsed, not far from the story of the PUREX tunnel last week. And so I’m at the plant managers’ meeting and this is the big flap for the week, why did this happen and what are we going to do about it? So I came back and put one of my good civil engineers on it. He came back in about ten minutes and said, good news and bad news. Good news, I know why, and bad news, every one of them’s going to collapse. Oh, tell me more. Well, these were stacked Douglas fir timber. You’ve got about 40 years on untreated timber and then it’s going to be weak enough to rot away and they’ll collapse. Okay, what are we going to do about it? Well, we’re going to fill up the holes. So that was our carryover to the plant manager. So we eventually came up with the process to slurry up sand and pump it down every one of these holes and we eventually breached some of them. Problem was, you see, the rodents would get down into a hole and then they’d eat the strontium salts that were in this low level waste. They’d come up and the rabbits would eat the rodents, and then the coyotes would eat the rabbits, and then you’d have hot spots around the desert. And that was bad news. So we ended up vacuuming the desert. That was a legend to live down. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, I thought about the PUREX tunnel, because I knew how that one was made. And I thought, surely, those timbers are rotted away. And that’s exactly the same story. The only answer was fill it with sand. And then what are you going to do about it? Of course, plan that’s somewhat out in the newspaper is fill them with slurry and probably a grout mix. Franklin: Well, it’s all—the PUREX tunnel it’s all solid waste, right? Armstrong: No, there’s no waste in there at all. Franklin: Or it’s contaminated solid objects. Armstrong: That’s right, that’s a good way to put it. The object of the design at PUREX Plant, in the earlier fuel separation plant, REDOX, T Plant, B Plant, whenever a failed big vessel or big pump would have to be disposed of, they’d put it on a railcar and drag it out to near the desert, drag it out to the burial ground and bury it. Actually time consuming plus potential for accidents and exposure. So the idea at PUREX Plant was build a tunnel at the head end of the plant. And then it got a failed pump, failed tank, you buy an old railroad car that’s junk, put the pump on it, and send it down this railroad tunnel for somebody to worry about someday. There’s no waste in there, other than whatever residual was on the contaminated equipment. But there still could be some pretty high level stuff. Franklin: Because of what it— Armstrong: What it was handling, sure. Franklin: But no solid—but no actual— Armstrong: No actual waste like we think of waste in the waste tanks, or waste like the strontium cesium capsules in B Plant. Franklin: Did you see the infographic that Washington State Department of Ecology had put out of the tunnels? And it had the railcars, but inside the railcars was a green goo? Armstrong: I didn’t see that. Probably wouldn’t have got impressed with it. I personally don’t like the state being a regulator. I think it should’ve been kept as a federal agency. But that’s my own opinion that they wouldn’t care for today. I don’t think the state’s got any business being in the business. Enough said. I won’t—that’s not a popular area. Franklin: That’s good. Armstrong: Ha! You can edit that out. Franklin: Well, I mean, you know, it’s just an opinion. So you had worked on these cribs and filled them up with— Armstrong: A slurry of sand. Franklin: Were these constructed similarly— Armstrong: No. Franklin: --to the PUREX tunnel? Armstrong: They were a hole in the ground with—I forget what they were, like, 20-foot long timbers stacked just to make a big void space, and then a roof over the top and six, eight foot of dirt on top of it. Franklin: Oh, okay. Armstrong: The whole idea was to get a big void space down underground to pump low level liquid waste. But over years of pumping low level waste in, it accumulates to high level waste, and that’s why it was bad to have the rodents down in there eating these salts. Franklin: Sure. Armstrong: So, anyway, with Rockwell coming in, and me going to project management, I had another group of people come to me, namely the Washington Public Power, we would like you to come with us. We’re building five nuclear power plants. And I said, well, I’ll be there. And so I took a job in project management of what was called the equipment qualification, namely to prove everything in the reactor was going to—everything safety-related was really going to work during every credible accident. We had about 20,000 electrical mechanical pieces of equipment that we had to have definitive proof it could stand an accident scenario. So, I’m still involved in Hanford and watching it, but yet direct employment left when I left Rockwell. Franklin: Okay. But still obviously related. Armstrong: Well, still nuclear power plant, as opposed to waste management area. Or production in the early years. Franklin: And how long were you with WPPSS? Armstrong: 18 years. Franklin: Okay. So you kind of saw, then, the full—the rise and fall, I guess one can say. Armstrong: Oh, yeah, in fact, even in organizational dynamics, this was a tough time. Organization staging for—I guess if you think of plant construction, you need one craft for some time, or one set of engineers for some period, and another set of engineers for another period. We had organizations that were struggling with trying to keep their mission alive. When Don Major, who was our general manager then, was trying his best to say, this organization’s got to phase down, because this one’s phasing up to finish the plant. But the thing that I saw my pathway pretty clear—I was kind of middle management through my whole career path, and here middle management at Washington Public Power Supply System, we could see a clear pathway to make that plant work. Something bothers me about the Vit Plant. People working on it aren’t going to see it work in the lifetime of the people working on it. That’s why I don’t like the idea of the state being involved in it. That should’ve been a small demonstration plant; could’ve been finished five years ago and working. If it worked good, we’d build two, three more of them. Franklin: Mm. Instead of building one— Armstrong: State kept insisting it’s got to be so big that once we turn it on, we’ll run all the waste through it and be done. They ended up building it so big that they couldn’t control the design process and still don’t know when it’s going to run. May never run. Franklin: Yeah. Armstrong: There are other ideas on what to do with waste. Some of them still being explored to maybe speed it up. But I—Savannah River has a waste evaporator and a waste melter. The titanium industry’s had titanium vacuum melters for years. We could’ve made one here. Franklin: Savannah River’s also partway through their vitrification process. But there, though, it’s easier because the chemical—they only used one—they used less chemical separations processes than we did. Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: So they have much less complicated— Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: --waste. Armstrong: I understand that, too. You know, this is one of the things that even took me a long time to digest when I had plant engineering group over the Tank Farms and PUREX and REDOX and those, that each one put out a different product in terms of the waste composition. The process to handle it was somewhat different. But even in the years I was there, we were running the T Evaporator and the S Evaporator, and then the A Evaporator was built just after I left. They were all one mission: take the waste out of the tanks. It was done before I got there to take all the strontium and cesium out. That was done very quietly and successfully. So getting stuff out of the tanks was not a big deal. They knew how to do it. And suddenly it’s got to be reinvented. Even running the S Evaporator and T Evaporator, they were different processes, but we took a lot of water out and made a lot of space in the tanks. Some of them, they gained a little too much space and they had to put water back in to cool it down. But that’s part of the learning process. Franklin: It was meant that liquid waste would go in the tanks, right? So now that it’s been largely solidified, doesn’t that make it harder to access the waste via the existing pipes— Armstrong: Well, it sure does. Franklin: --liquid material— Armstrong: It sure does. In the first campaign of—effectively what was in there was liquids, yet a lot of stuff had settled out over the years. As they were extracting the product out of the tanks, they had some kind of pumps to get the liquid out and then some devices they called sluicers which would spray the tank bottoms, loosen up stuff so they could slurry it up and pump it on into B Plant so they could process. Still they cleaned the tanks out tolerably well. Yet the evaporator process included a type of pump called a salt well that we made in my plant engineering group, where we would literally put a well casing not far from what you see out in the desert for farming—put a well casing down in the tank so you could sift away from the salt product and get the liquid back out and send it to the evaporators. So every one of the tanks went through the salt well campaign of extracting liquids to try to get it solid. So this leaves a little different product to get out of there now. At that time, the idea was remote shovels and stuff like that to dig it out. That, I think was demonstrated doable. Yet concurrently, we had almost the same game that they got now. I’d get a call over the weekend, this tank’s potential leaker just got a high drywell indication, what should we do? And we’d come up with a plan to route piping and pump it over to another tank. And we think that one’s good so we’ll try that one for a while. Yeah, that one seems to be holding it. And then we had a big master chart—this was before computers could take care of things to count for you—we had a big chart of which tanks were suspected leakers, known leakers, possible leakers, and three or four other categories of maybe they’re okay or maybe not. We got space here but not there. [LAUGHTER] Same game that you read about in the paper today. But a little different product to have to handle, I do admit that. My own desires, and yet I was current plant operations/plant engineering, and Don Woodrich, in another group was long-range planning, what are we going to do with this stuff eventually? At that time it was dig it out, put it in casks and take it someplace. No one wanted it. Franklin: That’s a hard sell. Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: What years was that? Armstrong: That was in the mid-‘70s. Because I left Rockwell. Rockwell came in in, I guess I’m going to say, the early ‘80s. That’s when I left and went to Washington Public Power. Franklin: How—so you were with them, with Washington Public Power, kind of until its ending— Armstrong: Well, through—I actually got caught in layoff. They wanted a headcount and they wanted dollars, and we now the four plants were put in first a construction delay and eventually a termination. It was clear that we had too many people. And the general manager had had a stroke and they hired a new guy. He come in and said, get me a list of the high dollar people in engineering, because we’re going to contract out a lot of this business. I was one of the higher paid engineers or managers, and I got hit with a layoff in the mid-‘90s. Franklin: So what did you do after leaving WPPSS? Armstrong: Retired. [LAUGHTER] Armstrong: I chose it to be an early retirement. And I’ve been active all along in the leadership of American Society of Mechanical Engineers. So I spent a lot of time there; still do. Franklin: Great. Let’s see here. You’ve answered a lot of my questions, but I have a few more. What were the most challenging and/or rewarding aspects of your work at Hanford? Armstrong: Oh, early years, like I mentioned, being selected to go into the weapons production group. That wasn’t a group you got into very easily. The best operators and the best supervisors that existed at Hanford. We had a final mission: make parts, put them in a box and ship them. I worked there for over four years for Les Brecke, who was a tough one to work for. Never missed a single shipment. Franklin: Wow. And what about the later years? Armstrong: Atlantic Richfield years, same story. I had a wonderful group of people. I had five subsections in my plant engineer group, specifically one for each plant. But I had them all structured so if they knew I was in some trouble someplace with whatever it be, I could draw from one group and put it into another group to get through a complicated problem. And we had some issues with evaporators and with—the Tank Farms were a constant headache. Even PUREX, when they started to shut it down and then ramp it up for what was to be the last run, I somehow—the production manager’s name was a fella named Chuck Malady, and I ended up being his ghostwriter for letters that went to, it was Energy Research and Development Administration, now DOE. I wrote two letters from the president of Atlantic Richfield to DOE, then ERDA: please, let us run PUREX one more time. We’ll be done with that N Reactor fuel forever. Twice the answer came back, no, can’t do it. Please don’t ask again, because Jimmy Carter wants no more waste in the waste tanks. Instead, they let the fuel rot away in K Reactor basins. We were campaigning, let us run PUREX. We could’ve done it and been done with it. It would not have added that much waste. But that was the decision made at the presidential level. It probably cost this country a hundred billion dollars, and we’re still not willing to admit it. They still haven’t got the mess cleaned up. We had PUREX ready to go to do it. Franklin: Right, right. Interesting. Thank you. What are some of your memories of any major events in Tri-Cities history? I guess, for example, were you around for President Kennedy’s visit? Armstrong: Yeah, in fact—[LAUGHTER] it’s kind of comical because I was working in the production line, and the message that came out was essential operations must continue, but non-essential people will be released to go to President Kennedy’s visit. And there’ll be buses to bus you down there. Les Brecke had maintained we were essential, so we weren’t going to go. And then he had a change of heart the last day, said, well, I want to keep my operators busy, but Armstrong and two or three others, you can get on the bus and go. So I was way back in the last row with the last bus that came in. I watched from way back, afar. It was fun to see it. Franklin: Yeah. Do you remember President Nixon’s visit? Armstrong: Oh, I do, but I actually didn’t—I wasn’t here. I was traveling someplace. So I didn’t get in on the festivities. Franklin: Any other major events in Tri-Cities history, plant shutdowns, startups, that kind of stand out to you? Armstrong: Well, certainly the contractor changes. Even one of the comical parts with General Electric, I worked directly for this Les Brecke, and he had a rather seriously assembled dossier on every one of his people. I forget who it was that came out, it might have been George Saylor from General Electric, who was high up in the employee relations group. He says, your secretary tells us you’re not going to release your files. You must turn them in! That’s GE property. That’s not your property. Everyone will start with an empty folder when Atlantic Richfield comes in. Actually, it wasn’t Atlantic Richfield; it was an interim company called Isochem, who was a rather short-lived vendor. They were supposed to build an isotope separations plant. Never did. And then Atlantic Richfield got that contract assigned to them. Interesting style then. But anyway, bottom line is, that was kind of a comical thing. I sat out on the outside of the row and then George Saylor comes out. I was outside of his office. My office was from here to the wall from his, and I could hear him arguing, you must release your employee files because those are GE property. Not yours. Well, he eventually had to. [LAUGHTER] So we started with an empty binder on everyone. But I think he kept a few things out of there. But that was kind of an interesting thing. Another fun one that happened, still with Les Brecke—I mentioned I’d been active all along in ASME in local and national activities. Well, it happened that another fella in 234-5 Building came to me and said, hey, I see you just moved to town. Would you help us with our local section meetings? I said, oh, yeah, sure. What do you want me to do? Well, here’s ten names. You call these ten members and remind them of our next meeting. I can do that. So I put the list in my drawer and come a week before the meeting, I pull it out and start calling people. Get down about four names, and there was a boss’s boss’s boss on the list. Me, little guy on the totem pole, going to call him? I’ll skip his name. And then I call the rest and then I put the list back in my drawer. Next day, I said, hey, I promised Marv I’d call these people. I guess I’ll do it. So I called him up. He answers the phone himself. Hugh Warren here. Oh! I wanted to remind you of our ASME meeting coming up this week. Oh, yeah! I got that notice. I’m going to be there; put me down. And he remained a lifelong friend, forever. Franklin: Wow. Armstrong: And the comical thing that happened is, he says, where do you work? I said, 234-5 work. I work for Les Brecke. Oh, I’m coming down there this afternoon; I’ll stop by and say hello. So, my office door was within viewing door of Les Brecke’s office door. And in comes boss’s boss’s boss, said hello to me and we talked a few minutes and he left. Pssht! Brecke comes out, what was Warren doing down here? [LAUGHTER] Armstrong: Oh, he just popped in to say hello. Enough said, anyway. It was just kind of a comical event. There’s probably hundreds of examples like that through the years. Like I say, when I had the plant engineering group, I had wonderful people working for me. Some of them unfortunately were older than I was and we read about one every weekend now. They’re passing away. Franklin: Yeah, that’s true. What was it like living in Richland—so you would’ve moved here after Richland had become privatized. What was it like living in Richland in that area of the Cold War in the ‘60s and ‘70s? Armstrong: I can’t say that there was anything spectacular. Downtown—well, I had an apartment when I moved in to Richland across from the old Kadlec Hospital. It was one block to what was called 700 Area. They were just building the Federal Building and knocking down all the old Federal Building offices. So I had one—that K Reactor design group assignment was in 762 Building, which I’d walk half a block from my apartment into the gate on the north end of the 700 Area and walked two buildings to my—I didn’t know much about what else was going on down there, other than that it was most of design engineering for the whole site. I was specific to the K Reactor and we were in one building. You talked about Kennedy; even going back to high—excuse me, college, I had an interesting experience with him. I lived in a dormitory the first couple years. And I guess it must’ve been like 1959 or ’60, it was a Saturday, and I was on phone duty. We had one phone come in to the dorm. You’d answer it and then call a room of somebody. Well, they were holding what they called a mock political convention. I wasn’t going to go to it, but in comes this call from somebody. Hey, we’re the State of Massachusetts and we got a big deal guy here, and he’s senator, and we’ve only got two people to represent our state. Send people over here! So I could put out a message on the public announcement through the whole dorm, and then my shift was coming to the end. I decided—we gathered three or four other people and we went over to the gymnasium to be part of the Massachusetts convention for this political convention. The famous senator was John Kennedy. We sat around, the eight of us, around the room—around the circle. Oh, thank you so much for you folks participating in this important political activity. He signed my program. And did I save it? No. Franklin: So he was actually at WSU? Armstrong: Yeah! Franklin: Wow, I didn’t know that. Armstrong: In fact, I think the yearbook that year has got his picture and I’m in the shadow in the background of it or something. But I didn’t save that program that had his signature on it. He signed them all. So then, years later, he’s president, and I’m in 762 Building in the K Reactor design group. Right next to my office was the resident office of the FBI. So, I probably knew it, among the first three or four at Hanford that Kennedy had been shot. Because they came over and—we knew the FBI guys, and they knew us. I could stand in their doorway and listen to their radio chatter. Of course, we assembled in the hallway to try and learn what was happening from the FBI chatter coming in on the radio. It was a whole story that was just emerging on the national news. So kind of a close couple paths crossings there. Franklin: Yeah. That’s really interesting. Thank you. I think that might be the most detailed—one of the more detailed Kennedy visit stories I’ve ever got, you know, from an interview. Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: So, I guess, in closing— Armstrong: In fact, the neighbor down the street from me was a fellow named Swede Holmquist who was safety director for all of Hanford under DuPont, GE, appointed by Matthias to be safety director. Franklin: Oh, wow. Armstrong: He brought home a lot of stuff when he retired, which I have some of it now. Which you’ll get someday. But meantime, I’m going to enjoy it. Franklin: Sure. Armstrong: Including the press release notebook on the Kennedy visit. Franklin: Oh, wow. Armstrong: Thick notebook. Franklin: Wow. So in closing, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Armstrong: Well, it was serious business. And I took it that way. I had very high security clearance. I took it serious. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to students in the university environments. This is my advice to them. If you get involved in either corporate security activity or government security activity, take it serious. I did. And there’s stuff I couldn’t tell you today that I was involved in. Mostly, interestingly enough, on manufacturing technology. One time the highest level security thing we had at Hanford was production rate. You can read about it in the paper right now how many devices we made. I wouldn’t have dared told you that in the ‘60s. Franklin: Sure, but that manufacturing technology, though, is still very much— Armstrong: Yeah. Franklin: Because of the danger of nations making-- Armstrong: Yeah, people picking up on how to do it. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. Armstrong: And even though what we did 50 years ago was probably different than what they do today. I was down at the University of Nevada Las Vegas a month ago, and I met a fella that was doing the laser work on the stockpile proof-of-reliability. He knew where I’d come from. I’d been through the whole test site. They took that job serious, too. But there’s been more released on what they did than ever will be released on what Hanford did. And yet even—I meet people around the country, everybody knows about Oak Ridge. Not very many people know what happened at Hanford. And I think it’s an important thing to tell, and this is why I’m excited about seeing the B Reactor elevated. And I’d go so far as to include the other facilities. T Plant’s an important part of the whole story. Franklin: Oh, sure. I mean, the fuel doesn’t pop out of B Reactor and then just go to Los Alamos. Armstrong: In fact, when I was plant engineering manager, one thing Rockwell did when they first came to town—there were seven people, and I’ve got a picture of all seven of them, that had like 35 years of total experience going back to DuPont. They were all given a Rockwell 35-year gold watch. Two of them worked for my group. One of them was kind of a simple story; he worked at Remington—excuse me, DuPont at Salt Lake, came up to Hanford. The other had an amazing story. I held a staff meeting when I gave out these two watches to the people. Had all my people and anybody else who wanted to come. And I said, Max Yeats, I want you to—he did not know what I was going to do. I said, I want you to tell us all where you were on a certain date in 1942 or ’43, like that. I didn’t know you knew that date. Well, I know the whole story, and you’re going to tell us right now, what happened that day and forth. Well, I haven’t talked about that much. Well, you can tell it, or I’ll tell it, because I know it. And he said, okay. I went to work for Remington Arms in Kansas City. I was in charge of tooling. Machinist background, mechanical engineering graduate. One day I was called in to the boss’s office, and told I was selected for a special corporate assignment. They knew nothing about it, I was supposed to take it. What do you want to do? And he said, I don’t know, I guess I’ll take it. What would you do, you were a kid out of school, worked for six months for DuPont? So he said, here’s an envelope; open it when you get home. You’re off now. Go home. Got home, told his wife—new wife, opened the envelope: Report to Dr. Do, University of Chicago in two days. Dr. Do was code name for Fermi. He went into Fermi’s office and said, go to that meeting room, get some other people, we’ll come in and talk. He learned the whole story of what was going to happen. And his mission in being taken in to Chicago was he worked on making the fuel for the Chicago Pile. And then there were six of them sent from Chicago to Hanford, and he was project manager on construction of B Plant. Not the reactor, but the fuel separations plant. And his whole career, he stayed as this senior, strong, individual contributor, including working for me, 40 years later. Franklin: Wow. That’s quite a story. Armstrong: And that’s never documented anyplace. Franklin: Yeah, the plants really seem to suffer from a lack of documentation and just awareness. The reactors get all of the— Armstrong: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, he’d have been a wonderful person to have in your interview system, see? So I can tell the story about him now. All that came out as a result of Rockwell saying, we want to do something for the old-timers that are here. And they selected, it happened that they had some gold watches that said Rockwell on them, and they had them all in a—I gave the watches out at my own staff meeting, but then later they all assembled in the famous PUREX conference room for a group picture. And I went with them on that. I’ve got a copy of that picture with the seven people. Franklin: That’s really neat. Well, Dennis, thank you so much. It’s been a really great interview. Armstrong: Well, I could probably talk for an hour and two hours. I’m getting hoarse here, but I enjoy the history. I think you know that Don Sorenson and I both kind of partner in researching what we can. He’s two lightyears ahead of me and yet I’ve got stuff he’d enjoy having. I kind of got hooked on it when I cleaned out Swede Holmquist’s house. I wish I’d’ve saved more, but unfortunately, he’d brought home boxes full of historical papers, put them in his basement under a window where the sprinklers were running, and I opened up these boxes and they were all moldy. I didn’t want to kill myself. Including a big, thick white binder on the collapse of the second PUREX tunnel. I opened up, looked at the pictures and threw it in the dumpster. And probably that was the only one that existed. Yet that report might be in the library someplace. But it’s so hard to find stuff in the library. Don’s got access to more pictures. He has thousands of pictures. And his son collects pictures of Richland. Kind of an interesting tie. Franklin: Yeah, his Vintage Tri-Cities Facebook was just in the paper the other day. He likes a lot of our Facebook posts. That’s when I first found out about him. Armstrong: Yeah. Yet I’ve got some safety plaques that—I’ve got one 1944 from the National Safety Council to Hanford, 1944. And I’ve got 1945. I’ve got three bronze plaques that Holmquist lugged home. And I’ve got one that Kennedy gave the Site. In fact, have you been to the Nevada Test Site Museum? Franklin: I have not. Armstrong: Worthwhile going and see what they’ve done there. I’ll sign your travel authorization if you want to go. It won’t mean much when the dollars come, but. I’ve been there a number of times. In fact, I went again when I was—the student conference I put on in the University of Nevada. When the afternoon was quiet, I’d go over to the museum. Well, on an earlier visit, I’m standing inside the library. They’ve got a public reading room in addition to the museum tour. They’ve got this plaque hanging there, John F. Kennedy presents to the Atomic Energy Commission Sites. Docent walks up to me and says, isn’t that neat? You ever seen one of those? I said, yeah, I’ve got one hanging just like it in my room! Oh, you do? [LAUGHTER] I suspect it was a case where one had been given to each site. So probably half a dozen of those exist; I might have one of two that remain. I don’t know if Oak Ridge’s still exist. But these bronze ones, you’ll get them someday. In the meantime, I offered to give Connie a couple of them once. And I said, only one condition: you hang it in the museum. If it’s going to go in a filing cabinet, you can’t have it. And as you’re aware, museums don’t take things with conditions. Franklin: That’s true. Armstrong: Unless it’s a loan to special purpose. So it’s still hanging in my room. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Well, Dennis, if there’s other—if you think of things later on that you want to talk about, we’d be happy to schedule another interview with you. Armstrong: Or my experience might even be more broad than a lot of other folks. So if you get into an area where you want to amplify something, I’m on recall. I’m happy to do it for you. Because I think preserving the history is critical to the good work that so many thousands of people did at Hanford. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Paul Tibbetts and probably half a dozen of the crew with the first missions. Every one of them said the same story. People ask them, would you do it again? And the answer is, we were young Army officers, we were described a problem, we saluted and we did it. It wasn’t our position to challenge it. I kind of feel the same way, having been involved in production at Hanford. Didn’t bother me I participated in making many thousands of warheads. We only used a few of them, and those are the ones that I know got shot down in Nevada. And I learned later which ones got shot, because in my last year or so I was by I guess seniority, I was declared to be the authorized shipper of the final product out of Hanford. So every one of the shipments, including— I remember one time, the couriers would show up at the backdoor at 234-5. We’re here to take today’s shipment. Okay, sign here. And you got them. So they got sent down to Rocky Flats on a railroad car. It had a code name, Redwood car. It was always kind of parked up in the West Area shop area. Nobody knew what it was, unless you knew what it was. It was a US Mail car. It was painted just, US Mail No entry. I said to one of the couriers, hey, I want to see the inside of your railcar. Oh, yeah, come on up! No problem. Oh! I’ll be up. He took off with the load, and I went and got a car and took off. I got to be in the vault there that was normally off-limits to GE people. They closed the door and a guy sitting at each end of it with a machine gun, and off they went to Rocky Flats on a railcar. So anyway, those are fun little stories. I could probably have a thousand more. But I had fun during my career and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I really would. Franklin: Good. Well, Dennis, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Armstrong: Well, thank you for putting the time into it and the effort. I think it’s a good program. Franklin: Well, good. Thank you. Thank you for contributing. <a href="https://youtu.be/K5g1SgVQMS8">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 700 Area 200 West Area 231-Z Building 234-5 Plutonium Finishing Plant K Reactor 762 Building PUREX Z Plant B Plant REDOX T Plant WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply Systems) Tank Farms N Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1963- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dennis Armstrong Description An account of the resource Dennis Armstrong moved to Richland, Washington in 1963 to work on the Hanford Site as a Mechanical Engineer. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/24/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Spokane (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Mechanical engineering Plutonium industry Plutonium--Metallurgy Nuclear industry Nuclear weapons industry Nuclear weapons plants Nuclear power plants Radioactive waste disposal https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F90627f1dc8d48cfd156af27178b9863d.JPG ca157672f93a9363c189d29f81b4dce6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ted Anderson Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Ted Anderson on May 11, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Ted about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Ted Anderson: [LAUGHTER] Okay. Theodore. Dahlin. Anderson. That’s T-H-E-O-D-O-R-E. D-A-H-L-I-N. A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N. Franklin: Great. Thank you so much. And you prefer Ted, right? Anderson: Yeah, yes. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: Well, there’s a little story here to that. Theodore is a compound name. Theo—it’s from the Greek. Theo is God; Dore is gift. So Theodore is gift of God. Ted, on the other hand, is to spread hay or manure. [LAUGHTER] Okay. Franklin: That’s good. So, Ted, tell me, how and why did you come to the Hanford Site? Anderson: How? Well, I’d had on-campus interview in 1967 with a representative from the Site here. Franklin: And where was this interview? Anderson: University of New Mexico. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: I didn’t take a site trip. But then I went to work for DuPont back in Virginia, and became somewhat unhappy there. Having gone to school in Albuquerque with all sorts of desert, basically, around and mountains and stuff. That’s where Hanford sort of is. So I gave a call to Dr. Watson, who was the recruiter here, and said, you still interested in me? Oh, yeah, when can you get here? So then I came cross-country with my wife, my daughter, and two cars. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: So, that was 1969. Franklin: And when you were—so you did your—which degree did you do at— Anderson: Chemical engineering. Franklin: Chemical engineering, and was that a bachelor’s? Anderson: Yes. Franklin: Okay. So what job did you come to do at Hanford in ’69? Anderson: [LAUGHTER] Came to work at Hanford. They were going to put me—well, I went to work in Tank Farms. But when I started out, all I knew was I was going to work at a nuclear reservation. Which, of course, at the time, there was a lot of secrecy. So they’re not going to tell you a lot until you get here. Franklin: Mm. So not knowing much about what exactly you’d be doing, what attracted you to come work at Hanford? Anderson: Basically, that it was desert, like New Mexico. And it was something new and different. I was probably a bit curious. I liked being in New Mexico where you could see for 50 miles, rather than in Virginia, where you’re lucky if you could see for a quarter of a mile. So, came out here. And of course, when we were first coming down from Spokane, and it’s June, late June coming up on July, and the wife is starting to look at all this brown country, because it’s desert. And she’s sort of looking at me, like, where have you brought us? Anyhow, that’s how I got here. Franklin: I think I and my wife had the same experience when we first moved out here. Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: Where am I? This is not the Washington I signed up for. Anderson: Yeah, where’s this “Evergreen State”? Franklin: So, you eventually went to work in the Tank Farms. So, I’m wondering if you could tell us, quickly, what the Tank Farms are, but then what your job, what your duties were there. Anderson: Well, there was radioactive waste that was created through the processing of spent fuel to get plutonium. The aqueous waste went into underground tanks. They’re nominally in the neighborhood of a million gallons. The first ones were 750,000 and later ones are actual full million gallons, 75 feet in diameter. They were basically concrete tanks with carbon-steel liners. So that’s where the waste went from reprocessing. Franklin: Were these tanks from like the World War II era on? Anderson: Yes. Franklin: Okay, so these were the single-shell— Anderson: Well— Franklin: What were known as the single— Anderson: Later on there were double-shell tanks, but initially what I was looking after was—I think there was some—I don’t remember if there were any double-shell tanks when I first started. There may have been, but— Franklin: So what was your job with the tanks? Anderson: I was shift engineer. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: Rotating shifts. There was a number of units—I had specific responsibility for two of them, which was ITS, In-Tank Solidification Units number 1 and 2. But I covered the entire Tank Farms, both East and West Area. So any time there was issues with waste transfers—they had another evaporator, 242-T, over in West Area. So I would make my rounds of Tank Farm operations. If there was any problems, try to troubleshoot. If it was something I couldn’t troubleshoot, then I’d make a little note of it and turn it in to the powers-that-be at shift change. Franklin: Which contractor was running the Tank Farms when you got here? Anderson: That was the Atlantic-Richfield Hanford Company. Franklin: Okay. So what was the primary—what was the goal of managing—like, when you say managing the tanks, what were the goals of that, what were the outcomes of tank management? Anderson: Oh, we were still producing a lot of aqueous waste. I mean, PUREX was in full operation. B Plant was processing waste to remove the cesium and strontium to try to get to a point where we could solidify waste. So, yeah, we were trying to accommodate the waste from—this is Cold War, of course. So there’s some pressure to make plutonium. Franklin: Sure. Anderson: Although, I think we did way too good a job at it. Eventually, when you think the first bomb was talking about grams, and eventually we produced something over 16 tons, we learned altogether too well how to—but anyhow. For just the start of things, we’re trying to make space for the aqueous waste that’s produced primarily from fuel reprocessing but also from other processes. Franklin: Right, because there were several processes of the waste, right? There were several different chemical—distinct chemical processes for reprocessing spent fuel. Anderson: Oh, yeah, yeah. The first was what was referred to as BiPO-4. That’s bismuth phosphate, Bi-P-O-4. And that, they were just after the plutonium. So that was the initial thing. That’s how we got our plutonium for the first bomb. Then they decided that there was an awful lot of uranium that was going out with the aqueous waste. So they had, among other things, what they called a heavy metal recovery program, where they would reprocess the waste that was already in the tank and try to remove the uranium so it could be made back into fuel assemblies. Franklin: Were the tanks designed for the waste to be pumped in and out of them in this fashion? Anderson: They were made to transfer between tanks. Recovery—because partly what went out was liquid and part of it was solids. The uranium was in the solids, so you had to have some sluicing in the tank. And, no, the tanks were not built with the idea that you would remove solids from them. Franklin: To reprocess. Anderson: To reprocess. We did, but—then there was some over things that—they had what they called a space recovery program. So they hit waste in several tanks in East Area with a cyanide solution that precipitated, pretty quantitatively, the radioactive material out. And then they pumped the supernatant across the road to what they called BC Crib Area, which was open trenches, a specific retention site. The waste was pumped into there until they had—specific retention meant they didn’t want it to go all the way to the groundwater. So they calculate what the soil column could hold. When it reached that level, they moved it. So that was another thing they did. As I said, B Plant was in operation when I got there. There, they were separating the strontium and cesium from tank waste and encapsulating it. At the Waste Encapsulation and Solidification Facility, WESF. Again, the idea was that eventually they wanted to solidify the tanks with the waste inside, and that was going to be the permanent disposal. Which, to tell you a little story here, the initial work they did, they took samples out at the tanks. Very small samples, because it’s hot, radioactively. And they sent it to what was in those days PNL. That’s before they got the extra N. Franklin: Right. Anderson: Then they concentrated it. And they said it was concentrated by a factor of four and allowed to cool. It became a solid mass. Then they extrapolated that, or tried to, to million-gallon tanks. It didn’t really work that way. [LAUGHTER] There was multiple challenges. For instance, ITS-2, which was in Tank 112B-Y, used big immersion heaters, like million-watt immersion heaters, to heat the liquid in the tank and boil it. Then it was moved from 112B-Y to a series of what they called bottoms tanks where it was supposed to cool and solids settle out. We were going to create more space for more waste so we don’t have to build more tank farms. Trouble is it didn’t really happen like that; you had selective precipitation. It didn’t just set up all at once. Certain compounds would settle out and they formed a crust on top of the liquid, which didn’t help with the cooling, because the idea was that this hot stuff would go out into these tanks and the tanks were ventilated and you would evaporate more water. So that didn’t work. Then they put in airlift circulators which were supposed to open up the surface. That worked for a while, but eventually, you get down to maybe ten feet in diameter for the airless circulators. So it was an ongoing challenge. And there was some really funny chemistry. For instance in, well, no, 2B-Y, which was, yeah, in-tank unit 1. I was there; I was in-charge engineer, where we’d take a sample and send it over to the 222-S Lab. Well, the sample—and, you know, you didn’t want to get real close to it. We’d ship it in these pigs, lead-shelled containers. Went over to the lab, and I filled out the sheet that says here’s what the characteristics were, which was a clear, yellow liquid. Then I get a call a couple days later from the lab that says, your sample sheet says it was a clear, yellow liquid. What we’ve got has lots of solids in it. Well, it had cooled, okay? So, you know. Put a magnetic stirrer in it—and this is all going to happen in a hot zone. Put the magnetic stirrer on it and heat it up. Steve Buckingham was the lead engineer then, lead chemist. Bucky as he was fondly known. And he called me up and he said, it’s been on there for two days. Still full of solids. So what had happened, apparently, was there was an irreversible precipitation. In other words, it wasn’t just a compound that precipitated out that could be re-dissolved; there was a chemical reaction that had happened when it cooled. Very strange material, because there were so many chemicals in it—and we tried to replicate the waste so we could do cold testing. They were never able to get physical characteristics and chemical characteristics in the same surrogate. You could mimic the physical characteristics; you could mimic some of the chemical characteristics; but you couldn’t do both in a cold sample. So, yeah, some really strange stuff. Franklin: Yeah, no kidding. Wasn’t—this precipitating out of water, I understand that to kind of get the material to be more of a solid, to save space—would that water have carried any kind of radioactive traces with it as it was precipitating out? Anderson: Oh, yeah. So, as it came off, like, 112B-Y, we had condensers to cool it down. And then the air was put through a HEPA, High Efficiency Particulate Air filters. So that, again, what was released had minimal if any contamination in it. Franklin: Mm. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Anderson: I said, HEPA filters were nominally good for about 106 decontamination factor. So, yeah. It cleaned up the air pretty good. Franklin: Well, that’s good. What would be done with these filters, because I assume after a while they would be radioactive themselves, right? Anderson: Oh, yes, yeah. You could flush them. But ultimately, they didn’t really—there were things that plated out on them that would increase the delta pressure, dp as it was known, to the point where you can’t clean them enough to—and they were only good for maybe six inches dp before they could be ruptured, pulled through. So, yeah, another little story from—there was something called AR Vault, which was used when you recovered stuff from A Farm, AX Farm Tanks, it would go into AR Vault. They were recovering sludge. When they got enough of it, then they would pump it over to B Plant, okay. The way this was set up, there was four tanks in this semi canyon building. There’s a big open door at the end of it, where if you needed to bring equipment in, you could. Okay, well, there’s cover blocks, so once you bring the equipment in, you close the doors, then you could take the cover blocks off. So there’s two different speeds on the HVAC, heating ventilation air conditioning, system. One was the normal, when that door at the end of the thing was closed. And the other was when it’s open, you really crank it up. So I was shift engineer and talking to the operator there. At that point, AR Vault was not actively being used. There was a little lull in our processing. So he’s running on to me, he said, they really need to change those filters out on radiation levels. Not just wait for the differential pressure to go up. And I said, yeah, good point. So I wrote up a little, what we called DSIs. Don’t Say It, write it. I left that for management; said, here’s my recommendation. Well, about three years later, I’m working on low level waste management, and I heard that they quote-unquote sucked the filter at AR Vault. I thought, oh, well, hmm, okay. Not too long after that, I get a call from somebody that said, I’m just reading your memo here. Why didn’t they take action on that? I said, did you look at the date on that? Oh, that was quite a while ago! [LAUGHTER] Because what had happened is, with AR sitting there basically not doing a lot of processing, but you’re still ventilating, still getting some particulate, it kept loading the filters. But the airflow rate was low. So now they’re going to open up the canyon doors and they jack the airflow up. And of course, delta-p is not linear; it’s an asymptotic thing, with airflow. So when they jacked airflow up, it sucked the filter. Well, now, the filter was supposed to be contact-maintained. That is, you could go in and manually take it into a disposal container. Well, as the operator had pointed out, they didn’t change it out on radiation readings, and now it’s too hot to do it manually. So now what they had to do—and we’re talking about a rather large assembly. So now what they had to do is go in a considerable ways away from this filter assembly and open up the line, and build a parallel one and reroute it around to go through a whole new filter thing. And then they had to take the whole old filter thing out and bury it. So, you know, it’s things like that that there tended to be not a lot of thinking about what the potential is. So anyhow. One of the little stories. Franklin: That’s great, that’s a great story. So how long did you work as a Tank Farm shift engineer? Anderson: Well, initially, I did it for—let’s see, ’69 to like sometime in ’72. And then I was on days for a while. And then I think they thought I was a bit persistent on some things. So then they—you know, please don’t throw me in the briar patch—they put me on shift work. I like shift work. You can shop when the stores are not crowded. Things like, we had a popcorn club for the operators. Of course, I’m—you hang out with the operators. So, yeah, they’d buy popcorn in 50-pound bags. They’d buy popcorn in 5-gallon tanks. You paid a couple bucks a month; if you wanted to make popcorn, you went down to CR Vault—CR Tank Farm, rather—and got popcorn and oil and went back to where your lunch room and made popcorn. I mean, it was—there’s a lot of camaraderie when you’re working with people like that. So, yeah. I liked working shift work. When my daughter finally got into school, it was not quite as much fun. Because she and my wife could sort of adjust when she didn’t have to go to school. But then when she was in school, it started getting a little more challenging. But anyhow, that’s—I went back on shiftwork. Worked on shift work probably until, I’m thinking early ’75. Then back on day shift again. And finally, August of ’75, I decided I’d had enough and I quit. Franklin: So you quit the Tank Farm? Anderson: I quit the job. Franklin: Quit the job. Anderson: Yeah. I was, at that point, farming quite a few acres and had some rentals, and was looking forward to just doing my thing, thank you. Franklin: Yeah. Was there a particular incident that led you to quit, or—I’m wondering if you could kind of describe what happened to come to that decision. Anderson: Well, one of the problems was is that, again, management tended to be shortsighted, as in the AR Vault incident. I was told that my resignation letter, it was probably at one time or another in hundreds of files out there because people thought it was such a wonderful letter. But, you know, just—very shortsighted, wouldn’t listen to good technical advice. And again, not well-managed. So I basically out of frustration just said, you know, I don’t think I need this. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Do you think that was particular to the Tank Farm, the tank unit, or would that have been like a contractor-wide issue? Anderson: To some extent, it was contractor-wide. I think the Tank Farms may have been—but then again, maybe it’s just because I had that personal knowledge of Tank Farms. Franklin: Sure. Anderson: Because there was other things that—it was always a short-term solution. Not looking out and saying, okay, how’s this going to work ten years from now, 20 years from now? It was more like, how is this going to work next month. So anyhow, yeah. And then of course eventually I went back to work for PNL. I was doing the initial waste vitrification demonstration. Franklin: So, tell me, how did you come to go back to work—you said you wanted to kind of do your own thing for—you know. But how did you end up coming back to waste management? Anderson: [LAUGHTER] Well, I was drawing unemployment because I had—well, another story. I quit and then I filed for unemployment and ARCO was going to dispute that. And I thought, oh, good, because I had lots of documentation of not being employed to use my chemical engineering education. Which is, you know, if you quit with cause and you can demonstrate the cause, you get unemployment. You have to wait seven weeks, or you did then, but you—you know. So I had done that. Then the wife and I—there was supposed to be a hearing in, I think, December. And the wife and I had gone off to Hawaii for a little bit of vacation. Came back, and lived in Benton City at that time, which had no home delivery of mail. You had to be a post office box. So we went up to the post office box, and here’s a stack of unemployment checks. ARCO dropped their—apparently, they decided that they didn’t want to get any legal go-arounds. So then I drew unemployment for as long as I could. When I got into my final 13-week unemployment thing, they were really insisting that I do some serious interviewing. Of course, I have to confess that one of the things that I thought made me unemployable was I had tried to unionize the engineers. [LAUGHTER] Anderson: Yeah, okay. Franklin: Yeah, that kind of will sometime earn the ire of management. Anderson: Well, they wouldn’t have dared to do anything like fire me, but they wouldn’t have dared to do anything like hire me back. Franklin: Right, right. Anderson: So anyhow I was interviewing with Jack McElroy, who was PNL. And they wanted me to help with—they were doing a waste vitrification demonstration project. They needed help, and I had a lot of background. He said, all I ask is one thing: promise you won’t engage in any unionizing activities—organizing activities. And I said, you got it. So, then I was working for PNL. Franklin: So, sorry, I’m very curious. I want to go back a bit because you just mentioned this unionizing thing now. What led you to that kind of activism when you were at your job at ARCO? Why did you try to unionize? Anderson: Because other people were having the same problems I was. The people—good people tended to be leaving. So your overall quality of the people you work with can tend to go down with times. And there’s a lot of people that, you’d talk, and they’d talk, but they don’t do anything. And I’ve never been one to—if you’re going to talk the talk, walk the walk. So I got together, we—what was it, the Hanford Employees—anyhow, we had a whole bunch of people with names that were interested in doing this. We quickly decided that we really couldn’t afford to do this if we were being challenged in court, because we didn’t have the resources. So then we contacted some professional unions, for instance, Boeing, their union. Their engineers are unionized, and we talked with them. Campbell’s Soup Company, of all things, was unionized and had their technical people in that. So, yeah, we were moving down that road. One of the things that stopped us was we didn’t want to be sucked up into another organization. It was beginning to look like you’re going to have trouble maintaining your independence if you get the help you need to fight the corporate people. Franklin: Right, because they’re going to want—another union would want your membership to bolster their ranks. Anderson: Yeah, and of course, none of them really understood Hanford, which was going to be another problem. So, that was basically—we said, no, this probably, it’s not the right time, maybe it’s not the right—you know. But apparently we had scared the tar out of management. I was told that there was some really serious conferences down in the Federal Building, fondly known as the Fed Shed, of people wondering what to do if we actually officially tried to unionize. I didn’t know I’d caused all that consternation, but—[LAUGHTER] Franklin: I guess word about you had spread. Anderson: Well, actually, there was three of us. I’m trying to think who the other two were. I can’t think of their names just offhand. But we actually were on TV, interviewed. You know, this is what we’re thinking about. Okay. But they’d say, these are engineers you’re working with who tend to be horribly practical. You know, you look down the road and you say, you know, I don’t know how this is going to work, and if we give up our independence, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to attract enough people to really get a viable vote. So we finally said, okay. Heavy sigh. But meanwhile, they made some changes for the engineering. Because engineering wage increases had been lagging the craftworkers, the union members. They were getting like 5, 6% a year, and we were getting like 4%. Which was one of the sticking point, you know. The squeaky wheel gets oiled, so let’s us be a squeaky wheel. Franklin: Do you know of any other—I assume you did your research in some of these other companies. Did you find any other atomic sites that had had engineers that had unionized? Anderson: Not that I recall, no. I’m sorry. There was one other professional union we had talked to. I want to say that maybe it was 3M but I don’t recall. I know Campbell’s and Boeing were the two for sure that we talked to. Franklin: Yeah, Campbell’s is very interesting. I wouldn’t have— Anderson: Oh, and United Auto Workers, also. That was another one. Franklin: Ah. Anderson: They’re union—their engineers were unionized. So yeah. Franklin: Cool, well, thank you. I’d not heard of that attempt before, so it’s really, that’s interesting. Anderson: Oh, okay, well, good. Franklin: One last question, too, before we go to your time at PNNL, about the Tank Farms. I’m getting the sense that, from your perspective, that there was much more of a—that tank waste management at that time was more about finding more room for waste to continue production than it was about ensuring the safety—or kind of the safety and stability of the tanks. Or, it seemed like there was more short-term focus than long-term planning. Anderson: Well, yeah. Franklin: Because that waste would have to sit there. Was there any talk of where that waste would go? Whether it be a repository or what would happen to it? Anderson: No, the assumption was it was going to be solidified in the tanks and left. Franklin: Oh. Really? Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. As in—from an engineer’s perspective, would that have been a feasible project? Anderson: It would’ve taken—for instance, what you wound up with, with the successive evaporations, is a very caustic solution. When it cools it doesn’t really solidify, it just gets thick. Sodium hydroxide, basically, lye. So one of the things that was talked about was the fact you get the tank to a certain point and you load it up with grout, cement, basically. We also did some experiments with fly ash, because that would absorb liquid. But again, in those days, there was no talk of the waste coming out of the tanks. Vitrification was not on the table. Franklin: Had there been any—had all the tanks maintained their stability at that point? Had there been any— Anderson: Oh, no, no. I’ll tell you the story about the tar rings. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: Okay. I say, these tanks are basically concrete tanks with carbon steel liners. Okay, well, we were developing in-tank photography. A good friend of mine, Jerry Everett, was the lead on that. He was with PNL, a photographer. So they developed techniques for lowering a camera into the tank and rotating it. So you got—and you could build a montage of the interior of the tank. Well, about the second tank they did that to, you could see there were black rings around certain points. Okay. Well, the tanks between the carbon steel and the cement was mastic, as they called it—tar. Because that was meant to basically seal it tight between the—okay. Well, now, if you’re seeing tar, that indicates that the carbon steel integrity is gone. Okay. And it was all sorts of theories about how that could happen. Potentially, they talked about microorganisms that could withstand the radiation and oxidize. And of course, young engineer and I expounding on some of these to one of the old operators. And he said, iron-loving biota, my ass. Oh? What happened? He says, they just jumped an un-neutralized batch out. Because the processing was done on the acid side. And then you hit it with caustics so it would be compatible with the carbon steel. And he said, so, you know, if you didn’t get the caustic added to the batch, it would go out to the tank, it would potentially float on the surface and eat up the carbon steel. And I said, so, is that written down some place? And he looked at me like I was an idiot. He said, hell no! I said, what did you do? Put the caustic down the pipe after it! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: With no mixing. Anderson: No. Of course, then the record shows you’ve used caustic. Here’s, we used however many gallons. [LAUGHTER] Okay, so there’s stories like that that I’m sure nobody would really want to admit, even today, but that’s what the operators said occasionally happened. You’d send an un-neutralized batch out. Of course, there was other things that went on. Like, S-X Farm over in West Area. It had initially been bottoms tanks for REDOX. And then they decided that they were going to try to use them further. REDOX was the first solvent extraction predecessor to PUREX. So the material that was coming out, then, was a lot more concentrated as far as radionuclides. Well, they were in a hurry to build the S-X tanks; because REDOX was coming online, you need a place to put that stuff. So the earlier tanks were built with a slightly convex/concave, whichever way you look at it, bottom, so it was a bit rounded on the bottom. Well, S-X, they built them flat, because it was faster. I mean, trying to weld carbon steel and get that—okay. Well, then, lo and behold, here’s this really hot waste, sludge, in the bottom of the tank. And of course, the concrete has some residual moisture in it. It evaporated the residual moisture and the tanks buckled up like this. Franklin: And cracked, right? Anderson: Well, cracks formed. They buckled up as much as eight feet. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: Well, it’s a 75-foot-diameter tank. Franklin: Sure, yeah, yeah. Anderson: But, yeah. So that was another thing. Eventually, what they did was try to move as much supernatant from the tanks that had the—it was 108S-X and 107S-X, I think. Franklin: So had they been concave, would they have buckled? Anderson: Nah. Well, likely not. Because you’ve got a lot of weight from the aqueous and the sludge. So the moisture probably would have, under some pressure, worked its way out. But, you know. They were in a hurry. Franklin: Right, got to have somewhere to— Anderson: Put. It’s the Cold War. We’re thinking we’re going to be in a nuclear war with Russia any time soon, so— Franklin: It’s so interesting to me that now we’ve been in this cleanup mode for almost three decades. It’s the constant topic of conversation and planning for the future and worrying, and it seems like that’s the complete opposite of the first 40 or so years, when waste was always the after thought and the idea was, well, let’s just make more room so we can pack more of it down there. It’s always like we’ll get to this later, like, constantly tabled issue. Anderson: You just keep pushing it off, pushing it off, because we have our short-term priorities. Franklin: Right. I think it’s hard for people now to understand, how couldn’t they have been planning? Understanding, knowing the basic science of how long these radioisotopes would take to decay, but then also knowing the chemicals that were used in this process, you know. Anderson: Well, one of the things that was explained to me and it makes perfect sense is, there was no experience, no history. So what they did was followed standard industrial practice. If it’s no good anymore, you bury it. Again, without the experience, what they had to go on was what had been going on forever in industry. So just transfer that to the nuclear side. Franklin: No, it’s perfectly rational. In its own way. But I guess with hindsight, it’s like, wow. Anderson: Well, hindsight is always 20/20. Franklin: Right, it’s kind of a scary rational decision in some ways. Anderson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: So in ’85, right, you—no, sorry, before that. Anderson: ’75. Franklin: ’75 you went to work at— Anderson: PNL. Franklin: This kind of new—was vitrification a new—was this kind of an emerging idea then, or was it already established for nuclear waste? Anderson: It was emerging. This was some of the work that supported DWPF, Defense Waste Processing Facility, back at Savanna River. Which I became intimately involved with. It was—yeah. I spent a good part of my life working on waste vitrification design and startup. Franklin: So the idea, then, instead of removing moisture, putting in tanks, is to turn the waste into a solid and encapsulate it, correct? Anderson: Yeah. It’s a vitreous product, glass. And then, well, Savanna River’s using these two-foot diameter stainless steel, that eventually, the intent is that it goes to a repository. But some of the early work looked at, what’s the place over in Africa where they had the natural reactor? Franklin: Oh, I can’t—I know— Anderson: It’s Oklo, or something like that? Franklin: Something like that, yeah. Anderson: Anyhow, what they found is that there’s enough heat there that a lot of material was vitrified. Now you go back thousands and thousands—hundreds of thousands of years later, and it’s still there. It hasn’t migrated. So yeah, you put it in glass and it’s not going anywhere. So that was the earlier work in. What PNL was doing was chop-leech of commercially irradiated—from West Valley, as I recall. Franklin: And that’s in New York, right? Anderson: Yeah. We brought them here, disassembled them, chop-leeched the fuel elements, dissolved out the— Franklin: So, sorry, what was that word you just said, chop leech? Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: What—can you— Anderson: Oh, okay. What you did is there’s—and I did the design for this. The fuel assemblies are fairly complicated, typically like a 12x12 array. But it varies depending on whether it’s a PWR, BWR, and those change at times. But developed techniques to take the head plate off so you can get at the fuel rods. And then you had a little clamping device comes out and pulls it into a hydraulic press. So you pull it like four inches through, you chop off two inches. You pull it another four inches through—so you get two two-inch pieces with each chop. Then it falls from there directly into a tank where you leech out or dissolve out the uranium and plutonium, whatever’s there. Then that’s going to be mixed with glass formers and turned into glass logs. Franklin: Okay. And this is done with the old, with the fuel rods? Anderson: Yes. Franklin: Okay. And so West Valley sent these rods to PNNL? Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: West Valley was shut down. And they didn’t quite know what to do with the spent assemblies that were already there. So we helped them get rid of a couple of them. Franklin: Right. Was West Valley, was that a commercial—those commercial power reactors? Anderson: Yeah, it was intended to be a commercialization of fuel reprocessing. There were two places in the Untied States where that was supposed to be. That was basically a prototype. I mean, it was going to be commercial, but—and then the Morris Plant, GE’s Morris Plant, which was in Illinois. Morris Plant never got beyond early testing. They got it contaminated, but not badly. West Valley actually had processed fuel. And the problem there was that the powers-that-be kept changing the rules. They built the plant to the rules that existed at the time they built it. And then the government changed the rules, and then they tried to update. And the government changes the rules again. And they finally just sort of threw up their hands, and—Bechtel, actually, was the company that built West Valley. Franklin: Oh, okay. Anderson: So they had some pretty practical knowledge of what was in there. In fact, I worked with a guy, Jack Nelson, who was one of the chief engineers on that. And Jack is still alive, down in the San Francisco Bay area. He occasionally sends little humorous things with another friend of mine down there who shares them with me. Franklin: Oh, that’s cool. So how come PNNL or PNL then, I guess—it seems like there’d be a national lab much closer to West Valley to send those— Anderson: Well, it wasn’t initially to process West Valley. We needed fuel assemblies. And they started casting around for where we might get them. Commercial reactors weren’t necessarily—they still had the idea that they were going to be able to reuse them. So we’d get them for free, basically, I think the idea was we’d pay shipping. Franklin: I’d imagine still is no small feat for used fuel assemblies. Anderson: Yeah. Anyhow, yeah, that’s how we got— Franklin: So how come that—why was the decision made to start vitrification with this commercial or reprocessing fuel assemblies rather than something at Hanford, like some sort of waste from Hanford? Anderson: Well, first of all, the Hanford waste, a lot of it, was slugs. Okay, if you look at what was in B Reactor, C Reactor, the earlier reactors, they weren’t fuel assemblies. What they had is tubes that they loaded metallic slugs in, I think they were like two feet long. Anyhow, if you go out to—you know about BRMA, B Reactor Museum Association? Franklin: Yeah, I’m actually a member, a board member of BRMA. Anderson: Okay, well, I’m a member. I pay my dues, but— Franklin: Okay. Anderson: So you can see there what the fuel slugs look like. Franklin: Yeah, we have some of those in our collection. Anderson: Yeah. Cold ones, but— Franklin: Yes, yes. We do not have hot ones. Let me just say that on camera: we do not have actual— Anderson: Radioactive materials. Franklin: We have the testers and the displays. Anderson: So anyhow, those weren’t really conducive to—because we were looking for something to apply to commercial nuclear fuel. What existed at Hanford was—it wasn’t going to be typical. Franklin: So these fuel assemblies then, are maybe similar to the Fast Flux stuff where they were these longer rods, okay. Anderson: Well, what they were was, again, as I recall, don’t quote me on this, but, like, 20-feet long, and a 12x12 array. There were spacers and cooling tubes. It came as an assembly that would slip into a reactor. Franklin: Gotcha. Anderson: When they did their refueling. Franklin: Okay, okay, thanks. All my experience with reactors is with out here. So I kind of forget about the—I forget how different commercial is from—or reprocessing is from the Hanford stuff. Anderson: Yeah. And of course, the commercial fuel is burned up a lot higher. Franklin: Right. Anderson: Because—I’m probably telling you what you already know, but, really, you didn’t want to irradiate the fuel too far at Hanford, because your 239 starts becoming 241 and pretty soon you wind up with something that won’t go boom. Franklin: Right. But in commercial you want that long-sustained. Anderson: You want to burn it up as long as you can because you paid a lot for it. Franklin: Right, right. Yeah, I think that’s something maybe that a lot of people don’t understand is how different those processes are. You don’t make bomb material in a commercial reactor. It doesn’t—it’s the exact opposite. Anderson: No. Well, initially, if you take a fuel assembly that’s just been installed for a few months and you pull that out, you potentially could process it to get it up to Pu-239 to go boom. 239, 238? It’s 239, I’m pretty sure. Franklin: Close enough. Pu. Anderson: Close enough for government work. Franklin: So in ’75 you start working on this waste vitrification. What did your—what was the outcome of the project? Was it a success? What did you produce? Anderson: I actually left before they actually—I designed the stuff, watched the stuff get built, and then I went off job shopping and wound up back out at Hanford, working on low level waste for Hank McGuire. Franklin: Okay, and how come you left PNNL before the project got underway? Anderson: Okay, well, initially PNL was a great company to work for. Ev Irish was the guy that was in charge of the whole thing. There was an awful lot there that was totally novel, and he just said, figure it out. Yes, sir. I mean, that’s—so I, for instance, was back Midwest, checking on the press operators. Things like zirconium, which was fuel cladding. But it is pyrophoric, so you do some research and say, we’re going to be storing these casings. There had been reports of fires starting in zirconium. It’s fun stuff. You’d get a casing and you scrape it along concrete, and it sparks. Just—it can be fun! Franklin: Sure, sure. Anderson: Anyhow, and they had flex time. You had to be there core hours, which was 10:00 in the morning to 2:00 in the afternoon. So I’m doing things like getting there at 6:00 in the morning and leaving at 2:30. Get my eight in. And then I could get my boat out on the water, sailboat. You know, it was great. I was given a lot of free reign. Then they decided we’re going into pretty much production mode and they got this guy in from GE’s Morris Plant, who was pretty much the north end of worse going south. And he said to me, what hours are you working? And I said, 6:00 to 2:30. Well, you need to work the same hours as everyone else. Well, we have flex time. Well, we’re not going to have flex time. Okay. That’s just one of the—he was a butt. Franklin: Sure. Anderson: And I had pretty much got my design in place, and I thought, let’s do something else. Franklin: Sure. Anderson: I’m not a patient soul; I tend to be restless. Next challenge, thank you. Franklin: And, okay. So then you said you went and shopped. When was this, that you left? Anderson: Gee, I went back to work in, it was ’76. I was there for a little less than two years. So it would’ve been ’77, ’78, I went back out. Well, I’d signed up with Butler R. Day, and I thought maybe I’d go someplace interesting like Oak Ridge. But they wouldn’t tell you where, you know. It’s a nuclear thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You see my resume; I can do that. And they said, okay, here’s where you’re going. I don’t think they’d looked at where I was at. They said, you know, if you have to commute more than 50 miles, then you’d get mileage. It’s about 25 miles, I’m sorry, I don’t get no mileage. But you know I’d signed up and it was good money. I mean, in the day it was—no real bennies, but $15 an hour in 1978, considering the minimum wage was considerably less than that. So I did that for six months. Then because they couldn’t hire you away from Butler R. Day until at least six months. And then basically as soon as my six months were—here, sign here. Okay, sure. Yeah, I was apparently appreciated. Franklin: Oh, good. So what were you doing? You said after PNL you left and went back to Hanford. Anderson: Low level radioactive waste management. Franklin: Low level—and what is that, specifically? Break that down for me in layman’s terms. Anderson: Okay. There’s all sorts of sites where contaminated liquids and solids had been disposed of, just in the ground. Cribs, specific retention sites, just—you know. Things like where there was a canal from B Plant that went out to a cooling pond. And then they had the Cell A incident at B Plant which resulted in a large strontium release. And so now that canal is contaminated all the way out. So what they do is they put a lot of dirt on it and dig a new one and we move on. But now it’s a low level waste site. So as I recall there’s close to 400 of them. Franklin: At Hanford? Anderson: Well, no, at 200 East and West. Franklin: 400 of them at 200 East and West. Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: And this is just a mix of like contaminated ground and— Anderson: Yeah, canal—liquids. Again, some stuff buried. It was a lot of liquids. Cribs and so forth. Cribs and spills. Franklin: Sure. And the cribs were just to—were these usually just like holding facilities? Anderson: No, no. Basically, it was to dispose of slightly contaminated aqueous water. And the idea was that the Hanford soil is a very good ion exchanger. And the water table’s like 200 feet down. So by the time that this waste gets to the water, it’s been cleaned up. Franklin: Like a natural filter. Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: But then— Anderson: That leaves the ground contaminated. Franklin: Right, then the filter’s contaminated, yeah. Not the water, but you contaminate the soil. Anderson: Yeah, well, the idea was that nobody’s ever going to live there, so, you know, they’re not going to be punching wells down in 200-East 200-West Area. Franklin: Well, I would hope not. Anderson: Yeah. So you know, that was considered—and I think I mentioned the specific retention sites with the stuff that they weren’t sure if it could be held up by the soil column. They would pump enough liquid in to saturate the soil column without reaching the water table. Franklin: Interesting. Anderson: Of course, I have to tell you another little story from back in my early days in Tank Farm. There was a tank in C Farm, I want to say it’s 103-C, which was OWW, that’s organic wash waste receiver from PUREX. Because PUREX, part of their process used NPH, normal paraffin hydrocarbon. And they liked to reuse that because it was expensive, so they would aqueous wash it. And then the aqueous wash would go out to 103-C. Well, there was some small amount of organic entrained over time. And then they were going to send 103-C, pump its feed over to my ITS-2 unit. You don’t want organic in—it was going to be above the flashpoint. So if you accidentally got organic in there, you could have a real nasty incident. Franklin: What—such as? Anderson: Explosion. Franklin: Oh, okay. That’s pretty nasty. Anderson: Yeah, you’d get it up to the flashpoint, and then all it took was an ignition source. Franklin: Okay. Gotcha. Anderson: So they’d taken a sample of 103-C, sent it over to the lab, and then said, that sample was all NPH. What? Again, this is crude sampling; you drop a bottle down to the tank liquid, let it sink until it gets filled and pull it up. And then rinse it off, put it in a lead pig, and send it down to the lab. So they said, oh, okay, that’s not good. We don’t want to pump that stuff to a hot environment. So then I was given a task—this would’ve been 1970, ’71—of finding out how much organic there was in 103-C. And I was given a magnificent budget of $250,000. Which in today’s money you could probably put a couple zeroes after that. And they were talking about things like radar and sonar. So now I have a problem, what to do. I’m working graveyards and—what is the difference between the—let’s see, the aqueous phase has a specific gravity of about 1.12. The organic is like 0.8. So there’s a big difference in the density, specific gravity. How would you—huh, Mr. Archimedes, buoyancy, yeah. So I sketched up a little thing that would go through a 12-inch riser. Plywood disk, appropriately weighted with enough lead plate so that it would sink. And put an eyebolt through the whole thing. So I had it sketched up and went down in the bowels of B Plant, to the shops, and said, could you build something like that? Yeah, where’s your work order? It’s just a piece of plywood. Why do I—? Let me take a look at it. So about two hours later, I get a call: are you going to come pick this up or not? Yeah, I’ll be right there. [LAUGHTER] Well, then, I was too lazy to write a test plan. So I waited until the weekend and my shift supervisor, as I recall, was Dean Curtis, known fondly as Curly because he was bald. So I said this is what I want to do in C Farm. Can you get me a couple operatives to--? Oh, yeah, sure. So, we took the riser cover off, had a tape and a fish scale and lowered it down. You can see when—as soon as you hit the liquid, the weight decreases pretty dramatically. And you keep lowering it, slowly, against the side of the riser with the tape. And then it gets a lot lighter as it hits the aqueous phase. And I had them repeat it. I’m taking numbers down. I had them repeat it five, six times, just to make sure it was good to within half-an-inch. But we had like 11 inches of organic on top of the aqueous. Okay, and then, yeah, let’s clean up here. Of course, now, the tape is contaminated, the plywood disk and the lead are contaminated, and the operators are whining about, well, now we’re going to have to wash that down and bag it out. I get the fish scale out. Oop! I dropped it. Oh my goodness. Ha, ha, ha. So it’s in the tank. Okay. So we button it up, I go back and write out my report and turn it in. Pissed my lead off to no end, because I didn’t spend any of the $250,000. The point I’m making here is the tanks were generally seen as, if you got something that you needed to get rid of out in the Tank Farm, open up a riser and put it in. Franklin: Right, because it’s all just so messed up down there anyway. Anderson: Yeah, or, we’re never going to get that stuff out of there, so why—So there were cement blocks, you know—that I know of! Now, Lord knows what went in there that I don’t know of. Okay, but that’s an ancestral story that—you probably shouldn’t let someone like me work shiftwork. Franklin: That’s a great story. Thank you. And so how long did you work as a low level waste engineer? Anderson: Until June of 1980. So probably close to two years. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: Yeah, a lot of that was we had a subcontractor, Ford, Bacon & Davis down in Utah, Salt Lake City. So a lot of what I was doing was going back and forth. Because what they were supposed to be doing was writing this massive report. Franklin: On the low level waste? Anderson: Sites, yeah. Franklin: Yeah. Anderson: Well, it turned out I probably wrote half of it myself, because they had been chosen on the buddy system I think. We had competitive bidding and they changed the rules in order for Ford, Bacon & Davis to get it. Franklin: I see. Anderson: Nice people, but the one really good guy, shortly after we got into this, they sent him off to Washington, DC. Paul something was his name. Good guy. But so anyhow, then we’d gotten that well underway. It was actually in DOE’s hands for approval. Meanwhile, I was separated from my wife. I’d gotten involved with a young lady who was attending Mills College down in Oakland, and then ran across an ad in Nuclear News from Bechtel looking for someone with vitrification experience. Which I had from PNL. The next thing you know, I’m headed for Bechtel in San Francisco. Franklin: Oh, wow, what a change. Anderson: Yeah, it was—I’d never lived in the big city before. Well, Rochester, New York, but it was on campus. Franklin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anderson: So now I’m taking public trans, you know. I was a serious runner at that point. And around here, a good part of the year you don’t have any races. Maybe you have one every month or so. In the Bay Area, there’s races every weekend. You could be really picky. I tended to pick the ones that had beer afterwards. Anyhow, that was—I had a very lovely time working for Bechtel, a great company. They took good care of me. When I first moved there, they’d given me a raise, a little bit less than 8%. But basically the guy I was directly reporting to, the chief, technically reporting to, had said, if Bechtel likes what you do, you’re not going to be able to change jobs to your financial advantage. Okay. So when they hired me, I said, okay, I remember that. About six months later, I got a 19% raise. So yeah. Franklin: That’s pretty good. Anderson: Yes, it’s a vote of confidence. It’s like, yeah, I like this. Franklin: That’s great. So you were doing vitrification work down there. Anderson: Yeah, doing the initial design work for Defense Waste Processing Facility. Franklin: At Savanna River. Anderson: At Savanna River, yeah. Franklin: So then you—but left San Francisco after a while and you came back to Richland? Anderson: I was—well, yeah. It was about five years there. We pretty much wrapped up—I wouldn’t say wrapped up, because we never wrapped up. But had the bulk of the design done, and they were going to shift things back to Savanna River. And being a process engineer, my engineering work tends to be at the front-end. Piping in instrument documents and things like that. Once I got those out the door, then you’re talking to your civil structural whatever people. So the job in San Francisco was winding down. That was in the mid-‘80s. We were in a bit of an economic slump. There wasn’t a lot of work in the Bay Area. DuPont said they wanted me to work for them back in Savanna River, because apparently they liked me, too. So then I filled out an application there. My old boss up here, Hank McGuire, I’d put down as a reference. And he said, if you’re looking for a job, why wouldn’t you look here? Okay, I didn’t know that—Oh, yeah! So then, the wife was going to start an advertising agency. She’s from the Tri-Cities. Wife, at that point. And said, it’d be a lot easier to start an ad agency where you know the territory, rather than going to the east coast where—so I took the job here at Hanford. So, yeah, that was lots of fun. Franklin: And what did you do this time around? Anderson: Oh, my goodness, what did we do? Well, it was more back on the low level waste stuff again. Trying to— Franklin: It says here in my notes that Jillian wrote down that you came to work on the Vitrification Plant before going to Savanna River to work on— Anderson: Oh, okay, yeah, that’s what. Yeah, the earlier—thank you for reminding me, because I’m going—At that point, it was called HWVP, Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant. Or, as the Indian manager called it, H-W-Wee-P. Had trouble with those Vs. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Anderson: He was a perfect example of—spoke good English, but idiomatic English? That’s difficult. So we who worked for him kept a little quotable quotes. Things like “a whole new ball of games.” And “out in the boondoggles.” Some of them were quite descriptive, I thought. Franklin: Yeah, that seems to be. Anderson: But he just was not doing very good with idiomatic English and he shouldn’t have been trying! Anyhow, that’s—yeah, HWVP. Franklin: And what is HWVP? Anderson: Well, that was just a precursor to vitrifying Hanford waste. That was a limited scope. They were not—the current one, Vit Plant, is supposed to basically address all the tank waste. HWVP was focused on high level waste. Franklin: And where was high level waste—what defines high level waste? Anderson: Boiling waste tanks. Franklin: Boiling waste tanks. Anderson: Yeah. But it was, again, very poorly managed. It was supposed to be just a duplicate of DWPF. Well, DWPF nominally was built for $620 million. They were still pouring concrete on startup money. So the actual cost was closer to a billion. Now, we’re going to build HWVP for $620 million just using the same drawings, which—it was so incredibly stupid. First of all, source term for Savanna River for exposure was for continuous exposure was 0.5 mR per hour. For intermittent was 5. Okay. For Hanford, it was .2 and 2. Different criteria. On top of that, the Hanford source term is roughly twice as radioactive as DWPF. So now that your shielding, it’s just not going to work. So you’re going to have to redesign all your shielding, which means you’re going to have to redesign all your m beds, which means—and that’s just one fallacy. Franklin: Sure. How come the radiation standards were so different between the two facilities? Anderson: Part of it is that, of course, DWPF was meant to support hydrogen bomb. So the stuff just wasn’t burned up as far and the waste wasn’t as hot. Where, Hanford, boiling waste tanks were screaming hot. PUREX was a very good process at minimizing the amount of aqueous waste you’re producing. Franklin: So it’s all concentrated. Anderson: Yeah, and screaming hot. Franklin: And screaming hot. Because you’ve concentrated all those isotopes once you’ve removed the water that the aqueous— Anderson: Yeah. Well, some of it. Franklin: Some of it, right. Anderson: So, yeah, the boiling waste tanks were self-concentrating. Franklin: Because the heat keeps evaporating— Anderson: Liquid. It boils, and you have to deal with—so you’ve got condensers on the off-gas. And of course the HEPA filters. But yeah, source term—well, and the source terms were very conservative. They looked at the worst stuff we had in the boiling waste tank and said you’ve got to design to that. And of course, we engineers said, well, why wouldn’t you mix that with—we don’t know that that can be done or will be done. You have to design to the highest possible. Right, okay. Franklin: And so, given these challenges, what happened with the Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant? Did it get built? Anderson: Oh, no, no, no. Nothing ever—it just kept getting screwier and screwier. So eventually I wound up back at Savanna River. Took a temporary assignment there with Bechtel. Well, story here. I’m working happily—well, working and getting paid happily, okay—here at Hanford. Westinghouse was the contractor at that point. So they put a notice up on the board that Westinghouse had gotten the new contract at Savanna River. Of course, Bechtel was a subcontractor to it in the announcement. So there was a good friend of mine with Bechtel in San Francisco, Vick [unknown]. So I picked up the phone to call Vick and congratulate him. No answer. I just hung up the phone like this, and it rings. Picked it up, and it’s Vick calling from Savanna River. Well, they’re going to have to be staffing up because DuPont’s engineers are leaving, Westinghouse is not taking over that part, so Bechtel is supposed to pick that up. And do I know anybody who might be interested in--? At that point, I was rather frustrated with HWVP. And I said, talk to me. So they did and I went back there on a temporary assignment. While there got divorced from the second wife. So then, okay, roll over to a permanent position there at Savanna River. I went back there as EGS, engineering group supervisor. So I had as many as, what, 38 FTEs reporting to me. FTE is full-time equivalents. Franklin: Yeah. Anderson: Okay. Franklin: Been here not that long, but long enough to have picked up some of the acronyms. Anderson: Okay. So then I was at that for a couple years, then they moved me up to task manager, which is multi-discipline. Then I ran the project thing, late wash project design, conceptual design report. Which typically was going to take two years for novel technology. They said you’ve got six months. We got it done! And then I was manager of design completion engineering—I forget what, the title is about this long. No more money, but the title was about—[LAUGHTER] So, yeah, that was—and then, again, that job’s winding down, and— Franklin: As the plant was being built? Anderson: Yeah. So they say, oh, don’t worry about it, you’ll be the one turning out the lights. No. I don’t see myself as the electrician turning out the lights. So then I transferred with Bechtel to southern California. They supposedly had a couple things they were going to—because I’m now a professional engineer in the State of California. There isn’t that many professional chemical engineers. It’s a rather rigorous exam to do that. Like, all day. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: Two four-hour sessions. Pass rate the year I took it was 27%. Okay. So they thought I would be valuable. Well, they were going to have me on a clean air project with ARCO. And ARCO delayed that part of it. Then they had another one that, oh, yeah, we got this one in the bag. They didn’t get it. So now I’m looking at another—I’m scrambling to find a couple hours a day worthwhile. There was another friend of mine, a honcho with MACTEC, and got hold of him and said, how are things looking? He said, want to come to work for us? Potentially. So I wound up here with MACTEC. That was in ’93. Franklin: What did MACTEC do? Anderson: They were supposed to be in-house consultants to DOE. Franklin: For? Anderson: The entire Site. Franklin: Oh, okay. Anderson: What eventually it turned into was staff augmentation for DOE. Which wasn’t supposed to be the way it was done, but DOE needed people, and the funding process was not giving them what they needed to hire to directly. So they used MACTEC. So, yeah, worked that for a couple years. Franklin: And what did you do there? Anderson: Basically, anything I was told to do. But a lot of document reviews of things produced by the contractor. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: I did, well, at one time or another—another little corporate story here—I was on a team that was reviewing the safety analysis for a new tank farm. They made a flat-out statement that they’d covered all the safety aspects. And I said, bullshit? You don’t ever use absolutes like that. Because there’s always going to be something you didn’t think of. Oh, no, they thought of everything. I said, well, let me tell you something you probably haven’t thought of. You allow pickup trucks to drive out in the Tank Farm, right? Yeah. You have risers down to the tank, the tank’s under a slight vacuum. So there’s air leakage in through the riser that keeps the contamination from spreading. Yeah. I said, trucks—vehicles have been known to develop gasoline leaks. So now you have a pickup out in the Tank Farm, parked over a riser, leaking gasoline, fumes are being drawn into the tank. How long does it take before you have a flammable mixture in the tank? Oh. [LAUGHTER] I said, now—I said, you can do the—talk to maintenance. How often do they have to fix leaky fuel systems? You know, you can come up with some odds on this. Well, then, my part of the thing was done on our review. And I had scolded him for, don’t ever tell me you have covered all the safety things. Okay. Well, they never built the tank farm. They decided they were going to be able to get by with space recovery programs, whatever. And it was a couple years later that I was telling that story to a group of, well, actually I think the AICHE meeting. And this one lady said, you! What? Well, it turned out that they had taken my scenario very seriously and banned trucks from driving out in Tank Farms. So that makes things definitely—well, you need a special permit. Used to be you could just drive in areas that weren’t contaminated. Then you had to have a special permit and fill out all sorts of paperwork to get a truck out in the Tank Farm. She thought I was the cause for all that extra work. [LAUGHTER] Anderson: So anyhow. Franklin: Oh, that’s awesome. So you were kind of like a consultant for Tank Farm? Anderson: Mainly, it was Tank Farms, yeah, but it was whatever was going on that—documents produced by the contractor or oversight of problem/solutions. You know, report back to DOE, how is this going. Franklin: Sure. And then it says here that then you went back to the Vit Plant. Anderson: Yeah, well again, that was—a bit of a segue way. I got a call from San Francisco and said that they—Westinghouse had an RFP out, request-for-proposal for close to a billion dollars in Tank Farm upgrades over ten years. They wanted me to be like a one-man office here to spearhead that as things got underway. And they bumped me up to a Grade 28, you know. Okay, sure, why not? I mean, it wasn’t that I didn’t like working for MACTEC, but this seemed like a great opportunity. So, yeah, I took over and had a little office downtown. Franklin: In San Francisco? Anderson: No, downtown Richland. Franklin: Oh, Richland. Anderson: Yeah. Right there in the Parkway. So then Westinghouse started fudging, and they finally took the RFP off the table and said they’d do it in-house. So now I’m up here. And so they said—and, BNFL had the vitrification contract at that time. Bechtel was seconded to. So they said, you can either roll over to the Vit Plant or you can come back to San Francisco. And I said San Francisco, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I think I’m good. So I went to work on the Hanford Waste Vitrification. Franklin: And what year was that? Anderson: Phew. Let’s see. Back up here. That would’ve been ’96, ’97. Franklin: Okay, and where was the Vit Plant at, at that time? Anderson: Early design phases. Franklin: Early design phase. Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: And how long did you stay with the Vit Plant? Anderson: Oh, gee. Basically until I retired. Of course, initially it was BNFL. Got a nice trip over to Sellafield in the UK. And I do love British beer. And the lake country, where Sellafield is, is pretty country, just--. And got to see what they were doing for vitrification. And I’m going, okay, I see a lot of mistakes here, but, well, we learn from our mistakes. Okay. Well, eventually DOE got disgusted with BNFL because the cost kept going up. It’s still going on today. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah. Anderson: Costs keep going up. Anyhow, so they basically fired BNFL. So then I went to work for, basically a job shopper here for like six months. Stayed on the job, but not with Bechtel. What was the name of that? Can’t think of the name. It was a big period of time while they rebid contract. And of course Bechtel won, and I’m back working for Bechtel. And so, yeah. Franklin: So how far did the Vit Plant get from when you started to when you retired? Anderson: Well, they’d broken ground. I really don’t recall. I mean, I know that they were working on it, but a lot of it was the structural stuff. Which, from a process point-of-view, I wasn’t involved in. I was still just doing a lot of design, or helping with design for the process part of it. Franklin: What are your views on the current situation of the Vitrification Plant? Anderson: Overdesigned. They’re trying to make it do everything. And they keep changing the rules. And then they’re surprised when the cost goes up. As a friend of mine said, generally, there comes a time in every project when you have to take the engineers out and shoot them, and just build it. And they never got to that stage yet. Franklin: Ah, I see. Makes sense. Anderson: Well, it’s the administrators that need to be taken, anyhow. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So last question, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War and afterwards? Anderson: Oh, gee. Well, it’s very great community. I mean, because overall wages are high, overall education level is high. Schools are good. It’s just a great place to raise a family. In fact, a lot of people stayed here, unhappy with the job, but because it was good for their family, they said, okay, I’m getting a paycheck, it’s good for my family, I’ll hack it. So, yeah, that was—it was just a great place to raise a family. And both my kids are still here. Yeah, my son’s a Kennewick firefighter, and my daughter works for the state, basically overseeing the payments to the people on welfare, basically. Franklin: Oh, okay. Anderson: So, anyhow, yeah. And two grandkids here. One of which—well, I have to brag a little bit. This is off the subject, but my son had been coaching soccer since his daughter was like six or seven years old. Club soccer. So last summer—and she’s now going to be a sophomore—the AD out there County of Benton said we’d like you to be the girls’ soccer coach. He said, okay. Oh, by the way it pays $4,500. He said, if they hadn’t told me that, I’d probably do it for free. Anyhow, so, the year before that, the soccer team won three games. This past fall, the girls were undefeated in the league. Took the SCAC championship, but lost their first game at state. I think they were sort of burned by that time. Anyway, my son then got coach of the year for the league, and my granddaughter was selected as MVP for the league. Franklin: Oh, that’s great. Anderson: So, yeah, great place to live. Franklin: So, Ted, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to talk about today? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: All right, then I think that’s a great place to end, thank you. Anderson: I mean, this could go on for a long time, but— Franklin: Sure, sure. Anderson: But I think you’ve got highlights and— Franklin: Yeah, we’ve got some really great stuff here. Thank you for really illuminating the waste processing history at Hanford. I appreciate it. Anderson: Yeah. Well, and the successive companies, like ARCO, basically, the guy they had leading it here had not been doing well in their primary business, which was petroleum. But now they won a contract here and got a place to stick him. So he didn’t provide strong leadership. That was sort of a—you know, they win the contract and here’s a place to park people. Oh, well. Franklin: Oh, well. Thank you so much, Ted, I really appreciate it. Anderson: My pleasure. <a href="https://youtu.be/LSqz5MdJ4VI">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Tank Farms BC Crib Area 222-S Labs S-X Farm REDOX 200 East 200 West Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1969- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ted Anderson Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Chemical engineering Radioactive wastes Radioactive waste disposal Description An account of the resource Ted Anderson moved to Richland, Washington in 1969 to work on the Hanford Site as a Chemical Engineer. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/11/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8938a4900744d564518bc93d898f6b2d.jpg 551b6009d403d2bd6e8f2a60ec34167a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed James Anderson Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Tom Hungate: We are rolling. Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with James Anderson on March 14, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Jim about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? James Anderson: James Daniel Anderson. J-A-M-E-S, D-A-N-I-E-L, A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N. Franklin: Great, thank you, Jim. And so tell me how and why you came to the Hanford Site? Anderson: Okay. I was born in Denver. And when I was in my fourth year, my dad worked for DuPont, which was Remington Arms back there, and they transferred him out here to this new secret project. Franklin: What year would this have been? Anderson: That would’ve been ’44, early ’44. Franklin: Okay, so you were born in 1940? Anderson: I was born in ’39, actually. I turned five after we got here. Franklin: Okay, sure, sure. Anderson: So. And my dad was a machinist. He came to Hanford making the first fuels that went to B Reactor. I remember this story, he’s told it many a time, but he hated machining uranium, because it was hard in spots and it was soft in spots. So you could gouge deeply or you might not cut enough. So the filings would go on the floor. Back then, they didn’t have protective clothing then. It was just, do the work. He and another guy that worked there got some uranium filings stuck in the soles of their shoes. So they went to the movies one night. On the way to the movies, they were looking at their feet and they were sparking. That was from the uranium filings that was embedded in their shoes. Uranium is somewhat pyrophoric. So they learned early on about that. Franklin: Sorry, pyrophoric, what is that exactly? Anderson: It’s burnable, basically. And it can sometimes catch fire on its own. Franklin: Oh, wow. I guess that’s what makes it such a good fuel. Anderson: Well, when I was in grade school, I knew I wanted to be a chemist. So we used to make pyrophoric materials: firecrackers, bombs, rockets, and things like that. So I’m somewhat familiar with that. Down at the Richland Library, you could get books on it. They had them there. They’d give you the formulas and everything. Being a kid, I used to go to the pharmacist and get my chemicals. When we’d go on vacation, like to Denver or Seattle or something, they had the chemical companies there, I’d go down and I’d get whatever I needed. Nobody asked me, questioned me or anything. I just did it. So we used to make gunpowder and stuff like that. I even made, from an Erector Set, a rocket that would go around in a circle. We had chemical fuses, so that we knew about how long it would take for it to self-ignite. And it didn’t go. So I went there and I put some more potassium permanganate on it, and it took off. The exhaust hit my shirt, and needless to say, I was on fire for a short period of time. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: That wasn’t so bad, but going home, Mom did not like that. So, I had a good lecture and so forth. [LAUGHTER] But—go ahead. Franklin: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you go ahead. Anderson: But I always enjoyed that. When I was a kid, Richland looked like a battlefield. There was no grass, only trees where there had been orchards. When the wind blew, I mean, they used to say, on a clear day, you can see the house across the street. That was pretty much true. And that stuff was so fine, it would go in the windowsills and just settle. They also called them termination winds. Because a lot of ladies came to meet their husbands that had been working here, and after one of those storms, they’d say, honey, I’m leaving. If you want to stay married, you’re coming with me. So that happened. But we lived at the hotel down here in Richland until our house was ready, and then we moved in. We were a few days later than our neighbors; we were in a B house. So in 1957 or thereabouts when they sold the town, they had first priority and of course they bought the house. So we had to move and find another house. So that was very interesting. My boyfriend and I would crawl under the porches and stuff, and we would find spiders galore, especially the ones with the red hourglass. So we used to play with those, you know. And of course our parents always told us, no. But one of those black widows, when we were playing across the street from where I lived, it was still wild out there; there wasn’t grass or anything, and one of them crawled up my leg. I felt it, and I thought, uh-oh, I’m in trouble. So I thought, well, if I jump up and down as hard as I can, it’ll fall out. And it did. And I never played with them after that. But it was funny, my mother would get a stick that looked like, as a kid, about ten-foot long, and she’d get the spider on the end of it, and she’d walk across the street where she was going to kill it. As she was walking, the spider would crawl on the stick towards her. The closer it got, the faster she went. [LAUGHTER] And then when she got there, the spider was no more. But it was fun for kids in those days. And in fact, the streets were none. They were just dirt. G-W was dirt. So it was kind of interesting, you know. And in summer when it was real hot and real dry, that stuff was very powdery. I can remember walking to the grocery store and coming back, and in the inside of my pant legs were covered with that dust. So it was fun. I enjoyed that. We used to go down by Fred Meyer and that was a swamp back then. I don’t know if you guys knew that or not, but they got a pump house down there, too, and they used to—but there were frogs galore, polliwogs, cattails, you name it. It was a good place for boys to play, and we did. And I can remember, we’d take these home, and they’d change into frogs, obviously. And then we’d let them loose, and a lot of them would bury themselves in the flower gardens. I can remember my dad in the spring hoeing around the bushes and so forth, and every so often, out would come a frog. [LAUGHTER] But that was fun, just to go down there and play and stuff. Most people didn’t even lock their doors. I mean, everybody had Q clearances. I don’t know if they were called Q clearances when I was a kid. I remember this place was so hush-hush, I never knew what my dad did. Even after they announced the bomb had been dropped. I can remember, he never said anything about his job or what he did. And when I, years later, when I went to work at Hanford, I got to go visit him where he worked. So I got to learn what he did. He was in the water plant. Franklin: Was he still working at Hanford when you started at Hanford? Anderson: Oh, yeah. He retired from N Reactor. Franklin: Okay. When your father started, you said early on he started as a fuels fabrication for B Reactor, and what area was he working out of then? Anderson: That was 300 Area. Franklin: Okay, and how long did he do that for? Anderson: Oh, not very long. He hated it, and so he transferred out to B Reactor. He was out at B Reactor when they had their startup problems. And then he was there when they solved the problem and away they went. DuPont always over-designed, as far as I know, their work that they did. Of course, they were told so many tubes for the reactor, and they made about twice as many. So when they—I think it was Enrico Fermi went into the room—with the slide rule, you know, we didn’t have computers—and he determined what it was, and he came up with the term “barns.” So he discovered what it was and then they filled all the rest of the tubes up and away they went. That was an exciting time. Dad remembers when that happened. Franklin: And what did he do at B Reactor? Anderson: He was in the water plant. They would pump the water out of the river, clean it up, and pass it through the reactor. From there, it would go into cooling or whatever and then eventually it would go back into the river. I can remember—now this is aside from that, but the Columbia River flows over some uranium fields. I don’t know if you knew that. I think they’re up in Canada. But because of all the reactors on the river, and they cleaned it up to run it through, there was more uranium in the water coming into the Site than there was leaving the Site. Franklin: Hmm. Anderson: And the place he worked, I’ll tell you, it was hot. It was steam as well as the water purification. He always loved a hot house. And of course, none of the rest of us in the family really enjoyed that. [LAUGHTER] But when it got down to 90 or 80, that was starting to get cold. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. Anderson: Yeah, he was— Franklin: I guess he must’ve liked summers in Richland without air conditioning. Anderson: Well, in fact, when we came we had no air conditioning. Eventually we got swamp coolers. You could leave the front door open and cool the house down. Humidity back then was something like 5%. Of course, as they put in the crops and stuff up the valley, then the humidity went up and they weren’t quite as efficient anymore. But I can remember when we put our first one in. Oh, that felt so good. Franklin: Yeah, makes a big difference, just water evaporation makes a big difference. So you—what type of Alphabet house did your family move into? Anderson: We moved into a B house. Franklin: Okay. That’s the two-story or a one-story? Anderson: It’s a one-story duplex. And back then, in the basement, they had a little room, if you will, for coal. So the company would supply you with the coal. Whenever you wanted it, you’d call them up and say, I want some coal, and they’d bring it to you. And then you’d have to stoke the furnace and so forth. Later on a lot of them put in an automatic feed into the furnace. Once in a while, those would catch fire. Sometimes that coal would make a gas in there and it would blow up. The door, of course, would swing open when it would. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: It sounds really dangerous. Anderson: It sounds it, but it wasn’t that bad. But a lot of people got rid of coal when they sold the homes and stuff. And then they did whatever they wanted, electrical baseboards and so forth. Franklin: What was your overall impression of the Alphabet houses? Anderson: Well, they are all basically look-alikes. I mean, you may have an A and a B and stuff close together, or a C or whatever. But when you get down to it, one section of the block could be the same as the other side of the block. This is stories I’ve heard, a lot of the men—especially the men—would come home from having a party down at the tavern or whatever, and since most people didn’t lock the doors, they would just go inside, because they knew each house was the same. They’d go and start to get ready for bed, and of course when they discovered that the wife was not his—[LAUGHTER] they immediately left. So. Franklin: What about the quality of construction or how it was like to live in an Alphabet house? What were your impressions on that? Anderson: Actually, the construction for the Alphabet houses was pretty high, I think. They used good wood. Now, they didn’t put a lot of insulation in a lot of houses. And so a lot of people had to come back and add insulation. I have a Q house now. It just had a foil strip between the sheetrock and the wall and that was the insulation. Supposedly, it would reflect it. So when I bought the house, I had to add insulation to it. Franklin: It says here that DuPont grouped workers together from different sites they were transferred from, so that your father or mother knew a lot of their neighbors when they moved to Richland. Anderson: Yes, in fact, I lived on the south end of town, and everybody around where I lived was from Denver. Franklin: Oh. Anderson: And so they did that because it made it kind of feel like home. Franklin: Sure, just some semblance of familiarity or, you know. Anderson: Yes. What was across from the Uptown district, there were a lot of people there from Salt Lake, because that was another DuPont site. They used to call that Little Salt Lake. [LAUGHTER] My dad had a friend that he worked with back in Colorado, and he worked up here as well. He came up here. And those two were friends, best friends, for 77 years. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: So my dad died first, and so he was—my dad died at 92 and his buddy died a couple years later. Franklin: Why do you think your family decided to stay after World War II? Anderson: Well, actually, the benefits, you know. Your homes, to begin with, were free. And if you wanted your house painted or whatever, you could do that. So there was a lot of benefits to stay. You didn’t have to pay rent and stuff like that. So it was nice. Once you made friends, and of course, where we lived, it was from Colorado area, then a lot of people didn’t want to stay. There were some that left. I’ll be honest. They wanted to go back where their relatives were or whatever. I’d say at least half of them came back. [LAUGHTER] They thought this was a better place. Franklin: Was your family from Colorado originally? Anderson: Yes. My dad was born in Colorado and so was my mother. Franklin: So growing up, you went to all of the Richland area schools, right? Lewis and Clark, Carmichael and then Columbia High, right? Anderson: Yes. In fact—just a second—there was—you know, we’d go to school, and we’d see somebody new, it was always, where are you from? There was something like a handful of kids that were from this area. By the time I graduated from high school, we had over 1,000 there. I’d guess just about half—I mean, not half—about a handful or so in number were actually born here. I belong to the Rambling Rovers right now which is an old-timers group. The school that’s still out at Hanford—I mean, it’s just a shell, but—eventually, the town got so big and stuff, they used it for a grade school rather than the high school. So, yeah, it was fun. The only problem is they opened Chief Jo up the same time as we had Carmichael. We used to play each other in basketball. They had the all-stars, if you will, in their school. When we’d play them, we’d lose by tons of points. When we got to the high school, on the starting basketball team, four were from Chief Jo; one from Carmichael. Originally, when they built Carmichael, they were originally planning on putting a pool underneath the basketball court. That never materialized. Franklin: What do you remember about civil defense in school? Anderson: Yes. We did have some civil defense activities. The main thing I really remember was all around town were these sirens. They always tested at the same time each month. I don’t remember exactly, but it seemed to me it was like the last day of the month. Franklin: And these were evacuation sirens, or air raid? Anderson: Either. They would wail or they could go straight. And those were loud. I mean, loud. In back of Fred Meyer, up on the hill there, was the one that was closest to our house. But then they took all of them down, and it was normal, I guess you’d say, again. Franklin: Do you remember doing duck-and-cover? Anderson: Yes. Franklin: And can you describe that? Like, what would happen in the classroom and what was that to protect against? Anderson: Well, I can remember—you’d crawl underneath a desk, so that falling debris and stuff would not have as great a chance to hurt you. The biggest thing I hated in grade school was kindergarten. They had mats, and you had to take a rest period during kindergarten. You know, I gave up naps like when I was two or so. And you go back to school and they wanted you to lay on the gym floor on those mats. That was horrible. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That was worse than the duck-and-cover? Anderson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: So you eventually graduated high school, yeah? Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: As a Columbia High Bomber. Anderson: Mm-hmm. Franklin: And you went to WSU. Anderson: Yes, I did. Franklin: And what did you go for? Anderson: Well, when I went to Wazzu, I knew, as I said earlier, that I wanted to be a chemist. So I went up there and I took the chemistry courses. For a couple years, I took nuclear chemistry and radio chemistry. There were some funny stories on that, like my first year up there—and I hadn’t worked at Hanford yet and didn’t know what hot meant. Hot meant radioactive out here. So somebody went to get a piece of glassware, and they said, don’t touch it, it’s hot. He thought it was radioactive, and he just dropped it on the floor. [LAUGHTER] So that did happen. That was funny. We even had a couple—well, we had a reactor up there. I don’t know if you knew that or not. Franklin: Yeah. Anderson: But we, for instance, took gold foil and irradiated it as one of our projects and we’d have to go back and determine its half life and so on. We did that to calibrate our instruments, things like that. And then our senior year, we had radiochemistry, which is more like theoretical physics or something like that. Our instructor—I always got a kick out of him—he’d give us an exam. He’d have about ten questions on it, and we’d have an hour to do it in, you know. Pretty soon he’d say, how many are halfway through the exam? No hands. Eventually he’d get down to, how many got one done? And he’d get no hands. And he’d say, well, okay, let’s make this a take-home test. And you’d take it home, and you spent the whole weekend doing it. I mean—[LAUGHTER] And then we had to—in the one where we would have all the instrumentation and so forth and did all of our experiments, we had to do longhand procedures. That would be like 10, 15, 20 pages long. Every week, we had to do one. Sometimes we’d laugh and joke that, you know, the further they could throw them up a step, the better the grade. But most of them were really more interested in why you didn’t get the correct result. So your error portion of the write-up was very important and critical. But I enjoyed chemistry up there. And of course, after school, there were a lot of things you could do with chemistry. Franklin: Such as? Anderson: Oh, this was a guy down the hall. He and I were in the same class, but he made some ammonium triiodide, and he painted it on the rubber tips of the seats in the toilet. And they would dry, and then somebody like at 2:00 in the morning would have to go in there and sit, and it’d blow up. And sometimes he’d squirt it in the key locks. You’d put your key in there, and the friction would set it off. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] It wasn’t like a large explosion, right? Anderson: No. Franklin: Just kind of like a little—but enough, probably to startle somebody. Anderson: Oh, especially in the morning, when you’re still asleep. Franklin: Oh, wow. Anderson: But yeah. And I tried to make some rockets there, and I set one off in the room. The ceiling was all speckled. Franklin: Oh, wow. You must’ve liked to have a lot of fun, huh? Anderson: Oh, it was fun, yeah. I enjoyed it up there. Franklin: And so when did you graduate? Anderson: Graduated in ’62. Franklin: ’62, okay, and then you started at Hanford Labs. Anderson: Right. Actually, I went up to the Seattle World’s Fair up there. Then I came back and went to work. So it was in June of ’62 that I started down here. I was in the tech grad program, which started out at the 300 Area for me. You were interviewed, and depending upon what your choice was would depend on where you started work. But I started work in 300 Area. The PRTR Reactor was there. I worked in the water lab. I also worked out at the 100-K Area, and they had a water lab out there. So I had to substitute for the guy that was responsible for those when he’d go on vacation or whatever. So I’d spend half a day at PRTR and the other half of the day at K. I’d pick up the car down at the Federal Building and check it out, and I’d have it all day for my activities. Franklin: And what was—what did PRTR stand for? Anderson: Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor. The one big thing I remember about that, it was—it used heavy water for the moderator and so forth. But there were jugs—and I mean jugs—of heavy water lining the hallways throughout that whole reactor building. I mean. And that stuff is very expensive. Franklin: What was the job of that reactor? What did it do? Anderson: It was supposed to determine how you can recycle plutonium in a reactor. Rather than enriching uranium, or some other technique. So it was real nice that way, but they did—I can’t remember exactly what the mistake was in there, but they got it all contaminated. [LAUGHTER] So it didn’t last much longer. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: They came out with the FFTF and stuff like that, and a lot of people—I had a father-in-law back then that was a heating and ventilating engineer, and he—DOE kept chiding Battelle down there to get going and get that reactor going. They had to send out the prints and stuff like that to the commercial reactor manufacturers and get their input so that we could demonstrate something that they were interested in. Oftentimes, he said, the requests were 180 degrees apart. [LAUGHTER] So it really slowed them down to do that. They finally gave it to Westinghouse, who finished it. Franklin: So you said you worked at PRTR and then in the water lab. Anderson: Yeah, they had a water lab in PRTR. They’d take samples of the reactor effluence and stuff like that. Franklin: And do what with it? Anderson: Analyze it to see if there’s radiation in it, if there’s any cross-contamination, or if there’s impurities in it. Because sometimes impurities can corrode or whatever. So you want to make sure those are taken care of. Franklin: And so how long did you work this kind of split-shift between PRTR and the water lab? Anderson: Well, I worked in the water lab at PRTR the whole time. Franklin: Oh, okay, sorry. Anderson: That’s okay. But, yeah, I did that—he went on vacation three times or so, so I probably had a month’s work there. Franklin: And what other jobs did you have out at Hanford? Anderson: Oh, I had a chance to work at B Reactor, as a matter of fact. I interviewed out there. The manager out there made it sound like utopia, you know? You’re going to do this, you’re going to write these reports, and your name’s going to be out there in blinking lights. He didn’t say that, but he made it sound grand and glorious. And I thought—I just had a gut feeling, don’t go to work there. Smart move, because they shut it down. But so I went to 234-5 Building, which is the plutonium building. I had three main jobs there. The first one was in the Process Laboratory. There, I got to handle plutonium. That’s quite a thrill. Then we did a lot of analysis for operations so that they could control the process and so forth. Then, I was asked up to do the carbon machine. I tore it apart, and I was getting ready to put it back together and make some modifications. The shift manager at Dash-5, he ended up with diabetes. And so they had to remove him from the shift for a period of time while he got that under control. So they sent me down there to take his place. Well, I never had worked with union before. Now, I don’t know if you guys have or not, but I had to make a transfer from a tank to one of the cribs outside. So I couldn’t find the operator, so I did it. Well, I got my grievance, and I lost that one, obviously. I’ve had a couple other grievances, too, and I won those. [LAUGHTER] But that was interesting, to do that. So I was working shift work doing that. We had to make the buttons, the plutonium buttons. We’d get the plutonium feed material from either PUREX or REDOX. And then we’d run it through the plant. We had a screw system there and you could backflow the gasses over and stuff like that to come up with your product. We ended up with plutonium fluoride. And then we’d have a crucible that we’d put that stuff in, and we’d add a little iodine and calcium and heat it up and then the reaction would take place. The plutonium would go to the bottom into a little, I guess you’d call it, kind of like a little cup in the bottom, so it would all be in there. Now, this is something that I had never thought of until I was in the burial grounds, but those crucibles were made out of ceramic material. They were manufactured by Coors. Coors beer. They were, and I guess they still are, one of the top qualified manufacturers of that material. Franklin: Interesting. Anderson: So that stuff back then was a classified secret and so forth. So we had a lot of waste from Coors in Colorado, which is non-rad, go to the burial grounds because it was classified. So if a lot of people think, you know, everything out there is rad, well, that’s not so. But, yeah, we did a lot with that. And then from there, I went down to the Research Laboratory. I had to make plutonium chloride material for Rocky Flats. I have no idea what they did with it. It was one of those things, you know, here it is, we give it to them, and we don’t talk about it. Franklin: Don’t ask too many questions? Anderson: Right. But we used phosgene gas, and we used these in cylinders. You’d heat it up and you’d pass the gas through it, and it would change the oxide to the chloride. Now, phosgene gas is very poisonous. And that used to be one of those trench gases they had during, what was it, the First World War and stuff like that. And it’s supposed to smell, and it does smell like freshly mown hay. You don’t want to breathe it, that’s for sure. But every so often, a whiff would come by. I did have a couple slight smells of it. Franklin: Did it make you sick? Anderson: No. Franklin: Oh. Anderson: It wasn’t that concentrated, I guess I’d say. Franklin: Was it a neural agent? Is that what it does? And how does plutonium chloride differ—is it like—it’s not a liquid—is it solid or powder? What kind of form is it? Anderson: It’s a powder. Franklin: It’s a powder, okay. Anderson: Chloride’s got more atoms in it—not atoms—neutrons and protons than fluoride does. So it’s a lot different from it. Now, the thing that I had a—I didn’t have a problem with it, but it was my first time in dealing with kg quantities of plutonium. We had holes in the hood so we could put these canisters in there. I had something like, what, 20kgs of plutonium in there. And I’m sitting there, thinking, you know, I hope those critical mass people know what they’re talking about. [LAUGHTER] Because, you know, you think, you’re okay, as long as you don’t do something. But if you drop it, what do you do? And that led to other questions, because eventually when I was in operations, I got to have all the combinations and stuff for the vaults that stored plutonium. You could only have two people go in a vault at once. That’s because we are contained of water—“we are contained of water”? Our body has a lot of water in it. So that’s a good moderator, so you don’t want too many people going around. And then of course the cans are the size of a tuna fish can and they had them on posts in there in the safe. Go ahead. Franklin: I’m sorry, I’m just curious about this water thing. What role would the water play around plutonium? Anderson: Neutrons. It moderates the neutrons. Franklin: Okay, so how would—wait, so, you could start a chain reaction then— Anderson: Yes. Franklin: --with water in the—oh, okay. Anderson: Yeah, and you didn’t want that. Franklin: No. You usually—well, you only want it when it’s intentional. Anderson: Yeah, like in a reactor or whatever. Now, one other thing that was interesting is they had a criticality shortly before I went over there at Dash-5. So we didn’t have a way to recycle plutonium. And so a lot of plutonium went into storage. Not just in the vaults, because we ran out of that. We had igloos on the other side of West Area. There were seven igloos there and we stored plutonium in there. Periodically, when I was on shift, taking that supervisor’s place, then we would go out there and we’d check it and see what’s going on. In one place, in one of the igloos—these were left over from the Army, by the way— Franklin: Yeah, I’m sorry, when you say igloo, what kind of structure are you referring to? Anderson: It’s basically a metal building that’s in an arch shape. It’s not square-shaped— Franklin: Oh, like a Quonset hut. Anderson: Yeah, like a Quonset hut. But it’s covered with dirt. Franklin: So kind of like either built into a side or—it kind of blends in—that’s so it’s insulated, right? Anderson: Well, yeah, but you know the military was out here for a long time and they kept ammo and stuff in there. So you wanted them to be pretty well-protected. Franklin: Sure. Anderson: And then the front of it, for instance, was made out of concrete. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: And there’s a door in there and so on. We went to radiation monitoring to get some support. They were not accommodating, let’s put it that way. So I and two operators went out there, and we found that there was some liquid organic material that was packaged in there. Apparently, it had fizzed, and it had come up and eaten its way through the plastic barrier, and then it just kind of rolled onto the floor. Then it went all the way over into the gutter. That was pretty high in plutonium, let’s put it that way. The mice had gotten in there and tracked it all over. Franklin: Oooh. Anderson: And their droppings were hot. And I and another guy got contaminated in there. You had to wear two pairs of rubber gloves and then you had to wear a thick latex glove on top of that. And the moment you touched that organic, it would go right through. So you started peeling the gloves off. Franklin: Wow. You mean it would eat right through the glove? Anderson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: So, two of us went back with a very minimal count on our hands, and radiation monitoring raised a fit on it. And I said, well, we asked you, but you wouldn’t take it. So from that time on, we had monitors out there. Franklin: What happened to the rats? Were their bodies found, or did they somehow maybe go further up in the food chain, or--? Anderson: No, we never found a rat or mouse. Franklin: Just the tracks and the droppings? Anderson: Mm-hmm, mainly the droppings. And I got an idea that stuff killed them. I mean, if it goes right through gloves… Franklin: Yeah. Wow. Anderson: So, in fact, years later, after I retired and I went back to work out there, I had somebody call me up, and we went out there to look where all those had been and stuff, because they’ve all been removed. There’s no igloos out there anymore. Franklin: And what—was there any trace of them, or any trace of the accident out there at that point? Anderson: No. It’d been decontaminated. Franklin: And where exactly was this? Anderson: It’s west of West Area. There’s an Army Loop Road that goes in back of West Area. And it was on the other side of the Army Loop Road and there was a fence around it. Franklin: Is that right up against the mountain then? Or--? Anderson: No, it’s flat out there. Franklin: Oh, okay. Anderson: When you go on the highway, the public highway, and you go out there and you can see some of the buildings and stuff. If you look close, you’ll see where there had been some—I don’t want to say buildings, but some foxholes or something like that that the military had done. It was just in back of that, is where it was. Franklin: Interesting. And so, after the research lab in 234-5-Z, where did you go from there? Anderson: I went to PUREX. First job I had at PUREX was in operations. There was the main supervisor and then he had two that supported him. I hired in over there as one of those. The building was divided into the west side and the east side for the two. I had the head end which was where the fuel dissolution occurred, where we had the uranium facilities outside, the liquid uranium, because we didn’t make solids back then. And then we also had the stack and so forth out back. So all that was something I had to get familiar with. Franklin: I’m sorry, what was the stack? Anderson: Oh, it’s a 200-foot chimney, I guess you’d call it, and that way whenever you dissolved or whatever and you had off-gassing and so forth, it’d go out that 200-foot stack. And that gas would go through a glass filter. That way, you didn’t have radiation going through except the radiation that was in a gaseous form, because nothing will stop that, pretty much. And iodine was one that would go out that way. Now, speaking of stacks, when they built B and T Plant, they did not have filters on them. The stack was 200—all those stacks are about 200 feet tall. So when they dissolved on the old buildings, because they didn’t have filters and stuff, they had to do it when the wind was proper. And then, after a while, of course, the machinery and stuff in the plant would corrode a little bit, so you could get dust particles and whatever coming out of the stack. And there were times when—I wasn’t working out there, then, but I was told that they had to put on booties when the bus was out there to walk into the building, and then they took them off. Because the particulates out there were bad. PUREX had some of that, to a certain extent, because their first step going up into the building was about even with the asphalt. So you know something had been covered. Franklin: Were B and T retrofitted with the filters after? Anderson: Yes, only theirs were sand filters. Franklin: Oh, okay. How did the glass filter—I imagine it wasn’t a sheet of glass. Anderson: Oh, no, it was kind of like insulation in your house, only it was beaucoup thick. I don’t remember how thick it was, but sometimes chemicals would hang up on it, because they’d be in particulate form. And because PUREX was a nitrate facility—well, all of them were nitrate facilities, because the bulk of the materials would be soluble in the nitrate form. So it would catch, like, sodium nitrate or something like that. Our filters over there, when I was working over there, started to plug, so we had to add another bay for filtration. You still let it go over the old one, because you wanted to use it up as much as you can, and then go up into the new one. Franklin: How would those be cleaned, or would they? Anderson: They weren’t. Franklin: Oh, okay. What would they do, just collapse the stack and—like break the stack down? Anderson: Oh, no, we just added on to the filter system. Franklin: Oh, okay. Anderson: At PUREX, that’s all we did. Franklin: Interesting. Anderson: And at B and T, that was the sand filter. So they added some HEPA filters to them later on. Franklin: Hmm. And so what—how long did you work as an operation supervisor at PUREX? Anderson: Oh, probably a year or so. The laboratory manager came down and asked for me to go to work in the laboratory. We talked about it and so forth, and he said there was a pay raise in it. So, you know. I went down there and I went on D shift as a shift supervisor in the laboratory. Franklin: In which—at PUREX? Anderson: The PUREX Process Laboratory. So there I had about ten people working for me in the laboratory. And operations would take their samples, and we had a dumbwaiter that went down to the sample floor, and they’d stick the samples on there and bring it up to the lab, and then we’d analyze it. Franklin: And what would you be analyzing for? Anderson: Well, for instance, in the feed, we would be analyzing for the uranium, plutonium and neptunium, because those were the products. You want to know, if you start out with, say, one pound of plutonium, that you end up with a pound at the end. You don’t want it to go out to the Tank Farms or whatever. So that’s one of the things. The other thing is you strip the fission products away from it and so forth so you’re cleaning it up as it goes through the plant. So that was very important. And if they had plant problems or something like that, we might get special samples. And I can remember one sample that went out to one of the cribs for the off-gas system. Apparently it bubbled over or something, because it was pretty yellow when we got it, plus it was pretty hot, in terms of radiation. So, you know, you have to tell them what’s going on and then they’ll take care of it. We eventually—well, I had three jobs there, actually. I did that and then I went to day shift as a day shift supervisor, because when our manager left, our day shift supervisor was bumped up to manager, so I took his job. And then later on, the research chemist that was there, he left and got another job offsite. So I took his job. [LAUGHTER] I did that—I worked in that lab—oh, well, counting the tech grad program and so forth, I probably worked in that lab six years to eight years, somewhere in that timeframe. Franklin: At the PUREX lab. Anderson: PUREX Process, yeah. And eventually, you know, while I was working there, waste management was the buzz word. That was the new thing. So B Plant became the center point for that. So we started getting set up to also analyze B Plant samples. They’d have to bring them to us. Franklin: Sorry, when you say waste management was the new buzz word, you mean, like, there was a new recognition of the waste products being generated at Hanford, or— Anderson: Yes. Franklin: How did that change from what had been happening before? What was this new focus and where did it come from? Anderson: Well, I don’t know where all of it came from, but the main reason was to keep track of that and to try to separate some of the higher beta gamma emitters which could assist you in high level waste determinations and things like that. Now, high level waste is a unique word. And transuranic is a unique word. Transuranic basically means if it’s greater than uranium in the periodic chart, it’s transuranic. So that waste—eventually, not at the beginning—went down to New Mexico and to their caverns. Franklin: Into Carlsbad. Anderson: And then the high level waste means that it’s the first cycle waste from processing fuels. So the bulk of the beta gamma products are in there. Franklin: And early on, that had not been—before the PUREX process and REDOX were—some of that waste had just been processed a bit but then dumped, right? Anderson: Well, it was separated from the transuranics and then it was neutralized and put out in the Tank Farms. Franklin: Right, but it was still high level waste in the Tank Farms? Anderson: Not necessarily. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: [LAUGHTER] See, it has to be from the first cycle waste. You run the fuels through, and on the first cycle waste, you separate the high level waste from the transuranics and uranics, as far as that goes. So anything separated after that is not high level waste. Now, for instance, and this may sound funny, at FFTF, they had some reactor trees that were in the reactor and they got contaminated—activated from the neutrons. Heating steel and stuff like that, it’ll absorb it, and you get cobalt-60 and all sorts of stuff. Well, that stuff, you know, could read—and I’m making this number up—say, 100,000 rad, okay? That’s low level waste. The intensity has nothing to do with what it is. Franklin: That was going to be my next question. So high level waste, you said, is the product after the first pass. Anderson: Right. Franklin: So even if you strip out the uranics and transuranics, that waste could still be hot, but it would not be high level waste. Anderson: Exactly. Franklin: Okay, so that’s a term that refers to the product of a specific state in time, not the level of contamination or radiation level of the actual item. Anderson: Same thing with the spent fuel, you know. Spent fuel, you think of it being in the reactor for a period of time so that it burns up the uranium-235 or whatever. In this case, it doesn’t really matter, as far as how long it’s been irradiated. If you put it in the reactor for five minutes, it’s been irradiated. Franklin: So, it’s spent fuel in that sense. Anderson: Yeah, and it might be cold enough to touch, but that doesn’t get rid of it as spent fuel. See, some of these definitions are, I guess you’d say they’re politically driven. Franklin: Yeah, as someone who comes from a history background and not a nuclear chemistry background, the use of the term “high level waste” brings out something else—doesn’t seem to be the best descriptor for this specific—you know, if you were to say, maybe, first pass waste. Because “high level” makes you think that it’s important waste, not necessarily that it’s just the waste from the first run through the— Anderson: Well, it is important, because in the spent fuel, you know, when you separate that out, you’re going to have mixed fission products that are hotsie-totsie. Franklin: Is that a technical term? Anderson: No, that’s [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Sorry. Anderson: That’s a good question. Franklin: Couldn’t resist. Anderson: But no. For instance, at B Plant, they would recover the cesium and the strontium. And they would send us over some cesium in, say, a 100-pound pig for shielding. Well, you’d have a half-an-mL of cesium in there, which is a strong gamma. So in order for us to play with that—I shouldn’t use the term “play”—but to do the analytic analysis and so forth. We’d have to get a pipe that was, say, ten feet long, and put it through the handle so that the two people that were carrying that 100-pound pig around were minimizing their exposure. Franklin: Sure. Anderson: Because even through that 100-pound pig, it was pretty hot. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: So, yeah. Now, strontium’s not quite so bad, because it’s a beta emitter. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: But there’s still both heat. And of course they added the facilities over at B Plant to encapsulate those materials. If you went over, they’d look almost like standard fuel elements or something, and they glowed blue. Franklin: Was it that—what’s that type of radiation? Anderson: Cherenkov. Franklin: Cherenkov radiation. Anderson: Right. Franklin: Sorry, when you’re saying B Plant, you mean B Reactor. Anderson: No. B Plant. Franklin: B Plant, okay, and what is B Plant? Anderson: B Plant was the first—T Plant was the first separation facility to separate plutonium from spent fuels. It was a precipitation process. Franklin: That’s with the cribs and the pools, right, with the constant chemical refining—or separation of the plutonium. Anderson: Right. They precipitated it and then went on with it. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: And recovered it. So, yeah, that was very important. Franklin: And how does B Plant differ? Anderson: It’s almost the same as T Plant. T Plant was the first one built, so they made it a little bit different so they could do more research or studies or whatever with it than B. Franklin: But it was still one of those long canyon buildings. Anderson: Oh, yeah. They’re roughly, what, three football fields long or something like that. I mean, they’re huge. Franklin: Where was that located? Anderson: B Plant was probably a mile away from PUREX. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: And T Plant was probably a mile away, more or less, from Dash-5, the plutonium building. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: I wouldn’t be 100%. Franklin: Sure, I understand. Anderson: A mile, I mean. Franklin: So we talked a bit about high level waste and that kind of specific definition, and you’d started to talk about spent fuels and, I think, maybe the problem with that terminology, or how that terminology could cause issues or something. I wonder if we could go back to that. Anderson: Okay. Issues how? Franklin: Well, I don’t know, you started to mention that spent fuel referred to a specific process. Anderson: Oh, yeah. It’s just like “high level waste” or whatever else. If it was in a reactor for a short period of time—maybe it’s touchable, you know, whatever—but it’s still “spent fuel.” So you’ve got to treat it like spent fuel, and it has to go to a geologic repository and all that stuff. Franklin: Oh, okay, I see, I see. So it’s a very large, all-encompassing definition that doesn’t necessarily tell you how long it was in the reactor and how much of the uranium has been processed and things like that. Anderson: Right, because if you leave it in the reactor for a shorter period of time, versus longer, you’d come out with fuels-grade plutonium. If you leave it in longer than that, you end up with reactor-grade plutonium. One is more amenable to nuclear devices. Franklin: Which one is that? Anderson: The—what’d I call it? Franklin: You said there was fuel and reactor grade. Anderson: Yeah, fuel grade. Franklin: Fuel grade. Anderson: Not fuel grade, it’s—well, yeah, I guess that works, fuel grade. But it’s not reactor grade. I mean, it’s one that you can use in bombs. [LAUGHTER] Weapons grade, that’s what it is, weapons grade. Franklin: So there’s weapons grade and reactor grade. Anderson: Yes. Franklin: Okay. When did you start work on the thorium campaign? Anderson: Oh, we had two of them here. One of them was a short period just to demonstrate that we could do it. And then the next one was to demonstrate that we could meet the requirements that were set upon us. Franklin: And that was for the Navy, right? For the Navy reactors? Anderson: For Rick Rickover. Franklin: Yeah, Admiral Rickover. Anderson: And I’ll say this, whenever he spoke, you jumped. Franklin: Why? Anderson: I mean, he had the power. When he said something, you did it. There was no ifs, ands or buts. Now, the thorium campaign—and actually if we had thorium reactors, that might be another topic. We never had those out there. Well, I guess we did, because we did irradiate some. But Rickover wanted some uranium-233, so that’s what we made. Because thorium, when you irradiate it, will go up to uranium-233, which is also fissile. You can make bombs. It’s weapons grade, or again, if you overdo it, it could be non-weapons grade. But we had to recalibrate the laboratory in order to handle that material. You used the same chemicals, basically, but you have to use them in a different way, and we had to analyze it a different way. I became, since I was the research chemist there—we had to have large samples of the product so we could analyze for all the impurities and so forth that they wanted. Consequently, we had a cabinet that we had in the building—in the laboratory, that could handle kg quantities of uranium-233. I had some critical mass bottles, which is product bottles that they used down in operations. When we accumulated enough 233, I would fill one of those jugs. I put a little plastic mixer in the bottom and put it on a magnetic plate, and then we’d mix it up and so forth after we put it together. And then I had to take enough sample out of there, because it was product—just like we did down below—and analyze that and make sure it met all the requirements. Franklin: What is the advantage for using thorium instead of uranium or plutonium for the reactor? Why the push for thorium? Anderson: Well, Rickover wanted it. He wanted it for the Navy. Franklin: And why? What’s the advantage to using thorium? Anderson: Well, you have impurity of uranium-232 in there. You could make fuels for submarine reactors or whatever. If you did that, you had to have pretty clean separated materials, because that 232 is a very hard gamma. It would go from gamma to gamma to gamma. So you would have more than enough coming from it. So if you kept it long enough, you’d have something that could probably be lethal. So it was kind of its own self-control. Franklin: In what way? Anderson: It’d be lethal. Franklin: The product would? Or the— Anderson: The product would, because the uranium-232 is decaying into these hot daughters. Franklin: Oh, okay, okay. How is thorium made? Anderson: Thorium is in the earth. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: So it’s a natural element. And then when you throw a neutron into it, it makes—thorium-232 and you add a neutron becomes thorium-233, and when it decays to uranium-233. Franklin: Oh, okay, okay. Anderson: So it’s kind of like uranium-238, getting a neutron and making Pu-239. Franklin: Okay. And how long did you work on these thorium campaigns? Anderson: Oh, they were very short. I think it was probably around six months long, something like that. The demo was just a short period of time. I don’t know, weeks, maybe, at the most. But the other one was a lot longer. Franklin: And then you mentioned right around this time that waste management started to become kind of a hot issue. Maybe hot’s not the best word to use, but it started gaining a lot of attention. So you moved to waste management, right, from PUREX. Anderson: Yes, I transferred. Also, I went to an engineering group because they made more money—back then, they made more money than a chemist. But yes. And there, boy, I’ll tell you, I was at B Plant, which was the operations facility. I wrote monthly reports, management reports, I wrote two of those every month. I mean, one of each. And then I wrote quarterly reports for burial grounds, gas emissions, and liquid discharges. Then I also wrote the Tank Farm reports. And so, I had to be involved with a lot of that. And the funny thing is, my boss called me into his office after I’d done that for a few years. He says, guess what? I got a proposition for you. I says, oh, what’s that? He says, well, it’s one you ought to say yes to. And so, he said, engineering wants your job, and wants you to go along with it. So, I transferred from operations to engineering. That’s how I got involved in the engineering aspect. Franklin: Of waste management. Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: So how long did you work as a waste management engineer? Anderson: Oh, from 1971, about, until 2012, I guess. Franklin: Wow. That’s quite a long time. What were some of the—can you describe kind of your work as a waste management engineer? What did you do out there and what significant accomplishments or setbacks did you have? Anderson: Well, we had, for instance, with the double-shell tanks, one of the A Farm tanks—not, let’s see, AX. AY. 102-AY, I think it was. I could be off on that, but—we had to analyze the material that went in there and keep it below a certain concentration of sodium and so on to keep it in a good, safe condition. And then the other tanks, we had to keep track of the material that went in there. For instance, we had one tank that tended to get a lot of the first cycle waste, and we had to make sure that the fissile material in there was according to par. So we had requirements and so forth. When we went out to the liquid discharges to the ground, for instance, you had to make those as low as you could. I remember, DOE asked me to tell them what the—after they ran it through a process and cleaned up the discharge quite a bit. They asked me to tell them what it was going to be like in 20 years. I said, well, here’s what we put in and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, you’re not going to see much change out in the crib, because it’s already so contaminated. So they came back and said, well, forget the old stuff; just do the new stuff. [LAUGHTER] So that’s what we did. But sometimes the operation would have a problem with it and it would discharge some radioactive materials into the environment. Franklin: From the tank to the— Anderson: No, from the building. Franklin: Oh, from the building to the environment. So not from the building to the tank, but— Anderson: Now, over at one of the ponds, they put up scarecrows to keep the ducks and stuff out. They got used to that, so then they started with a shotgun effect. It was an air gun or something. That worked for a while, but then they got used to that. So finally they had to put a net over it. So, yeah, Mother Nature’ll get used to most anything. Franklin: Yeah. Anderson: So, that was a problem. Franklin: What about the emissions from the Tank Farms? I wonder if you could talk about that. Anderson: We never really noticed a lot of emissions from the Tank Farms when I was working in it. I remember a lot of the tanks did not have filters on them. In the middle of winter, because they’re liquid tanks, you’re going to have high humidity coming out the breather, so there was what looked like steam coming out. Somebody in DOE saw that. So we had to hook everything up to an exhaust system. But we never really had much of a problem unless liquid burped out of a tank or whatever. Franklin: Did that happen? Anderson: Yes, it did, in some of those farms, and it was pretty hot. In fact, one of them was so hot that, rightly so, the manager over that covered it with some soil so it wouldn’t get airborne and so forth after it was on the ground. So, I remember they called me up, and I had to go out to the building and we put in a concrete burial box into the trench. We had to have it such that they could scoop up that material and go over and dump it into the concrete box, so we could tell the public that it had been contained. But I remember going to work at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. I worked until noon or something like that. My boss said, how long have you been out here? And I told him, and he says, well, go home. [LAUGHTER] But that happened every so often. Not a lot, but. And there’s some stories I put in my Tank Farm—not my Tank Farm; my burial ground report. They used to transfer sometimes over ground, and they still do. Franklin: What do you mean transfer? Oh, transfer waste. Anderson: Waste, overground instead of underground. On REDOX, it’s a half a mile away from the S Farm complex, so they could read it over there, which is quite a distance away. So they had to rush over there and pump cold water through it and get the readings down. Franklin: Pump cold water through--? Anderson: Through the transfer line. Franklin: Oh, okay. Half mile transfer line seems— Anderson: No, that wasn’t the transfer line. The Tank Farm is over here, and REDOX is over here. They can read it over at REDOX. Franklin: Oh, they can read—okay, I see, I see. Anderson: Yeah. Now, what we did, when I was in engineering there, is we would calculate the volume of liquid that would be in a pipe when you’re transferring. You could transfer from East Area to West Area, which is a few miles. But you had to calculate how much was going to be in the lines. So when you transferred, you would look at the drop in the tank, and you’d look at the rise in the other tank, and there’s going to be a delay because of what’s being held up into the piping. So, we had to do that. One time, the liquid went down real fast, and it went up real slow in the receiving tank. We had to shut it off and find out what’s what. We could take pictures inside the tanks and stuff like that, so we went in. Well, the solid material in the tank that we were removing the liquid from had an annulus of solids around it. So instead of being the full diameter of the tank that we were pumping out, it was the inside. They didn’t match up, because a small radius of waste, versus the tank, which is the full radius. So we had a lot of troubles with stuff like that. We used to take a lot of pictures in the Tank Farms. Franklin: How would you take a picture of the inside of the tank? Anderson: You get a rigid pipe, if you will, and then you hook the camera up to it. And you can remotely set the frames down there and the flash. Then you can hold it or support it, whatever, and rotate it. So as it goes around in a circle, you’ll get pictures of it. The other thing that we did was put gas—you’d put the camera, wrap it in plastic so it won’t get contaminated—but you can’t do that with the lens. That would distort and stuff. So you had air being blown over the lens to keep it free and clean. Franklin: Wow. Anderson: So you had little pieces of instrument pipe, I guess you’d say, that would do that. Franklin: Kind of spritz air across it? Anderson: But we did that in the casings, too, in the burial grounds. Franklin: And the radiation in the tank wouldn’t contaminate the film or any of the mechanical components of the camera or anything like that? Anderson: No, because they’re encased in that plastic. Franklin: And so then the camera was then safe to work with, too, once you unwrapped the plastic and everything. Anderson: Right. Franklin: That’s right, that’s really interesting. Anderson: We had almost a full-time photographer out there that did that. A lot of those were his ideas. Franklin: Wow. That’s quite something. Anderson: Now, I wrote a history book on the Tank Farms. Franklin: For DOE or just in general? Anderson: Just in general. So I wrote the document, and 90% of it or more is tables of what went where and all that sort of stuff. From Tank A to Tank B and to Tank C and so on. Franklin: And did you do this as a private citizen? Did you do it while you were working out there, or--? Anderson: Oh, I did it out there. Franklin: Oh, okay, okay. Anderson: See, I was in waste management, and I had all those different projects: I had the Tank Farms, the burial grounds, the cribs, ponds and ditches, and the gas emissions. The environmental group said, well, I’m doing their work. [LAUGHTER] So I lost all those reports except for the burial grounds. Which is fine, because there was more work in the burial grounds to do than the other. But I enjoyed the writing that history book. But as I went around the building, there was umpteen secretaries. Back then, no computers, you know, for us. So I’d say, you want to do some work for me? Sure! And I’d show them those tables, and—no! So it took me a long time to get them typed up. And then it was decided that it was too sensitive a material. So they wouldn’t let me publish it, but I could make operational copies. John Glenn, you know, the astronaut and senator and stuff, he was at a meeting, and I wasn’t there, so this is purely secondhand or more—but there was a Battelle document that was in the same category. They’d done the work on it, but they didn’t think they should publish it. So, he found out about that and so he asked the people there, he says, so what other documents are you hiding? They said, Anderson’s document. So I had 30 days to publish it. [LAUGHTER] That’s how it got published. Which is okay, but it didn’t have the scrutiny it should’ve had. But I put a cover letter on it that showed that. I had a lot of projects there. You do that. I had to look at the inventory—or the MUF—they called it the MUF back then: Material Unaccounted For—at Dash-5. Franklin: As in, radioactive material? Anderson: As in plutonium. Yeah. Because when you got kg quantities of stuff, you’re never going to be down to the gnat’s eyebrow. But I was asked to make a report on that, and I did. Since most of it was buried and so forth, we’ll probably never know how good the numbers were. Franklin: Right, some of it made it into the waste stream, right, in some form or another. Anderson: Right, and sometimes it might not even have existed to begin with. Franklin: Jillian wrote some things for me to ask you about here. So I’m just going to kind of go down the list, if that’s all right with you. If we’ve already covered it, please feel free to tell me that. She had on here, Tank Farms and emissions from Tank Farms. Anderson: Oh, we went through that, because— Franklin: Right, right. Anderson: They didn’t have HEPAs and so on. Franklin: What about waste generator requirements? Anderson: That’s on radioactive solid waste. We couldn’t do an audit, but we could do assessments. One of the requirements that DOE put on us was that you’re to check and find out what’s going on. So that was in DOE Order 5820, I think it was. So we set up a program, and I used to visit all the DOE sites that sent us radioactive waste. They could be colleges, they could be other research laboratories, and so forth. Once a year, I and another guy and sometimes a couple more would go to do the different generating sites and verify that they’re indeed meeting our requirements for disposal. We would actually look at the waste. Not just say, yea verily and bless it. We had to go in. And we found some interesting things in some of that. We found a Coke bottle—Coke can, I guess it was, in a radioactive waste. That’s not supposed to be in there, you know. And then down at 300 Area, we found a wooden box that had the janitor’s materials in it. Why would that be in there? Well, he didn’t know what to do with it. Franklin: When in doubt, put it in the garbage, right? Anderson: That’s right. So we had some oddball stuff like that. One of the biggest problems we had was lead. Because they came out with hazardous requirements as well as radioactive requirements. Well, lead, if you do the test on it, the laboratory test, it’s a hazardous material. I remember we had a lot of people in one of the laboratories that said, well, I’ve been using it to prop my laboratory door open for 20 years and it hasn’t killed me yet. Franklin: You’re talking about, what? Like, just a piece of lead? Like a lead doorstop or something? Anderson: No, just a chunk—a lead brick. Franklin: Just a lead brick. Anderson: Just a plain old lead brick. Franklin: Where would one get a lead brick? Anderson: Oh, out at Hanford, they’re everywhere. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: I mean, you use them for shielding, mainly. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: So, yeah, you get them everywhere. Franklin: Of course, now that would be almost unheard of, right, to just have lead bricks on the floor as doorstops. Anderson: Right. And we had lead glass, too. Franklin: Right. Anderson: Leaded glass. So we took some leaded glass and analyzed it. It’s also hazardous. It meets the—or fails the test, or whatever you want to call it. Franklin: Sure. Anderson: We even went over to—it wasn’t Macy’s then, but it was the people that owned that facility before. We got some Steuben glass. That is the most crystal clear glass I think there is, but it’s high in lead. So the problem is, for instance, if you like wine, you may not want to leave it in there too long. We even called Steuben up, and they said, oh, yeah, we know it. Franklin: Wow. Another thing here is concern about hydrogen explosions. Anderson: We had that in the burial grounds as well as the Tank Farms. Radioactive materials can decay and ionize other things—organics, for instance—and tear them apart. So you can generate hydrogen. So, you don’t want that to build up in your, say, a waste drum of solid waste. So, we had to come up with some techniques to use so that we could mitigate any chance of hydrogen buildup in a waste system. For instance, we ended up with catalyst beads that we put in solid waste in a screen. We screened it and put it together so it’d be on top. That’s where hydrogen likes to go and stuff. So then we also put clips, vent clips, on the side of the drum that would be good enough to allow hydrogen to weep out, but it wouldn’t be good enough to let the plutonium out. So we did all these different things. Franklin: Did you ever have a hydrogen explosion? Anderson: No. Franklin: Okay. So this was just a concern based on the probability, but not an actual event. Anderson: That’s correct. Franklin: Do you know of any hydrogen explosion in a waste tank? Anderson: Not in a waste tank, but that reactor back east did have hydrogen in it. Franklin: Which--? Three Mile? Anderson: Three Mile Island, yeah. Franklin: Mm. I see. So another bullet here is trenches for reactors. Anderson: Okay! Now, we started this a long time ago, but the Navy has reactors in subs and they also have them in, oh, the flat tops. Franklin: The aircraft carriers. Anderson: Aircraft carriers. Franklin: Oh, so this is the burial grounds for the reactors. Anderson: Right. So they come from the shipyard over on the west side of the state, and then they put them on a barge because they’re so heavy. They bring them up the Columbia and then they bring them to the dock just south of 300 Area. Is that right? Yeah, I think that’s right. And then they transport it on a vehicle that has multi, multi tires. Then they travel at about five miles an hour or so and take it out to the burial grounds. So we have all those reactors out there. If you look at them, the outside of it is the hull from the sub, for instance. And then they put a plate on the front and back and— Franklin: How did that start? Anderson: Well, the Navy—well, we had the treaty with Russia. What was it? SALT Treaty? Franklin: Strategic Arms Limitation? Anderson: And so Russia had to know how many missiles were available in the military. So when they’re in dock and they’re [unknown] they leave the missile ports open so satellites that go over can look in and say, ha, they’re clean. And they can still count them in the burial grounds, even though there’s nothing there except the reactor. But we have to meet that. That’s politics. I won’t try to second guess that. Franklin: Sure. That’s fine. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: There’s a place for politics. Anderson: Now, the old reactors out along the Columbia River, there was a lot of talk about putting those in the burial ground, too. There’s all sorts of techniques. Originally, they were going to bring them, but they decided to let them decay a while and then maybe bring them over, I don’t know. Franklin: Or who knows? Maybe they’ll become part of the National Park someday. Anderson: Could be. Franklin: And then the last one here is something I’m familiar with, Environmental Impact Statements. Anderson: [LAUGHTER] We wrote our first burial Environmental Impact Statement in the early ‘70s, I think it was. Franklin: Right, that would’ve been right after the creation of the EPA. Anderson: And so we did that and then later on, Battelle had to do them. So then we did a pre-report, or—I don’t want to call it a pre-report. A report that had the information in it, and let Battelle run with it. So we worked on a lot of those, too. But that would include, again, burial grounds—or it depends what the EIS is on. But if it was on the burial grounds. One of them was on high level waste; I remember that, and Tank Farms, I think it was. So, yeah. Franklin: So the EISs, then, covered the different waste management activities that were going on out at Hanford? Anderson: Yes. Franklin: And so what kind of work did that take to put together and EIS for high level waste or for Tank Farm remediation? Anderson: It took months. You had to estimate what was going to happen and how it was, and then you had to look at different scenarios. But we couldn’t say what the final scenario was, or the conclusion. Franklin: Just because you didn’t know, or--? Anderson: No, that was Battelle’s problem. Let them decide what’s what. Franklin: Did you find yourself spending a lot of time doing EIS work? Anderson: Whenever they happened, yeah. Otherwise it was kind of not there. I mean, we had to obey by them. Once they were issued, we had to meet their requirements. Franklin: Sure, sure. So from the early ‘70s, then, and you said you retired for good in 2012, where was most of your work centered? Anderson: From about 1971 on, it was in the burial grounds. Franklin: Okay, so the 200 Area burial grounds. Anderson: Burial grounds. Franklin: It says here that you retired in 1996. Anderson: I physically retired in ’96, and then they called me back and I worked until 2012. So I almost worked 50 years. Franklin: Wow. How did things change for you, beginning in the late ‘80s after the production shutdown? Did you find your job changed? Or did the outlook of your coworkers or the bosses of the Site change? Anderson: Actually, we had more work because of the inspections we had to do and things like that. So it didn’t cut the work. Franklin: Just got busier for waste management? Anderson: Yeah. I mean, the requirements got more and more, so we had that. Now, that doesn’t include the ERDF, because I never worked on the ERDF. Franklin: Sure. Were you involved in any way with the vitrification plant or that type of waste management? Anderson: Not much, no. I can’t say much about that. They did make a vault out there that they took Tank Farm waste and added concrete to. That didn’t work. Franklin: You’re talking about—no, you’re not talking about BWIP, are you? Anderson: No, BWIP is another deal. It’s over by one of the A Farm complexes. Franklin: Oh, okay. Anderson: But they were taking Tank Farm waste and trying to show that they could put it in a vault and solidify it. But—I never followed it completely, but I don’t think it ever lived up to its expectations. Franklin: As in cost expectations, or as in safety— Anderson: As in meeting the environmental requirements. Franklin: Okay. I’m wondering, just quickly if we could go back in time a bit. Do you remember President Kennedy’s visit? Anderson: Yeah. [VIDEO CUTS] Anderson: To Kennedy’s visit? Tom Hungate: Yup. Franklin: Yeah, yeah, just—I wonder if you could tell me about that. Anderson: Well, I had to work. [LAUGHTER] But I was at PUREX when that happened. We had a door that the chemicals could come into the plant through. It was looking north towards the N Reactor. I can remember the cars going crazy out there and coming back the same way. So that’s all I could visually see, was what the traffic was going to and from. But, no, I wasn’t out there so I couldn’t say much on that. Franklin: Okay. When did your father retire from Hanford? Anderson: In the ‘60s. Franklin: Oh, okay. Anderson: And they called him back and he worked a few more times, 2,000 hours or whatever it was, and finally my mom said, that’s enough. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Where did your parents move after the B house was sold? Anderson: Oh, they bought another B house about three or four blocks away from that one. Franklin: Oh, okay. And did they live there then, for the rest of their lives? Anderson: Yes. They lived on one side for a while and then they moved over to the other side and lived on the other side. Franklin: Did they rent out the other side? Anderson: Mm-hmm. Franklin: So I was just wondering, is there anything we haven’t mentioned in this interview that you’d like to talk about? Anderson: Well, depends, but it seems to me, like, for instance, the burial requirements—and a lot of places were that way—but I searched and I searched, and I finally found the original burial requirement. That was in an RWP and it was about that long. Franklin: Sorry, what’s an RWP? Anderson: Radioactive Work Procedure. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: And there was a paragraph in it that was for the burial grounds. That was it. As time progressed—that was in the ‘40s, and as time progressed, they became more and more complicated and so forth because we had new requirements to meet. Then in probably the ‘80s, RCRA came in. So hazardous chemicals was also part of the problem. So you had to keep rad and hazardous and meet both requirements. Franklin: In the burial grounds. Anderson: In the burial grounds. The funny thing is, the first one I wrote was in the ‘70s. DOE said, we want you to put the sanitary landfill in it, too, so it covers not only the rad burial grounds but the sanitary landfill, which is the one in between East Area and the Wye Barricade. So I put that in there and we had to meet the requirements for that place in that document. I had to divide it up into the rad section and into the sanitary. So I issued it, and then DOE come back and says, what do you got this in there for, the sanitary? I said, because you told me to. And they said, well, take it out. [LAUGHTER] So they took it out. Or I took it out, because I had to rewrite it. And I was in on a lot of the rewrites after that. The documents got so thick and so forth, it was almost a fulltime job just to get that done. So that was probably something that was very important. The paper trail is not complete as far as I know. It took me a couple, three years to find the original one. Franklin: This report from the ‘40s. Anderson: Yeah. Franklin: And where was that? Or where does this appear in? Anderson: Well, I don’t know where it is, but an engineer had it and he had squirrelled it away. I found out through word-of-mouth and so forth where I might find it, and lo and behold, I finally did. But a lot of that early stuff— Franklin: Was it a Hanford-generated report? Anderson: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Okay. Anderson: It’s got a number and everything on it. So but that was interesting. In talking to some of the people—because the second half of—not second half; last third or so of the report I put together on the burial grounds—I interviewed the people that were involved in making the burial grounds and got a lot of good information on that. Franklin: You mean people that were involved in the early— Anderson: In the early East and West burial grounds. Franklin: And so you were kind of doing your own oral histories. Anderson: Well, that was for my document that I put together. Franklin: Well, sure. Anderson: It’s about that thick or whatever. [VIDEO CUTS] <a href="https://youtu.be/irJsdV1qKlU">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor N Reactor PRTR (Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor) 300 Area 100-K Area FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility) 234-5 Building REDOX T Plant B Plant 200 Area Burial Grounds Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1944- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1962-2012 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Anderson Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear reactors Chemistry Civil defense Civil defense drills Description An account of the resource James Anderson moved to Richland, Washington in 1944 as a child. James worked on the Hanford Site from 1962-2012. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 03/14/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Douglas Alford Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Douglas Alford on January 22, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Doug about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Douglas Alford: Madden Douglas Alford. Now you want me to spell it? Franklin: Yes, please. Alford: The last name? Oh. M-A-D-D-E-N. D-O-U-G-L-A-S. A-L-F-O-R-D. Franklin: Great, thanks. And you prefer to go by Doug, right? Alford: Yes. Franklin: Okay, great. So, Doug, tell me how you came to work for the Hanford Site. Alford: I came in 1951. Franklin: Okay. And how did you hear about Hanford? Alford: Pardon? Franklin: How did you hear about Hanford? Alford: Well, I went to school at Central Washington in Ellensburg. Franklin: Oh, okay. Alford: And so I was familiar with it. Franklin: Where are you from originally? Alford: Well, I was born in North Dakota. Franklin: Okay. And when did you come to Washington? Alford: I came to Washington in 1934. Franklin: Okay. Why did your parents come to Washington? Alford: My dad was a farmer. We had three years of no crops whatsoever. Dust blowing. It was a lot worse than—you’ve heard about the dust blowing here at Hanford, but it didn’t hold a candle to what we had in North Dakota. Let’s see. Well, my dad sold the place for $1600. It was a section of ground, but that’s all he got. So, when we came out, we came over with two cars. The lead car was a Model T Ford, and he was a relative of my mother. And then we followed him and we came over the Rocky Mountains. It was just a gravel road at that time. Franklin: Wow. Alford: It was quite a trip. We were in the second car, so there was a lot of dust. Every once in a while, we’d lose him ahead of us. But [LAUGHTER] we’d back off a little bit and we’d find out he was there. Franklin: How old were you when you made the trip? Alford: About—I left about when I was seven years old. Franklin: Okay, so you were born in—what year were you born? Alford: ’25. Franklin: ’25, okay. Wow, that sounds like quite a journey, driving from North Dakota. Where did your parents settle when they came to Washington? Alford: It was Kirkland, Washington. Franklin: Oh, okay. And what made you choose Central Washington College? Alford: What year? Franklin: Why did you go to Central Washington? Alford: Well, I was in the Navy prior to that. I just—I had always planned to go to college, so. I think that was in 1946. Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Alford: ’46. I think I started at college and didn’t like it too well and I quit after a quarter or two. And then went back the next year and finished my degree in chemistry. Franklin: In chemistry, right. And then you—when did you come to Hanford? What year did you come to Hanford? Alford: That was 1951. Franklin: And what did you do? What was your first job at Hanford? Alford: The first job—I had about ten or twelve lady laboratory technicians that I was supervising. I think I did that about three years, three or four years. It didn’t appeal to me after a while. Franklin: Yeah? Alford: I thought there might be something a little better. Franklin: Okay. And what did you move on to? Alford: Well, I quit Hanford and worked—a friend of mine up in Prosser on a farm. But that was supposedly a year-round job, and it didn’t pan out that way somehow. So I called my friend, Fred Clagett. He was the mayor of Richland at that time, but he also worked in personnel at Hanford. And I told him I’d like my job back, but I don’t want the same one. And he said, that’s fine, and he even gave me a raise. Franklin: Wow. Alford: But I did spend a little time reading pocket books and things like that until my clearance came. That was customary for most everybody coming in. You just sat there and read and had to wait for your Q clearance. Franklin: The Q clearance, right. Alford: Yeah. Franklin: So what job did you hire back in as? Alford: In engineering—an engineer. I guess they call it an Engineer I or something like that. That was much more appealing to me. I had that on one of those write-ups I had. I don’t know whether you have it or not. Franklin: I do, yeah, it says that you worked in the 300 Area. Alford: Yeah, that’s the 300 Area. Franklin: What kind of duties did you do as an engineer there in the 300 Area? Alford: You know, I might have to have one of those myself to remind myself. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Sure, yeah. Okay. There you go. Yeah, that’s all right. Visual aids are encouraged. So it says here you worked doing cold pilot plant work and the recovery of uranium from simulated solvent extraction products, which contained urinal nitrate hexahydrate. Alford: Yeah, that was the first job. Uranyl nitrate—when you brought the slugs in from the—or the fuel elements in from the 100 Areas, we’d dissolve them in nitric acid. We’d always—so they’re mainly the uranium slug. We took the solution, the uranium solution and put it in a calciner at a pretty high temperature, and we’d come out with uranium oxide. That was the—we were just testing what temperatures we needed to run that and things like that. Franklin: So you’re basically trying to recapture the uranium, during the process— Alford: Yes. Franklin: So you could probably re-put it in other fuel? You could refuel it. Alford: Yeah, it could be reused—the uranium could be reused. And then we also ran cold operations in a little bit of a pilot plant, to separate—trying to separate the strontium and cesium out of the solvent-extracted waste. The solvent extraction is a number of steel columns. The first one, the waste stream from the first one contains all the fission products. Downstream, the different columns, we’d get the strontium, cesium isolated there. Franklin: What was the purpose of isolating the strontium and cesium? Alford: They’re a fission product, a long-lived fission product. So for one thing, Oak Ridge was looking for cesium-137 for medicinal work, actually. But they’re both long-lived isotopes. We figured we had to get rid of them later on so we could isolate them. They’re a really—in the waste stream. There’s more work downstream. We moved from—that was in the 300 Area, and then we moved to the 200-East Area, what we called the hot pilot plant at that time, semi-works and we just continued the pilot scale work that we were doing in the 300 Area, just on a slightly larger scale. But that, at the semi-works, we were on actual PUREX waste stream that contained the strontium and cesium. Franklin: So you were receiving the waste as it was exiting the PUREX plant— Alford: Yes. Franklin: But you weren’t extracting all of—you weren’t using all of the waste, right, just a portion of the waste? Alford: No, just a very small portion of it. Franklin: So that’s how a lot of that strontium and cesium ended up in the waste tanks later on. Alford: Yeah. Franklin: Because you couldn’t—so, when you would extract it, you said you used to the cesium—Oak Ridge wanted the cesium. What was the strontium used—was it just extracted because it was so radioactive, or did it have an application? Alford: Well, we extracted it because it’s a long-lived—it’s a 90-year half-life, and it’s something we just simply had to—I think it’s still stored out at Hanford, probably, in large lead casks. There’s a lot of strontium and cesium in the tanks out there also. But from the pilot plant at the semi-works, I moved to B Plant. That’s a full-scale operation. We ran around the clock. We had four shifts. I think—I don’t remember exactly how many—but anyhow, my part of that one, I was writing the—I had several engineers and a couple technicians, and we wrote the—took the procedures from the other research and engineering people in the building. They told us how to do it, but then we put it into operating procedures for our operators. That’s what I did; it’s called Process Control. We wrote the operating—that was a—I guess I was—well, I moved from there to the manager of B Plant operations. Franklin: So, B Plant was effectively a copy of T Plant, right? It was a Manhattan Project era canyon. Alford: Yes. Franklin: What process were you operating at the time? What were you processing at B Plant? Alford: At B Plant, we had large-scale solvent extraction columns. They were just enlarged from the pilot plant. It was initial pilot plant in the 300 Area, then semi-works was upgraded a little bit, and then B Plant was big, steel columns. And you got solution—aqueous solution going in and organic solution going in, and they were pulsating. This is how we’d separate one from another—one isotope from another. Franklin: What isotopes were you separating in B Plant? Alford: Well, we weren’t actually—just separating the waste stream. Finally getting the plutonium out of the—to send to the—well, the Plutonium Finishing Plant, that’s the one that they’re having trouble with right now. Franklin: Yeah, 234-5. Alford: Yeah. Franklin: So in B Plant, you were separating plutonium. You were taking this solution in, and then separating the plutonium out from the waste stream. Alford: Yes. Franklin: Okay. And you did this—this was all done remotely, right? Alford: Right, yeah. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk about that a bit. What were the challenges in doing this work remotely? Alford: Well, the cover blocks sit over the cells. We’d have about five cells, and you’ve got cover blocks over each cell, several. I think about three cover blocks: one on each side and a middle one. Those cover blocks weigh about 70 tons each. Franklin: Wow. Alford: And then it’s all stainless steel piping in the processing cell. And then we have a big gantry crane that moves over. The crane operator, when he gets—if we have to make a rooting change in the cell, he removes the cover blocks, and he has remote—we have remote connectors on every—we call them jumpers, that’s the solution transfer pipe from one to the other. And he’d make that whatever transfer or connection we needed, and then cover blocks go back on. That was the—we were always, of course, in a down period when that happened. Franklin: What do you mean, a down period? Alford: Well, I mean, we weren’t operating when the cells were open. Franklin: So you said that each cover block weighs 70 tons? Alford: Yeah. Franklin: So that’s concrete—those are concrete blocks, right? Alford: Well, they were—I’ve forgotten how big they are now. I think they’re seven feet thick and I’m not sure how wide. Franklin: That’s huge. Alford: The cell was about—well, one cell was probably 20 feet or so. 20 by maybe 15 or something. I don’t remember exactly. Maybe 10 by 20. I can’t remember that. Franklin: That’s okay. So I imagine that in that area, you would be on the other side of a thick concrete wall, sampling and observing the process. You wouldn’t actually be in the gallery, right? Alford: No. Franklin: Because it was too radioactive in there. Alford: Right. Franklin: How did the operators see—did the operator have a direct line of sight on what he’s doing, or how did you shield the crane operator from the radioactivity? Alford: Well, the crane operator, he had lead shielding underneath him and whatnot. He had lead shielding all around his cab. Our operators, they would have to go in to take process samples routinely. At that time, they were getting more exposure than we liked. That’s where I devised a sampler that reduced their time in there. I applied for a patent on it, but they told me that I used vacuum so that invalidated the—I can’t imagine why. But anyhow, it did the job for the operators. They still call it the Alford connector. Franklin: Oh, that’s cool. I’m wondering if you can describe this Alford connector. What did it look like and how was it an improvement over the existing sampler? Alford: Well, the only thing that it improved, it took a lot less time to take the sample, so they weren’t exposed—they weren’t in the canyon as long as they would have before. Franklin: Would the block have to be off for them to take the sample? Alford: No, they have—the blocks are all on, and we were operating at that time. But you have to take successive samples to go to the analytical lab, and that’s where these ladies were working. Franklin: Oh, right. So how would—if the blocks are on and the stuff is in the cell and it’s connected by a jumper, how would you get a sample out? Where was the— Alford: Well, the sample port is built in. There’s an entryway in the cell cover block itself. It’s not a straight line; it’s a curved line to reduce radiation. But I think that’s— Franklin: That’s really interesting. Alford: There is one little—when I moved in from process control to the manager of the plant, I could always—a little bit of a smell in the office, and I couldn’t figure it out. And, I don’t know, I asked somebody what it might be. Well, it turned out to be, the crane operator, in order to come back down out of that crane and change clothes and go to the bathroom—well, he had to urinate. And this thing ended up in my office. He didn’t run right in the office, but that was the smell that I heard. Franklin: Oh, wow. Alford: It took us a while to uncover the problem there. [LAUGHTER] The crane operator didn’t admit it, but— Franklin: It’s a waste stream of a different kind, huh? Alford: Yeah! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, man. Okay. So what were some of the challenges of working in B Plant? Alford: Well, one of the things that, even when I was process control, but more often when I became manager, I’d get more night calls than I wanted. If we have a stream that’s—if you have a waste stream going out and the radiation is higher than it should be, or when we dump the acid, some of the acid waste into the tanks, it’s supposed to be neutralized before it goes to the tank. Occasionally, the guys would fail to neutralize it, and we’d get a little bit of a burp out in the Tank Farm. Well, we had normal problems with operators and engineers—nothing unusual, I guess. They weren’t— Franklin: I imagine, all that shielding and not being able to directly see what was going on, was that challenging? To have all of that shielding between you and what was actually happening there? Alford: Yeah. We had to depend on—we had a lot of control instruments. You know, just like, they’re reading all the—on the graphs—I can’t remember now what exactly we did, I mean. But the chemical operators, they’re on the outside. They’re not in the area of the canyon. There’s probably a six-foot wall between them, between them and the canyon. So they weren’t in a radiation zone. But the only ones that—we had to send samplers in every so often. I had a boss that was pretty persnickety. He was—at least occasionally one of my supervisors would call him instead of calling me first. And then he’d call me, and then I’d have to pretend like I knew about it. It was a little bit of a game that we played. But he’s what I’d call a perfectionist. I know when I had to write monthly reports every month, I thought I had the perfect report one time, but he called me and told me I had the wrong year. It was right after New Year’s, and I still had the—so I missed that, even. But he was a real good boss. Franklin: What kinds of things were you sampling for, when you’d take the samples? What was the purpose of the samples? Alford: The what? Franklin: What was the purpose of the samples? You’d talked earlier about taking samples. Why’d you need to take samples periodically? Alford: Well, the whole process is lined out, different columns are supposed to be a certain composition if the thing is running like it should, the flow sheet. If it’s off-standard or something, we want to know about it to correct it. That’s mainly the reason for the samples. Franklin: Oh, okay. Alford: Occasionally, if we couldn’t get the right—well, occasionally the lab technicians that we’d send the samples to, they’d have a problem or so, and we’d have to re-sample the tank and re-sample the columns and so forth. Franklin: What was the most rewarding aspect of your work at B Plant? Alford: The most rewarding? Franklin: Yeah. Alford: I guess the people. I had a real good bunch of people and we got along very well and they were very dependable. And I learned a lot along the way. Let’s see. After B Plant, I went to the PUREX plant. Franklin: Okay. Alford: And at that time, at the PUREX plant was where we had the first cesium leak in the Tank Farm in the 2-West area. That was really the first—these are million-gallon tanks, and it’s hard to measure an inch difference. An inch drop can be quite a few gallons in that tank. Franklin: Yeah. Right! Alford: But anyhow, that first leak, we went to—my engineering assistant, he carpooled with me. And he told me, I think we got a problem over in 2-West. I told him, I don’t want to hear about it now. But I heard about it the next morning. Franklin: I bet. Alford: And then my boss, Bill Harley, and I had to go down and talk to the, at that time, the AEC people. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned to them that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg and it’s inevitable that there’s going to be more. And we found out that we’ve had a lot—even in the double-shell tanks now. We haven’t ever had anything out of the double-shell tanks, but a lot of the single-shell tanks are giving us problems. That’s one of the things we’re trying to get things into the double-shell tanks, and there’s even some talk maybe of building more. I don’t know. A lot of it is politics, probably. Franklin: Yeah. So this leak you’re talking about in 200 West was in the single-shell tank? Alford: What was that? Franklin: The leak in 2-West was in a single-shell tank? Alford: Yeah, they all—2-East and 2-West were all single-shell initially. I’ve forgotten the time, but we went to double-shell tanks for additional containment. And now we’re trying to—we’ve got an evaporator running and we’re trying to move the solutions from the single-shells to the double-shell tanks. Franklin: Right. Alford: And that’s one of the things that the vitrification plant is supposed to go, but that’s why behind schedule and way over budget and so forth. Franklin: Sure is. Alford: Yeah, it is. Franklin: Yeah. I’d like to talk a bit more about the tanks. Were they intended to be long-term storage, or was there any thought given to long-term storage in the early years of Hanford production? What was the discussion about the waste problem when you started at Hanford? Alford: Well, the main emphasis at the time that I worked there, we were trying to get enough plutonium down to Rocky Flats to build a bomb. We didn’t really—had we been able to do it over again, there’s a lot of changes we probably would’ve made. But we probably did some things like when the slugs would come in on the train cars from the 100 Areas, we’d always dissolve them at night. Because there’d be a little bit of a nitric acid cloud, and we could—that’s one of the things that we had to shut the PUREX plant down, eventually. We did shut it down. We only had about probably three or four, maybe five months of processing, and we’d have processed all the fuel. But then the AEC in Washington, DC said shut it down. So that’s what we did. I kind of lost my train of thought for a minute there. Franklin: That’s okay. That’s fine, we can move on. I’d like to go back in time a little bit and ask you—so you came to Hanford in 1951, right? Alford: Mm-hmm. Franklin: So at that time, Richland was all—it was still a government town, when you moved here, right, and GE ran the town services. Alford: Right. Franklin: Where did you live when you first got here? Did you live in Richland? Alford: Yeah, we lived in Richland. Two-bedroom prefab. If I remember correctly, it was on McPherson Street. I don’t know if that’s still here or not. Franklin: It is. I used to live right—when I first lived here, I lived in a two-bedroom prefab myself, on Stanton. Alford: Is that right? Franklin: Which is very close to McPherson, yeah. Alford: Yeah. They were all Alphabet Homes. Franklin: How long did you live in the two-bedroom prefab? And how many people—did you have a family at the time? Alford: Oh, yeah. We had two kids, Christine and my son that’s—he passed away here, three, four years ago—at that time, and then middle-aged son, he was on the way. That’s why I decided that it might be better to work at Hanford than work at the farm, which wasn’t quite as reliable. Franklin: Oh, right. Yeah, you had a family to take care of. Alford: Yeah. Franklin: What was your wife’s name? Alford: Beverly. Franklin: And what did she do when you lived in Richland? Was she stay-at-home, or did she work as well? Alford: No, she stayed home. She was a very good homemaker. I have to hand it to her that I’ve lived as long as I’ve lived because she’s really a good, healthful cook. Franklin: Oh, good. Alford: She cooked— Franklin: What did you think about Richland when you first moved into town? I assume it was probably the first time you’d ever lived in a government town. What struck you as—what stands out? Was there anything that struck you as odd or different about Richland when you moved here? Alford: Well, I can’t think of anything—the one thing, when I needed anything in the way of hardware, to repair something, I always had to go to Pasco at that time to get it. And then when I came back in ’54 from that one year of farming, we moved into another house, and I don’t remember what it was. But we eventually moved to Pasco not long after that, because it seemed like everything we needed was in Pasco. There just wasn’t much available in Richland at that time. Franklin: Right, you’re saying that kind of the commercial sector was lacking. Alford: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. And then did you stay in Pasco for the rest of your time at Hanford? Alford: Yeah, then we lived in Pasco for—I don’t remember now when we moved to Pasco, but, yeah, we were still there and we moved around a few times. But we’re— Franklin: How did you—I assume when you first came to Hanford, you had to take the bus out. Did you take the bus out to work? Alford: Yeah. Franklin: Can you talk about that? What was that like? What kind of schedule did it run? Alford: I worked on the day shift all the time that I was out there. I didn’t have shift work to do. But the buses were good. They had a lot of people that played cards on the way out and on the way back and whatnot. But I didn’t get involved with that. But it was a chance to get caught up on some reading and things like that. But later on, I started driving, because I would, quite often, be in a meeting that was still going on when the buses left. So I either had to get out there and hitchhike or—I had a government car quite often. But many times, I finally just decided just to drive and then I could—because it seemed like we were in a lot of meetings and my boss, he was pretty good, but he had a staff meeting, he’d always have it at 11:00, so that people couldn’t hold over. Franklin: How has the Tri-Cities changed since you first moved here? Alford: How what? Franklin: How has the Tri-Cities changed since you first moved here? Alford: Oh, boy. It’s just—it’s more recent, the change I’ve seen, really has picked up the pace. It really—I can’t say, except the growth here in the past ten years has just been phenomenal. Franklin: Were you working—you were working out onsite when President Kennedy came to visit. Alford: Yes. Franklin: Did you go to see him? Alford: Yes, I did. Franklin: And did your family come as well? Alford: And I think my wife and I came. I can’t—but not the kids. The kids were in school. Franklin: Okay. What do you remember about that day? Alford: Well, I thought he did a nice—he was a very, very good speaker. I always liked him; he was a Navy man just like I was. Franklin: Oh, okay. Alford: He was a good democrat. Franklin: Okay. So I guess we’ll go forward again. Thanks for—I’m always interested about the social aspects of Tri-Cities in the past. So you were at—we talked about the tanks, and then the leaking. And then you were at PUREX plant when it shut down, right? Alford: Mm-hmm. Franklin: So after PUREX plant shut down, you went to work for the Basalt Waste Isolation Project. Alford: Yeah. There’s a little story there that— Franklin: Okay. Alford: I probably—I don’t—when the leak—when we went downtown, there was a meeting with DOE—DOE, you know, runs the show. I don’t know if this—heads have to roll when something happens. Franklin: Right. They sure do. Alford: The supervisor on the 2-West Tank Farms, we had to walk him off the plant. My Tank Farm manager had to walk him off the plant. And I’m not going to name names, but—and then my Tank Farm manager, I don’t know how exactly he—he got sidelined. You might also—I got sidelined. I moved from an operations manager to a staff manager on a slightly different job. The operations—it was, you might say, a slight downgrade. But my boss, Bill Harley, I think he—I forgot what happened on him right now. Anyhow, quite a few of us got penalized one way or the other. I don’t know if this is something that it should go into the records or not. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Well, I think— Alford: It’s just one of those things that happened. Franklin: Sure. Alford: Anyhow, I went to the staff manager for a while but I don’t know how long I was in that now, but it was just administrative work. Then I moved downtown to the Basalt Waste Isolation Project. That was pretty interesting. The problem there, we were testing the basalt in Gable Mountain to see if it would be a suitable location for highly radioactive waste casks. Solidified casks. Due to the high radiation that would be, the tunnels had to be self-supporting. We couldn’t use timbers because they wouldn’t hold up. So we took core samples of the basalt to see if it was under stress. When we pushed the two-inch core sample out of the gun, it would just pop off like checkers, and that told us that it was under stress, and it would never work. At that time, I had a talk with my boss about whether we should just ‘fess up to the fact that it’s no good and we might as well not waste any more taxpayer money, but that was the wrong thing to say, too. So it wasn’t long after that, I was, I think, in the basalt project. I think probably a couple, three years. And I also at that time, I was downtown, and I used the kind of flexible hours and I was starting to farm. And so early in the morning I’d make the rounds of circles to see if everything was all right. Then I’d call my friend that I later on worked for to tell him it’s fine, and then I’d go to work. And I would be able to—I got my time in, but I got a little bit different hours than some of the others and it worked out pretty well. After a couple, three years on that, I decided to retire. It was after kind of—you might want to edit this out, too. My boss sent me out to talk to the psychiatrist. I called him the shrink. He happened to be—after he was the head of the—superintendent of Pasco Schools, I think. But anyhow long after that I decided to go farming full-time. When I didn’t have a long commute to Hanford, I suddenly found myself with a lot of spare time. Along with the spud farming and so forth, I decided to put a vineyard in, a wine grape vineyard in Block 1. We did that—I think that was 1982 that I retired. ’82, yeah. We put the first half of the vineyard in in 1983 and the second half in 1985. We got crops and we didn’t intend to stay in business, but I had Dr. Clore, my consultant at that time. When we got a crop, the varieties and the yields and whatnot established on the vineyard, that’s when we decided to sell it. That’s what our original plan was. It was located along the river, a good location, but I had grown spuds prior to that, but it was a little too rocky for spud-growing, so that’s why we put the vineyard in. Franklin: What did you do after you sold it? You just retired full-time? Alford: Yeah. I retired and I farmed full-time, spuds and corn and wheat, down in Oregon a little bit. But most of it around here. And then the wine grapes. Franklin: Okay. Oh, sorry, were you going to say something? Alford: Pardon? Franklin: Oh, nothing, never mind. In what ways did the security or secrecy at the Hanford Site impact your work there? Alford: Did--? Franklin: How did security and secrecy affect your work at the Hanford Site? Alford: Well, we had to, one thing, if our filing cabinet wasn’t locked, security would make the rounds, and if it was unlocked, they would call you at home and you—we didn’t have to immediately go out, but the next morning we had to out and verify that everything was the way it was. When you’ve got four drawers and they’re not all secret documents, but there’s enough there that there’s no way that I could remember what was—but we managed to get by it. Franklin: Did that ever happen to you? Alford: No. Franklin: Oh. Alford: No, but another thing that’s a little bit humorous that happened to be at B Plant was, I would find orange peelings on my desk sometime when I’d come in. And we finally tracked it down. I had the shift people to keep an eye out, and it was a raccoon that came in and floated around and got in the waste basket. [LAUGHTER] That’s where he— Franklin: That’s pretty amazing. All that security and the raccoon was just kind of moving in there as he pleases. Alford: He was—I don’t know what kind of clearance he had or not. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Did you ever encounter any snakes? Alford: Not that I can recall. Franklin: Okay. Any other ways that secrecy or security impacted you when you were working there? Alford: No, I don’t think so. I was pretty careful not to bring stuff home. Because it was—Patrol—I very seldom brought work home. I never brought anything home, you know, that required a Q clearance. Franklin: Okay. It says here in your bio that at times you accompanied the personnel department on trips to universities to interview students to work at Hanford. Alford: Yeah. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk a bit about that. What kinds of people were you looking for? Alford: Yeah. We usually, I would go as an operations-type. But the personnel office, they’d invite maybe an engineer, they’d invite me and a manager or something like that. We were looking at third-year kids, mostly. Most of my—I can’t remember every—University of Colorado and University of Wyoming and Brigham Young University, and Utah State were some of them. I guess there were others. But if a student looked like a reasonable hire, we’d bring him in for an interview. And then somebody—but there were only third year students, so—I’ve forgotten now. There’s—I can’t recall just exactly how that intervening year, that subsequent year, how we handled that. But the personnel department would keep in touch with these students that looked good to us. But we didn’t have the authority to hire anybody in, but we were just scoping— Franklin: Did you ever get asked any strange questions by students, or did they ever ask you things you couldn’t talk about? Alford: They what? Franklin: Did they ever ask you any strange questions, the students, or— Alford: Oh, they may have. But I can’t recall. In Salt Lake one time, I was interviewing in the morning, and I went out to lunch—you know, it’s right on the leeward side of the Rocky Mountains. We had quite a snowfall. Oak Ridge, I had to go there a couple of times. I think I’ve forgotten—anyhow, the place we stayed at—these trips are all set up for us—the place I stayed at, they had a flood or I’ve forgotten what the deal was now, but I had to eat down in the basement. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That doesn’t sound like too much fun. My last question is, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Alford: Would you repeat that? Franklin: Sure. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Alford: Well, our main—I may have mentioned, I think—my main goal was to beat Germany to the bomb. Well, I can’t answer your problem directly, I don’t think. The fact that we could build buildings and we could do things—if you have a real goal in mind, a lot of times, the politics have to come separate. That’s kind of the way it was when I worked out there. We could do—even on reactors, it took us ten or fifteen years just to get the paperwork and the licensing and things like that. The Frenchmen could do all that in five years, and we knew that. But still—if we could get rid of the paperwork, it saves money and gets the job done much quicker. Franklin: Okay. Well, Doug, is there anything else that you’d like to say before we close the interview? Anything else you haven’t mentioned or I haven’t asked? Alford: No, I think you’ve done pretty good job. Franklin: Okay. Alford: Sparking my memory, but I just—I’ve kind of lost a lot of my memory now. I’m getting on in years. Franklin: No, thank you so much for interviewing with us. You’ve had a really remarkable career, and I appreciate you taking the time to share that with us today. Alford: Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed it. Franklin: Good. Okay. Yeah. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 100 Areas 200 East PUREX B Plant Plutonium Finishing Plant 234-5 Building Tank Farms 200 West Basalt Waste Isolation Project (BWIP) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1982 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Douglas Alford Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Ellensburg (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Chemistry Nuclear reactors Reactor fuel processing Description An account of the resource Douglas Alford moved to Richland, Washington in 1951 and worked on the Hanford Site from 1951-1982. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 01/22/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fda26cb19779d92a2c99d388c60c061cb.JPG 2bdd1af2ebcb6e94b7a0dba47b60794e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jillian Gardner-Andrews Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mel Adams Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Jillian Gardner-Andrews: All right, so I just start talking and you start filming? Victor Vargas: Yeah. Gardner-Andrews: Okay. My name is Jillian Gardner-Andrews. I am conducting an oral history interview with Mel Adams on February 10th, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Mel about his experiences working on the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your name for us? Mel Adams: Melvin Adams. M-E-L-V-I-N, A-D-A-M-S. Gardner-Andrews: Okay. All right, Mel, can you tell me how and why you came to the area to work on the Hanford Site? Adams: Well, I started out after I graduated from college being a science teacher in high school. Did that for about 12 years. And found that I really couldn’t make a very good living at that. So, my family and I just went back to school to get a degree in environmental engineering, which was a newly developing field at the time. Because I really wanted to work in the environmental area. And as I was about fit to finish my program, saw an ad in the paper. Rockwell Hanford, which is one of the contractors at that time, wanting environmental engineers. So I applied and they called me up here for an interview. It wasn’t long that we were moving up here. That was in 1979. So—do you want me to just keep going, or— Gardner-Andrews: Mm-hmm! Adams: At that time, the Site was still largely into plutonium production. So as far as I know, the group that I joined, under this crazy Irishman [LAUGHTER] named Hank McGuire, was the first group that dealt with environmental issues. So I may have been one of the first environmental engineers actually hired at Hanford. Because almost all the engineers were either chemical, and there were a few nuclear engineers. But that was the emphasis at that time. And then over the years, of course, the environmental work became more and more important. Finally, they stopped making plutonium. So there was rapid growth in the environmental cleanup area. At that time, I had enough experience under my belt to manage the environmental engineering group. That was really interesting. Gardner-Andrews: Where, specifically, onsite did you spend the majority of your time? Adams: Well, I was all over the place. My office was out at 200 East area. Which isn’t far from PUREX, if you know the Site. There’s an office building out there called 2750 East. All the buildings at Hanford have numbers and letters. Anyway, I was out there for many years. A few years, I was actually in town, and so I was kind of back and forth. Gardner-Andrews: Okay. And could you describe a typical work day for yourself? Adams: Well, when I was a junior engineer, it was mostly supporting the senior engineer and helping him write engineering studies and things of that sort. After I became a manager, it was quite different of course, because I had six different managers and their groups to look over, plus a large budget with a lot of subcontractors. So at that time, I spent a lot of time on training and a lot of time on budgets and didn’t get to do much of the engineering work myself. But I had to oversee it, make sure it was properly staffed and the work was being done safely and so forth. Gardner-Andrews: Could you explain what exactly an environmental engineer would do onsite? Adams: Yeah, the field of environmental engineering is—when I took the courses, it was largely involved with air pollution and treatment, and mostly water pollution—waste water treatment. And there were some courses in solid waste management. So, it was how to engineer things to keep the air clean, and clean up water, dispose of solid waste, that kind of thing. There was a heavy emphasis also on monitoring in the field to detect environmental problems. So we had a lot of biology and chemistry. And then there was a large legal aspect, because environmental law quickly became very complex. Particularly after the Nixon administration, when he created the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act and so forth. And there was large concern about cleaning up—have you heard the term RCRA sites? These are sites that were badly polluted and they had to be cleaned up and the sites restored. So that got us into soils—understanding soils. At Hanford, groundwater pollution was and still is a major issue. So there was an emphasis on also groundwater hydrology and how to clean up groundwater. So I’d say at Hanford, the part I worked in most was contaminated animals and plants, groundwater, solid waste, and contaminated soils. Gardner-Andrews: So the animals that were contaminated and plants, these are the ones on Site itself? Adams: Yeah, that’s less of a problem today, because my group made some progress and there’s been a lot more progress since. But what would happen is we had sites where there was a lot of water—just billions of gallons of waste water disposed in the soil—directly to the soil. That went on for years when the plants like PUREX were operating. So we had a lot of contaminated soils, and plants like the Russian thistle would go down 12 feet or so, and they were good at uptaking things like cesium and strontium, bringing them to the surface. And of course then when they became tumbleweeds, they would blow towards the river. This—the animals would—well, the plants would also be somewhat contaminated and the animals would then become contaminated, because they would eat—herbivores like rabbits and so forth. And then they would spread out and through their waste, they would spread contamination. So that was a real problem. It’s been largely solved now. But we also had a lot of other problems with animals, like we would get calls from people and offices with rattlesnakes under their desk, and spiders and all kinds of things like that. One of the most humorous stories was, my group were called the Bugs and Bunny Boys—or the Weeds. [LAUGHTER] And they were a pretty interesting group. But they got a call from Battelle one day and said, we’ve got some lab mice that have gotten loose, and it’s upsetting our experimental protocols. We need to get these guys back in their cages. So the Bugs and Bunny Boys were called on to solve that problem. So they said, well, we’re going to need a lot of peanut butter and rolled oats. So I gave them an emergency order so they could go to the store and buy lots of it. One day, my manager came in—what are you trying to do, feed your family on the federal budget? So I had to explain to him that this was bait for the traps, live traps, so we could get these mice back under control. And he finally went away, a little bit embarrassed. [LAUGHTER] But those are some of the kind of jobs we got. Their workplace was really like a bizarre morgue. They had all these freezers full of animals that had been collected and were due to be analyzed for radioactivity. So there’s lots of animals in this freezer, and there was plant specimens everywhere. Plant presses and microscopes. You go out in their garage, they had—it looked like a farm shed: all these machinery to spray plants. What they would do is each year go out and spray all the Russian thistles and then come in and plow it up and replant with native bunchgrass. Because the bunchgrass can’t go down nearly as far to bring up radionuclides. So that’s kind of some of the—that was one of the six groups I had, and I would say they were kind of the most interesting. [LAUGHTER] Gardner-Andrews: So would the environmental engineers themselves do the research on the animals? Adams: Yes. And we—well, sometimes they would have to get help from Battelle or specialists. But they would collect and do most of the analysis themselves and write reports and all of that. The soil cleanup was a different matter. That involved a lot of soil sampling and my group would actually go in and do some of the pilot scale cleanup where they’d go into the trenches and survey it. Then bring in backhoes or whatever tools were needed to clean it up. So we contracted out a lot of the work, but not all of it. Another aspect was groundwater. Hanford has thousands of wells that are used to sample groundwater. There’s still about a thousand-and-some that are used even to this day to take samples, probably about once a month. That way the groundwater hydrologist can tell which way the plumes are moving and whether they’re growing or shrinking. Then we would go in and use pump and treat—pump the water out, run it through a treatment plant, and put it back. And that worked. So the plumes at Hanford, for the most part, are shrinking, have been for quite a few years now. But there was over 100 square miles of polluted groundwater. So it was a major, major effort. But anyway, when we were drilling lots of wells, we had like 14 drill rigs in the field at a time, with all the mobile labs and mobile equipment that was needed to go with them. We had to use a certain kind of drilling rig, which we got from the Texas oilfields. [LAUGHTER] So that was interesting, because we had a lot of contractors we had to watch over, the drilling contractors. Another little-known thing that most people don’t understand is Hanford is obsessed with safety. Not just radiological safety, but physical safety. We had safety engineers and industrial hygienists working with us to make sure all the work was conducted safely. There was a lot of training, a lot of procedures, a lot of trial runs before you even went into the field. So that was an aspect of Hanford. People think it’s just a nightmare, but it’s not. It’s highly controlled, highly proceduralized, and everyone has a lot of training. So it’s done—the work was—I felt safer there than when I was a teacher. [LAUGHTER] So— Gardner-Andrews: Okay. So what would you say that the most challenging aspects of your work at Hanford were? Adams: Well, depending on the time when I was there—I mean, towards the end the challenges were mostly managerial. But there were some interesting engineering challenges, which I got to do and be involved in, or directly involved in, in some cases. One of them was that there was a requirement, a code of federal regulation, that said that if you’re going to leave waste in place—and there will be some left at Hanford when it’s all done; it’s unavoidable—that you need to mark the sites so that if someone comes along 10,000 years from now, that you can communicate the danger to them. Well, so, we had to develop some markers. Well, the problem is, are people still going to be speaking English that live here? Are we still going to have, you know, technology like DVDs or at that time floppy disks, or whatever? So how do you design a marker? Well, to do that—and that project, I was working on my own, because it was a small project, money-wise. So I contracted an archaeologist who had been at all these sites, like the Great Wall of China, the Acropolis, Stonehenge, and all of these places which have been around a long time. So we started analyzing them and trying to get some clues as to how to make these markers. And I remember that one of the things you don’t do is make them of metal, because, like on the Acropolis, there’s holes where there used to be large metal shields, and the shields have been lost because people would scavenge them. So we didn’t want to use metals. How large do you make the marker? Well, at Stonehenge, a lot of the stones less than twice human size were taken. So, it’s got to be at least twice human size. So we’re talking about a pretty big marker. And then we had to figure out what languages to put the warnings on. We ended up with the six languages of the United Nations. Then the Yakama Tribe came along and said, well, our language has been around a lot longer than yours. Use ours. Well, that’s a good idea, except they didn’t have a written language. They’ve been working on it, but we couldn’t really use it, because it wasn’t written—at least at that time. So once we decided on the languages, then we had to decide on what to put on the marker, how to incise the message so it doesn’t get eroded. And we put on maps, we put on warning pictograms like showing people digging and then collapsing, things like that, so people would get the idea. You don’t want to dig here. These ended up being like an obelisk made of granite that were about—what—16 feet high or so. We never actually built one of those, because they’re not needed yet. But basically the 200-East and West area would be surrounded by these markers, such that, if one was taken away, you could still reconstruct the perimeter. And then we decided to make some subsurface markers—small markers that could be put by the hundreds into a waste site, into a barrier. So if they started digging, they would pull up these brightly-colored with the radiation danger sign on them, magenta and yellow, with the symbol that showed what happens to you if you keep digging. You know, a little cartoon. So we made hundreds of those. Those were made out of—well, we did a lot of testing with this pottery works. All kinds of testing to make sure those would hold up in the ground. And of course, pottery has survived for thousands of years from burial sites. So we knew that they would last a long time. But they had to be tested with ASTM tests—American Society of Testing. And to make sure that the colors would be retained and that the colors wouldn’t fade, that they wouldn’t break up in the soil due to temperature or water fluctuation, things like that. So that was really an interesting project. We made a lot of those, and there’s actually a sample at the display case at Atomic Brew. If you look, when you go in Atomic Brew, they’ve got a lot of memorabilia from Hanford. Somehow they got ahold of a sample subsurface marker. They’re about this big. So that’s kind of interesting. Gardner-Andrews: Are any of the subsurface markers in place already? Adams: Yeah, there was a lab. I don’t remember the number of it—building number—that was entombed some years ago, and there were hundreds of those markers that were put into that entombment. Gardner-Andrews: And were the markers themselves made onsite? Adams: No. Actually, we had put those out to bid and they were ceramic, of course. There was a potter back in Vermont that won the bid and they made them. Then we sent them out to testing. So that was kind of a little interesting project, making markers. Both the large and the small ones. Gardner-Andrews: Do you know if they’ll still be using the small ones in the future? Adams: I hope so. It’s a good idea. Of course, they aren’t to the point yet where they’re going to start building large disposal barriers. And we planned to put those in when the barriers were built. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up ordering thousands of those, and they end up going into these barriers. Because it’s still a requirement. Like, there’s a very large landfill out at Hanford that my team did the first work on. There’s been thousands of truckloads and they’ve got these huge trucks of soils and solid waste that have been dug up and put into that landfill. Well, someday that’s going to have to have a barrier put over it to keep the water, plants and animals out. That was another fascinating project, to develop that barrier. So, probably they will distribute some of the subsurface markers in that barrier. Gardner-Andrews: Can you describe the project of building—creating the barriers for the landfills? Adams: Yeah. That was a development project, undertaken by my group and with quite a bit of support from Battelle. The idea was that we wanted a barrier that would be made primarily of natural materials and that would function according to natural ecological processes and would last hundreds, if not thousands, of years without a lot of maintenance—or any maintenance. So for that, we got this idea of using what’s called the outflow law, which says that if you’ve got a fine soil over coarser materials, that soil has to be completely saturated before it’ll break through. So we felt that since we only had six inches of rain a year—not this year. [LAUGHTER] That we could make a fine-layered barrier over a graded coarse layer barrier. And then plant that with native bunchgrass, which would, as the water accumulated, evapotranspirate the water out before it could break through. And then we also had like a gravel mulch which has been used since ancient times to help store the water in the soil layer, and also to prevent wind erosion. So that had to be carefully designed. And then—so we had the design and then—oh, we used archaeological analogs—or actually geologic analogs. As you know, this area was hit by huge floods of biblical proportions at the end of the last ice age. And when the icebergs grounded at Hanford—what’s now Hanford—they melted and left these mounds called bergmounds. And these mounds had been there for 10,000 years. And some of them, they were layered almost like our barrier. So we studied the bejeebers out of those, because they gave us clues of what could last. And then we had out there also caliche layers where the water would go down to the soil and then precipitate these calcium carbonate chemicals. The water couldn’t get through that caliche layer. So we wanted to know, how does that work? Finally, we got a design for this barrier, but then it had to be tested. So we tested it in wind tunnels, lysimeters, which were like big cylinders, highly instrumented, with the layers in there. And we stressed those with water—twice as much as we usually get—and wind. We even put live animals on there to see if the badgers would harm it. Actually, they helped the barrier performance. So there was a lot of field data collecting and research that had to be done. Then finally—this was about the time I retired—they built a full-scale barrier over one of the cribs. A crib was a water waste disposal, and some of these are highly contaminated soils. So they built one over this crib, and they’ve been monitoring now—Battelle has—for ten years or so. Actually more like 15. And keeping all kinds of data, and it seems to be working. Because the water, plants and animals are not getting through it. So that’s called the Hanford Barrier. That’ll probably be used in some form or another for this large landfill and other sites that are left behind. Gardner-Andrews: So how do they go about monitoring it to see if the water, plants and animals are affecting it? Adams: Well, they have instruments they can put down that keeps track of the soil water. They can go in an excavate some of the plants to see how deep they’ve gone. They can actually do a water balance; they can figure out the evaporation and how much rainfall has been on, snowfall, on the barrier. So there is quite a bit of instrumentation that they can use to do that. Gardner-Andrews: Do you think that the snowfall we’ve had this year will have an effect on that? Adams: No, not unless it amounts to more than 12 inches of water. And I doubt if it reaches that much. So they did irrigate the barrier—parts of it—twice the annual rainfall. It didn’t break through. They also set fires on the barrier, because we have range fires. The bunchgrass that they used is actually—the native bunchgrass is very fire resistant. I mean, it’ll burn, but it doesn’t destroy the roots. So it comes back right away. So it’s pretty well-thought-out, and so far the data looks pretty promising that these barriers will work. And the natural analogs told us that as well. Then of course, they also developed mathematical models so they could simulate if we put on four times of water, what do we predict? Those simulations looked pretty good. But you can’t rely just on simulations. You have to actually test it. Gardner-Andrews: Was there testing done for if an earthquake happened? Adams: Not specifically. But, actually Hanford’s in a fairly low earthquake risk area. But we were concerned with the barrier about collapses, particularly if there was a void underneath that could collapse during an earthquake. So we actually developed a big pile driver with ports welded on it such that we could—it was like a big I-beam. We could vibrate that in; at the same time we could inject grout, which is like a cement, to fill up those voids as we pulled the hammer out, would collapse the voids, and seal it up with concrete. So we’re pretty confident that earthquakes aren’t going to really destroy that barrier. It’s like a really sturdy foundation for a house, really, or anything else. My group did, though, manage the seismograph stations that are around Hanford, and they could tell us every day whether there’s an earthquake or not. So it was a really diverse group that we had. We even had historians. Yeah, because we found that to analyze these sites to get data was very expensive. You had to either go out there with drilling equipment and portable labs and all that. But it would be much cheaper if we could figure out from the records that were left behind what we were up against. But the records at Hanford were very scattered, loosely organized. A lot of them almost got thrown in the dumpster. So we hired—because there were so many letters. Turned out that letters were the major way of communicating in those days. We hired historians and librarians to go out and rescue these, catalog them, study them, so that our engineers would know what to expect in any given place. That saved us millions of dollars. Gardner-Andrews: Where would these historians find the letters? Adams: Well, that was part of the job, was to figure out where all of the files were and go to those places and try to round them up, put them in our big library, before they got destroyed for whatever reason. There were libraries around Hanford that were scattered. A lot of it was in engineers’ files, so we had to, you know, plead with the engineers to let us into those, so we could pull out things we needed. So it was a big job—records management at Hanford is—was—probably still is a big job. Gardner-Andrews: Do you know where those letters ended up? Adams: Well, when I left, they were in a library in 2750 East. We had a librarian. I don’t know if they still have a librarian. There was a lot of photos that were taken inside of tanks, which could be very valuable. Towards the end of my career out there, we started getting data overload. There was so much data being collected from the tanks of just about every isotope on the periodic table [LAUGHTER] that it was very hard to keep track of all this data. And the engineers wanted to know, okay, if we make a transfer from one tank to another, how does that change the chemical composition of both tanks? Sometimes it would take these engineers and scientists months to figure that out. So we went to Battelle with some money--[LAUGHTER]—a lot of money. And we said, build us an electronic database to have all this data cataloged and accessible. And they did a good job. But then we said, okay, now design us a way to do an automatic report when there’s a tank transfer. And they did that, so eventually the scientists could order a report from Battelle, a few hours later get back a report that used to take them months to do. Major breakthrough. I think that’s still in operation. Gardner-Andrews: And would that be more of a here’s-what-would-happen report, or was it more of a this-already-happened and now what chemicals are going inside? Adams: Well, at that time we were more interested in what happens when you make a transfer. But the tank data can be, of course, used—like with the Vitrification Plant—to project what’s there and figure out what it’s going to look like as it comes into their tanks. So it’s both. At that time, the major emphasis was on tank transfers. Gardner-Andrews: And was there major concerns for how certain chemicals would react with each other, in terms of—like, for lack of a better term—bad ways? Adams: Yeah, like what drugs are you taking here? Yes. That was a concern. That’s one of the things they looked at. If we do this transfer, what’s the waste going to look like? Are we going to have more concentrations of one thing that might adversely react with something else? Another thing was criticality. You know, if you get too much plutonium together at the right place at the right time and the right configuration, you get a nuclear reaction. It’s not like a mushroom cloud, but it’s the same concept. And we didn’t want criticalities: bad news. So they could use this to determine, hopefully, if there’s any critical elements building up during these transfers. Gardner-Andrews: And so, to avoid that, it would just be, don’t mix this tank with this tank? Adams: Or don’t move as much. Or, if you do, mix it with something else, so it doesn’t get concentrated. I mean, there’s a lot of ways to prevent criticality. One of my chapters in the book that I wrote is about one of the cribs, which I didn’t work on, but it’s so fascinating. There’d been so much plutonium put in that crib that they were actually—and a crib is basically a drainage field in the soil—that they thought it might go critical. It’s hard to think of enough plutonium being in the soil to create a—phew—you know. But they went in and started removing some. To do that, they had to use a robot. A robot, and they used a mechanical arm to dig some of it out. They ended up digging—I forget the exact figure—pounds of plutonium from that crib so it wouldn’t go critical. So, yeah, that was one of the concerns: criticality. One of my favorite sites at Hanford was called U Pond. When I got to Hanford, one of the first environmental engineers, we had four ponds where there’s billions of gallons of water going to these ponds for waste—for disposal. They would drain into the ground. He said, I want you to look at the laws that you studied in environmental school and tell me if we have any regulations coming up that are going to impact these ponds. So I remember my first document out there was Pond Management and the Law. And being fresh out of an environmental law class, I said, oh, man, you’re in for trouble! [LAUGHTER] There’s RCRA, there’s CERCLA, there’s TSCA, there’s a lot of other minor laws, and they’re going to have a major impact. Well, the document went out to review, mostly at that time, chemical engineers. And they said, well, this is nonsense. We only have to worry about the Atomic Energy Act. So the report got put in my desk and was basically shelved. About maybe two years later, [LAUGHTER] the Department of Energy signed an agreement with the Department of Ecology in the state of Washington and the EPA, saying, you must follow RCRA, CERCLA and comply with them. That was a huge impact—still is to this day. And so I pulled the document out. [LAUGHTER] One of the things I learned at Hanford: if you write a document that is not well-received, just put it away for six months, and then you’ll need it. So now—and that led to a lot of job opportunities. Because later on my group got involved in cataloging all the sites. Are they RCRA/CERCLA, who’s in charge of them, which regulations apply, and all of that, was a big job. Gardner-Andrews: And what do those acronyms stand for? Adams: Let’s see if I can remember. RCRA is Resource Environmental Conservation Act—Recovery Act. And CERCLA was the Comprehensive Environmental Reclamation Act—close. It’s been a while since I worked on those. So RCRA and CERCLA were big deals. Anyway, so environmental regulations are—take a lot of time to comply with at Hanford. And that’s—some people say, well, that’s just bureaucracy. Well, yes and no. The RCRA and CERCLA really helped us group the waste sites and manage them in such a way that was efficient. So it wasn’t all bad. It wasn’t all just paperwork. In fact, there was a lot of analysis that went in: what’s the best way to go about cleaning this up? And it forced you to look at options. Gardner-Andrews: What would you say are—or were—the most rewarding aspects of your work? Adams: Well, for many years, the most rewarding aspect is that we would write papers and get them published in journals and go to conferences and make presentations. It was a lot of original work. Because we were doing things that had never been done before. Towards the end of my career out there, that went away. Not necessarily because it was all done [LAUGHTER] but the emphasis changed to, let’s just go in there and get the job done. So there was less opportunity to be creative, to solve problems, and to present that to your peers. So that was a real loss. But that was certainly one of the most rewarding aspects of it, was to be able to do that. Gardner-Andrews: What are some of your memories of major events on the site or in the Tri-Cities, such as the plants shutting down or any local, political or social things that you can remember from your time in the Tri-Cities? Adams: Well, I’d say one of the biggest changes while I was there was the transition from plutonium production to cleanup. A lot of things changed. Like security was not as strict. Didn’t need a Q clearance any longer, which means that the federal officers wouldn’t come in and interview your neighbors every year—does he drink? Does he pay his bills? All that kind of stuff. So that kind of went away. Our lunchboxes were not searched as thoroughly coming in or going out. There isn’t any plutonium really left at Hanford, except in some of the waste sites, dispersed in the soil. So that’s really a big change. A lot of the buildings have been torn down that were problematic. Like one of my first assignments was, we had this laundry that washed contaminated clothes called whites. Every once in a while, there would be contaminated lint blowing around on the street. So we were sent over there and I was just a junior engineer at that time, with one of the senior guys, to figure out what was going wrong. We traced it to a piece of equipment in the laundry called the hydroclone, I think it was. And it was clogged up and it was—the wet lint was getting into some of the ducts and so forth, drying out, and then ending up blowing out onto the street. Which is kind of disconcerting. So we got the rotoclone cleaned out and back in service. Well, that laundry no longer exists. There’s a modern laundry that they built, I think in town here somewhere, that does the laundry now. And it’s all automated and everything. But that was the most bizarre place I’ve ever seen. Because you go in the laundry, there was a line painted on the floor. And one side was clean laundry; the other side was contaminated laundry. There was no barrier or anything. Just a line painted. And the procedures on each side were completely different. Like the people over there were wearing whites, had certain protocols. And on the clean side, you didn’t need to wear whites, you know. That kind of thing. Just really strange. So a lot of those facilities no longer exist. And just as well. But that was a big change. So the cultural change from more rigorous secrecy to less secrecy was a big change. Gardner-Andrews: And when did you start noticing that happening? Adams: Well, the plutonium—let’s see, PUREX shut down, I think it was in 1980—I have to look in my book to see. 1988 or something like that. So after that is when it really started to change. Now, right now they’re finishing tearing down the PFP, the Plutonium Finishing facility. And so that means that the plutonium’s all shipped out, a long time ago. And so that’s just a big change. Like, to get in that place, you had to be escorted, even though you had a Q clearance. Yeah, so that was one of the major ones. Another change is, like I said before, when I first went to work there, it was a culture dominated by chemical engineers. And that changed drastically, because now we needed a very diverse bunch, including geologists, groundwater hydrologists, biologists, historians, environmental chemists—you know, the whole—geophysics—we needed a whole bunch of different specialties. That was a big change. Particularly from a management point of view. Because now you had to manage all kinds of different engineers with different outlooks on life. That could be interesting at times. Gardner-Andrews: Going back to talking about security, before PUREX shut down and you noticed a drop in the secrecy and everything, how did the intense security and secrecy onsite affect your job? Adams: Well, like in my book, they ask me, don’t you have some pictures from your time working out there? I said, no, I was never allowed to take a camera in. To take a camera in, even after PUREX shut down, we had to get a special permit. Well, so, the secrecy was—you had to be careful what you took in your lunchbox. You didn’t want to lose your pass card, your ID card, because that could [LAUGHTER] cause you some problems. You were restricted from going into certain areas. All your documents had to be screened to see if there’s anything classified in them. Like I said, your security review wasn’t as rigorous; you didn’t have your coworkers or your neighbors, you know, saying, well, he’s smoking grass or whatever. When they asked questions, it would be unheard of today, like, is he a homosexual? You couldn’t do that today. Shouldn’t do that. But those were legitimate questions back in those days, I guess, because of the threat of blackmail. They were really worried about—they knew that there were foreign agents working to get access to information. So I guess anything that could cause you to be blackmailed, like being in debt, or drinking heavily, would be a concern. That all loosened up and changed, quite drastically. Let’s see, what else? Well, I guess those were kind of the main things. Like, my wife never saw where I worked. Never. So there was still some walls between you and your family. I remember sometimes I’d go out and work overtime, and walk out into the hall, and all the sudden there’d be a guy with a rifle, or a woman with a rifle, body armor, the whole nine yards, pointing the gun at you. What are you doing here? And I’d have to pull out my ID real quick. [LAUGHTER] So there was constant patrols all over the place. Gardner-Andrews: Why would it matter what’s in your lunchbox? Adams: Well, they didn’t want you bringing anything in that might blow up or contain a tape recorder or a camera or anything that could be used to gather information. Same way going out, they didn’t want you going out with a tape recorder or a classified document or whatever. It was very, very rigorous. Gardner-Andrews: And when you mentioned that your wife never went to where you worked, did you find it difficult to talk about what you were doing? Were you concerned about talking to your wife or family members about the work you did onsite? Adams: Not so much, but in the early days of Hanford, that was really something. I mean, until the bomb was dropped, there was probably only half a dozen people that knew what 50,000 people were building out here, you know. And it was very rigorous security. I didn’t hesitate to talk much about what I did, except there were certain projects where I had to use classified documents. And I couldn’t talk about those. But she was restricted from coming out to the Site. Now, I understand that’s changed somewhat. It’s easier to get a pass to go to your son-and-daughter work day, that kind of thing. But yeah, it was—and that didn’t bother me. I mean, that was just part of the job. Gardner-Andrews: Okay. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford? Or living in the Tri-Cities during the Cold War? Adams: Well, during the Cold War, it probably wasn’t any more tense living here than it would be anywhere else. I mean, most of the neighbors didn’t build fallout shelters that I know of. When I was a kid, of course we had, you know, drills where we had to crawl under our desks, that kind of thing. So I did notice that the Tri-Cities had, and still does to some extent, a very unique culture. It’s not so much a culture of secrecy anymore. But you can still see the influence of the early days of Hanford if you look for them. Particularly some of the old-timers are—you know. [LAUGHTER] Of course they’d probably consider me to be an old-timer now, but—are not as willing to talk about it as some of the younger folks. There was a time when, before Richland became a city, that if your light bulb went out, you just called up the GSA, and they’d come and change it. [LAUGHTER] That doesn’t happen anymore. [LAUGHTER] Once Richland became a city, everything changed as far as—you could buy a house, including a government house. Like, I go to one of the first four churches that was actually established by the government in the beginning. Now there’s all kinds of churches. But at the beginning there was only four churches, and they were sponsored by the government. So kind of interesting. You don’t find many places where that is the case. Also, many of the street names in Richland were named after officers that graduated from West Point that worked in the Corps of Engineers, and those are the street names. For instance, I live on Goethals Street. Goethals was a West Point graduate, worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, and he is the one that finished building the Panama Canal. Who would’ve thought? So even the streets are named after, you know, a certain class of people—certain people. So that’s part of the culture. Gardner-Andrews: Did you find it to be shocking, I guess, going from being a high school teacher to an environmental engineer? [LAUGHTER] Adams: Being an environmental engineer was a lot easier job. [LAUGHTER] And it paid better. [LAUGHTER] A lot easier job. I found some of the things I learned teaching high school helped me a lot on how to manage people and motivate people. Really helped me a lot. So I didn’t—other than being glad to be out of the classroom for a while—now I’ve kind of gone back to it; I teach science in my basement to kids. Gardner-Andrews: Oh, really? Adams: But—well, my wife teaches piano and some of them want to do science also, so they just come downstairs. Anyway, no, I didn’t notice a big difference, as far as—except it was a lot easier work. I do remember, they sent me to a week at UCLA management school one time. And this was many years ago. There was an executive from Silicon Valley there, and he said, you need four kinds of people in any successful organization: artists, judges, warriors, and explorers. Well, almost everyone at Hanford was either a judge or a warrior. There weren’t any artists; there weren’t explorers. Well, I actually took that advice to heart, and when I started hiring for the environmental engineer group, we brought in—it doesn’t mean they have a degree in art, but—people with more of an artistic temperament that could present things attractively, and people willing to explore new ideas. That helped a lot. Being a teacher, you were surrounded by people of diverse fields. Whether you wanted to be or not. Like, we had an ongoing battle with the English department. Like, you’d send a student over there to the reading specialist, and they would say—I’d say, he can’t read. And they’d come back after doing some tests: yeah, you’re right, he can’t read. Well, what are you going to do about it? I don’t have time to teach him to read. That kind of thing was very irritating. I found that some teachers were really slackers, and they wanted to be carried by the union and they were, to some degree. And I didn’t like that. [LAUGHTER] So I was kind of glad to leave teaching. But I did bring a lot of those skills with me. Gardner-Andrews: All right. Can you tell me about your books, but specifically your most recent one? Adams: Okay. Well, WSU has published three of my books—WSU Press. One was about the time I retired, which has been 14 years now. It was about growing up in the desert of Oregon, eastern Oregon. It’s called Netting the Sun. It was kind of a memoir, but like my latest book, it kind of wove the cultural and physical geography and history through the memoir. Then about a year ago, they published another book about eastern Oregon which was more of a guidebook with maps and photos, called Remote Wonders. And it has a pull-out map and a lot of photos. It’s designed to take you on a trip around the eastern Oregon outback, and see a lot of the interesting places that I knew growing up as a kid, that I’ve gone back to many times. My most recent book came out about three months ago. It’s called Atomic Geography, and it’s a personal history of Hanford. It kind of weaves some of the stories of Hanford and some of the cultural history of Hanford through my personal experiences. It’s not a real long book. It’s definitely written for the general reader, and it’s gotten really good reviews. It was named one of the top ten books from university presses this year. And that’s good, because university presses publish a lot of books. So I don’t know how well it’s selling, but I think it’s selling okay. They only pay me once a year, so. Anyway, WSU Press has been really fun to work with, but it takes about two or three years to get through the process of writing a book, they have to go through all of their committees, and there’s all kinds of editorial steps: it’s a long process. But that Hanford book is intended for the general reader. You can get a flavor of how the culture’s changed going clear back to the fishing by the tribes. You can get a feel of what’s out there: plants, animals, geology. Some of the engineering challenges, I go through in the book. And some of the supreme ironies of Hanford. Let me think here. Probably the major irony of Hanford is it’s basically a huge wildlife refuge! It’s not a wasteland, like a lot of people think. It’s 580 square miles, but only about 100 square miles of it—and most of that’s groundwater contamination—was ever used for any kind of activity that created waste. And part of it is now a national monument and a national park. So, yeah, it’s really irony. [LAUGHTER] Gardner-Andrews: Okay, Mel, is there anything we haven’t discussed yet that you want to talk about? Adams: I don’t think so. I’m kind of running out of steam. I’d just summarize by saying it’s a really strange, bizarre and interesting place. Gardner-Andrews: That it is, I agree. All right, well, thank you so much, Mel. Adams: Thank you. <a href="https://youtu.be/N3s8V4Mll-c">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 Area PUREX 2750 East Building Vitrification Plant PFP (Plutonium Finishing Plant) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1979- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1979-2003 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Mel Adams Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear reactors Environmental engineering Radioactive wastes Radioactive waste disposal Description An account of the resource Mel Adams moved to Richland, Washington in 1979 and worked on the Hanford Site from 1979-2003. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02/10/2017 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd6c77308885ccc1dd563285937f9e849.JPG 87d38ef7972a3113d8f0b134c209c51c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F398bd1450eec3a75a54e04dd5debade9.mp4 b516a9c754c5e403e48b906ff90f3b1a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanis Daniels Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Joe Williams Location The location of the interview Home of Joe Williams (Pasco, WA) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [camera operator]: It’s recording. Vanis Daniels: I better turn mine on? [camera operator]: No. Daniels: Okay. [camera operator]: Go ahead. Daniels: Good afternoon, my name is Vanis Daniels. We are here to interview Mr. Joe Williams. We are from the Historical and Recognition Committee, which is a sub-committee of Triple-A-S. We would like to interview you and find out, if we could, please, some of the things that you did when you first came to the state of Washington, and why you came. We’ll start with, when did you arrive in the Tri-City area? Joe Williams: Is Tri-City and Hanford the same thing? Daniels: Yes. Williams: In 1943, I think. It was in February. Daniels: Did you come alone? Or if not, who came with you? Williams: My wife, and the three other fellow workers. Daniels: Okay, could you give me their names, please? Williams: I can give you their nicknames. One of them they called Long Coat and the other one High Pocket. Daniels: Okay. And your wife’s name? Williams: Was Velma. Daniels: Okay. Approximately how old were you? Fields: He was a young man. Williams: Years, I can’t remember, but I was pretty young then. Daniels: Where did you live before you came to the Tri-Cities? Where did you come from when you came to the Tri-Cities? Williams: From California. Daniels: Okay. Fields: And prior to that, where were you? Where did you come from? Daniels: Yeah, where were you originally from? Fields: Because he came from the South. Williams: Where I’m originally from? Daniels: Yes. Williams: South. Alabama. Atmore, Alabama. Daniels: Okay. What kind of work did you do in Alabama, before you left Alabama? Williams: Well, I was putting out magnesite, and spark-proof and concrete and bricks. Daniels: And after you moved to California? Williams: The same trade. I was shipped from Alabama to California. Daniels: Okay. How did you hear about Hanford? Williams: I was sent from Mare Island Navy Yard, by the Col., to Hanford. Daniels: And you decided to come because of your job? Williams: I was drafted. Daniels: How did you travel when you came to Hanford? By car, train --? Williams: By car. Daniels: Okay. And how long did it take you to get here? Williams: They gave us five ten-hour days to drive from California up here, but we couldn’t drive but 25 miles an hour. Five working days. Daniels: Where was the first place you stayed after you arrived in the Tri-Cities? Or at Hanford? Williams: Hanford. I stayed at Barrack 205. At Hanford. Daniels: Okay. Now, was that a segregated barracks, or was it--? Williams: Yep. Daniels: How did you get to and from work? That means from the barracks to the job and back. Williams: They had what they called buses that they’d bus us from the cafeteria to the job. Daniels: And what kind of work did you do after you went to work? Williams: See, I was a brick layer, cement finisher, and putting out spark-proof and magnesite. Daniels: Now, do you remember any of the areas that you worked in out there at Hanford? Williams: 200-East, 200-West, and 205. Daniels: Do you remember the name of your employer, the man that you worked for? Or the company you worked for? Williams: It was Marine Decking Company out of New York. But at that time, DuPont had the job—assumed it from the government. And we were transferred out there to put out magnesite and spark-proof. And rubberizing those plug tanks. Daniels: How did you feel about working at Hanford? Williams: Oh, I felt the same working one place I did; it didn’t make no difference. Because I working strictly on the old manpower labor board. Daniels: How were you treated on your job? Williams: Well, on the job, fine. Didn’t have no trouble. It was segregated. The black worked with the blacks, and the white worked with the whites. Daniels: What was the hardest thing you found that you had to get adjusted to by being in a new place and new surroundings? Williams: Well, at that time I had been transferred about 20 times–it wasn’t nothing to get adjusted to because I be used to it. Daniels: What did you and your coworkers do in your off hours? When I ask you that, I mean like, where did you go, where did you spend your time? You know, like if you had clubs you could go to, or churches. What did you do for relaxation, I guess I’m asking you. Williams: They had a big room, there in those barracks–that were full wing barracks–and one room was a rec-room. And in that rec-room they had every kind of game that you could play, or you could do this. If you wanted to shoot dice or gamble in the middle of the week or the street, it was legal. Daniels: Let’s shut it off. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Okay. How long did you work at Hanford? Williams: Three-and-a-half years. Daniels: Okay. Now, did you have any idea what you were working on? Did they give you any information about what you were doing? Did they say anything to you as to whether you should talk about what you were doing or anything like that? Williams: You couldn’t talk about nothing you was doing. With nobody. Daniels: And, did you know what—have any idea what you were building or what you was contributing to, or anything? Williams: Nope. Because you go in one cell; if you was in Cell 45, you wouldn’t know what they was doing in Cell 18–now, you stuck with 45. And that’s where I was stuck, on Cell 45. Leonard Moore: And Cell 45, it was a work room? Williams: No, that down in the ground, 45 feet deep. Moore: Oh, it was an area. Williams: Uh-huh. Where you had the rubberizing. Rubberizing, spark-proofing and all like that. No crew worked—they worked in once place. It wasn’t the way you work here and work there. I was assigned out as being a chief rubberizer, spark-proof, stop any leaks that ever started. That’s what we were transferred all the way from back east here for that. Weren’t but eight peoples in the United States had that trade and I was dumb enough to be one out the eight. Moore: Let’s talk about the barracks. Daniels: Okay. In living in the barracks, were you and your wife able to live together? Williams: Nope. Daniels: Would you tell us a little bit about how you guys lived out in the barracks? Williams: She lived in the women barracks and I lived in the men barracks. And they had wired fences up like penitentiary around all the women barracks. And the only way you could get in there—you had to get—you could visit–and they had a big rec-room and that’s far as you could get. You didn’t know what room she slept in, or didn’t know nothing. You could go in the rec-room, that’s far as you could go. But she could come to the men’s barracks, down there, and go all the way through it. But a man couldn’t go in the women’s barrack without going through the police, or the guard, or whatever he was. Daniels: Okay. Do you remember any African Americans that you worked with at Hanford? Any black people? Williams: Did I remember--? Daniels: Remember any of them’s names? Williams: In the beginning or the ending? Daniels: All the way through. Williams: Well, in the beginning, no. I just knew the one that was shipped out. Eight of us had this trade in the United States, the whole United States, only eight of us had this, what they can stop any leaks, rubberize all [UNKNOWN] tanks. And that’s why we were transferred all over the country. But later on up in the year I recognized some. But we never knew what each other was doing. Us four was together, but they never would let but two of us work side by side. It always be somebody else that you didn’t know and they didn’t know you when you was in those cells. Daniels: Okay. Now, If, when you—after, in other words, since you couldn’t talk about what you did, and you didn’t know what the project was about, when did you learn that you were working on the Manhattan Project or that you were helping the war effort by the job that you were doing? Williams: After they started testing it. We didn’t know what we was doing. We was just doing, in one cell. Men worked in 45 cells, and I don’t know nothing but for the one. You don’t work—don’t nobody work in each other’s cells. About five different craftsman worked in the cells. And we was on the high—what they call it, when it says, it started at one up to three? Daniels: Clearances. Williams: What? Daniels: Clearances. Williams: Yeah. Q Clearance. Daniels: Right. Williams: And 45, that was the toughest ward in the whole place because it was 45 foot in the ground. And now what happened in the other cells, I don’t know no more than you do. That’s the only cell I worked in. Daniels: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about some of the things that you have done since you left Hanford? Williams: Oh, I left Hanford, and come to Pasco and started to try to do business there and had things where the banks didn’t lend no money on the east side of 4th Street. And we started a little mortgage company. A bunch of us pooled-in. And about the time as it got ready to start up and draw a little money out and leave, one more guy had a little write-up in a paper that we’re going through anyway. And then here come a guy out of Spokane with Intermountain Mortgage started to lending money there in Pasco. Daniels: And once they started loaning money, did you go into business for yourself? And if so, what kind of business and were you prosperous in your adventure? Williams: Yeah, I started in the home building, which, that’s all I ever do. I started at 15 years old. Daniels: And you owned your own company? Williams: Yep. Daniels: And did you always live in the Tri-Cities? Or did you leave the Tri-Cities? Williams: Yeah, I left Tri-Cities and worked in Alaska. Daniels: How long did you live in Alaska? Williams: Twenty-some years. Daniels: Did you own your own business in Alaska? Williams: Yeah. Daniels: Then you left Alaska, and--? Williams: Come to Oregon to retire. More like retarded. Fields: [LAUGHTER] Daniels: And since you have been here in Oregon, have you enjoyed it? How has life been here in Oregon for you? Williams: It’s like a dream come—a good dream come true. Daniels: Were you able to do any extra work, or anything after you moved here to Oregon? Williams: I stayed flooded with work. Daniels: And you built—how many homes have you built since you’ve been down here in Oregon? Williams: About thirty-something. Daniels: All right. And is there any of them close enough where we could look at them? Williams: Yup. Daniels: Can I ask one personal question, and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. What range of house would you build? Did you build? Williams: I built dream homes. Fields: Sure did. Daniels: That’s all I needed to know. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Mr. Williams, since you left Hanford and after you left Hanford and moved to the Tri-Cities and started your own business, could you tell us a little bit about your life at Hanford? And before we get started with you, I would like to introduce your daughter, Bessie May Williams-- Fields: Doctor Bessie May Williams-Fields. And this is my father, Joe Williams. And I am the second child of my father and my mother, Velma and Joe. Daniels: Now, if you could, could you tell us a little bit about your life after you moved to Pasco from Hanford? Williams: You talking to me? Daniels: Mm-hmm. And Mrs. Fields—Fields. Williams: What part of that life you asking about? Daniels: Well, what did you-- Fields: I can share some basic stuff that I remember, when my father—A long time ago, you know where they had the railroad tracks? Front Street is where I remember living there with my father and my mother and their children, my sisters and brothers. And we lived in a house that I think dad built himself, and he also built a café there. There were very, very few people of color living in Pasco at that time. It was a lot of tumbleweeds. When my father moved up on Orange Street, there was nothing but tumbleweeds. And that’s where you built, he built a really, really nice house on Orange Street. But he’s built numerous homes on Orange Street. And they also started the first church there in the state of Washington—Pasco, Washington. My uncle, my father, my mother, they started praying in their homes, and they started uniting together and from that became the biggest church in Pasco, Washington today, Morning Star Baptist Church. Tremendous minds got together and they did tremendous things. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Wait, just before you start. [camera operator]: Go ahead. Daniels: Make sure you tell us about the red line. In other words, once you got past 1st Street or 4th Street, or wherever it was, nobody would loan you any money. Where they red-lined east Pasco. Williams: Oh yeah. Okay, I see. Daniels: Mr. Williams, could you tell us a little bit about the living conditions and the availability of funds for black people or being able to better yourself in Pasco? Williams: The banks had a boundary. Nobody on the east side of 4th Street would they lend. Nobody, to nobody. On the east side of 4th Street. Daniels: And, you said that you started your own little banking industry? Williams: Just me and my brother-in-law and the relations and a friend pooled up X amount dollars and was going to start a loaning company. And, when we got up to where we had about, oh, $60,000-$70,000, before we could open it up, they chickened out. Well, me and one of the boys just kept on and we pretend that we was doing it, and it got in the paper. And then Intermountain Mortgage come out of Yakima and started to lending money then. We put the bluff in there because Buck and Luzell and all them chickened out. And we just had that in the paper that we were going to go ahead anyway. And that’s what started the foreigners coming in as an outfit for Intermountain Mortgage out of Spokane, Washington. Daniels: And were you able to go in restaurants, and sit down and have a meal? Or was it segregated? How did you do for getting haircuts, et cetera, et cetera? Williams: Well, it wasn’t any place, legally, for haircuts. And we had one colored guy run a café there, that’s the only one you could go in. I forget the name of it. And no place for cleaning or laundry; you had to settle to Walla Walla, Washington. Daniels: Okay. Fields, you went to school in Pasco. Could you elaborate on that a little bit for us? Tell us about the conditions, the hardships you ran into. And just growing up and going through school. Fields: I started school, I think, around 1945, and I graduated in 1958. During that time there were not a lot of people of color going to school. There are very few people that I can think of that was real inspirational in terms of my academic years in school. I do remember that I had a math teacher that was an excellent teacher, Mr. Metcalf. But I found, as a person of color, I did not have a lot of support; I didn’t have a lot of encouragement in terms of what I should do with my mind. I was always told that I had good dexterity, which I was real good in my fingers, and I was encouraged to, perhaps, be a beautician. To me that was like an insult, because I felt that, maybe if black people were still picking cotton, that would have been a perfectly good place for me to go, because I had good dexterity in my hands, to start picking cotton. But I didn’t get the kind of encouragement and the support I think I could have gotten had we not had a segregated, in some sense of the word, even though blacks and whites did go to school together. But they did not, specifically did not want you to mingle together. Because I and another student, a white male, and me, a black woman, or student, was holding hands as we walked down the halls in the school, going to each other’s locker. And we was called into the principal’s office, and sat down, and talked to us about, do your parents know that you’re black and he’s white and you guys are co-mingling together? And made a big deal out of something that was really relatively nothing. So, my experiences at the high school level was not the most positive experience that I had. No jobs. When I graduated from high school, did you see people as role models? Black people that you could look up and say, wow, I can do that. No, you didn’t have any role models, so what could you do? I left there, what, in the ‘60s? I think I left maybe—no, I think I left there in 1959, Pasco. Because I saw no way for me to—I didn’t have role models. You need role models. You need people support and encourage you. You have family, but what about, you know, other people? It just wasn’t there at that time. Hopefully it’s different now, but I don’t know. [VIDEO CUTS] Fields: --you can ask me that. Daniels: Yeah. Back to Williams. In the Tri-Cities, was there, like, any other high schools around? What do you know about blacks and academically? And, just, how was it? Fields: I think, in terms of academia, and blacks at this college –not college, but—yeah, I did go to Columbia Basin College for a while. But prior to that, while I was in high school, in fact, when I graduated there was only two of us that graduated the year that I graduated in ’58. But my experience academically, there wasn’t, like I said earlier, a lot of academic support for people of color. And in terms of working at Hanford, I wasn’t cognizant that they was even hiring people at Hanford. Coming out of high school, no one ever told me that there was job openings at Hanford that I could even try to apply to a position. So, I did not work there, nor did I even know they was hiring people to work there at that time when I graduated from high school. I just tried to look at the shops and maybe get a job at some of the shops, but I was never hired. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. [LAUGHTER] Daniels: Did you intermingle with any of the high school kids from Kennewick and Richland? Fields: No, I think Kennewick was kind of like, and Richland, was kind of, forbidden territory. You know, you wasn’t, you didn’t feel accepted when you went there. So, I didn’t really go over there very often. Seldom. Very seldom did I ever go. And I’d heard of experiences of people of color who had gone over there and they were negative experiences, so therefore you wasn’t encouraged to go over there. [VIDEO CUTS] [camera operator]: Go ahead. Daniels: Okay, Dr. Fields, you have since gone on and furthered your education. Would you like to tell us about it? Fields: Yes, I did. I went to Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. I left Pasco, Washington and moved to the state of Oregon. I got married, and I married a person by the name of Fredrick Marshall Fields. He was black. He also went to Pasco Senior High School. But I left there. We had two children. And then I went back to school and I got a baccalaureate degree in education, because I wanted to teach children. And when I graduated with my degree in elementary ed., at the same time that I graduated, Portland State University, who I never even applied for a position, called me up and asked me would I apply for a position there? And I also had an offer to teach sixth grade in the state of Oregon. But then when I thought about it, why not work at the college, because that’s like working at the house of knowledge, and you can work and go to school constantly. So, then I worked there for 12 years, and during that 12 years I completed my Master’s Degree in counseling, so I was counseling when I left. And then I left there and I went on vacation in Alaska. I was hired there, almost, like, on the spot, to work as a counselor there. And then, while I was there working at the house of knowledge again, I went back to college and I got my doctorate in education administration. And I still work in academia today. I teach college and I’m also a counselor. And then I also do work with people who are mentally and physically challenged. Daniels: And how many sisters and brothers do you have? Fields: It’s ten of us all together. And I’m the second of ten. And I think there are nine of us currently living in—well, maybe there could be one brother living in Pasco, or in the state of Washington now. Daniels: Could you tell us a little bit about what they do? Fields: I have a sister that’s an accountant. I have a brother that’s working for the federal government. I have another sister who worked on the pipeline in Alaska. Some working for Boeing. And so, all of us are doing quite well in the fields that we chose. Moore: So, basically with Mr. Williams coming to this area, and raising his family here, it brought a lot to the area as a whole. Okay, so, that’s what we want to get out of that. [VIDEO CUTS] Williams: In Hanford, you was associated with your grade average. Peoples you knew you didn’t have nothing to do with them because your average was up here—your Q Clearance, and you stayed in the back with the peoples on the same Q clearance, eat with them, all the time. But the rowdy bunch, they couldn’t stay in the barracks that the guys with the high Qs lived in. They couldn’t eat in the mess hall with the high Qs. And I had Q-4, the highest. There was only ten of us. That’s all I can give you on account of the ten of us that worked together. Moore: So, you were pretty isolated. Williams: Yeah. We were totally isolated. Fields: Very isolated. Williams: See, the highest you could go was Q-4, and I was Q-4. And when it got down—all ten of us wasn’t no Q-4. There was only three of us made Q-4. Moore: Okay. [camera operator] Okay, go ahead. Williams: We did have a trailer. I pulled it down there just for that short period of time, then I bought them the thing from the railroad. Daniels: When you first moved to Pasco, you lived in a trailer -- Williams: Yeah. Daniels:--and then from a trailer then you built-- [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Okay, Mr. Williams, after you moved to Pasco, how did you live? Was it in a trailer, a house, or apartment? Williams: When I first went there I pulled a trailer in there. We lived in there. And the railroad had a row of one room of I think about six, and then one that had two rooms in it, and I bought that from the railroad on Front Street. And then from Front Street, I started to go on east building something to live in decent. Daniels: And when you left the Tri-Cities, did you own your own home when you finally relocated to Alaska? Williams: You mean, did I own my home in Alaska? Daniels: In Pasco. Williams: Yeah, I had seven homes there. Fields: Seven. Williams: Seven. Daniels: That’s what I’m trying to get out of you. And then you relocated in Alaska. Williams: Yeah. Fields: And built beautiful homes in—beautiful dream homes in Alaska. As well as in The Dalles, Oregon. Daniels: Were you allowed to build on the west side of Pasco, or were you limited to the east side? Williams: Limited to the east side, if I’m building them for myself. But if you wanted me to build you a house, I could build it over there. But I couldn’t build nothing on the east side of 4th Street. And I was stuck with what I was trying to do on the east side. And after I goofed up on putting in them foundations, they tore the playhouse down there and wouldn’t put in a grocery store. Because I wasn’t going to build no grocery store. Moore: Ask him about—let’s hear the story about the grocery store. Was that a company wanted you to build out? Williams: The company wanted me to put in a grocery store, kinda like the Eastside Market was, over there. But the guy was going to run it for me. And if I was going to borrow the money to build it, I wanted to run it for myself. And because I wouldn’t sign for him—me build the store, they supply the store and they run the store, they cut my funding off and told me they wasn’t going to lend me another nickel and I told him I didn’t give a damn. Moore: [whispering] Where was it located? Daniels: Where was it located at, Mr. Williams? Williams: What? Daniels: The store that they wanted you to build. Williams: It was over there off of--what street Velma stay on? Fields: Sycamore. Williams: It was off of Sycamore. Moore: All right. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Okay, that just about concludes the questions and the interview. And we want to thank you, Mr. Joe Williams, and you, Dr. Fields for helping us out. Williams: You’re welcome, and I appreciate you coming. I didn’t know nothing when you got here, and I don’t know nothing when you leaving. So, nothing from nothing leaves nothing. [LAUGHTER] Fields: The pleasure was ours. Daniels: Thank you. <a href="https://youtu.be/gHiDjPyeU88">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 East 200 West Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Joe Williams Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Migration Segregation Discrimination School integration Description An account of the resource Joe Williams moved to the Tri-Cities in 1943 to work on the Hanford Site. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6db522bd5dd76e3750a404b383da3b41.JPG c242a4ba8344155595e6fb257908f934 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fbfc34c0c8b8917e0671f608d2604c421.mp4 09c71f39c1bb58e676d37b1c5671e8f9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanessa Moore Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Velma Ray Location The location of the interview Home of Velma Ray (Pasco, WA) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Interview with Velma Ray. Interviewed by Vanessa Moore. Vanessa Moore: This is an interview this afternoon with Miss Velma Ray. Velma is a Tri-Citian who was involved with work out at the Hanford Project during the Manhattan Project era, 1943-1945. And she’s here to share some of her information and experiences with us. Mrs. Ray, how are you today? Velma Ray: Fine. Moore: Great. I’m going to ask you several questions and you feel free to just share any stories or information that you would like with us, and we would appreciate that. First of all, let’s start off by finding out when you came to Hanford. What year was that? Ray: We came to Hanford from Mare Island Navy Yard in California. I was working on the Mare Island Navy Yard and my husband was working. He was a cement finisher and I was a welder. And I went to school, their welding school. And they say I learnt how to weld quicker than any student went through that school. And I was out on the shipyard and I got two raises from the time we left. And so my husband he, I guess the man that my husband—I was drawing more money than he was, and he kept talking, why, if I could just make that Pasco job, if I could just make that Pasco job. I was wondering why he wanted to leave when I was making good money. And you know when we left there, we didn’t have time to get my check and we left my whole back check, you know. And then we was in Hanford and we’d been working there I guess about six months, and finally, you know what, they sent me my money. And I wondered how did they find me? Would’ve been too bad if I’d been a criminal, because they’d’ve found me anyway. Thank God I’m a Christian; I don’t think about that. But I just thank God that they did find me and send me my check. And I thought we was going to get a welding job in Pasco. But I didn’t. We went to work at the mess hall. Moore: What year was that? Ray: That’s the same year we got here. Moore: In 1940--? Ray: ‘42. Mm-hmm. Because they was working when we got here. Because the job was already going on. I guess that’s why my husband kept on talking about, if I could just make that Pasco job. I didn’t know what the Pasco job he was talking about ‘til we got here. Moore: How did you hear about it, or how did he hear about jobs out here? Ray: I guess on the job where he working at. Moore: What type of work did he do in California? Ray: Cement finishing. Moore: Cement finishing? Ray: Mm-hmm. Moore: And, he decided to come, I understand, just looking for more wages, that he could do better here. And so you all came and brought the family. How many children did you have? Ray: We had three children at the time and we had left them in Alabama with my parents. Moore: Where did you first stay when you arrived here? Ray: We had a little a trailer. Moore: Was it in Pasco? Richland? Ray: It was in Pasco. Moore: What did this area look like when you came? The cities, were they big cities? Ray: A desert, no, it was so––just almost a desert. It didn’t rain for about three years when we came out here. Didn’t see a drop of rain. And those dust storms would come up and I cried. And one time I went to wash my clothes and had the whole lot on the line. Time I hung the last piece up, a big dust storm come and broke the line. And I just cried and went in the house. I said, Lord, I just want to leave. If somebody give me a place here, I wouldn’t—I’d say, no thank you, you can have it. Because I was ready to go back to somewhere. I thought I was fed up with Pasco. But you know it’s a funny thing. There’s something about Pasco. When you come out here and you meet more people and you leave, you want to come back. And it’s just––I just thank God; it’s a blessing to be in Pasco. Moore: Well, that’s great. You mentioned you lived in a trailer; did you ever at any time live in a one of the trailer camps out at Hanford, or the barracks? Ray: Just the barracks. The barracks. And the women barracks, it was a funny thing. We could either go down to barracks where our husband at, because it was too dangerous, unless he come, you know. But they would come up to the sitting room. They would sit there just like courting, and then he had to leave here and go back to his barracks. Moore: Were the barracks segregated by race at that time, or just male and female? Ray: No, just male and female. Moore: You mentioned it was dangerous. What made it was dangerous? Ray: You want me to tell that? Moore: Sure. Ray: Those men was raping women so bad. And so, I hate to tell this. Because one thing—see, I didn’t know it was dangerous as it was. And when I was on my way down to go—you know, a woman would go where her husband at at that time. Usually, usually you could go where he was, but this was a time, it was too dangerous. And I didn’t know that. And I don’t think he knew it. And I was walking down, then after while a man comes coming up to me, and I said, don’t you see my husband? And I just lied. And you know, God was with me. Because if I hadn’t’ve told them lies, I don’t know what they would have done. But they was coming’ up to me, Lady, so-and-so––. I said, don’t you see my husband? And that was not my husband; that was just a man about as far from as that tree. And they would leave me alone. By the time I get that far, I had said, don’t you see my husband?––Oh, Lord, I had so many husbands! Moore: It was a little bit scary. Ray: And God took care of me. When I got to that barracks, I fell across that bed. I told my husband I was never coming down there no more. And I wouldn’t either. Moore: I can understand. Ray: But he would come up there and get me. Because I wasn’t going down there no more. I was so—I’m even nervous, now, just to think about what I would do. Moore: Mm-hmm. Ray: Girl, talk about some hard praying. I was praying every step of the way. Moore: You mentioned when we spoke earlier that you also worked out at Hanford. And, tell us a little bit about what type work you did. Ray: We did Mess Hall #2. Oh, there was so many people here. There was about five mess halls. There was quite a few mess halls. But I worked in Mess Hall #2. Another lady, we worked, and we was hotline girls. And food was already set up on a table when men come to the door to walk in. And it was two hotline girlsand we had to, it was plates, bowls with hot food. And when the mens come in that door, we would have to go by that couch and stack that food up on our arms about four or five dishes. And how I done it, I don’t know. But they taught us how. And then we get in a hurry, never stop walking, just giving them food from one side of the table to the other one. And by that time, get another one. In about five or ten minutes, the whole thing was set up. And me and that girl, we laughed about it because a lot of time, them bosses, they stand there and watch us. I see them smiling. Because we were running, we set that table up so fast. They talked about how good we was. Moore: It sounds like all of the needs of the workers were met, that this was not a place that they came in, like a restaurant, and bought their food. It was provided. Ray: No, no, no. Just like, just like, you know, set the tables. And they had had everything else already set on the tables ‘cept hot food. And that’s all we had to put on there. That was why we could do it so quickly. They had the tables set up. Just that quick. Moore: Tell me a little about your husband’s work. You mentioned he was a cement finisher. And what type of work did he do here? And did he talk about it? Tells us a little about that. Ray: Well, I tell you what he done. He was a cement finisher in California, when we lived in California, come out here. He built some houses afterward. But when he working at Hanford job, we wasn’t allowed to talk. They had a sign up, talk with nobody about your work. [camera operator]: Okay, keep talking. Ray: And we couldn’t talk about our work. So that’s why a lot time, we don’t even know what was going on, because it was a secret job. But I do know they was building ammunitions to fight. Moore: Ammunition? Ray: Right. Moore: And, your husband’s name? Ray: Joe Williams. Moore: Pardon me? Ray: Joe Williams. Moore: Joe Williams. Thank you. Moore: And now, basically, you were both contributing to the effort because the war was on at this time, right? Employer–wise, did you know what the company name was, or just the project name? That you worked for, was it the DuPont Company, or that he worked for--? Ray: Well, I don’t think he worked for the same company. Because we was working for the people that served the food in the mess halls. Moore: So it was all the same. Same company, Hanford Works. Ray: Mm-hmm. Moore: Do you feel you were, that the working conditions, and how managers or supervisors treated the workers, what did you think about that? Ray: They treated them real nice. Real nice. Moore: You talked a little bit about the dust storms, and one of the questions I had is, what was the hardest— [VIDEO CUTS] <a href="https://youtu.be/Gw4Pzo1gEZY">View interivew on Youtube.</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Velma Ray Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Migration Description An account of the resource Velma Ray moved to Pasco, Washington to work on the Hanford Site during the Manhattan Project. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F89fce3241701c3d58378786875fff7cf.JPG acba8b9b6c77d3630951a4bb70d16234 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8d82eea1f502ff3eef5b9efd443d8103.mp4 8fd48403898a7a19ee7162e11f819f35 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanis Daniels Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Cornelius Walker Location The location of the interview Home of Cornelius Walker (Pasco, WA) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Vanis Daniels: Mr. Walker, we would like to conduct an interview with you as to when you came to the Tri-City area. And the reason why we are wanting to conduct an interview with you—we are with the Triple-A-S History and Recognition Committee and we would like to interview you to find out the part that blacks played in developing the Pacific Northwest and their contributions to like World War II and the Tri-Cities in general and the Pacific Northwest since then. So, my first question to you is, do you remember when you arrived in the Tri-City area, what year did you come here? Cornelius Walker: ’48. Daniels: In 1948. Walker: Right. Daniels: Did you come by yourself, or did you come with someone, like a group of people? Walker: I traveled by myself. Daniels: You traveled by yourself. Where did you live before you came to the Tri-Cities? Walker: I lived in Vallejo, California. Daniels: And before Vallejo? Walker: St. Louis. Daniels: And before St. Louis? Walker: Gregory, Arkansas. Daniels: Say that again? Walker: Gregory, Arkansas. Daniels: Gregory, Arkansas. Okay. What kind of work did you do in Arkansas, before you— Walker: Farm work. Daniels: Farm. And when you went to St. Louis, what kind of work did you do? Walker: I worked in the steel foundry. Daniels: How many years did you work in St. Louis at the steel foundry? Walker: Oh, I’d say about, it was pretty close to two years. Daniels: And then, when you went to Vallejo, what kind of work did you do there? Walker: Worked at the shipyard. Daniels: How many years did you work at the shipyard in California? Walker: Oh, I would say almost three years, around. Daniels: Do you remember how old you were when you left Vallejo and came to the Tri-Cities? Walker: 18. Daniels: 18. Walker: Oh, wait a minute—no, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Hold on now. Just wait just a minute. Erase that. When I left— Daniels: Arkansas? Walker: No, I left Vallejo and came here. Daniels: Mm-hm. Walker: Vallejo. Now, ask the question over again. Daniels: Okay. Do you remember how old you were when you left Vallejo and came to the Tri-Cities or Pasco? Walker: I must’ve been 22, I believe. Daniels: Okay. Why did you leave Vallejo and come to Pasco? Walker: Because I heard it was better jobs up in here. And I think, I’m pretty sure, some of the Hanford work had started and I just heard it was better construction work up here. Daniels: Do you remember—I’m getting kind of personal, but do you remember your rate of pay when you came here, against what you were making in Vallejo? Walker: Oh, I think we was at that time, we must’ve been getting $0.80-something an hour. That was at the shipyard. So when I came—no, at the ship—let me get it straight. I left the shipyard and started working construction. I worked at Fairfield, California. Vacaville, I worked there, all up through there. Of course, my company had a job, I’d go one job to the other one. When I left there, I came here. Daniels: Okay. And you heard about Hanford and that it was paying more money? Walker: Oh, yeah. They said there was a lot of work out here. I wouldn’t worry so much about the pay. I was young, I was looking for longer work, you know. Daniels: I understand. Leonard Moore: Did he stay in construction work? Daniels: Did you stay in construction work? Walker: Yes. Daniels: Okay. Now, when you left Vallejo and came here, did you come by car or train, bus--? Walker: Bus. Daniels: Oh, okay. And did you come to—you came from Vallejo to Pasco by yourself? Walker: Right, I didn’t have no—I didn’t travel with friends. That’s the way I’d make it by myself. I didn’t travel with friends. I just—because I didn’t want to get nobody—if I found me the bed, I wouldn’t need to help nobody. So I just traveled by myself. Daniels: Now, do you remember when you first came to the Tri-Cities or Pasco, do you remember where you lived? Walker: I got a job and I lived at the—North Richland, in the barracks. Daniels: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about your living conditions? What was it like? Walker: It was really nice there. We had good food, we had the maid change the beds and everything—it was a joint to clean the barracks everyday. It was good living conditions there. I really did like it there. Daniels: Now, did you eat in a mess hall, or did—in the barracks, were you allowed to do your own cooking, or did you eat in the mess hall? Walker: No, they had a big mess hall. [INAUDIBLE] They had a small one first before they got the big one built, then they closed down the little ones, small ones. Of course, you know, they really started hiring later, and they had to get that done where the men had a place to stay and eat. That was their position, to feed the mens and house them. Daniels: Now, after you came here and went to work, do you remember what areas you worked in? Walker: Well, I didn’t work in the Area at first, because I worked for a company, J.A. Turlin. Richland was classified as the Area, but it wasn’t out in the Area that we might be speaking about. Daniels: Okay. How did they treat you? I mean, when you lived in the barracks out at Richland, was they segregated? Were they mixed? Walker: Oh, they was mixed. There wasn’t no segregation at that time. They didn’t have separate barracks for this race, they all lived together. If there was room in a certain barracks, that’s where we went, wherever they wanted to put you at. There was nothing about like no segregation. Daniels: Now, once you got to the barracks, how did you get to and from your job, from the barracks to your job and back to your barracks? Walker: They had transportation for that. Worked their way from the barracks. Daniels: Again, were you a skilled craftsman or did you do plain labor, or what did you do? Walker: I did labor work, like that. Most of the time, I did skilled work because I was a pipe layer. I laid pipe. So that would be classified as skilled work, but it’s labor skill. Daniels: Again, would you give me the name of the person you worked for? Walker: The company? Daniels: Yes. Walker: J.A. Turlin. Daniels: J.A. Turlin, okay. Now, I want you to tell me in your own words how you felt about working at Hanford. And before you say anything, when I ask you this, coming from Arkansas to St. Louis to Vallejo, California to the Tri-Cities, the transition is what I’m trying to get from you, as to whether you felt that you were treated right or you felt comfortable with your job and with your supervisors, or did they sort of, I guess what I want to say is, kind of intimidate you? Walker: No, there was no intimidation. I had a good job, and the bosses all, from the superintendent down, were just like that with me. Because they believed in me, they trusted me, over the crew, over the type of work we were doing. Because they knew if they sent me on, it’s going to be done. That’s the reputation I had. Daniels: Now, what was the hardest thing for you to adjust to—and this is the entire area, including your work—when you came to the Tri-Cities? And that means the social life, after work, at work, the area in general, you know, was built up, was it shacks? Whatever it was. Walker: No, no, it wasn’t no shacks. It was all new barracks. They’d build ‘em, they’d move them in. Because that’s the way they was hiring at the time. They couldn’t hire too many mens at the time and have somewhere for them to stay. They didn’t come, or hire nobody that they would depending on having them find place for themself. They had a place for them. Daniels: Now, do you remember what you did once you got off work as far as social life? Was there places to go? Could you go out and eat dinner or maybe dance, or whatever your preference were? Walker: No, there wasn’t no places like that then. Because Richland was the closest place, and it wasn’t built up. At the time, the places that was, they was kind of segregated, you know? So I didn’t worry about going to them of course. We had fun at the barracks, we could play ball like with the fellows around there, you all got together, you could do that. Moore: Did you play baseball? Walker: Beg your pardon? Moore: Did you play baseball? Walker: Yeah, I played a lot of baseball. But I didn’t get as good as I wanted to get. Of course, I wanted to go to the big leagues. But then my situation I had come here to work and so forth so I just kind of forgot about it. Daniels: I see. In working out at Hanford, did anybody ever tell you, or did you ever know, the project you were working on? What I mean by that is, did you know what—when you built whatever you built, worked on whatever you worked, did you know what they were going to do with it after you got it built? Walker: Well, I know is something was on a chemical plant, like I said. Something I worked at before they started building the building, I was laying pipe and such as that. Daniels: And nobody ever told you that this was to further the war effort or anything like that? Where you worked, were you allowed to talk about it after you got off work with people that you knew? Walker: It was explained to us, they didn’t want the mens going out doing talk about the Project. They was explaining that to you at least once a month. Of course, there’s new guys coming in. They just wouldn’t take the new guys; they’d go over everything with the old guys, too. They listened to it, too. They had to. Daniels: I see. Can you tell me a little bit—I understand that you left here in the early ‘50s and did a lot of work in Alaska, but you would come back. You still had a family and a home and all that stuff here. So can you tell me a little bit about your travels and your jobs and how you would progress through the years and able to retire and— Walker: Well, when I would go to Alaska, I always had good jobs—always had a job. I had people, after the first year, I had companies that I’d work for and when they got ready for me, they would either send for me, or if I didn’t have the money, they would send it and just get the ticket and come over. They’d refund the ticket. Them kind of people I would work for, and that’s the kind of job—I was a hard worker, taking care of my own business. I didn’t associate—it was all right, but I didn’t associate, drinking. A lot of guys get off from work, they’d sit around the barracks and drink and get drunk. Well, that wasn’t my thing, because I didn’t drink. So not that I thought I was more than they were. They weren’t doing what I liked to do. I found God, we sat down, sometimes we’d play cards. You could play cards and all that stuff. Sit down and talk about some of your back-life, where you come from and how you come up and all of that. Daniels: Do you remember any African Americans or black people, do you remember the names of any of them that you worked with while you worked here at Hanford? Walker: Mm—names I don’t hold in my head so good. But let me see if I can think of some of them. [man off-camera]: I’m going to stop it right here. [VIDEO CUTS] [man off-camera]: Okay, go ahead. Daniels: Okay, I understand that you worked on McNary Dam, and at the time, you moved from the barracks to Pasco. Can you tell me where you lived when you came to Pasco? Walker: Mm, let me see now. Where did I move when I moved from Pasco? I really—I’m sorry to say, I really don’t know exactly where I was living at the time. Moore: Was it a house or a trailer? Walker: It was a house. Moore: But here in east Pasco? Walker: Yes. Moore: Okay. Daniels: When you—do you remember what year you worked on the dams? Walker: I don’t know exactly what year I worked—I know it was in the ‘50s. Moore: In the ‘50s. Daniels: Would it have been ’50, ’51 and maybe the first part of ’52? Walker: I worked there in ’52, I know that, yeah. I worked at the dams a little while. Moore: What kind of work did you do? Daniels: What kind of work did you do at the dam? Walker: Well, I was just labor, but I worked in concrete. Daniels: And you can’t remember any of the names of the people, either by nickname or real name, that you worked with? Walker: Oh, one guy, Stan Cooper, he lived up in Hermiston. Stan Cooper. That was one guy. Let’s see, I’m trying to think now. You know, I just can’t call it now. It been long time. Daniels: That’s okay if you can’t remember. Walker: And got old. Other things have happened since then. [LAUGHTER] Daniels: Now, do you have any pictures or anything of any of that area back in there that you might want to share with us? Walker: No, I don’t have no pictures. I’m sorry. Daniels: Well, do you know of anyone else that we might be able to talk with and interview and get some information from them? Walker: Not other people that worked on the dam with, they gone. But one guy, I don’t know if he’s still living or not. I don’t think he’s still living, because he used to come over and see me every year. That was EC Stalker. I worked with him. I just don’t know. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Can you tell us a little bit about your kids and grandkids? Walker: I just had that one kid. I got another boy, but I don’t know which way he went after I left St. Louis. I used to try to keep up with him, but when they got of age, they just get away from their parents sometimes. Moore: But you had the one daughter. Walker: Yeah. Moore: Her name was—your daughter’s name was Eva? Walker: No, not Eva. Martha. Moore: Martha. Okay. Daniels: Yeah, and your grandkids? Names? Walker: Avery and Elvis. Daniels: All right. Moore: They don’t live around here. Daniels: No. Walker: They live in Fresno, California. Daniels: [whispering] Shut it off just a sec. [VIDEO CUTS] Moore: Ask him about the house. Daniels: Okay, now. Walker: We didn’t come by that house. They didn’t buy because they had no money to buy from. Walter, the husband, he worked over there at the cemetery. And right across the street, he got acquainted with these people. On account of him associating and so forth, the people— Moore: Let me have you start over, because we don’t know who these— [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Now, can you tell us about your daughter and son-in-law living in Kennewick and owning a home? Walker: Well, this is what happened. Her husband were working at the cemetery, and right across the street, the people lived. So he got acquainted and the peoples gave him the home. They gave him a home, but the people didn’t want him to live over there. So in order for them not to live over there, somebody just set the house on fire and burned it down. By them, hadn’t been able to get insurance and everything, so there wasn’t nothing left for them but to get out of there. Daniels: So, in the early years, there was still prejudices in the Tri-Cities, and this is one example of what you could and could not do in the Tri-Cities, or what they wanted you to do and what they didn’t want you to do. Walker: Well, like job and things, if hye didn’t want you on, you wasn’t gonna have no job. That’s just it, because they wouldn’t hire you. All there wasn’t a contractor for, some do union, like that. We had a business here, maybe you know who I’m talking about, because his name Charlton Knapp. Daniels: Yes. Walker: He was really prejudiced. He wouldn’t send a black man out on no kind of good job. He’d just have to—contractor started squawking, you finds me mens! So that’s the only way they got out. Moore: He was a union? Walker: Yeah, he finished his BA. Daniels: He finished his Business Agent. [man off-camera]: And what was his name? Walker: Charlton Knapp. Moore: Okay. So there was—let me turn this off for a minute. [VIDEO CUTS] Walker: Be caught after dark. That’s just the way it was. They wasn’t mean people, but there was mean people over there. You know, mean people, and they would hurt you if you were caught over there. If you doing—if you had to go the store or something over there, do some business, get out of there before dark. Moore: That was Kennewick. Walker: Yup. Daniels: Yeah. [VIDEO CUTS] Walker: You know, at the time, when I first got going, it wasn’t too many black people living nearby. It was like four or five there and some of them had they own homes, some of them was just there. But as time went by and all the work started, then they had to hire black because they was crying for people to come to work. At one time, young white peoples, they was kind of like scared to go up there. They wouldn’t take the chance that the black would take. They had a job, man, they kept it. Most of them did have jobs here. But a lot of black people left their jobs here because a lot of them wouldn’t study. They had no future to look out for. They working when they needed them, but when they got done, you didn’t have no job. So that’s the way that went. Moore: Okay. Walker: Moving to Anchorage, they got good jobs, they had foreman jobs. Of course, they had the opportunity to have ‘em, because they needed fresh peoples there. The man needed somebody to work. On a lot of jobs, they didn’t want to work black, but they had to. And then when the union got strong, when they called—you can call, you could call and request us all the time but they weren’t calling for nothing but white people. The union broke that up. You say, you call, I got mens. I’ll send you who available. If it don’t work out, send them back to the hall. Daniels: Yeah. Okay, Mr. Walker, that concludes our interview. We want to thank you and hopefully we have gotten some information and we thank you very much for your interview. Walker: Yeah. <a href="https://youtu.be/c3vUd_46coM">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1948-1952 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Cornelius Walker Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Migration McNary Lock and Dam (Or.) Discrimination Description An account of the resource Cornelius Walker moved to the Tri-Cities in 1948 to work on the Hanford Site. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9b9b824c2876af5e43f239333ee53cf6.JPG 91a00d141b86347a69036b0521d1e0ea Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview John Skinner Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed James Pruitt Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound John Skinner: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is John Skinner for the African American for an Academic Society History and Recognition Committee. Our committee has been involved with ongoing interviews with African American men and women that was brought or were lured to the Tri-City area in 1943-45 for the Manhattan Project, formally became known as the Hanford Atomic Energy Commission, and subsequent projects. Tonight we have with us, we have Jim Pruitt, a long-time resident. James, excuse me, James Pruitt, a long-time resident of the Tri-City area, community activist, civil rights leader, human rights leader, youth counselor, and a number of other things. Jim also has a wealth of knowledge about the Tri-City area and Pasco, and Pasco in particular. So, we’re going to get started here, Jim, on this interview. And some of the basic questions we want to ask is in connection with the Tri-City area. Jim, when did you come to the Tri-City area? James Pruitt: I came to the Tri-City area in 1948. I got here on June 20th, on my wife’s birthday. Skinner: Well, James, did you come alone when you came to the Tri-Cities or Pasco or Hanford? Pruitt: That was the only—well, another guy, a friend of mine from Los Angeles, Bill Mathias. Skinner: Bill Mathias? Pruitt: And I came up with me on the bus. Skinner: Okay, okay. Jim, let me ask another question. Approximately, how old were you when you came to this area? Pruitt: I were 22 years old. Skinner: 22 years old, okay. Jim, when you came to the Tri-Cities, was there a particular city that you lived in, since now we have Pasco, Kennewick and Richland? Was there any one of those particular communities that you first— Pruitt: I first lived in Richland in the barracks. Because when I got here, it was on Saturday. I went to the union hall. I worked labor. And I had a meeting with the business agent. So they dispatched me out for work Monday morning. I went to work out in Richland on the housing project up there. Skinner: Jim, what was the name of the housing project that you went to work? Do you remember? In Richland? Pruitt: It was—in Richland, it was Militant Sound, was the construction company that I worked for. Skinner: The contractor that you worked for? Pruitt: I worked for them. Skinner: Okay. Pruitt: Militant Sounds Project in Richland on the Bypass highway. Skinner: Okay. Jim, let me back up a little bit. When you came to the Tri-Cities and, say, Pasco, or Richland barracks, where did you come from when you came here? Pruitt: I came from Los Angeles. Skinner: Los Angeles? Pruitt: Los Angeles, California. Skinner: Okay. Jim, you’re native to what state? Pruitt: Mississippi. Skinner: Mississippi, okay. Pruitt: Mississippi. Skinner: Okay. Let me ask you this next question, Jim. How did you hear about Hanford? Or when did you hear about Hanford? What did you hear about Hanford that— Pruitt: Well, a friend of mine, in fact, it was my sister’s boyfriend, Emmett Hoy, came up here. And he was working out there for Militant Sound for the project where I went to work. I was working in Los Angeles, and he asked me if I wanted to make some money, to come up to Richland, Washington. So I decided to come up here and I stayed up here for six months. The dust and the tumbleweeds were so bad, I left and went back to Los Angeles and stayed three months. And I came back. And I’ve been here ever since. Skinner: Okay. Jim, let’s talk about the social environment in the Tri-City area, you know, again, Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland, for the African American at that time, 1948. What was the relationship between the African American and the white community or the majority community at that time? Pruitt: Bad. Skinner: Give me a— Pruitt: Very, very prejudiced. Very racist. I was surprised when I came here to find a place that I had left a few years back from Mississippi and came here and found the same thing that I found in Mississippi. Skinner: So we—again, we’re talking about we just had blatant and overt racism and discrimination towards the African American community. Pruitt: Yes. Skinner: Was it, again, was that exhibited as not only—was it on the job? Pruitt: It was on the job, it was in housing, it was in foods, restaurants, it was in the bars, in the lounges, and wherever you went, there was a sign—[LAUGHTER] If it wasn’t a sign, it was, no, we don’t serve you in here. We don’t serve your kind. We couldn’t eat. I remember 1950, Hazel Scott suing the bus station. Skinner: Mm-hmm, when you say the bus station, was this— Pruitt: Greyhound bus station. Skinner: Greyhound bus station? Pruitt: Greyhound bus station, because she was going to Richland to perform. And that was Adam Clayton Powell’s wife. She was an entertainer. She went to the bar to get some food. They were riding the Greyhound bus, she and her secretary. They told her they didn’t serve black people in there. So she went back and sat down and her secretary was white, and she goes to the bar, and they gave her the whole setup, and the whole courtesy and everything. And she said, you know, I don’t want to eat. They said, why? She said, because you refused my boss. Mrs. Scott is my boss. And they went over and asked Mrs. Scott to eat, and they apologized to her for what they had done. And she says, no, why should I eat now that I’m good for $50,000. So she sued the bus station. From 1950 to this day, the bus station has not been anything progressive, nothing. Skinner: Okay, okay. Jim, let me speak on—or say on the economics, in terms of comparable pay at that time, we’ll say, for the white community. Doing the same work that—a black was doing the same work that the whites were doing, was it the same pay involved, or was it lesser pay? Pruitt: No, it was the same pay, because it was union. The guys that worked in the union, it was same pay. But they tried to see that the white guys got the better jobs, the higher-paying jobs, like foreman, supervisors, and whatever. Skinner: Okay, Jim, also on that note, we’re speaking on the—we spoke about some of the accommodations in restaurants and other public facilities. Let me ask you this question. In 1948, we had some groups that was formed in the black community. Could you give me any information on some groups that were formed? Was it the human relations committee that was formed around those times? Pruitt: The most that I can remember started in 1949, like the East Pasco Improvement Association. That was started in 1949. Out of that, came the Tri-Cities Human Rights Commission. Mrs. Merricks and Mr. Merricks and other people, Shirley Shepard and her husband, Mr. Shepard. Skinner: Also on that committee, did you say that was Heidlebaugh? Pruitt: Yeah. Skinner: Heidlebaugh was on that? Pruitt: George Heidlebaugh. Skinner: Okay, and we had some other members. Pruitt: Luzell Johnson. Skinner: Luzell Johnson, Iola James. Pruitt: Iola James, Ray Henry. Joe Bush. Gilbert Owens. We had, I think—who was Mr.—Miner. Charlie Miner. He was one of the guys on that. Skinner: Jim, you were also saying that you went to work in ’48, and you were working on the housing project on the Bypass highway in Richland. At that time, Jim, I know that there were African Americans working on the Hanford Project. Could you tell me if there was a large number of African Americans, a small number of African Americans, that was employed on that Department of Energy site, or the Atomic Energy Commission, or—were there many African Americans employed on that? Pruitt: Yes, there was quite a few African Americans. I can’t give you a round figure of what it was, but there was quite a few African Americans. Skinner: Can you recall some of the job description, the titles of some of the African Americans that did work on the Project? Were they laborers? Pruitt: Laborer, cement finisher and painter. And a truck driver every now and then. They’re riding this truck and it wasn’t—they’d haul the honey wagon. That was the only thing that they could get. They couldn’t get no higher than that. Skinner: So the jobs were limited— Pruitt: Were limited. Skinner: --to menial task jobs and also back-breaking jobs as far as laborers and stuff like that. Pruitt: That’s right. Skinner: And very little chance for advancement. Pruitt: Yup, that’s right. There was no supervisors or foremans or none of that on that job. Camera man: We need to change the tape. [VIDEO CUTS] Skinner: So, Jim, let me—we were just talking about employment. And obviously we see that there was a disparity in employment, and also there was—the African Americans were limited in being able to elevate themselves above just a certain level. Let me ask a question on the African American women. If they were employed, what type of employment, most generally, were the African American women? Pruitt: Dishwashers, a few cooks (not many), bed makers, that kind of thing. Skinner: So it would be an African American woman at that time, again, 1948, was more domestic? Pruitt: House-making, yeah, housekeeping, more or less. Skinner: Okay. Jim, let’s go on to social entertainment for African Americans, say, ’48, and let’s work down, work this way. What type of entertainment as far as if it’s night clubs, eating establishments, that black businessmen/businesswomen in the community—what was the social life like at that time for blacks? Pruitt: Ho, ho, ho, ho. Well, they had one club to go to at that time. That was out on Lewis Street. What is the name of the club? I have to think. I forgot it already. But there was only one club at that time. And I think 1950 was when Mr. Moore, last of ’49, first of ’50, he had a club down there on 1st and Lewis Street. The M&M was a place where you could go and eat. It was next door there. Skinner: When you say the M&M, [LAUGHTER] I know that’s initials for something. Do you know what the M&M stood for, as far as the restaurant or that eating establishment? Pruitt: I don’t know what. That was the name of it. The M&M. I don’t know what—[LAUGHTER] But I was trying to think of Mr. Moore’s night spot he had there. God, I can’t think. Leonard Moore: Poulet Palace. Pruitt: Poulet Palace is what it was, right. Yeah, that was the swinging place in town, was the Poulet Palace. But the other place across the street over there, that was where most of the people hung out at one time when I first came in 1948. It was the only place that I know that black people could go. I have to come back to that name, because I can’t think of it right now. Skinner: Okay, we got time, we can come back to it, Jim. Also, again, as far as black businesses, and we use the term entrepreneur here today, right or wrongly, but black businesses, were they limited at that time? Pruitt: Oh, yes. Yes. Mrs. Iola James had a trailer court. That was her business. Mr. and Mrs. Haney had a trailer court. And eventually they had a pool hall and stuff there. It was about—you know, eventually as the years went by. And they built a tavern over there, Norse’s Tavern. And Ms. Iola James had a restaurant in there. That was kind of entertainment and that was a black business. Skinner: Okay. What was that—you said Norse’s Tavern and you said Mrs. James had a restaurant in there. Where was that located? What was the location of that? Pruitt: On Oregon and—was that—hmm. What was that street? Moore: It was south of Lewis Street. It was kind of south of Lewis Street. Pruitt: Yeah, it was— Skinner: Columbia? Hagerman? Marvin? Pruitt: I think it was Hagerman. Skinner: It was Hagerman? Pruitt: Yeah. Skinner: Okay, okay. Mrs. James—you mentioned Mrs. James, and she had a trailer park business. Where was that located? Pruitt: 820 South Oregon. Right in the middle of where Mr. Moore’s junkyard is today. [LAUGHTER] Pruitt: That’s where my kids was born, right in the middle of the junkyard. [LAUGHTER] Skinner: Okay. And I know that there were other businesses, and as far as trailer park owners. Pruitt: Aretha and Bob—Robert Dillon had a trailer court. Skinner: Okay, what was the names again? Pruitt: Bob—Robert Dillon and his wife, Mrs. Dillon. Skinner: Right? Pruitt: Aretha. Skinner: I want to make sure we get the-- [camera man]: Try not to hide your mouth with that, with your glasses. [VIDEO CUTS] Skinner: Okay. Also, Jim, on some of the black businesses, I know it appeared to be a number of blacks at that time, because housing was limited and substandard at most, but at that time, most of the living was in trailer parks for African Americans in Pasco, east Pasco if you want to section it off, and there was a number of trailer parks. I don’t remember the names of the individuals besides Mrs. James and Dillon. I understand that Mr. Ely had a trailer park. Ed Ely’s father. There was a Bud Walker had a little trailer park. Pruitt: Yeah, he had a little trailer park there. Eventually, there was Dew Drop Inn. I almost forgot that. JD Evans had the Dew Drop Inn. That was a little hole-in-the-wall. We had that. It was a black business. Skinner: Okay. Were there any other businesses that as you recall and as we’re going over this, black businessmen or women, as limited as it was as that time? Pruitt: No, that’s about—that was it. You couldn’t live no place else in town but east Pasco. That was the limit of black businesses there and that was the—Ms. James, Iola James, and JD’s place was it. And then years after that, I guess, well, in 1955, Ed Jackson opened up the place. It was Jack’s Bar and Grill. That was the really beginning the hangout of most black people was this restaurant, this bar. Skinner: Jim, let me go on and just speak in terms of the black community and the black churches where the blacks’ worship area. At that time—and I’m speaking, again, from the time ’48 and early years—where were the paces of worship for African American men and women and children in the area? Or was it also very limited at that time? Pruitt: Yeah, it was. You know, they had two churches at that time. It was Morning Star Baptist Church and the Church of God and Christ was the only two churches. And Saint James was built in 1950, the Methodist church, CME church. And from the expansion came New Hope Baptist Church now, and then Greater Faith. And I understand there’s a Seventh Day Adventist in—and then there was another, Holiest Church. Reverend Vaughn, the two churches split and that was two church, one of them was the Holiest Church and the other was the Church of God and Christ, I guess, the way it split. Skinner: James, let me again ask the question. We know the race relationship at the time was bad at worst. Jim, when did you see any changes on the horizon in the black community in the Tri-Cities? When did we start seeing some substantial changes, social change, in the area? Pruitt: After 1964. Skinner: And that’s dealing with—we’ll say 1964, 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Affirmative Action. Pruitt: Yes, that’s right. Skinner: And that was some of the most significant changes was occurring at that time for the blacks and the black community. Pruitt: Yes, because we still could not go to Kennewick and any place, enter the clubs at night and stuff like that. Skinner: Okay. Jim, tell me a little bit about Kennewick at that time as far as blacks being able to freely move in the City of Kennewick. It sounds there was no freedom to move in Kennewick. Pruitt: There was no freedom to move in Kennewick. There was only one grocery store in the Tri-Cities at that time stayed open after midnight. It was Tri-City Foods. And if you go across the river to that store, the police were sitting out there somewhere. If you went anywhere like you was going downtown, they would stop you and tell you you was on the wrong side of the river. And you had to come back on this side. You could go to the movies, but that was it. When you get out of the movies, you come on back across the river. Skinner: It was just that pervasive? Pruitt: Yes, it was. No eating, no messing around in Kennewick, period. Skinner: Okay. Jim was there—you know, again, we’re talking about that, you know—we’ve seen how things was blatant and pervasive. Did the African American men and women, when they did, we’ll say, cohabitate or comingle with the white community, were they subject to derogatory treatment of any kind? Were they treated with an even hand? Pruitt: No, they weren’t treated with an evil hand. But you always stood back. You was never their friend. A lot of times, as long as you was on a job with the guys, they’d laugh and talk and treat you like you was a part of them. But then when they get off and you meet them on the street in Kennewick with his wife and kids, he acted like he didn’t know you. He wouldn’t speak to you. Sure. It was a lot of that, man. It’s like I said, I didn’t know that this place would be like that when I came here. That you couldn’t walk into a restaurant and sit down and eat. You could not do it in Kennewick. Skinner: Okay, Jim, let’s talk about Jim—James a little bit more. James, I know that you’ve been involved in any number of activities, organizations, as I said earlier, being a human rights, civil rights, community relations, working with the youth. Jim, tell us a little bit about some of yourself and some of the miles that you’ve walked as far as some of your job descriptions over the years, being involved in the East Pasco Improvement Association and a number of other groups. Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you were involved. Obviously, you cared, so that’s why you were involved. I can remember— [VIDEO CUTS] [man off-camera]: Okay. Skinner: Again, Jim—James, as I was saying, tell us a little bit about yourself. Again, because I know myself, as a younger—as a kid—I know you was involved in youth baseball, you were involved in officiating, as far as umpire, you were involved with the community relations between the City of Pasco police and the community, involved in Affirmative Action in a number of areas—Jim, tell us a bit about yourself and when you first got involved. Pruitt: Well, I’ll tell ya, when I first came to Tri-Cities, I went out on a job, I never, never heard my name called Jim until I came here to the State of Washington. Everybody called me James; nobody in my family knew anything about Jim. My older brother was named Jimmy, and they called him Jim. But for James, I thought it was really odd. I’d tell people what my name is, and they’d say, well, we call you Jim. And I said, no, that’s my brother’s name. They didn’t understand that, I guess. I just got tired of trying to tell people that my name was James and not Jimmy. So this one white lady told me that my momma was crazy for naming my brother Jimmy and naming me Jim. And I told her if she said that again, I would slap her. [LAUGHTER] But I got involved, because when I was a kid growing up in Mississippi, there was no place for us to work in city council, anything that would help us to make any kind of progress in life. When I came to Los Angeles, I would go into the city council meetings when I got a chance. My brother-in-law would take me in. I wanted to see what was going on. So I said, if I ever got to a place where I could work and do something, I would. And when I came to Pasco, it was a small town. So I begin to see what was going on after I seen all the racism here. So that’s when I begin to do that. I begin to look out and see what was going on. That’s when put forth an effort to do something about this kind of thing. And marching and demonstrations that we put on and stuff like that, I was a leader in that, in the civil rights thing. I begin the Scouts, I believe it was in 1954. I’m the first black Boy Scout master in the Tri-City area to belong to the Blue Mountain Council. I worked with the young people. Out of the 22 kids I had, I lost two of them. The rest of them has progressed very good in life. It makes me feel very good about that. Working with the youth, Youth Council, and doing something to try to get them to understand where we had to go. Because the place was—I mean, it was bad. It was segregated. The kids couldn’t go in the swimming pool. We couldn’t go in the Memorial swimming pool and go in. They filled up a swimming pool out at the navy base out there to keep black folks from swimming in it. Those were the things that I seen that I worked on-- Skinner: Okay. So, Jim, you mentioned in 1948 that in the African American community there was a group that was formed to promote social change. What was the name of that organization? 1948, was it the—it wasn’t the East Pasco Improvement Association, was it? Or what was it? Pruitt: The East Pasco Improvement Association was 1949. Skinner: It was 1949. Pruitt: 1949 was when that began. I just gave you some of the names of that. Napolea Wilson, Shirley Shepard, Mr. Shepard, Luzell Johnson, Ray Henry, Mrs. James, Mrs. Barton, Gilbert Owens. There was many people that seen that this needed to take place. These were the organizers. Mrs. Merricks and her husband organized the Tri-City commission. Skinner: Human Relations Committee? Pruitt: Yeah. Skinner: Those two organizations, Jim, they were focusing on—when you say improvement, it is basically improving social conditions and economic conditions in the African American community. What were some of the projects or efforts that initially started that? Was it substandard housing, no housing, streets, water—what--? Pruitt: Substandard housing, streets, street lights, the dusty streets that we were having and these things, for better homes and for better jobs. They worked to get me the job for the city in 1960. I’m the first black man that worked for the City of Pasco. Skinner: Okay, Jim, I know that there was, again, I can say there’s a number of organizations that you’ve been involved with on the civil rights area, the human rights area. Jim, if I can recall that you were also City of Pasco, and I believe it was on police and community relations? Pruitt: Police and Community Relations department. Skinner: Okay, how did you get tied into that— Pruitt: [LAUGHTER] Skinner: --we’ll say, human relations program? Pruitt: Since I was working in the black movement, and I led quite a few demonstrations and marches on the streets in Pasco and in Kennewick and also Richland, they decided to grease the squeaking wheel. That’s why I got the job. I put in the application for it and everything, but there was over 200 applications. People had doctor’s degrees that they didn’t get it. What happened, in 1969—if you remember, ’68, they had a little riot over in Kurtzman Park. In 1969, they had the riot in front of the court house in the park there. And there was over 400 that was out in the park. And police went down and they had four warrants. They went down and arrested—got the four young men they was after for drugs. They—well, it wasn’t they, it was Lieutenant Butnam, we’ll just call his name out. He hit a couple of girls with his night stick, and he drew the crowd. And the kids came back the next day with rocks, rifles, shot guns—there was over 400 people out in that park, young people. There was only three white people in that park. Lee Brush— Skinner: A police officer? Pruitt: Yes, Sergeant Lee Brush. And Sam Hunt was one of the teachers, and Mr.—oh, he run Columbia Light Products down there on May Street. I can’t call his name right now. But anyway, I’ll get back to that. But anyway, those kids was out there fixing to get destroyed, because they’d come to destroy the police department. They’d torn over police cars and stuff up there in the street; they’d burned down the trees in front of the court house. And they had Reverend Allen—yeah, Reverend Allen, he didn’t come, but Reverend Vaughns, Wayne Jackson, Annette Jackson and myself. And everybody spoke to those young people. I got on the wishing well and I cried like a baby. Because I seen what was going to happen. If those kids had pulled out those guns out there and start shooting at them police, they were going to destroy them. And these was all white kids. And I got on the wishing well, and I promised them, if they would just think about it, because they were going to get destroyed—and go back home and think about it. I said, as long as there is blood in this body, I would never let this happen in this town again. I promised them that. And the kids dispersed. I went down and put in my application after that. They started sending out applications, and I went in and put in my application. That’s how I got that job. Skinner: Okay, okay. Jim, you had also mentioned that you organized a number of marches in the Tri-Cities area of Pasco, Kennewick and Richland. Can you tell us something about the first march that you were involved in in this area here and the reason why you were marching? Pruitt: Yes. For the same reason we’d been fighting all the time. For better housing, for better streets, for better lights and for better jobs, for better schools. Whittier School over there had rats and roaches and they had no place to put the food. The food was on the floor out there with roaches and everything else crawling trough it. The white people moved all their kids out of Whittier. There was four white kids going to Whittier School over there. Those were the things we demonstrated. We had no black policemen, we had no black lawyers in this town. We had nothing. And why not? Why not recruit some of these people? Because they were unwelcome. And that’s why I—we did that. Mozetta Orange was one of the young people that I worked with very rapidly. East Side Market was right in the black community. They wouldn’t hire a black person. Gene and Gerald would not hire a black person in their store. Before they would hire a black person in that store, they sold the store. And we got Roland Andrews the job there. And then Reverend Wilkins, he went to work there as a clerk. Those were the kind of things that we done. We had Slip’s Firestone down there in the black community, wouldn’t hire no black people. Finally, when his place went up for something down there, then we got the—we hired the black man. I guess he retired a couple of years ago. Skinner: Okay, I’m trying to think of the gentleman’s name here I believe that was working out at Slip’s Firestone. But I can’t think of it. [LAUGHTER] Pruitt: I can’t, either. It was Wild Bill. Mr. Wild Bill, everybody know his nephew. But I also, I worked—the first 18-wheeler driver was Henderson. Skinner: It was Henderson? Pruitt: Yes. Not Clyde, but— Skinner: Was it Gilbert? Gibson? Pruitt: Yeah, Gibson Henderson. Gibson Henderson, I got him a job out at that Chevron station. Way out there, driving an 18-wheeler. Avery Johnson. Not Avery—Tony—not Tony, but the other Avery. Skinner: Jim Avery, we call him Jeb, there’s a Henry, there’s a Larry. Pruitt: I guess it was Tony, Tony and-- Skinner: And he had a brother named Danny. Pruitt: No, Tony. Tony was the one. I got a job for PI. I talked to PI down there about them driving. I got him a job down there. Oh, it’s another young man, he killed his wife up in Spokane. He was a secretary when I was there with the police department. What was that boy’s name? Ah, god. It’s right on the end of my tongue, and I can’t call it. But he was driving. They were driving 18-wheelers. Those were the kind of things that I were working for. You know, to get these positions. That’s why we had the demonstrations. In Kennewick, we demonstrated over there because nobody could go to Kennewick. The first black man who had a house over there in 1961, he left and came over to Mr. Walker’s. It was Mr. Walker’s daughter’s husband. Mr. Walker’s daughter had the house over there. And she and her husband came over to visit him in Pasco; when they got back the house was burned down. Skinner: This was in 1961? Pruitt: 1961 in Kennewick. Yes. These was why we was demonstrating. Herb Jones and his family moved to Kennewick in 1965. They cut the tires on his car, broke the glass out of a brand new Ford he just had bought. These was the things we were marching for. Why not? Why not live in Kennewick, anywhere, if you wanted. We were citizens— Skinner: And this is America, you know what. Pruitt: And this is America. I look at it today, and people are saying we’re together. For over 400 years, we haven’t been together. And now they want to say, we are together. But we are not yet there. Skinner: James—and obviously the story that you told about being called James, which is your given name, opposed to Jim. Is there a story behind that right there? Is there—in the past, that the white community referred to African American men outside of their given name? Jimmy, if their name was James, and that was a negative connotation? Pruitt: Yes. And “boy.” They wanted to call you “boy,” “say, boy.” I didn’t allow nobody to call me “boy.” Because my name is James, and I feel like this, like I tell guys, I say, whatever—whoever you meet, and they give you their name, they tell you what my name is, that’s what they feel comfortable with you calling them. And that’s what they try to do. But yeah, they’d call you Bob for Robert, if your name was Robert. They wouldn’t call you by your full name. Skinner: Your given name. Pruitt: No, your given name, they had to put something else to it. Skinner: So this was out of, obviously this was— Pruitt: Lazy. Skinner: Is it lazy or out of respect, not having respect for the African American? Pruitt: That’s right, didn’t have no respect for them at all. None. None, and I tell you what. Believe it or not, I hit a guy in the mouth for calling me a nigger. Right here in Pasco, I hit him just like God had forgot him. And I wouldn’t’ve ever thought that that would happen. And they would do that as long as they felt like they could get away with it. And they’d call you “boy” as long as they felt like they could get away with it. Skinner: Oh, so in other words, you’re saying as long as you allowed it to occur, it would continue to occur. Pruitt: They would play with you out at Hanford out there. The man would come—the foreman sometime would come up and he would kick you with his knee. I’ve seen guys laugh and walk on off on me. Don’t take your feet off the ground towards me. Never. But they’d do that. And then finally a few of let them keep bumping you with your knee and then soon they start absolutely kicking. Oh, yes. Skinner: So it was just a general disregard for African Americans, if you allowed it to happen. Pruitt: Yes. [VIDEO CUTS] Skinner: Jim, let us revisit some of the, again, some of the firsts that you had mentioned now that—some of the firsts for blacks in the Tri-Cities area. Whether it was jobs, whether it was patronizing white businesses, night clubs and not have that Jim Crow stigmatism. Can you share for us some of the first things that you recognized as far as accomplishments or positions that blacks never had held before but now was holding, stores that blacks formerly couldn’t go in but now we could go in. Could you give me some of the firsts on that, Jim? Pruitt: Yeah, that’s what we were talking about a little while ago, when black people couldn’t go into the restaurants, job situation, they couldn’t work in the stores—the clothing stores or food stores or none of those places. I think, it was about 19—it was in the early ‘60s, before we really seen any changes to where people—and like I said, one of the things, east Pasco was a big grocery store there. We made them guys rich, and they wouldn’t hire a black person in the black community. Skinner: And you mentioned the name of that store was Gene and Jules? Pruitt: Gene and Gerald. Skinner: James, as I can recall, the Gene and the Jules, their last name were Wright? If I’m not mistaken, their last name was Wright? Pruitt: Gene Wright and Jules—I don’t know what Jules’ last name was. Moore: Was it Meyers? Pruitt: Might have been Meyers. Skinner: They also had not only the Gene and Jules over in east Pasco, but they also had a Gene and Jules on the west side of town. Pruitt: They sold Gene and Jules over there and built this one over here because they did not want to hire no black person. They wouldn’t hire no black person. Skinner: Okay, and on that relocation of the Gene and Jules from east Pasco to west Pasco, where was the Gene and Jules Store that they built to avoid hiring blacks, where was that located? Was that located on Court and Chase? Pruitt: Mm, that was on Court— Skinner: Which is, it’s 20th now, but it used to be Chase. Pruitt: That’s right. Chase. Skinner: Used to be Chase. Was it located around that area? Pruitt: Mm-hmm, yeah. Skinner: Jim, you also said it, the City of Pasco, that you were the first black that was employed by the City of Pasco? Pruitt: Yes. Skinner: What year was that? Pruitt: 1960. I was employed through East Pasco Improvement Association. They fought the city. Shirley Shepard and Mrs. Heidlebaugh, Mr. Heidlebaugh, Mrs. Merricks and all of those people, Kenny Moore, he was a councilman at that time—city councilman. And they called him the East Pasco Nigger Council. Skinner: Mm-hmm, tell us some more. Who was the mayor at that time, can you recall? Pruitt: Let’s see, who was the mayor? Ted—what was old Ted’s name? Oh, god. I can’t call the last name. But Ted was the mayor there in 1960. He was the mayor. He was a real racist. Real prejudiced. Skinner: Jim, you also said that you were the first black Boy Scout troupe leader in the Tri-City area, Pasco area or whatever. And you mentioned you had 22 scouts at that time. What else were you first in, Jim, in the Tri-Cities? Pruitt: I was the first black man to run a service station. 76 Union Station down on 4th Avenue at the Dodge place. I worked for Mr. Don Hammer. He went in, he was talking to his buddy in there, and he said, I got a man here needs a job. Because my son was going to be born in February and we couldn’t work on the dam because there was too much ice, and I needed the job. He was from Louisiana, and he said, man, black guys worked the station there all the time. He said, I’ll give you a job. He gave me a job working for him and I would run the station at night. There was people come to the station to get gas and I’d go out to serve them, and they’d ask me for Mr. Hammer or Bob. They was out to lunch or if they was going some place, I’d say, well, they’re not in right now. Can I help you? No. So one day—one evening—one night I was there, and this lady came in and I went out to fill her tank, because I know she come by to get it full. And she asked me where was the boss? And I say, he’s gone home. He might’ve not—he wasn’t going home that night, but he went and got him a sandwich and he said he was going to leave and he was going home. So I said, he may be going home, I don’t know. Well, where’s Robert? And I said he may be going home. I’m the only one here. I said, can I help you? No. So about that time, he went back up in the driveway. He got out and he says, what’s wrong? I said, I don’t know, that lady want to see you. So he goes over to her and he says, ma’am, can I help you? She says, yes, sir, she says, fill ‘er up. He said, James work here. He said, why couldn’t you fill her car up with gas? I said, I asked her what does she want and she asked for you. She didn’t tell me she wanted no gas. And he said, why didn’t you tell him? I didn’t want him putting gas in my car. He said, well, I tell you what, ma’am. He works here. And if he can’t put gas in your car, then we don’t need your trade. Skinner: So this female customer, because you were an African American refused to do business with you at a station that she does business with on a day-to-day basis. Pruitt: Yes. She would not let me fill that car up that day. So he said, if he can’t fill it up, I won’t fill it up. So she said, fill it up. And he went on the inside. So she asked me if I knew where she could get six black chickens. I said, no, I don’t. And I called Don and asked him. I said, Don. The lady ask me if you know where she could get six black chickens. He’s very squirrelly anyway. He says, well, let me see, but I don’t know, but if there’s any around I could sure get them for you. He say, why? Why you want six black chickens? She said, I want them for pall bearers. My cock is dead. [LAUGHTER] Those were the kind of things that that you get from them kind of people. A lot of people come in didn’t want me to serve them. Yes. Skinner: And is—that’s interesting and I know it was true, Jim, but it’s really pathetic that people were that shallow and that small to not want to give individuals the same extension of the hand that they would extend to other people. It’s really sad that we have individuals in this world this way that feel that they’re out here by themselves. Jim, is there any other firsts? Pruitt: Yes, when I was working for the city department, Buck Whistler was the supervisor there. He was so racist, he’d tell me one thing that the foreman—Herb Carr was the foreman—he would give me a job to do, and Buck would come on after he’d leave and tell me something else to do and then go tell him that I wasn’t doing what he told me to do, I was doing this. Buck Whistler was the supervisor. He didn’t want me on the job. Skinner: So he was doing everything he could to undermine you and get you run off. Pruitt: Until the last minute. He did it too many times. He did that one day, and Herb come to the shop. I was threading some pipe, I was cutting some water joints and threading them. And he says, why weren’t you threading them joints? I said, Buck told me to go out there and cut weeds and leave that alone. He said, Buck says you wasn’t doing what I told you to do. I said, I was there threading pipes, man. These two-foot pipes, I had to thread them at each end. I said, I was cutting pipe and threading them. He told me to go out there in the yard and cut them weeds out. He say, he did? I say, yeah, that’s what he done. So Buck came down, and I was so mad, I couldn’t wait. When he come down, I run at him. I was going to kick him up one side and down the other. So he took off. Skinner: So, again, well, then it seems to me that you were being set up. Pruitt: Yes, yes, but I had got tired of that. Skinner: Being set up, as far as African American men or women, it didn’t seem like it was— Pruitt: The thing was, John, we were trying to get unionized. He did not want a union, the city employees. So he laid three of us off in September. In 1961. It was two white boys and myself, Robert Noonan. Because we was organizing a union. Even though we did get it, oh yes, we got it. Skinner: So Jim you trying to tell me you was a union organizer also? Pruitt: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. There’s a lot of things, John, that I tried, you know? Because I always never had a chance when I were growing up. And I always wanted to do something to try to help young people. I’m still trying to do the same thing today. I live in Alaska, but I’m still doing it. [VIDEO CUTS] Skinner: Jim, let me also ask you about—you were also employed for the City of Pasco and you were in the capacity of a community relations officer between the Pasco Police Department— Pruitt: As a liaison. Skinner: A liaison—and the African American community. Could you tell me some parts of that job description? You’ve already shared with us on some, as far as the what they called riots or demonstration, Kurtzman Park, and also volunteer across for the Franklin County Courthouse. And you were there mediating that crowd. It sounds to me that you were able, was effective in your mediation to quell the crowd and you promised that you, as far as your involvement—tell us about that involvement with that liaison position. Pruitt: When I went to the police department, I went there with this in mind, to bring about a better relationship between the police department and the people in the city of Pasco. Not only in the African community, but also in the white community. That was my goal. I had ballgames set up between the people and the police department, softball team. And we also had a pigs-and-the-freaks game with the police to bring about better relationship with the police department. The police had been pretty rough on black people in Pasco. That was one of the things—I had an office set up there in the Matrix Building. And when people would be involved with the police in any way, form, they’d come to me, and I would investigate it. Police would be harassing certain people, oh yeah. That was quite a bit. That was my thing, to investigate it and find out and see what was happening and what was going on. I also got the guns out of the police department—I mean out of the cars, they were sitting up in the—they had them in the trunk. Because that’s intimidation. Intimidation to people when they see, and knowing that you got something to kill them with. [VIDEO CUTS] Skinner: Jim, following up a little bit more on that community relations job, liaison job you had for the City of Pasco, James, the question I want to ask of you now, what kind of cooperation did you get from the City of Pasco and Pasco Police Department? Were they committed of trying to establish better community relationship, or was it lip service? Pruitt: No, they did. They worked very diligent with me. The city manager and the chief of police. You had a few guys in there that regretted me. There was a joke told one evening and I cussed them out. [LAUGHTER] Skinner: Jim, did you say that, at that time was the city manager, did you mention Marv Wenniger? Pruitt: Yes. Skinner: Was the city manager? Pruitt: City manager. Skinner: And the mayor was? Pruitt: The mayor was Ed Hendler. Skinner: Ed Hendler at that time? Pruitt: Ed Hendler was the mayor at that time. Yeah, they’d work with me, and one thing the chief set up when we went in, he told the police that my job was not to investigate no cases for the police department. And he told me these words, he said, if any policeman come to you and ask you any questions about anybody out there that he should be working on investigating, I want to know about it. You see? And he will pay for it. And any time that a person would come to me with some type of action between them and the police, and I investigated it, if there were some wrongdoings in there, that policeman was reprimanded. There was some police reprimanded. I’d write them up. I’d write them up, and I would give one of the write-ups to the chief and one to the city manager. There were some police left the department because of that. Skinner: So they were committed to making the changes. And when you did the investigation and on your findings that there was some activities that was inappropriate, they dealt with it effectively. Pruitt: Yes. And Al Tebaldi thanked me many times for opening doors to him that has not been opened to the police chief by inviting him into east Pasco and to different organizations and into the night spots and getting to know people and setting up the ballgames and stuff where we could have some interaction with each other. That was good. He was for all of that. Skinner: And you say that at this time the chief of police of the Pasco Police was Al Tebaldi? Pruitt: Al Tebaldi. Yes. And he worked with me on that very, very well. I appreciated that. Skinner: Jim, again, you’re a person that’s multi-faceted, like I say, and involved in an incredible number of different things in the community. You also mentioned that you were involved, not only with organizing, but you also were involved with the Ironworkers and apprenticeship programs. In your involvement with the apprenticeship program, I assume—or let me ask you, were you involved in minority recruitment? Raising that window for blacks to have opportunity in building and construction trades? Pruitt: Yes, that was a part of my job. Skinner: Tell me, Jim, some of the encounters that you had, some of your success rates of recruiting black young men and/or women into the program. Tell us something about that. Pruitt: Well, I’ll tell you, it’s very understandable that young people, young black men, didn’t know anything about the four crafts that black men could not participate in. It was electricians, the pipefitters, sheet metal and ironworkers. Those were four crafts that the judge recommended that no other person [UNKNOWN] could be hired except blacks for five years. We had to graduate 625 black men and women through these four locals. Skinner: Well, this was through Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action, was it? Pruitt: Yes, Affirmative Action. Skinner: Blacks, African American, were not involved in the building and construction crafts in those four crafts. Pruitt: No, that’s right. Skinner: The reasons why they were not involved, was it closed to the father-and-son type of— Pruitt: Yes. Skinner: Because I can recall myself, as I was graduating from high school, I had no knowledge of building and construction apprenticeship programs such as Electricians’ and stuff like that. So you saying that, by mandate, you had to recruit as well as graduate a number of African American men or women in a specific period of time. Pruitt: Both, yes. Both. Both, men and women. Skinner: Jim, you also said that recently you ran across some of the young men that you were involved in recruiting in the Ironworkers’ and it sounded like they were thanking you for reaching out and showing them the way. Jim, how does that make you feel as far as that accomplishment and being able to reach down, reach back and provide the direction? Pruitt: Well, it makes you feel very good, John, because these guys did not understand about these different crafts. And it makes a lot of difference when you are put out in a position and you’ve never been there before. And you’re out there with all the white guys, they’re going about their business, because their dad has sat around the dinner table and talked about these things. But my daddy wasn’t able to do that. So these young men’s fathers didn’t know anything about the Ironworkers’, the Electricians’, the Pipefitters’. So we had to have a counsel. I was—what’s it called, a counsel. I worked with these guys, I recruited them, and I went on the job to see how they would function, what they needed, what their weak places was, whether they needed help. They went to school five nights a week, two hours, to learn this trade. They had to do this. And if they didn’t, then they were thrown out and somebody else was recruited. Skinner: Jim, let me ask you this, in your area of being a counselor of apprenticeship programs, was the success rates where you thought they should be? Were they good? Were they low? Did we have a good completion rate of African Americans in the apprenticeship program? Pruitt: I’d have to say 87%. Skinner: That’s successfully completed the program? Pruitt: It was good. Charlene Bell was one of my ironworkers. Her brother, Alfred Bell, was one of them. And her little brother got killed up there. Skinner: John? Pruitt: John? Yes. There was Ron Howard coming under that, and Tony Troy. You know Tony? Faye’s son? Skinner: Yes, yes. Pruitt: He’s an ironworker now. He’s getting ready to retire. Some of the guys that I had worked with that I had to get in in the morning and call them if they didn’t go to work. Skinner: You had to jumpstart them, Jim? Pruitt: I had to jumpstart ‘em. I’d go and I always kept my little piece under my arm, because the guys were rough. And they’d be out all hours of the night and didn’t want to go to work the next morning. And they’d get up and go, I’ll shoot you if you come in here, I’ll do this, I’ll cut your head off. And I’d go in there, well, I’m going to shoot you back. I said, you going to go to work this morning. The man need you. If he hadn’t need you, he wouldn’t have hired you. You’re going to work. I’d make them go to work. Every day. And seeing that they go to school. Every night, I was at that school. I checked them out. Every night, brother, I was out there. If there was any problem, the teacher, he reported it. He reported it to me. And I would talk to these fellas. I went on the job to see how they were progressing. I talked to the foreman whom he worked with, these guys, the journeyman. I had some guys through 19 months were journeymen. So these are the kinds of things that we worked for. We had ladies that were ironworkers. Juanita was a good ironworker. She was just one here from Pasco. They was very good. They was very good. I met some guys last summer in the park, in the shop that’s over on 23rd up there, in June. They rushed me and was hugging me and going on. Please don’t do that, people be thinking we’re sisters. They were getting ready for retire, and they were thanking me for what I had done for them, to give them a chance in life and have something to retire. They got good retirements from these jobs. It make me feel very good, very good, I have helped somebody. Skinner: Good. Jim, you know, on opening some of these doors, and knocking some of these barriers down—it wasn’t done voluntarily, Jim. Certain action, whether it was civil disobedience at the time, because in the majority community, the majority community just wasn’t listening. Sitting down to the round table might have worked for certain groups, but in the black community, we have sat down to the round table any hundreds of thousands of times and we still did not get any effective change. What do you think are some of the causes that moved, for some of the social change, to break down the barriers, to get the apprenticeship program, we’re talking about college education, where we’ve always had African American men and women graduating and going to college, but through Affirmative Action, we started seeing more folks, blacks, getting involved in apprenticeship programs, going to college and graduating college. But what I’m saying is, it didn’t happen by accident; it happened because of individuals out there on the line and were calling for social change. Do you agree on that? Or not? Pruitt: Yes. I think a lot of us—our young people was misled. I worked in OM over there a lot with young people. Three years ago, I was in Walla Walla. I had breakfast over at the Black Angus. There was two young ladies walked up, they almost looked like twins, and grabbed me, I thought they were trying to get my money, so I started scuffling with them. And they said, Mr. Pruitt, you don’t know us? And I said, no, I don’t, I’m sorry. And they said, do you remember OM? And I said, yes, I do. And I looked— Moore: Operation Motivation? Pruitt: Yes, Operation Motivation. And she said, I want to thank you and Trooper Kennedy for helping us to turn our lives around. She says, I’m a doctor, and the other one was a teacher. Skinner: ‘Kay. Pruitt: And—I’m sorry. [emotional] But those kind of things make you feel good. [camera man]: We can stop it. [VIDEO CUTS] Pruitt: --and on a Saturday hit a little bit of blues. That’s about it. Sunday, all day, you would hear all gospel. And the sheriff would ride around the church, is everything all right, boy? See if everything all right. So you’d be ready to go to work Monday morning. As soon as Dr. King come along and said, let’s get up and do something. We’re going backward, not moving forward. What did they do? They started bombing the black churches and killing black folks, because they begin to move out. The ministers should tell our young people, whatever your talent is, use it. I’ve seen Milton Norwood’s little daughter blowing trumpet in the church up there. Now, she done went through four years of schooling to learn how to blow, and the minister telling her to blow for God. Don’t get out there in the streets and blow no horn. Now who going to pay her salary? BB King, I talked to him. He and I were 80 miles apart. I said, BB, supposing we had still been in Mississippi? He said, we’d be down there smelling behind them mules. But I’m able to do something for my kids and my grandkids. He’s got 29 grandkids. He got a club set up in Hollywood, he’s got one in Memphis, he just set up one in New York. To him, that’s a job. But to black folks, because the white folks said, if you sing the blues, you going to hell, we couldn’t swim on Sundays, we couldn’t play baseball on Sundays. A lot black folks wouldn’t cook on Sundays because they done told them it’s a sin. And we still living under that old tradition. And this is what I’m telling you young people: get out from under that. Don’t believe that kind of stuff, because all it is, they taking the Bible and keeping you on the slave. Get up. And whatever is the pleasure in your life and other people enjoy, do it. That’s what I do today. Whatever people in Georgia are doing. People call me on the phone and ask me sometime to sing a couple verses of a song in New York—that’s the truth—or Detroit or some place. I sing. Why? Because I may not have that chance again. I don’t care if it’s the blues. I sung the blues plowing the mule—I learned how to plow the mule singing the blues. And the blues ain’t nothing but—the preacher says the blues is singing for the devil. My little blind friend up there used to play at the Black Angus here. He was playing up there in Anchorage. He offered the church to play for them. They didn’t have a keyboard player, and he play in the club. That’s his living. You know they wouldn’t let him play in that church? Because he’s playing for the devil and you can’t play for the devil and to God. And then turn around saying, you got to earn your living by the sweat of your brow. If Satan ain’t sweating I don’t know what it is. I can’t understand why the ministers are still going through these things. It’s a shame and holding the young people back. This is one of the reasons, John, that we can’t get nowhere, is because they got the kids’ minds poisoned. They not teaching them nothing. And we have to teach them that they’re number one in their life and whatever is available to them that they want to do—go out and be a policeman, go out and be a lawyer, be a doctor, be a city councilman, be the mayor—whatever you want to be. But you don’t ever hear them say that. You don’t hear them say nothing about the people that have paved the way for us along the way. Reverend Allen has never contributed nothing to this community. Never. And he told me, Juneteenth day down there, he had a $4 million project in Portland. I said, Reverend Allen, what about here? You live here. Well, Reverend Allen say, it’s in Portland. He ain’t never contributed nothing. And people tell me, well, it’s because of the way his family is. I’m a man. Don’t let nobody tell you what you can and cannot do as long as you right. He’s the boss of the house. How his wife going to tell him he can’t be involved in nothing? He come to one council meeting. But they ain’t telling young people nothing. You see? I tell them, you number one in your life. Your heart is the church. Your body is your temple. Whatever you need, you look within yourself. The inner strength, the god within you is the one that give you direction. See, that house over there is a house of fellowship. That’s where people go and communicate and swap conversations with each other. But this is the house of God. This is the temple, is here, your body. And when they start telling young people this and whatever—use it. Whatever your talent is, use it. Love, you have to find it within yourself first. When you find that, you can go anywhere in the world and find it. I have no problem nowhere I go. Peace—people say, I’m going out here and find me some peace and happiness. It starts with you. Any change you want made in life, brother, you have to start with you. Because it’s not going to change if you don’t put forth an effort. And you can sit here and pray until doomsday. Until you get up and do what you’re supposed to do, you ain’t going to get nothing. See, and people is talking about, if you got the faith of a mustard seed, the Bible said, if you got as much faith as a mustard seed, cut into four parts, one little square, you can move mountains. Now, the preachers don’t explain that. You’ve heard that before, ain’t you? Skinner: Yes, I have. Pruitt: But now you know what he was talking about? You know what kind of faith he was talking about? You see these big machines they built, they move the mountains. See, that’s what he was talking about. If you got as much faith, you can build these kind of things. They blow a hole in the mountain and take them big Eucs and stuff and run it in and get it out. The way they tell you that, if you have enough faith you can stand and look and pray at that mountain so long it’ll move out of your way. If there’s something in your way that—no, you’ve got to be able to move it. You got to be able. Skinner: So, Jim, you’re saying that before the black community can help itself, help ourselves, we’ve got to get up and take some steps. Pruitt: That’s right. We got to find ourselves. We got to find ourselves, and that’s something we have not done. We’re still dependent on somebody else. And you all know, when you talk to people that are supposed to be Christians, they’ll tell you something that’s wild and is a whole lot different from what it is in the Book. It is. And the Book has been translated 15 times. It has been translated. And you look in the Bible, now they got pictures in the Bible. See how many black people in the Bible. See how many’s in there. And I’m very angry with our ministers. Not that I’m—but you try to tell them, and they all, you wrong. Where you get your philosophy from? But I tell y’all something, I had an experience in 1966. I was driving from here to Bellingham. I was working on Whidbey Island, I was building some barracks out on the navy base. I was driving along one evening when something called my name. I was singing, “kindly take this message to the other side.” Something called my name at the double bridges. And you ever go into Canada, when you get between—before you get to Mount Vernon, there’s two double bridges there. And just as I crossed that bridge, something called my name three times, I’m driving. Said, James, James, James. It said, live your life that others may see the life you live. Because your life may be the only Bible that they will ever read. And it scared me so bad, man, I didn’t know what to do. I put on my brakes and I was sweating like mad. And I don’t know what in the daylights said that. 1986, I was working up on Mount McKinley. I built bridges out there for Samson & Sons. We stayed out there at the camp. So in the evening, I’d usually get in my truck after I’d worked 12, 14 hours a day, sometime 18. And I’d go out there, the sun didn’t go down until 12, 12:30. I’d get in my truck and go out there, and sit out there and look at all the animals on the side of the mountain, the bears and the goats and the moose and everything, doing they thing out there. But I sat there one evening, something call my name the same way, man. And I mean it just shocked me again. I’m sitting there and it scared me. And I asked a question when it said that three times to me. I said, why me? It said, because you’re you. That time there was some little—there were some ducks crossing the road, had some little bitty baby ducks. And all them ducks was in a little hook following they mom. And one started off, and she turned around and pecked him. And he got back in. The Spirit said something to me. If that duck can train his duckies, looking at the bears—if the bear can train his little cubbies, if the goats can train their little lambs, the cows can train their calf, why can’t we, our people, our children? Why? You know those things that—it’s because—I don’t know. I don’t know why. But these kind of things—I don’t know why they come to me, but it did. And I think about it. And I talk to young people about these things. I still work, brother. I’m still going to the schools. I’m still going to young people’s organizations and talk to them. Skinner: Jim, you’ve always been active with the youth in the community. As I said earlier, as I was growing up, I know that you were involved in and organized baseball. And I know, James Junior and I were also playing ball together. And you’d take us to ball games—at that time, I believe it was the Tri-City Braves. Pruitt: I bought a $50 Cadillac from his Daddy. [LAUGHTER] And I went everywhere, to Portland, Seattle. [LAUGHTER] Moore: We’ve got another one down there, too. Pruitt: Do you? Moore: We’ve got another one. Pruitt: For $50? Moore: A Cadillac, yeah. Pruitt: I want it! [LAUGHTER] Skinner: Jim, again, you have a wealth of information about folks in the community, about the signs of the times, where we were, where we came from, and we measure it in different ways. Right now, Jim, I suspect, I guess you’re retired here, right now. Pruitt: Yes, I retired in ’89. Skinner: Jim, I know that you were—you’ve done a multitude of things. I know you’ve been a contractor— Pruitt: [LAUGHTER] Yes, yes. Skinner: And you’ve been a sports official. Pruitt: Yup. Skinner: And I guess when I interviewed you, you’re saying, I just had that intestinal fortitude to want to get up and want to do better for myself and see my people do better. Pruitt: Yeah, especially young people. I want young people to have the opportunities I didn’t have. I want them to have that. Skinner: Jim, in that same line is, where do we go from here? Do you think that African Americans acclimating more into the mainstream society, do we have a uphill battle from what you can see in the trends out here now? Pruitt: Yes, we still have an uphill battle. Because people is not yet grasped what is happening. They still, some of us still living back in the ‘20s and the ‘30s. You’ve got to leave that. If you don’t move with time, time will leave you standing still. We have a lot of people like that. They don’t believe in what—I mean, you look at the music today. You look at the gospel, contemporary. Young people—[COUGHING] excuse me—they don’t want to go back and sing the old songs that we sang. [singing] Lord, I wanna be ready. Lord, I’m getting ready. I’m going to meet my God. You see, when young people come to the world, black people, they start teaching you to die. You going. How to get to heaven. And this is my speech. How you going to heaven if you haven’t did nothing here? We have got to learn to live here first. And this is what we are not doing. They’re not teaching us how to live here together, John, they’re teaching us how to get to heaven. But what we going to do here first? And a lot of people here, you can talk to them about that, child, I know I’m on my way to heaven, I’m going. Look, this is your heaven and hell right here on earth, son. When you leave here, your spirit will be left, but your body’s going back to the dust. That spirit will be in the body of some other human, not yours. You’ve finished here on earth and when you are done—ain’t nobody been back to tell you how it is over there, is that old folks’ comment. So that’s why he said, don’t put off today for tomorrow for what you can do today. Because there is no tomorrow. It’s either today or yesterday. Skinner: Jim, you know, again, in a black community, uphill struggle from where we may have been 50 years ago to now, young people’s better access to education—quality education, maybe a little finer—I’m not going to say finer minds, but now they have some credentials because of their college education. Do you think that the young people and seeing more with a college education, are they going to be able to benefit and help blacks move vertically? Progressively vertical enough, vertical movement. Do you think because of more blacks are being educated that they’re going to be able to reach out and be more salvation because of their education? Pruitt: I hope so. I hope so. I hope they’re not selfish. But a lot of us are. And I hope—they should reach back. And that’s what I always try to do. If I get three steps up on the ladder, I like to have someone on the second behind me. See, as we step up the ladder, we should always be able to look back and bring somebody else along with us. And I hope—and that’s what I tell young people each day that I talk to them. Don’t forget where you came from. Don’t forget your sister, your brother, your African American. Don’t forget where you come from. Always try to help those that need help. I hope it brings about a change. Skinner: Jim, so you’re saying then, don’t forget from whence you came. Pruitt: That’s right. Skinner: And speaking of selfishness, the selfishness, you’re hoping that by having access to education, that we’ll be able to look at things conceptually and not keep starting back off at square one. That we can be able to move forward with the knowledge and progressively move up vertically. Pruitt: Right. And I think—what I was saying, if our ministries, too, in the community. Because they have the crowd, they have the majority of the people. They have a chance to help young people more than what they do instead of holding them back. But they tell them what you can and what you cannot do. That’s not right. And I think if we could get them to understand, they’re not helping the young people in the way they’re teaching them. They’re not teaching them how to live here on earth and how to get out and do things and help that person that needs help that’s a little bit less fortunate than they are. They ain’t teaching them that. You don’t ever hear that. All they talk about is what Paul done and what John done and all of these people back—that’s fine. But bring in some of these people. You never hear anything about Dr. Martin Luther King. You never hear them say anything about Randolph Philips. You never hear George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington. You never hear them say anything about that. You never hear them say anything about Jackie Robinson; you never hear them say anything about Muhammad Ali. And look at most of the things that have changed in the last 70 years since I’ve been living. Who has changed it? Black folks. Muhammad Ali, what did he do? He refused to go to service, didn’t he? Skinner: He was a conscientious objector. Pruitt: Yes. What did he do? Didn’t he change the way we go into the service now? Did he change that? Skinner: Yeah, he was a modifier on a number of things. Pruitt: Didn’t Dr. King change the whole world? You ain’t never seen people demonstrating and marching and—after Dr. King, all of this come about. Booker T. Washington. George Washington Carver. Granville T. Woods. Moore: Thurgood Marshall. Pruitt: Thurgood Marshall. Then you ask the average black person right now, who invented the first telephone, who will they tell you? Who invented the first telephone? Skinner: They’ll say Alexander Graham Bell. [LAUGHTER] Pruitt: It wasn’t. Granville T. Woods was the first man who invented—he sold out to Bell. The first cowboy. The first cowboy hat was worn—who wore it? A black man. They taken that from him. The horseshoes, the cowboy boots. Black man. Pencil sharpener, the piano. The grease device you grease your car with. All those things. The two-cylinder gasoline, the refrigerator, the fan up there. You know why he invented that? The clock was a—all of these things. You ask black people, they don’t know anything about this. But the black man got tired of fanning all the time. They had to fan boss. And he invented that. He got tired of working from can to can’t. From the time I can see until the time I can’t, you had to work. He invented the clock. These things, we don’t teach our kids none of this stuff. And when I tell young people, I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to have to go through what I went through. And I know you guys are young men, you haven’t through what I gone through from Mississippi and Louisiana and all those places where I’ve lived. But try to tell them they’re the best, because if you don’t, they want to slip you but right back in the same place you was in the ‘20s. And if you don’t tell them how you came through and what life is about so far as you can, then it’ll be easy for them to slip back in there. Because they don’t say anything about it in the church. Now, see, white people do. That’s why they churches and their businesses—they don’t care about you being in there. Because they can’t talk about it when you’re involved. When I went to the police department, it made a great difference, a great change. Because I was sitting up in every meeting, and when something come down, brother, I was right there. And they couldn’t get in there and talk about us and call us names and different kind of stuff, because I was there. And that’s why I tell young people, get involved. As long as you’re on the outside, you don’t know what’s going on in the inside. But when I was on the inside—hey. A lot of people that I had to—they knew what was going on. Yeah. But they don’t want you there whupping his mom and his daughter and his sister. And he ain’t going to be whupping yours. But as long as he ain’t got nobody in there to protect that, he going to dog ‘em. Yeah. Skinner: Jim, again, you have a lot of interesting information that we would love to glean. We don’t have a lot of time, because I know you’re getting ready to go back to Alaska tomorrow morning. But Jim, before we end this interview—and like I said, it’s been good. Jim, we want to thank you. There’s no question about it, we definitely want to thank you because you’ve definitely helped us out. But, Jim, I want to go back and I want to touch on one thing. Jim, and I know that you have been musically inclined, been involved in entertainment, singing, choirs, night club groups and stuff like that. Tell me—tell us a little bit about where you got—you also mentioned that you learned to sing the blues behind a plow line and a mule. Tell us something about how you— Pruitt: Well, I’ll tell you, I started plowing when I was five years old. And all my folks sing. I started singing plowing that mule. I listened to the rhythm of the mule’s harness. The hames would be—you know what the hames is? Them things that go around his neck on the collar. The traces—the traces are the chains that run down to the plow. And the mule would walk, and he had more rhythm than the drum and his ears would flop just like—and he was stepping to that. And I learned to sing from that. And I remember the first blues song that I learned to sing, it was Louise. And I started singing that song one evening. I’ma sing just a little bit of it for you. And the guys across the field over there—that’s why we didn’t have no telephone, because they could holler so loud. I was singing [singing] Louise, Louise. You the sweetest girl I know. Oh, Louise. You’re the sweetest girl I know. Well, you made me walk from Chicago down to the Gulf of Mexico. And somebody over there, the next cut over there would holler, say, hey, James, say, sing that one more time. [LAUGHTER] And I would sing it again. But my dad didn’t know no better, he said, boy, you’re going to hell, singing the blues. [LAUGHTER] But I did. I learned—I remember the first gospel song that I learned to sing. I sang that in church when I was five years old. “There’s no room at the hotel.” And I still know every word of that song today. I’m going to sing a little bit of that for you. [singing] There’s no room, no room at the hotel. There’s no room, no room at the hotel. When the time fully come for my savior to be born, they said, I’ve no room, no room at the hotel. They said, bell boys, the porters and the waitress, high maids and cooks, will be a witness in judgment because they saw them overlooked. Well, they heard the manager say, when he turned poor Mary away, he said, there’s no room, no room at the hotel. [APPLAUSE] Skinner: That was the first that you sang, five years old. Pruitt: That was the first. And I sang that up in the night club in Anchorage, Alaska. And people just, they were talking about they wanted to hear that. Skinner: Well, Jim, as I’ve said, you’ve been involved in church choirs, different quartets, little groups around over the years. What was the first group that you performed with here locally in the Tri-Cities? Do you know the name of the group? Can you remember? Pruitt: The Christian Travelers. Skinner: The Christian Travelers? Pruitt: The Christian Travelers, 1949. Skinner: 1949? Who was on— Pruitt: John Tharps, we called Peewee, was a tenor stringer. Joe Straws was the first lead singer. And Otis Denham. Skinner: Who now? Pruitt: Otis Denham. Skinner: Denham? Pruitt: Yeah, he lives in Spokane now. He’s 87 years old. He’s kind of feeble—my foster brother. I’m going up to see him probably before I leave. I gotta go up—I told him—he called me this evening. I said, well, I’m going to put it off. I was going to leave tomorrow, but I’m going to wait and go Sunday, because I don’t have to catch the plane until Monday night. Skinner: Oh, okay, okay. Pruitt: So I’m going to go up and see him. Otis Denham, he was the baritone singer. Me, I was the bass singer. They made me sing bass. I never sang bass before. Because I used to sing seven different voices. But since I trained my voice to sing down, I can’t go—I can go, [singing] oh—I can go down, but I can’t go up to the high no more. But Cassalee Turner was the first tenor. Peewee was the second tenor. Otis Denham was the baritone, and I were the bass. But I got something I’m taking up to him is one of the old recordings that we had back in the ‘50s. Moore: You have a recording? Pruitt: Huh? Moore: You have a recording still? Pruitt: Yeah. Moore: Oh, okay. Hmm. Pruitt: Yup. Skinner: Well, you know, that’s interesting, also, Jim, because not only is that keepsake information for you, I know our group is interested in materials such as that. Having access or copies or whatever, because we feel it’s so important for us to document and put contributions that African Americans have made and things they’ve been involved with. We’re trying to gather this information. So that’s why it perked our interested that you have a copy. Pruitt: Yeah, I think in 1952, we broadcast some Sunday mornings out of Pasco. Skinner: Do you remember what station it was? Pruitt: Yeah, Pasco. Skinner: I know. Was there any call letters at that time? Pruitt: Um. Moore: It was KEPR, wasn’t it? That’s the only thing— Pruitt: Yeah, KEPR. Skinner: Was it? In ’52? Moore: Mm-hmm, I was there. Pruitt: Yeah. Skinner: Well, I know there was— Pruitt: We broadcast every Sunday morning for 30 minutes. Skinner: Or was it K-I-M-A? K-I-M-A, being—I’m just trying to think because before we had the KEPR radio station here or television station, the broadcast was coming out of the city of Yakima. Pruitt: No. [VIDEO CUTS] [camera man]: Go ahead. Skinner: Jim, again, you shared with us a number of things, again, on the last we were talking about your music involvement, being involved in some local choirs and entertainment in general. And I know that you’ve been involved in any number of groups, and entertained any number of businesses and night clubs around the Tri-City and around the country and stuff like that. Can you tell me the second group that you got in—became involved in as far as music? Pruitt: Yes, the Heavenly Harps, here in Pasco. That was the second group. And then I went down in Los Angeles and I was with the Rainbow Gospel Singers there for a while. And also in Las Vegas, the Clouds of Joy. I was with the Clouds of Joy in Las Vegas. We set up Local Number 11 down there with Odessa Perkins, was with the Ward Singers at one time. Ward’s was—Ward Singers were a professional group. I was with that group for a while. Skinner: Well, Jim, again, as I’ve said that you— Pruitt: But I would like to say this, John. When I first started singing, I remember, here—the first time I went to blues, I never sang blues in the club before until 1969. I was drawing $42 a week. Ed Jackson came to me and asked me if I would want to sing. I said, man, I don’t sing the blues; I sing gospel. But I was drawing $42 a week. He said, I’ll pay you $130 if you will sing, and I’ll give you the band. You take the band and you go ahead. I’ll pay you. It was easy $130 a week if you take that, if you sing and help keep the young people out of here. Because you know everybody, and keep them out of the club. And I went and talked to my wife. She said, if I were you, I wouldn’t sing. I don’t know. Because people are going to say you ain’t nothing if you go and sing, because you’ve been singing gospel. I said, baby, I said, I got bills to pay, I got my kids to feed. I said, nah, you know? What am I going to do? $42 a week ain’t very much. I said, the man offered me that and I can still draw my unemployment and I’d make enough to where we can eat and pay our light bill and everything until spring come, maybe my jobs’ll come back. She said, no, I don’t think I would do that. I said, well, sweetheart, this is one time I’m going to have to overrule you. I’m going to take this. And I went down and started to sing. I held no office in the church. I still went to church, but you know, nobody ever said anything to me about it. But they didn’t agree with me singing down in that club. But the members, the choir members of each church were paying $2.50 a night to come to Jack’s Pit and Grill to hear me sing. And we had more fun—because to me, it was a job. I wasn’t there women-chasing and getting drunk and all that. I was trying to make some money. That’s what I done. People who got mad at me because they said I wasn’t a Christian. But I am a Christian. And a lot of people don’t know what a Christian is. You ask most people, say, what is a Christian? A Christian is Christ-like. A Christian is not a murderer; they don’t harm people, they don’t destroy. I’m not a peace-breaker; I’m a peacemaker. And anywhere you go, you will find that within me. Anywhere I go in Anchorage, Alaska, they call me Mr. Pruitt. In Fairbanks, they call me King James. [LAUGHTER] They do. And I ask the young people, why y’all call me Mr. Pruitt? You think I’m getting old? But I get that kind of respect. I go to the Hilton, I go to the band, to the Sheraton, to the—any of those places I go. And if I go in there, I bet you I can go in there and stay in there for three minutes and my table’s going to be full of people. I don’t go and tell people, you ought to go do this, and you oughtta go—I tell how life has been with me. And what’s on the inside of me. And people enjoy that. This is what I’m saying, the minister’s afraid to go out in the community and go into these places. See, if you were such a strong person, why should you be afraid to go in? I don’t want to go to where young people live. I’m where young people are. Young people keep you hopping. They keep your mind—you don’t have time to think about them aches and pains and them hurts. But when you sit around with them old folks, child, say, my old knee hurting me so bad and my old hip hurting me so bad, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t want to hear that. My next birthday, I’ll be 78 years old. I get up and I go, I say, I got a little combo. I sing two nights a week. I sing gospel in the club. Black folks told me, you don’t sing gospel in the clubs. You don’t sing that. Mahalia Jackson turned out a million dollar contract. She didn’t sing in no club. Why not? That’s where you’re supposed to sing. That’s where the preacher’s supposed to go. He said, go into the hedges and highways. And I go in there, old woman 89 years old, I went in the VFW and she said, Mr. Pruitt, do you sing gospel? I said, yes, ma’am. She said, will you sing some for me, please, sir? I did “Just A Closer Walk with Thee,” wasn’t a dry eye in the house when I got through. [LAUGHTER] There wasn’t any white people. But I mean, this is what it’s about and what I’m doing. I’m not going in there to get drunk. Because drinking is something I ain’t never cared about. Now, I take a drink every now and again, but I ain’t never cared about no drinking and stuff. But I am concerned about people. Young people, man, I’d do anything in the world to help them. And I try—all my grandkids, I try to talk to them, try to show them the way and help them to understand. But you know, if you don’t have some backing sometimes, it’s hard. Skinner: Yes, it is. Pruitt: And like I said, you can go to church and everything else, but if you ain’t got some backings, you don’t learn. And I’m still—the preachers, used to be the preachers and teachers used to be the outstanding people in the community. The preachers sold out. They want some money. Bring the tithe. And they don’t think about what the young people going to do. Skinner: Mm-hmm, yup. Pruitt: Just do this today. And I wish that they would wake up and start doing something and taking the bridle off of young people and tell them to go. You know, whatever your talent is, go out there and do it. As long as you ain’t going out there and killing and robbing and stealing and doing things that’s not good for your life. But whatever your talent is, go out there and do it. Skinner: Jim, I want to say this right here. The African American for an Academic Society History and Recognition Committee truly thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule and interviewing with us. And I want to say it was a pleasure. It was a pleasure. Pruitt: Thank you. I’m glad to be here. Skinner: Yes, and we glad to have you. Jim, is there anything else you want to add at this time to the interview? If you want to ad lib or—just feel comfortable saying— Pruitt: Well, I would like to say that it’s a blessing that you guys are doing this, because this has never been done before. I think a lot of people actually are afraid to come forward and say something. But me, I’m like Paul. Silver and gold have in number such as I have, I give of thee. So I’m glad to see you doing this. And I walked in and saw Lynn down in the park, I was surprised. It did me good to see you down there. And the few people on the chart there that I named, I saw that he was interested in that, and that’s good. That’s beautiful. I wish you could get some more young people involved in that, in this, to— Skinner: Well, we’re trying now, Jim. That’s the whole reason behind this. We want to be able to reduce to paper, video, the contribution that African Americans have made, and with the hope that we can get the black community more involved in a number of programs and as you say, being on the inside. Again, Triple-A-S as far as an organization is invested in the young people. We’re just basically trying to get the information together and trying to get the information out. So we’re glad we’re able to do it and we’re hoping that when we do put the finished product together, that the community folks or folks in the community or folks that may see this exhibit would be appreciative that someone took the time to tell the story that my family or part of my family or someone I know came this way in the Tri-Cities. Pruitt: Well, I’d like to say something else. Kurtzman Park over there, the black men that put that park together that was given to us. Every tree that was sent out over there, these hands dug them up. Me and one white boy, Roy Hagerton. Skinner: What was his name again? Pruitt: Hagerton. We went out to Job’s and we went out there and worked four hours on a Saturday morning, and he gave us those trees. While we would go in there, other men was digging the trenches for the waterlines. Some of the guy were out at the old navy base up there digging up the pipes that had been given to us, and St. John’s Trucking was hauling them over to Kurtzman Park, free. Skinner: Did George Kurtzman donate this land, was it to the City of Pasco, or— Pruitt: Old Man Kurtzman? Skinner: Or was it to— Pruitt: He dedicated that to the park. Yeah, he dedicated that to us. Skinner: So the initial work that went into what we now know as Kurtzman Park, but I remember it first as Candy Cane Park. Pruitt: It ain’t never had been Candy Cane. Skinner: It never had? Pruitt: Never been. It’s always been Kurtzman. Skinner: Well, you know, for some reason, I’m wondering why I’m getting the Candy Cane. Pruitt: That’s Kurtzman. Skinner: I know it’s Kurtzman Park, but I remember when they—now, we look at the park as the physical size it is now. When it was initially put in there, they had a merry-go-round, a monkey bars, an elephant slide there, and if I’m not mistaken it says Candy Cane Park, but maybe I’m wrong. Pruitt: Yup. Skinner: Okay. Pruitt: Kurtzman. Skinner: It was right across the street—we had California Street and Wehe Street came together. Pruitt: That’s right. Skinner: So this is just interesting, because I do know it was a community involvement— Pruitt: Project. Skinner: --project, as far as the initial work as far as stabilizing the area and stuff like that. Pruitt: And I will say this, I don’t think—two people in this, Joe Jackson and Webster Jackson, never got out in the ditches with us. I never seen them out there. And he’s the guy, Webster—I am the cause of Webster Jackson having the job he got today. Skinner: For the City of Pasco? Pruitt: Yes, sir. Webster—Oweda, you can ask Oweda. She’ll tell you. I begged her to take the job she can down there. Skinner: Was that Weda Ran? Pruitt: Yes. Webster Jackson, Marv Wenniger gave me the authority to set up all—from the chief of police, the sergeants or whoever, that’s why I said they worked with me on that. I set up the screening process for everything. When they come down to the three people to take over Urban Renewal, it was Wayne Jackson, Herbert Houser or Webster Jackson. Marv Wenniger came to me and he said, I’ll give you the choice to pick whichever one of these men that you think would be suitable for Urban Renewal. Skinner: Urban Renewal Project was around 1968, wasn’t it? Pruitt: Mm-hmm. Skinner: About 1968. Pruitt: Yeah. [camera man]: Four minutes left, John. Skinner: Okay. Pruitt: Yeah, so I selected Webster over Wayne Jackson and Herbert Houser. Because I felt like Webster knew more about the community than anybody else. And that’s why I picked him. And a lot of people was dissatisfied with Webster. Skinner: James, there’s a lot of unsung heroes and heroines, if you will, in the community. When I say unsung, individuals that were behind the scene and individuals that were out there in the trenches and never got the credit for it. Do you know some of those people out there, James? Pruitt: Gilbert Owens, Emma Hawkins, Joe Bush, Cloy, Ray Henry, Herman James--he worked out there with his son—oh, it’s so many people that gave a hand out there. They worked with us. Even George Heidlebaugh, they’d come out there and they’d help. Whatever little they could do. That’s one thing they done, they really did. And we appreciated that. But there was Vanis Daniels and Willy Daniels. They worked out there. Skinner: Anyway, again, James, we—when I say we, again, it’s African Americans for an Academic Society History and Recognition Committee, do greatly appreciate you taking this time out and sharing this information with us and we’re working towards successfully putting together this exhibit. With your help, I think we’re going to achieve it. Pruitt: Thank you, and you know you’re like my son anyway. I worked with you quite a bit. And you’re grown up. [LAUGHTER] Yup. <a href="https://youtu.be/yPWOzm9FYj0">View interview Part 1 on Youtube.</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/blacQngZFTo">View interview Part 2 on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948-2006 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Pruitt Description An account of the resource James Pruitt moved to the Tri-Cities in 1948 and was influential in civil rights movements. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/18/2001 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Migration Racism Segregation Civil rights Civil rights movements Affirmative action https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2746c4dd39426589c31531fc11589f22.JPG e139e6816defff74fa770953d936012b https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8f930b67f07c50461f9388fd736c9fb9.mp4 656b1c721576a6c2dcc9d4c84d5a3b32 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanis Daniels Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Olden Richmond Location The location of the interview Home of Olden Richmond (Pasco, WA) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Vanis Daniels: My name is Vanis Daniels, II. And we’re here to interview Mr. Olden Richmond— [camera operator]: You can start over. Daniels: Yeah. Okay, my name is Vanis Daniels. We’re here to interview Mr. Olden Richmond for his information from Hanford and his contribution to World War II for our History—Triple-A-S, which is History and Recognition Committee. I’m from the History and Recognition Committee. And if Mr. Richmond doesn’t have anything, we would like to get started with the interview. Mr. Richmond, when did you arrive in the Tri-City area? Olden Richmond: 1943. Daniels: Approximately what month? Richmond: It must’ve been around—about April, somewhere around about April, something like that. Far as I can remember, it’s been so long. Daniels: Yeah, I understand. Did you come by yourself, or did someone come with you? Richmond: I had relatives come with me. Daniels: And could you give us their names, please? Richmond: Mr. Vanis Daniels— Daniels: That’s the number one. Richmond: And Edmon—wasn’t his Edmon? Daniels: Yes, mm-hmm. Richmond: Edmon Daniels. Daniels: And Mr. Edmon Daniels would be my great-uncle. Mr. Vanis Daniels would be my dad. And how old were you? Just say 29. Richmond: Oh, around 29, 30. Daniels: Right. Where did you live before you came to the Tri-Cities? Richmond: Kildare, Texas. Daniels: Okay. What kind of work did you do there? Richmond: Well, I did most all around. I farmed some, and I worked in the sawmill. That’s about all, the farming and working on the sawmill. Daniels: Okay. How did you hear about Hanford? Richmond: Well, I heard it on the radio. That they was going to put up a plant at Hanford, and so I checked with Mr. Daniels, my cousin, and got with him, and we made it up to come to Pasco. Daniels: Well, that would tell me why you decided to come to Hanford. How did you travel when you came here, how did you come? Richmond: Come on a plane. Daniels: On the train? Richmond: No, plane. Plane, caught the plane here. Okay? Daniels: Where was the first place you stayed after, when you got here? Where’d you live at? Richmond: Lived over here on Douglas in a trailer. Daniels: Did you ever stay in the barracks? Richmond: Yup, yup. We stayed in this trailer ‘til they got barracks fixed up for the laborers to go in. Daniels: Okay, now, was that for the laborers to go in, since everything was segregated out there, was those the black barracks they built for the black workers? Richmond: Well, it was mixed, yeah. It was made for the laborers, for everybody. Daniels: Oh, okay. And then how did they get you back and forth to work? Richmond: Bus. Daniels: And then what kind of work did you do, and the areas that you worked in? Richmond: Well, I’d clean up and digging the ditches and so on like that. Sometime, my foreman would put me with the concrete crew and I’d work with them. Daniels: And then what areas did you work at? Richmond: 200-West, and White Bluffs, we went all over, you know, cleaning up. Daniels: Did you ever work at B Reactor? Richmond: No, I don’t think so. Daniels: Did you work at C Reactor? Richmond: No. Daniels: Did you work at D and DR? Richmond: I think so. That was way out in—was that DR or—in White Bluffs, wasn’t it? Daniels: Yeah, D and DR is at White Bluffs, yeah. F and H, right. Richmond: It’s been so long, I can’t think of those things. [LAUGHTER] Daniels: Yeah, because—we may edit this part out, but from what I understand, you guys started at B Reactor. And you worked all the way through all the reactors, including, and the last reactor is, F. You had B, you had C, you had K-East, K-West, D, DR, H and F. Those were the reactors out there. Richmond: Yup. Daniels: And you guys were some of the first people to even go to, for instance, F Reactor, except the surveyors. My dad said when you guys got down there, wasn’t nobody there but the surveyors and a bunch of stakes. He said, because when they sent you guys over there, you was looking for a building. And there wasn’t no building nowhere to be found. They was wandering around, he said, took them almost all day to find it. Because they was looking—they knew approximately where it was, but they thought it was a building of some sort down there. And wasn’t nothing down there but a bunch of stakes down there. They had a truckload of stuff they had to unload. Richmond: That’s right, you’re right! Yup. Daniels: Okay. And who did you work for when you were doing this— Richmond: I worked for—what was that guy’s name I called? Daniels: Butler? Richmond: Butler. Daniels: Yeah, but what company was it? Was it DuPont--? Richmond: DuPont. Daniels: DuPont, okay. Richmond: DuPont. Daniels: Well, other than the fact that you came here because there were better wages— Richmond: Right. Daniels: --than you were making where you were, what did you like about working out there? Richmond: Well, I made more money. Came here to make a living and I had a family. So I liked it better here. Because I did fairly well when I come here. Daniels: Okay, now, from what I understand, from what you were making where you came from, and a full day’s work after you got here, you made almost as much money in one day as you did in a week back there. Richmond: Right, right, right. I worked a whole five days a week off the farm, $3.75. And I come here, they was paying a dollar an hour. That was with, running around when we was working out there for eight hours, and we run around maybe about three, pretty close to $500 a week. Daniels: Okay. How did they treat you out there? And you can go on and tell me about what we were talking about. Richmond: Yeah, well, I run into one redneck out there. I was down in the hole, cleaning out behind the ironworkers—you know what I’m talking about, when they burn those wires, you had to take it out, clean all of that, you know where they compose cement. So this one redneck he walked by me and looked down in the hole on me. He said, I should just kick your ass. And I looked up at him like that, and I said, no, you won’t kick my ass, I said. We will fight. And he started down in the hole, and I met him with the shovel. And he—the wire where the cement people were working at, just about tall as that fence there, and John Brown, he started to running and by the time he hit the ground, I was right on with him with that shovel. So Butler, he sees me running this guy, and he’s running off, he said, Olden, sir, what’s the matter? I said, this guy was saying he was going to kick my goddamn ass and I told him we were fighting, I told him, I say, we were fighting. So that settles that. So Butler fired him. Daniels: So by that, you’re saying that your supervision would stand up for his workers. Richmond: Right. Daniels: Whether they were black, white, blue or yellow. Richmond: He treated everybody the same. If you did wrong, you went. Daniels: Okay. What was the hardest thing about adjusting to being away from home and working out there at Hanford? Richmond: Well— Daniels: Getting used to, you had to get used to it. Richmond: I had to get used to it, yeah. From being away from home, you had to get used to it. And sooner or later, later on, I sent for my wife to come on and she went to work in the mess hall. So of course they had all the women, they had separate barracks. It had wire fences around it about like that tall at Charles Evans’ place there, and they wire all the way up. They’d let you up there at certain times and certain times you had to get out. You could go see—if you had a wife or something like that, you could go in there and stay until—well, you go around in there about 5:30, 6:00, what time you got through eating, then you go and stay with your wife until about 8:00, 9:00. Then they had guards at the gate. If you stayed too long, then he’s going to find you and get you out of there. Daniels: Oh, I see. One question that I’d like to ask is, what entertainment—after you was off work, like on weekends and things, what did you guys do? Richmond: Well, some gambled, some gambling and they had—what you call those things? A music box. They had a music box— Daniels: Jukebox. Richmond: --and a beer joint and everything in the recreation hall. That’s where we—some gambling, some running and drink, all stuff like that. Daniels: When you left off of the Hanford Site, where did you guys go for the weekend? Richmond: We come to here. We come to this side of the Tri-Cities. Daniels: Okay, and how long did you work out there at Hanford? Richmond: I worked up to ’50, 1950. Daniels: Okay. Do you remember the name of any of the black people you worked with? Richmond: Well, let me see. I worked with Cooper—you remember Cooper, don’t you? Daniels: Yes. Richmond: Well, I worked with your dad, too, and your uncle, Cracker. I worked with them. Daniels: Okay, that would be Mary and Barton, WL Daniels, Vanis Daniels. Richmond: We put in a railroad out there you know, remember? Daniels: Yes, yes. Richmond: And Willie Hicks, you know. You know Willie Hicks. I worked with him. Let me see, who else now? Russell, I worked with Russell out there. Daniels: That’s David Raines. Richmond: David Raines, yup. Well, I don’t know, it’s been quite a few. It don’t come to me right off. Daniels: Oh, well. If it comes to you, we can come back to it later. Do you have any pictures or any old pictures or anything like that from back then at Hanford? Richmond: No, I don’t have any pictures at all. Daniels: Well, do you know of any other people that we may talk to and get some information from? Richmond: Well, right off, I—it’s just like I was telling you about Reverend Barnes and Luzell Johnson, they probably can give you some information, too. And most of the guys that I could recommend, they gone, they’ve passed, they dead. So that’s the old-timers, you know. Daniels: Okay then. I’ve got a couple of more questions. Since you retired from Hanford, or left Hanford, how has life been in the Tri-Cities for you? Richmond: Well, it’s been real good, far as I’m concerned. About as well as you’d expect. Daniels: Oh, okay, okay. Well, could you tell me a little bit about your family, like how many kids you got, how many great-grandkids you got, great-grandkids, where they live in the Tri-Cities, whether they live in Pasco, Kennewick or Richland, and like that? Richmond: Well, John, Jr. he stays out there right across from K-Mart. And Stephanie, she stays in— Daniels: Now, John, Jr. is your grandson. Richmond: John, Jr. is my grandson and Stephanie is my granddaughter. And Sherry, she’s my granddaughter. And so, Melva, she’s my daughter. Daniels: Right, okay, and she lives in Pasco? Richmond: She lives on Sycamore over here in Pasco. Daniels: Okay. Richmond: So, let me see. I’m five generations of great-grandkids. So let me see. About six, I got six great-grandkids. And let me see, Stephanie—one, two, three, four—well, I got two grandkids in Flint, Michigan. [UNKNOWN] So I pretty well got around ten to twelve kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and all. Daniels: Okay, and you can tell me about your wives if you want to. If you don’t, that’s personal business. I mean, that’s your business. Richmond: About my first wife? Daniels: And your second one, too. Richmond: And my second one? Oh, I had a second wife, she was a doll. I love her right in the grave right now. She was the sweetest, sweetest thing. We never did have a fight. Never did have a fight. She always called me babe, someone, so-and-so, we’d have little spats or something, but we’d get together on it and everything. So that was the way it went. Yeah, I’d stand up there now sometime now and look at her picture and water run down my eyes. Daniels: I can imagine, I can imagine. Richmond: That’s the best woman I ever had. Daniels: And your first wife lived— Richmond: First wife, she lived in Texas. She in Flint, Michigan. So, well, we didn’t—she was nice. Daniels: Yeah. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Okay, we’re going—when did your first wife come out? ’44? Richmond: I don’t remember what month she come. Daniels: What year? Richmond: She come out in the ‘40s. Daniels: Oh, okay. I think she came out in ’44. Richmond: ’44, somewhere in there. I don’t remember now. Daniels: And now, you know, you went out there and you went to work, and you understood that it was a great big defense job. And you was making more money than you’d ever made in your life, per hour. Do you have any idea, I mean not now, but back then, did you know—did you have any idea what you were making, what you were building, or anything? Richmond: No. No. Because we had FBIs, they’d come on through there, they walked all day long through there, asking questions. We did have no idea at all. We didn’t know what we doing. We don’t know what we were supposed to do, we were just there working, there to make a living. Daniels: In other words, they gave you an assignment and you did what you were supposed to do. Richmond: Yes. Gave me an assignment, I did what they told me to do. Daniels: Okay, did they do any explaining to the workers and things as to whether what they were doing was top secret and that what went on out there was supposed to stay out there, or did they just not tell you anything, or--? Richmond: Yeah, they said they didn’t want you to be talking. Daniels: Okay, at that time, did you have to have different clearances to work in different areas and certain parts of the buildings and things that you worked in? Richmond: Uh-huh. Daniels: And how hard was it for them to get a clearance for you? Richmond: Not too—it wasn’t hard. Daniels: In other words, you gave them the information as to where you were from and where you born, where you worked, where you had been in your life, and they were able to get the FBI to do some checking and you got your clearance from there. Okay, Mr. Richmond. That about concludes all of the questions that I have. Now, is there anything else you can think of or anything you’d like to tell us, or anything you’d like to say? Richmond: Well, that’s just about all I got for now. Daniels: Okay. Well, we thank you for the interview. And we can sit here and look at these pictures, because he’s going to cut that out. <a href="https://youtu.be/P1yJmnmnGgg">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1943-2012 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1943-1950 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Olden Richmond Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Migration Description An account of the resource Olden Richmond moved to Pasco, Washington in 1943 to work on the Hanford Site. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06/21/2001 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F5bc28da2712e92cc111e8a42f58162b2.JPG b30c1468bb1898b28d47f878587786b3 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe5108d812a6ed53c862e9510df2a9ba5.mp4 0a83e145bb516d9fac87440969f5d45d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanessa Moore Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Thomas Moore Location The location of the interview Pasco, Washington Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Vanessa Moore: My name is Vanessa Moore. I’m a member of the Triple-A-S History and Recognition Committee, and I’m here this afternoon with Mr. Thomas Moore to speak with him a little bit about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working out at the Hanford Site. How are you doing, Tommy? Thomas Moore: Fine. Vanessa Moore: Good. Just have a few questions we’d like to ask you. First of all, when did you come to this area, when did you arrive in the Tri-Cities? Thomas Moore: Some part of ’39. Vanessa Moore: That’s very early. Thomas Moore: Yeah, I don’t remember just what month. That was a long time ago, you know. Vanessa Moore: Mm-hm. Did you come alone, or did someone come out with you? Thomas Moore: No, one fella come with me. Vanessa Moore: Okay, could I get his name? Thomas Moore: Golly, I don’t remember. Vanessa Moore: It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? About how old were you at that time? Thomas Moore: 19. Vanessa Moore: 19 years old. Where’d you live before coming here? Thomas Moore: Corpus Christi—I mean, Alice, Texas. Vanessa Moore: Alice, Texas, is that where you’re originally from? Why did you decide to come? How’d you hear about it? Thomas Moore: Well, this friend of mine did. He was a cook. And he told me about the job, that they was paying a dollar an hour for cooks in Washington. Vanessa Moore: How’d that compare to where you lived? Thomas Moore: $17 a week, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Vanessa Moore: Wow. So it looked pretty good, sounded pretty good. Thomas Moore: Yeah, sounded okay, yeah. Vanessa Moore: So you and he came together? Thomas Moore: Mm-hmm, yes. Vanessa Moore: Okay. Did you come and do that type of work? Thomas Moore: No. Vanessa Moore: Once you got here? Thomas Moore: No, we didn’t. Vanessa Moore: Let me back up just a little bit. How did you travel to the Tri-Cities or to Hanford at that time? Thomas Moore: To Hanford, we come on the bus. But— Vanessa Moore: From Alice? Thomas Moore: No, from Alice we come on the freight. Vanessa Moore: Oh, on the freight train. Thomas Moore: Yeah. Vanessa Moore: Okay. Thomas Moore: And what made it so bad was that he smoked and we were both hungry. But he had double troubles. He wanted a cigarette and then he wanted food, too. I just was hungry. He— Vanessa Moore: It was a long ride, it sounds like. [LAUGHTER] Thomas Moore: Yeah. Vanessa Moore: Now, once you arrived here, where was the first place you stayed? Were there relatives, or--? Thomas Moore: No, we didn’t have no relatives, no relatives here. No, we got off the freight in Pasco at that old depot down there. We didn’t stay here long. We just stayed—we just was hoboing. Vanessa Moore: Oh, okay. Thomas Moore: No place to live or nothing. You got out of there the first—fast as we could and we went over there to Seattle. Went over to Seattle and got a room at the Jackson Hotel. Vanessa Moore: Okay, so this was in 1939, and this was sort of just a stopover, and you kept on going. Thomas Moore: Yeah, I was on my way. To Seattle. Vanessa Moore: So, really you were headed for Seattle when you left Texas. Okay, I understand. But at some point, rather, though, you ended up back in this area. Thomas Moore: In 1949—in December, that I can remember good. In December, 1949, I come to look at a restaurant, cocktail lounge and everything that I purchased. The Poulet Palace. Vanessa Moore: The Poulet Palace? Thomas Moore: That was the name of it. Vanessa Moore: Okay, where was that located? Thomas Moore: On Lewis Street. Vanessa Moore: So in Pasco, here. And you had mentioned to me prior to the interview that you did some work—you did do some work out at Hanford with regards to surveying. Can you tell me about that? Thomas Moore: Oh, yes, we was working with—my job was I drove a jeep, and we had concrete on a sled. When they surveyors would put a stake down, I’d have to come along and take it back and dig it up and put a little concrete in there and put the stake back. Because when the wind blows so bad, the stake would blow all the way around. It was a little hard to blow that little wad of concrete that I had put the stake in. Vanessa Moore: I see. Tommy, when you were working on the railroad with the surveyors, about what year was that? Thomas Moore: That, I don’t exactly remember, but I’m thinking it was in ’42 or a little later. Could’ve been a little later, but that was at the Hanford Site. E.I. DuPont. Vanessa Moore: E.I. DuPont, okay. Thomas Moore: That was the name of it. Vanessa Moore: That’s right. Thomas Moore: We all knew that he made shotgun shells, but we didn’t know—nobody knew he was making an atomic bomb. Vanessa Moore: Wow, they didn’t tell you too much about that, did they? Thomas Moore: No. Vanessa Moore: So how did you feel about working at Hanford? Were there big crews? A lot of other blacks, or just a few? Thomas Moore: It was quite a few. Mm-hmm. We had—don’t remember too well, but if I’m not mistaken, we had our own mess hall when we finally got a mess hall. But before that, we was eating at a basement in the little town of Hanford. Vanessa Moore: The town of Hanford. So there was-- Thomas Moore: Yeah. Eating down in the basement. Vanessa Moore: So eventually, then, there was a separate mess hall from the blacks, separate ones for-- Thomas Moore: Yeah, I’m thinkin’. Vanessa Moore: I’ve heard that. Thomas Moore: Yeah, I don’t know for sure. Vanessa Moore: Now, on the job, do you feel you were treated all right? Can you tell us about that? Thomas Moore: Oh, everything went fine. Everything went okay. Vanessa Moore: I have to ask you this, what was the hardest thing to adjust to when you first started out here? Obviously, you came from a different state, you came from doing a different type of work. What was the hardest adjustment for you? Thomas Moore: There was no hard adjustment. We just went along with the flow. Vanessa Moore: Just go with the flow, everything worked out all right? Thomas Moore: Mm-hmm. Vanessa Moore: Okay. Separate from work, what did you and your friends and coworkers do afterhours? Thomas Moore: Well, sometime we would play baseball when we was working out at the Hanford Site. One time I remember—there was no women there, you know. Vanessa Moore: When you came there were no women? Thomas Moore: No, it was just all men. Vanessa Moore: So you had to find something to do. Thomas Moore: And what happened, we was having a baseball game one Sunday, and a lady showed up, but her husband had got hurt. We broke up the game because everybody wanted to go look at her. [LAUGHTER] Vanessa Moore: Did they get over back and finish the game? Thomas Moore: No, we was playing on our own. Vanessa Moore: Is that right! Thomas Moore: That’s the truth. We broke up the whole game. Vanessa Moore: Is that right? Now, I understand there was a baseball field out there. Is that right? Thomas Moore: Yes. I don’t remember exactly whether that was the field we were playing on or not, but it was— Vanessa Moore: [LAUGHTER] How long did you stay and work at Hanford? Thomas Moore: I really don’t know that either. Vanessa Moore: Months? Years? Thomas Moore: I time-checked—that’s what they referred to it then—and moved back to Seattle. Vanessa Moore: Time-checked. Can you tell me what that means? Thomas Moore: We just—you just turn in your time and everything and quit. Vanessa Moore: Oh, okay. Thomas Moore: So it’s what you say, time-checking, they call it. Vanessa Moore: And then you returned to Seattle? Okay. So it was a later date that you came back again to open the— Thomas Moore: Yeah, in ’49. In December, I come back to purchase the place in December ’49. Vanessa Moore: Okay. So you were one of the, if not the first, black-owned business in the Tri-Cities, it sounds like. Thomas Moore: I was. Vanessa Moore: That’s great, that’s great. Thomas Moore: And my family was the first of doing almost everything in the Tri-Cities. My daughter was the first—Shirley was the first one to work at the US Bank as a teller. Vanessa Moore: This was your daughter, Shirley. Thomas Moore: Yeah. And then my wife was the first one was a checker at a Safeway store. And my other daughter, my baby daughter, was the first one to win Miss Tri-Cities. Vanessa Moore: Wow. So many accomplishments in your family. Thomas Moore: It really went—everything we went to, pretty good. Vanessa Moore: Mm-hmm. Since we’re talking about family, tell me a little bit more about that. Are there—maybe your other children or businesses that you’ve had, things that you’ve done since those days? Thomas Moore: Since—from then, or before then? Vanessa Moore: Since then. Thomas Moore: Since then? Vanessa Moore: Mm-hmm. Thomas Moore: Well, I left from the Poulet Palace and went over and opened up a pool hall. And from the pool hall—oops. Vanessa Moore: That’s okay, you can just go ahead and hold that in your hand. [VIDEO CUTS] Thomas Moore: And from the pool hall, I just worked in there and come on until, in 1969, I worked eight years for Chuck Ackerblade in the scrap business, two dollars an hour. And then I opened my own place— Vanessa Moore: Scrap business also? Thomas Moore: In 1969. Hmm? Vanessa Moore: Scrap business as well? Thomas Moore: Yeah, scrap business in 1969. I worked for him just to learn the business. And then I’ve been in that for the last 32 years. Vanessa Moore: So that’s brought you a long way. That’s a thriving business here in the Tri-Cities, isn’t it? Thomas Moore: Well, it’s holding its own. Vanessa Moore: Yeah. Any of your children still in the area, and tell us a little bit about them? Thomas Moore: Well, I got—my son works with me. He started working with me when he could walk. Vanessa Moore: [LAUGHTER] Probably not working too hard at that time. Thomas Moore: Probably. He started following me when he could walk, and he been following me ever since. I got one daughter here and one daughter in Seattle. One son in San Diego and a daughter in Chicago. Vanessa Moore: Mm-hmm, but you’ve chosen to stay here. Thomas Moore: Oh, I guess I’ll cash in here. Vanessa Moore: Long time ago since Texas, isn’t it? Okay, Tommy, I really do appreciate your time and the information and you mentioned—I’m going to take us back a little bit because I neglected to ask you this, that they didn’t really tell you what everyone was working on out there. Did you have an idea, or did you suspect what it was? Thomas Moore: No, the only thing we knew, that I.E. DuPont made shotgun shells. Now, that we knew. [LAUGHTER] That was all that everybody talked about. So when you compared to—well, it had to be something explosive. Vanessa Moore: At least that much, we— Thomas Moore: The fella with the shotgun business and the shell business— Vanessa Moore: Was in charge. Thomas Moore: Something. But we didn’t, nobody knew. Vanessa Moore: Okay. Thomas Moore: You just do what you was told and get off and go back to the barracks. Vanessa Moore: And go back to the barracks. Now, you did live in the barracks for a while? Thomas Moore: Oh, yeah, it’s when I was living in the barracks and when I time-checked, I did. Vanessa Moore: Mm-hmm. Tell—can you tell us a little bit about what that was like? I mean, did they have rules like military barracks, or this was just the housing? Thomas Moore: It was just two men to the room, and there wasn’t nothing, you didn’t have no laws or nothing like that, you just went home and then they—full barracks and a washhouse in the center. Vanessa Moore: It was attached to it, or--? Thomas Moore: Yeah, it was a four units but then where they attached together, that’s where the showers was, the showers and the bathrooms and all that stuff. And then from that to the mess hall. Vanessa Moore: For eating. So pretty much everything was— Thomas Moore: So you really didn’t need anything else, you know. Vanessa Moore: It’s kind of like a little town. Thomas Moore: They fed good. Vanessa Moore: Is that right? Thomas Moore: Yeah. Vanessa Moore: Solid meals, huh? Okay, well, thank you very much. If there are names of others who worked out there, we’d like to know who those people were and maybe talk with them. Thomas Moore: I can’t remember nothing that’s been that far back. Vanessa Moore: Well, if something comes to you, let me know, I appreciate it. Thomas Moore: Thank you. Vanessa Moore: Thank you. [VIDEO CUTS] Vanessa Moore: Tommy, you mentioned before that you came to Washington state from Alice, Texas. I was curious about the type of work that you did in Alice. Thomas Moore: I was a cook at a restaurant. First, I started out as a dishwasher for five dollars a week and worked on up ‘til I got cook. But the reason why they wouldn’t give me a cooking a job, because I’d have to take a job as a dishwasher, because the restaurants was hard—they didn’t want to live any customers, and for a young kid, as young as I was, they wouldn’t hire you as a cook. But when the cooks—all cooks drink quite a bit. So when a cook showed up—or the cook didn’t show up because he was drunk, then I’d get in the kitchen and start from dishwashing go get on the grill. Vanessa Moore: So you were cooking anyway. Thomas Moore: Yeah, and then I’d get the job. [LAUGHTER] Yeah that’s about it. And then I—it was 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Vanessa Moore: And what kind of wages? Thomas Moore: Oh, the most I ever made was $17. Vanessa Moore: $17 a week, is that correct? Okay. So you had heard that in Washington State— Thomas Moore: It was paying a dollar an hour. Vanessa Moore: For the same type of work? Thomas Moore: Yes, and I had a 1935 convertible Packard, I bought it in 1937. They had a Plymouth, yellow with a black top, $875. I wanted to come and get it. It was 1940. Vanessa Moore: So you were motivated, is what you’re telling me. Thomas Moore: Yeah, that’s right, I wanted to come and trade my Packard in and get that Plymouth. Vanessa Moore: Thank you, I appreciate that. [VIDEO CUTS] Vanessa Moore: Tommy, there is a period of years between you leaving Hanford, leaving this area, and then coming back later on to purchase the Poulet Palace. What were you doing during that time and where did you live? Thomas Moore: Well, I lived at the Jackson Hotel and then— Vanessa Moore: This is in Seattle? Thomas Moore: In Seattle. And then I was working for George Crawford Smith at a restaurant. He didn’t know anything about a restaurant, but he had the money to buy it. So I went to work for him. And then, after a length of time—I worked for him for about a year and a half—I bought my own place. Vanessa Moore: Still in the Seattle area? Thomas Moore: Yes. And he said that I wouldn’t make it. So I told him, I said, well, Mr. Smith, you were 48 years old before you made it, and I’m 21. I can go in and out of business a long time before I get 48. [LAUGHTER] And still make it. So that’s life. Vanessa Moore: Mm-hmm. Did you spend any time in the military at all over your career? Thomas Moore: Yes, I’d volunteered for the Army Transfer Service. And I don’t exactly know how many years I was in that, but I made 22 trips to Japan, eight trips to Hawai’i, and eight trips to Jeosang, Korea. Vanessa Moore: You’ve been all around. Thomas Moore: I have been, yeah. I went more further overseas than I have in the United States. Vanessa Moore: Wow. Where were you stationed when you were in the service? Thomas Moore: Bremerton. Vanessa Moore: Bremerton, Washington? Thomas Moore: Yes. Vanessa Moore: Okay. So you’ve covered a lot of this state, too. Thomas Moore: Well, not too bad. Vanessa Moore: Not to mention, though, we’re all—well, Mr. Moore, we appreciate your time today. Thank you. Thomas Moore: Okay. <a href="https://youtu.be/Ty7vVsnjTS8">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1949-2010 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Thomas Moore Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Seattle (Wash.) Migration Segregation Description An account of the resource Thomas Moore moved to Pasco, Washington in 1949 and opened many local businesses. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06/23/2001 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F751fe2d10a51ca573640af9f812eb806.JPG 45735fa368174ec64ab6f85a07746382 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0972a37cea642f27a4da176071ad6e05.mp4 8c8102ed8125b4874d40e7b73279b517 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Luzell Johnson Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [woman off-camera]: Can you see? Do I need to move that stuff out the way? Vanis Daniels: Yeah, we’ll move. [man off-camera]: I need to move up closer, too. Daniels: We’ll move all this stuff out of the way. [man off-camera]: And I need to move up closer. It’d be nice if we had him sitting back, away from the table. Daniels: Sitting back a little bit? [man off-camera]: Can you move back away from the table so we can— Daniels: Okay. [man]: So we get the— Daniels: I can—now, you want me to just pull him back? [man]: Well, he can stay right up to the table there where he is. I can just get on the end here. What I wanted to do was get it so we don’t have to pick up a whole bunch of stuff before we get to him. Because when we get ready to edit it, we’ll need to zoom it. We’ll need to do some zooming and stuff, too. Daniels: Now, we also can move the table back, too. [woman off-camera]: That’s right. That might be easier. [man off-camera]: Let’s just move the tables back. Slide it. Because I really don’t need nothing in front of us. Daniels: All right. We should have enough room now. [man off-camera]: That’s real good right there, I think. Daniels: Okay. All right. You need this? You don’t? All right. [man off-camera] These can come down a little more. That’s good. That should be good. That’s good right there. Now, we’re going to need a microphone on him. Daniels: I don’t need a microphone. Ah, damn. [Interviewer 1]: Mr. Johnson, we’re doing some work on the Manhattan Project here. You came to work on this area during this time, during the Manhattan Project in the 1943-1944 timeframe. Could you tell us or describe how you got here, how you heard about Hanford and a little bit about how you ended up here? Luzell Johnson: My sister and her husband, Joe Williams, they was in California working on a plant. And they left there and come to Hanford. And when they got there, they started working on the Hanford Project. They come home in February, I think, and they were telling me about—they told me about the job. They asked me if I wanted to come move out there— [Interviewer 1]: When you said they came home, where was home? Johnson: Alabama. Finchburg, Alabama. [Interviewer 1]: What was that in Alabama again? Johnson: Finchburg, Alabama. [Interviewer 1]: Frenchburg, Alabama. Can you tell us a little bit about what you were doing in Frenchburg before they came home and talked you into coming here? Johnson: I was working in a creosote plant. [Interviewer 1]: And at that creosote plant, what did you do there? What kind of—what were you doing, doing the work there? Johnson: Toiling, working on crane. [Interviewer 1]: And then could you describe, what, when you got ready to come out here, or getting ready to come out here in the transportation in getting out here, could you tell us a little bit about that? And then what you did when you got out here. Johnson: My brother had bought an old ’41 Plymouth, and he and Joe was working around places. He gave me the Plymouth. I drove the ’41 Plymouth out here. You want to know who come with me? [Interviewer 1]: Yes, I’d sure like to know who— Johnson: Emmett Brown and Charlie Dart and—I can’t think of the other— [Interviewer 1]: And those were all relatives of yours or were they just friends and relatives? Johnson: They was Joe’s sister’s kids. [Interviewer 1]: When you arrived in the Tri-Cities or Pasco, could you tell us a little bit about what it was like, what you found when you got here? Johnson: Well, I found the job was available when I got here. I went to a job when I was hired in, I was hired in as a cement finisher. And they didn’t have no spot to put a cement finisher. They put me as a laborer, sweeping floors. And I got a card to go to the army. I went to the superintendent and showed him the card, and he told me, why you didn’t come out as a finisher? I said, foreman told me they didn’t have no spots for a finisher. He told me, yes, we do have plenty of room for a finisher. Where’s your tools? I said, they back at the camp. He said, bring your tools out here in the morning, and I’ll put you in as a finisher. He put me on finishing. I got the card to go to the army. To go to the army, a 3-A, I think it was. [Interviewer 1]: On your living conditions when you got here, did you live in Pasco or did you come into Pasco and then go from Pasco out to Hanford, which is about another 40 miles? Johnson: Mm-hm. [Interviewer 1]: You lived in Pasco and then before you went off to the barracks, or did you come in and just go on out to Hanford in the next few days? Johnson: I went on out to Hanford. My sister was running the eating place. [Interviewer 1]: That’s the mess hall out there? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 1]: Yes, and I believe that we interviewed her and she told us a little bit about learning to do the juggling act on how she could handle all the food on her arm, how they taught her how to do all of that. Towards the end of the Manhattan Project, when that was winding down in late 1944 and early 1945, could you tell me a little bit about, you know, did you just stay here in Pasco, or did you go to Tacoma or go back to Alabama and come back, or--? Johnson: I went to Alabama, and I went down to the creosote plant. And the man offered my job back. I told him—he asked me what was I getting? And I told him I was getting a dollar an hour. And he said, would you come back? I told him, no, I wouldn’t come back for $0.35. I was getting $0.35 where I lived, an hour. So I come back there to Pasco. I come back to Pasco. I bought a little place in Pasco and that’s where I lived at 321 South Front Street in Pasco. I lived there for a good while and I decided to buy me a place, a bigger place of my own. I lived there on the place—George had a place out there, I lived on George place. And I bought some land and I built a house. [Interviewer 1]: During the time you came, during the Manhattan Project out there, I noticed there were some other people out there, African Americans, like my uncle Daniels, Willy Daniels and Vanis Daniels, and my father-in-law, David Casterburg also worked out there. Is that when you met those people for the first time, primarily Mr. Daniels, because I know you guys was great friends. Is that where you first met him? Johnson: That’s right. [Interviewer 1]: Tell us a little bit about what you guys did in the social life part of it. Would you go to church, play ball, or what did you do? Johnson: Play ball. I would go and look at them playing ball. I couldn’t play ball. I wasn’t good enough to play on the league. But Vanis and Daniel and the tall black man, I can’t call his name— [Interviewer 1]: Noble Johnson? Johnson: No. [Interviewer 1]: Was it Noble Johnson? Johnson: Mm-mm. Marion Zack. Daniels: Talking about Zack. [Interviewer 1]: Marion Zack? Zack Johnson? I’d forgotten about them, man. Well, and then you went back to Alabama. So kind of like what my relatives did. They worked and then they went back home, found out that, like you said, the pay was about what you said, from what I remember, and then when I came in ’47 it was kind of that way. So knowing what was out there, you came back out here and this is where you’ve lived since then. Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 1]: Thank you, Mr. Johnson. [Interviewer 2]: Okay. Mr. Luzell, we’re going to back up, I need just a little bit of background information, okay? Now, what is your full name? Johnson: Luzell Johnson. [Interviewer 2]: No middle name. Okay, what year were you born? Johnson: 1912. [Interviewer 2]: 1912? Johnson: May 11th. [Interviewer 2]: May the 11th, 1912? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: Okay. Do you remember how to spell the name of the town where you say you were born in— Johnson: Remember what? [Interviewer 2]: The name of the town you were born in? Johnson: Finchburg, Alabama. [Interviewer 2]: Is that F-L-I-N-C-H? Johnson: F-I-N-C-H. [Interviewer 2]: F-I-N-C-H. Finchville, Alabama? Johnson: Burg. [Interviewer 2]: Finchburg, B-U-R-G? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: Okay. What’s your parents’ name? Johnson: Byas Johnson and Frances. [Interviewer 2]: Miles and Frances Johnson? Johnson: Byas Johnson was Pa’s name. [Interviewer 2]: Miles Johnson, okay. Johnson: Byas, B-Y-A-S. [Interviewer 2]: Okay, I’m sorry. And your mother’s name? Johnson: Frances. [Interviewer 2]: Okay. Were they born in Finchburg, too? Johnson: I don’t know, I think. [Interviewer 2]: You don’t remember. How many brothers and sisters did you have? Johnson: Three sisters and five brother. [Interviewer 2]: Are any of them alive now? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: How many? Johnson: Two. [Interviewer 2]: Two brothers. Any sisters? Johnson: Yeah. [Interviewer 2]: How many? Johnson: Two—three. [Interviewer 2]: Two brothers and three sisters? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: Okay. What kind of work do you remember your parents doing? Johnson: Farming. [Interviewer 2]: Farming. Did they own their own land? They were sharecroppers? Sharecroppers? Johnson: Yes. [Interviewer 2]: Okay, so you came out here with your brother named Joe? Okay, and he had been out here already previously? Johnson: Yes. [Interviewer 2]: He had come out here before and worked for a while? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: And then he wrote and told you about it and that’s when you knew you wanted to come out here? Johnson: He came home. [Interviewer 2]: Oh, he came home. Okay. And do you remember exactly what year that was, Mr. Johnson, that you came out here? Johnson: ’33. [Interviewer 2]: ’33? Okay. Okay, and then he came home, what did he tell you exactly about this area when he came home? What did he tell you? Johnson: That I could go to work and get more money. [Interviewer 2]: He told you—did he tell you what kind of work you’d be doing? Johnson: Mm-mm. [Interviewer 2]: He just told you you could come out here and get a job. And then as I understood, you guys came by car. Did he come with you, or did you come by yourself? Johnson: He came with me. [Interviewer 2]: He came with you. Y’all drove the ’41? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: Okay. And then, after you got here, tell me exactly, Mr. Johnson, when you got here, how many other blacks do you think were here at that time? Johnson: Oh, quite a few working on the job. [Interviewer 2]: Already? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: In ’43. Mm-hmm. Now tell me, when you got to Pasco, did black people have houses? We’ve been told—I’ve been told that black people didn’t have houses in ’43. Did they have houses? Johnson: Yeah. [Interviewer 2]: They did? Can you remember any of the blacks that were when you got here already? Johnson: Mr. and Mrs. Coleman. [Interviewer 2]: Mr. and Mrs. Coleman. Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: Anybody else? Johnson: I can’t think of his name— [Interviewer 2]: Was Katie Mooney here when you got here? Johnson: Mm-mm. [Interviewer 2]: She was not? Was Miss Arlene Johnson here? Johnson: Mm-mm. [Interviewer 2]: She was not? Johnson: I didn’t know them. [Interviewer 2]: You didn’t know them, but they could have been here? I see. Now, where did you live when you got here? Johnson: Oh. [Interviewer 2]: The time you got here, where did you live? Johnson: I lived in the barracks. [Interviewer 2]: In the barracks at Hanford? They was segregated? Johnson: I guess they was. [Interviewer 2]: Blacks were in one area and whites were in another? Johnson: I don’t remember. [Interviewer 2]: You don’t remember. Johnson: I don’t think they was, though. [Interviewer 2]: Do you remember anything at all about the barracks? Tell me what you remember. Johnson: I remember you’d sleep in the barracks and you’d get up and go to the mess hall and eat. [Interviewer 2]: Get up and go to the mess hall and eat. And how long did y’all work out there? What kinds of work days did you guys have? Like, long work days or just eight hour work days, or what? Johnson: Eight-hour days. [Interviewer 2]: Eight-hour days. And the pay was a dollar a day? Johnson: An hour. [Interviewer 2]: An hour. And then, Mr. Johnson, when you were out there and you’d go to work and you’d come home to the barracks and to sleep, what did you do after work? What was the average day like? You didn’t just go to work for eight hours and come, go back and lay down. What did you do after work? Johnson: Go to a ball game. [Interviewer 2]: Go to a ball game? And that’s the Negro—the team that they had out at Hanford, do you remember the name of it? Okay, anything else they did out there for social life, other than the ball games? Johnson: I can’t really remember. [Interviewer 2]: You can’t remember. The lunch room, was it like a café sometime too? Johnson: No— [Interviewer 2]: At night? Johnson: Yeah, it was like a café. [Interviewer 2]: A café, didn’t they sell alcohol? Johnson: Mm-mm. [Interviewer 2]: They didn’t? Didn’t they bring entertainers out there? Do you remember any of them? Johnson: Lord. I picture them. Oh. [Interviewer 2]: That’s all right if you can’t remember that. Okay, tell me, tell me about when the church came. When was the first time you went to a black church over here in this area? Johnson: I didn’t go to a black church. I started a church in my home. [Interviewer 2]: And that was Morning Star? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: What year was that? Johnson: I don’t know. [Interviewer 2]: About 54 years ago now, huh? Johnson: 55. [Interviewer 2]: 55 years ago. And that was the first black church in this area? What did y’all do for church before then? You just didn’t go? Johnson: No, that wasn’t the first Baptist church here. The Holiness Church is the first Baptist church. [Interviewer 2]: Oh, it was the Holiness Church here? Johnson: Yeah. [Interviewer 2]: How long had it been here? Was it here when you got here? Johnson: Yeah. [Interviewer 2]: And that’s where the black people went that went to church? Were there a lot of women working out at Hanford? Johnson: Mm-mm. [Interviewer 2]: Just in the mess hall? How long did you work at Hanford? Johnson: Worked until 1935, I think. [Interviewer 2]: You mean ’55? [Interviewer 1]: ’45, is when-- [Interviewer 2]: 1945? [Interviewer 1]: That was the end of the Manhattan Project. Johnson: When the war ended. [Interviewer 2]: When the war ended. Then what did you do next after you went back home and came back out here? What kind of work did you get when you came back out here? Johnson: I did—I was a cement finisher. [Interviewer 2]: Okay. Were there soldiers here during that time? Johnson: Mm-hmm. [Interviewer 2]: Where were they living at? Johnson: Navy base at Big Pasco. [Interviewer 2]: Were there a lot more men here than women during those days? ’43, ’44, ’45? Johnson: It was just soldiers here, more men. [Interviewer 2]: It was more men. What year did your sister come? Did she come right behind you? Sister Rae did? Johnson: Sister Rae? No, she—I came out here with them. [Interviewer 2]: Oh, she was with you when you came out here. Let me ask you something. When you—how long were you here before you got married? Did you get married out here? You didn’t? Johnson: I think I did get married out here, but I sat back and got my girlfriend and we got married at the courthouse here. [Interviewer 2]: I see. And how many children did you have? Johnson: Just one by that wife. [Interviewer 2]: How many do you have altogether? Johnson: Five. [Interviewer 2]: All living? Johnson: Mm-mm. Three are living. [Interviewer 2]: Just a couple more questions I want to ask you if you can remember now. Just take your time on this one. What do you remember as the worst thing that was going on here when you got here for black people? Johnson: Drinking and shooting dice. [Interviewer 2]: Drinking and shooting dice, that was the worst thing that was happening for black people? That’s not too bad for some people. Okay. What was the best thing that was going on here when you got here, beside the pay? I know you like the pay. What else good when you first got here from the South, what was the best thing that you liked other than the pay? Johnson: Ball games. [Interviewer 2]: The ball games. Okay, Brother Johnson, thank you very much. <a href="https://youtu.be/NArRQGHWChs">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1944- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Luzell Johnson Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Segregation Description An account of the resource Luzell Johnson moved to Pasco, Washington in 1944 to work on the Hanford Site. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02/18/2002 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F460bf0c069b1509c1f5405507db163db.JPG d96569e00082f37da75221e8187f7896 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F511064dbbb642366c99c1617861762f1.mp4 09d0aef4fe35ec11b9eb26e2b32c44dc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanis Daniels Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Benny Haney Location The location of the interview Home of Benny Haney (Pasco, WA) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Vanis Daniels: Okay. Could we ask you your full name please? What is your name? Benny Haney: Benny. Benny Haney. Daniels: Okay. Mr. Haney, can you tell me when you arrived in the Tri-City area or in Pasco? Haney: In January ’44. 1944. Daniels: Okay. Did you come by yourself or did you come here with a group of people? Haney: No, I came with a group of people. Daniels: Who were the people that you came with? Haney: Charlie Harper. Daniels: Charlie Harper, okay. Did you have any relatives here in the Tri-Cities before you came here? Haney: No. Daniels: Approximately how old were you when you came? Haney: Around 21. Daniels: Where did you live before you came here? Haney: Kansas City. Daniels: Kansas City, Missouri? Haney: Yeah. Daniels: And before Kansas City, Missouri, where did you live? Haney: Arkansas. Daniels: Okay. Haney: Texarkana, Arkansas. Daniels: Texarkana, Arkansas. What kind of work did you do before you left Arkansas? Haney: After I left? Daniels: Before. Haney: Before? Daniels: Mm-hmm. Haney: The same thing you done. [LAUGHTER] He know what that was. [LAUGHTER] Daniels: Okay, but when you got ready to leave Arkansas, were you headed to Hanford, or did you go—well, you already said you went to Kansas City, but while living in Kansas City, how did you hear about the work at Hanford and Pasco? Haney: Charlie Harper, he was already here. And he come home for Christmas. I come back with him. Daniels: Mm-hmm. So, how did you travel when you came to Pasco? Did you come by train, car? Haney: Car. Daniels: And after you arrived here, where was the first place that you lived? Haney: What now? Daniels: Where did you live when you got here? Haney: Hanford. Daniels: At Hanford? Haney: Oh, overnight here and then went Hanford the next day. Daniels: Mm-hmm. [off-screen speaker]: In the barracks? Daniels: And was it in the barracks or at the trailer camp? Haney: Barracks. Daniels: In the barracks, okay. Were the barracks segregated, or did white, black and all live together, or did the blacks have their barracks and the whites— Haney: Oh, no, they’d bust up the men. They would separate the men when I got here. Daniels: So they would separate you when you got here. Okay. And when you got your job, from the barracks to work and back, what was your transportation mode? How did you get there, did they have buses? Haney: Bus. Daniels: So you rode on a bus, okay. What kind of work did they have you do out there? Haney: Labor. Daniels: Like digging ditches? Haney: The lumberyard. Daniels: Lumberyard, okay. Can you remember the name of the company that you worked for? Haney: DuPont, but I don’t— Daniels: DuPont? [VIDEO CUTS] [camera operator]: Okay, go ahead. Daniels: How did you feel about working at Hanford? Was it better than Arkansas and Kansas City? What I mean by that, how did the people treat you? Haney: The people did me all right. Yeah. Daniels: Did you work on a segregated crew? Was it all black or was it mixed with black and white? Haney: All black. Daniels: An all-black crew. Do you feel that your boss at the time stood up for you? In other words, did he—if you had a problem with, let’s say, a white worker, did he stand up for you? In other words, he didn’t let them mess with you while you were working? Haney: I had no problems. Daniels: What was the hardest thing you had to adjust to, coming from Kansas City to the Tri-Cities and living here? Haney: What now? Daniels: The hardest thing you had to adjust to? In other words, you came from Kansas City, which was basically a city, to Hanford, which is the country and dust and—well, there’s nothing here other than what you’re working for! I mean, how did you feel? Did you feel like that you would rather be back in Kansas City for the entertainment part of it, or— Haney: I did right then. Back in Kansas City right there and right then—there wasn’t nothing here. No nothing. Daniels: Yes. And did you—did they furnish any kind of entertainment or anything? Did they like bring singers or quartets or did they have dancers or anything for you? Haney: No. Daniels: None of that, huh? So, in your off time, like on weekends when you wasn’t working, what did you guys do? Haney: Well, right here at Hanford, nothing. We’d go to Yakima, on weekends, go to Yakima on the weekend. Daniels: Now, when you got to Yakima, did you have motels that you could live in? Haney: No, I didn’t go stay all night there, just go and come back. Daniels: I see, okay. Haney: There was girls in Yakima. Daniels: Okay, what did you guys do up there when you got up there? Haney: In Yakima? Daniels: In Yakima, yeah. Haney: I just sat around and talked. Have a little snort once in a while. Daniels: Well, all right! [LAUGHTER] Haney: That’s where the company was. There wasn’t no company at Hanford. Just the barracks, you go for bedtime, and you get tired of going there. The girls all liked that one place. [LAUGHTER] Daniels: Yeah, yeah! Well-- Haney: It was top-rated. Daniels: Now, when you got to Yakima and you was able—could you go in the tavern and sit down and drink? Haney: No tavern. Daniels: No tavern. Haney: It’s like a house. Daniels: I understand. [whispering] We’ll do this one and then the next one. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Do you remember any other black people that you worked with out there at Hanford? Haney: Now? Daniels: Do you remember any other black people you worked for at Hanford, their names? Haney: Worked with me? Daniels: Yeah, that worked with you. Haney: Reverend Singleton. Daniels: Reverend Singleton? Haney: Yeah. Daniels: Okay. Can you think of anyone else? Haney: They’re all about dead. They’re all gone. Daniels: Now, you want to tell me about your job at Hanford? What did you guys do, other than work in the lumberyard? Describe what you did. Haney: Well, I worked on—[stuttering]—I learned digging then—shovel—digging. Daniels: Now, in the lumberyard, were you in charge of grading the lumber— Haney: No. I didn’t grade number. I pulled the nails. They called it boneyard. Daniels: You worked in the boneyard, mm-hmm. Now, did you do any other type of work, other than that? Do you have any funny stories or anything you can tell that happened while you was at work? Anything, maybe something that happened that’s unusual on the job, or something while you was at work? Anybody ever get hurt? Haney: No, no. Daniels: At work, anybody ever get killed out there? Anything that you know of? Haney: That I understand, no. Daniels: Well, you got anything else you want to talk about that may have happened, not only out there at Hanford, at work, but since then? I mean, you’ve gotta have some stories you can tell me that happened after you moved here to Pasco. Tell me a little bit about your family, your mom, your dad, your kids. [camera operator]: I want to— [VIDEO CUTS] [camera operator]: Go ahead. Daniels: Okay. Did anyone ever—did you know what you were working on while you were out there working? Haney: What I was working on? Daniels: Yes. Did anyone ever tell you that, we’re building—well, let’s say for instance like, we’re building a car? Haney: Nobody tell me nothing. Daniels: Okay, now, did you know what you were building when you were working out there? Haney: No, no. Daniels: Did you have any type of—anybody ever come around and tell you that you wasn’t supposed to talk about what you were doing out there? Did anybody ever tell you that? Haney: Yeah. I couldn’t talk about that now. I couldn’t talk about that. Daniels: So what you did out there, you did not know what it was for? Haney: No. [off-camera conversation] Daniels: I mean, were you curious? Did you ever ask anybody what, say, what are we building here? Haney: Nope. Daniels: As far as clearances go, did—what kind of clearance did you have? Did you have L clearance, Q clearance, or just a right-to-work— Haney: Right-to-work. Daniels: Just a right-to-work permit. [off-camera conversation] Daniels: How were your wages compared to—working out here at Hanford, how much money did you make, compared to when you left Kansas City? Haney: I made more in Kansas City than I made at Hanford. Daniels: Okay, then, you made more at Kansas City than at Hanford, but did you make more in Kansas City and Hanford than you did in Arkansas? Haney: I made nothing in Arkansas. You didn’t get nothing. [LAUGHTER] Daniels: After Hanford, what made you decide to stay in Pasco? Haney: I already told you that. I got a past I ain’t told you. [LAUGHTER] [Off-screen]: Go ahead. [Off-screen]: Say it. [Off-screen]: Go ahead. Haney: [LAUGHTER] Daniels: So when you left Arkansas and came to Pasco, you considered yourself coming from a bad place to a better place. Haney: A better place. Daniels: Okay. So you decided to stay here. You want to tell me a little bit about where you lived and what you did after Hanford? Haney: Come on with that again, what you said? Daniels: What you did— [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Now, when you came back, I understand that your mom and dad owned a trailer court and you rented little houses and— Haney: That was in 1947. When they owned the trailer court, ’47. Daniels: Well, when did your mom and dad come here? Haney: My dad was here in ’43. Daniels: Now, can you give me the names of your other sisters and brothers that was here with you, including your mom and dad’s name? Haney: I ain’t go no brothers yet. And then my sister here. My sister came here in ’44. Daniels: When did Joe Baby and Johnny and all them come? Haney: I think it about—I think it was in ’46. He come out in ’47 here, Joe Baby. Johnny was cantankerous. He couldn’t make it. [LAUGHTER] Daniels: Okay, now, you—how many kids do you have? Haney: Oh, phew. Daniels: “Oh, phew”? Haney: By that noise—by that noise—five. Daniels: Okay, do they stay in the area? Do they live here? Haney: Yeah, one of them, my daughter—your [unknown] and my daughter. Their home, they raised them in my daughter’s home. Daniels: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about Pasco and the things that have happened to you that you know about that have happened around here since you’ve lived here? Haney: What now? What now? How’d you have that? Daniels: Tell me a little bit about Pasco. Were there any businesses here? Did black people own businesses here? Haney: Well, not really, yeah, in the east part. Yeah, in part of the state, black people have their business. Apex has their business out there. You couldn’t go to no—you couldn’t go in no white place now. No café, nothing, no tavern. Daniels: That’s some of the things we’re trying to get you to tell us, about like Apex, that you couldn’t go into taverns, you couldn’t stay downtown in motels or hotels or— Haney: No, no. Daniels: --or nothing like that. But what was the east side like? Haney: What now? Daniels: The east side, the east side of Pasco. What was it like? Haney: There wasn’t no businesses, nothing. Daniels: Wasn’t nothing over here? Haney: Wasn’t nothing. Millie’s house down there, about all. Baby’s house and Joe’s house up there. Daniels: About all that was up here, huh? Okay, your mom and dad had the trailer court. They rented to the people that worked at Hanford? Haney: Yeah. Daniels: [whispering] I asked that wrong. [off-camera]: Yes, you did. Daniels: Boy. [LAUGHTER] Now, did they—I mean, did they have families that lived on their trailer court, or were they just rooms? Haney: Some had families. Daniels: Did she also have a place for entertainment and stuff for the people after they got off work? Haney: No. No, they had a café. They had a café, that type of a place. It was a pool hall. Daniels: And in later years, for the people that worked out there and lived on her trailer court, there was, you said, a café, a pool hall. Was there a record shop and a barber shop there? Haney: Wasn’t no barber shop. It had a pool hall and a café. About it. And it had a tavern. The Caterpillar Café. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Okay, were there other places like maybe Kennewick or Richland or even on the other side of town that black people could live while they worked at Hanford? Haney: No, Pasco was all for Hanford. It was recent. Couldn’t stay in Kennewick. Daniels: They couldn’t stay in Kennewick and they couldn’t live in Richland. Haney: In Richland and in Kennewick. Daniels: What about west Pasco? Haney: What? Daniels: What about on the other side of town? Haney: Pasco’s all right. It was Kennewick. [VIDEO CUTS] Daniels: Mr. Haney, is there anything else you’d like to tell us? Well, anyway, we thank you for the interview, and you were real helpful. So this concludes our interview with Mr. Haney. <a href="https://youtu.be/gGxbbzdXO6A">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1944-2012 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Benny Haney Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kansas City (Mo.) Yakima (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Migration Segregation Description An account of the resource Benny Haney moved to the Tri-Cities in 1944 to work on the Hanford Site. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F82dcdba7c4df618133ad558cac24be65.JPG 207a1551c47f5fd4414658a7299c8eb4 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8320bb80772d2eab849c90d8c36275a6.mp4 ef9406b4fef35c9c6a5b78ec9e9d5161 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanessa Moore Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Virgina Crippen Location The location of the interview Home of Virginia Crippen (Pasco, WA) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Vanessa Moore: --Vanessa Moore. I’m a member of the Triple-A-S History and Recognition Committee. This afternoon, I’m sitting here speaking with Miss Virginia Crippen. Virginia is going to talk with us a little about her experience here in the Pasco area in the early years in the ‘40s-‘50s timeframe and after that. So, Miss Crippen, we’re glad to be here and we appreciate you taking time to talk to us. First I want to start out by asking you, when did you first arrive in town? Virginia Crippen: In 1948. Moore: And how did you come? Did you come alone? Crippen: I come alone. Moore: What made you decide to come to this area? Crippen: Oh, well, there was work here. I opened up a business here. Moore: What kind of business? Crippen: Chicken. I sold chicken and barbecue. Moore: Oh, so you had your own restaurant? Crippen: Yes, I had my own place. Moore: I see. Was that the type of business that you had prior to coming here? Crippen: No, I didn’t. Moore: And where did you come from, what state? Crippen: I was born and raised in Texas, but I come from Portland, Oregon here. Moore: What had you been doing there? Crippen: Working in the shipyard. Moore: What kind of work? Crippen: I was a sweeper, they called it, at the shipyard. Moore: So you decided to leave there and— Crippen: Mm-hmm, I heard there was work here and there was no place for blacks to eat. So I come to Pasco to better my condition, I guess, that’s what you would call it. Moore: And so then also provide something for black people that they didn’t have. Crippen: Yeah. Moore: So was this just something you read about, that there were opportunities, or you knew someone who was already here by any chance? Crippen: Not—yes, very few people. Moore: Could you think of their names? Crippen: Yeah, I knew Bertha Smith. No, I met them when I come here. Really didn’t. Moore: Not too many people. Crippen: Not too many people. Moore: Where did you set up your business, your restaurant? Crippen: On 8th Street, east Pasco. Moore: And why did you choose east Pasco? Crippen: Because I didn’t have no other choice. Moore: Why was that? Crippen: Because they didn’t allow the blacks to have business no place else. Moore: So there were restrictions for where blacks could work and live also? Crippen: Yes. Moore: At that time, about how many black people or families do you think, would you say there were living here? Crippen: You know, there was—it wasn’t too many, but so many lived in the barracks. You know, men that couldn’t bring their families right away. They would come over. Moore: So they lived in the barracks but they would come to— Crippen: Yeah, and have chicken on weekends, barbecue. Moore: What was the name of your business? Crippen: It was really the Montana, but they called it the Chicken Shack. Or let’s go to Virginia’s. Moore: Let’s go to Virginia’s? Crippen: Uh-huh, or the Chicken Shack. Moore: That’s good. Got to be pretty well known, didn’t it? Crippen: Yup. [LAUGHTER] Moore: Let’s see here. Over the years, how did things go? Did you hear about what was going on out there? Did your customers say much about work out at Hanford? Crippen: No, they really didn’t. Because I worked mostly by myself and I was the cook and the bouncer. [LAUGHTER] So I didn’t do much talking. Moore: Did you serve liquor there? Crippen: No. Moore: Tell us what you think about the conditions for people in general living here, for black people living and working out here. Was it good, bad? Crippen: Talk about Pasco, you know, I didn’t work out there. But we had it tough here. The bank wouldn’t lend you no money. It’s just luck that I worked all my life and I saved a little money to establish my business and make it the best I could. Because we couldn’t even borrow money from the banks. Even in Kennewick, you couldn’t borrow no money from no banks. They didn’t even want you in Kennewick, period, black people. Pasco wouldn’t lend you no money. It was just tough. But if you had your own money, you could survive in east Pasco. Moore: And it sounds as though it’s a good thing that businesses like yours were here. Crippen: Yes. Moore: Because what other choices did the blacks have? Could they go eat anywhere they wanted to? Crippen: No. No, we couldn’t even go to the Top Hat, none of those places, and eat when I come in ’48. Moore: Stop for a second. I’m trying to-- [VIDEO CUTS] Crippen: Don’t put it on my yet until you tell me— [off-screen]: That’s all right. Moore: Virginia, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about your business. Did you have any specialties? What did the customers like to come in there most for? Crippen: Chicken or barbecue. Moore: Chicken or barbecue. Special recipe? Crippen: Not really. But everybody think it was a special recipe, because I—I have told people how I fix it, and they say they go home and fix it and it didn’t turn out like that. Moore: Did you only have black customers? Did other people come in? Crippen: No, I had Spanish and white. And black. Moore: Tell me a little more about that. You said something when we were off-tape. Crippen: Well, I fixed orders to take out, and I barbecued, fixed turkeys for people to take out. They was white. But I did have a lot of white customers that come in and sit down and eat, and Spanish, and blacks. So we mixed and all got along good. Moore: And you were willing to serve everyone? Crippen: Yes. Didn’t refuse nobody. Moore: Now, was it like that throughout the area, or were there other businesses who did? Crippen: Oh, no. We couldn’t eat at the bus station, we couldn’t eat at Pay Less, we couldn’t eat at Top Hat. We couldn’t eat no place. In fact, they wouldn’t serve us. Moore: So this was during the ‘40s, during that time. Crippen: Yes. It was ’40— Moore: Were there signs saying no coloreds? How did— Crippen: No, I didn’t see a sign. But when you get there they say, sorry, we just can’t serve you. Moore: For no reason. Were there other black-owned businesses? Crippen: Yes, Mrs. Wright had a trailer court. Moore: Was that located in Pasco? Crippen: East Pasco. Moore: And tell us again why most blacks lived in east Pasco. Crippen: Because they didn’t have no other choice. They lived in tents, cardboard houses, made the siding out of cardboard, the top canvas. The best they could do, because there was no place to live and it was work out at Hanford. Moore: Is that where most of the blacks worked? Crippen: Yes. Moore: So we have to presume the money was pretty good. Crippen: Yes. Moore: They’re willing to live in those conditions to stay here. Crippen: Miss Haney. Moore: Miss Haney? Crippen: Had a restaurant, too. Moore: Oh, she did? What was her restaurant called? Crippen: I don’t know, but Miss Haney—Haney’s Place. Moore: So later on as Hanford kind of wound down and people stayed in the area, could you tell us a little bit about how the area changed? Or maybe even before that, what did it look like when you got here? Were there a lot of houses, or just a small— Crippen: No. It’s sagebrush. [LAUGHTER] There wasn’t many houses. East Pasco didn’t have—very few. And then white people lived in east Pasco. Because it wasn’t many blacks when I come. But it was some blacks but it was no more—I can’t remember but five families at most, or four. Moore: This was in the late ‘40s? Crippen: Been here for years, yeah, when I come here. Moore: So the Manhattan Project had actually finished up by ’48 when you came, but blacks had remained. Crippen: Yes. Moore: Are the names of any people that are still here now that were here back then that you can recollect? Crippen: Yes. Luzell Johnson and his sister, Velma, sister, Bertha, they were here when I come here. The old-timers was here when I come here. They’d been here for years, but they all dead now. And I can’t really remember their names right now. Moore: Now, did you raise a family here, too? Crippen: I had one son. Moore: One son. And is he still in the area, or--? Crippen: He went to school here, finished school here. [VIDEO CUTS] [off-screen]: Go ahead. Moore: Virginia, I want to ask you a little more about some of the other businesses. Tell me about Johnny Reed. Crippen: Johnny Reed had a club. Moore: It was a dance club? Crippen: Yes, they could dance. And I had barbecue and chicken, too. It was like an after-hours club. Moore: So he served liquor there, and was it a popular place? Crippen: Yes, it was. Now he had practically all white, but blacks went, too. But he had a lot of white customers. In the beginning—it was afterhours. Moore: Where was it located? Crippen: On 8th Street, east Pasco. Moore: Another local business owner, Tommy Moore, could you tell me a little bit about him? Crippen: Oh, yes, Tommy Moore had a business downtown by the underpass. It was a beautiful place, a brick—a hotel and a downstairs restaurant, very nice place. Moore: Do you remember the name of his restaurant? Crippen: No, I don’t. Been so many years. So we just said—everybody just said, going down to Tommy’s. [LAUGHTER] Moore: There was somebody named Jackson, Jackson’s Tavern? Crippen: Yes, he had a nice little tavern. He built it. It was nice and had a restaurant in it. It was really nice. Moore: And then Sally’s. Crippen: Sally sold good food, very good food. Moore: You had a little competition. Crippen: [LAUGHTER] Really? But Sally sold lunches. I didn’t have nothing but chicken and barbecue, but she had pies and everything. She had good food. Moore: And was there a business owner named Lillian that you recall? Crippen: Yes, her and her husband had a barber shop. Then she started building a business, but she didn’t finish it. She left and went to California. She never finished her business, but her and her husband had a barber shop on Oregon Street. Moore: So there were business owners that had restaurants and places to eat and places to go for recreation and there were other services that blacks needed, of course, like get our hair done or the barber. Were there people to provide that? Crippen: No, not really, until later. Then Mrs.—she had a nice beauty shop. Moore: Maybe Mrs. Newborne. Crippen: Mrs. Newborne, yeah. Mrs. Newborne had a nice beauty shop on Oregon Street in east Pasco. Moore: So there were more opportunities for people to come in and set up businesses. Crippen: Mm-hmm, yes. Moore: Now, before that, what was the experience like trying to have some of these things, just at white-owned businesses? If I needed to have some dry cleaning done or my hair done? Crippen: Well, that was out of the question. We couldn’t even eat at the bus station. We couldn’t eat at Pay Less. We couldn’t eat no place in downtown Pasco, the white-owned. That’s the only place they had places to eat that I know about, was downtown. And we couldn’t go to those. Moore: How about shopping for clothing or groceries? Crippen: Oh, yes, you could go in all the grocery stores and dress shops and all and spend your money. And they treat you nice. You know, you spending your money. But you better not go to the bank and ask to borrow some money. You could put money in the bank, but you sure couldn’t borrow any money from the bank. Moore: So there were just certain boundaries that were set. Crippen: Yes, yes. [LAUGHTER] Moore: Okay. I want to thank you for taking time to give us this information. If there are names of other people that we should speak with, we have some—also some photos that we’d like to show you here later and there may be individuals that you recognize and we do appreciate—the History and Recognition Committee appreciates your time and the information that you’ve provided and everything you’ve done for the community. Thank you very much. Crippen: You’re welcome. [VIDEO CUTS] [camera operator]: Okay, go ahead. Moore: Testing the microphone to see if it’s working. Vanis Daniels: --but I can’t remember where I know him from. She look a little bit like Miss James. Miss James’ sister. Crippen: Oh, Miss James had a trailer court! Y’all got that? [VIDEO CUTS] Crippen: On Front Street in East Pasco. Daniels: She just got through telling us that. Crippen: Sure, she didn’t lie when she told you. Wasn’t no black church. I remember when they built Morning Star. And he died, little old short guy. Daniels: Mm-hmm, Reverend— Crippen: And he had children here. You know she played piano for New Hope—not New Hope, Greater Faith all the time. She hasn’t been dead that long. Mary? Daniels: Yeah, Mary Calhoun. Crippen: Mary Calhoun played the piano. But he sure did, he— <a href="https://youtu.be/7KrDyWUYEbg"> View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Virginia Crippen Subject The topic of the resource Pasco (Wash.) Restaurant owners Discrimination Segregation Description An account of the resource Virginia Crippen moved to Pasco, Washington in 1948 and was a successful business owner. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Faf8bf2f6d81c67e9ef7b69c434942a5d.JPG 892474e4e04b14d934a370dec4b58640 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F946842f661eb058d45b55d8d452c8e62.mpg 0d55695013e65fd959b507d2a6d5dd91 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Vanessa Moore Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edward Ash, Sr. Location The location of the interview Home of Edward Ash, Sr. (Pasco, WA) Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound [camera operator]: Sound check. Vanessa Moore: Sound check? For me? [camera operator]: Yeah, for both of you. Moore: Okay. State your name and address one more time for me, Mr. Ash. Edward Ash, Senior: Edward L. Ash. 923 West Leola, Pasco, Washington. [camera operator]: Okay. Moore: Okay. [VIDEO CUTS] Ash: --L. Ash-- [off-screen]: Look this way. Ash: Huh? [camera operator]: It doesn’t matter. Moore: We’re just checking the sound. Go ahead. Ash: Oh, you want me to look at you, huh? Moore: Yeah. Ash: Oh, okay. Moore: --story that goes with whatever I’m asking about to tell that, or kind of elaborate on the answer, rather than just if I say, what year were you born, or—well, that’s not a good one. But if we were to say something where you could just say “yes” or “no,” it helps us to hear a little bit more, okay? And I’m gonna try to talk not too much so that we can allow you to do that and he won’t pick me up on here— Ash: Oh, that’s okay. Moore: --so much. So if I hesitate and I go like this, I probably mean, keep telling me about that, okay? [LAUGHTER] [off-screen]: You might want to tell him to stop. [LAUGHTER] Moore: That’s all right, that’s all right. [off-screen]: If you get him started, sometimes, boy. Moore: If I get him started, he’ll keep going? Oh, that’s good! That’s what we’re after. So you ready to go? This is another interview that’s being conducted for a project for the Triple-A-S History and Recognition Committee’s Hanford Project. My name is Vanessa Moore and today we’re speaking with Mr. Edward Ash, who worked here in the Hanford area, back in the 1940s and later. So, Mr. Ash, I appreciate you taking time to talk with us today, and just wanna ask you a few questions. First of all, I would like to know when exactly did you arrive in the Tri-Cities and tell me a little bit about that. Ash: When I was over in Tri-City. Let’s see. We went over to Tacoma. Let’s see what year—’46—wasn’t it in ’46 we came from Tacoma? [off-screen]: I think it’s ’47. Moore: ’47? Ash: Yeah, ’47 was when we came from Tacoma. Moore: You came from Tacoma? Ash: I came from Tacoma over to Pasco. Moore: Mm-hmm. You said “we,” now who came with you? Ash: Well, Forrest Lee White, he came over with me. We was a little north of Tacoma. I came over here because I was working over in Tacoma and I forgot about that job. He had been here once before, he had, during DuPont time. I wasn’t over here during the DuPont time, so he said, let’s go back over there. So we went over and he said—when we got over here, well, you understand that J.A. Jones was moving in to start back the Hanford Area. So we went down to the union hall that day and we sit up at the union hall all day long. They were calling people to go to work on the Hanford Area. So Forrest Lee said I’m going over to the pool hall and shoot some pool, he said, because, oh we may not get out now because we got to wait. I stayed at the union hall and they kept calling up and the business agent was saying, we’re calling just the union members now, and everybody that’s going over are union members, union. I said to myself, I said, why is all them folk union members? So I sit down there until 12:00, and the guys sort of scattered. So I walked up there and I said, I’m from Tacoma. I used to be in the union myself, I said, but since I worked in civil service, then I went back to the union told me I had to, if I come in and pay all my initiation fees up, that I could go back in. So I said I’d come over to Pasco and rejoin the union and get back in the union. If I wanted to go back to Tacoma, I’d go back to Tacoma. Moore: What union was that? Which union? Ash: Laborers’ International. Moore: Laborers’? Ash: So I said, well, one thing I might like to ask you. He said, what? I said if I pay all my initiation fees and everything, could I get in? He said, can you pay all the initiation fees at one time today? I said, yeah. He said, okay. So he wrote down a receipt for the job. So then I didn’t have no way of going to the job, because Forrest had the car. So I went over to the pool hall and I told Forrest, boy, I got hired out. He said, yeah? I said, come on and go with me. Moore: Tell me your friend’s name again? Ash: Hmm? Moore: Your friend’s name? Ash: Forrest Lee White. We went on back over to the hall, and I asked him what about—this guy got the car. Could we get him out, too? He said, yeah. And so we got him out. So then we went on out to Richland the next day. J.A. Jones just moved in and they didn’t have no tools over there to go to work. So we got there and they told us, well, we just gonna sit around until the tools come in, but nobody have to leave the personnel office. You have to come in here at 8:00 and you stay here and sit out there and go to sleep or whatever you wanna do until 4:30 in the evening. Moore: That’s easy work. Ash: He said, y’all will get paid for sitting up here, he said, until we get the tools and start up working. So we went there everyday for two weeks and we draw a paycheck before we ever did a lick of work. Moore: [LAUGHTER] What kind of work would you eventually be doing? Ash: Well, I worked in the Laborers’ all the time. The Laborers’ District. Moore: Uh-huh, with J.A. Jones. Ash: Let me see, J.A. Jones had the Hanford Area until—you see, they had taken the whole Hanford Area. Moore: This was for construction work? Ash: Yeah, construction work. Construction, and then after construction work, why, then they’d take you over to the reactor and everything over there, too. Moore: What buildings did you work on? Ash: Well, I can just about call every building they have. I worked on first over in 300 Area, I worked on there. Then I worked at 34-5. I worked at 100-H, B, C, D, DR, K East, K West, all of the N, and I worked at K East and I worked at all the other Hanford buildings. But I done worked over the whole place from every building from 300 and all the 105s and everything. That was on the river, on the riverside. Moore: Could you describe for me the type of work that you did? Ash: Well, the type of work that I did, I first went there, I started working in the construction part. I helped to build, I built all the 105 area. We got them built and then we helped them putting in the machines and everything in. Moore: Mm-hmm, so was it like concrete work? Ash: It was concrete work and I worked some of everything. You know when you’s a laborer, you do some of everything. I worked with the cement finishers, I worked with the electricians, I worked with the pipefitters, I worked—I just worked with every craft that was there. Then when they got the building all finished and then they went in, then you—I got my Q clearance. I think me, myself and another white guy was about the first ones that got a Q clearance. The reason I got my Q clearance as quick as I did because I worked for the US Navy supply base in Tacoma during the war. So I got my Q clearance about the same week when I put in for it. Moore: So it didn’t take a long investigation for your clearance? Ash: No, it didn’t take no investigation at all, it didn’t. Because when I put in for it, why, I’d just left Tacoma from the US Navy supply base. I worked there all during the war, see, I did. Moore: What kind of work did you do there at the Navy? Ash: Well, I worked there shipping and receiving and all. Then I was working in the warehouse, and we were shipping stuff overseas where the people were fighting at, and armor. Then they come to the place where we had to—everything that was going overseas had to be waterproofed. Like jeeps, all that different stuff going had to be waterproofed. So the ship would sink, all that stuff would float and they can pick it up later. So after they classified me in army for number one, I suppose, I went in the service. Then one of the head lieutenant come out there one day and asked me, how would you like to be deferred? I didn’t know what deferred was. I asked him, I said, what’s that gonna be? He said, well, your supervisor said you’ve been doing a good job of waterproofing all of this stuff that’s going overseas. He said, they done give you your papers. I got a bunch of women and men both, you’re the overseer of it. So they want to keep you here because you’s qualified for this. So I said, okay. So then he went and fixed up the papers. I didn’t have to go the army, so he said, now, you, in a few years, you probably have to go when this run out. But it didn’t run out until V-J Day when the whistle blow. The whistle blow like the day that my papers run out, tomorrow. Moore: And that’s when it was time to come to Pasco? Ash: Yeah, after a while, I worked for another building there in Tacoma. So then I came to Pasco because I didn’t like that job. But we came over to Pasco and I started working. I worked out there for J.A. Jones construction. We worked, when we first started, he wasn’t in the radiation and all of that. We built, or we helped to build, finish that high school in Richland. We built the first jailhouse, was in Richland. And the school on George Washington Way, we built that. And J.A. Jones built all the houses going up George Washington Way going down to the river, we worked in there. That school up there and going to north Richland and all those houses up there, J.A. Jones built them. So then they started to moving up, they got all the barracks built and all the trailer camps built and little things. Then we started moving out into the Hanford Area. Moore: I see. Where did you live, when you first arrived, where did you settle down? Where did you live? Ash: Well, I lived in Pasco. Moore: Okay, were there many African Americans or black people in Pasco at that time? Ash: Yeah, there was quite a few, there was. I lived in Pasco ever since I came from Tacoma. I been living in Pasco ever since. Moore: So you must like it here. Ash: Hmm? Moore: You like it here. You settled down and stayed. Ash: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Moore: And you raised your family, you have—your wife is here with you. Ash: Well, I was only here one week and then I went back and got the wife and the two children and the other two were born over here in Tacoma. So we went and got them and we came back. Because I couldn’t stay over here by myself. So I went back and got my family. Moore: So you never lived in the barracks. Ash: No, I didn’t live in the barracks, mm-mm. The water got so high one time that you couldn’t get across from Pasco to Richland, you couldn’t. You had to go way around down there and come across the ferry, and come all the way around from back on the other side of the river— Moore: The ferry was— Ash: Come over there and we had to stay overnight until the water went down. But it worked it out okay. But I just never did like to stay in Richland. One thing [UNKNOWN] I didn’t. And I got to Pasco, and I went and people was in Pasco, so I just stayed there. Moore: Yeah. Do you recollect the names of some of the people who were here when you came? Ash: Oh, boy, let’s see. I can remember Newborne. Newborne was there. And [UNKNOWN] was here. Boy, I tell ya, it would really take me a good while to remember lots of little peoples. Moore: Okay, we can come back to that then. Tell me, Mr. Ash, how did you feel about working at Hanford? And I mean by that, the kind of working conditions, treatment of people, interacting with other workers? Ash: Well, after I went out there and started working in the area, I worked with lots of different people, and I got along because I tried to do my job well. I worked steady, I did. And I got with some good foremans and things, I did. And after they started Q clearing peoples to going in the Hanford Area, then I went down in the Hanford Area and we were going from building to building, started working in the radiation and stuff like that. When I got going in the Hanford Area, my superintendent was Ralph Erickson, and that’s the first superintendent that I was under. And I stayed under him 27 years, under Ralph Erickson. He really was a good superintendent. He was over all the whole 100 Area, starting at the river, plumb back all over the 100 Area, he was the superintendent over that whole area, he was. And after I went over to 2-East and all those different places, and got in there with him. I stayed in 100 Area from that time I went in there until I retired. But he didn’t stay there himself that long. I was under him 27 years, and then they sent him to another job out back down South some place— Moore: And you remained there. What year did you retire? Ash: Huh? Moore: What year did you retire? Ash: I retired, I got that in my—right in my purse here. Moore: You keep that with you. Ash: Well, you want me to get it out right now? Moore: Sure. Ash: Okay. So then they had another superintendent in the Area. He was a good guy. There’s one thing about it. I got along with black, other peoples. Now, I retired Seven and 31st, 1981. And I served out there for 35 years. Moore: 35 years. Ash: Mm-hmm. I raised up my whole entire family, raised, put all my children through school, everything on that one job. But I can say one thing, my daily prayers were, when I started working out there. I worked for lots of good peoples. I worked with lots of ornery peoples. You gonna find that everywhere you go, see. But I seen peoples quit, I seen people leave. But one thing I had in mind, I wanted to take care of my wife and children, I wanted to raise them up. And my prayer was, each day of my life, it was the good Lord to bless me to stay on that job and get along with my foreman, my supervisor, raise my children up while they get an education and put them through school, all for that one job. Moore: And your prayer was answered. Ash: So the good Lord blessed me to raise all my children up to get grown and to finish school. Me and my wife have been together for 80 years—62 years. We’ve been married that long. Moore: Congratulations. Ash: And I can say one thing—61 years. I can say one thing, one thing we can say a lot of people can’t say, we never passed a lick through fighting or mad or cussed one another out in our whole life. We really helped and we raised up our children. Moore: And that’s saying a lot. Ash: And we’ve taken care of them off of that one Hanford job. See? So I give the good Lord the credit for that. Moore: Mr. Ash, you tell me you have raised your children here and I was just curious if you could tell me the children’s names and where are they living now? Ash: Well, Angie, she’s in Pasco. And Betty’s in Pasco, and Mary’s in Pasco. They all three of them are. And Ed, he’s in Texas. What is it, the name of the Texas town? He’s in Texas. Moore: So you have four children, and three of the four are still here. Ash: I have four, mm-hmm, three girls, one boy. So after we—then we started going into the radiation and all like that. We really went through lots of radiation and laying houses, going through there. It was a job. I must say I met good peoples, I met some bad ones. But I tried to get along with everybody, and so— Moore: Let me ask you a question about that, because some of the people we’ve interviewed have talked about a time when at least the barracks, say, were segregated. Could you tell us about segregation that you observed, or was that on the job, off the job? Ash: Well, one bad part, before we went into the Hanford Area, we were in downtown Richland, and we were building all them houses and barracks and all like that, they had one superintendent over the whole job down there, he did. And when they got started, they had—this guy tried to segregate the peoples in the restrooms. He wanted the black over here and the white over there, this superintendent did. And so I just remember now who was it that reported that guy. But it was somebody reported him, and one of the head peoples came down there and told him, said, we’re not gonna have that. You’re gonna build one restroom—one for the men, one for the women. And they’re all gonna go in there. They fired that superintendent and took that job away from him. J.A. Jones put in another—J.A. Jones were building them houses. Moore: So this was not a J.A. Jones policy. Ash: Huh? Moore: J.A. Jones didn’t have a segregation policy. Ash: No, uh-unh. I didn’t have one. Of course they had peoples working there, you know what I mean, this and that. Just like, one time when I was out in the Area over there, we had—we used to—they had a big animal farm. They were testing radiation through lots of these animals. They were testing peoples, you know, through there. And so I was in there. So one guy, my superintendent, and then they had another superintendent, and then they brought in the little superintendent from somewhere down in Arkansas. And you know how a bunch of men get up. They had cows, they had a few hogs out there, and they had some hog that they were testing all kinds of animals to see how much radiation could an animal take. We had several black guys up there had a good job feeding these animals radiation to see how much can they take. Then they had a bunch of sows and a bunch of dogs and had pigs, I think. So, a bunch of men got together to come up with one standard one time. I had a couple of problems with this guy, this assistant superintendent. So we all men were working in there with the animals and all. So you know how a bunch of men get, say, oh, I’m gonna take this here for my girlfriend, I’m gonna take this here. So we had—talking about them pigs. So they had some sheep and they had—so this superintendent that they brought from down in Texas or something. Now, I’m the only black guy in the whole bunch. I worked in there one time with 60 white people, and I was the only black guy in the bunch. Course, I finally got along with them, because I’m like this, I can work with a guy all day. If he don’t want to speak to me, I don’t have to speak to him. That’s just the way I am. But this superintendent, he come in there, he ends up. So they had this little shed, and they had a whole bunch of white Chester hogs. So everybody picked hogs, some had picked a little dogs, some had picked—you know a bunch of men. So he jumps up said, he says, Ash, I pick one for you. Because he said, those sheep over there got a black head, so you pick out you one of them with a black head. I said, okay, that’s fine, that’s okay, I said. That’d give me a girlfriend, too. He said, I’m gonna take these sows, he said. They’re my girlfriend. Clean, white girlfriend, that’s mine. I said, okay. So it rocked on there for months, oh, seven, eight months. So they were trying to breed those sows and things and get a whole bunch of pigs so they could have more animals to, you know, they could feed radiation. So they had a white male in there and he stayed there, and that sow come up with piglets, and that sow got pregnant. So they killed him. They killed him. I went down there one day, there was a black male pig in there, didn’t have a white spot nowhere. I don’t think his tongue was even red. I mean, he was black from head to foot. About three months, all the white sows were coming up with pigs. So this superintendent—at that time we had a whole bunch of supers—the head superintendent and all, they were down there, going over, they’d go over and do different things. So here come Lee—that was that little superintendent I was telling you about that told me, you could—so, me and truck driver standing there, and Lee come in there. I told him, I said, watch, I’m gonna make Lee mad. I knew it would make him mad. I said, hey, Lee, come here. And he come up there. I said, look at me and all these white girls in here. I said, just look at me, all these white girls. I said, boy, we got white pigs, and I got a white pigs, I got white children here. That Lee turned red, oooooh, he turned red, he got mad, he walked on out. So the head superintendent come up there and said, what’s wrong with Lee? So the truck driver told him, Ash told him look at me and him with all these white girls. He said, Lee got that mad? He said, we can’t stand for nobody being here like that. Said, I thought Lee was a better guy than that. So they got rid off Lee. They told Lee, he’s got to get it right otherwise he’s not gonna stay. But Lee was so mad, he got rid of Lee anyway because he just didn’t like it, so they told him he had to—they got rid of him. That’s the one thing I have. Of course, it tickled me, everybody was in my favor anyway. So I had to call the business agent on one superintendent. So I got that scrape. At first, before we started, before I was union, [unknown] were getting double time for all overtime. Why, then, we had another agreement, if I were working with another guy overtime and he got double time, we got double time. Until we got [unknown]. So we had this assistant superintendent, he had just got set up there. So when I was working there, I told him, I said, don’t forget the double time now of working with these ironworkers. He said, just ‘cause you working with the ironworkers is no sign I’m gonna pay you no double time. I said, well, I’m supposed to get it. I says, that’s a union agreement. He said, well, I’m not gonna put it on your card. I said, okay, that’d be fine with me. So that Friday when I got paid off, my double time wasn’t on there. So I called the timekeeper and he said, well, let me get in touch with downtown. And the people downtown said, well, he told him not to pay me the double time. So then I called the union hall, called my business agent. He said, okay, I’ll be right out. So he came out and got with the head superintendent and had a dealing with the superintendent over the whole entire rig. He told him about it. I done called this superintendent downtown to the head office and asked him, the union told us, now listen. He said, I pulled up the main office here. I put up a picket here and then nobody would be down here working. Because the union that time had this agreement. If one union put up a picket, the other members can’t cross it. They had this agreement. No union could cross another union picket. So, he called that superintendent down there and told him. He said, well, I just felt like I had the power that I didn’t have to pay. He said, you don’t have that power. He said, I’m the only man who had the power to say what they can get. He said, you out there, you got to follow union scale. So he said, now the business agent is here, and the business agent said Mr. Ash has got to get his money before the day is out. That was Friday. He got to get him his money back out there what you was supposed to pay him. So this timekeeper brought my extra money back out there. So here come this superintendent that the timekeeper brought my extra money back. And the old superintendent passed by me. I shook my check in his face. I said, here it is, big boy. I said, it ain’t over your dead body, but I got it. [LAUGHTER] And he worked around there—we worked around there about three weeks before he would speak to me. But he found out he couldn’t do nothing about it and he finally calmed down. Moore: Yeah, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Ash: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that’s about the only problem I really had had. Moore: I have one other work-related question. You’ve talked about radiation and construction. Did you have any idea what everyone’s mission was and what they were working on? Ash: On radiation? Yeah, we had quite a bit of radiation. Moore: And what it would be used for? I guess I should go back, because you were after the Manhattan Project, so it wasn’t necessarily for the bomb, was it, at that time. So the mission was different. Ash: Well, you see, when we was out there, all the reactors was under radiation. Every spring of the year, they would close the reactor down and they would go through them and remodel them. They would do about five months of work remodeling them, fixing this, putting new stuff in this. All that work was radiation. You works in there for the whole time you’re remodeling. You did. See, you worked in there. I worked in radiation. I worked in the Hanford radiation. Lots of days I worked in that radiation for weeks and weeks at a time. Moore: So were the reactors producing plutonium? Ash: Well, no, we were remodeling. But the building is all crapped up with radiation. Now, some places like the Pipefitters’, now, if they had a job that they gave to them to put in some pipes, they said the radiation was too high or too strong, it had to be cut down. You know, go in there and sterilize it and cut it down to a certain point to where a person could work in there. Well, that was the laborers’ job. I was in that job like all the time. Every time I had to go in there and decon radiation, clean it up to where some crafts could go in there or leave it where we could go in there. Moore: So you were involved in decontamination. Ash: I was in that deal. Every one of the 105s had that deal. But every year, they would close down to remodel. And then you’d go in the remodel, back there, everybody went back in there, I don’t care what craft you were, you were in radiation. You had to put on, oh, we had shoes you had to put on, pair of boots you had to put on, we had to put on an extra pair of clothes. You put off all of your clothes and then you dressed in the radiation. Sometime you got a mask on, sometime you got—oh, just anything, because then when you get in there to work, you got a timekeeper in there to check how much time you can stay in there. You got a pencil in your pocket— Moore: That’s a dosimeter pencil? Ash: No, that’s just a pencil that picks up the reading of what you’re getting. You got that in your pocket. Then you got another little deal that they puts on you, that if you got radiation it’d beep—a beeping pencil. So you had an RM that do the check you out. He’s standing right out there. And if you’re out there deconning a place to where these guys can work, the RM would get you with a machine. Moore: The radiation monitors? Ash: Yeah, radiation monitor. He’d tell you, say, well, this place then is clean. This guy can work in here now for eight hours. Or he can work in here for four hours without picking up radiation. That’s what we were doing. In some places it was so hot, you can work in there under an hour, then they got to change peoples. Then when they got through decon, we got to go in, pull of our clothes, and you got three step-off pads. You got a guy helping you to undress. Now all the clothes you got on now is all hot and full of all that junk. One guy got to pull all of that off of you. He got to pull them boots off of you, and then you step on this pad. You go to the second pad, and you pull the rest of your clothes off. They supposed to be cleaned. Then you step on the next pad, and the only thing you got on there is just your shorts. Then the man come down, he check you all over. You don’t put nothing in your mouth, you don’t smoke a cigarette until you wash your hands. Until he done check you out, you don’t, until you wash your hands. Moore: So they were very careful. Ash: Yeah, mm-hmm. So then you go and you’d come out there and you’d sign out. You got to sign in on a piece of paper when you go into radiation zones, and you’ve got to sign out. And when you sign out and that’s just the way it is. And if you go in there and you got all sort of crapped out with the radiation, then they’ve got the monitor to come out there and they’ve got to clean you up. Sometime it’d take half a day to get you all clean. They got to scrub you down, wash you down, then they got to put this on, and wash you down, wear that, and check you all over again. I got so heavy one time, they had to cut a piece of hair off my head and scrape my head quite a bit. So it’s—but if a person fall into radiation, follow the—the only time a person really got crapped up, and some guy—now, I know several people have got it in their skin. If you had a cut place on yourself, you supposed to come out of there right now. But some guys, some of the people feel like they got more education than other people, they can stay in there for a while. Oh, I can do this and I can do that. That’s the time you’re gonna get caught up with it. So that’s what happened with quite a few people. But I got crapped up several times. Several times, they’d taken two and three hours to get you clean. But they gonna clean you before you leave away from there. And then you’d come back the next day, they still gonna check you again. Moore: They can’t risk it spreading. Ash: Huh? Moore: Can’t risk it spreading? Ash: Yeah. Because it is a risk. Yes, if you get it inside, you get sick. It just stay in there as long as you live, and that’s the way it is. Moore: So when the work day was over and you go home at night or it’s the weekend, what kinds of things did people, did you or your friends do away from work? Did you have social things that you did? Ash: Things we did away from home? Moore: Mm-hmm. Ash: Oh, well, I’d say I didn’t do too much. I come home and stay home. Stay home with the wife and children sometime. Sometime we’d get up there and we would go downtown some place. Sometimes we’d go out of town but by the time we’d go out of town, me and the wife and children would go in Oregon someplace, drive around. Just about everywhere where me and my wife would be going, the children was with us anyway. Moore: Was there much to do in Kennewick and Richland and Pasco? Ash: Well, I didn’t find too much to do. Of course a lot of them people I guess were going in taverns, drinking, they probably were having beer. But I wasn’t drinking so I didn’t need to go in no tavern. Moore: I hear you. Ash: So my place was, I’d go to church, this place right there. I’d go out of town some weekends. So that’s about the size of it. Moore: Okay, well, I appreciate all the information you’d given me today. After retirement, have you kept in touch with people from the Site at all? Ash: Yeah, well, since I’m retired now, I just really couldn’t, I’ve been working taking care of myself ever since I was 14 years old, 15 years old. So I just can’t—some people retire—I can say this, but we got what you call the whole J.A. Jones retirement picnic. We go to Prosser every year, there’s a big picnic, I guess you’ve heard about it. Moore: I think you told me something about it in August. Ash: Yeah, I did. And we got about three or four women there. You go there, they call the roll, how many’s gone, how many J.A. Jones left here. They call the roll, all of them J.A. Jones people that died and all of us that’s left. And you know, I go over there and I look just at the people that retired and just sit down. Boy, coming out there that can’t walk, they got on crutches and canes staggering around. But I found out one thing about it is the second—you can take a brand new car and you can sit it in that garage for two years and it’s no good. That’s right. You can’t start it. It won’t never run good. So that’s the way it is when a person just sits down. But I feel better doing something. I do a little odd jobs now since I retired. I didn’t retire and just sit down. I got me a little odd job to do. I’ll do a little hedge trimming. I fool around, I got experience on trimming shrubs and like anybody want ‘em, what shape they want ‘em, I can trim ‘em. Moore: Keeps you busy, keeps you young. Ash: Huh? Moore: Keeps you young. Ash: Yeah, so? I got some good peoples. I got [UNKNOWN]. I got my doctor, I been taking care of his place for 23 years. And I got another business guy over there. I’ve been taking care of his yard and shrubs there for 27 years. The whole west side, I worked on their yard, because I used to take care of them when I was over at Hanford part-time. So I just got to keep a-doing something. Now, you want me to feel bad, and loaf, if I can sit around here for a whole week or something like that, I’d go out of town for a whole week, I ain’t got nothing to do, when I get back here, I’m just about [unknown] I gotta get out there and get to doing something. Moore: [LAUGHTER] Well, I think you have the right idea, because it’s keeping you fit and keeping you young. Ash: It do. Well, like they say, if you used to doing something, then you got to keep active. They said that. I’ve seen too many people—I worked with a guy, him and I worked together. And I was somewhere in the neighborhood and I was way older than he was. He retired since I retired. And I met him one day down there, and looked at him. Here you come, some peoples on this side of him, other people on this side of him, holding him up so he could walk. And I’m somewhere over ten years older than he was. I asked him, what’s wrong with you, fella? He said, well, when I retired, I was gonna take it easy. He said, so I retired and I went home, I got me a case of beer, and I sit up and drink beer and I watch the football game. That case out, I go get me another case of beer, sit home and watch the football game. So I says, now, you just watched the football game too long and now you can’t walk. He said, mister, that’s about the size of it. But if you believe it or not, if you used to working, you gonna have to keep something to do. It may not be much, but you got to be active. If you gonna sit down, you ain’t gonna be there long, and that’s for sure. If you go sit down, you just gonna be— Moore: That’s good advice for all of us. It sure is. Ash: Rip Davis, one time, he was a guy—he was a head man over at the operators. He retired but like I did, and he went home, he went home and he said, I’m gonna take it easy. He hired a guy to take care of his yards, he hired a guy to take care of his shrubs and everything. I said, Rip, what you doing? He said, oh, I got everything hired out. I said, Rip, you better start a-doing something. He said, oh no. And about, oh about a year after that, I seen him, he come dragging along. He said, Ash, you looking awful good. I said, yeah! He said, you know one thing, I’m gonna run that guy off of my yard and I’m gonna start doing my yard myself. He went up there and he run all them people off his yard, he started doing it and the man looked better the next time I seen him, he looked better. [LAUGHTER] Moore: There you go. Yeah. Oh, okay. I’d like to ask permission, if it’s okay for us to film some of the photographs of your family just so we have them on tape. Ash: Yeah, that’s fine with me. Moore: And the editor may bring some of those into the final tape. So thanks for all of that information. [VIDEO CUTS] Moore: The other one is 20. He lives at home still, works for Leonard. But, yeah, they’re big boys. I wish we could recognize some people in this one, but there’s just too many shadows on their faces. Some of those workers? With those hats and everything. Ash: Yeah, those are some hardhats. I know about them. I wore them a lot. Them hardhats. You had to wear them hardhats. Mrs. Ash: When we first came in, they had a little joint down there on Lewis Street, and boy that was a jumping new place. All the peoples went. But you know it was never much [inaudible] Moore: Virginia Crippen, I heard about the Chicken Shack, and Tommy Moore’s Poulet Palace and some other places. Mrs. Ash: Virginia, she found herself having chicken [inaudible] really good. Moore: Yeah, we interviewed her too. I guess she came up just because—she didn’t ever work out there, but she heard that people were here and they could use some places to eat. And she lived out in California or Portland or somewhere and came up and opened her chicken place. Mrs. Ash: She did! Moore: She did all right, I guess. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview J.A. Jones Construction 300 Area 345 Building 100-H 100-B 100-C 100-D 100-DR K East K West 100-N 100 Area 200 East Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1947-2012 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1947-1981 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Edward Ash, Sr. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Tacoma (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Migration Nuclear reactors Segregation Racism Radioactive decontamination Description An account of the resource Edward Ash, Sr. moved to Pasco, Washington in 1947 and worked on the Hanford Site from 1947-1981. An interview conducted by the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES) as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource African American Community Cultural and Educational Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mpg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 08/25/2001 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fdb9a8ea9be9f00d6ba6f3188d6d9d9f4.png 2fa7b460111a708fe614a230c0e2c9cb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Wally Webster Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: We ready? Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Wally Webster on July 20, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Wally about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Wally Webster: Wallace Webster. I go by Wally. That’s W-E-B-S-T-E-R, is the spelling of my last name. Franklin: And what about the first name? Webster: The first name is W-A-L-L-A-C-E. Franklin: Great. Thanks, Wally. Webster: Okay. Franklin: So, tell me how—well, let’s talk about, let’s start by talking about your life before Hanford. When and where were you born, and where did you live before coming to the Tri-Cities? Webster: Okay. I was born in a small town east of Mobile, Alabama, called Theodore. And if you go down there, they say The-do. But I graduated from high school. I immediately left Alabama and made a very quick stop in Oakland, California, and then headed for Pasco, Washington. Franklin: And what— Webster: So I’ve been here since 1962. Franklin: 1962. And what year were you born? Webster: I was born in 1944. Franklin: Okay. And what—so you said you had graduated—went to school in Theodore, Alabama. I wonder if you could talk about your education there, back in Alabama and kind of the prevailing situation there. Webster: Okay. That’s a good point, because it lends to my activities in Pasco. I went to school in a segregated school system. I graduated from high school. It was still segregated at that time. So, when I graduated from high school, I knew then that there was a better place that I could live. I didn’t know where that was, so I went to Oakland, California for a short period of time to live with my brother. Then I get an opportunity from my uncle to move to Pasco. In fact, he asked me to help him drive to Pasco. When I helped him drive to Pasco, I didn’t go back to Oakland. So that’s how I got here. And again, I was very, very familiar with segregation whether it was de facto or institutionalized. When I got to Pasco, I was surprised at the de facto segregation that I found in Pasco, which was very, very similar to what I experienced in Alabama. Franklin: Really? Wallace: Yes. Franklin: More similar to Alabama than in Oakland? Wallace: Yes. I didn’t stay in Oakland very long, so I can’t speak a lot to Oakland. But when I got to Pasco, all the black people, or 90% of the black people living in east Pasco. The schools that—the elementary school was Whittier School. It was completely black, with the exception of maybe a few white students that came from the north side of Pasco. That didn’t seem right. I thought I was leaving that behind me when I took the Greyhound bus and left Alabama. Matter of fact, it was somewhat disturbing after a while and learning the city, that I became very active—and some people would say an activist—but I became very active in helping, or doing something about breaking down that system. Franklin: Yeah. What did your parents do in Alabama? Webster: My mom was a stay-home mom. My dad was a laborer and a minister. He worked at an air force base. It’s closed now. It’s called Brookley Field Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama, which was about ten or twelve miles east of Theodore. Franklin: What was your father—what were your parents’ levels of education? Webster: My dad was quite literate but he only went to the eighth grade, and my mom was probably the sixth or seventh grade. They had five kids and four of the five got advanced degrees from universities. And the older one, he left home and became a construction laborer and became a journeyman painter and drywaller. Of the five of us, as I said earlier, we all got advanced college degrees and they insisted on us getting an education and doing better in life than what they were doing. Franklin: Was Theodore—so Theodore was a segregated town as well? Webster: Yes. And it was segregated from the standpoint of all black people lived in one section of Theodore and all the whites lived in another section. Sometime that may have been across the road, but there was a dividing point. When I was going to school, a school bus would pick up the white students that lived down the road from me, but we all had to walk to school. So I saw that kind of discrimination all of my life. The one thing that I will point out is you become acclimated to that condition after you’ve lived in it a long time, and it became another way of life—or a way of life. You don’t really understand it until you go someplace else and see the difference. Maybe the first eye-opener I had was the very short time I lived in Oakland. It was more integrated than where I lived in Theodore. Then when I came to Pasco, I was more shocked, because I could see identically to what I saw and experienced and lived in, in Alabama. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. You mentioned your uncle asked you to help drive a truck up here. Did you have family in the area? Webster: In this area? Franklin: Yeah. Webster: He was my only. Franklin: And how did he get here? Webster: As I understand it, and I think I’m probably 90% accurate, when he got out of the military, out of the Army, he joined the labor movement. At that time, the labor movement, or migration, was from the Oakland military installations down there up to Hanford, where they were constructing all kinds of buildings and programs here. And then they migrated on up to Anchorage, Alaska and worked there during the summer months and then they came back to this area. He decided that he no longer wanted to migrate with the construction industry. He worked construction here for a while. But he built a building and in it he housed three businesses. One was a restaurant, the other one was a pool hall, and the other one was a beer tavern. Franklin: Was this in east Pasco? Webster: In east Pasco. Franklin: Okay. Do you remember the names of these places? Webster: Yes, it was Jack’s Grill and Pit, was the name of it. Franklin: And that was, the three businesses were Jack’s Grill and Pit? Webster: Yeah, and they were all under that title. And they had separate walls and separate buildings. When he came down to Oakland, it was about October, I think, and he came down to the World Series, as a matter of fact. I think the Giants and the Dodgers were playing at that time. And then I came back up here with him. Franklin: Wow. What were your first impressions when you arrived in Pasco? Webster: Well, I liked the city, I liked where I lived. Like I said earlier, once I got here, I never did go back to Oakland. So I liked it a whole lot better than I did Oakland. But as I got to learn the city, I became more aware that it was not much different from where I came. And as I studied it more, and got to know more people, those individuals came from the same states and cities that I was familiar with: Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana. They had come here, also, with the labor migration. I couldn’t understand for a long time why all of the black folks was concentrated east of Pasco, which was on the other side of the railroad tracks. So as I got to talk to more people and got to learn about them, I quickly learned that many of them were very pleased to have a job and to work and make a living for their families, and accepted the housing that was available. That housing was in east Pasco. Franklin: Right. And they kind of accepted—for a time, accepted the de facto segregation. Webster: Oh, absolutely, yes, yes. And I’ll tell you, the thing that I liked about east Pasco, a great deal, which was similar to where I lived in Theodore, we all knew each other and knew each other very well. I don’t know if there was a person in Pasco at that time that I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me, after I’d been there for six or eight months or so. So that’s how I got to know who they are, where they came from, who their families were. And then it became obvious that something was wrong. And a little bit more about myself, when I first got to Pasco and enrolled at Columbia Basin College, on the way up, my uncle was talking to me about my goals and opportunities and what I wanted to do in life. We had thirteen, fourteen hours together to do that. And I said I wanted to go to college, because that’s something my dad and mom had popped into our head. But I left home before I enrolled in college. So he took me to Columbia Basin College in January, that was the beginning of the quarter. After meeting with counselors and talking to them, I was told that I was not college material. That my education was not up to par, and they didn’t think I could make it through college. That was very disappointing to me. I met a gentleman that I admire to this day. He heard my story. He was an administrator or coach or something at Columbia Basin. He talked to me about majoring or taking accounting. He explained it this way: he said, it can take you three hours to work a problem; it could take the next person 30 minutes. But if you come up with the same answer, what difference does it make? As long as you have the fortitude to stick with it and get it done. You also can check it to make sure it’s accurate. That’s what steered me into accounting, finance. And I spent 30-some years in banking and finance. Franklin: Do you remember his name? Webster: His name was Sig Hansen. Franklin: Sig? Webster: Yeah, S-I-G. I never will forget his name the rest of my life. He was probably one of the most inspirational individuals, from an education or career that I’ve met in my life. Franklin: And did you graduate from CBC? Webster: Twice. [LAUGHTER] They didn’t have a WSU campus out here at that time. Franklin: Sure. What did you get degrees in? Webster: Well, one was applied science and the other was business, with a business emphasis, yeah. Franklin: Oh, that’s great. What was the first place you stayed in after you arrived here? Webster: It’s no longer there, but I stayed at 725 South Hugo Street in east Pasco. It was A Street going towards Sacagawea Park. That’s where my uncle, not only had he built a business with three entities in it, he also had built an apartment building on the hill up there that had three or four apartments in it. The one apartment, he built especially for himself to live in. So I lived with him. Franklin: Your uncle sounds like quite the entrepreneur. Webster: Yes, no question about that. He left here after Urban Renewal purchased his property, and went to California. He went to Oakland because we had a lot of relatives in Oakland. He went there and opened a couple of businesses. So, yes, he was definitely an entrepreneur. Franklin: So it was basically an apartment. Webster: Yes, it was an apartment. Franklin: An apartment in a building that he owned. Webster: Yes, yes. It was an apartment building with four units in it, and he lived in the major unit in that building. Franklin: Gotcha, gotcha. What was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to? Webster: Well, after I started Columbia Basin College, I never will forget for the rest of my life—this. I was in a business class, a business machine class. I had never operated a full-key add machine at that time. So I’m struggling. And this young lady sitting behind me came over to help me put my hands on the right home keys on this machine. She just came over, and she leaned over, and her hair fell kind of on my shoulder. A white female. And I can remember—I became so petrified that I could not move. My whole body froze. Because I was conditioned in Alabama that not only didn’t you look at a white woman, especially, but to have her hair hanging over your shoulder, across, is tantamount to being lynched. That was an absolute no-no. And I never will forget. It frightened her, it frightened me. We remained friends for a long time after that, but that was one of the things that helped me understand that I had been preconditioned to something that I had to get over. The second thing was—I mentioned Whittier School. I went to a segregated school, and I knew you can get comfortable. And I knew that when I left there and I went over to CBC, they told me that I was not up to par with my education. Something said to me that these kids are probably not up to par, either. So there has to be a reason why all black kids are going to school here and all white kids are going to school someplace else. Well, I know that a few of the parents were comfortable sending their kids to Whittier because it was close to home, they were afraid that if—because I was advocating close the school down, as opposed to bussing white kids in. They felt that it would drop the property value, also. Not only convenient as having their kids going down the street, but property values. But I was able to prevail in the thought and we pressed upon the school board, we marched, we demonstrated with enough parents, and they made the decision to close Whittier School. Later they tore the building down. But I just did not feel that they could get the right education. And then in this process, I learned that a lot of people were not registered to vote. This is a story—I guess the statute of limitations is expired now. But I was only, at that time, I was 17 or 18. But I was not old enough to vote. The voting age at that time was still 21. Went to a couple of the—well, the two major parties, the democrats and republican parties to get a voter registration going. The democrats in this case said I was too young to register people to vote. I learned from that experience. I went to the republicans and they agreed that I could register people to vote, but I could not sign the application as the registrar. So I took it upon myself at that point to conduct a voter registration drive, and we registered more people—I would basically hang out where my uncle’s business was and went in the community some organizations. I don’t recall this day how many people we registered, but it was definitely in the hundreds. That was one way of getting people engaged in changing the environment in which we lived. In Alabama, you could vote, but you had to play a poll tax. You had to pass an exam, then pay a poll tax to vote. And here all you had to do was go down and fill out the application and then turn it in. Franklin: I think that the poll tax and the exam is something that’s so foreign to a lot of people these days, especially younger generation. Could you talk about in a little more detail about what that was, and how that stopped black people from voting? Webster: Yes. Think of it in the context of your earnings, number one. Even if you were educated enough, or learned enough about the exam through some basic classes to pass it, they impose this tax. This tax was compounded. So they’ll look at your age, for an example, and say, oh, you’re 50 years old, so we’re going to charge you a dollar a year since birth. Now your tax is $50, for an example. So before you could get your voter registration approved, you had to pay the $50. And it increased every year thereafter. Well, if you’re only making enough to put bread on the table and pay the rent, that wasn’t your number one priority. So it discouraged—and it was intended to discourage. Each county kind of set their own tax levels. Some may be $.50; some may be $2 a year. But they raised it to a level that it discouraged African Americans from voting. Franklin: And there was no poll tax on whites. Webster: There were—now, I’m going to assume there were poll tax on whites. I don’t know the answer to that, to tell you the truth. Franklin: Okay. And what about the exam? Was it—what kinds of, from your knowledge, what kinds of questions and things were asked of people? Webster: Yeah. As I recall from listening to my father and others that took the exam, it was more white history. You learned about General E. Lee, you learned about the Civil War and why it was fought, but not that it was a war that was fought to end slavery; it was a war that was fought to preserve the economy of the South. So it was more, if I may use the term, white history, than who were governors at this point in time, the legislators, the senators, as opposed to African American history. Franklin: Mm-hm. It must’ve been—I can’t imagine the feeling of being black and having to answer questions about why the Civil War was fought in order to vote. Webster: Yeah, yeah. And I’ll tell you another thing that—you just triggered a thought. We would always get our books and materials and school buses and everything else, they were kind of the hand-me-downs. They came from the whites. Those books that had anything in it about black history, those pages were torn out before we got the books. I can remember, some people in the community would go and order books directly from the publisher. But we didn’t take those books to school; we took the books that had the N-word written all through it and everything else. Drawings of lynchings on front pages of the book, on the blank sheets of it. Those are the books that we learned from. So after a while, you just kind of—it just kind of rolls off. Franklin: Right, it becomes normalized. Webster: Yes. Exactly, exactly. Franklin: Yeah, that kind of terror. Wow. You’d mentioned earlier that when you came here and you started to talk to people, there were people from Texas and Louisiana and Oklahoma. Were most of the people—African Americans you met in east Pasco—were they all recent migrants from the South? Webster: There had been somewhat recent, but generations came with parents. Because, mind you, I came in 1962. A lot of those people had worked at Hanford for 40 years at that time, or longer. But if you stop and think about it, if you have a family, and you have migrated to Pasco, and you’re working every day, and you’re earning two or three times more than you were earning when you were in Louisiana or Texas, and you were able to bring your family, you felt pretty good about it. Franklin: Yeah. Webster: And you got pretty comfortable. And you did not necessarily think about upsetting the apricots, so to speak. So they became conditioned. It was nothing—you didn’t take a second thought about having to go shop at Grigg’s Department Store to get what you want, and you go underneath a railroad track and up to go to Grigg’s. You just did it. And you earned enough money to be able to go to the department store. Franklin: And you didn’t have to go in a separate entrance. Webster: That’s exactly right. Franklin: But if you went to Kennewick, you could go during the day, but you couldn’t go at night. Webster: Yes, yes. Yeah, Kennewick was branded at that time by one of the regional NAACP/civil rights leaders as the Birmingham of the Northwest. Locally it was referred to as the sundown town. You could be there during the day, but by sundown you had to be out. It was basically, for all practical purposes, it was segregated. Just like Birmingham. It didn’t even have an east Pasco. It was white almost 100% all over. Franklin: Right, because covenants had kept— Webster: Yes, yes. Franklin: Had kept African Americans from purchasing a home. Webster: Until the Fair Housing Act was passed, they had these covenants of first right of refusal. So if I was selling to—if one of the owners decides to sell to a black person, someone could step in and say I’m exercising my right of first refusal and buy the property. But if they were selling it to a white person, they would not exercise that right. So they used that as a means to keep it segregated. Franklin: Yeah, it wasn’t until the mid- to late-‘60s, right, where the first African Americans— Webster: Yeah, right. Franklin: The Slaughter family. Webster: The Slaughter family, yeah. And that was done a little bit as a challenge to the covenants, to see if the Fair Housing Act would be enforced. So it was kind of a demonstration to that, a challenge to that. Franklin: Did you meet any Manhattan Project—people who had worked on the Manhattan Project that had come up for construction and had stayed in Pasco? Webster: I met a number of them that have passed on now, of course. Franklin: Of course. Webster: And had an opportunity to interact and talk with and, matter of fact, two or three of the individuals who were my—I consider my strongest supporters, had come up through the Manhattan act. Franklin: Who were they? Webster: One name, E.M. Magee. He was head of the NAACP. Another one was Luzell Johnson. He was a very, very quiet, unassuming man, but very powerful. When he spoke, people listened. Franklin: He helped found Morning Star. Webster: Yes, yes, exactly right. Franklin: Right? In his home with his wife. Webster: Very wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man. Another one, his name was Ray Henry. When I call these names, a lot of times, these may not be the formal names on their birth certificates, but these are the names we got to know them by very affectionately. But I’m pretty sure his name was Ray Henry. E.M. Magee, Luzell Johnson, I’m pretty sure those are their correct names. Those three individuals were very, very helpful in keeping me grounded as a youngster. Franklin: What did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Webster: Well, I knew that there was a shortage of labor, and I knew that they went to the states where there were high populations of African Americans and brought that labor to Hanford. Subsequently, I learned from some of the declassification of information back relating to that time, that there was a systematic strategy to get the work done, but not to bring social justice along with it. What do I mean by that? When they brought African Americans here, they maintained the segregation. They maintained the separate chow halls and eating facilities and living facilities. They would post signs, this particular chow hall is for Negroes and this for whites. And they basically kept whites as supervisors. So they brought the segregation system, picked it up and moved it here in tact. Because, as I understand it, they wanted to build buildings as opposed to do social engineering. So that’s another reason why blacks were in east Pasco, is that’s where they each agreed that they could go and live, as opposed to Kennewick, and Richland, which was a government town. There were a few blacks in Richland, but very, very few that met the criteria for living in Richland. Franklin: Right, and that criteria was a job with AEC— Webster: At a certain level. Franklin: --at a certain level, which would’ve been a challenge to say the least, for most African Americans to have that education and to prevail on the standard hiring practices of the 1940s and 1950s. Webster: That’s exactly right. There was not the predominate number of people coming in from the labor supply that they were looking to build the plants out there. Franklin: But there were several black families in Richland, is that right? Webster: Yeah. Yeah. Franklin: Could you name them? Webster: You know, I don’t know all of their names. I think the Wallaces were one. I don’t know names, but I do know there were several black families. I did not know them personally, to be honest with you. Franklin: Sure, sure, sure. Let’s see here. We kind of—oh, I wanted to—from your perspective, thinking about the African Americans that came during World War II to help build Hanford and who stayed, what were their most important contributions in the areas of work, community life and civil rights? Webster: Well, number one is, this does not necessarily relate to civil rights, but I saw a very, very strong sense of family, a very strong sense of community. Even though by my perception, it was a segregated community. But there was a very strong sense of community. There were a lot of African Americans who worked at Hanford after it was built, and they were part of the downwinders. I don’t know if you got into that a whole lot, but they were part of the folks who were contaminated and were actually compensated for their illnesses from working out there. Franklin: Was that because of the location of east Pasco, or were they—was it due to exposure on the job? Webster: Both the job and where they lived. The one other thing that I really appreciated, even though they went to an elementary school that was segregated—and it’s part of this family values—there were siblings who their kids were encouraged to go to the high school—which, Pasco then only had one high school. And was encouraged to go on to college. There were Pasco-ites that went on to the NFL and there’s some wonderful things as a result of the experience that they got here at Hanford. So, I don’t mean to say that the quality of life was so bad that they couldn’t overcome the challenges. But I saw challenges in my generation that I thought was not necessary. And I thought we had overcome in other parts of the world. Franklin: Did you feel that—you’d mentioned how Pasco kind of surprised you that Pasco was so much like Alabama. Did you think, leaving Alabama, that you were leaving that kind of segregation behind? Webster: Oh, no question. When I left Alabama, I was so determined to leave—and I was very young and I can think back now how my parents must’ve felt with me saying I’m leaving home. I had a fried chicken in a cardboard box, my mom cooked a pound cake, and I bought a loaf of bread. That was my meal. And then when I bought my ticket at the Greyhound bus station from Mobile, Alabama to Oakland, California, I had $29 left. With those kinds of resources, going from one part of the world that you’d never been in before, going to another part of the world you’ve never been before, it took some determination and something to say you have the motivation to leave here. I guess from TV and other places, I decided to pack up and leave. Then when I got here, and again I found the same thing that I was experiencing in Alabama, I thought, my goodness, why did I make the sacrifice? But I could see, just because I was able to go over to Columbia Basin College, and the fact that I could walk n the front door and go in the registrar’s office—even though the counselor told me I would never ever matriculate in college. That was an incentive. And I’ll tell you something else, when I got my master’s degree, I went over and I took a photocopy of it and I left it in his office. He wasn’t there, so I just left it in his office. But the thing that I appreciate most is arriving in this town of Pasco, the east side, and getting the level of support that I had as a newcomer. But I think they saw me as a teenager, as a youngster, who wanted to do something. And all the folks just said, let’s get behind him and do something, because he’s trying to do something positive. Yeah. Franklin: That’s great. Kind of still a segregated environment, but one that maybe had more opportunity than the South for you, and for others? Webster: Yeah, but you know, in the South, there’s one thing, at least when I was growing up: you had an opportunity to go to college, but you went to, again, a segregated college. Franklin: To an HBC? Webster: To an HBC. You had an opportunity in many times to be a professional, whether it was a school teacher or an administrator. You didn’t have the options of being a medical doctor unless you went to another school in another state. Like in Alabama, my brother wanted to go to medical school and back in the days, they would pay you—the state would pay, if you would accepted in medical school, let’s say in Tennessee or something, to an all-black school. They would pay the tuition, because they didn’t want you going to University of Alabama, for an example. So they would pay your out-of-state tuition to go there. Franklin: Why would that be? Webster: To keep it segregated. It was segregation. “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.” You’ve probably— Franklin: George Wallace, right? Webster: That’s exactly right. So to keep it segregated, they would pay for you to go to another state. So it was—people who lived here were aware of that. And I think they just needed someone to be an advocate for change. Franklin: Yeah. Did you attend church? Webster: Here? Franklin: Yeah. Webster: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was a member, active member of New Hope Baptist Church, which was right up the hill from Morning Star. Franklin: Right. How long did you go there for? Webster: I’m going to say probably ten years. Franklin: What role did church play in the community? Webster: The church was the foundation of the community. Almost everything positive came out of the church. I’ll give you an example. I felt that in order—it’s kind of going back to England and where they have piazzas, the places you can go and congregate and community, things like—I thought that Pasco needed a place, a neutral place, where people could go and they could call it a community center. And I could see the value of people gathering. We had a little place over in east Pasco called Kurtzman Park. It was a little building there. And I thought that we could do better. So I studied up and found that HUD had what they call block grants. They would give block grants for certain amounts of dollars depending on your application. I worked and worked and worked and got the city, the city manager, Mar Winegar, one of the finest city managers I think that ever held a city manager job anywhere, agreed to work with me in helping to complete an application. We completed a HUD application and got some $440,000-$450,000 to build what is now known as the Martin Luther King Center in east Pasco. The central labor council owned the land where that building is. We worked with them, and they deeded that land as part of the in-con contribution to match the HUD block grant. We were able to put that together. The way that we—part of Mar Winegar’s help and assistance—we were able to work out a strategy where the Pasco Parks and Recreation would somewhat manage the building. But to get the revenue, we went to get the various state agencies and other organizations to rent space in the building to help maintain it. So DS&HS, I think, had a small office there. Employment, security, had a small office there. Central Labor Council had a small recruiting office. So there were different offices in this building to help maintain it. And it became a community center. And not only did the community need the services of the agencies that were there, but it became a—but to answer your question, all of that came out of the basement of Morning Star Baptist Church. Reverend Allen was the pastor at that time. So I think if you point to almost any significant accomplishment, the genesis of it came from the spiritual and religious community. Franklin: It functioned as a meeting place. Webster: Yes. Franklin: In the community. Webster: That’s where the people went. I mean, when you wanted to do something, you go where the people are. On Sunday morning, that’s where you’re going to find them, and that’s where you make your point. You convince the pastor that it’s worthwhile, and then they’ll let you get up and make announcements and talk to the congregation where you’ve got a captive audience. That’s how you got your message across. So it was—because you didn’t have a newspaper or TV channel or radio station or any of those, except for a routine newscast or something. But if you wanted to tell your whole story, you had to go to the church. Franklin: Right. How would you describe life in the community, in east Pasco? Webster: It was probably one of the best lives that I have lived. And I say that because everybody cared for one another. People lived in harmony. Didn’t have much, so it wasn’t economically driven; it was more social- and spiritual-driven. Everyone was treated with respect. You’d hear very few disagreements. You didn’t have what they have today with solving disagreements, you know, with violence. It was probably one of the best places I’ve lived in my life. Franklin: What did you do in your spare time? Webster: Now, or then? Franklin: Then. Webster: Then? I didn’t have any spare time, because I was going to college at the time, and I was also very active in the community. I was president—I went on to become president of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. I was president of the Tri-City chapter although I was very young, but again— I want to make this point, something that I did not experience in Alabama. There were white people of quote-unquote high stature with very high moral commitments to help bring about this change. When I say that, I’m talking about lawyers and educators and scientists out here on the project who helped to bring about this change. You know, if I named—if I started naming like the Ed Critchlows—I don’t know if you’ve—the Critchlow, Williams and Ryals law firm, I think, is still in existence here in Richland. A guy named John Sullivan was a lawyer. Dick Nelson was a scientist here in the Project. I mean, there were just a number of people who migrated to this area from other places, highly educated, technical backgrounds, could see the same thing that I saw and was willing to give their time and knowledge and energies to bring about this—the Brouns, Dick and Nyla Brouns. They gave of their time and talents and financial resources to help bring about this change. That was one of the better learning experiences I’ve had. Franklin: And you said that was different from Alabama. Webster: Yes. I mean, I never saw, in my generation, and certainly years later where there were whites in the North that was part of the Freedom Ride and other movements, Martin Luther King’s movement, that came to the South. But you didn’t find folks that lived in Theodore, Alabama helping to bring about a change for black folks in Alabama. So that was my first opportunity to work shoulder-to-shoulder with white people to bring about this change. When we were marching on Pasco, for an example. Pasco City Hall was a totally white city hall that was supposedly serving the whole city. There was not a police officer, or anyone in public works, engineering, or any of those places. So, we were marching on city hall for employment opportunities. The Pasco Police Department, for example, had never had—at that time, had not had any people of color working. I applied for a grant that paid the salary of the first police officer in Pasco, on the Pasco Police Department. Franklin: There were also some issues between the Pasco Police Department and residents of east Pasco. There was some tension there, in that relationship in the ‘60s? Webster: As I recall, not to the extent that you have today, and not for the same reasons that you have today. I don’t recall any shootings of unarmed black people or anything like that. I look back and I think there probably was some collusions on the part of the police department and some of the elicit activities that were going on, you know. Because some of these things operated in broad, open daylight, that if you had a police department that was cracking down on them, it wouldn’t have been possible. Franklin: I was just looking back on an old interview with James Pruitt. I don’t know if that name is familiar to you. Webster: Yeah, Jim Pruitt? Yeah. Franklin: He had been—Jim, yeah, sorry. In the interview, the interviewer keeps calling him James, and he’s like, Jim, my name is Jim. Webster: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Franklin: He had been—he was appointed as a liaison between east Pasco and the police department, because there had been some excessive force arrests or something to that nature—or, it just seemed like there was a relationship that was a little rocky there for a period of time that would’ve warranted a liaison, right? Or was it just that maybe there was no interface between city government and east Pasco? Webster: I think it was more that than—I’ll be honest with you, I don’t recall. I just don’t recall where there were racial tensions or anything like that between the police. I just don’t recall that. And I do—I know Jim well—knew him well. It was more during the Urban Renewal and when that was going on. I think you may have talked to Webster about that. It was more during that time, when we were looking at bridging the gaps, the communications gaps and all that, because Jim was a liaison, I think, at the time that I got the grant to hire our first police officer. So I don’t recall that it was racial tension as we know it today. Franklin: Sure, sure, sure. But there’s certainly—a big part of your efforts was a big push to make the city more representative of its citizens. Webster: Yes. Streets and sidewalks were an example. Things that we didn’t have that the west side had. Education, where kids could go to school and get the same quality of education that the west side got. Those were kind of—jobs where they could—not just the labor jobs at Hanford, but jobs working in the City of Pasco, whether you were working for the surveying group or—as a matter of fact, I think I went to work for a while as a member of a survey team in city hall, going out surveying streets and looking at improvement districts and stuff like that. So it was that kind of—but we had to push city hall and city management to move on those areas. Franklin: Right. Webster: And that was pushed with a lot of leather on the streets. Franklin: And you mentioned that you had been president of CORE, the Tri-Cities chapter of CORE. Webster: Yes. Franklin: And CORE was a pretty young organization at that time, right? Webster: Correct. Franklin: And did it draw from all the three cities? Webster: Yes. Oh, yes. Matter of fact, a number of our meetings were actually held in Kennewick. A lot of the organizing and strategizing meetings were held in Kennewick. And many of the folks that was part of it came from Richland as well. And a number of them worked on the Hanford Project in very professional managerial roles. Franklin: Yeah, yeah, I’ve interviewed several folks who were involved with that. You mentioned the Brouns and then we had interviewed the Millers here— Webster: Yes. Franklin: And Jim Stoffels who was secretary. Webster: Right, right, right. The Millers, especially. They were involved as a family. I guess so with the Brouns. But I can remember the Millers were involved as a family. They were right there every day, working side-by-side. And we organized marches. We went from Pasco to Kennewick to emphasize the sundown. Franklin: Over the bridge? Webster: Over the bridge, over the bridge. Franklin: Was that the green bridge? Webster: Yes, it was. It’s kind of comical now when I look back. We were marching over, arm-in-arm and walking across, and there some cars on the other side of the bridge, they were standing there with the rebel flag on them, and they were raising the engine, and you can hear the engines roaring. I was arm-in-arm with Jack Tanner, who was the regional NAACP president at that time out of Tacoma, very influential lawyer at that time, and went on to be a federal court judge. I looked over at Jack. I said, Jack, what are we going to do? Because we thought they were revving up these engines to just run the cars. And he looked at me and said, can you swim? [LAUGHTER] I never will forget that. I said, no, I can’t swim in that water! Across the Columbia River. And he said, well, let’s keep on marching then. Okay, so we just kept marching and went on to the other side. Franklin: Wow. How did that feel to see that symbol, which you must’ve grown up seeing the Confederate flag all over the place. How did it feel to see that in Kennewick and Pasco, in Washington State, where— Webster: I’ll tell you. By that time, I was somewhat sensitized to what’s happening here and learned about. But it took me way back. I mean, it took me to the guys that was riding around on horsebacks with hoods over their heads with same flags. I mean, the only difference was that these individuals were in muscle cars with flags on them. But it was scary. It was scary. Franklin: That symbol was meant to— Webster: Intimidate. Franklin: --intimidate you, right? Webster: Intimidate, no question about it. Franklin: They weren’t showing up to promote Southern heritage. Webster: No, oh, no, no, no. It was to intimidate. But it was intended, in my judgment, to say to us, we’re going to keep Kennewick white. That’s what—and we’re going to challenge you on it. And, not in our backyard. Franklin: You know, if I could share an anecdote real quick with you, a few weeks ago I went to the march for immigrants here in Richland. Webster: Mm-hmm? Franklin: And we were marching right by the courthouse, did a big loop around Howard Amon Park. And a gentleman in a truck—I thought this was really interesting—with a Confederate flag and an American flag, was rolling down the street revving his engine, yelling obscenities, flipping us the bird. Which, to see those two together is strange enough, but then to use that as a symbol of intimidation against immigrants. It still is clear as day what the intent of that symbolism is. Webster: Right. And in the South, I think even to this day, the Civil War was just like it was fought last week. Franklin: Yeah. Webster: I mean, with the rebel flags and the sentiments and beliefs and values is just like it was yesterday. And how those kinds of feelings can be carried forward for generations is just amazing. It’s amazing to me. Franklin: Yeah. Do you remember any other particular community events, from—during those years in east Pasco? Webster: You know, we had a number of—I’m trying to, you know, there’s—it’s kind of coming back to me now. I can’t remember the incident, but we had a number of meetings in Kurtzman Park that was very tense meetings. As a matter of fact, what used to happen is Carl Maxey from Spokane, prominent civil rights lawyer in Spokane, other lawyers from Seattle, would come to Pasco, because we didn’t have any African American lawyers here at that time, and help us with civil rights issues. I remember I was having a meeting in Kurtzman Park where it got pretty heated, just among the—I don’t remember the issues, but there was one bombing that took place here in east Pasco. It was this gentleman, who lives in Richland, had built a business— Franklin: Right. I interviewed him. Oh, shoot. Webster: Carter. Franklin: Yes, Dan Carter. Webster: Had built a business, janitorial business as well as he had a ceramic store. And somebody set off a bomb. We were all in Kurtzman Park, having a big powwow when that happened, because everybody jumped and ran. Not to say there were not some very tense times back in those days, but I don’t remember any killings or anything like that that were associated with our movement or anything. Franklin: When I interviewed Dan and a couple others, they had alluded to—there was a disconnect or a tense relationship between African Americans in Richland and African Americans in east Pasco. And sometimes the two—not that they didn’t see eye-to-eye, but that people in east Pasco kind of felt that those in Richland or from outside the area who were trying to help were kind of outsiders or maybe they didn’t understand the Pasco issue. Would you say that’s the case? Webster: I would say that’s somewhat true. There was this feeling that African Americans that came to Richland came after the African Americans in Pasco had really built Hanford. So they were being recruited for the best jobs, and they had the best quality of life. And often did not relate very well to the people of east Pasco. And, yes, that’s when this intra conflict started to exist. Although there were individuals in Richland that related very well. But it was more of an economic divide, and a social divide than a racial divide. Franklin: Right, right. Kind of a class thing. Webster: Right, that’s exactly right. Right, right. Franklin: Related to kind of violence or destruction of property, I had heard in an older oral history, someone said that Luzell’s daughter had tried to move to Kennewick and someone had—the house had burned down. Webster: Yeah, there were a number of incidents that happened right after the—and before the Civil Rights Act. I remember one individual—excuse me—who moved to Kennewick and it was Jones. Her last name was Jones. And they moved to Kennewick. She worked for the telephone company in Pasco. Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone had an office right on Lewis Street. At night, we would take turns driving immediately behind her from the time she got off at Bell to the time she walked in the front door. So somebody would be with her. We would not let her go home by herself, because of all the threats and stuff like that. Franklin: Wow. Like phone, telephone and mail? Webster: And notes left on her car, and you name it. Franklin: Wow, wow. Webster: Yup. Rocks thrown against the doors of her house. They were trailblazers, in a sense, like the Slaughters, some of the first ones to live in Kennewick. Franklin: Right. Wow. I guess kind of a happier shift, do you recall any family or community events or traditions, including sports and food, that people brought from the places they came from? Webster: [LAUGHTER] Yes. We had some big events in the park and folks had their specialties, whether it was their black-eyed peas or their fried chicken. You know, there was another business that we had that she would always provide the chicken. There was the chicken shack. Franklin: Virgie’s? Webster: Virginia’s. Virginia. Franklin: Virginia’s Chicken Shack. Webster: And then, believe it or not, she was in a building. She lived in one portion and the Chicken Shack was on the front. She didn’t start serving chicken until maybe 10:00 or 11:00 at night and would go all night because of folks that went to the tavern and everywhere else that would go there after hours, right? But then across the A Street, down further in almost like a private home was another lady, her name was Sally. I can’t tell you what her last name, but it was Sally’s, and that’s where you went and got all the barbecue. I mean, this lady would barbecue for days. So all of those things would come to the park. And then we would have the Juneteenth gathering. You probably got the history on that, on Juneteenth, but that was a time to come to the park, celebrate, put the benches out, bring your best dish, and people just kind of congregated, just from everywhere in the Tri-Cities. Franklin: That was the celebrating the arrival of the news that slavery— Webster: That’s correct, had ended. Two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin: Right. And that was not exclusively but primarily a Texas event, right? Webster: Yes. Franklin: But there were a lot of— Webster: Some in Oklahoma, but mostly in Texas, yeah. Franklin: Right, because there was a pretty big contingent of families from, especially from Kildare that had moved up and— Webster: Mm-hmm, you got it. Franklin: --and brought that tradition with them. Webster: Yes, yes. And it’s kind of celebrated throughout the African American community to this day. But the point is that that was a major day in the park that people got together and brought their foods and their specialties there. Franklin: Okay. So we talked a lot about opportunities. You—so I wanted to shift kind of to some of your work—I don’t exactly know your timeline, so I don’t know where to start, but I wanted to talk about your work at Hanford, but also your work with the Urban Renewal. So I don’t know which one of those is a better one to start with first. Webster: Well, Urban Renewal was first. Franklin: Okay. Let’s talk about that first. Webster: It was going on at the time that I was the executive director of the Benton-Franklin Community Action Committee, which was in the late ‘60s, ’69, probably, to ’73, somewhere in that timeframe. Franklin: You were doing all of this in your late 20s, huh? Webster: Oh, oh yeah. Franklin: Like 20s and early 30s. Webster: Oh, yeah, and my teens. Franklin: And your teens. Webster: Yeah, early teens and early 20s. As director of the Community Action Committee—the Bi-county Community Action Committee, that was more of a continuation of some of the work that I had done as a teen in Pasco. As a matter of fact, I was offered a job almost the day I—I left as a teen because I got inducted into the military at the time—the draft. I should say, I got drafted into the military. Franklin: Right, for the Vietnam War. Webster: Vietnam War. And then when I got out and came back to Pasco, discharged and came back to Pasco, I was immediately offered this job as the executive director of the Benton-Franklin Community Action Committee. Franklin: What years were you gone? Webster: I was gone from ’65 until ’69. Franklin: Okay. Webster: Yeah. So in April of ’69 I became director of the Community Action Committee and again, continued some of the work that I was doing. Of course, that program was federally funded; it was part of the Economic Opportunity Act in the Johnson Great Society program. So you were limited in terms of how you could get involved in partisan politics, but city government and all those things were not considered partisan. They were considered non-partisan so I could be very active in those activities and working with the various organizations. So we created neighborhood councils and we were trying to get neighborhood councils to address issues in their specific neighborhoods. One of the neighborhood councils that I worked closely with was the East Pasco Neighborhood Council. And there, we worked closely with the Urban Renewal, which, Webster Jackson headed that. There was tension and conflicts there from a program standpoint. Not necessarily from individuals running these programs, but from a program standpoint. The Urban Renewal program did not have a major component to it in terms of what was being renewed. We knew that they were buying houses that they considered to be dilapidated and moving people out, but there was no housing being developed to give people an option to stay in the neighborhood or another section of the neighborhood. So all those people who were in east Pasco next to the railroad track and somewhat west of Oregon Street or west of Wehe Street were being, property being purchased under the Urban Renewal program, like I said. But there was no replacement housing. So it became more and more industrial. We were kind of fighting to get housing. Matter of fact, as part of that, Mister Romney, George Romney’s dad who ran for vice president or ran for president— Franklin: Oh, right, George Romney—for Mitt Romney. Webster: From Michigan. Mitt Romney’s dad physically came to Pasco— Franklin: Really? Webster: --to meet with us. Yes, yes, I’ve got photos with him. Because we were concerned about that displacement. It just so happened that that program lasted longer than I did, and I didn’t see it through. But I believe to this day that was probably one of the biggest failures that I encountered in the sense that, for me, that we didn’t see it through well enough to say if you buy this house, then you should have another affordable house to move in and hold the community together, as opposed to dispersing a community. A lot of people went to rentals and moved out of the area and so the neighborhood that we knew as east Pasco was basically, from a homeownership standpoint, was basically cut in half, if not more. Franklin: Wow. Yeah. I had heard that from a couple others that had been involved in Urban Renewal. Webster: It’s all big industrial stuff now. Franklin: Yeah. But it’d succeeded in getting rid of some of the very questionable and dilapidated housing, but it’d fragmented the community. Webster: Exactly. Franklin: And didn’t replace that with better housing. Webster: Right, yeah. Yeah, because a lot of people had taken—I wouldn’t say a lot, but some had taken their railroad cars that had been surplused I guess, and got them hauled in and joined them together. And they were putting them on cinder blocks and they were living in some of these places. Franklin: Wow. Webster: Very warm and nice and comfortable inside, but very limited space. But it was home. Franklin: Right, it was a home, and they fought to—it’s not like the government was allowing them to get home loans. But now the government was coming in and saying, well, you know, you got to get rid of this. Webster: And buying it out, but no real place to go. Franklin: Was there pushback? From people in east Pasco? Webster: There was pushback, but not from an organized pushback that I would’ve liked to have seen or that I think would exist today. Franklin: Mm, it was just individuals? Webster: Yes. And again, I was a young kid, you know? I didn’t quite understand the whole dynamics and everything that was going on, so I couldn’t provide what I feel today is the leadership that that issue should’ve gotten to get the results that you were looking for. Franklin: Right, right. That’s a sad but kind of common story in American cities with Urban Renewals, is describing that same effect, is a lot of the attention is paid to the clearing-out but very little is paid to— Webster: The building-up. Franklin: And finishing the program. Webster: That’s correct, that’s correct. Franklin: And then what did you do—you mentioned you didn’t finish with the Community Action Council, or you didn’t finish with the program, what did you move on to? Webster: Well, when I left there, I worked for a while after I got out of the CAC on completing the application and providing the infrastructure and the funding for the community center. I guess it’s called the Martin Luther King Community Center now. Got that all completed, got the construction. But at that time, I moved on to Central. As I mentioned, I got two AAs from CBC. Then I had an opportunity to move on to Central and finish undergraduate and graduate there. And after I left Central—and I also worked at Central. I was their first community affirmative action director, in helping to bring about diversifying their faculty. That went well. Then I came back to Hanford and worked at Boeing Computer Services as a employment manager. And had the opportunity to work there for quite a while, before I moved to Seattle and went into the banking business, and that’s where I retired. Franklin: You said at Boeing you were a— Webster: Employment manager. Franklin: Employment manager. What’s— Webster: HR. Franklin: And was your job, was it a similar, for affirmative action type job? Webster: That was included, but at that time, we were on an employment build-up. I had the authority, with the limitations of security clearances, et cetera, to offer jobs to individuals onsite as we went around the country interviewing. We had selection criteria of course, and if we felt that a person—and the competition drove a lot of that as well. Because if you’ve got to come back and wait to explain and help a manager understand why this person is good, someone else has hired them and they’re gone and no longer available. But we had the authority to offer the jobs right onsite, whether it was in San Francisco or Texas or wherever we were recruiting. Franklin: Were there many African Americans in similar positions to yours at Hanford, or was the workforce becoming more diversified? Webster: Yes. At Hanford, the workforce was becoming more diversified, because I think that was driven a lot by the Department of Energy. There were two gentlemen, well, actually, three, that worked in the human resources area at Department of Energy. And these individuals were also active in the community, who drove a lot of that. I don’t know if you’ve heard the name Bob Hooper? Bob Hooper, Fred Rutt. I’ll get Chandler’s last name—first name here in a minute. But Fred Rutt, Bob Hooper, were in the employment area for Department of Energy. They influenced these contractors to do the same thing. As a matter of fact, Bob and Fred were also involved in community, like CORE and the Central Labor Council, which we worked very closely with in apprenticeship programs and recruiting there. Then after I left, I left Boeing and went to—at that time, Rainier Bank, and I went into Rainier Bank in Affirmative Action. They were operating under a consent decree. But I had an agreement, after reading the consent decree and talking to executive management, that if I can meet the requirements—get the company to meet the requirements of this decree, which had to be signed off by a judge—that I would be able to go into the mainstream banking. We had a handshake on that. And the president of that bank, when the judge signed off on the decree, which was about two, two-and-a-half years later, I moved right into the mainstream of the bank. That’s where I stayed until I retired. Franklin: Wow, wow. I wanted to ask you—you sent me a few newspaper articles, by mail, and thank you very much. There’s one of you receiving an employment application. Do you remember that photo? I wish I had brought it. Webster: I think that was where I was leading a group to get employment applications. Franklin: I think at the city. Webster: At the city. That’s where we marched down to city hall and, as I mentioned to you, the city did not have people of color working. And in a challenge, they would tell me that we don’t have anybody working because no one ever applies. So I went and gathered up about ten people and we all went down to city hall at the same time to make applications for jobs that they had available. That’s when the photo was taken of us at the counter, applying for jobs, yeah. I was—whether you’re talking about a voter registration drive, whether you’re talking about unemployment, whether you’re talking about school desegregation, I always thought there had to be an endgame. There had to be tangible results to say that you’ve done something. It wasn’t enough to march from Pasco to Kennewick or march around city hall or go to a schoolboard meeting and have placards in your hand. I had to be able to see African American teachers being hired. I had to see students going into a different class and graduating. I had to see people getting a job. Man, I’m trying to remember the name of the company. It was a company when you go out to West Richland that relocated. They were processing potatoes and potato chips and all this— Franklin: Lamb Weston? Webster: Yeah. I went out there and was talking to the manager and he said, we don’t discriminate. We’ve got x number of jobs, and if you bring the people, we’ll hire them. The next day, I showed up with a carload of people and they walked in, and they did just what they said they would do. They hired them. And those folks had jobs. So, that’s how I tried to measure my success: on the results, as opposed to the activities. Franklin: Right. If you had to summarize the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here, what would they be? Webster: Summarize the activities? Franklin: Issues. Webster: Issues. Franklin: Yeah. Webster: I would say, number one would be at the top of the list would be education for younger people in the elementary level. Second would be jobs, more than just minimum wage kind of jobs. I worked very closely with Hanford to do that. Bob Hooper, Chuck Chandler—I remembered his name—and Fred Rutt were very helpful in paving the way. A guy named Ralph Eckerd who headed up an electrical company here, but also sat on a labor board, was very instrumental in helping to get apprentice employed on the way to journeyman. Being able to become a journeyman, not just in electrical, but in any other field. Matter of fact, they were instrumental in having an office in that neighborhood center in east Pasco to be able to recruit. And then they hired an African American guy to head that office to go out and do the recruiting for them. So employment was another major factor. I also think the voter registration and the participation in civics played a major role that resulted in both an African American woman being appointed and an African American man being elected to the Pasco City Council. Then after that, another African American man being elected and then becoming mayor. Franklin: That was Joe— Webster: That was Joe. And so I think the voter registration and the awareness of the political scene and what you can do if you have representation in the right place. And the right place was not on the street; the right place was where the decisions were being made, sitting on the council. And I think that was important. I also pushed very, very hard to have an African American appointed to the board of directors of Columbia Basin College. As a matter of fact, as part of this whole political theme, and the republicans giving me the opportunity to go out and do some registration—and this decision was based solely—solely—on the individual—I opened the first republican campaign office in east Pasco. That office was for Dan Evans, when he ran for governor. Like I say, I don’t know of a politician today, bar none, that was more honest and more fair, more equitable, than Dan Evans. Franklin: Did that early experience with republicans—or did that—are you a lifelong republican? Webster: No. And that is—you know, I just told you that I’m from Alabama and grew up and the r-word down there—if you’re African American, you may as well leave town, because you have tar and feathers all over you. So I’m probably as democratic as anybody can ever get from the bottom of my foot to the top of my head. But that was not—and I went to the democratic party first, to register people. When they turned me down, I went to the other alternative with the republicans, and that’s what gave me the opportunity to register people to vote. But in Dan Evans’ case, he was political in the sense that he was running as a republican governor. But I was not. I was looking strictly at the individual. And the integrity that he brought to the process, and what I felt that he could do. I was never disappointed in that. And I—yes, I took some heat from, even in the African American community, for supporting a governor—well, you show me somebody that’s better. And I believe that to this day that that was the right decision. Franklin: I was just curious. Webster: Yeah. Franklin: More than anything. Webster: Oh, yeah. Franklin: What were, in your opinion, what were some of the notable successes of some of the civil rights activities in the Tri-Cities? Webster: Well, I think, number one, is probably the biggest one outside of jobs and having individuals, like heading up the lab in Richland— Franklin: Oh, Bill Wiley. Webster: Bill Wiley. I think, if I had to pinpoint what I consider the biggest, was the ability to enforce the Fair Housing laws and get African Americans living in Kennewick. And there are individuals in Kennewick now—and this is our fault, as an African American community—have no idea, when they come to town, they just go right over to Kennewick and rent an apartment and live without any repercussions whatsoever. They don’t have any idea—no—but bringing that about, don’t need the credit. You just need to know that it’s happening, is the most gratifying thing as far as I’m concerned. That they can go and live anywhere in the Tri-Cities that you want to live. All you got to do is be able to pay your rent or pay your house note, and you can live there. Franklin: What were some of the biggest challenges, or maybe failures? Webster: Again, I think the biggest challenge that I saw was getting the right people to rally around a cause that—I’m going to use the word “I” at this point—that I felt was most critical at that moment in time. That’s where the Luzell Johnsons of east Pasco came in, to get the right—I call him Junior Smith, he was another one, too—to get them rallying around you and supporting you. I think the biggest challenge—the other biggest challenge was breaking the barrier between Pasco city government and Pasco residents who were African American. If you just stop and think about it, east Pasco was kind of like a throwaway place. Y’all or they or whoever, you can live over there. The streets were all dirt roads, there were no sidewalks, nothing, you know. They had some sewer and water, but no sidewalks. Franklin: Well, it didn’t even have sewer or water originally. Webster: For a long time—originally, yeah. But my day, when I came along, it was pretty much. But there were hardly anyone investing or developing except for down near the railroad tracks when the industrial went in. And to say that we’re part of the city. We want to work, we want to live, and we want to play in this city. And we pay taxes, and we deserve streets, sidewalks, curbs, gutters, et cetera. Franklin: Yeah. Webster: And we deserve employment in the city that we live. Those were the—making that connection was a huge challenge. Franklin: I had Pastor Wilkins describe it—he described it as, you could tell what the city thought of the black residents in east Pasco because they were on the other side of the tracks, and then he said there was, like, a dump and a highway and then a stockyard. Webster: Yeah. Franklin: And that’s what they thought of us, because that’s where they put us, was next to the trash and the— Webster: Yeah, and whichever direction the wind was blowing, you knew it. Yeah, the big stockyard was directly across the street from where I lived. I mean, directly across. Franklin: Yeah, those don’t smell pleasant. Webster: No, they don’t. No, they don’t. So we were, like I say, we were the throwaway part of the city. To bring about the sensitivity to change that mindset was a challenge. Franklin: Yeah. How did—oh, sorry. Webster: I was going to say one of the things, one of the other elements or factors that played a role was WSU. Glenn Terrell, I don’t know if you heard that name or not. But Glenn Terrell was the president of WSU. He made many trips down and worked with us in east Pasco. He also—I shouldn’t say he, but the Department of Sociology also sent students down to help us formulate ideas and do research and make sure our positions were strong and backed up with supporting data and reasonableness. So, that was before you had an extension or a campus or whatever they call it now, here at Hanford. Franklin: Yeah. I’ve seen some of the theses produced by the sociology students. Webster: Yeah, and we worked closely with Bill Wiley who was also a trustee at WSU, right? To help bring to bear some of the resources—human capital. Not necessarily money, but human capital to help us overcome some of the difficulties we were having here at the— Franklin: How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights efforts at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Webster: Well, I mentioned that I was from Alabama. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Webster: I marched a couple times with Dr. King. Franklin: Really? Webster: I’ve heard him preach two or three times. My wife is from Montgomery. And I’m from Mobile. But when I would go up there, we would go and hear him preach. But what really moved me was I was sitting on a bar stool in my uncle’s tavern, watching TV, and was watching the march on Washington. And I felt extremely guilty. I felt like I had walked away from the movement in Alabama. I should’ve been there. I should’ve been marching. I should’ve been, I should’ve, I should’ve never left, I should be there, contributing there, instead of here. That was also that connection, and that connection with CORE, getting James Farmer’s information. All of that was part of the eye-opening experience here. What they talked about on TV in Alabama, I could see it in east Pasco. I could see it in Kennewick. I could see it in Richland. Those were all connected, in terms of the motivation to do something. Franklin: Wow. From your perspective and experience, what was different about civil rights efforts here? Webster: I think we had been lured into a comfort zone. We had gotten somewhat complacent with what we had. That had a lot to do with that we were better than where we came. But to say we can still do better took a bit more convincing than I originally thought it would. Franklin: Like, you maybe felt that some people—like, it was better, so it was good enough? Webster: Yeah, it was—you know, you and I probably have to really get our heads around the same thing. I’m doing 50 times better than my dad, so maybe I’m doing enough. And so, I’m comfortable. And I don’t need to get involved with Black Lives Matter. I don’t need to get involved with some of the immigration fights that’s going on now. I’ve done that before. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. Now it’s their turn. There are all kinds of ways of justifying being in your comfort zone. And there’s something that’s got to kick you out of that comfort zone and say, you need to be involved today. As long as you’re breathing, you need to be helping to move things forward. And that’s a challenge sometime, depending on how long you’ve been in that comfort zone and your motivation to do something. Franklin: Yeah. Well said. So, when you left, you left Boeing to move over to Rainier Bank, how come you left the area that had been your home—why’d you move over to the west side? Webster: That’s a good question, and the answer is not as logical as you might think. We had purchased our first home. We had our—we have two kids, and the baby, my wife was literally nine months pregnant with the second. And here I come home saying that we’re moving. But what happened was, as part of my employment management job at BCSR, Boeing Computer Services Richland, we interfaced with certain jobs with our professional recruiters. This recruiter called me up one day and said, Wally, I have a client that’s looking for—and he described this Affirmative Action job in banking in Seattle—do you know of anyone? I said, no, I don’t know of anyone. I said, but send me a copy of the description, and I will pass the word around. It was just that; conversation over. About three weeks later, he calls me up and said, Wally, you remember I talked to you about that Affirmative Action job? I said, yeah, I said, I don’t—you didn’t send me the description and I don’t have anybody. He said, well, we were thinking about you. I said, oh, no, I don’t want to move. That’s not for me. I don’t want to live in Seattle; I’m doing well right here in Richland. He said, what would it take for you to just go over and talk to them? I said, well, I’ll tell you what it would take. Send me over on a Thursday night, I interview on Friday, I get to spend the weekend in Seattle and come back Sunday night. He said, deal. So I went over and interviewed on Friday. The guy called me up and said, we would like to hire you. Would you consider coming? And I said no. And then about a day or so later he called me up again and said, how much would it take for you to come? And I’m being a smart-butt. I just threw out a number. And the first thing he said, you got it. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Webster: And what do you do? I mean, you’ve made a commitment, right? And he met it. So now I’m—not only that, we’ll do this, we’ll do this, we’ll fly you home every weekend until you have your baby, and then while she’s recovering, you can go home every week, and you can do this, and we’ll buy you a house, and we’ll move you, and we’ll put you up for 90 days while you find another house, and we’ll provide you with a mortgage on your new house and—I moved. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. How were your experiences in Seattle different from Tri-Cities? Webster: That’s a very good question. As a matter of fact, I’ve thought about that a little bit. I’m not as involved in social organizations as I was here. But I’ve tried to make change from the inside based on my experience. I went through a succession of bank changes. So I sat on Seafirst Bank Foundation, for an example, to advocate for change through grants and stuff like that going. I currently sit on the chief of police advisory committee of the chief in Lynnwood where I live, to help bring about the communications and changes there. I’ve kind of learned that if you’re at the table when the decisions are being made and you can influence them at that point in time, is that you can be more effective than reacting and waiting for the decision to come down and then going to react to it. Governor Locke appointed me to the Legal Foundation of Washington. At that time I was the only non-lawyer on that foundation. And then Governor Gregoire re-appointed me to the foundation. They distributed $15, 16, 17 million a year to legal aide organizations throughout the state. Being able to influence that, and being able to determine the kind of organizations that would get money to carry out the legal aide for civil issues as opposed to criminal, and who got how much. Like Northwest Immigration Project was one of the major ones that’s now helping to fight the immigration laws that’s being—to be able to be a part of that, to me, is how I have been functioning. And that’s how it’s different from when I was here. I was on the outside, working from the outside. Now I find myself on the inside, working from the inside. If that makes sense. Franklin: Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And, yeah, because you kind of—you went into that world. Webster: Yes, yes. Franklin: Yeah. What surprised you, if anything, when you moved? Webster: Well, a couple things. Number one, contrary to what most people think, Seattle doesn’t have a “black community.” They think of the central district as the black community in Seattle. But if you walk through the central district, it’s just as diverse as anywhere else you can go. That’s not to say that a lot of black folks don’t live in central district, but a lot of black folks live in south Seattle as well. So that kind of surprised me. I worked on a campaign of several African Americans, like Mayor Rice, the first African American mayor of Seattle. Matter of fact, he was at Rainier Bank when I went to Rainier Bank. We worked together at the bank before he left to go to run for councilor and then the mayor. So the politics is a lot different. And it’s different from the standpoint that I don’t think even to this day, that I am part of the nucleus of the political power in the black community in Seattle. I’m still an outsider. Whereas in Pasco, three weeks after I got here, I was inside of the political structure of the black community, if there was such a thing, and able to go and meet with the mayor even though they might disagree, or the chief of police, or the captain of the police department. Franklin: Well, you know, when I started this project, everybody was like, oh, you got to talk to Wally Webster, you got to talk to Wally Webster. It’s almost like you were still here. Webster: Yeah. Well, I think that’s because I was involved in so many things at such a young age, and like I said, I measured myself on progress. Whether it was the first black police officer, or whether it’s the East Pasco Neighborhood Council, or whether it’s the voter registration drive, whether it’s the hiring processes in Hanford and with the apprenticeship programs in labor unions, taking somebody out to Lamb Weston to go to work there. I just believed that you go based on results. I want to brag a little bit and just say the other thing is—not that the other way was bad, and it takes both—but I was not a—and still to this day, I’m not a militant person. I don’t try to threat to get the results that I’m looking for. I kind of use the analogy of water. You may get to the bottom of the cliff, but you can take the path of the least resistance to get there. So you try to manoeuver your way—it may take a little bit longer, but eventually you get there. You get there with less roadkill. And to me, I’ve always—I learned early, it’s not always just the what, but it’s also the how. So I treat people that way. That might be another reason why. Even though I’ve been in Alabama and faced segregation and grew up going to the other side, stepping off the sidewalk, and keeping my head down, and going to inferior schools—which you didn’t know you were going to an inferior school until you got someplace where you were challenged, right? In spite of all of that, I’m not bitter. I think all of those situations made me who I am today. And I think that made me a better person today. So I don’t know if that’s why, but that’s what I think. Franklin: Yeah. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Tri-Cities during the Cold War? Webster: I think the most important thing for them to know is why they are here and what happened. There was one incident I didn’t talk to you about, and this is—when they were building the Federal Building, we went to talk to the Federal Building to see how many African American jobs were going to be there, and we couldn’t get anybody to talk. Couple of us just sat right down in the middle of the—you know the gates that they put around the building when they’re doing construction and they open them up in the daytime for workers to go in and out? Dozers and everything. We just sat right down in the middle of the street, in the middle of the gateway, demanding to see somebody to tell us how many jobs going to be in this building. Not while it’s in construction, but after it’s finished. So I would like for them to know, especially those that are associated with Hanford, what went before them to create an awareness that got them there. It wasn’t just their education, the school that they graduated, and the degree that they hold, because there are a lot of people with those kinds of degrees that don’t have a job like they have at Battelle. But somebody paved the way. And they’re standing on the shoulders of somebody. And they just need to know that, as my dad used to say, if you see a turtle sitting on a fencepost, somebody helped him get there. And they got to know that they’re a turtle on a fencepost. They got to know that somebody helped you get there. You didn’t get there all by yourself. Because your legs are too short to wrap around a fencepost, you know? Franklin: I want to just—that’s an interesting story. So you sat down—you kind of blocked the construction way. What did you find out about the jobs there? Was there a direct action from that, or a result from that action? Webster: To be honest with you, there were direct actions from the construction employment. But I didn’t get immediate knowledge of a direct from the folks who occupied the office—occupied the building. I didn’t get direct results. But I will tell you that after working in the community with Hooper and Rutt, after coming to work in that building as employment manager for Boeing Computer Services and interacting with everyone there, I was able to influence. I was able to influence who worked there. Franklin: Was that— Webster: And there are people working today on this project, that I was telling you that I had the ability to recruit and hire on the spot, whether they were at Southern University or whether they were at Grambling State University or whether they were at some other school in Atlanta, Georgia, when we went to the Consortium of Historically Black Colleges down there, or we were in LA and hiring people there. Competing with Lockheed and others and when they were having layoffs. So I know people on both sides of the outlet today working at Hanford that came from my signing off a piece of paper, make them an offer, here’s an offer, subject-to. Franklin: Yeah. Webster: Yeah. Franklin: Right on. Is there anything else you would like to mention related to migration, work experiences, segregation and civil rights and how they impacted your life at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Webster: I think I’ve said it all that I can recall, but I would like to say that, again, that the Tri-Cities is where I grew up, where I matured as a man and as a person. It shaped my life. It gave me the incentive to do, not only more for myself, but it demonstrated to me what you can do for others, if you just take the time to do it. I am extremely pleased that my uncle plucked me out of Oakland and drove me to Pasco. Very, very pleased and happy that that happened. Franklin: Right on. Well, Wally, thank you so much for coming and taking the time to interview with us. Webster: This was a pleasure. Franklin: Same here. Webster: Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity. Franklin: Yeah, awesome. <a href="https://youtu.be/qlfBMQp8Y-k">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1962- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Wally Webster Subject The topic of the resource Mobile (Ala.) Oakland (Calif.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation School integration Migration Civil rights Civil rights movements African American colleges and universities Description An account of the resource Wally Webster moved to Pasco, Washington in 1962 and was influential in local and national Civil Rights movements. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06/20/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. 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This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F103b0c7bf5df4cc1528773c4d2f5abf9.JPG ae8d37a31f4f12937d8d6885f09cefef https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F502a26d806a6426eb62a58555a9abfab.mp4 ef746618043499209119789934947ebb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edward Wallace Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: So, I wanted to ask you, going back a little bit, I wanted to ask you about education. You’d mentioned the schools you went to, but I wanted to ask, how did segregation or racism affect your education? Edward Wallace: It wasn’t bad by the time I came along, you know? Pretty much blended in with the class. Wasn’t like my sisters’ or something like that. Franklin: Were they older? Wallace: Yeah. Franklin: How did it affect them? Wallace: Well, the one you were going to talk to, I guess they got called names all the time. So, I said, well, what about the two older ones? The brothers? And she goes, oh, they loved those guys, because they played sports. You know? They go, but us girls, man, nobody would date us or ask us out or—you know? They go, forget about prom. I think my oldest sister went to prom, and I remember the picture of her. But I think that—yeah, I think his family lived in Richland, too, but I can’t remember, they didn’t live here very long. But as far as me, I was just always shy anyway. I grew up pretty much they had to walk up to me and tell me where we were going and I’d show up. [LAUGHTER] Because I was concentrating on, after school I was usually either picking up my brother or sister—my little brother and my sister—or I was going to go practice with somebody or something else. I remember this one girl asked me, are you going to the football game Friday night? And I’m like, well, I really hadn’t planned on it. But I’d been saying hi to her ever since junior high and smiling at her. It wasn’t until, like, two hours later after school, I’m thinking, what the hell is wrong with you? She was basically asking you if you were going to be at the game, so you know. So I go to the game and I know exactly where she sits because I’d been there before and her and her buddies sit in one spot. So I walked by there looking for her and she’s not there. I’m like, oh, man, that’s too bad. Didn’t see her after that, except around school. And she didn’t talk to me after that or nothing, so I said, oh well. Franklin: Who were some of the people that influenced you as a child? Wallace: You mean, just people? Franklin: Yeah. Like people who were important in your life. Family members, friends, teachers. Wallace: [LAUGHTER] Well, that’s a funny question. Probably my parents. Franklin: How so? Wallace: My brother that’s two years older than me. Because he had an opinion about everything pretty much. I was kind of like, oh, okay, that makes sense, you know, even though it didn’t. But probably more them than anyone else. Because I didn’t go out much, like I said. I was—for me to actually go out and just hang out with people and stuff like that, it was not very often. I was pretty boring guy. Franklin: Oh, come on now. Wallace: No, I was. And it wasn’t until I got to know somebody a little bit that I would talk with them. Franklin: Yeah. Wallace: I remember in high school, a couple of girls walk up to me and go, how come you’re not on the basketball team? And I go, because I don’t like being yelled at. They go, I’d think you’d want to be popular. And I go, I don’t. And they’re like--they gave me this look like they couldn’t believe it. Anyway. As far as teachers go, I don’t think I paid enough attention to any of them to really—[LAUGHTER] I think, elementary school I remember three teachers’ names, and junior high maybe two. High school, you’d think you’d remember most of your teachers’ names; I only remember a couple. So, I know elementary school, I remember Mrs. Hutchison, which was my kindergarten teacher. And then I think Mrs. Graham was my second grade teacher? Then Mr. Lane. Mr. Lane, he’s the one who gave me hacks for not bring my book to school. So I remember him. He gave us—I was a patrol kid, one of the patrol boys. And we were folding the flag one time, and one of the kids dropped one corner. Before it touched the ground, I grabbed it and pulled it back up and we finished folding. And the next day, we got hacks because someone said that it hit the ground. You can’t let the flag hit the ground. So we got hacks for that. Of course, it didn’t hurt. I remember the other kid walking out of there crying. And they go, god, Wallace, how come you’re not crying? And I go, well if you ever got a spanking from my dad, you’d know why. Because when he spanks you, he spanks you. I mean, you jumped and as soon as your feet hit the ground, he got you again. But you know, it wasn’t like he beat you up or anything, he just, hitting you with a stick or a belt or whatever. So we weren’t brutalized or anything. Franklin: Did you have any other—did you have any role models in the community or anything? Or anyone that when you were coming up, anyone you kind of looked up to? Wallace: Nah. [LAUGHTER] I really don’t—I don’t know if I’m just a negative person or not, but I really don’t remember—I probably looked up to Mr. Piggy, because he had a pretty calm demeanor, and he was kid of like me in a lot of ways. Franklin: Who was this? Wallace: His name was Mr. Piggy. Franklin: Oh, one of the families. Wallace: Yeah, yeah. His name was Robert Piggy. He worked out there as a coal handler. But we kind of had the same demeanor, in a way. He was a little more outgoing, but he cracked me up. And he always drove a Volkswagen bug, and he had a hat kind of like yours on all the time, different hats. But everything he did was like on the money. Franklin: What were some of the—what were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time there? Wallace: During my time? Franklin: Yeah. Wallace: I would say, during my time there, the fact that I got fired because of a racial thing. That kind of did a couple things to me. First, I realized that—well, see, he wrote me up, first thing was for sleeping on the job, okay? It didn’t matter how long I slept during the day when I could get sleep, when I got to work, got changed for graveyard shift—only for graveyard shift—that first two hours, I could barely stay awake. Matter of fact, I started smoking just to stay awake. That’s how I started smoking, was just to stay awake, and even that didn’t help. I’d put it out, and—chh—be gone. But after that first two hours, I was good for the rest of the night. So, I used to get up and go walk around just to stay awake. And as soon as I went back and sat down—pff—gone. But he wrote me up for sleeping on the job. But not because I was falling asleep in front of everybody. And believe it or not, that first two hours is when he made his rounds. But there was a guy that came back from vacation, and he would go into the break room and go to sleep. So when he got back, he told me, Ed, I want you to be with this guy. You’re not asking enough questions, you’re not really learning the things we want you to. So I want you to hang around with this guy. Okay? Now, before this guy got back, we had some kind of birthday party and the chief was back in the lunchroom, and the alarm went off, saying boiler pressure was going up too high. So I went back and told him. And I said, hey, the boiler pressure’s going up and the alarm’s going off. And he said, yeah, go ahead and acknowledge it and I’ll be out there in a minute. So I acknowledged it, and it’s still going up. So I go back, and I tell him again, and he goes, yeah, just go ahead and acknowledge it. He goes, what’s it up to? And I told him. He goes, yeah, just go ahead and acknowledge it. So, yeah, I’d read the whole manual, how to run this thing, right? So, third time, I go up there and acknowledge it and I turn the water flow down. Because, you know, it was getting a couple of ticks away from going into the red. He comes back, probably 15 minutes later. And he goes, man, that pressure’s just about where I like to keep it. And I go, yeah. He goes, I thought you said the alarm was going off. I said, it was, so I just cut it back a couple notches. He goes, well, how’d you know to do that? And I go, well, there’s no adjustment on the flames, there’s no adjustment on how much oil you put through it, which creates the flame, of course. I go, you can’t adjust how much flame you’ve got, so the only thing I could figure was you had to turn the water down and I believe, if I remember right, that’s what it said in the manual anyway. The pressure gets high, you cut back the water flow. And he was like, damn. You should be a chief. [LAUGHTER] He goes, most of these guys wouldn’t know what to do. And I go, I’ve always tinkered with stuff, you know. Anyways, so for the boss coming in and telling me, yeah, you’re not learning anything that we want you to learn, so he puts me with this guy. And so that guy goes, well, after we did our rounds, he goes, I’m going to go in and take a nap. And I go, well, I’m going to try and stay awake, so I’m going to hang out here and talk to the guys. I’ll probably fall asleep anyway, but—and he goes, well, nope—his name was Freymeyer, my boss. He says, Freymeyer said to stay with you, stay with me. He goes, so, you’re going to stay here with me. And I go, oh, okay! So they had some magazines, so I see one on cars, I pick it up and start reading it. And next thing I know they’re like, busting the door open. And they’re like, oh, you guys are in here sleeping. And I’m like, what’s the deal? This guy does this every night, you know? Well, I’m going to have to write you up. Well, I didn’t know he wrote the other guy up, too. I guess he decided he just didn’t like him. So, I found out later he wrote him up too. He never fired him, but he did write him up. So the next thing I got wrote up for was coming in late. I come in one night within five minutes. My boss is standing out there with his boss, the operations manager. As soon as—I’m looking right at him, I recognize him from the parking lot. And as soon as I come through the gate, they kind of turn away and start pointing at other stuff. And I’m like, I know that guy’s out here just for me. I’ve never seen those two stand and have a conversation. So sure enough, a week later, I got wrote up for being late. Now, the next time, I’m waiting for—I’m unloading—they brought the oil in in trucks, tanker trucks. So I’m waiting for another shipment, and I guess we’re really low because there was going to be like three of them that night. So I’d had the job before, and I knew the sign said, stay at least 20 feet—or no smoking within 20 feet. So, I’m not only 20 feet from the place; I’m like down here where you load the truck and start the pump to pump the oil over. So I know I’m at least 50 feet away, right? And I’m just kind of walking back and forth. But I’m not walking towards the tank, I’m just going back and forth vertically the other way. Between the river and the road. Him and his buddy pulls up, his little fat buddy, Rich. He pulls up and they go, hey, Wallace, what are you doing? And I go, I’m waiting for the next truck to come in. Well, I’d noticed when I got there, the tanks had been painted, and there was no signs up. But I already knew I had to be at least 20 feet away. So I’m 50 feet away. And they go, well, you’re not supposed to smoke within 20 feet of those tanks. And I go, I’m not smoking within 20 feet of them. I go, this is at least 50. And he goes, nah, you’re within 20. So he writes me up for that. So a few weeks later, I’m on vacation, I get a phone call from HR. They say, well, you’ve been released from work. And I’m like, for what? They go, well, you’ve been written up three times. So I go, well, it’s nice you called me while I’m vacation, you know? I’d taken the week off, and they called me like on the second day. So I’m like, it would’ve been nicer to do this in person, don’t you think? And they just hung up the phone, right? So, they called me back a few hours later and told me where to turn my badge in at and everything. So I went and turned my badge in. Walked away, thinking, wow, what assholes. I’m going to sue them. So, I got this lawyer up in Seattle. Because I know all the lawyers around here were bought off a long time ago. I was pretty much told that by one of the union reps. And I had a consult with him. He said, yeah, he goes, let me get the records and everything and then you can come back up and we’ll talk about it. So I walk in, and he goes, well, Ed, he goes, I would really like to represent you, but it’s not going to do any good. And I go, why not? He goes, well, you signed every one of those. Which meant that you’ve seen it and you acknowledged it. Even though you made the note on there that you don’t agree with it, just the fact that you signed it is enough. He goes, but that’s not all. He goes, and then there’s this. And he reaches over and he gets this thing that’s this thick. And I go, what the heck is that? And he goes, well, that’s all the other things about your behavior and everything. And I’m like, what?! He goes, oh, yeah, this guy spent some time on this. There’s notes in there from people you probably don’t even know. And I go, how do you know that? He goes, well, because where they work. They work in town. You worked out at the Site. And they’ve got comments about your behavior in there. And I go, oh. I’m like, I guess the joke’s on me. This guy’s really got his act together as far as getting rid of someone. So, I said, well. Wasn’t about two days later this guy calls me up and goes, Ed, I’m going to start up a band. I need another guitar player. And I said, hmm! Sounds like fun. Franklin: Right, that’s when you started the band? Wallace: So that’s when I started playing. Franklin: So, I’ve got one question left and hopefully it won’t take too long. Wallace: Okay. Franklin: My favorite question to ask. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and/or living in Richland during the Cold War? Wallace: What would I like future generations to know? Well, first of all, the government is great. And it basically does what it’s supposed to do, for the most part. But there are things that they don’t tell you, and there’s things that can harm you that they don’t tell you about. I’ll give you a for instance. When I hired on as a janitor, a guy that was showing me around said, I’m going to show you two places you never want to go. He took me down to C Plant. He goes, okay, that’s a place you never want to get a job at, because once you go in there, you can never get out. He said, you see that place across the street? And I go, yeah. He goes, I don’t know for sure, but you need a higher clearance to even walk up to that building. He goes, and I’ve been told that they’re making these lenses for being able to see from outer space back to here. But that’s just what I heard; I don’t know anything about it. He goes, and neither do you. But stay away from that building. No matter what. He goes, I don’t care if your truck breaks down, you go someplace else and make a phone call. Do not go near that building. Okay? Years later, I come back and we’ve been in the—my group of 35 had been in the building working for about two years, and the training was right there in the facility. Well, they moved training out to that building. So we spend about five, six years going to that building for training, take our tests and our recertifications and everything. And then all of a sudden, that building is shut down and the training is back in the building, the main facility, and then they put up a trailer at the end of the parking lot. That’s the new training department. Okay, so another five years goes by. You’re like, you’re looking at this building going, I wonder why they shut that thing down. No one ever tells you anything. So five years later, you’re in this class and it’s about beryllium. And then they tell you, well, these are beryllium facilities and if you’ve worked in any of these facilities, you need to be on the list to be checked for beryllium sensitivity. Then they tell you how beryllium builds up in your lungs and how your body attacks it. But it can’t do anything, and once it happens and you start having a reaction to it, you need to go in every now and then to have your lungs cleaned out just so they can function. And you’re on oxygen. These are the buildings. And guess which one one of them was? The one we’d been going to training for five years that they—I mean, they didn’t leave part of it open; they closed the whole building up and sealed it up. Everybody else is like, laughing and joking. And I’m like, pissed. So I’m like, I asked the teacher, I go, why’d you wait so long to tell us what was going on with that? Because we’d started hearing about the beryllium tests and stuff. They were testing our tools and we had beryllium tools that we used, they called them non-sparking tools that were made of beryllium. We used them for opening cans and stuff that might have gases in it. So I’m sitting there, and I’m just getting pissed off. I’m like, well, you mean in the building that we spent five years doing training in is filled with beryllium? And we’re just now hearing about it? That’s the reason they closed it off? And now you’re telling us what beryllium will do to you? And he goes, well, you know, the truth is, people used to not live that long. People used to live to only like barely past their 60s. So most of the stuff, they figured it would never affect you. But now we got guys living into their 80s who are coming down with this beryllium problem. I go, so you’re taking these 80-year-old guys and washing their lungs out? I’m like, you got to be kidding me. Franklin: Wow. Wallace: So you know, I used to always wear my coveralls. And when all the new kids came in, they would run around the place in their regular street clothes. And I told them, I said—they’d always ask me, Ed, how come you wear your coveralls all the time? And I go, well, number one, when I get hot I sweat a little bit. So I might as well just take a shower, put on my clothes that I wore in this morning, and go home with it. I go, plus, when they say places are clean, like where we’re at now, I go, if you want to take that home, you got to take it in to the HPT office, which is radiation protection, they have to go through it, make sure it’s thoroughly clean before they’ll release it so you can take it home. I go, now you’re sitting in the lunchroom. So you don’t know what you’re picking up along the way when you go to do any job. I go, so I’m not going to sit here in my street clothes and wear my street clothes home not knowing what’s on them. They said, oh man, get out of here. I go, okay. I go, you keep wearing your street clothes. I go, but one day when you slip out of here with something on you and the detectors don’t pick it up outside, and you get home and you’ve crapped your wife up and your kids and your whole house has to be cleaned, I go, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Franklin: Well, Ed, I don’t want to keep you too much longer. Wallace: Okay. Franklin: But thank you. Thank you for the interview. It was a pleasure. Wallace: All right. Franklin: Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming down today. Wallace: Ah, no problem. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Edward Wallace Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) School integration Description An account of the resource An interview with Edward Wallace conducted as park of a National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/10/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3f162f5aa3da38abd4eb2c55f021f8f2.JPG 32f08072f06ed989d1d0de4d112e9771 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1ce147caacde437decefd3f6942428e0.mp4 88f1f286260106c3af59884404438778 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jim Stoffels Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Jim Stoffels on July 13, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Jim about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and his involvement with the organization, CORE. For the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? James Stoffels: James Stoffels. J-A-M-E-S. S-T-O-F-F-E-L-S. Franklin: Great, thanks, Jim. Tell me how you—well, I guess we’ll start from an earlier point. When did you come to Richland? Stoffels: I came to Richland in June 1962. Franklin: 1962. Okay. Where did you first live? Stoffels: I rented a two-bedroom prefab in Richland on Smith Avenue. 1026 Smith. Franklin: 1026 Smith. Stoffels: Which is no longer there. It’s been replaced by a modern home. Franklin: Yes. Yes, it has. I live like right by there, off of Thayer. It has been replaced. How did you first—did you have any involvement with civil rights before you came to Richland? Stoffels: No. No, I didn’t. Franklin: How did you first hear about the Congress On Racial Equality, or CORE? Stoffels: Well, some neighbors moved in to the house next to me, and they were Herb and Rindetta Jones. And Herb was the head of the local chapter of CORE, the Tri-Cities chapter. That’s how I got involved. Franklin: And it was you and your former wife. Stoffels: Yes. Franklin: What was your former wife’s name? Stoffels: Georgia. Franklin: Georgia. Do you remember what, approximately, year that was? Stoffels: No, I don’t. I know it was probably a couple years after I moved here, but I don’t remember. Franklin: Okay. The first year I found a mention of you or Georgia was 1965. Stoffels: Okay. Franklin: Does that sound about right? Stoffels: Yeah. I was going to say ’64, but— Franklin: ’64, ’65, okay. And what was your role within CORE during your time? Stoffels: Well, I became the secretary of the organization. Franklin: And what about your former wife? Stoffels: Well, she didn’t have an official position, but I took the minutes of meetings and she typed them. Franklin: Okay. Stoffels: But I was the designated or the—I don’t know if we were elected or what—I was the secretary. Franklin: What drove you to join CORE? Stoffels: Well, I certainly knew about the black civil rights movement, and certainly supported it. So that was it. Franklin: What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Stoffels: Well, segregation was one, certainly, because at that time, all of the African Americans, the blacks, the Negroes, as they were called then, lived in Pasco, literally east of the railroad tracks in Pasco. But other than that, I really can’t speak to what other issues there were. I imagine, discrimination probably in employment and in housing, certainly. Because, for example, Kennewick had no black people living in that city. Franklin: What did CORE do to address the situation in Kennewick? Stoffels: Well, I don’t recall if we specifically did anything in terms of Kennewick. The thing I remember most is the one march we had in Pasco. There was quite a considerable turnout for that. We gathered in front of the courthouse in Pasco. I guess we had some kind of a program there, but then we marched from there over to east Pasco. And I think our destination, as I recall, was Morning Star Baptist Church. Franklin: What was the goal of the march? Or what were you raising awareness for? Stoffels: Well, just the general issue of, you know, civil rights for African Americans. Discrimination, segregation. Franklin: Did you work with any African Americans out at Hanford? Did you see many African Americans out on the job? Stoffels: No. Franklin: No? Stoffels: No. There weren’t any in the group that I was in. I did know—yes, I did know one or two. They were not professionals; they were, you know, blue collar workers. Franklin: Did it seem that African Americans were mostly restricted to blue collar work at that time? Stoffels: I would say yes, yeah. Yeah. You know, I didn’t think about it at the time, I don’t think, in that context. But I would certainly say that was the case. Franklin: Do you remember a march in Kennewick at all? Stoffels: No, I don’t, I don’t. Franklin: Okay. So you said that Herb and Rindetta were your neighbors. Stoffels: Yes. Franklin: And they were African American, right? Stoffels: Yes. Franklin: And I assume over the years you developed a close relationship with them? Stoffels: Well, I wouldn’t say I was close, because it didn’t last that long. I can’t remember when they moved away. And then I think that’s when, probably, the chapter of CORE here went out of existence. Franklin: What do you remember about Herb and Rindetta? Stoffels: Well, just, you know, they were a nice couple and they had two children. I don’t know what Herb did, what his profession or employment was. But then they moved away to Yakima. Franklin: Oh, okay. What do you remember about anyone else in the Tri-Cities CORE? Did you form any other lasting relationships or professional or personal relationships with anyone else? Stoffels: Well, I remember the Brounses; Dick and Nyla Brouns were in it, and we belonged to the same church. And Norm and Shirley Miller were in it. In later years, they were active in World Citizens for Peace. They were regulars on the sidewalk when we were protesting our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Franklin: Oh, later in the 2000s. Stoffels: Yeah, right. Franklin: Yeah. Stoffels: And the ‘80s. Franklin: Oh, right, right. Yeah. What were the concerns of CORE in Richland? Was there a problem with housing or employment in the City of Richland? Stoffels: Yeah, there was. And there was—at one point there was some kind of, I think, a housing commission set up by the city. I remember some meeting I attended that had to do with that issue, and there was a gentleman there, a black gentleman. I can’t remember what his name was, but I think he was an attorney. At any rate, I went to this meeting, and the members of this board, at least some of them, were realtors. And I didn’t understand that. So I went up after the meeting and talked to this man, and he just—you know, I was very naïve, and he just, you know, set me straight about, that’s the way it is. That some of the people that are on that board, not to promote the intended purpose, to frustrate the intended purpose of housing. Franklin: Right. What was the concern of the realtors in selling homes or renting homes to— Stoffels: I can’t speak to that. I don’t know. I just— Franklin: Okay. What do you remember about efforts to end discrimination at private clubs like the Elks? Stoffels: I think we had some demonstrations over at the Elks in Kennewick. But, you know, that’s about as much as I remember. I remember that it was an issue. Franklin: Yeah. Stoffels: And I think we did some demonstrations. But I can’t be sure of that. Franklin: Were there any threats or intimidations to either CORE members, white or black, or to African Americans in the Tri-Cities during the civil rights era? Stoffels: Not to my knowledge, not to my knowledge. Franklin: Okay. How did the rise of black nationalist groups, like the Panthers and Nation of Islam, affect CORE? Stoffels: Well, I think by the time that happened, I think our local chapter of CORE was out of existence. And I don’t know how long CORE nationally lasted. I mean, it doesn’t exist nowadays. NAACP is the main black/African-American civil rights organization promoting that cause. Franklin: What was the relationship between CORE and NAACP? Stoffels: I don’t remember. I don’t remember. I don’t remember, you know, I don’t know when local NAACP formed. I don’t know if it was before or after CORE. The fact that CORE arose leads me to believe that perhaps NAACP hadn’t organized yet. But I don’t know. Franklin: Okay. Hmm. To your knowledge, did any of the black nationalist groups form in the Tri-Cities? Stoffels: No. No. No, there was no one that was that militant. Franklin: What was the relationship between Richland residents working for the betterment of African Americans in east Pasco and the residents of east Pasco? Was there ever tension between the groups? Stoffels: Not that I’m aware of. I mean, we in Richland were comfortable and isolated and weren’t bothered. Franklin: Okay. What were some of the notable successes of CORE in the Tri-Cities? Stoffels: I don’t know. I don’t know what we can point to as a success. I don’t know what we could take credit for. I think, you know, our purpose was to raise awareness, and certainly working for equality and open housing, integration and those things. But I don’t know that we, as a group, can claim any success in that area. But I think it’s certainly part of what ultimately did take place, in terms of integrating. And certainly—well, the fact that a black couple, family, in CORE was the first family—white family—to move into Kennewick. The Slaughters, John and Mary Slaughter, and their children. So they personally can chalk that up as a victory. Franklin: Right, kind of helping to break the— Stoffels: Break the color barrier. Franklin: Yeah, to break the color barrier there. What were some of the biggest challenges? Stoffels: I don’t know how to answer that. Franklin: You mentioned working to raise awareness. How—was one of the missions of CORE—was there a general acceptance of the group in the Tri-Cities, or kind of, you know—or rejection or just kind of a antipathy to the message? Stoffels: Well, I’m not aware of any general response. I mean, we were there and did what we did, and I’m not aware of any backlash from the community. You know, the African American members of the community could certainly address that better than I. Franklin: The Brouns and the Millers, two other white couples that participated in CORE, told me that at times they felt social pressure or work pressure from their involvement in CORE. Stoffels: Oh, really? Franklin: Yeah, that they had had supervisors or friends question them or chide them for their agitation. I’m wondering if you had ever experienced— Stoffels: No. Franklin: --anything like that in your work or personal life? Stoffels: No, I never did. And I wasn’t even aware of it, you know, on their part. Franklin: Okay. I think that is all of my questions. Stoffels: Oh, okay. Franklin: Okay. Stoffels: The other thing I remember is that Georgia and I once hosted a party at our house for the CORE group. I remember, we had it in the basement, and I remember the Barneses were there, Dallas and Lozie Barnes. And I don’t remember who else. One person I remember is Dick—god, I don’t remember his last name. Anyway, he—god, senior moment. He later moved to Seattle and he became—at one point he was, I think, a member of the state legislature. God, I can’t think—Dick—I can’t remember. And there were a couple of musicians there, and I was thinking of their names the other day. Now I can’t think of it. It was a member. White man. Zane Casey. That’s it, I think. Zane Casey. And maybe it was he and his wife that just were a little two-person band. Franklin: What was the purpose of the party? Stoffels: I can’t remember if it was a Christmas party or what. It might’ve been a Christmas party. Franklin: Any other memories from your time? Stoffels: No. No. I’m trying to remember where we were when we met. I can’t remember if we met at the Morning Star Church or where. Franklin: From the notes, it seemed like you—the group would meet twice a month, once in Pasco and then once either in Richland or Pasco. Morning Star seemed to be a popular place, as well as, there was like a diner in the east side of Pasco, I believe you met at. And then sometimes in Richland, you’d meet at—or sometimes at Richland or Kennewick, you’d meet at individual people’s homes. Stoffels: Oh, yeah. Franklin: And once I saw that— Stoffels: Brounses, maybe? Franklin: Yes, the Brounses. Stoffels: Yeah, right. Franklin: And once at your house. Stoffels: And once they met at our house, too? Oh, okay. Yeah, I don’t remember meeting at the diner. But I do remember Morning Star Baptist Church. We were there a number of times. Franklin: Did you have a close relationship with—did CORE work with Morning Star and the other black churches in its activities? Stoffels: Well, you know, Herb is the head of the organization and, as a black person, I imagine, he did all of that. In terms of making those arrangements. I don’t remember—they might have gone—his family might have gone to that church. I don’t know. Franklin: And you went to Christ the King? Stoffels: Christ the King, yeah. Franklin: With the Browns? Stoffels: Brouns. The Brounses. And how did you get in touch with Kathy? Franklin: I got her name from a friend of mine, Tanya Bowers, because people had mentioned—someone was in contact with the Brouns. There’s one or two of the sons still live here locally. Stoffels: Yeah, Tom does. I know Tom and his wife. Franklin: Yeah, and I called her or emailed her and we had a correspondence and she was— Stoffels: Yeah, because Kathy lives over in Seattle. Franklin: Yeah, she was passing through on the way to Boise for a wedding and stopped by and she brought a file that I gathered a lot of information from. Stoffels: Oh, for heaven’s sakes. Franklin: Yeah, it’s been a lot of good coincidences for the project. That’s how I found your name and I was like, oh, I know Jim. Stoffels: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah, let me see here, I might have one or other question. Well, I guess I’ll just go with the ending question. Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to segregation, civil rights, how they impacted your life or others in the Tri-Cities? Stoffels: I really can’t think of anything. I mean, the thing that I gained out of it is the sense of community with black people. I annually go to the Martin Luther King commemoration over at CBC and I see people there, like the Barneses and the Mitchells. CJ Mitchell is deceased now, but the Mitchells lived just a couple blocks from us. Their daughter, Vanessa, babysat for us. Franklin: Oh, really? Stoffels: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Stoffels: With our two young—our first two daughters. Franklin: Oh, okay. Yeah, I know Vanessa really well. Stoffels: So I always reminisce whenever I see her, and that’s at, usually, at that Martin Luther King event. Franklin: So it was important, then, for you to be an ally of the civil rights movement? Stoffels: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, sure, I mean, that’s why I was there. Just like World Citizens for Peace. I’m there because it’s important to me. Franklin: Yeah. Did you transition to World Citizens for Peace after CORE or did your activism in CORE— Stoffels: Oh, no, there was a long time between those two. Because we founded World Citizens for Peace in 1982. And that was in response to Reagan, President Reagan’s goal of building 17,000 new nuclear warheads in the ‘80s. In between, I was on the city council in Richland in the ‘70s for four years. I was elected in ’71, I believe it was, and served for four years. Couldn’t wait to get off. Franklin: Yeah? Stoffels: Yeah. Well, I didn’t want to—there was a specific issue at that time. And I and a whole group of people were—got together around that issue. It was that the city council was extending water and sewer lines to what’s now south Richland, to the Meadow Springs area. They were going to be paid through the bills of all the people in the existing city. They had no policies for extending lines and assessing the ones who are served by it. So, we, this group, wanted to replace the members of the council who had voted for that. I think there were three positions open. Two of them, members of the group filed an opposition to. And there was nobody for opposing the mayor. I tried to get someone else to, you know. And nobody would. So, out of a sense of responsibility, I filed, and I replaced the incumbent mayor. Not as mayor, because the mayor is chosen by the council. Franklin: Right. Stoffels: But as a—so I never really wanted to be on it, but I was. That was like a half-time job for me for those years. It really took a lot of my time. Franklin: Yeah. That certainly does. Stoffels: And at the time, it was not a paid position like it is now. Franklin: Oh. Stoffels: There was a stipend of $500 a year. And the last thing I did before I went off the council is I proposed an ordinance that the councilmembers should be paid, you know, as a part-time job. And it was adopted. Of course, I never got it, because something like that, you can’t get the benefit of, unless you’re elected again. Franklin: Right. Interesting. Stoffels: But I thought that was very important, because the lack of that meant that the councilmembers were predominantly members of the business community. So, they looked out for the business interests. And I thought, well, that’s not representative government. We needed to have that be a paid position, as a part-time paid position, so that the average John or Jane could run and be remunerated for their work. Franklin: Right, yeah. Makes sense. Well, Jim, thank you so much for coming— Stoffels: Yeah, you’re welcome. Franklin: --and sitting down with us and talking about your time in CORE. Stoffels: My pleasure. Good to reminisce about those years. Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1962- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jim Stoffels Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Civil rights Civil rights movements Segregation Discrimination Description An account of the resource Jim Stoffels moved to Richland, Washington in 1962 and was involved in local civil rights movements. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 07/13/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4c14f389cabeb4decbddf768c2f0ecb7.JPG d74b3388cc8683d3b332cc7063583428 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff5fb1faeada314afbef71a3db9e00f8a.mp4 1f76915136d411b2f4c27bbb5832e24e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Reverend Jeannette Sparks Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Reverend Jeannette Sparks on May 5, 2018. The interview is being conducted at New Hope Methodist Church— Jeannette Sparks: Missionary Baptist Church. Franklin: --Missionary Baptist Church, sorry. New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. I will be talking with Reverend Jeannette about her experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Sparks: You know to put the “Reverend” on it, and then my full name is J-E-A-N-N-E-T-T-E. And the last name is S-P-A-R-K-S. Franklin: Great, and thank you so much, Reverend. How did you come to the Tri-Cities area? Sparks: How did I come where? Franklin: How did you come here? And when did you come here and why? Sparks: Oh, I was born in ’38. Franklin: Okay. Sparks: And my dad, we lived in Hermiston, Oregon for a few months, because my dad worked on the McNary Dam and John Day Dam. And then he bought the property here for his family and his mom. Franklin: What year did you come to Hermiston? Sparks: I came to Hermiston in ’48, mm-hmm. Franklin: What did your dad do on the dam? Sparks: We didn’t do—my dad went down, he was put in the big tubes with Mr. Shaw, and they’d go down and screw the boats in the water, until one day they had one of the cranes going across and it fell off and hit my dad in the head while he was down in the water. Franklin: Oh, no. Sparks: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Did he die? Sparks: No, he survived. They had to wear those steel brick—you know, those steel hats? And the steel hat even had an inner lining in it. But it just shook him up for a while. Franklin: Oh, wow, wow. Sparks: Mm-hmm, yep. Franklin: And when did you come to Pasco? Sparks: We moved to Pasco—we was in Hermiston for three years, and then Dad say he didn’t want us to stay in Hermiston, because he was moving around a lot. So he moved us to Tri-Cities, here to Pasco. And I went to elementary school where they have Pasco—across from the court house, is that the Pasco City Hall—no, it ain’t the city hall where you go pay your utilities. I went there. I went to elementary school and then I went to junior high school there. And then I went to Pasco High School. Then Sue Williams and myself, we played basketball, and we had to be on the guards when we went to Kennewick to play Kennewick. Because during that time, Kennewick, didn’t allow no blacks across the bridge at a certain time. But we’d beat them every time. [LAUGHTER] Yep. Franklin: Did you ever have any trouble in Kennewick? Sparks: No, Daddy didn’t believe in that. We never had any problem going to school. And then when we moved to Pasco, Daddy bought the property on the corner and two houses for—because he put his mom in one house, and our house was on that upstairs/downstairs on the corner of 712 on Douglas Street there. That’s where we grew up at, mm-hmm. We grew up right there. Franklin: Where were you born? Sparks: I was born in a little place called Kildare, Texas. My dad said, this wasn’t where he wanted his family to be. And he took his mom and all of us—I think it was just five of us then. Me, Opal, Bobby, and Thee and Donnell. It was five of us. We rode the train all the way from Texas. We was on the train when the high water—when they had the flood in St. Paul, Minnesota. We had to be there for weeks and weeks and weeks. But during those days, when you travel, see, they packed lunch. You wasn’t buying all that stuff they had in the kitchen. So my grandmother had a box, and, oh, that box was nothing like this, wasn’t even this wide. We had food all the way to Hermiston, Oregon. Didn’t have to buy a thing. Didn’t even get hungry. And you know, the peoples in Oregon were so—they were so much different than the people in Pasco, when we moved to Pasco. Franklin: How so? Sparks: Well, the peoples in Oregon, they didn’t act like you was any different from them. But when you come to Pasco, they say you can’t go across, can’t be caught across the bridge at dark, and Daddy say, well, now you have to obey their laws. And when we went there, we would have to be guarded. When we was going to school and playing basketball, you see? But all that done changed so much, ‘til—[LAUGHTER] They used to have a sign at the bridge. My daddy helped build the bridge. And they had a sign up there that said, No blacks in Kennewick after dark. They used to have that sign over there. But they eventually moved the sign. I wasn’t in Washington when they did it. I wasn’t here. [LAUGHTER] I married and moved to California. Franklin: Oh, okay. Sparks: Mm-hmm, yep. Franklin: What were your first impressions when you arrived in Pasco? Sparks: Well, it was—it wasn’t like Hermiston; it was like different. Because Dad would always tell us, you can’t go so-and-so-and-so, you couldn’t do this, you can’t do that, and you couldn’t—you know. But in Hermiston, it was no different. But we hated—we moved to Pasco. My Daddy says, it’s gonna get better. He kept telling us, it’s gonna get better. Gonna get better, gonna get better. And then we got old enough, we went to the grape field and helped pull the Welch’s grapes. Went and hoed sugar beets out on Road 68 where they got all them houses out there. It used to be nothing but fields. And you talking about hot. It is not hot here like it used to be. It used to be hot here. It ain’t hot like that no more. Franklin: I guess there were a lot less trees, huh? Sparks: Mm-hmm. And we had—when we went to school in Pasco, we didn’t have no problem, mm-mm. Nope. Franklin: It seems like a lot of black families left Kildare to come here. Are you related to anyone else that came up here? Sparks: The Daniels is my cousins. Franklin: So Vanis? Sparks: Vanis, all them, mm-hmm, that’s my cousins on my dad’s side. And their uncle, CJ Mitchell? CJ Mitchell came up here with my dad. Franklin: So you’re related to the Mitchells as well. Second cousin? Sparks: Mm-hmm, on my dad’s side. Franklin: What was your dad’s name? Sparks: Artis Miles, A-R-T-I-S M-I-L-E-S. And my mom was Bernice Weaver, mm-hmm. Franklin: Great. What was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to? Sparks: Well, you know, when you’re young, you don’t understand that—in Hermiston we didn’t have no problem. We mixed with all the other kids. But when you come to Pasco, we was hauled off, they was hauled off somewhere, and I never could figure out why all the blacks was over here and the rest of them was over here. It took me a while to get used to that. Because I wasn’t used to it. But I learned to get used to it, and then we had to walk to school, had to walk from the east side here to the Pasco High School on the other side. Franklin: And go under the tracks? Sparks: Mm-hmm, we had to go up under the underpass. And when we go under there, we’d be saying, aloha. [LAUGHTER] But after everything started changing—the Tri-Cities have changed tremendously. Because I see blacks all in Kennewick and everywhere. And my mom’s sisters and them, they lived all in Richland. Because they wouldn’t allow no black in Kennewick, so they lived in Richland. My cousin, CW Brown and Norris Brown, they used to call him the Sweet Georgia Brown. The Richland Bomber used to beat every team that was here, even Pasco team. Mm-hmm. Yep. Franklin: Yeah, I’ve heard about their basketball skills. Sparks: Oh, yeah. The Richland Bombers. My two cousins was on that team, and boy, I’ll tell you, Norris Brown and CW Brown. And I mean, they’d win every game they had. Franklin: They had a pretty big rivalry between Richland and Pasco, right? Sparks: Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I was only a cheerleader for a while, and then I said, no, I can go into something else. [LAUGHTER] Because it was okay as long as they was in the Tri-Cities, but when they had to go to Yakima or somewhere else, Dad’d always say, no, y’all ain’t going, because you ain’t got no good supervisors, so y’all ain’t going. And we didn’t go. Franklin: Because he was kind of protective, huh? Sparks: Mm-hmm, yup. Franklin: What do you know about your parents’ lives before they came to the Tri-Cities? Sparks: Well, my daddy was a farmer in Kildare, Texas. Franklin: He was a foreman? Sparks: He worked corn, peas— Franklin: Oh, farmer, farmer, gotcha. Sparks: A farmer. And he used to tell us, he said, when Daddy make enough money, Daddy going to move you from here. He used to tell us that all the time, and finally one day, my dad, CJ Mitchell, and, oh, I forget his other cousin. Oh, he’s dead and gone, god. They still have got the house there, up from me, on Douglas. Oh! Franklin: It’s not a Daniels is it? Sparks: The Daniels? Franklin: Willie, is it? Sparks: Well, the Daniels came on up, too. Daddy helped—the Daniels came up with Daddy, and all of them, they all came up and start working here. My dad worked with Mr. Shaw on the dams. McNary Dam, and, oh, I think it was about three or four dams he helped on, and he got hurt on the John Day Dam, down there, going to The Dalles, Oregon. Franklin: Oh, wow. What was it about the work up here that drew your dad and his cousins and things up here? Sparks: Well, my mom used to work in the Salishan. You know anything about Salishan? Franklin: No. Sparks: My mom used to work at the Salishan, where they buff sheets for the Army. You know anything about that? Franklin: No. Sparks: Yeah, my mom used to work at Salishan where, they call it bucking sheets. And I know what that was, that means you have to fold them a certain way. For the Army boys. And then when we was in Hermiston, they had an Army base not too far from where we lived. They’d come right by the house to get to the Army base. But my life growing up with my family was, oh, it was just out of sight. Dad didn’t let us go out to play with nobody, because he said there was enough of us we could play in the yard together. And that’s what we did. This was our recreation all the time, church. Vacation Bible School, Sunday school. And oh, how I thank him today, for him, because some of them that’s my age, oh, I look at them today, and just—and they still haven’t accepted the Lord. And I wonder, what’s going to happen when judgment day come? Mm-hmm. Franklin: Was the work different up here? Did the work pay better up here? Is that why so many men, so many people left Kildare to come here? Sparks: Well, my dad said that in order for them to progress, you just can’t stay in the same—you’ve got to span yourself out and see where the work is at. Because, see, when they was in Texas, all they talked about fielding and growing corn and all of that stuff, and then they’d take it to market and sell it. And Daddy said, no, that wasn’t for him. So he expanded out. I think the six of them came up in a T-model Ford. Six of them came up in a T-model Ford. CJ Mitchell and all them, they came up in a—and they worked at Hanford. Franklin: Did your father work out on the Site? Sparks: Oh, no, my father worked on the bridges. Franklin: Okay. Sparks: Yeah, he worked on—him and Mr. Shaw. I don’t know why he loved it, going under that, in that big tube, down, way down at the foot of the—putting boats in the—he loved it there. And we couldn’t—if Daddy was late getting in, we’d all get in a huddle and start praying, hoping nothing done happened to our Daddy. Mm-hmm, yup. Franklin: And so did you attend this church here when you got here? Sparks: Oh, yeah, this is where I attended—I went to this church when the church was on—what’s that, Beech Street? Beech Street. Bobby Sparks: What year was it though? What year? Sparks: Oh, and then after Beech Street, we used to have church at the Elks Club. It used to be at the Elks Club. And then when they built this church up here, I was here. I got my shovel, went and dug the first dirt out here. Mm-hmm, yep. Franklin: What role does church play in the community? Sparks: What who? Franklin: What role did church play in the African American community? Sparks: In this community? Franklin: Yeah. Sparks: Well, our mission, we go out and help those that can’t help themself. We feed the hungry. A lot of time they bring, sometimes it’s three and four box loads of people out on the street and they just bring them here, senior citizens, and we cook food and feed them here in this dining room. We’re missionaries, we do all of that. And we have a sweet pastor. He’s another one, he loves having everybody. [LAUGHTER] Yep. And I know this church, I don’t know about the other churches, but every Wednesday night we have Bible study and prayer meeting. And I mean, he teaches the Word, and it is awesome. We was here last night, oh, it was so good. Reading the book of Acts now. Yep, we done made it to the book of Acts. We just thank God—you know, it’s a blessing when you have a pastor that likes to teach those who want to be taught. So when he get here and preach it, then they can witness to it. But if you don’t know what he’s saying, you cannot witness to it. Because you don’t know if it’s in the Bible or not. And he’s strictly from the Word of God in the Bible. Franklin: Does the church play a special role in the black community? Sparks: Oh, yeah. Franklin: Could you talk about that, historically? Sparks: We goes out, the missionaries, we go out, we help the homeless, and if any of them come in the church that need help, we always help them. If they’re trying to get a place, if they need clothes, if they need food, we do that. And you’d be surprised to see how many boxes of food lined up here in the kitchen, where they take it out and give it to needy peoples. And then the peoples tell other peoples, and they just come to the church to pick up the box. A lot of them pick up the boxes, you don’t see them no more, but you continue to pray for them. One day they will turn around, mm-hmm. Franklin: Do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions that people brought from the places they came from? Sparks: Well, I don’t know. I know one thing they had there. Bobby, what is that they had in Kildare? Oh, the Juneteenth. Franklin: What’s that? Sparks: That’s Juneteenth. Franklin: The humanitarian award. Can you see that, Tom? Can you tell me about—can you talk about Juneteenth for those viewing this that may not know about it? Sparks: We have it in the park over here, at the park on this side. I always say on the east side. The park on the east side, it used to be houses all down in there, but they made a big park down in there. And then we talk about the old time, we talk about our history and where we come from, how we got here. Franklin: What does Juneteenth celebrate? Sparks: Juneteenth celebrates our history. It’s our history. And this here, see that? Isn’t that a community award? Franklin: Yeah, the Juneteenth Community Council. Sparks: I was a person that, I didn’t care who you was, or what color you was, or where you came from, if you needed help, I would go help. Because we are all God’s children. And God don’t have no respective person so why do we? We supposed to be able to help everybody, regardless. And that’s me. A lot of time, I go—if I go downtown and see somebody on the street needs some help, I’ll holler and say, hey, you want a hamburger? Come on. When it’s in you, it’s in you. And it’s been building in you from knee-high to adult, all the way up. We was taught from both sides, from the Weaver side, the Davis side, the Miles side, we was taught. And that’s what we supposed to do for one another, we shouldn’t have one respective person who we help regardless. Because when God call your name, he going to tell you, remember that so-and-so-and-so you passed by and you didn’t help him? I don’t want Him to say that to me. I don’t want Him to set apart from me I know you’re not. I want Him to know me, you see? Franklin: Yeah. What about—I asked you earlier about traditions that people brought with them from the places they came from. But what about food? Did people bring a certain culinary or food culture with them from Kildare to here? Sparks: Well, they packed food, they fried chicken and they had cornbread. And then they made a lot of muffins, a lot of tea cakes, and a lot of people do that now when we have our gathering here at the church, people bring food that we used to eat. Old-fashioned Sunday. That takes us back to our grandparents and great-grandparents. Make dishes and bring them. And I mean, it seem like that Sunday at the church, we have to put chairs out for peoples to sit. But it should be like that every Sunday. Everybody should appreciate where they come from and what the Lord is doing for them and what other peoples are helping them with. You know? Some’ll come today and you don’t see them no more for a while until they need something. But you don’t turn them away; you still give it to them. That’s going to be between them and God. You see? Franklin: Yeah. What about sports? Did anyone bring any sports traditions with them? Sparks: Oh, I played basketball. I played basketball for Pasco High School and tennis, played tennis. Mm-hmm. Volleyball. Me and Sue Williams. Franklin: Were there opportunities available here that were not available where you or your parents came from? Sparks: Well, yeah! A lot of things here available that wasn’t available. Because that’s why my dad moved from Texas, because he said, uh-uh. He wasn’t born in no backdoor and he wasn’t going to stay here and continue to go in no backdoor to shop. That’s when we got the train and moved to Hermiston, Oregon. Franklin: So segregation was a pushing factor? Sparks: Oh, it was too much. And Dad said he wasn’t going to raise his family there. And he didn’t. Let me see. Him, CJ Mitchell, and cousin Vanis Daniels, and all of them loaded up in a T-model Ford. Franklin: How was housing different from here compared to Kildare? Sparks: Well, I tell you what. In Kildare, the blacks stayed in they position, and the whites stayed in theirs. And the blacks never had a place to shop; they had to shop at the white store. And if you wasn’t light-skinned, you couldn’t go in the front door; you had to go in the back door. That’s just the way it was. And my mom and his mom, they all could go in there, because they looked like they was white anyway, mm-hmm. Franklin: What about education? What grades did your parents go through? What was their education level? Sparks: I graduated from Pasco High School. Franklin: But your parents? Sparks: Oh, my parents? Franklin: Yeah. Sparks: Oh, my dad didn’t graduate, but my mom graduated. My mama graduated. Because my dad had—they had to do work in the field and work for—my dad and them was Uncle Tom then because they had to work in the field. Daddy say he was sick of that. Mm-mm. They was getting out. And that’s why all them got together and decided to drive a T-model Ford to Hermiston, Oregon. Franklin: In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation and racism? Sparks: Well, none of the opportunities have lightened up a whole lot. Because when we first moved here, you couldn’t go across the bridge at night. If you did, the peoples in Kennewick would beat you up. Dad would always tell us, when Miss Booth take you all to Kennewick—and he would tell Miss Booth, you keep my girls with you. Because I don’t want nothing to happen to them. And she did, too. And they was teachers that are all Pasco High School. When we went to junior high we didn’t have no problem, because, you know. And then one of my cousins went with a girl named Marsha. Mm-hmm, yup. Franklin: Could you describe any interactions you or your parents had with people from other parts of the Tri-Cities? Sparks: Do I do what? Franklin: Could you describe any interactions that you or your parents had with people from other parts of the Tri-Cities area? Sparks: We ain’t had no problem. Mm-mm. Franklin: Did you ever go to Richland to visit your cousins? Sparks: Oh, yeah, that’s as far as we went: to they homes. Franklin: How was Richland different from Pasco? Sparks: Well, Richland was nice. It was Kennewick. Kennewick. Never had no problem with Richland. It was only Kennewick. And Kennewick didn’t allow any blacks over there after dark. They didn’t care if they was light-skinned or black-skinned or whatever. You wasn’t—and they used to have it on the bridge there. Franklin: Yeah. You mentioned that you went to Pasco High School. Where did you go to elementary and middle school? Sparks: Where you pay the water bill over here across from the court house? You know what? Tom Hungate: City hall. City hall. Sparks: The courthouse? That’s where I went to elementary school at. Franklin: Okay. So you didn’t go to Whittier? Sparks: No, I didn’t go to Whittier. They wouldn’t even have a bus to come over here and pick us up until my dad and them finally got a bus to come pick us—we had to walk. Franklin: Can you tell me, how did your dad and others get a bus here? Sparks: Well, they kept having meetings with the city, having meeting with the city, having meeting with the city, and finally they started the buses to come here. And the bus used to pick us up at Whittier Elementary School. But see, Whittier Elementary School is not there anymore. Elementary school is further up. But elementary school was there before you go under the underpass. That’s where the elementary school was. And it was houses there. I look where they have done put all these factories over here and there wasn’t nothing but a lot of houses over here, you know. And all the houses over here were mostly black on this side of town. All black families lived on this side of the underpass. And now they done put all factories over here. Franklin: Part of the redevelopment. Sparks: Yup, they done put a lot of factories over here. Franklin: How did segregation and racism affect your education? Sparks: None whatsoever. Franklin: Okay, who were some of the people who influenced you as a child? Sparks: Encouraged me when I was a child? Franklin: Yeah. Sparks: Well, I don’t know if Mr. Sundale was still living. Franklin: Who was he? Sparks: He was a teacher. And he said, no matter what, you get your education and you can look back on them. Mr. Sundale. Miss Stiggers. Miss Stiggers was a good—she’d always tell you, your education will take you a long ways. And Mr. One-eyed Harper. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Did he really have one eye? Sparks: Yup. He had a marble eye, but he only had one eye he could see out of. Franklin: And he was another teacher? Sparks: He was another teacher, mm-hmm. Miss Stanley was, she say, your education, if you get a good education, it’ll take you a long ways in the world. And that was true. Franklin: When did you graduate high school? Sparks: I graduated in—oh, god, I graduated from Pasco High School. I don’t know what year. I should’ve bought that book, huh? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Did you go to college? Sparks: I went to CBC for a while. Franklin: What did you study there? Sparks: Well, mostly, I went to theological seminaries. Franklin: Where was that? Sparks: In California and a little bit here, before I went to California. I went to theological seminaries for my—to continue in my ministry. Franklin: What made you want to go into church leadership? Sparks: What did what? Franklin: What drove you to go into church leadership? Sparks: Because when we was growing up, Dad always told us, you can always depend on God when you can’t depend on nobody else. That’s the man I wanted to be serving, was somebody I could depend on. And my daddy kept us in serving the Lord all the time. We never could go to birthday parties, nobody birthday parties. He said it was enough of us to have a birthday party in the yard. And I thank him for that. When they built this church here, my dad was one of the deacons. We was in everything. We had a lot of plays that we used to put on when we was growing up. Old-fashioned Sundays and all of that. We used to dress up like they did in the olden days, sing the old hymns like they did in the olden days, mm-hmm. And I just love it, you know. My little Sunday school students, I just love them so much. And I tell them, what your grades is in school? Let me see your report card. And they let me see—they bring that report card and let me see it. And sometime I say, here’s your few bucks you can get you a big hamburger and some French fries. You know, it was done for me when I was growing up, and you just carry it on. And you don’t know what will help. I imagine the peoples and things gave it to me never thought that I would be a minister. But I loved this church. Loved to sing. All that. And my mom used to sing in the choir. My mom used to sing in the choir, mm-hmm. Franklin: Could you sing one of the old songs? Sparks: Me? Franklin: That people used to sing, yeah. Sparks: [singing] Guide me over, great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. Franklin: Thank you, that was really wonderful. So I wanted to shift into talking about civil rights activities in the Tri-Cities. Sparks: Some what? Franklin: Civil rights activities in the Tri-Cities? You mentioned that you left the Tri-Cities area for a while. When did you leave? Sparks: Leave what? Franklin: Here, Pasco. Sparks: Oh, after I married. In ’57. Franklin: And when did you come back? Sparks: I’d come back every year. Franklin: Oh, okay. Sparks: My husband and I, we moved to California. But every year, he promised me when I told my mom, he said, every year she can come back and spend the summer with you. Franklin: Okay. Sparks: And he kept that promise until he died, mm-hmm. Franklin: How long did you live in California? Sparks: Oh, God, how old is Chris? 60-something years. Bobby Sparks: Yeah. Sparks: I just moved back here about 12 years ago. Franklin: Oh, okay, okay. Sparks: That was when my husband got sick and we moved. He wanted to be back home, so we moved back here and then I ended up on dialysis, and when I’d get off of dialysis they’d drop me off over there at Avalon, and I’d spend the rest of the evening with him, and then I’d come home and I’d make sure on my day off, I’d go to Avalon and give him his shower and feed him and everything. And we was married for 57 years, almost—in two months it’d be 58 years. That’s a long time to be with one man, ain’t it? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yes, it is. When you were here, what were the major civil rights issues for African Americans in the Tri-Cities? Sparks: Well, you know, when I was here, my dad was involved in that. Him, and Mr. Vanis Daniels—oh boy, what was the other heavyset man lived on—CJ Mitchell, Primmer Brown, let me see who else. Katie Barton, Mother Katie Barton. She stayed on it all the time, Katie Barton did. And she was the one, Katie Barton was the one that took that sign off the bridge. Franklin: Really? Sparks: Uh-huh. Where it says, no blacks allowed. She went and took that sign off the bridge. Franklin: When was that? Sparks: Katie Barton? Franklin: When was that? Sparks: That’s when I was going to junior high school. Franklin: Oh, okay, so it came down in the ‘50s? Sparks: Mm-hmm, back in the ‘50s. Because Miss Booth—because I played basketball, me and Sue Williams. Oh, Mr. Williams was involved, too, in helping. Mr. Joe Williams, Mr. Joe Bush, Daddy, Vanis Daniels, all of them, they was involved in getting stuff together, you know. Franklin: What kinds of things were they involved in? Sparks: In getting the civil rights to be like it should. Trying to let peoples know the world is just not belongs to the whites or the light-skinned; it belongs to all the peoples created under God, one nation, one God. And that’s what they was doing. They finally got it through. Franklin: Were there any big issues that people worked on that stand out to you? Sparks: Because they didn’t want any blacks in Kennewick. That was a big issue. They didn’t want any blacks in Kennewick. And if you caught—you couldn’t even be caught over there after dark, even if you worked over there. Franklin: Was housing or sidewalks an issue for folks? Sparks: Well, you couldn’t—in Kennewick, you couldn’t be caught in Kennewick after dark. Franklin: What about in east Pasco, was there a lack of services in east Pasco? Sparks: No, we didn’t have no problem over here. No problem whatsoever. Franklin: What about in employment? Sparks: Unemployment? Franklin: In employment, getting jobs. Sparks: Oh, they was able to get jobs. They was able to get jobs at Hanford. All of them, a lot of them worked at Hanford. My momma, when we lived in Seattle, my mom worked in what they call, a place called Salishan. That was bucking sheets. They had to do the sheets for the them to buckle, fold the plastic on them, and bag them up and put them on the market for sale. That’s why mom did. Franklin: Besides removing the sign, you said Katie Barton helped that, were there any other notable successes of the civil rights movement in the Tri-Cities? Sparks: Oh, yeah, a lot of black people living in Kennewick now. [LAUGHTER] But there’s nothing wrong with Kennewick, like it used to be. Everybody just is nice and—you know. The younger generation that came along after the old generation, a whole lot changed. It was the older generation. But when the younger generation started coming in, and my cousin and them were going and playing basketball, and we’d go over there for cheerleaders and all that kind of stuff, the younger generation changed Kennewick. Not the older. The younger generation changed Kennewick. Because they wasn’t having all that, mm-mm. Franklin: What were some of the biggest civil rights challenges, issues that were challenging for folks? Sparks: Was Kennewick. [LAUGHTER] It was Kennewick. Pasco, you never had a problem. Never had a problem in Pasco. Kennewick was the problem. Never had a problem in Richland. Never had a problem in Richland. Kennewick was the only one. And after—you know, after the older folks moved on, then Kennewick started changing and changing, and blacks live in Kennewick and everywhere else, you know, all down in there. And I was just over that way not too long ago, and I said, my land, I remember when you couldn’t even come down this hill. When they put that freeway in and got that freeway going everywhere. But the younger generation, they brought by the change. That young generation did. Like our age and like that, they the ones that changed Kennewick. Now some of the elder people, boy, they’d tell you, they’d call you all kinds of colors and curse you and, don’t walk on the sidewalk, walk in the street and all that kind of stuff. Franklin: Did that ever happen to you? Sparks: I never had a problem. [LAUGHTER] Mm-mm. Nope, I never had a problem. But when Daddy would take us over there, he’d just hold my hand and go on. Mm-hmm, yup. Franklin: What about when—did you ever have any—were there problems with eating at restaurants or shopping or anything, problems with services or being treated less-than? Sparks: I’ve never ate a restaurant in Kennewick. Up to this day, I still won’t. Nothing that—it’s not prejudice or anything like that, I just don’t. I say, it’s enough restaurants over here, it’s the same thing. So why would I go over there to go out of my way to go over there to bother somebody else, you see? Franklin: Was there ever any problems with folks on the west side of Pasco? Sparks: Mm-mm. Don’t have no problem with none of them. All of them on the west side of Pasco over there in them new homes and everything, I grew up with a lot of them. And some people moved here that go to my church here, live out there on Road 68. That’s where I go out there for dialysis. If you want to, you can go out there and dialysis in there and say, I wanna ask you something about Sparky. Oh, Sparky? Oh, sit down. They’d tell you about Sparky, mm-hmm. Franklin: Do you have memories of the Hazel Scott case in 1950? Where she was refused service at the Pasco bus station? Sparks: Mm-mm. Franklin: Did you ever hear about that? Sparks: Mm-mm. Franklin: Okay. Sparks: Mm-mm. What happened? Franklin: She was a very famous singer in World War II and afterwards. She was married to a congressman. She was African American and so was her husband. I can’t remember his name; he was a congressman from Harlem. And she was on a tour, and the bus stopped at the Greyhound Station in Pasco. She went to the lunch counter, and sat down and the waitress refused to serve her. And she said, why are you refusing to serve me? And the waitress said, I can’t; the owner said I can’t serve you. And the owner came out and said, we don’t serve blacks here. They had a sign up in the Pasco bus station. So she was pretty famous and had a famous husband, so she sued in Washington State court, and she won the lawsuit. And they had to pay her and they had to take down the sign. Sparks: Well, Dad always tell us where to go eat and where to stop, and when you come from school, you come straight home and your food is all ready in the kitchen. You see? And if he give us lunch money and we didn’t eat lunch at school, he’s going to say, well, since you ain’t eating lunch at school, you wait until you get home and eat. Did you remember the Dew Drop Inn? Right there by the underpass? Franklin: I’ve heard of it. Sparks: Oh. [LAUGHTER] That’s where, when Daddy was working on the dam, and we got out of school early, and we’d know if we came home, Momma was going to have something for us to do. We’d stop at the Dew Drop Inn. Franklin: What would you do there? Sparks: Oh, we danced and do whatever we wanted to do. Buy hamburgers and stuff. Save our lunch money and wait. Are we going to the Dew Drop Inn today? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then sometime, one of the elder people said, Miles, did you know the kids didn’t go to school all day today? They’d come down and tell Daddy. Daddy’d say, y’all didn’t go to school all day today? Where you been? [LAUGHTER] But I thank God for my parents, because they raised us in the admiration of the Lord and told us that God has no respective person, so why do you? And that’s the way it is with me, you know? Even when I’m on dialysis, I’ll pray for them all, because we’re all God’s children. God just wanted a bouquet of roses when he created all of us. And He did. It’s different colors and every denomination. So, this one guy said, how come we all can’t get along? [LAUGHTER] But I don’t have no problem with it. I don’t have no problem with any of it. Franklin: Do you remember any other important landmarks, like the Dew Drop Inn, from that era? Sparks: Well, it was all houses over there. Franklin: What about Virginia’s Chicken Shack? Sparks: Virginia down here? You know, Virginia’s shop was right down here on the corner. Franklin: No, I didn’t. Sparks: Yeah, Virginia restaurant were right here on the corner before you go across the tracks. Franklin: Oh, okay. Sparks: On A Street. Franklin: Did you ever eat there? Sparks: Oh, many times. You talking about, that woman could cook some biscuits. And her biscuits was—and you could get two or three biscuits out of hers and she’d put that jelly and preserves in between there and that ham, the ham they used to raise—shoot. Mm, mm. My dad raised his own pigs. Franklin: Oh, really? Sparks: Oh, yeah, my dad, his pig lot was over there. He had his own pigs and he had his own beef further up there. Mm-hmm, yup. He had the cow, he had the calves, he had the pigs, he had the bacon and he had the beef. And he had to. Bobby Sparks: How many kids he have? Sparks: Mm-hmm! Bobby Sparks: How many kids? Sparks: It was 15 of us. Franklin: Wow! Where are you in that lineup? Sparks: I’m the second. Franklin: Second-oldest? Sparks: Mm-hmm, I’m the second-oldest. Franklin: What are your siblings’ names, starting from the oldest going down? Sparks: Opal, Jeannette, Bobbie, Taylor, Ennis—where I have them at, all in the book? [LAUGHTER] Right there, in that folder. Right there in that folder there. Hungate: Right there, whole family, 15 of them. Sparks: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yup. This was us. See, God, it’s even wrote all on the back. That’s a lot of us. Franklin: Opal, Jeannette, Bobbie, Taylor, Shirley, Theartis, Donnell, Willy, Evelyn—that’s my wife’s name—LaWanda, Ennis, Theresa, Ervin, Gwendolyn, and Curtis. Wow. That is quite an age range, too. How old was your mother when she had you? Sparks: I don’t know how old my mom and dad was when they had me. [LAUGHTER] But I know I’m 60. Opal’s 61, and Bobbie gonna be 60. Franklin: I think you mean— Sparks: My other sister up in Tacoma, mm-hmm. Franklin: Here you go. Wow. That’s quite a large family. Sparks: Oh, you know what? When we was growing up, we had such a good time growing up together. And that’s why Daddy never would let us go to birthday parties. Because he would always tell us, it’s enough of y’all to have a birthday party out there in the yard. Franklin: How big was your house? Sparks: You know this house here on the corner of Douglas Street, upstairs and downstairs? Franklin: Yeah. Sparks: That was our house. That’s where I grew up at. Franklin: Just right down there. Sparks: Off A Street on Douglas. Right on the corner, and it’s a little piece of lot still next to it there. Franklin: Where do you live now? Sparks: I still live on Douglas. Franklin: Oh, okay. Sparks: 712 South Douglas. The oldest one, the two oldest ones had a choice when we got married. One could have a big wedding and the other one could have a down payment on a house. My older sister wanted the wedding. And I got the down payment on the house. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That’s a good deal! Sparks: And I’m still in the house. I’m still in my house. Franklin: Wow. Sparks: I go to California, but when I go to California, I just lock it up and go ahead on. The gardener come and cut the yard and everything, but. My boys was born in California. But they would come and spend the summer with my mom and dad. Franklin: How many children do you have? Sparks: I have—one, two, three. I have four sons. Four sons, mm-hmm. I lost my Waynie. I lost my youngest son. The last one I had, I lost him. Mm-hmm, yup. Franklin: I’m sorry to hear that. Sparks: But I enjoy them all. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Now, that’s where I’ll be going. My oldest son’ll be here in June so he can take me back to California because I won’t ride the train nor the plane nor the bus. So they’ll come drive me down, and when I get ready to come back, they’ll drive me back. Franklin: Oh, wow. To go back to the civil rights talk we were speaking of earlier. Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Sparks: Mm-mm. Franklin: Do you remember when the schools in the South were desegregated? Brown v. the Board of Education? Sparks: Oh, yeah! The black school had they schools and the white had they school. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember when my dad couldn’t even go in the front door of the market, but my mom could. And I’m for sure his mom could, too. I’m pretty sure that Anna Mae could, too, because you see them, they could pass, you’d think they was white. They could go in the front door. Franklin: How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights movements in the Tri-Cities? Sparks: Well, it helped out a lot in Kennewick. That’s the only problem they had, was in Kennewick. They never had a problem in Pasco and Richland. It was just Kennewick. Because when we’d even go over there to play basketball, Miss Booth would have to guard me and Sue Williams because we both was black. Franklin: Were you ever threatened, or--? Sparks: No, because Miss Booth kept us right up under her. And we beat them by 20 points. Franklin: What was different about Kennewick? Why do you think, looking back on it, what was Kennewick’s opposition to having blacks in their town? Sparks: Well, I don’t know, it was the older peoples. It was the old peoples who had settled there for a long time, had been there for a long time. But the young generation came behind them. Shoots, they was even going with the black boys. You know. And I say, it was just the older generation that had that going. But it’s the other generation came along, like me and I know my cousin, CW used to go with a girl named Marsha. She was white as I don’t know what and had blonde hair. Franklin: Was that shocking at all for some people? Sparks: Well, it was shocking then. After a lot of the old peoples moved on off, a lot of the elder people passed and went on that had—a lot of elder peoples in Kennewick had a lot of prejudice in them. But the young—the generation came behind them, they sure didn’t. Franklin: What do you think changed in that generation? Sparks: The generation came on after them. Franklin: Yeah, what was so different between the old people and the young people? What was it? Sparks: Well, the generation came on behind them, they didn’t have no picks and no choices. Everybody was created equal. But the older generation, they just figured everyone was Uncle Tom and all that, you know, couldn’t do this and couldn’t have this and couldn’t have that. I know when my dad was building the bigger house down there, and they was wondering what Mr. Miles was building. See, it didn’t bother Daddy because Daddy worked on the dam, him and Mr. Shaw. And he worked on the dams all over, you know. And my daddy was black as the ace of spades. But he was sweet as he could be. And see, my mom, you know, they got Indian and all that in them, so they could do whatever. You know, they was real light-skinned. They could go in anywhere. Momma didn’t have no problem in Kennewick; it was Daddy. But Momma couldn’t drive, so she couldn’t go unless Daddy took her. [LAUGHTER] And Daddy said, no, we’re going to Richland. We’re not going to Kennewick today. [LAUGHTER] And we’d go to Richland and Mom would go to Richland. Franklin: When you moved to California, were your experiences there, being black, were they different than here in Pasco? Sparks: Oooooh, it was a whole lot of different. Franklin: How so? Sparks: You could go anywhere you want to. Franklin: In California? Sparks: Mm-hmm. Franklin: And where did you move to in California? Sparks: I lived in—when I lived in California, I lived on 3rd Avenue, and I was right down the street from the Pasco High School. Franklin: Oh, when you lived in California. Sparks: When I lived in California. Franklin: Where? Sparks: I was down the street from Crenshaw High School. Franklin: Oh, okay, is that in LA? Sparks: Uh-huh, that’s in LA. I worked at the school. And then I worked at the convalescent home, I worked everywhere, and I went to Providence Theological Seminary College. And it was mixed; it didn’t have no all-black. It wasn’t all-black; it was a mixture of us. And I fellowship with them now. When I go to California, I go to that church, and we just have a ball. And they say, Sparks, you finally came back! You know. I never had no problem when I was going to school here in Pasco. It was just that when we went to Kennewick to play basketball. Franklin: I wanted to ask you about your husband. How did you meet him? Sparks: Well, my husband’s auntie lived there, this Smiths. Uncle Dave and Aunt Clement. They lived there. They lived, they got that big house next street over from me over there. QT come up and visit them. Franklin: Who? Sparks: My husband. Franklin: Did you cutie? Sparks: We call him QT but his name is Quilla. And we called him QT. Quilla Terrence Sparks. We called him Quilla. And he come up to visit his auntie, because his mom lived in Oxnard, California. That’s where he graduated in high school, in Oxnard, and played basketball. Franklin: And you met him when he came to visit? Sparks: I met him when he come to visit the first time. But I was still going to school. His mom and his grandma—his mom went to school with my mom. Franklin: In Kildare? Sparks: In Texas. His grandmother would come down to my mom house. Because my mom quilted a lot. They quilt a lot. And his grandma would come down and help Mom quilt. He came down and picked her up one time, and he asked me, who do you belongs to? And I said, my mom and my daddy. [LAUGHTER] You’d think your daddy would mind if I take you to get a hamburger? I say, you gotta ask my daddy. And from them on, he start—I was still in school. I was in high school. And he’d meet me everyday at the bus stop to walk me home. Mm-hmm. And I got married in my dad’s living room. In 1957, mm-hmm. Franklin: So you were 17, 18? Sparks: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Wow. Sparks: And I got married in my dad living room. Franklin: And then you moved to California with him? Sparks: In three days, he said, we moving to California with my mom. And that’s where my sons was born. But every year, he said, he told Momma, he said, I’ll let her come back every year to visit. And he kept that promise. Me and the kids, we’d come every year. And then his grandmother came and she stayed whenever the boys was born, she’d come and stay with me so she could help me take care of the boys. He had a sweet grandmother, mm-hmm. Franklin: So did his family come up to work at Hanford or the dams as well? Sparks: No. Not then. They came up later. I think Uncle Dave worked at Hanford. Didn’t Uncle Dave work at Hanford? Uncle Dave worked at Hanford. Franklin: That would be his uncle? Sparks: That’s his uncle. That’s his mom—his dad—no, that’s your mom? Bobby Sparks: His sister. My dad’s sister. Sparks: Mm-hmm, yup. See this is my cousin on my mom’s side. Franklin: Oh, okay. Sparks: His mom was on my mom’s side. His daddy is on my husband’s side. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. Franklin: Gotcha. Sparks: They all went to school together in Kildare, Texas. Franklin: That Kildare connection? Sparks: Mm-hmm. When one got a job, they made sure all the rest of them could get a job and come on out. We’re just one big happy family. Always have been, mm-hmm. Franklin: That’s wonderful. Sparks: You should come to our family reunion sometime. Franklin: I should. I think I know—I’ve interviewed about half of you so far. Sparks: Oh, honey. Franklin: I could get the other half in one fell swoop. Sparks: This church here will not hold all of us. Franklin: Yeah, it’s a big extended family. I’ve been finding that out— Sparks: That’s on both sides. That’s on both side, on momma’s side and on Daddy’s side. Now, see, I’m related to the Daniels on my daddy’s side. Mm-hmm, yep. And the Coles. Franklin: Yup. Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to migration, work, segregation and civil rights and how they’ve impacted your life in the Tri-Cities? Sparks: I just love the Lord because He changed the situation it was in the Tri-Cities. And just like He did it here, He’s going to do it other places, too. Now I can go to Kennewick and stay all day and don’t have no problem. Go over there and gas up and hit the street by the tracks and come on up the hill. [LAUGHTER] Don’t have no problem. Mm-mm. And you know, God can do anything but fail. And I always say, God had a purpose for you to go through something, so you realize what He could do for you. If you put your trust in Him. Now, you got to put your trust in God and depend on Him to open the pathway for you. And I’m a living witness, God have opened a lot of pathways that I didn’t think could ever be opened. Opened doors that I didn’t think would ever be open. God did all that. And I give Him the glory. Because He was the one worked on the people’s heart and caused them to have a turnaround and let them know that every one of you is My children. And I intend for every one of you to get along. And now you know, when some have them on dialysis, they say Reverend Sparks, can you do this for so-and-so-and-so-and-so? And I just say push me over then, I’ll pray for them right then and there, mm-hmm. We always supposed to be helpers, one to another. And when you help with one to another, you don’t have no problem. God is pleased with the road you traveling. I don’t know nobody that I dislike. Red, yellow, black, white, blue, whatever color. We all God’s children. Franklin: Well, Reverend, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us— Sparks: I thank you for taking time out to do what you’re doing in order to take the survey to help the peoples who have been here for a long time and know what you had to go through to get to where you at now. That’s a blessing. Franklin: Yeah. Sparks: Only God can do that. Nobody else but God. And I just thank God for His business in it. Because if it hadn’t been for God on our side, where would—that’s why you breathing today. God could take that breath any time he get ready. But He know you doing a good job, and you pleasing Him and he’s satisfied with the work you doing. He says, I’m going to let him live a while longer. But be ready when he come. [LAUGHTER] Don’t let Him catch you with your work undone. Franklin: Okay. Sparks: Okay? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I appreciate it. Sparks: It pays to be with the Lord. Because he’s the way and the only way. I wouldn’t have no other before me except the Lord. Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951-1957 2006- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Reverend Jeannette Sparks Subject The topic of the resource Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) McNary Lock and Dam (Or.) Basketball Segregation School integration Civil rights Description An account of the resource Reverend Jeannette Sparks moved to Pasco, Washington as a child in 1951. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/05/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F5062440c1c96697b8a1cbf306b6b00cf.JPG d6d018dc86ec42219474d096eac81420 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fb7e5e93ecb8d86ccc4e43070311b6984.mp4 0e20f9e91d4739df06707ceee0bb1df1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bobby Sparks Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Bobby Sparks on May 8th 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. We’ll be talking with Bobby about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record can you state and spell your full name for us? Bobby Sparks: My name is Bobby, B-O-B-B-Y, Ray, R-A-Y, Sparks, S-P-A-R-K-S. Franklin: Is Bobby your given name? Sparks: Bobby is my given name on my bible. It wasn’t a birth certificate; it was a bible. We recorded all the births on the bible. That’s my given name, yup. Franklin: Okay. They just went straight to Bobby. Sparks: They went straight to Bobby, yup. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Okay. Because I’m a Robert. Sparks: They didn’t change to Robert later. They said he’s a Bobby, they left me as a Bobby. Franklin: Right on. So, Bobby, your family migrated here during WWII, right? Or parts from your family migrated here during WWII from Kildare? Sparks: Yeah. Part of them migrated. Actually some of them partially migrated. They was migrant workers, they came up and worked a few months and then they went back to Kildare. That was my grandfather, Connie Davis. He came up during, like you said, in the ‘40s and stuff to work at the B Plant. Franklin: The B Reactor or B Plant? Sparks: He was actually working on building the reactor. He was doing—yeah, the reactor building. Franklin: You said his name was Connie Davis? Sparks: Connie Davis. Franklin: Great. Who else from your family came up? Sparks: Connie Davis, he was the only one that I know of that came up in that generation. He was one of the older ones. My uncles came up later. They might’ve came up in the early ‘50s and stuff, but-- Franklin: Who were they? Sparks: One was Dave Smith. Franklin: Okay. Sparks: James Sparks, and Alford Sparks. Franklin: When did you come? Sparks: I came to the Hanford in 1965. Franklin: 1965. Sparks: I was in the third grade. Franklin: Third grade, okay. When and where were you born? Sparks: I was born in Kildare, Texas in 1955. Franklin: How come your parents moved up here? Sparks: My father was a farmer. We had maybe 60 acres of land. So he farmed the land in Texas, in east Texas, and it was hard work, very hard work. What happened, his teacher, which was Vanis Daniels, moved to the Tri-Cities area. Franklin: His teacher? Sparks: He was one of his instructors, Vanis Daniels. Franklin: Okay. Is that Vanis Daniels, Senior? Sparks: Senior, yeah. He sent a little note back and said, hey, this is not too bad! You guys need to join me in the Hanford Site. That’s how my dad got here. He came up before I did. He came up a year before the family moved, checked it all out and got us a home and then we moved up. Franklin: What else do you know about your dad’s life before you came up here? Sparks: My dad was farmer, like I said, he worked on the farm for years. He went to the military, fought in the war. He was just a hardworking man. What he did, he fed the family by hunting and fishing and gathering. We did a lot of fishing and hunting and raising animals. He built his own house down in Kildare, Texas. Basically, being a father of fourteen children, he didn’t have much time for anything else except for raising the children. Franklin: Wow, so you have thirteen siblings? Sparks: Yeah, I have thirteen siblings. And back in Texas, that was not very unusual, because they basically got married when they was very young, thirteen, fourteen-year-olds and they started having children. Franklin: How old were your parents when they got married? Sparks: My mother, I believe she was like fourteen and my dad, he might have been eighteen. They were very young when they got married. Franklin: What is your mother’s name? Sparks: My mother’s name is Annie May Davis. Franklin: Davis, okay. So Connie Davis, your grandfather, was your mother’s father. Sparks: Mother’s father, yeah. My dad’s father died when he was really young. So, what he did, he actually went up to eighth grade—no, no, it wasn’t even the eighth grade. I think when he was like in the sixth grade, he had to drop out of school and help raise the family. He ended up not only raising his brothers and sisters, but he actually, after they were grown, he raised us, also. Franklin: Tell me about your mom’s life in Texas. What did she do, and her education and things like that. Sparks: My mom, since she got married at a very early age, she dropped out of school when she was like in the eighth grade. Basically her life was, she took care of the family. She cleaned and took care of home, cooked, and just took care of the business around the house. My dad, he worked in the lumberyard, he actually worked on the railroad down in Texas also. And because the hours were so long, she had to take care of the children. The weirdest thing about the house that we were born in, we had no electricity, we had wooden stoves. In order to wash the clothes they had a little creek in the back of the house, and we had to get the water. She was—basically, she didn’t have all the microwaves and the stuff that we have now, so everything that she did, she started cooking in the morning and cooked all day. So that was her job was to-- Franklin: Did the house have running water? Sparks: Didn’t have running water, we actually had a well in the back of the house where she had to go in and pull the water up out of the well. When she washed the clothes, she had a washboard that she would use. It was from the old school, very old school; we had a wooden stove, we had to go gather wood. For Christmas, we’d go out into our property, cut a big tree and make our own decorations and decorate it. The community we lived in, in Kildare was a very—it was a divided community, it was a black community and there was a white community. We were basically self-sufficient. We didn’t mingle very much with the Caucasians. So we kind of had our own little city, our own little things that we did. We canned, we hunted, we gathered; basically took care of each other in the community. It was kind of old school. If your house burned, we’d go over and help you build your house back up. If I start rambling too much, let me know. Franklin: No, no. It’s really important to kind of set the stage from where—how life was there and why so many people left. What do you know about your parents’ initial experience of coming to work at Hanford and finding a place to live? Sparks: As far as my mother, when they initially got here, there was this placed called the Navy Homes, Navy Homes in Pasco; that’s where a lot of the people moved into. You have thirteen, fourteen sisters and brothers, where do you live in? You go over to the military base and they had houses built in like A-frame homes that we lived in. So they had no issues finding a place to live. My dad, because he was a laborer, it was easy for him to find work in the Hanford Site. Because they were looking for—it was a big demand for hard workers, and my dad was a very hard worker. So he actually got into pouring concrete. Once they got here, their whole social life was around their community, the black people. They didn’t mingle much with the Caucasians. Franklin: Okay, but they also—at that point, there was a pretty large amount of people from Kildare that had moved, that your parents were either related to or knew pretty well, right? Because you would’ve been related either by marriage or by blood either to the Daniels and the Mitchells and the Browns and that big network. Sparks: We have a huge, huge extended family. The Miles, the Davises. The community, when we get together at Kurtzman Park, I mean, it was like a family reunion. Everybody was there. So they had a great networking of friends that they ran around with. Franklin: How old were you, you said you came in ‘65? Sparks: I was in the third grade. Franklin: Third grade. Sparks: Third grade when I came. I went to Longfellow Elementary School. Franklin: When you came, what were your first impressions when you arrived? Sparks: Because we didn’t have all the convenience, it was like it was the greatest place I’ve ever seen in my life. I can actually remember traveling up from Kildare in the station wagon with my uncle. And I remember driving into a restaurant and going in like an Arctic Circle, and having my first ice cream cone at the Arctic Circle. It was like, hey, this is the greatest thing in the world. And to get here, walk into the house and hit a light switch and the lights come on, we didn’t have the kerosene lights. It was actually great to me, I thought we was living the best life in the world, from what we came from to what we had here in the state of Washington. Franklin: Wow. How long did you stay at the Navy Homes? It wasn’t your permanent residence? Sparks: We actually stayed at the Navy Homes, we stayed there until I was, I think I was in junior high school. Franklin: Oh, okay. Sparks: Is when my dad finally bought a house on Elm Street in Pasco, in east Pasco, mm-hm. Franklin: What was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to? Sparks: As a kid, you don’t notice things. My mom and dad, like I said, they took care of us. We went to school, we came home. Because my dad was into spending a lot of time with his kids, we did a lot of fishing, a lot of hunting, a lot of gardening. We weren’t able, when I was in elementary school, to go play AAU baseball and all that stuff. So we weren’t mingling very much in the community, because we stayed to ourselves, because we were from Texas. When you’re from Texas, you kind of know what to do and what not to do, what you can get away with, and what you cannot get away with. We had learnt that at a very young age. As far as elementary school, not an issue. Now when you start growing up a little bit and you get into junior high school and you start mingling, and kids are not very kind. They’re not, they’re very hard. I remember when I got in junior high—it was actually in my sixth grade in elementary school, because I had a Southern accent, very, very strong Southern accent, and I would say yes, ma’am, and no, ma’am. I was in a class with kids who didn’t talk like that. So right away they started criticizing. You can’t talk that way, that’s the way slaves used to talk. We don’t say yes ma’am or no ma’am; we say no. Even this older lady pulled me aside one time—I used to mow her lawns—and she said, no, we don’t talk like that. They made us do that in Texas. Don’t call me yes, sir and no, sir. Things like that we had to deal with. Another thing that they did, when I noticed what was going on, the first class they put me in, they put me in a special ed. Class. Because I was Southern, they mistake the Southern accent for I had a learning disability. In that class, it turned out, they had all the other kids that were like the really bad actors, and so we were all in the same class. When you get in that class, like in the sixth and fifth grade, they normally take you all through that system in that class, special ed. type of class. What happened was, I had a teacher, his name was Ted Ogata, and Mr. Ogata, he pulled me aside and said, Bobby, you’re like in fifth or sixth grade now. He said, if you don’t get your act together, you’re going to be in this class for the rest of your life. And in that class you actually had a different lunches, you rode in a different bus to school--I mean, it was really isolated. Mr. Ogata kind of became my mentor. He worked with me, took me to his home, and he was able to switch me from, at the time I was like a D to F student, flunking out of school. Within a year, I was able to increase my grades up to—when I got in junior high, they started putting me in honor classes, because I had one person that stepped in and influenced me. Franklin: Did your parents ever talk about their adjustment here, and what their initial thoughts were or how they adjusted from Texas to the Tri-Cities? Sparks: Like I said, my mother, she worked in the home. And because they were from Texas, they knew, they were very polite. They didn’t have many experience, like when my dad would come home and say this man called me out of my name. Because my dad was a big man, I mean, he had arms like this, so not very many people wanted to cross my dad. My mother, she was the most loving lady you ever seen in your life. So when you’re nice, and kind, and loving, it’s kind of hard for people to treat you bad. She was the kind of person, she treated her enemies like she wanted to be treated. They kind of, what went around came around. Since she was nice, they kind of treated her nice. I never remember my mother sit back and say, this person spit on my face, this person closed the door on my face, I couldn’t go into this restaurant because there was a sign. They never shared that with us. They kind of sheltered us from that. Franklin: What about culturally? Was it a tough adjustment for your parents to leave the family and friends, and kind of culture of Texas and come to an environment where things were—because Texas, segregation had been on the books and it had been upfront. In the North, it had existed but it was more subtle. Sparks: It was very subtle up North. And because my dad, when he came here, he didn’t experience the true issues that came with segregation. When he came here, he was in demand, we need workers. So there was a demand for laborers; he could get a job. Housing at that time was booming, and there was a community that he could move into to get a home. So he didn’t have those kinds of issues when he got here. His mother was already here also. She had a home, my uncles had a home. The east Pasco neighborhood was our neighborhood. And that community, it was houses, it was stores, it was restaurants, they even had a placed called a cotch ball, that’s where, if they wanted to go out to the casinos late at night, they had their own little casinos where they could hang out and drink. Franklin: What was it called? Sparks: Call it cotch ball. Franklin: Can you spell that? Sparks: Cotch. Spelled it just like a cotch. I can’t spell it, but they just called it a cotch ball. Like a couch. Like-- Franklin: Oh, I got you. Sparks: And actually, these little places boomed up in east Pasco. When all the other bars and things closed, the Hanford workers would come out late at night and they could gamble and hang out at the cotch ball and have dinner and all kind of other activities went on at the cotch balls. They had their own community. Because my dad was used to that isolation in Texas, he would go and work at the Hanford Site, but all of his social life was in that little community that we had there. That’s why, like I said, my dad, he never talked about it, my mom didn’t talk about it very often. Because my mom, taking care of the house, the only time she experienced stuff is when she went shopping. And even then, because she is a very quiet woman, she didn’t share those dramatic stories with her kids. Franklin: Sure. How would you describe life in the community, east Pasco? Sparks: It was—when you’re poor and everybody else around you is poor, it was bliss. We hadn’t been exposed to people that was very affluent and had the beautiful homes and stuff because we stayed to ourselves. I mean, I would get up and go to school, and hang out with all my buddies all day, just a normal life for us. The only time we started seeing issues is when we started becoming more aware of ourselves and what was happening in the community. When you get a little older in junior high, and high school and you go to college, and then you see that culture shock between what you got and what others got. And then you start mingling with people from all over the state, from the Seattle area, Spokane area, and then you start seeing the chaotic, the racism and stuff that was going on. But as a kid coming up, until I was in probably ninth grade, everything was—to me was—I had no issues. Franklin: What did you do in your spare time? Sparks: As a kid, like I said, my dad—we spent a lot time with my dad fishing in Eagle Lake and Moses Lake, and all over the state fishing and hunting, working in the garden. My dad, he was like, he brought up all of his Southern crops up here with him, the okra, the black-eyed peas, the cotter peas. And what he did was, he had a five-acre lot of land, and what he would do, he would farm that lot of land and people would come from all over the state to get his crops. He actually had a huge pig pen and we had pigs and cows and stuff. My normal day would be getting up at like 5:00, going out with my dad, working in the farm. Then after I worked in the farm, we’d come home. My mom would always have a big breakfast with biscuits, and gravy, and ham. We would have a huge breakfast, and then we would go to school. Go to school all day, get off of school like at three, we would come home and my dad would always have chores for us to do. You create stuff. He’d say, son, go pull out those nails out of the boards. He’d have big piles of boards. So we couldn’t go out and play until we did our chores. Dad was very strict; it was only one rule: it was his way or the highway. Because he didn’t have time to negotiate with that many kids. He had to have a plan and he stuck to the plan. That’s how we were raised, me and all of my sisters and brothers. Franklin: Do you remember any particular community events from when you were a kid? Sparks: Oh, we had so many events. The biggest we had was, we had the Juneteenth. That’s when the whole community got together and we celebrate the freedom of slavery at Texas, because all of us was at Texas. At that time, it was like the whole Kurtzman Park, everybody would show up at the park and we would and we would play baseball and have basketball tournaments, have fashion shows, and have preaching and singing. It was just a huge festival that we did. That was the biggest, is the Juneteenth activities, which we did once a year. But with my family, because we had such a huge family, we had a lot of—both side of my family is huge. So we would always have family reunions and everybody would come from down South, and from California, and we would get together, and just have a great time. Go out and rent a park and take over the whole park, get to know our family that we hadn’t seen for years. Franklin: Right on. Did you attend church? Sparks: Oh, yes, I attended church. Franklin: And what church did you attend? Sparks: All of us that came from Texas, there was a church called Saint John the Baptist Church, that’s in Texas. That’s where I originally started going to church. After we moved to the Tri-Cities, all of my uncles and aunties, and nieces went to New Hope Baptist Church. So our family joined New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, and that’s where we spent a lot of our spare time. They had vacation bible school, they had dinners, so a lot of our social life was centered around the church. Franklin: What role did the church play in the black community? Sparks: Actually, the church, if you go back and look at it, it was one of the things that started the civil rights movement. You look at the fact that God created man and made all of us equal. So then you start looking at a lot of the preachers and stuff in our community. It’s like, hey, we’re second to none. You look at a man based on his character but not by the color of his skin. It was very instrumental, a lot of the meetings, Sister Barton, who is one of the city councilmen in the Tri-Cities, she went to my church. The Mitchells, sister Mitchell, their mom went to our church. So a lot of their training as far as speaking publicly, they developed that skill in the church. And their beliefs that all men are created equal and you should treat everyone like you want to be treated, that basic fact was nurtured in the church, and then it grew out into the rest of the community. Even now, the church is the springboard for what happens in that community over there. Because all the meetings, the influential people that’s into the movement came out of the church. Franklin: Were there any opportunities here that were not available where your parents came from? Sparks: Oh, there were so many opportunities. Because it was such a little country town, didn’t have the colleges, didn’t have the financial support. If I had have stayed in Texas—I got to tell you a story. My dad when he moved here, he came here first and he got set up in homes. What he did, he sent a letter back to my mother and he said it was really tough out here, because he was away from his family. He had left his children. He did like they did at Hanford Site; he actually left his crops in the field, because he had to move up here really quick. And because he had left all of that he went through a state where he was—you can imagine what he went through, leaving all his children. So he went to a state where he was discouraged. He wrote a letter to my mom, and he told my mom, he said, well, I think I’m going to come back, because he missed his children. My sister, Frankie, intercepted that letter and she knew we didn’t have the same opportunities in Texas as we would have here in the state of Washington, as far as education, homes, sending us children to some of the better schools and stuff. She didn’t give that letter to my mom. That’s why we got here, is because she saw that the opportunities here was really great for us. Franklin: Where are you in the sibling order? Sparks: There is fourteen of us and I sit right there in the middle. I am number seven. Franklin: Oh, yeah? What is the range between the oldest and the youngest? Sparks: My oldest sister is like 71, and my youngest sister is like 40, 42. So it was a huge range. So for many years—you asked what did my mother do? She made babies. And that’s a lot of labor, a lot of labor. Franklin: Yes. In what way were opportunities here limited because of segregation and racism? Sparks: Well, it starts back, if you were a black man and came to the Tri-Cities, you joined the labor local. The labor local took basically unskilled workers, and they taught you how to pull a jackhammer, they taught you how to dig holes. Now, it’s been developed a little higher than it was then, more skilled labor. But it was just—basically, the farmers came and they gave them a skill and that’s what they did. Now what has happened since the Labor Hall developed, then with the changes in the society that the labor unions had to start bringing in more blacks into the halls. When you get into the Electricians’, the Pipefitters’ locals, they had to open it up because of the laws had changed. And even in the Hanford Site, for years, they didn’t have blacks that was moving up through the ranks, but with the government organizations, you can’t do that. They actually went out with the equal opportunity employee situation, they started bringing blacks in, making them managers, working in the mail rooms: not just the laborers anymore, they started becoming skilled laborers. With the skilled laborer and the money they were making, now they could afford to send their kids to college. The kid has more time to play sports now, he doesn’t have to work in the orchards with his dad. For my case, what it did for me after opening up and my dad started making money, it allowed me to start doing sports; I didn’t have to get up in the morning and work in the garden and stuff anymore. Because I had been a hard worker my whole life, I was just a natural in sports. Franklin: Makes sense. What schools did you go to? Sparks: I went to Longfellow Elementary School, I went to Captain Grey Elementary, I went to McLoughlin Junior High, and I graduated from Pasco High School in 1974. I got recruited to wrestle at the University of Washington from 1974 to 1980, and I graduated from the University of Washington in 1982. Franklin: What did you get your degree in? Sparks: I got my degree in business economics. Franklin: How did racism or segregation affect your education? Sparks: Like I said, I ran into Mr. Ted Ogata, and one man changed my whole perspective on education. Before then, if I had stayed in the system the way that it was set up, I would not had the opportunity to go to the University of Washington. Because even though you get a certificate through the special programs, you cannot apply for the colleges and stuff. If I had not have had Mr. Ogata, I would not have gotten a scholarship to go to the University of Washington. So it would have affected me. Because I did have someone who believed in me and he saw great things that I could do, he pushed me so I got out of that program. But a lot of my buddies did not get out of it, so it did affect them. It affect their income now, it affect their lifestyle, because they didn’t have the same opportunities and opportunities to advance and go to college. Franklin: Right, they would have been shut out of a lot of-- Sparks: They would’ve been shut out, would’ve been shut out, yeah. Franklin: To an education. Sparks: And me, when I was in the University of Washington, one way it affected me—when I got to U-Dub, I started seeing the culture changes and I started seeing the culture shock, the difference in those that have and those that have not. I remember taking a—I think I was taking a logic class and I was struggling with this class. Oh, I was struggling bad. So I was barely getting a C. So the professor brings me into his office and says, you might as well drop out of school. What are you doing here anyway? You’re not going to graduate with a C. I looked at him and I said, well, I may not graduate, but I’ll tell you what. I said, when I get out of school, I’ll make more money than you are making right now. Because I know how much you’re making, and I can drop out right now and become and electrician and make double what you’re making right now. What I did, I wasn’t a nice guy anymore. You challenge me, then I would fight back. And that was a good thing, because you had to have tough skin to make it through the system. Franklin: Yeah. Could you describe any interactions you or your parents had with other people from other parts of the Tri-Cities? Sparks: Oh, yeah, I had—because I did sports, I interacted with a lot of people from Pasco, Kennewick, Richland, Walla Walla, Wenatchee. I got to meet a lot of different people. Which was probably the best thing that happened to me because I was raised in an isolated community. So basically I had to end up learning how to speak two languages. Speak the language of my community and speak the language in college, you had to be able to relate to a lot of people. You know, it’s not integrated. If it’s segregated, you can’t get that interface, you can’t grow. You don’t feel comfortable. If you don’t feel comfortable around all races, you can’t go work at Pacific National Laboratory, because we got people from all over the country. You got to be able to get along with everyone. Franklin: All over the world, right? Sparks: All over the world. We got them from Japan, we got them from Russia, all over. So that interfacing works to your advantage when you get older. Because now when I interview you, I can speak your language, because I got to sell myself. How can I sell myself if I’m not interfacing with people in the community? So sports helped me a lot in that way. Because I was able to travel all over the United States, even in high school, going to Texas, going to Iowa, Denver, all over the world. I even had an opportunity to go to Japan to mingle with my teammates. We even traveled in a van together from here all the way down to Iowa, circle Oklahoma, go to all the universities, then come back. So we developed a lot of long-lasting friendships. Franklin: So you graduated in ’82? Sparks: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Then did you come out to work at the Hanford Site? Sparks: Oh, that’s a long story. [LAUGHTER] I graduated ’82. I had a degree in business economics. I went to University of Washington for five years, and I got out, and I said, I got to go make some money now. So my very first job interview, the guy said, you know what? I applied for a bank. Business economics, go to the bank and get a job. We’ll pay you eight bucks an hour to do this and this and this, and then after so many years, you’d be up to so many bucks an hour. So I went back to what I told that college professor. I said, I can make more money as an electrician than I can make working at the bank. So what I did, I applied for the apprenticeship program, IBEW, electrical apprenticeship program. That’s how I got to work at the Hanford Site, as an electrical apprentice. And I guess I’ll go one year back. When I was in college, I had an opportunity to come out here and work as an intern. I worked at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory my sophomore year in college. And it’s the craziest thing. My job was, they put me in an animal research laboratory and they had beagles. And the craziest thing, my job was to smoke the beagles. And when Vanis was telling a story about the beagles, it was like identical to my story. But I did it as a summer intern. So when I started there, I got my feet in the door for PNL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, so when I came back—which was years later—and applied for a job there, the payroll number that they gave me when I was a kid, I got that same payroll number, which is 35810, to work for the laboratory. So, yeah, I did work at the Hanford Site as an electrician apprentice for four years. When I became a journeyman wireman, I applied for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and I actually became an electrician at the laboratory also. Franklin: Where did you work out at the Hanford Site? Sparks: I actually worked throughout the Hanford Site. I worked at the 221-T Plant, I worked at, there was a reactor, I never remember the name of it, but it was out by the river, the deactivated reactor, we did research in there. I worked at the 300 Area, throughout the buildings in the 300 Area, multiple buildings. I worked at FFTF. I worked at—actually, one of the jobs I had was they was going to automate FFTF, and my job was to make the panels that operate the computers and stuff and put those together, the interface panels. Franklin: What on-the-job training did you receive, if any? Sparks: Basically, I took four years on-the-job training as an apprentice. I had a journeyman wireman, and they basically take you from doing absolutely nothing about electricity, then you almost become like a plasma physicist. You know everything about it. Actually, I got to the point where I got challenged and I decided to start my business. So I actually started electrical contracting business along with working at the Hanford Site. Because always—my position was always—I knew if they ever let me go, then I would have my own business to fall back on. Franklin: Good. Sparks: Yeah. Franklin: [YAWN] Sorry, excuse me. Did you acquire any experience or skills on the job that helped you later in life? Sparks: Like I said, the skills that I learned on the job actually led me into become a businessman. I actually opened my own business, electric contracting business. Franklin: What’s that called? Sparks: J and B Sparks Electric. Jevon, my son’s name is Jevon, my daughter’s name is Brittany. So I named it after my son—J and B Sparks Electric. Franklin: Kind of a good coincidence that your last name is Sparks. Sparks: Sparks! Everywhere I go, it’s perfect. Automatic advertisement. That’s the Sparks. Pick that guy up! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Can you describe a typical workday out on the Site? Sparks: Now? Or when? Franklin: [COUGH] Sorry, excuse me. I have something stuck in my throat. Sparks: Now? Franklin: No, like when you were out on Site as an apprentice when you were working out at Hanford. Sparks: Actually, as an apprentice, I worked at the WPPSS plant. So my typical day at WPPSS plant would—I would come in at work, there was a crew of probably 50 electricians, we’d meet together. They’d have this guy who would be assigned to me, he would be my journeyman wireman. His supervisor would come up and have a plan of a day meeting. At the plan of a day meeting, he’d give us a task to do. Today, we want you guys to go in those manholes—because all around WPPSS there’s manholes—and we want you to take every manhole up, and we want to drill a hole in that manhole and we’re going to have a pipe to come up through it. So my very first job as apprentice—you’ve seen the movie Conan, when he’s walking around—remember that one deal he had a job where he was actually walking around the whale? My first job was like Conan the Barbarian. I’m out there walking with this big old tap, making holes in these big old huge manhole covers. Franklin: Oh, wow. Sparks: So that was my typical day. You go out, you get a job, and a lot of your jobs would last for, you know, six months. So then once you get your job, you can report to your job site and do the work. Yeah. Franklin: What do you recall about working at B Reactor or any of the other buildings and structures still present on the Site today? Sparks: What I recall is—I was from University of Washington. So I’m coming from a college that’s got 40,000 people or more. Big, huge structures and libraries and stuff all the way, all around the place. So my very first thing, driving up to that reactor, it’s like somebody dropped a nuclear bomb on it. This whole area was just—nothing was there. Nothing but desert and weeds, and I’m thinking, oh, man, what happened here? How did I—I died and went to hell. [LAUGHTER] So my first day on the job site, I drive out to that reactor, and my car break down. So I’m in the middle of this desert, it’s cold and ice, and my car broke down. And that’s when they had the bus system come through. This guy came through in a bus and picked me up and took me back downtown. But it was really bad. It was really—the rules were not the same as the rules we have now in the building. Franklin: How so? Sparks: I remember one building that I worked in, I walked into the building and there was a research project set up. And I looked at the floor, and I said, it looked like the concrete had melted away. It turned out they was doing some type of research and lost whatever they were using, and it actually built a hole in the concrete. And I’m looking at that and said, I don’t want to work here. Because I thought it was not safe. But then over the years, the safety did improve and things are better out there now. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors or management? Sparks: I would have to go back to when I was an apprentice. During that time, because a lot of the guys that was working here was what you call travelers. And the travelers that were guys, like out of, say, Texas, and they were up here looking for work. So the travelers had a different attitude about the people that they work with. Most of them was very humble people, and they taught me everything that I needed to know. But every once in a while you’d run into one who wants to treat you like an apprentice. He want you to run and get his coffee, run and get his lunch and stuff for him. But because I was from a background where, being a wrestler, I had been exposed to the senior guy on the team, you would—that’s the way he treated you. The fraternities, they treated you that way in the fraternity. So in my mind, I said, this is just a pecking order. Because the money is so good, no way in the world am I going to walk away from this. One of the worst incidents that I had on a job site was at WPPSS number 2. Actually, this is when I was in college and I came there to work as an intern. And I was working with one of the older guys there. We were carrying two-by-fours on our shoulder and we was taking them over and stacking them in a pile. Well, he walked past me and hit me upside the head with the two-by-four. And the guy looks at me and I said, oh, that was an accident, huh? He said, yeah, just an accident. But then he came back again. This time, he hit me again, he swung it around, and hit me upside the head. I said, you can’t do that again. Then he looked at me, called me out of my name, and he say, you know what? He said, you took my son’s job. You shouldn’t even be out here. He said, I’m going to kick your butt. So he was behind—there was a big wall like that wall over there. This guy jumped on me, tackled me to the ground—and I’m thinking I’m making more money in my life, but if I don’t get this guy off me, he’s going to hurt me back here. So I actually had to put something on him, get him off of me, control him. And the weirdest thing about it is that we were working in this area where it was like wall was here and wall was there, and it turned out the guys at the job were sitting up there looking at us, and they did not stop it. And I said, why did you do that? They said, oh, we figured it was just a matter of time before you take care of this guy. So yeah, it was some cases of that out there. It wasn’t all good. Yeah. And another, to go back to the social part of the life, I used to go bowling a lot in Kennewick. After a wrestling match, me and my cousin was out bowling. And we were sitting there bowling. This is when bowling was big time, I mean, the bowling alley was full. Everybody was there, that’s where everybody hung out. Franklin: Was this the mid-to-late ‘70s? Sparks: Oh, yeah. It was big time. I’m sitting there bowling, having a good time. And I look up, and there’s two policemen coming in. And I say, what in the heck is this? So everybody—because he comes right out to the bowling lanes. He say, everybody up against the wall! So he makes everybody go up against the wall. He say, you two! He grabbed me and my cousin, and he say, you guys over here. And they took us out. I mean, the whole bowling alley, everybody’s watching—common criminals. I said, what in the world is going on? What happened? He said, a store had got robbed, he said it was a black guy—two black guys, one was tall and one was short. Well, I’m 5’9”. My cousin, he’s about 6’4”, so we fit the description. And the weirdest thing about it is that after he grabbed up, threw us up against the wall, because I’m a wrestler, my next, first reflex is to react. And he went just like this. And if I had reacted further, I would have been shot. So anyway, he took me to the Kennewick police station, they booked us. And I said, can I call my coach? And they said, why? I said, if I call him, he’ll tell you where I was at when this crime happened. You said the crime happened around 6:00. So I get my coach on the phone, I say, hey, I’m in jail. Can you get on this phone and tell this guy where I was at at 6:00? So he gets on the phone, he said, that is Bobby Sparks, and at 6:00 he was out in Walla Walla. We had a wrestling match in Walla Walla. Because he’s our lightweight, he was on the mat at this time. Will you please let him go? So anyway it, like I said, as I got older and as I started mingling, I started seeing a lot of the racism. Even, this was in, like you say, in the early ‘60s and early ‘70s. Franklin: Let’s see here. You already kind of covered some of these. How did your racial background figure into your working experiences? Sparks: You know, it’s the craziest thing. Here I am, let me give you my credentials. I went to University of Washington; I got a degree in business economics. IBEW Local 112, I got electrical training, journeyman wireman. I got my business license, which is electrical administrators for the State of Washington when I started working. So you look at all of my credentials, you say, this guy can go in, and he can get a job anywhere he wants to, based on his past performance. You know, if you look at my application for the companies that I applied for—which, I just found this out recently, and it kind of pisses me off—which is a good deal, I guess, I shouldn’t complain. But instead of going in and hiring me based on my credentials, based on the skill level that I had, they brought me in as an equal opportunity employee, as a special employee. And to me, because I’ve always been a competitor my whole life, I’m thinking, why you got to bring me in that way, instead of bringing me in just normal? So that kind of insulted me, yeah. Franklin: Right, because that idea is to counteract the bias inherent in hiring and to get us to a world that would be strictly merit-based, that’s the ideal. Even though it doesn’t exist. But you’re saying, I’m coming in under merit, but we’re so far away from that for blacks, that you’re going to bring me in under equal opportunity. Sparks: Equal opportunity employee. And I looked at that—because I’ve been a competitor. I was a national wrestling champ coming out of high school. I went to University of Washington, I went to NCAAs and I wrestled and I competed at that level. So then to say, you got to change the playing ground for me to get hired, it blew me away. Yeah, blew me away. But anyway, those are some of the things that, because we are in the state of Washington, it’s the unspoken things. And I found this out after about two, three years ago, when I was looking at some of my forms that had the special Affirmative Action stamp on it. And I’m thinking, affirmative action? And the amazing thing about it is that after I’d worked there, and that’s one of the things that I was going to show you, is the accomplishments that I have received after I got there. From EFCOG, which is one of the biggest DOE operations out there, they gave me a special award. They take me to Washington, DC and I got the DOE Secretary appreciation award. So that affirmative deal on my application just blew me away. But anyway. Franklin: That’s interesting, though, because it seems like one could still argue that without that program you might not have been hired at all. Right? I mean, because that was set up to—because blacks weren’t being hired on merit to begin with. Sparks: You’re correct. If that had not existed, I would not have been hired. But to me, that’s a slap in the face. You bring in a man who meets all the merits, but he’s not given the opportunity because of the color of his skin. But if I hadn’t have gotten hired, I would have been successful anyway. Because I would have just stepped out on my own and probably become a contractor. Which was what I did. But anyway, that’s just a twist. Franklin: That’s an interesting wrinkle into the whole thing. In what ways did the security and/or secrecy at Hanford impact your work or daily life? Sparks: Hm! Even after, like you say, after the early ‘40s and stuff, there was still a lot of proprietary type of things at the Hanford Site and a lot of secrecy. Because a lot of work we was doing was still with—you couldn’t go out—I can’t share right now on this some of the things that I do. So it’s still—it’s not the fact that we building the bomb, but it’s fact that we have companies that we’re working for that were proprietary type of stuff. I can’t just go in and take a picture and give it to you and you show it on this. So the secrecy is still there. But it’s just for other reasons. Franklin: You mentioned how you were treated on the job. What kinds of interactions did you have with coworkers and supervisors outside of work? Sparks: Outside of work, it’s like they say, the church is the most segregated thing on Sunday morning. Franklin: It’s funny, Vanis and Edmon said that yesterday. Sparks: It is, it’s the same thing. So it’s kind of the same way with—I go to Dallas to a convention and stuff, and one thing I’ve learnt because I’m from Texas, I don’t want to go to convention and hang out and drink with you. Because I’ve been on a wrestling team, and we go to, say University of Minnesota. And as a team, we sit around at a bar and we drinking and we having a good time. Then all of the sudden a little boy who’s got a little problem with me wants to challenge me. So in order for me to stop having those confrontations, then before we get too drunk, I’m leaving. So I learned that a long time ago, at U-Dub, at Arizona State, a lot of the college, you know. You get too much liquor and the tongue gets kind of loose and I get a little upset if you call me out of my name. Franklin: Yup. You kind of mentioned some of your first impressions of the working conditions, with the concrete melting—you know, the spill and things. What were the most difficult aspects of the job? Sparks: Because I was from sports, at the time, I was in great physical shape. So as far as the physical side of the job, there was no challenge there. I did have issues with some of the double standards on the job site. Franklin: Such as? Sparks: Such as, you and I sitting here, right, and they having a plan of the day meeting. I’m a journeyman, you’re an apprentice. Normally, at a plan of the day meeting, they come to the journeyman and give him the job. But it got to the point that they started going to the apprentice, give the apprentice the job for the day, and then we would walk out. So, I don’t even think they were aware of it; it was like, that happens. So, just that type of deal. The unfair treatment on the job site. Yeah. Franklin: Let’s see here. So, you mentioned that you worked kind of all over 300 Area, 221, FFTF. How did you feel at the time, during the Cold War, about working on the development of nuclear weapons? Sparks: See, I’m not that old. I’m only 63. So I didn’t have anything to do with the development of the nuclear weapon. My job was more, after the weapons were developed, I got with the research and development laboratory, and our mission was a little different. Our mission was to clean it up. Franklin: Right, but in the ‘80s, Hanford was still producing plutonium for the US nuclear weapon stockpile. Sparks: They were producing plutonium, but, like you say, they weren’t using it. It wasn’t like it was a secret, we’re going to drop this on a country because we’re at war. To me it was more like, especially research, they were finding the effects of it, they were trying to find some medical use. Because I went with research and development. We were more into separating it out than stockpiling it. But you know, it was just like, the threat wasn’t there, we were just trying to compete with Russia, let Russia and all these other countries know that we have it. But Battelle’s mission was different. And a lot of their funding was not for the development of plutonium. The majority they worked with was research and development, maybe for the cigarette companies, automotive companies, and other type of technology. Franklin: Right, what do they call it? It’s like non-1830 or something? Sparks: That type of work. And most of the jobs that I did was that type of work. I wasn’t into the development of the bomb. Franklin: What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Sparks: The most important legacy of the Hanford Site—I saw the guy from Japan. He came here and he saw the bomb and stuff. And they talked to him, because I guess he was from Nagasaki. And he saw the effects of it. Then after he saw the effects of it, then he comes out here. And we were still praising the bomb. So for him to look at that, and see his family’s affected by it and stuff—it was like, a bad thing. But now, because it’s cleaning up and trying to rebrand itself and show that we’re trying to get away from the mission of doing this, and now our mission is to help and develop, like you say, different isotopes to help for cancer, isotopes for prostate cancer and all that stuff. Even though they developed that bad stuff, as long as you can use it for some good things, then that is great. You look at the guy that cried when he saw the bombs, the Richland bomb out there. But you look at it, and I look back at it and I say, if we hadn’t have dropped the bomb, then how many lives would have died, and how many lives was killed at Pearl Harbor? So some good things came out of it, but you can also see the power of the bomb. Now man is able to wipe itself out. So now we have to have some ways of controlling that energy out there after we release, let it out. Franklin: What did you—so you came here in the mid-‘60s and then grew up here, what did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Sparks: The prior history? The only history I had of the African workers is, like I say, when I visited my granddaddy in Kildare, Texas, and he had a picture of the Hanford—I think it was one of the old pictures of the Hanford Site. He showed me that picture. So the only history I had was the history of my grandfather gave me of the workers coming out here. They don’t talk about the hardship. They’re from Texas, and they’re real private guys. They’re macho men. We just suck it up, put up with it. So he didn’t go into great detail. It was more, to him, it was like, he was proud, because he knew that I was working there at a place where he had built and he was instrumental in pouring the concrete, getting the concrete in. Franklin: Did he talk about that pride of having— Sparks: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. I mean, my granddad is a huge man with a booming voice. I’d walk into the house and, boy, how you doing?! He’s yelling at me and stuff. I heard you work at the Hanford Site! He’d say, don’t you know I worked there in da-da-da-da-da?! And he talked a little about the storms and what he did. But he, and a lot of our other family members have land in Texas. So what he did, he didn’t stay here. He made some money, went back and paid for his land, bought him some apartment complexes and homes and stuff, and he lived a great life based on the money that he made at the Hanford Site. So he was really proud of that. Franklin: So it really kind of changed his life. Sparks: It do. I mean, I don’t know the exact amount of money that they were making in Kildare at the time, compared to what they was making there. But I heard it was a huge increase in income. Franklin: Yeah, it certainly was. Sparks: Huge boom. So, it did, it changed his life drastically. Franklin: From your perspective, what do you—what were their, the African Americans that worked at Hanford and the Manhattan Project, what were their most important contributions in the areas of work, community life, and civil rights? Sparks: The guys that work at the Hanford Site, like you say, you look at community life. Not only did they work, but they look back at the community, and they’re saying, dude, you’re back here, you’re breaking your back, you’re making absolutely nothing, just enough to feed your family. If you actually come to the Hanford Site, then you can not only feed your family, but you can raise enough money for your kids to go to college. There’s some opportunities out here that you would never, ever get in Texas. Because in Texas, you couldn’t become an electrician, you couldn’t become a laborer; they didn’t have those trades. You’re a farmer. Either a farmer, or worked in the lumber mills, or you worked on the railroad tracks. And the amount that they paid was below minimum. So there was some huge economic advantages of coming here and moving your family up to a nice home and education. Even sewer system—we didn’t have a sewer system down in Texas. So it was all kind of advantages for coming and working at the Hanford Site. Franklin: What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Sparks: The main—it’s weird. I bought a house. Originally I applied for a home in Pasco. They said I didn’t make enough income, money, to buy the home in Pasco. Which is crazy. So then I applied for a home in Kennewick. And they said, oh, yeah, we can let you. It was the same price; it might have just been the institution, but it was weird to me. So I bought the house in Kennewick. And before I bought the house, I had the real estate company that was working for me, and it actually was my buddy. What she did was she brought an old form up, and on this form they even had statements, like no blacks allowed, and this is like, has slave quarters and stuff out there on this form that she gave me. So a lot of discrimination. Ask the question one more time—I think I got kind of sidetracked. Franklin: No problem. What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here? Sparks: Okay. So that’s the one, is housing. The second one is the double standards. You go to east Pasco and we had dirt roads and no sidewalks. So it wasn’t— Franklin: Compared to west Pasco, right-- Sparks: Compared to west Pasco. Franklin: --which had sidewalks. Sparks: Sidewalks, yeah. Another thing is, when I was put in the special class, they didn’t grade me and put me in a special class because you’re special. They put me in the special class because—you know. Because of the color of my skin, is what I assumed it was. So there was issues like that. So those were the main ones to me, is housing and education. Franklin: What actions were being taken to address those issues? Sparks: Back then? Franklin: Yeah. Sparks: Basically what they did, it got to the point where people start protesting for equal housing. They knew that in order to make a change, we had to get on the city councils, we had to get into touch with the congressmen to change the way that they looked at the black community. Urban Renewal came in, and one thing that they did—a lot of the houses was really not up to code. So one thing that they did, they removed a lot of those older houses that was out of code which didn’t have septic systems in. They brought new septic systems in, they put sidewalks in. In the schools, they started hiring more black teachers so the kids could have a mentor that they could relate to, and counselors. So those are the things that they did. Franklin: Great. Sparks: Yeah. Franklin: Who were the important leaders of civil rights efforts in the area? Sparks: Well, one of the big leaders was, I call her Sister Barton. She was one of the leaders of the civil rights in the area. They had another gentleman by the name of Fletcher, he was another great leader and spokesman for the civil rights movements. They had Jackson, who was—most of these people got into the political side of it— Franklin: Was that Joe? Sparks: Yeah, Joe Jackson. They knew if they got on the political side of it they could make a change. They actually had not only Joe Jackson, you had Wayne Jackson also. He was involved in coming in and working with the cities to improve the conditions in east Pasco. Franklin: What were some notable successes of the civil rights movement? Sparks: Notable successes? Well, I guess I’m one of them. I’m a notable success. Because they made us—they made the government—the unions started counting how many people of color they had working in their armed forces and the services and stuff. And they started seeing there was none, and it wasn’t compatible to what the population was. So then they tried to go in there and ratify that—to take care of it. Franklin: What were some of the biggest challenges? Sparks: The biggest challenges? The biggest challenge is to change the culture. You have people who have believed for a long time that this is right. So you have to change that, to show them that it was not right. It was just wrong. Franklin: Yeah. And you’ve stayed at Hanford since you came here in the apprentice program, right? Or you stayed at Hanford/PNNL? Sparks: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Did you move away at all, or--? Sparks: No. When I left college in ’82, I started working at Hanford, and I’ve been out there for 34 years. Actually, I’m getting ready to retire from the Hanford Site. So like I said, the conditions are really good. They question the safety of it, but the safety is probably—their record is better than any other records in the state of Washington when it comes to safety. So I’ve enjoyed working there. It’s been a great career. Franklin: Good. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in the Tri-Cities during the Cold War? Sparks: During the Cold War? Future generations? Basically, asked me that a long time ago. It’s that basically you got to treat a man the way you want to be treated. If I was to bring my child out there, and he was to get a job at the Hanford Site, I want them to come in there with the knowledge that you are equal. The amazing thing about the Hanford Site is you can be everything from a plasma physicist to, you can be a laborer. There’s so many different jobs that you can do out there, and so many different people, and so much knowledge that you can get from the Hanford Site. Because, like I said, you got the science, you got the biology, you got fishing—I mean, you name it, PNNL has it. And then you got the other sites, which they’re in the process of cleaning it up and making it better. So they still have that also. As far as a place to work, and not only do you work at the Hanford Site—Hanford reaches out to all over the United States. There’s jobs in Seattle and Sequim, Washington. Places you can work doing research with fish, with animals. So it’s very diverse. It’s the most diverse place that you can find for work, is at the Hanford Site. Franklin: Is there anything else you would like to mention related to migration, segregation and civil rights and how they impacted your life at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Sparks: I think I covered it all. Franklin: Yeah. Sparks: I think I dipped into everything. Franklin: Yeah, you did a really great job. Sparks: I think I did. Franklin: Well, thank you, Bobby. I really appreciate you taking the time and coming to interview with us. Sparks: Oh, thank you for interviewing me. Yeah. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 221-T Plant 300 Area FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility) WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply Systems) WPPSS-2 Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1965- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1982- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bobby Sparks Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Migration Segregation School integration Discrimination Civil rights movements Sports Wrestling Electricians Racism Affirmative action Civil rights Description An account of the resource Bobby Sparks moved to Pasco, Washington in 1965 as a child and began working on the Hanford Site in 1982. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/08/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1e1b99b59b66ae39b01a6307c5306428.JPG 885b0ad06a7807c10d6ce80f42a0e019 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fa232d0c77186ed1562def6a34ee0f2aa.mp4 e24eab87fe4af71c6f5828c8dd18fed8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Slaughter Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Camera operator: You are recording. Robert Franklin: All right. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with John Slaughter on February 28, 2018. The interview is being conducted at The Brookstone in Kennewick, Washington. I’ll be talking with John about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And for the record can you state and spell your full name for us? John Slaughter: John H. Slaughter. J-O-H-N. H. S-L-A-U-G-H-T-E-R. Franklin: Great, thank you so much, John. Tell me how and why you came to the area. Slaughter: I was working with the Snoqualmie National Forest. We ran into some things—this is another—why don’t I just give you the background— Franklin: Okay. Slaughter: --and you can do whatever it is you want to do. Franklin: Sure. Slaughter: I graduated from Tennessee State University, and I applied for a job working for the Snoqualmie National Forest. And I was hired. So I worked for about five years for the Snoqualmie National Forest. And what caused me to want to get away, I had a bigot for a boss. He was forever talking about I had a white man’s job. Franklin: Did he actually say that to you? Slaughter: Yes! Yes. Franklin: On one occasion, or more than one occasion? Slaughter: Oh, all the time. All the time. So I decided, well—excuse me—I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. And I had set about how I could kill him and get away with it. I could not do that. There’s no way I could do that and get away with it. Unless I did something to provoke him. See, he did a lot of things to provoke me. So I decided—oh, right out—Naches, at the Naches Ranger Station, there, that’s where I lived. We had about 14 houses, cabins I mean, there. And that’s where I stayed. So we had to—I didn’t have a car. That’s about 35 miles from Yakima, where some civilization was. Some people were very, very kind to us. They knew the situation. See, I accepted the job, because I had—by the time I got that job, I had three kids. So hard times. So whenever they said, you’re hired, I just struck out and got on the train with my family and came out here. The people saw what the problem that I had, and many of them helped us out. Every time they had to go to Yakima or anyplace shopping, they’d stop by our cabin and ask, anything you want me to bring you, you want to go shopping with me? That kind of thing. Some were the other kind, but the vast majority of them, of 14 families, probably about two of them were bigots. Of course, that didn’t bother me. So I had to work to get two full paydays enough to go buy an old used car so that I could function. Franklin: Right. Slaughter: We’d go to town, my wife needed her hair done. Well, we didn’t know anybody that did black people’s hair. In fact, we didn’t know anybody from Yakima. [LAUGHTER] The point is, we met Herb Jones, a fella. He was—we would go to see one another. He lived in Yakima and I lived out in the woods there. So I got to know Herb. There was an organization called CORE. He became the president of CORE, and so complaining about my situation, he suggested that I apply at the Atomic Energy Commission. And I did. Well, the first answer, they said they didn’t have any meaningful work to suit my talents. [LAUGHTER] That’s a way of saying go fly a kite. But after a year, complete—a whole year had passed by, I received a letter from the personnel at the Atomic Energy Commission here at Hanford, asking if I was still interested in a position there. And I just jumped for joy. In the first place, I got paid more money and they didn’t have the same level of—I didn’t have anybody trying to beat me down, trying to bend me over, trying to force me to do something to give them an excuse to fire me. Franklin: That’s what your boss at the forest service would try to do? Slaughter: Yeah, Melanie. Yeah, he was. So, I couldn’t figure out a way to kill him. So I just—I just lived with it. He was this—the headquarters for Snoqualmie National Forest was on 2nd Avenue in Seattle. So I’d have to live—where we lived out in the woods, and, let’s see. I don’t know if I’m telling this in the right sequence or not, but the point is that he tried to—Melanie tried to convince the people to fire me because I didn’t know what I was doing. He wouldn’t give me credit for knowing anything. And it did rattle me quite a bit, but they wouldn’t fire me. Snoqualmie—the government would not fire me. Come to find out, Melanie, he was a guy from close to my hometown, Chattanooga, Tennessee. He used to relate some areas that I knew about. Anyway, after I went for the interview, and of course, I had to wait a long time because it was working for the Atomic Energy Commission, you had to have a security clearance. That was no problem. But when they hired me, they gave me the dates and the money that I’d make and what-have-you. And I had a problem of trying to find a place for my family. So by this time, Herb Jones, he was head of CORE in Richland, Washington. So they put me up for a couple of nights while I looked for a place for my family. I heard them talking. They had meetings all the time. I heard them talking, saying, well, we’ve got to find somebody who’ll go move over into Kennewick. And voila. I’ll go! [LAUGHTER] Seriously. I said, I will. Well, they found us—they located a situation where a man school teacher was—he was having problems with his superiors and what-have-you. I don’t know whether he did it to be vindictive or not, but I got with this man who was going to move out of the area anyway. So I signed a lease, six-month lease for his house on W 6th Avenue, pretty close to 395. I started hearing all the rumors and all of the forebodings from people, saying, be careful. So what I did—I’ma tell you the truth. I had a station wagon, and so when I moved in, moved into that house—it was a nice house—I systematically brought stuff out of my station wagon and put it in the house. And the last thing I did that night, I brought my—I had a target pistol, a .22. But also, some of the activities that I engaged in when I was living at the ranger station was go hunting and fishing. I had to learn to hunt and fish if I was going to be a part of that society. Franklin: Right. Slaughter: And I did. And I shot—the first time I went hunting, I shot a deer. So I had a rifle, a .30-06 rifle. I made sure that the whole neighborhood saw me bring my rifle into the house. Because I had been conditioned that I’m not going to take too much of this. So I was conditioned to that. Whenever I needed to. It just so happens—I don’t know, I’m pretty sure nobody was afraid of me—but I wanted to let people know my disposition. I was for real. And I said, anybody walk up on this—you just walk up on this lawn, I’m going to shoot him. Well, nobody walked up on the lawn. There were a lot of whispering around in the neighborhood, what-have-you. And this one lady, I think it’s this lady who lives here now. She had two daughters, but she didn’t want her daughters to get to know my daughter. So, we did like I always do. I just treat them like they’re not even around. See, one thing I learned, people cannot stand to be ignored. If you ignore—that’s how you get to people. So, if I transacted my business just as if I was the only person in Kennewick. But suddenly, there was an outpouring of welcome to me. The ministers, I got invited to a lot of churches, I got invited to different civic organizations and I was a Kennewick Jaycee. I remember that. And of course there was the other kind, too, because I was just leasing that house. And I’ll skip the part where I moved out of that man’s house and into a duplex in Richland. I stayed there one year, and decided that, well, I needed to have a house. So, I got enough money for a down payment. It was at 7404 W Yellowstone. It wasn’t actually in the City of Kennewick, but it was close enough for the purpose. There was a vacant lot next to lot that that house was on that I was trying to buy. Because I wanted to build a bigger house. And they had for sale signs on that lot. I went to the appropriate place to find out who owned it, and I wanted to buy it. He says—I told him who I was. And he said, I know who you are, John Slaughter, but I’m not going to sell you my lot. And he did not. So I just lived in that house until—well, I stayed there, and I was working, and I was doing very, very, very, very good. I had to prove to myself that I was good enough to be an engineer, because everybody around me did not see me as being qualified to do anything. Franklin: Um—oh, sorry, go ahead. Slaughter: Well, I could go on. Oh! When the time came to close on the house—and I’m there right now, we’re about to close on the house that I own. [LAUGHTER] That’s why I’m here. We got together on a whole lot of paper and what-have-you. And a document fell out of the bundle of papers that the guy had. It was a—I don’t know what they call it, a promise that you would not sell to a black person. I actually saw that, that was in that. But the one guy, they had been talking, he said, throw it away. So they picked it up. But they couldn’t get it up fast enough for me so that I could not see what that was. That was a covenant. I actually picked up that covenant and gave it back to him. That you don’t—and I was able to buy the—Incidentally, probably the reason it was so easy for me was that was during the time that the federal government was cracking down on these kind of covenants. Franklin: Oh. Do you remember around what year that was? Slaughter: 1965. Franklin: 1965. Why do you think the realtor was so willing to break the covenant? Slaughter: Because— [ALARM SOUNDING] Franklin: Oh, my goodness. [VIDEO CUTS] Slaughter: --where we were living. That’s how we got along. Maybe when people saw my weapons, they decided they wouldn’t raise any [inaudible]. I didn’t have any problem. Everybody got to know me, John Slaughter, just like I was some celebrity or something. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Slaughter: Really! And I was so proud to be a part of that civic organization, the Kennewick Jaycees. That we would, during Christmas, the Christmas holidays, we’d do some projects to make money to help some of the people who was not as well-off as we were. There were several incidences where you’d see my picture in the paper for what we were doing. I can remember that year, it was close to Christmastime, a little blonde girl, I picked her up and playing with her, and she got snot all over my face. I still remember that. But that didn’t matter. That was something that I really felt that I was part of, and everybody around had made me feel that I’m part of the society. And so that’s, that’s basically, in a nutshell, that’s basically how I got to where I am. Franklin: Okay. I’d like to back up a little bit and ask you when and where you were born. Slaughter: July the 30th, 1932. I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Franklin: And did you grow up at in Chattanooga? Slaughter: Absolutely. Yes. Franklin: And was Chattanooga an officially segregated town? Slaughter: Yeah. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, what your life was like growing up with segregation. Slaughter: Okay. We had our neighborhoods and they had their neighborhoods. To the extents possible, we avoided each other. Because most of the—99% of the black people had absolutely nothing, but they had quite a few white people who were in the same boat that we were in. [LAUGHTER] I still remember, as a little kid, when the railroad—when the train would come by, some of the young men would climb up on there and throw coal off the—onto the ground. And those of us on the ground, would pick it up and take that coal to our houses. [LAUGHTER] And that is true. That is true. I still remember that. Franklin: Wow, hard times, huh? Slaughter: Well, ’32—I was born in ’32, that was the worst economic [unknown] that this country’s ever had. Franklin: Yeah. Slaughter: I was born right in the middle of that. Franklin: Yeah! And you went to segregated schools? Slaughter: Went to segregated school. I’ll tell you that we didn’t have any school buses. There were school buses around, but none for us. We’d have to sit in the back of the bus. Just like—you know. You’ve heard all of that. Franklin: Yeah. Slaughter: And it got to the point, sometimes I’d figure on doing something to get something started. Because I decided that I was not going to be a second-class citizen. And I had to pay by tokens to ride the bus. And I just got to the point where I don’t feel like getting up today. I never got up. And he stopped the bus. He said, boy, get to the back of the bus. I told him, you put me back there. I have some of my little knives someplace. I had a knife about that long, about that big. Just as soon as the white boys decided they were going to make me go to the back of the bus, I got out my knife and started trimming my fingernails. They knew what that meant. Nobody said a thing to me. This is before Rosa Parks did that. She was a matronly lady, and she was nice and kindhearted and what-have-you. I was just a guy who decided that today I’m going to raise hell. Franklin: How old were you when this happened? Slaughter: I was in high school. Franklin: Okay. And the white people that were accosting you, were they around your same age? Slaughter: This was just a regular bus system. They didn’t have—not for black people, they didn’t have school buses. Oh. I went to Orchard Knob School, which is a monumental place, kind of a park. It was a park. If you go down South where the Civil War was fought, you can see all the statues and names and what-have-you, like that. Camera operator: Can we pause here? My card says it’s full. Franklin: Oh, sure. [VIDEO CUTS] Franklin: Are we ready? Camera operator: Yup. Franklin: Okay. So you were talking about going down to the park where they had Civil War monuments or something? Slaughter: Oh, yeah. Called the Battle of Orchard Knob. It’s on a big hill and adjacent, across the street, was the school that I went to through the ninth grade. Then after that, that’s when we’d have to ride the bus across town to go to high school. We had to ride right by city—I don’t know, it was Chattanooga’s City High School. Right by, we’d have to ride the bus to be on the other side of town where our high school was. You probably heard of the situation where I still got the same new book that I was given in the ninth grade, and that book was the one where we learned first aid by the Red Cross. I still got that book. That was the first new book I ever had. Franklin: New book, as in, the books in school previously would’ve been— Slaughter: They’d been used and torn up and then they ship them to us. Franklin: Right. Slaughter: They’d buy some more books, but they wouldn’t give us the new books. Franklin: Right, the new books would go to the white schools and then the black schools would get the older textbooks. Slaughter: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. You mentioned that you had graduated from Tennessee State University. Slaughter: Mm-hmm. Franklin: What made you want to go to college, and what did you get your degree in? Slaughter: I was the only person in my family who finished high school. Franklin: Wow. Slaughter: And I had enough inner change—or I want to say, moxie, I might say, that people start thinking, boy, he’s smart, boy, he’s smart. With them saying that I’ve got the intelligence to go farther. So I decided that—oh. I sang in the glee club, in my high school glee club. Some people thought I had a fair enough voice. In fact, the music teacher, after I graduated from—just before graduating from high school, the ceremony and all, she gave me a $50 check. That was a scholarship. That was the only scholarship I ever had. And I had to take it back to her and tell her, I can’t go—give this to somebody who’s going to go to college. Then after the graduation, just immediately after graduation, I received my letter from the United States government saying I had been selected. [LAUGHTER] So I was drafted. Robert Franklin: And that was—the Korean War was going on at the time, right? Slaughter: Yeah. Franklin: And how long did you stay in the Army for? Slaughter: Those two years. I’ll tell you now, that’s the interesting thing, because you’re looking at a man who—I loved those military parades. I thought that was entertainment for me to—I enjoyed it. But I tell you one other thing, when we got—a bunch of us trainees got there at the same time to set up battalion headquarters and what-have-you, I was assigned to be a supply specialist, to take care of all the property that the government had given us. And so things were going fine. Of course, I didn’t know a whole lot about that, either, but that’s what—I went to supply specialist training school. When those guys—we called them boy wonders, the National Guardians—when that outfit—there was an outfit of guys who hadn’t had basic training like I had, but they had National Guard. They put a corporal in my place, and he didn’t know anything about being a soldier, either. He just had that uniform on. At any rate, we were put into details to be taken down to Taegu Air Base. We had to camouflage the facilities, just in case they attacked us. And we did have a great number of times when we thought that we were going to be attacked. But I never had to fight; I never had to shoot a bullet, except at the target. Oh, after so long a time in Korea, my outfit, the whole battalion—oh, I’m trying to tell it in sequence and I’m getting it all screwed up. Franklin: It’s okay. Slaughter: But there were a bunch of us assigned to go and camouflage tanks on the airport base. Well, that didn’t sit well with me. It was hot as all get-out there in Korea. And so a bunch of us, we’d go down further where the civilization was, where they had day rooms and they had decent living conditions and what-have-you. We’d get up 5:00 in the morning and be shipped down there, and then just as soon as they left, we’d go to the place and shoot pool and do stuff. [LAUGHTER] And I remember, the one time, I sat there in the chair, I must have lost at pool. But I fell asleep. And I heard somebody, all of the sudden, Slaughter! Slaughter! Woke me up, my first sergeant was right between my legs. What the hell are you doing in here? Mixing. To shorten it, we were done busted. I got an Article 15. Are you familiar with an Article 15? That’s like going to court and having a trial and mete out the punishment. Well, my punishment—and this is the company commander, he was a first lieutenant. He said, is there anything else you want to say before I employ the sentence? I said, no, sir, but yes. I said, I came on this job and I was doing a good—I was having—I was doing the work well, satisfied—suddenly, when those cowboys came in, you took all the authority and interest away from us, and you put them in there. I told him, I’m a little mad, and I don’t plan to be out working out there in the sun. So, if I got to go back out there, you’re going to find me doing the same thing. This was a man from Massachusetts. He didn’t have any interest in trying to be hard on anybody. So he said, okay. So I was sentenced to seven days of extra duty in the kitchen. So I did that standing on my head. In fact, we would look forward to getting where the officers had all the little steaks and things, we just cooked our own food—[LAUGHTER] So I’d look forward to that, every night. Let’s go, let’s go to work. [LAUGHTER] But after that time was over, by the time I’d fulfilled my requirement, we had our orders. We were going to leave and go to Guam. So they needed somebody to be in charge of all of the goods and what-have-you. So they assigned me to be in charge of that. And I’m strolling around there with my clipboard, seeing all this stuff. I was quite proud. They gave me some responsibility, and I was quite proud to be able to do it the best I could. And nobody ever said anything anymore about it. Except if it was justified. But when I got to Guam—I don’t know if you guys know anything about Guam. That’s the South Seas—one of a string of islands called the Marianas Islands. I’m told that that was—and it was a B-29 air base. I’m told that it was from that place that the atom bomb was loaded and sent to Japan to be—I don’t know if that’s the truth or not. Franklin: I think it was Tinian Island, was the island. Right? Yeah, Tinian. A different island in the South Seas. Slaughter: Well, Tinian, it was one of the string—it was part of the Marianas Islands, though. Franklin: Right. So jumping forward a bit, you went to Tennessee, Tennessee State University. Slaughter: Oh. I was one of the few people who were married in my outfit. So when payday came, I’d take my money, and I’d send it home to my wife, until I had enough to—you know, a fair amount of money. That, along with the GI Bill, that’s what I used in order to go to college. Franklin: And what did you get your degree in? Slaughter: Civil engineering. Franklin: Oh, civil engineering, okay. And how did you hear about this job in Snoqualmie? And why did you apply to go to Washington, so far away from Tennessee? Slaughter: Because they had fliers out. You could look on the bulletin board and see who needs who to go where. And I flunked one course in college. That was my first quarter of calculus. I still don’t know calculus. [LAUGHTER] Dang, I lost my train of thought. Oh. Oh, all the people in my class, they were getting ready to go. They were filling out applications, and I’m one quarter behind, but I just couldn’t stand it any longer, because I was the only person who had so many kids at home. I needed a job. So I filled out the application, too. Four applications. I received copies of three of them; they wanted to hire me. And then I had to tell them I won’t be eligible until the summer of 1960. They wrote me another telegram, we’ll hold the job for you. Franklin: Wow. Slaughter: This is a part of the move to integrate black people and white people in the service. If Kennedy had not taken it upon himself to go personally down to the South to see what the conditions were, we’d probably still be sitting in the back of the bus. Kennedy is the one who built a fire under people. And Johnson, now, he was a southerner. But he was an aristocrat. He didn’t know what the little bitty people were doing, either. So when Kennedy got shot, Johnson took over, he looked for himself what Kennedy was doing, and he just carried it on forward. And I remember reading the paper—one of the papers, big headlines, Johnson, That Son of a Bitch. Because he had been in—he was one of the good ol’ boys before, but he saw how awful it was that black people had to live. And he carried on Kennedy’s interest in integrating the whole thing. Franklin: When you started on at Hanford, what was your first position? Slaughter: I was an engineer. Franklin: And what were you doing there? Slaughter: Construction engineer. Oh, I did a little—I had done a little bit of surveying. That’s what I did when I was working for the National Forest, surveying and designing roads and bridge approaches, that kind of a thing. So I got to the point where my qualities were well-respected. In fact, when they saw how some of my performance—I skipped a grade— Franklin: In the Forest Service? Slaughter: No, no, Atomic Energy Commission. Franklin: Oh, at the Atomic Energy Commission. Slaughter: I’ve told this story to a whole lot of people, and I will never fail to tell how those guys took me under their arms—under their wings, and they trained me how to be an engineer. Franklin: Who was that? Slaughter: The people at the Atomic Energy Commission. I learned a lot, you’d just be surprised. You’ve been hearing here lately about the leaking field tanks—the leaking waste tanks. Franklin: Yeah. Slaughter: Well, I managed the contracts. Some of those very tanks—we had a lot, a lot of tanks—but this was a new kind of tank. This was a tank-on-tank situation. Not only that—what do they call that? I can’t think of the name of it now. Stress relief, those tanks. Are you familiar with stress relieving? Franklin: Kind of. There was so much pressure in them, right, from the heat and the radionuclides— Slaughter: So much pressure, it created stress in the corners. And so therefore, it started to corrode—erode quite a bit. So in order for it to last a long time, you bend the tanks—the steel a certain way. Then, you weld all those welds—10,000 welds per tank. And then to stress relieve it, there’s one bit of knowledge that you need to know. Carbon steel will fold and fall down after 1,250 degrees Fahrenheit. I want you to imagine having to try to stress relieve every bit of a million-gallon tank. And it has to be—it can’t be a whole lot of stress here, and then—it had to be uniform. And that was a job that I had. I used to stay up all night trying to get them to be just as hot in one place as it was in the other. I think we had to be within 250 degrees all the way through. And I learned to stress relieve—see, I learned this on the job. And also, it had to be radiographed. Each foot— [POUNDING ON DOOR] Slaughter: Come in. [Woman off-camera]: John, are you coming down for lunch? Slaughter: Huh? [Woman off-camera]: Are you coming down for lunch? Slaughter: Not right now. [Woman off-camera]: Okay. Okay, sorry. Slaughter: Okay. [LAUGHTER] Okay, that’s another one that I’m going to be friends with, I think. I don’t know why she came in and asked me if I was coming in for lunch. I don’t know what she wanted. Franklin: You were talking about the stresses, if you will, of trying to stress relieve these things. Slaughter: Oh, yes, and I learned how to rig—I didn’t have to do any of it myself, but I learned how under the guy—he was the main inspector. I did the management and all that stuff, but this man, he knew what he was doing, and he taught me everything—well, I don’t know if it was everything he knew, but he taught me a considerable amount. I learned how to look at the radiograph to see if it’s—if you got any bubbles in it—it has to be good, welded steel all the way through, all the way. And 10,000 welds per tank. And I learned how to do that, and they even tried to—well, it was just marvelous that I learned the technology, and here I am with a degree in civil engineering. But I had more knowledge than most of the people around that. Because Don, was his first name, he taught me everything he knew. And I was so grateful. I’ll tell you, this was kind of related to what you want, but at Savannah River, you know they’ve got a nuclear reservation there, too. They had a different design than what we used. So we had a delegation of top engineers from here, we went to Savannah River, that’s in South Carolina, in order to see what they’re doing and how theirs is different from ours and try to figure out the ramifications. And I remember Babcock and Wilcox—that’s a firm that makes asbestos. Asbestos, you know, is dangerous. But we didn’t recognize that danger then. So what we would do, build the tank and then pour asbestos about that thick into the inside of the tank. Whereas, you have all the way around the tank, you’ve got a crawlspace about that wide. And we had all kinds of pipes and different things coming up. So they used those holes, different holes in the top. Yeah, it’d be about—I can’t explain it to you. But I remember going to—it was time to go to lunch, and this man, he was kind of a high executive with the Babcock and Wilcox Company. So that’s where I got my first look at Augusta, Georgia. It was Augusta where they took us to the Green Jacket. Now those guys, usually, they respected me and my position to the extent that they didn’t want me to be rejected. And I remember, since I was with the government and all these other guys were contractor guys, so that made me boss. [LAUGHTER] The only guy—they knew so much more than I did, I couldn’t even attempt it. But they made me boss, so the man opened the door to the Green Jacket. Now, you’re familiar with the Green Jacket? Franklin: I’m not. Slaughter: Okay. Augusta? Master’s Golf? Franklin: Okay. Slaughter: That’s where the Master’s are done. In August, Georgia. And I remember them opening the door for me and showing me a place to sit. And I looked around and all the black heads peeking from around the corners and what-have-you. They thought that was the greatest thing in the whole world, seeing a man being treated with dignity. And that never left me. That’s why I made it my business—I’m going to be a first-class citizen. It may only be for an hour, but that hour is going to be with dignity. And I did. And I’ve been trying to pull everybody else around up with me, and I think we’ve done very well. Franklin: Yeah. Did you work with any other black engineers at Hanford? Slaughter: No. No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t. Franklin: You’ve mentioned that you were, to your knowledge, the first black person to own a home— Slaughter: In Kennewick. Franklin: In Kennewick, yes. Over time, did other black families start moving to Kennewick? Slaughter: Yes. Franklin: Was there a community and there, and were you instrumental in—or were you part of that community? Slaughter: Yeah. Herb Jones, he’s the one—after I had done—he decided he was going to buy a house, too, down there, by—well, I don’t know where it was, I’ve forgotten where it was. But somebody did something to their car. Had a relative with a brand new Ford, I remember. Something happened to it. But nothing ever happened to me like that. Franklin: It was like vandalized or something like that? Slaughter: Huh? Franklin: Their car was vandalized or something like that? Slaughter: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it wasn’t terrible. You could wash—could give it a paint job, and you’d be good as new. Franklin: Where was the center of the black community in the Tri-Cities? Was there kind of a community in each city, or was east Pasco the focal point? Slaughter: East Pasco. Franklin: And did you go to east Pasco often; did you have any friends in the area? Slaughter: I tried, but—it’s kind of hard to—some of them, it’s kind of hard to get along with them. Franklin: Why was that? Slaughter: I don’t know. I think it’s upmanship, you might say. They even—I noticed that they stopped now, I mean, I guess they did. They tried to circulate the fact that I was not the first black person to live in Kennewick. One of them did it. And that wasn’t my purpose. Franklin: You were just trying to have some dignity, right, some respect and live where you wanted to live? Slaughter: Oh, yeah. My wife, bless her heart—people just—oh, that’s another thing. I learned how to talk a little bit better—a little bit different than being a Southerner. My wife never—she never lifted one eyelid to change how she talks. And the people who befriended her, they just—it was refreshing. See, even the bigshots’ wives, they’d get sick of people scraping and bowing to them. Well, my wife didn’t do that. And they liked her because of it. Franklin: Were you ever—how were you treated on the job at Hanford? Did your racial background ever figure into any mistreatment at Hanford? Slaughter: No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t. I had my run-in, but it wasn’t because of race. I know what it was. It stemmed back—remember way back then, when I was being an engineer in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and I decided that when I retire, where do I want to live? And so I decided that I wanted to come back here and live. People ask me, why? Because I love the people. The people just opened their doors to me, and I appreciate it. Franklin: Besides moving to Kennewick in ’65, and really, I think kind of participating in Civil Rights in that way, did you participate in any other civil rights activities in the Tri-Cities? Slaughter: Yeah, I remember when things were really hot and heavy and the pot was starting to boil over with anger and all. There were a number of us who did not, for some reason—I didn’t hear—nobody did anything to me. Gus Wiley, he used to be the head of Battelle there. Nothing happened to him. And there was a bunch of us. I just named the two, because Gus and I were—we decided to put a stop—to pour some water on this heat, this boiling over. So we decided we’d follow the police around, so whenever they had an encounter, we could see with our own eyes who’s starting the unrest. Because they were just accusing one another. I for one, I’ll die for my cause, but I’m not going to die for somebody else’s cause, see. Gus and I—it just happens that he and I hooked up together. We followed—and we just kind of made the police kind of nervous. Until somebody started some dialogue with the windows down, and we’d talk with one another, the police and us. And after—it didn’t take long for them to see that we weren’t—we were doing what we can to keep a riot from happening. We’re not trying to help one side or the other, but I know somebody’s lying. So before I put my head on the chopping block, I’m going to find out why I’m putting it on there. That was all of our intentions. Once they found out that all we’re trying to do is keep the peace, actually, they just kind of helped us keep the peace. Franklin: What cities were you doing this in? Slaughter: Pasco. Franklin: Pasco. And what were your findings? Slaughter: I didn’t see anybody do anything. Nobody broke the law or anything. And I came home just as satisfied. I don’t look for trouble. I’m trying to prevent any trouble. But there were some hotheads over on the other side, in Pasco. They were fomenting unrest. They were trying to stir up some things that we were trying to undo. Franklin: When you say hotheads, do you mean— Slaughter: People out—black people. Trying to raise hell. And we met with those people to tell them, I’m not going to stick my neck out for you. You’re trying to—a risk is what you’re trying to do. Nothing ever—all that time we were—it lasted for several days. And all that time, when we were doing that, nothing ever happened. Nothing. Good or bad. Nothing ever happened. Franklin: Why do you think they were trying to stir up trouble, in your opinion? Slaughter: Well, hell-raisers will do it. You don’t have to have a reason. You don’t have to have a reason. They want to get a job that they’re not qualified for, for example. They want to be thought of as being the biggie. It’s pride—false pride. And we were not interested in that. Anytime somebody let me participate in something with the credentials that Gus Wiley had, I’m more than satisfied. Not Gus Wiley—Gus, that’s his wife. [LAUGHTER] I can’t think of his name right now. Franklin: I can’t think of his first name right now, either. Tom Hungate: Bill. Slaughter: Bill. Franklin: Bill Wiley. Slaughter: Yeah. Franklin: Right, yeah. Head of PNNL. I’ve heard there were some protests in Pasco in, I think, ’67, around there. Did you participate, or hear, or do you have any memories of those protests? Slaughter: No. Franklin: No, okay. Slaughter: I know there might have been some people who were trying to stir up stuff, and I just ignored them. Franklin: My last questions are kind of like closing, open-ended questions. In what ways, if any, did the security or secrecy at Hanford impact your work or daily life? Slaughter: It didn’t. Franklin: It didn’t? Were you able to talk about what you worked on with your family and friends? Slaughter: No, I made it a policy to not—there were times when I needed to get some information, I would read a document—a confidential or secret document. But that was just incidental to my work. My work had nothing to do with that problem. Franklin: Oh, okay. How long did you work at Hanford for? Slaughter: Let’s see. I came to Hanford in 1965, and ’73, I went back to Oak Ridge for the purpose of trying to move up the ladder. Didn’t work, but it didn’t hurt, either. So after I’d gone at work at Oak Ridge another eight years, I decided to try to figure out, where should I go. And believe it or not, my home town is exactly 100 miles from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. But that’s not where I wanted to live. I liked the small town air here. And so that’s why I wanted to come back here to live. And the rest is history. Franklin: Yes, it is. Speaking of history, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Slaughter: That’s a biggie. [LAUGHTER] That’s a biggie. I’ve learned—I don’t know. I just don’t know. One thing that I do know that I used to love going, certain parts of the year, the eagles would land in what used to be Hanford. I’d go down there and look at the eagles. I don’t know of anything else. Franklin: Okay. Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to migration and segregation and civil rights in the Tri-Cities? Slaughter: You know, I mentioned before, some people thought I had a nice singing voice. Franklin: Yeah. Slaughter: I especially, that church I started going to. Incidentally, I’m still going to that same church, but it’s got a different name and it’s a much, much bigger church. I’m still—I’ve been instrumental in—okay, the pastor we have now, I was instrumental in getting him to be at our church. I got guided to the committee, the pastor search committee. In the beginning, I wasn’t part of it. But it was an older man. They tried to represent older people, younger people—different differences. So going through what is kind of—it’s a hard job, trying to decide who was best suited to be my pastor. That’s not an easy job. Anyway, the guy who was supposed to represent the older people, he backed off. So they asked me to be part of it, and I did. And we—if you go to hear a sermon of our priest, you know that it was a success. I had something to do with his being there. That’s because I just went up to him and asked him, how come you don’t fill in an application? And he said, oh, what’s-his-name is my friend. I said, that has nothing to do with being your friend. I talked him into being interested in being our pastor. Franklin: Okay. Slaughter: Just edit that out, all right? Franklin: Sure, sure. Well, John, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. Slaughter: Well, there’s so much that I’ve forgotten. I hee-hawed all the way through this thing. Franklin: No, you’re great. We’re really happy to get what you have, and what you told us is really great. Some really great history there. So thank you for letting us interview you. Slaughter: Well, thank you. This makes about the third interview that I’ve had concerning Civil Rights, et cetera. Franklin: I’ll have to look for those other two. Slaughter: Well, only one had all this stuff. Franklin: Okay. Well, great. Hungate: Okay. Franklin: Okay. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Atomic Energy Commission Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1965-1973 1982- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1965-1973 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Slaughter Description An account of the resource John Slaughter moved to Kennewick, Washington in 1965 and worked on the Hanford Site from 1965-1973. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Chattanooga (Tenn.) Pasco (Wash.) Discrimination Civil rights Segregation Korean War, 1950-1953 Civil engineering Civil rights movements Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02/28/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F85876d074169360615ad29a1a904f145.JPG bc53339af15a2920bba8e308061271cb https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F75acc14b070ab69b463520ab9835d311.mp4 903cb1901c035c5d398ddd6c0ca3859a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rickie Robinson Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Richie Robinson— Rickie Robinson: Rickie. Franklin: Rick—sorry, I keep doing that. Rickie Robinson. On February 16th, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Rickie about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Robinson: My name is Rickie Wright Robinson. R-I-C-K-I-E, W-R-I-G-H-T, R-O-B-I-N-S-O-N. Franklin: Great, thank you so much, Rickie. So usually I start by asking people about how they came to the Hanford area—or to the Tri-Cities—but your parents were the first ones in your family to come here, right? Robinson: Yes, they— Franklin: So what—oh, sorry, go ahead. Robinson: They moved to Pasco in 1947 and opened a little restaurant. They called it the Queen Street Diner. Franklin: Okay. And why did your parents move to Pasco? Robinson: They were recently discharged, if you will. My dad was from the Navy. Because he fought in World War II. They were actually planning on moving from Seattle—they were living in Seattle at the time. They were actually planning on moving to San Diego. They told me that they heard about this place over in southeastern Washington where you could go and make a lot of money. Because there was this Hanford thing going on. Wheat country, and all that, and so forth. So they drove over here, and liked what they saw, and decided to stay. They always used to chuckle about that, because they had already sent all of their stuff to San Diego. When they got here, they said, whoa, we’d better stay here. So they came, bought a piece of property over in east Pasco, just adjacent to the railroad tracks there on Queen Street, and opened the little restaurant. Franklin: Besides the economy, what also was—why else were your parents attracted to the area? Was there already a pretty large black community in east Pasco? Robinson: Not really. Not at that time. In 1947, there were black people that were starting to come into the Tri-Cities, as with all of the Pacific Northwest, mostly because of the economy that was happening here in the State of Washington. Western Washington, of course, there was Boeing and all of that. Over here, it was Hanford, and these big farms and all that kind of stuff. But what attracted the black people here at that time was the work that was available in construction and so forth, here at Hanford. Franklin: Did your parents—either of your parents ever work at Hanford? Robinson: A little bit. My dad, he worked as a carpenter for a little while, and he also worked in one of the plants out there, I think it was B Plant. But not for very long. For the bulk of his time at work here, he worked at the Tri-City Country Club. He was the assistant manager of not only the Tri-City Country Club but the Walla Walla Country Club and Yakima Country Club. So, as a family, we lived in all three cities, but we spent most of our time here in the Tri-Cities. My mother, she was a social worker for the Pasco School District. Franklin: Your mom left a pretty big imprint in Pasco, right, and the school district. Robinson: Yes. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk about that. Robinson: Yes, she was hired by the superintendent at the time. His name was Lewis Ferrari. Dr. Lewis Ferrari. He was concerned about the lack of communication between the Pasco School District and the African American community. Of course, this was in the early-to-mid ‘60s, and of course, if you read your history books, you know what was going on in the country in the time about Civil Rights and all that. He was extremely concerned about that, and since my mother had some experience in doing Campfire Girls and other things like that around the community, he hired her and created a position that was called ombudsman. So her job was to do outreach, to make sure the kids got to school, got what they needed to perform well in school like that. Kind of an outreach of that, she interacted with a lot of families and so forth. This was also the time when a lot of the migration started taking place with the Hispanic people moving into the Tri-Cities to work on the farms and so forth like that. And then something started to happen with that population of people: they started to stay, as opposed to come up for seasons and then go back to Texas or Mexico or wherever they were from. They started to stay. And she had—she interacted with a lot of Hispanic people as well as the black families in Pasco. Franklin: So the early-to-mid ‘60s, then, that’s that moment where Pasco really starts to diversify—where the Hispanic population starts becoming more permanent? Robinson: More permanent, and of course the black population was becoming more pronounced, more vocal. Pasco had its share of marches and things like that to articulate their need for fair treatment for housing and all the other things that were going on all across the country. And it was happening here in the Tri-Cities as well. Predominantly in Pasco at that time. Franklin: Do you remember any specific events in Pasco connected to the civil rights movement? Robinson: Yes, I remember some marches that were taking place. Of course, I was a young kid and a teenager at the time. I remember some strife that was going on at Pasco High. Because I went to Pasco High. There was some strife going on at Pasco High. School got closed down a few times. Franklin: Really? Robinson: Yeah. Franklin: What for? Robinson: As I recall, there were some bomb threats that were phoned in. No bombs were ever found. But when a bomb threat would come in, then they would close the school. And there were fights and things like that. Thankfully, no shootings. You know. But we had our share. Franklin: Okay. Where were your parents from? Where were your parents born? Robinson: My dad was born in San Antonio, Texas. My mom was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but she was raised in Saginaw, Michigan. Franklin: Oh, okay. Robinson: And they met in Douglas, Arizona. Never could figure out what my mother was doing in Douglas, Arizona, because she got married at an early age, age 16—not to my dad, to another guy. So from age 16 up until just before she met—married my father, she lived in Chicago. She was a waitress and things like that. My dad, on the other hand, was on his way to Los Angeles from San Antonio, because his family had a long history of culinary work, working in hotels and things like that. He worked in some of the prominent hotels in San Antonio, Texas. I can’t recall the name of this big prominent hotel, but it’s adjacent to the Alamo. And I remember the last time I took my dad home to San Antonio, he said, that, that was my first job there. It was this big hotel, and it’s adjacent to the Alamo. But he had a long history of that. Anyway, he was on his way to Los Angeles to work with his uncles who had moved to Los Angeles. There were a lot of opportunities for culinary work down there. When he was in Douglas, Arizona, where one of his uncles lived, he got his draft notice for the Navy. And he ended up in Seattle. So he never made it Los Angeles. He and my mother met in Douglas, Arizona. My father was also coming out of a marriage that was falling apart. The two of them met. When he got drafted, he went to Seattle and so forth, and then he sent for my mom, and they got married in 1945. Franklin: Oh, wow. Robinson: And then moved to the Tri-Cities in 1947. Franklin: Okay. I wanted to ask a bit about segregation, both formal and informal. So your parents, at least where they were born, would have experienced formal segregation, Jim Crow. But the North was kind of an area of informal segregation. Robinson: Informal, yes. Franklin: Did your parents ever talk about their experiences with the informal segregation of the North and in Pasco specifically? Robinson: Well, yes. They told me a story—of course, back then, when black people moved to the Tri-Cities, they were only shown property in east Pasco, which was east of the railroad tracks. So there were not any black people, that I can recall, that lived on the west side of the tracks. They told me some stories that had happened. In fact, a real incident of segregation, if you will, happened to my aunt, who’s my mom’s sister. She was pregnant with her second child, and it was in the middle of the summer on one of those 100-degree-plus days here in Pasco that we all love. She was pregnant, she walked into a Payless Drugstore—at that time Payless Drugstore was located on the corner of 4th and Lewis in Pasco. And she wanted a glass of water, and they wouldn’t give it to her. She just wanted a glass of ice water. They wouldn’t give it to her. So that’s one incident that they used to talk about. There’s also another incident that kind of happened like before my time that they used to talk about. There was an incident at the Greyhound bus station in Pasco. I can’t recall the details of it, but because of that incident, the Washington State Human Rights Commission was formed. Because, I think they would not—this story was told to me—they would not let this woman use the bathroom there. It turns out that that woman that they would not let use the bathroom was the wife of Adam Clayton Powell. Franklin: Yes. That she—and her name escapes me—it wasn’t the bathroom; they wouldn’t serve her lunch. Robinson: Okay, I knew it was something, yeah. Franklin: And the reason she was given—this was in 1949—was that we don’t serve blacks here. You can get your food to go, was the— Robinson: Right, yeah. And so that was the wrong woman to do that to. Franklin: Yeah. Robinson: So, anyway, that’s a thing of—a good thing coming out of a bad incident. Franklin: Right, you mean the formation of the civil rights commission— Robinson: Yeah, the civil rights commission and things of that nature. And, you know, incidents like that, they’re ugly, but oftentimes, they turn out to be good things, because they spur people into motion. Franklin: Right, yeah, definitely. What about—to your knowledge, were people ever shown property in Kennewick? What was the relationship between Kennewick and Pasco at that time, vis-à-vis African Americans and housing? Robinson: Well, we grew up—when I was growing up here, there was this—I don’t know if it was an unwritten rule, or if it was a written rule someplace, that all black people had to be out of Kennewick by sundown. They used to say there was a sign there. I personally never saw the sign. But there was that kind of unwritten rule. I will say, an incident that happened to me personally—and this was after I was old enough to have my own car; I think I was maybe 19, maybe 20 years old at the time, so that would have been in 1970, 1971, or ’72. Somewhere in that neck of the woods. I was driving in Kennewick in my car in the middle of the afternoon, and I was pulled over by the police. He wanted to know what I was doing in Kennewick. I’ve never been—I’m no angel, you know, but I’m not a square, either, but I was never on the police radar, if you will, as somebody that they needed to keep an eye on. So I thought that was weird, that he would pull me over and ask me what I was doing in Kennewick at 3:00 in the— Franklin: Did he give you a reason, like for a traffic infraction or something? Robinson: What he told me is that there was a report of somebody doing something inappropriate over at Kennewick High School. I wasn’t anywhere near Kennewick High School when that went down, whatever he was talking about. I don’t know if the description was of my car or whatever. But that was it. Now, he did let me go. I wasn’t arrested or anything like that. But, you know. It was just an odd question to be asking somebody at 3:00 in the afternoon, why are you in Kennewick? Franklin: Right, and you felt you had been singled out because of your race. Robinson: Oh, definitely. Franklin: Okay, let me see here. We actually already covered quite a bit of my—oh, so you had mentioned that blacks were only shown homes in east Pasco. So that east Pasco seems to be kind of the locus of the black community in the Tri-Cities. Robinson: It was at that time. Franklin: It was at that time. I’m wondering if you could talk a bit more about growing up there. What were the important institutions? What was community life like? Robinson: Oh, it was nice, because we were a close-knit community. All of our churches were over there. I went to St. James CME Church, but there was also Morning Star Baptist Church, there was Church of God and Christ, there was Greater Faith Baptist and New Hope Baptist Church. So we would do a lot of things over there. The focus of our activities as kids in east Pasco was Kurtzman Park. That was the spot. And it was originally, I remember, it was called Candy Cane Park. Because I remember it had these little candy cane things on it when I was a little kid. But it was later renamed to Kurtzman Park, because I think the gentleman who donated to the city that land that he owned there, with the specificity that it be made into a park for the kids that lived in east Pasco. So that was—I never—I don’t know anything about that guy or—nothing, but that was what was told. Franklin: Cool. What kind of housing did you live in? Could you describe it? Robinson: I was fortunate. I lived in a regular house. Like I said, my dad opened a restaurant when he moved here. They bought a piece of property, and my dad—I mentioned he was a carpenter, along with being a culinary artist, he was also a carpenter—so, he made a portion of that house—no, I’ll take that back. He found an overturned trailer and pulled it up onto the property. It had been abandoned. He went through all of the legal hoops that you have to jump through for a trailer and so forth. Got it licensed and so forth, fixed it up and made it into a restaurant, and it was right adjacent to our house. So I grew up in what would be called middle class. So my housing was fine, and there were many people in east Pasco who had built their own homes. Because many of the people who lived in east Pasco, they came up here, they were tradesmen. They were bricklayers, carpenters, et cetera, et cetera. So they had built their own homes. And of course there were other homes that were not so good. But for the most part, life was fine. We had dirt roads for streets. One of the biggest pieces of amazement for me as someone who grew up in Pasco is Oregon Street. Because when I was little, Oregon Street was all but a dirt road. And now it’s this big, wide boulevard that goes all the way through, across the tracks and so forth. Back then, it didn’t. It kind of ended down where we lived. Franklin: So that trailer that your dad found, that’s what became the Queen Street Diner. Robinson: That was the first one, yeah. And before we actually named it—well, he named it the Queen Street Diner, and his thing was Texas fried chicken. Because, you know, he’s from Texas. But around town, they used to call it the Squeeze Inn. Franklin: Because it was— Robinson: Because it was just a trailer. And it was kind of like the hot spot at the time for people to come and socialize and so forth. So you know, you could only get so many people in a trailer. So they called it the Squeeze Inn. Franklin: [CHUCKLING] That’s really funny. Yeah. Did your parents ever talk to you much about working at Hanford? And what exactly they did, or what kind of projects they worked on? Robinson: Well, like I said, my dad was a carpenter. And also he worked at B Plant. I think it was B Plant; I could be wrong about exactly where. But not really in terms of the details about they did—what he did out there. My mom never worked at Hanford. She always worked in social work kinds of things. Most of that—she was like a 25-year employee with the Pasco School District. So they didn’t talk about that that much. Again, like I said, most of the time, when my dad was working, he was at the country club. So he’d go to work with a suit on and everything like that. Everybody thought we were rich. But we weren’t. Franklin: Did your dad ever talk about experiencing any discrimination or segregation at work? Robinson: Mm, not at work. Most of the time, when they talked about segregation and things like that, it was stuff that would happen in the community. Not necessarily at work. He never came home and told me stories about, do you know what happened, do you know what they said at work? And that’s not to say that they didn’t happen, but my parents had a way of dealing with that stuff, and they taught us how to deal with that, in such a way to be productive about it. Because we were always taught that we weren’t any better than anybody else. But believe me, nobody was better than us. And so we were to act a certain way that demanded respect and to give people respect. I remember--kind of a sidetrack to that—when urban renewal came through—because we lived on the east side when I was a little kid—right there kind of where Tommy’s Steel and Salvage is now, that’s where we used to live. And it’s kind of funny when I drive by there now, because I can still see some of the trees that were in my backyard at the time. They’re still there all these years later. But when urban renewal came through—and I think this was at the onset of the Johnson Administration—so they came and bought my parents out and so forth, and we moved to the west side of town. Right across the street from what is now a Boys and Girls Club in Pasco. Shortly after we moved there, there was a gentleman that lived across the street from us who actually knew my dad, because my dad worked at the country club and he was a member of the country club. He put his house up for sale, shortly after we moved there. And he came over and told my dad that he’s putting his house up for sale, he says, but believe me, we’d been planning on doing this for a long time. He was very apologetic to my father. Because you know, back then, there was the thing about white flight. Franklin: Right, right. Very well documented. Robinson: And so what my dad told him, and I’ll never forget this, he said, that’s okay, he said, because I’m going to put my house up for sale, too, but I’m going to get it while it’s hot. That’s how he handled that kind of stuff. Because, again, he always taught us—they always taught us—that we’re equal to everybody. So if the housing market is hot, he’s going to take advantage of it, and not be insulted by the fact that somebody put his house up for sale because this quote-unquote black family was moving in. Now, kind of ironically, they never did move. [LAUGHTER] The people across the street. Franklin: I guess the market wasn’t all that hot. Robinson: Exactly, I guess not. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Yeah, that is a very well—you know, white flight occurred all across the—did you hear anything else—did that happen other places in west Pasco? How did west Pasco react to the urban renewal? Robinson: You know, I cannot say how it was. I can’t—because I was a kid. At that time, Pasco’s a small town. So as kids growing up together, black and white—we were kids. We’d always know what was taught to kids in their own homes about us, but we as kids would interact like kids do. Of course, there were times that we would fight, like I said earlier, there was a strife. And of course, if the wrong words were ever said, oh, it was on. But we never experienced seeing that kind of stuff to that degree that we see on TV, like people out protesting, keeping the black people out and stuff like that. I mean, again, we’re in the Pacific Northwest, so things were a little different here. I also shared with you the story about my aunt and being refused a glass of water. I’m sure it was 110 out that day. They wouldn’t give her a glass of ice water and she was pregnant! So, sure, there was that kind of stuff going on. But organized activities, demonstrating against black people moving places—I cannot recall that ever happening. But I am sure that—we would go into a store, and you could notice sometimes that people were kind of watching out, and watching you. Sometimes, it weighed on us. It was sorrow. We—at least in my household, we were taught how to deal with that. Franklin: Yeah, I think, subtle’s a really good word for that kind of— Robinson: Yeah. Franklin: It’s there, but it’s sometimes hard to get a real handle on it. Robinson: Yeah, it’s subtle, it’s subtle-slash-sleazy. I mean, because—you know what was going on. Franklin: Right, right, it’s like, clear, but subtle at the same time. Robinson: Right. Franklin: What kind of opportunities were available for betterment in the community for folks that came—like, maybe educational or monetary or job training or things like that? Robinson: Well, by the time—if you’re talking about me, by the time I reached the age of where those things became important, I—I got jobs. The first job that I had was, ironically, with the Pasco School District as—you know, I was a student—what do they call that? Oh, I sold ice cream during lunch hour. That was my first little paycheck. Oops. Take that back. My first job was with the Pasco School District, but it was as a janitor, because they had some kind of program—again, it was when—the ‘60s and so forth. So it was one of those social programs to give kids the opportunity to do work and earn some. So I was a janitor—a part-time janitor with the Pasco School District. Then I became the lunch—that was my senior year in high school, when I became the lunch guy. That was cool, because I got both lunch hours. I sold ice cream. I was a senior and had all my credits, so it was kind of—my senior year in high school was kind of a picnic, if you will. Franklin: And everybody likes the ice cream guy. Robinson: Yeah. And then my first job out of high school was with the City of Pasco. I was a lifeguard. And then I worked at Grigg’s. I did not feel—and maybe it was because I was too young to know what was going on—but I did not feel any discrimination that way. Again, it could be because my family—you know, we talked about my mom a little bit. She was pretty well-known; our family was pretty well-known in the Tri-Cities at that time. Maybe it was because I was that Robinson kid. I don’t know. But I didn’t feel any of that. Educational opportunities—you had to leave town, because there was no WSU Tri-Cities at the time. You had to go out of town to go to college. I went to Eastern, myself—Eastern Washington State College. And then it became Eastern Washington University. Yeah. And then I am part of the first class to graduate from Eastern Washington University. Franklin: Oh, okay. Robinson: Yeah, when I went up there it was Eastern Washington State College, and then they got the designation of university. So I’m in the first class that graduated from Eastern Washington University. Franklin: That’s cool. Robinson: Shows my age. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And what did you get your college degree in? Robinson: I got my degree in applied psychology. I got kind of a weird degree—undergraduate degree. My degree was in applied psychology, but I minored in education so that I could get a teaching certificate. I actually came back to Pasco and I taught school for a couple of years, which makes me the second black person to graduate from Pasco schools and then come back and teach. The first person to do that was a lady that I grew up with; her name was Angie Ash. Yeah. She also grew up in Pasco schools, graduated, and went to—I think she went to Eastern, too, if I recall. And she came back and taught school, too. She did all of that a couple of years before I did. Franklin: Okay. And so you mentioned you ended up getting your teaching certificate. Robinson: Yes. Franklin: And then did you go on to school beyond that, or--? Robinson: Yes, but it wasn’t until years later. I went and got my master’s degree in business administration. But I had left the area by then. All of that kind of stuff happened over in the Seattle area which is where I live now. Franklin: Right. And what eventually—you mentioned you came back to Pasco for a few years; what eventually drew you out of the Tri-Cities? Robinson: More opportunities for what I was trying to do. I taught school for a couple of years, but after I got to teaching school, I discovered that teaching in a classroom wasn’t really for me. I used to joke around and say, I was worse than the kids. ADHD and all—that’s all me. But I love working with kids. I worked with kids all the time. During the time when I stayed here in Pasco, I was doing a lot of things with kids, with young people. I coached women’s softball, my wife and I, we organized a black Junior Miss pageant. This was back in 1976 when we did a pageant. It was an opportunity—we saw it as an opportunity for black people in the Tri-Cities to express themselves culturally, and then also it was a vehicle for us to give scholarships away for young people. We did that for ten years, before we left the area. I left the area in 1986. Franklin: Oh, that’s really wonderful. What kind of education did your parents have? Robinson: They both got their GEDs. I remember—I am old enough to remember when that happened. They got their GEDs from CBC. My dad had a ninth grade education. He dropped out of school because he needed to go to work to help his mother. My mother had a third-grade education. Franklin: Third-grade education! Robinson: Yes, she dropped out of school because her mother got sick. She was the oldest child. Franklin: Oh, wow. Robinson: So it was on her to take care of her family, her siblings. She was the oldest child of two sisters and a brother, and then they also were raising a cousin. And that cousin now lives here in the Tri-Cities. Franklin: Wow. Is this when your mother was in Michigan? Robinson: Yes, this was in Saginaw. Franklin: What kind of work was available to her with just a third-grade education at that time? Robinson: Well, when— Franklin: What did she do to support her family? Robinson: Well, by the time I came along—I was born in 1952—and by the time I came along, and when I was a little tyke, I remember that Mama would work at grocery stores, she was a checker and things like that. When we would live in Yakima, she worked at a little grocery store and so forth. When we lived in Walla Walla, I think she was a stay-at-home mom. When we moved back to the Tri-Cities, that is when she—and that was in 1963, when we moved back to the Tri-Cities for good—that’s when she started doing the social work things that became who she was as Virgie Robinson. She started a little Campfire group because she had three daughters. So she started a little Campfire group and so forth. And then she got hired on as a community liaison for an organization that was called Higher Horizons. She was a social worker and things like that. And then she got the job with the school district. But it was during that time when—I kind of think it was—I’m trying to—yeah, it was after we moved back to Pasco, and I remember when the two of them got their GED. Because they were jumping up and down. They were excited about getting their GED. I didn’t even know what a GED was. But I remember that. They were both—and they kind of got it at the same time. Franklin: Oh, wow. Robinson: Yeah. So it was something that they were doing as adults, that they were— Franklin: With kids. Robinson: Yeah, with kids and all that kind of stuff. I mean, they didn’t set us down, because, me, I was the only one old enough. Because I had—I grew up with three little sisters. I was the only one that was old enough to remember, kind of, that stuff. But they never sat us down and told us, okay, we’re getting our GED and this, that and the other. Franklin: But education was clearly pretty important to your— Robinson: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Franklin: To your parents. Robinson: Well, it was very important to them. It was very important for them to see their children get educated. And I can say, all of us have now gotten our degree in one form or another. So, yeah. Franklin: Okay, so we’ve gotten through quite a bit of—Hazel Scott, that’s her name. The lady who was in the Greyhound bus station in 1940— Robinson: Okay. Franklin: She was a very famous entertainer in the 1940s, and played all around the US and Europe. That’s right. Robinson: Okay. All right. Franklin: I just remembered—I went down my questions, and I was like, oh yeah, the Hazel Scott case. Robinson: Okay, well, it was that incident. Franklin: Yeah. I looked through the files of that incident recently in the state archives. It was very—yeah, they really picked the wrong person, because she could afford a much better lawyer than the guys that owned the Greyhound bus station restaurant could. Robinson: Absolutely, way out here in the boonies at the time. Because back then, this was way out in the middle of nowhere, the Tri-Cities. I mean, it’s still kind of isolated, but now we’ve got freeways all around. Back then, no, we were really isolated. I mean, I remember a trip to Seattle taking all day. Because it was all two-lane road between—the freeway—and I use that term generously—didn’t even start until after you come out of Cle Elum. And the house still sits there where the road would open up into what was called the freeway, which was, like I say, I use that term—[COUGH]—excuse me—generously, because it was just a four-lane highway, and they called that the freeway. Franklin: Yeah, certainly nothing compared to over there on the west side. Robinson: Oh, no. Franklin: Okay, let’s see here. I think I have gone over most of my questions. I want to talk a bit about the modern-day impact of your parents. So you’re back in town for an event named after your mom, right? Robinson: Well, yeah, we talked a little bit about the work that my mom did. When she passed away back in 2003, the Pasco School District was in this big building mode, because Pasco’s growing by leaps and bounds. At that time, you know, Pasco, I think, was the fastest growing city in the entire nation. So Pasco was building schools after schools after schools to accommodate all the kids that were coming in. So they decided to name one of their new elementary schools after my mom. So the Virgie Robinson Elementary School exists now. So what my sisters and I—I mentioned that I grew up with three little sisters—what we did, along with a niece that was also being raised with us, formed a non-profit organization called the Virgie Robinson Scholarship Fund. We give out scholarships to kids who went to that school, because it’s an elementary school, if kids go to that school when they are in elementary school, when they graduate from high school, they’re eligible to apply for a scholarship that we give. So it’s just a little niche of a school, because we don’t try to serve all the kids in the Pasco School District. Just those kids there. And so I’m in town, now, because I have a Board of Directors and so forth that’s based on counselors at Pasco High, Chiawana High, some other community people here. Our big fundraiser every year is an annual golf tournament and also a silent auction event. That’s how we raise funds to give out the scholarships. So I’m in town because I have a board meeting tomorrow to continue organizing that. We do that in April every year. Franklin: You mentioned your dad worked at country clubs, so was he a big—I know golf is a major part of country clubs. Is that how you were introduced to golf or was he a big golfer? Robinson: What’s funny about that is I’m not really a golfer. I’ve got a set of clothes that was given to me by my brother. I mentioned I was raised with three little sisters; I have an older brother and an older sister that were from my dad’s first marriage. My brother’s an avid golfer. My dad was a golfer, too; he was pretty good. He actually won a trophy. There’s a trophy in our house that Dad got. But golfing, per se, was for him, and not for me. I was into the regular sports at the time. You know, the football, basketball and baseball stuff. Because when I was coming up, golfing was square. This was before Tiger Woods and all of that. They wore funny pants. We used to say we would never wear those kinds of clothes: plaid pants and all that kind of stuff. So, today, I’m not a golfer. I go out every once in a while to the driving range. I’ve gotten to the place now where I can actually hit the ball straight. I think in my entire life, I may have played two, maybe three rounds of golf—you know, a whole thing. But I’m not a golfer. But I’m good at organizing stuff. So I’ve—with help—organized this golf tournament and so forth. Community events, I mean—maybe I inherited that from my mom. I’ve always organized community events. I mentioned a little earlier how I used to do things with kids, and we did that pageant and so forth. That was a community-wide event, too. A lot of people would come to that. Franklin: That’s great. Is there anything else that you would like to mention, related to migration, segregation, civil rights, and how they impacted your life in the Tri-Cities? Robinson: Well, like everybody else, during that time, we were gaining our consciousness as black people. Because, our history here in America is well-documented. When I came along, as a youngster, that consciousness was starting to form. We ceased being “colored”—“colored” with a small c. We migrated into “Colored,” with a big C, then we migrated into “Negroes.” And then we just—I don’t know who made the decision, but we just started to reclaim our African heritage. So thus the term African Americans. So, I was coming of age with all of that, that forethought and that thinking and so forth. When I went to college, I made sure that I took a lot of classes, just so I could learn a little bit more about our history as a people in this country, to go beyond Martin Luther King, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois. There’s a whole lot more to it than just that. There’s Carter G. Woodson and so forth. Inventors that were going. People that invented the—what is it? The telephone transmitter. That Alexander Graham Bell made big. But it was actually invented by a black man. I think his name was Granville T. Woods, was his name. The gentleman that invented the stoplight and stuff. We were never taught that kind of stuff in regular school. So I made sure that when I was in school that I took classes so that I could learn about that. Franklin: Wow, that’s great. Well, Rickie, thank you very much for coming and interviewing with us today and telling us about your life in the Tri-Cities and your parents and their struggles and triumphs. Robinson: Yeah, well, thank you. Thanks for having me. My life growing up in the Tri-Cities, I have very fond memories here of growing up in the Tri-Cities. So, in spite of all the little stuff that happens, this is still my home. Franklin: Great. Okay. Thank you. Robinson: All right. Thank you. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1952-1986 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Rickie Robinson Description An account of the resource Rickie Robinson was born in Pasco, Washington in 1952. Rickie's parents moved to Pasco, Washington in 1947 and were influential in the community. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02/16/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Yakima (Wash.) Migration Northwest, Pacific Civil rights Civil rights movements Segregation https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F13896fdc609391071af3b38d7afdf2d1.JPG e934fe7b23d724dd0466d8683b1a21b5 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F443c48154ed935540525182cdba1b8ce.mp4 aa4d01011e7e59e9b95562002c38f636 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bryan and Rhonda Rambo Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Bryan and Rhonda Rambo on March 23rd, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Bryan and Rhonda about their experiences living in the Tri-Cities and/or working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, could you state and spell your full name for us, starting with Bryan? Bryan Rambo: Yes. Bryan, B-R-Y-A-N. Middle initial, Keith, K-E-I-T-H. Last name, Rambo, R-A-M-B-O. Franklin: Okay. Rhonda Rambo: My name is Rhonda Rambo. Rhonda, R-H-O-N-D-A. Middle initial, M, and last name, Rambo, R-A-M-B-O. Franklin: Thank you. So, where did your—your parents moved here, right, to come to work at Hanford? Rhonda Rambo: Yes. Franklin: Your father did. Rhonda Rambo: Our father did. Franklin: Where did your father move from? Rhonda Rambo: Bivins, Texas. Franklin: Bivins, Texas. Bryan Rambo: Yup. Thank you. You remembered Bivins, Texas. Franklin: Do you know where that is? Rhonda Rambo: It’s between Arkansas and Kansas—Arkansas/Texarkana border. Franklin: Okay. Bryan Rambo: Northeast Texas. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: East Texas, gotcha. And when did he come to Hanford? Rhonda Rambo: I’m not sure when they came to Hanford, but my mom moved here first, and she stayed actually in Hermiston with a cousin and that was back in 1954. And then my dad was in the service. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, the Korean War at the time—well, he was coming back. Rhonda Rambo: Coming back. And so once he came back, she was already moved—I believe she was already here in Pasco, east Pasco, and he came after. Franklin: So your parents were married before they— Rhonda Rambo: Yes. Franklin: And when did they get married? Rhonda Rambo: Ooh. Bryan Rambo: That’s a good one. Rhonda Rambo: I’m not sure. Bryan Rambo: I’m not— Rhonda Rambo: Maybe in ’48? I wanna think 1948. Franklin: Okay. I don’t know. It’s probably not super important. Rhonda Rambo: Because I can’t remember what Artie— Bryan Rambo: Yeah, exactly, it would be either ’48 or ’47. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, because whatever Artie’s birthday year— Bryan Rambo: Artie’s ‘52. 1952. Rhonda Rambo: So, I imagine it’d be—well, yeah, then it’d mean about ’51. Because she was kind of pregnant, I think, at the time. Franklin: Ah. That’s not uncommon. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So, you said your mom came first; she came to Hermiston. Did she have family in Hermiston? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, there was a cousin. Franklin: And do you know why they were in Hermiston? Rhonda Rambo: I’m not sure. I think that cousin actually moved further in. But that’s where, that was the first place she stayed. Franklin: Okay. What do you know about their lives before they came to the Tri-Cities? Rhonda Rambo: My grandfather was a sharecropper with cotton, so they worked the land. He had his own farm. Bryan Rambo: He also did truck farming, too. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. And my dad lived with his aunt. And I guess they were kind of—they had a little bit more money, I suppose, and so my dad didn’t have to work as hard. But my mom—they kind of went to school together and they had met up. After that, they had all of us kids. Franklin: Were you two born here in the Tri-Cities? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Our Lady of Lourdes, I was. Franklin: Lady of Lourdes. Bryan Rambo: Only one of us was—our oldest brother was born in Texas. Everybody else was born up in Washington State. Franklin: Okay. What do you know about their initial experience of coming to the Tri-Cities and finding a place to live? Rhonda Rambo: All I remember my mom talking about is the house on east Pasco, saying how bad the sandstorms would be. When the front door—screen door would be just blocked with sand and tumbleweeds, basically. That’s what I remember her talking about, living on the east side of town in that home that she stayed in. It was an apartment complex she stayed in. Bryan Rambo: Right around A Street, what is now A Street. Very dirty and dusty over there. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, that’s why she just kept saying how dusty it was, and dirty. Coming from Texas with the red clay and more—their land was more forestry, so it wasn’t—for her to come here and see all this dust and dirt and back there it’s more trees and red clay. I think it was a big change for her. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Great. Let’s see here. Do you know what prompted your mom and then your dad to move up here from Texas? Rhonda Rambo: The relatives. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Rhonda Rambo: Other families from different counties in Texas moved up here and the word got out, and I think they just started migrating— Bryan Rambo: Yeah, the opportunities. Rhonda Rambo: --up here. Franklin: Right, because that was part of a pretty large migration of blacks from east Texas that came, I believe, initially in the Manhattan Project. So your parents were part of that word-of-mouth migration during and after World War II. Okay. So you kind of described the first place your mom stayed after she arrived. When did your family stay together—do you remember the first house that you guys were in, or your parents were in? Rhonda Rambo: The house that I have now, the family home, is on Clark Street. And prior to that, they lived in Navy Homes. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, we called it the Navy Homes over there, off of 10th and Court. Rhonda Rambo: Court, yeah. That’s where most the families started out, in those homes. And eventually my dad saved up enough money to purchase the home that we’re in now. Franklin: And where—is that home in east Pasco, or in— Rhonda Rambo: West. Franklin: West Pasco. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: And what was the address? Bryan Rambo: No, no, no, you mean the Navy Homes and stuff? Franklin: Oh, yeah, so I was—well, both, actually. Bryan Rambo: Oh, Navy Homes is in more downtown but it’s in the northeast part of Pasco. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: But it’s downtown—still considered downtown. Franklin: Yeah, I’m trying to imagine—like, I’m trying to look at a map of Pasco in my head. Rhonda Rambo: If you know where the Chinese Garden is? It’s straight across the street. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm, yeah. Franklin: Oh, okay. Rhonda Rambo: And all those little houses there. That’s Navy Homes. Franklin: Oh, okay. Bryan Rambo: They actually rebuilt those. They’re still there. They remodeled them and they built them like they are today. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. They’re considered low income, I guess, too. And they were established I guess back then for the Navy families that might have been here at the time, too. After that, I think, just general families were just moving in there. Franklin: How long did your parents stay in the Navy Homes? Rhonda Rambo: It must’ve been until ’62. Because Tim-- Bryan Rambo: Because Tim was still—me, Sean was still there, I was still there, Dwayne and Artie. So we—it was about ’60— Rhonda Rambo: ’61 or ’62, because after that I was at the house. I was born in the house in ’65, so. Bryan Rambo: And I want to make a note, too, that before my father even got out to the Area when he’d come back, he was working for the railroads, too. Burlington Northern at the time—Great Northern. He was there. He was a brakeman there for a short time before he got out to the Area. Franklin: So he must have traveled around quite a bit working for the railroad? Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm. Well, he stayed local mostly because he was like a—they had the control switch men and all that. He wasn’t working, going up far, he was just doing the locking or—what do they call it? Switchmen. That’s what he was doing, basically. So he stayed close to town a lot. Franklin: Right, right. Makes sense. What was the hardest—did your parents ever talk about adjusting to life here in the Tri-Cities and what maybe was a struggle for them coming from east Texas to here, and maybe what was the benefits of coming? Rhonda Rambo: I don’t remember my mom ever saying it was a struggle. But I think she liked it. Because after she—she took us all one time down to Texas for a family trip. After I seen where she grew up, I kind of understood, maybe, why she chose to come up here and stay and start over as a family. Franklin: What was different about it down there? Rhonda Rambo: It was really—it’s rural. All rural. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Rhonda Rambo: I mean, you’re way out of town from anyone. When it’s dark, it’s dark. It’s pitch. You can’t see nothing. I mean, she warned us. She made me scared to go because she kept telling us how bad the snakes, the ticks, when you go out to the outhouse, you got to look in there and make sure there ain’t no critter in there. So I kind of had a fear of going. But, I mean, it was fun, but I understood why. And even after I went down again after I was older, I kept—I think you and me were together—and I kept saying, man, I could not live here. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Rhonda Rambo: There’s no way. With the humidity, it being hot and just living like that. I wouldn’t imagine trying to live like that, but, you know, some people—what you adapt to when you’re growing up, you adapt to. Franklin: Right, yeah, that’s true. Let’s see here. So, tell me about your father’s work—when did he start working at Hanford and what did he do? Bryan Rambo: Well, as I say, when he got here, he did several jobs, but I knew he worked for the Burlington Northern. Then he got a job up in the Hanford Area and that was around 1950—actually probably the year I was born, ’58, ’59, he got there. Franklin: Okay. Bryan Rambo: Started working there. Franklin: And what was his job out at Hanford? Bryan Rambo: Patrol. Franklin: Oh, Hanford Patrol. Bryan Rambo: He was a patrolman. Franklin: Okay. That must’ve been—were there any other—do you know if there were any other African American patrolmen at the time? Bryan Rambo: I had—fortunately, I’ve had some documents that are local news about it, and I believe he was one of the first, if not the first black patrolman out there in the Hanford Area. Franklin: Yeah, I would think so, too, considering that employment was still somewhat unofficially restricted to—most blacks worked outside jobs—outside the Area or more menial, more service-type-oriented jobs. Did he talk about his work as a patrolman at all? Rhonda Rambo: I don’t remember that. Bryan Rambo: Well, we remember—well, basically all we remember, he had a blue uniform and his hat was a barracks hat. And he’d come in—he’d work—with the stripe. It looked like Richland PD back in the day, but—there was like a light blue uniform, he’d come in, his gear, his gun and stuff. Well, he wouldn’t carry his gun all the time. I didn’t see. He probably had it but he hid it. Rhonda Rambo: It was in the holster. Bryan Rambo: But he always had the holster. It was interesting. He would come in, he would go talk to us to make sure we did our chores, see how we were doing. And apparently get good news from Mom that we hadn’t gotten in trouble or anything because he was going to get us later of course! But he was a hard worker. He’d come in—he didn’t talk much about it. But he did take us out there. He took me out there. Franklin: Oh, really? Bryan Rambo: Yes! Rhonda Rambo: I don’t remember going. Franklin: And when did this— Bryan Rambo: You were really young then. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, I don’t remember. Bryan Rambo: It was interesting, because he brought us through what is now the Prosser Barricade. It’s off of 240 and I think it’s highway, what is that, Highway 4 now? But it’s not the Wye Barricade area, if you’re kind of situated with the 400 Area and all that. It’s like coming into 400 Area is closer. But anyway it comes off of Highway 240 and—gosh, I can’t remember—I think it’s Highway 4. But anyway, there used to be a barricade there and you can’t see nothing there but a parking lot there. But we actually drove in there, we went in, and he started showing us the Area. We didn’t go into the facilities, per se. We went through there, then we went through and drove through what is now the 100 Area. He took us way out there. He was just showing us the scenery, the N Reactor, the 100 Areas. He didn’t show us East and West too much at the time. And 300 Area, he showed us 300 Area and he kind of told us where he worked at, at the time. At the time, he told me, if I remember right, I think he was at 300 Area then. But he’s worked all the areas he said. But I remember 300 Area, he showed us a lot about 300 Area. Franklin: Right, yeah. I think they—most patrolmen kind of got stationed all over the place. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. But we stayed in the vehicle, couldn’t get out. Franklin: Of course. Bryan: Rambo: We just drove around. But, no, I remember that. It was a great experience for me, because I didn’t—you know, I wanted to see where he worked out, what he do. And he just drove us around. And it’s so big, at the time. It was interesting. Franklin: Did your father ever talk about any challenges with his work at Hanford? Maybe ever any racial conflicts or things with supervisors or fellow employees or anything like that? Rhonda Rambo: No, my dad was a pretty quiet man. I mean, I don’t remember ever hearing him—I still don’t remember him even raising his voice. All I remember him is coming home, my mom fussing, and then he’d go out to the garage, and that was his place to kind of wind down, tangle with stuff. I don’t remember—I don’t even remember getting a whupping by him, but they said I did. Bryan Rambo: You did. [LAUGHTER] Rhonda Rambo: But I don’t remember. I remember him taking me and trying to show me how to drive a truck. You know, it was an old, what? That old Chevy truck he had, and the stick was up here. And I remember him trying to push the clutch and he’d tell me to go down with the gear. That’s what I remember. I don’t remember—I do kind of remember the uniform thing, but I don’t remember too much of him complaining about work. Like you said, he would come in, he’d have dinner with us kids and, you know. I just remember him being a mellow, quiet man. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm, I agree. Rhonda Rambo: He enjoyed fishing when he had time off. He also had another business. He worked for Sandvik Metals doing their land. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, he had a landscaping business. Franklin: Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Bryan Rambo: And myself and my other brother, we’d go with him and we’d mole and cut and weed-eat and all that stuff. For, like, you said, Sandvik’s. It was several homes in Richland and Kennewick we’d go to, and Pasco. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, he did that. Franklin: And you guys grew up in Pasco and lived in Pasco your whole lives? Rhonda Rambo: Yes. Pasco High. Stevens Middle School, we went to. Franklin: Okay. How long did your father work out at Hanford for? Bryan Rambo: Exactly ten years. Franklin: Exactly ten years. And what— Bryan Rambo: So it was ’58 through 1968. Franklin: Okay, and why did he leave Hanford? Rhonda Rambo: Got sick. Bryan Rambo: At the time, he was a—well, he smoked a lot, too. He quit smoking, but he had issues with emphysema and stuff. But he wanted to get in town—my mother, at the time, wanted him in town, and Garrett Freight Lines was opening a local delivery truck service in town. And he just decided to go ahead and work with them and stay in town and stop the long drive out to the Area. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah, that is a long drive out there from Pasco. I imagine, especially with the roads in the ‘60s. Okay. So let’s hear kind of about your guys’ experiences with growing up. So we talked about the kind of housing you guys lived in. Did—so I know east Pasco was kind of the hub of the African American community, but you guys lived in west Pasco. Rhonda Rambo: Yes. Franklin: So you would’ve went to—did you—I imagine you would’ve went to schools that were predominantly white— Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: As opposed to schools in east Pasco, which would’ve been predominantly African American at the time. Rhonda Rambo: And at the time, there was only one school in east Pasco. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, Whittier. Rhonda Rambo: Which was Whittier. Franklin: Whittier, right. Rhonda Rambo: And our older brother and possibly— Bryan Rambo: Yep, Artie, he was the only one. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, Artie was the only one that went there. All the rest of us went to Pasco High. Franklin: Pasco High, right. How large was the African American community in west Pasco where you lived? Rhonda Rambo: Maybe, I can think of— Bryan Rambo: Oh, man, everybody was basically on the east side at the time. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Well, the Robinsons lived up the street. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Rhonda Rambo: There was maybe one family I could think of that was close to us. Bryan Rambo: Yeah it was the Robinsons and that was it. We were one of the first families that went even on the west side of Pasco. For a long time. Rhonda Rambo: For a long time. Bryan Rambo: It was not many blacks would even be on the west side of Pasco, on this side of the—you know, of the town. Franklin: Did you face any challenges being one of the—outside of what had been formally and informally—you know, east Pasco’s formally and informally placed as where African Americans would live. And that line was pretty drawn sharp with the railroad there. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Our school, I mean, I remember junior high, not so much elementary, but junior high, I remember one time some girls were saying, well, why are you sitting with the white girls? And I’m like, you mean, my neighbors and my friends? Because they couldn’t even—they couldn’t see that me being black, sitting over here, but being growing up in a majority-white neighborhood, that’s who I grew up with. So I felt comfortable, but I felt a little bit like discriminated against, because I felt pressured into, like, oh, I got to go start socializing with these girls. So that was my first reaction, I guess. Someone showing some kind of discrimination. Bryan Rambo: Now, in addition with what she said, that’s when we moved—we did move from Navy Homes in to Clark Street. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: Which was further west at the time. And that was considered growing, getting better and everything, as Pasco. And like I said, like she said, with just the Robinsons, I guess, and us, and not many minority or blacks were on that side of town. Franklin: Right. How big is your family? Rhonda Rambo: Seven of us. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Seven--? Rhonda Rambo: Seven children. Franklin: Seven children, okay. And where are you guys age-wise on the--? Rhonda Rambo: I’m now—I was the only girl out of seven—out of six boys. So I’m now the baby. Three out of the seven—six boys—are deceased. So he would be—I would’ve been second-to-the-youngest, first the baby brother, and then he would be third in line from the two older brothers. Franklin: Okay, cool. Did you guys attend church? Rhonda Rambo: Oh, yeah. Bryan Rambo: Yes. Franklin: And what church did your family attend? Rhonda Rambo: Trinity Church of God. Franklin: And where was that located? Rhonda Rambo: On the west side of town. [LAUGHTER] Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: On the— Bryan Rambo: Well, yes. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, it was on the west side. Bryan Rambo: Well, it was originally on the east side, though. Rhonda Rambo: No. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, yeah. Rhonda Rambo: Was it? I don’t remember. Bryan Rambo: We went to church on Ainsworth—it was off of—not Ainsworth, but off of A Street—it’s 1st Street. Not 1st Street. What’s the name of that street that there’s only partially of it left on east side, but the church was there. And that’s when we had—it was before Elder Knowles—Elder James. Rhonda Rambo: Oh, I don’t remember him. Bryan Rambo: See? Rhonda Rambo: [LAUGHTER] I was too young, probably. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Rhonda Rambo: I only remember the church on Shoshone. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, you were young. But it was—but then Elder Knowles taken over and that’s when you remember, and then we moved—the church moved from the east side to where it is now on Shoshone. Rhonda Rambo: Shoshone. 4th and Shoshone. Bryan Rambo: Yes. And there were— Rhonda Rambo: 5th and Shoshone. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, 5th and Shoshone, exactly. Rhonda Rambo: 5th and Shoshone. Franklin: So did its congregation follow when it moved or was it more of a mixed congregation? Rhonda Rambo: It was people from west—east and west—well, east Pasco that came there. Which was kind of nice, because those members, I went to school with, so it was kind of like I still got to see people I knew and went to school with but lived in east Pasco. But yeah there was quite a few members. The majority of the members were from east Pasco. We were the ones I think thatweren’t. From the west, on the west side. Franklin: What role did the church play in the community? Rhonda Rambo: A big part of our family. Our mom, she had us in church three, four times a week. Bryan Rambo: At least three times a week. Rhonda Rambo: I mean, Sunday was twice a day. We went morning service, to Sunday school, church, and then we came back in the evening. Even when we were young and she knew we had to get home with the younger ones, she had the older ones walk us home. So a big group of—here’s seven kids walking down the street. You know, back then, we—today, that’d be a gang. Bryan Rambo: [LAUGHTER] Rhonda Rambo: But, yeah, she sent us home so we can get home and get to bed while she stayed and attended church. Our dad was sick the majority, most of the time. I remember her dragging him to church on Sunday because of football, that was his thing. I don’t want to go, I want to watch the game. But every once in a while, he’d dress up and he’d go, she’d get him to go. But once he started getting sick, he couldn’t go. But she still got up and got us dressed and off we went. Franklin: What was your father’s illness? Rhonda Rambo: Cancer. Lung cancer. Yeah. Bryan Rambo: And emphysema. Well, emphysema plus the—was part of it. Franklin: You said he was a pretty heavy smoker? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. I don’t remember him smoking, but my mom—both my parents did smoke. But my mom, I don’t remember her smoking, either. So she did quit at some time, and my dad. Bryan Rambo: And they had some issues in 300 Area, too, that happened. Particles that got in there, too. So he had issues there. So he had gotten sick. It was a combination of both. Franklin: Yeah. Okay. And when did your father pass away? Bryan Rambo: 19—I remember I was in— Rhonda Rambo: ’78. Bryan Rambo: Yup. Franklin: About ten years after he retired from Hanford. Bryan Rambo: Yes, mm-hmm. Franklin: Do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions, including food, that people brought from the places they came from? Like east Texas? Rhonda Rambo: Oh, yeah. Well, of course. Bryan Rambo: It’s a lot. It’s so much. Rhonda Rambo: My mom’s a Southern cook and so am I. So one thing she traditionally kept us eating during, I don’t know, I guess in holidays, she taught me to make gumbo. And I still traditionally make it for Thanksgiving. Bryan Rambo: Every year, mm-hmm. Still do. Rhonda Rambo: I don’t know. We—my momma used to take us picking beans. There was a farm here in Pasco that I guess after they harvested, they would let the families go in and pick again to see anything. So my mom did a lot of canning. She would take us all out there. We picked beans if we could off the vines and bring them home. She canned a lot of it. So we had a lot of fresh cooking. And when she cooked, she’d cook a lot. But yeah, the Southern cooking of snap beans and potatoes and ham and— Bryan Rambo: Preserves. Rhonda Rambo: She had a garden in the yard there, so she’d grow greens and cabbage and tomatoes. She would take tomatoes and cucumbers and pour vinegar and salt and pepper on, and we’d eat slices of that. Fresh corn if it was—either she’d take us and pick it or she—she couldn’t probably grow enough of it. But anytime she could get it, she’d cook it. There was a local guy that would catch fish and bring it to her. Crappies and bluegills, by the buckets, and we’d have fish fry, you know, as soon as we cleaned them all up. Bryan Rambo: Alan. Alan was the guy that used to do that. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, so traditionally, yeah, she loved to cook and she instilled that in me. I feel like some of my cooking skills came from a young child going in the kitchen and helping her a lot in the kitchen, learning how to do a lot of it. And I thank her for that because it makes me a good woman today, I think. Franklin: Great. Bryan Rambo: And me, I continue to garden, like she said, we just—I still do. I give her the— Franklin: Kind of got bit by the bug? Bryan Rambo: I give her the greens so she can cook them. Franklin: Nice, nice. What about any—like community activities or events, like, celebrations that may have been more specific to the South? Was there anything like that that was brought? Rhonda Rambo: Well, I know, Juneteenth is really big here and in the South. That’s one of the things that they still today do here each year. That was one of the big things I remember as far as traditional things that were done. Easter is a big—I think played a lot here, still today, is the women would come out with the big hair, big hats. My mom was one of them. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. She loved to dress up for anniversary, church anniversaries. That was something big that they—she dressed us up. But I remember, Easter mainly, going and wearing gloves, Easter gloves, hats, little patent shoes, matching your little patent purse. Yeah. So I remember that was a big—and the bonnet of course. Bryan Rambo: Oh, yes. Franklin: That’s cool. Were there any opportunities available here that were not available where your parents came from? Rhonda Rambo: I think work. Just work altogether. I mean, if you didn’t get out from where they lived, you were going to be a farmer. So I think coming here had bigger opportunities, money. The South is hard, back then. You couldn’t do too much down there and not be scrutinized about what you’re doing. So for my grandfather to be able to sharecrop and have some land to work it and not lose it to the white man that was down there was a lot. Bryan Rambo: True. Rhonda Rambo: So I can’t tell you the whole story, but there was a relative of ours that’s supposed to have shot a white man, and they smuggled him out, and he did live, he did survive. But his family—he had to leave his wife and children to start a whole new life away from there, because that person’s family after they left and they were questioned, where was this person, they were basically beaten, land taken from—part of their land was taken from them in order to try to get them to say what had happened. But they kept their mouths quiet. They did get him out, and he did have to start—and my mom actually saw that person. He had started a whole new life, new change of life, new lifestyle, new family. But it was kind of sad, he had to leave his wife and children just to start over, just to get out of the—leaving. But the family that was left there did get tortured because of it. So that’s one story that will always stick with me, because that’s kind of sad that you have to be smuggled out to survive. It’s almost like a slavery-type thing, where you have to run for your life and leave your family. Franklin: Yeah. Rhonda Rambo: You know? Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Sharecropping is—and that Jim Crow system is—too many uncomfortable parallels to slavery. Slavery by a different name. Did your parents ever talk much about the segregation that was in the South and any differences here in Washington? Bryan Rambo: Well, in my experience, we knew that certain parts—we’d go to like—we would walk around a lot when we were growing up. And we knew in the earlier ‘60s, we were told we could go—if we go to Kennewick and walk across the old blue bridge—the old bridge, now it’s gone—we could cross over there. You could go there and shop and do your thing and get done, but you can only—make sure you’re back before nightfall. Don’t be there after nightfall, we were always told that. Us older boys. Because we were worried about, you know, accidents can happen. She just said, just get back because things happen there. I’m not saying there was cross-burning and stuff, I didn’t see that, but there was a fear that could happen to us in Kennewick. So we made sure we did everything we did, we stayed in Pasco or stay outside of town, and not have those kind of problems. Rhonda Rambo: I think one thing I remember is going to school and everybody saying—you know like when we had basketball games against Richland or Kennewick, we always seemed to have the rep of we’re bad. You know, Pasco’s bad, they’re this bad element. And even with—I work in Richland, and even working with some of my coworkers and they say, where do you live? And I say, oh, Pasco. And they say, oh, I would never go to Pasco. And I’m like, good! Stay out. Because we ain’t missing nothing over there that you ain’t bringing us already. But it’s just that fear of hearing, Pasco’s bad. But you know, really, it’s not. I think it’s all in people’s—it may be, back in the day— Bryan Rambo: Mm-hm. Rhonda Rambo: I remember when the prostitutes were legally—not legally—but they walked downtown Pasco. I remember that. I remember the pimps. I remember hearing about the police pulling these people over. I remember hearing they said they put them in the cars and put them back out on the street just to keep doing what they’re doing. I remember after-hours night clubs that they can go to after-hours, on east Pasco. Where they can gamble, drink late at night. I remember all that. But it didn’t affect me because my mom kept us— Bryan Rambo: JD’s. [LAUGHTER] Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. My mom kept us— Franklin: Sorry, what? What’s JD’s? Rhonda Rambo: JD’s was the old—you shut up before I say it now. Bryan Rambo: [LAUGHTER] Rhonda Rambo: Well, it was a grocery store, but I don’t think it was a night— Bryan Rambo: Well, there was some other stores around— Rhonda Rambo: Around there, yeah. Bryan Rambo: Some clubs were up there. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, there were some after-hour clubs that—they were bars but then they did after-hours stuff. But the prostitution, that went on for years. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. I mean, all cities have these issues. It’s funny when they pretend they don’t exist or they shove them to an area and stigmatize that area. That’s often—yeah, I’m not from around here but when I did move here a couple years ago, it’s one of the first things I heard about Pasco. Don’t go to east Pasco. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, don’t go. Franklin: Yeah, and no real reason but that’s the “bad” area of town. Oh, well, then you come to find out the history of east Pasco and you can see why it’s been stigmatized that way, and it’s not due to the residents; it’s more due to careless— Rhonda Rambo: Talk, yeah. Franklin: And prejudice. Yeah. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, so that’s what I remember, is being labeled as the “bad” town to live in. I mean, Pasco has a lot of good elements to it I still see today. And obviously the growth is one of them. So I still think that it’s a great place to raise your family as far as having your children grow up here. I love it. I go to—I have family, I go—my family’s from the Bay Area, so I go out there and I visit. But I don’t want to live there. I have family in Seattle, I go to visit, but I don’t want to live there. I’m always—this is what I call home. And, see, I probably will die here. I imagine. [LAUGHTER] But I mean, everybody has their own different views. But, like you said, there’s bad element everywhere. You can’t really get away from it; you learn to adjust and hope for the best. I just think that there’s good and bad in everybody. Franklin: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: And also one of the issues I remember that—it was bussing. It wasn’t bussing, because we were never bussed; my mother would take us to school or we walked to school. But I also was at Longfellow at the time, and all of the sudden they moved us out of Longfellow and they switched us to what is now Emerson, the Emerson School. They just moved us around, switched us around, and we were told it was kind of because of a bussing issue—not a bus issue, but they wanted to move minorities around. So things were changing, I guess, so they moved us around. They moved us out of Longfellow to Emerson and then started changing out then. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: So that was quite interesting, yeah. Franklin: The integration—you’re talking about the integration of schools. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, the integration, yeah. I remember that. Franklin: And where—sorry, I’m not super-familiar with these schools, so where was Longfellow? Bryan Rambo: It is now on— Rhonda Rambo: 10th? Bryan Rambo: 10th, it’s more in town. It’s on 10th also, 10th and— Rhonda Rambo: Clark. Bryan Rambo: No, actually, it’s 14th. That’s 14th, isn’t it? It’s 14th. It’s 14th. Rhonda Rambo: 14th and Clark. Franklin: And where is Emerson? Rhonda Rambo: Emerson is right on Sylvester. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hm. Franklin: Okay. Bryan Rambo: Well, now it’s not. No, it’s not on Sylvester anymore. It’s moved up, now. It’s—but at the time, she’s right, it was on Sylvester. Rhonda Rambo: It’s now the Boys and Girls Club of America, that’s where it is now, and then they moved it over towards the high school now. Emerson, that’s the new Emerson. Franklin: Were there any ways in which opportunities for your parents were limited because of segregation or racism? Bryan Rambo: I think, personally, I think the opportunities opened, like I say, when they got here, my sister was saying. It just, like I say, it was more work. My dad always had found work and he had, like I say, his own business. Rhonda Rambo: They both went to CBC for a little—my mom got an AA at CBC, and so she taught early childhood education. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm, Head Start. Rhonda Rambo: Head Start. I think there were other black women that my mom—the Tates—that one of them worked there with my mom. Bryan Rambo: Yes. Of course, Virgie Robinson. The school’s named after her now. We were real close to her, real close to her. Franklin: Yeah, one of our early interviews for the project was Richie, Richie Robinson, I talked with him. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, Richie’s great, yeah. Franklin: Yeah, he is. That was a really wonderful interview. And his mom, I wish I could have met her. She was a really— Bryan Rambo: Oh, she was great. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: She was a really amazing lady. Bryan Rambo: Yes, she was. Franklin: What about for yourselves? Did you feel in any ways, growing up in Pasco, that—or when you were first starting out in adulthood, felt that your opportunities were limited in any way because of de facto segregation or racism? Rhonda Rambo: I don’t think so. Bryan Rambo: I feel that my parents at the time, they kind of were in the tougher fringes of the—you know, segregation and all. Because they came out of Jim Crow era. And then things were changing in the ‘60s and things were getting a little bit better. I think the opportunities for me opened up. For me, and my sister. We found work, there’s no problem. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: Even in school, I felt had all the opportunities I wanted to go forward from middle school and high school. Went to Stevens, both went to Stevens, and it was good there. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: High school. Franklin: And could you describe any interactions that you or your parents had with people from other parts of the Tri-Cities that stand out to you, if any? Bryan Rambo: My father, like we say, he was kind of tight-lipped a little bit about the friends. But he had a gentleman named Mr. Kimbrough. Now, he’s also a fellow patrolman. He’d hang out with him, and he would go out—his house was out further out at right now what would be the farm areas. Its no longer a farm area, now it’s West Pasco, further out. I think he was on 50th or 40—I think Road 53, I think, or 54. But anyway at that time, he’d go out there and he would hang out—I remember he used to drive out there with him. He would help him do his taxes, he would help him do his work in his house. They were really good friends, and they had good rec. He was really good. And they took care of each other. You know, he was a real good friend of my dad’s. Rhonda Rambo: We had good neighbors. We had good friends around our neighborhood. Franklin: Who were some of the people that influenced you as children? Bryan Rambo: Locally, or--? Franklin: Yeah, yeah. And nationally? Rhonda Rambo: Influenced me? I want to say—I don’t know, I think just my upbringing. The way my mother taught us. After our dad passed, my mom really had to step up. I mean, she still had five? Bryan Rambo: Yup. Rhonda Rambo: Five kids in the house to raise. So she immediately—she worked nights, I remember getting up and making her coffee and packing her lunch. As she got older and got sicker herself, she started showing me how to pay bills. So I was paying bills probably at 15, 16 years old, writing checks for her. I felt I might’ve grew up a little faster, but at the same time, she was teaching me what I needed to know at the same time. But just watching her as a woman, growing up and being so strong and independent, it made me who I am today. I think I’m a strong person because of that. So I think she’s my biggest role model. Because of her faith in God, I think that helped shield us from a lot. Because she always taught us, when we came in from school, we prayed. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm, we did a lot of praying. Rhonda Rambo: She taught us to pray, if we were in class and we were having issues with maybe our teacher or a fellow classmate, she would say, just—you don’t have to shut your eyes, she said, just say a little prayer. And today, I think she’s kept us out of a lot. She used to foresee things. I kid you not, she would tell us, I saw this in a dream: don’t go over here. One of our brothers didn’t listen. And we had a local pub across the street from our home where we grow up right there on Clark Street. It was First Edition. And she told my brother, I dreamed that you’re going to get injured in that pub; you need to stay out of there. And he went over there and they had a pinball machine. I guess there was someone in there playing on it longer than he wanted, and he went up to the guy and said, hey, I want my turn. This guy punched my brother one time, broke his jaw, and sent him straight to the hospital. My mom said, I told you! Bryan Rambo: Yeah, I remember that! Rhonda Rambo: And stay out of that bar because this was going to happen. There was a couple of dreams that she had about my older brother, and she told him, I had a bad dream. Stay out of here, don’t go over here. My brother didn’t listen. But you know, none of us have done time to where we’re in prison. But she instilled us the right and the wrong. And I think that is what is slacking in a lot of families today. She gave us rules and if we broke them rules, we got the punishment. And my mom didn’t joke. Bryan Rambo: No, she did not. Rhonda Rambo: If my dad came home, and she told, you know your dad is going to whup you, she really meant that, and she meant she going to do it, too. And so we had that fear in us. And so I tried to instill that same thing in my children. Y’all know right and wrong. If you go out there and you did something wrong, don’t expect me to come and get you out of it, if you make that mistake. So I think that that is what people need in this world today, is a little bit of more, put down your foot, let’s just say, and just stick to your grounds. Franklin: Did your mom or dad ever give you any advice or anything on maybe how to handle a delicate situation that may be caused because of someone else’s bigotry or perception of you? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, she did. She said, they’re only words. Try to walk away from—she always taught us to walk away from a fight unless they put they hands on us. I mean, then you have to—if you have to defend yourself. But she’d always try to teach us it’s only words and they’re not going to kill you, and to try to walk away. You know, today, I’ve never really been—I don’t remember being called out of my name. But maybe one time. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Bryan Rambo: One time for me at least that I know. Rhonda Rambo: Usually I will address it if it is a problem. I usually just go ahead and speak my mind, too. And then—but I’ve never had to physically fight or anything. Outside my brothers. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: Right, that’s just— Bryan Rambo: Yeah, we protect our brothers and sisters. Yeah, we did that. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, but they tried to teach us to love, not to fight. Franklin: Right. So, Bryan, you worked out at Hanford, right? Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm, yes. Franklin: And how long did you work out at Hanford for? Bryan Rambo: Oh, okay. Franklin: A long time? Bryan Rambo: You want to put a—phew. Since ’86, so— Franklin: Do you still work out there? Bryan Rambo: No, I retired in—what was it? 2014. ’14, yeah. No, ’13. ’13, excuse me. Franklin: So 27 years. Bryan Rambo: Yes. Franklin: And what did you do out there? Bryan Rambo: Like my dad, like my father, like son, I joined—went on patrol. Franklin: Went on patrol. Bryan Rambo: Hanford Patrol. Franklin: And how had patrol changed from your father’s day to when you started? Bryan Rambo: Well, it was interesting because I—when I got out there, there was people that still—even though he was gone, let’s say, he’s been gone more than, at that time— Rhonda Rambo: 20 years. Bryan Rambo: When I started, because that was ’86, so that’s been a span of— Franklin: Almost 20 years. Bryan Rambo: 15, 20 years. Rhonda Rambo: Almost 20 years. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, some people that were still there remembered my father. And again, like my sister said, they had real respect for my dad, and they—I had to, of course, have previous experience in the service—Marine Corps, and they wanted me. But they knew my dad, and actually, the interviewer knew my dad and spoke very good words about him and everything. And it just went from there. But I tried to bring up a photo showing how my father was out there. He was one of the few that watched the first moon rocks that were brought in 1968 from the moonwalk. Franklin: Oh, cool. Bryan Rambo: It was at the Federal Building, and he was—it shows him guarding it, standing up, guarding it. And then there’s a little girl looking at it, and he’s looking down kind of watching everything. It was in the Federal Building at the Science Center then. It was very cool. I was very proud of that. I think PNL still has records of those photos—they’ve got photos of it. But that’s the reason why, again, because they saw Rambo, a lot of those photos because in our academy they had those pictures. They had a picture of my dad still in there. Franklin: In where? Bryan Rambo: In our academy. We had an academy out there at the time, in the East Area. Not East Area, now it’s 300 Area, toward 300 Area. But at the time, they had some pictures in the East Area where I first started at, and they had pictures of patrolmen through the ages of the years, and they had my father’s picture there. It was great, you know, seeing that. So it was great. It was great there. Real professional. Professional work. A lot of years, a lot of good people. Had some issues in those days, but— Franklin: Like what? Bryan Rambo: It wasn’t much—like not much racial issues. But you know a little here and there, little sticklers. Like we said, my sister was saying, my mother and father gave us—look over at the wind, just look over at—as long as it’s not interfering with my job, my work and my job, keep going. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: And that’s why I did 20-some years doing that. And overall it’s been good. Franklin: What on-the-job training did you receive, if any? Bryan Rambo: Ooh, I started off there as what would be called the SRT or like SWAT, kind of a fast tactical team there at the time. Different than what my father was, which was like just regular security police officer. We were like a [UNKNOWN], they called it. But anyway we would do pretty much everything what my father would do, except if there was an emergency, we would go there for emergencies. Anything, situations, we’ll be ready to go, out at the Hanford Area, whatever it may be. And in the town, also, so, the Federal Building. So it was pretty interesting. Franklin: Did you acquire any skills or experience on the job that helped you later in life? Bryan Rambo: Oh, a lot. Rhonda Rambo: Patience. Bryan Rambo: Patience, yes. [LAUGHTER] Bryan Rambo: A lot of patience. You’ve got to just—being an officer, whether you’re in the Area or you’re a police officer, you’ve got to have the patience, like you said. You got to have—of course have all the necessary training from law enforcement to do my job. Today, I would use those opportunities still in my head—it’s still a race around my head to do it—what to do and what not to do. They help me in life. Plus, like we said, we went to school. I also did—prior to going into patrol, I did four years of college out of University of Hawai’i, went to University of Hawai’i and got a degree there. Franklin: Oh, on—Manoa? Bryan Rambo: Yes, yes, Manoa Campus. Franklin: Oh, I went to University of Hawai’i in Hilo. Bryan Rambo: All right! Good job. [LAUGHTER] Bryan Rambo: Hilo, right, that’s great. Excellent. The Big Island? Oh, my goodness. Franklin: Yeah, the Big Island. Bryan Rambo: It’s great. Franklin: Yeah, I loved it. What made you—this is a little off-topic—but what made you want to go to Hawai’i? Bryan Rambo: Again, when I was in—I went into the Marine Corps right after high school in ’77—I went and I did my training and then after that, my first duty station was Pearl Harbor. So I got to see Pearl Harbor, did my duties there, and at the time I was taking a few classes at the University on my off time and everything. So when I finished my first initial four years with the Marine Corps, I decided, oh, well, I’ll just go back and finish up. So I went back to Manoa and started off there and finished up. Franklin: And what was your degree in? Bryan Rambo: Broadcast communications. Franklin: Broadcast communications. And, Rhonda, did you go to college as well? Rhonda Rambo: I only did a little bit for early childhood education. Because I was kind of working at a daycare where they wanted me to have a little extra training on it. But, no, I didn’t go any more than I had to. [LAUGHTER] Per se. Franklin: It’s not always for everyone. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Hold on, I just want to write that down. So, Bryan, where did you—could you describe a typical workday as a Hanford Patrol officer when you were out there? Bryan Rambo: I can’t tell you everything. But I can tell you some outlooks. Like I say, we get there, get our lineup, we get the time—what happened the night before or what’s going on that happened that day, the activities. We’d get our reports, and we’d be sent out to our various locations, whether it be, let’s say, up close in East or West Area or we’d be sent way down south to 300 or way north to 200-East or 100-N Areas. So we’d roll, we’d do our various security checks, and just traffic control, those things. Franklin: And so that really brought you all over the Site, then. Bryan Rambo: Yes. Franklin: Like your father, you would’ve gotten to know the whole Site pretty well. Bryan Rambo: Yes, I got to know the whole Site. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors and management? Bryan Rambo: Pretty good. I had a good—tons of good coworkers. I’m still having fun with them now. Some of them are still out in the Area today. I still have time with them. In fact, two years ago—well, now it was a year and a half I guess—we went to white water rafting on the Solomon River—Salmon River down in Oregon. Franklin: Oh, cool. Bryan Rambo: It’s fun, you know, we do a lot of good things. Franklin: So you have pretty close relationships, communication, with a lot of them. Bryan Rambo: Oh, yes. Sure do. Rhonda Rambo: I still—well, for my job, there’s one of the inspectors that come through, still, every time he sees me, your brother. Your brother this, your brother that. I’m like, okay, I get it, he’s a good guy. So he was like, I do still hear, people still that do know him say— Franklin: And, Rhonda, where do you work? Rhonda Rambo: I work for a company that’s not in Hanford, but for Hanford, that does radioactive waste from Hanford. Franklin: Okay, which company? Rhonda Rambo: It’s Perma-Fix Northwest. Franklin: There’s such a litany of contractors that’s it’s always, like, I need a map. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: I’m scared to make one because I don’t know if I have that much space on a piece of paper. Bryan Rambo: Is it all Battelle now? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, we’re right off of Battelle here, on the other side. Franklin: Our project is a subcontractor of MSA so we’re involved. WSU’s also involved in the web, as I like to call it. The web of Hanford contractors. And how long have you been with Perma-Fix Northwest? Bryan Rambo: You’ve been there— Rhonda Rambo: I’ve been at the site 19 years. It’s been owned three times. So it went from ATG which is Allied Technology— Franklin: Yeah. Rhonda Rambo: To Pacific Eco Solutions which is abbreviated for PECOS to now what is now Perma-Fix. Franklin: And what is your specific job within Perma-Fix? Rhonda Rambo: As of right now, I’m doing material control documentation. Before I was an operator, the other years there. Franklin: An operator of? Rhonda Rambo: On the Site handling the waste. Franklin: Oh, wow, okay. So kind of similar questions to Bryan’s—what on-the-job training did you receive? Rhonda Rambo: Hazardous waste training, material—you know, as far as we had to get a 40-hour— Bryan Rambo: You’re RTC cleared, too, aren’t you? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. We had to get hazardous waste training. Still today. We still keep that going. A physical every year. And on-the-job training pretty much every year we do it out on Site. It’s a nice job. Yeah. Franklin: Could you describe a typical work day? Rhonda Rambo: Typical work day, we do a job briefing in the morning, about what we’re getting into. We go over the paperwork that we might have to sign saying we understand what we’re getting into, what type of waste. And then usually we go in and suit up, put our respo on, and get to opening up containers and— Franklin: Wow. Rhonda Rambo: --start processing the waste. So now that I’m out in the office, I do the receiving of the waste now. And I enter it into—we have a database that I enter it into. And from there, lots of waste comes, I go to meet the drivers, get the paperwork, sign it. I create the barcodes that we use to mark the containers, and then I track the waste after it goes into the different facilities of the waste is being done at, I track that waste in that database. And then I build the shipment and give it off to our shipper who reviews it and sends it off to get notification and that’s the end of the process. And I do it on a daily basis. Franklin: Wow. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: And we interacted, because I had to work with her to get— Rhonda Rambo: Waste coming. Bryan Rambo: Into her facilities to bring waste, you know, escort it, make sure nothing happens to it between coming out of the Area to her area. But she’s right, I would go in there with full gear, and—[LAUGHTER] I said, wanna see—the security folks would know me, but once I’d go in there, they’re just worried, what’s going on. Because they didn’t know. Franklin: Right, because I go on the Site and Hanford Patrol is pretty tactical. It’s not much different from what you would see on a base. Which really surprised me when I got here. Especially comparing photos of Patrol guys from the ‘50s and ‘60s that, you know, look like—you know, they kind of look like Mayberry-- Bryan Rambo: Yeah, exactly, and what’s the way it was with my father. And now you see like camouflage and whole wearing gear and everything. Franklin: Automatic weapons. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Franklin: Yeah, it’s a real different—it’s a real different world. Rhonda Rambo: He used to come on my lunch hour, and I’d be playing cards. And he suited up. And they’re like, your brother’s got a gun. We’re not supposed to have guns on Site. I said, he’s still on the job. He can have that gun. On the Site. [LAUGHTER] Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, so. Bryan Rambo: But you tell them, and say, hey, don’t make any trouble with me, which wasn’t nice. Rhonda Rambo: I would say, yeah, don’t mess with me, because there’s that gun right there. I might decide to take a few of you out. But we know, it’s a joke. Everybody knows it’s a joke. But it was fun. Bryan Rambo: It was good seeing sis, though. It’s just—you know, see how she’s doing and vice versa, it was nice. Franklin: That’s good, that’s good. Let’s see here. And similar questions, good relationships with your coworkers? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: And everything? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Franklin: No—treated on the job well? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Well—yeah. Franklin: Yeah? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, there’s been a few—maybe not so much—there’s been a few little— Franklin: Maybe in the past? Rhonda Rambo: There’s been a few little incidents. But nothing that couldn’t—that hasn’t been dealt with. So, I could say there has been some people that would say something. And I don’t know if they just didn’t know better. So— Franklin: You mean something like insulting, racially motivated? Rhonda Rambo: Racially. They would kind of in a round-about way say stuff. And then they would think—they’d, ha ha ha. But I would go, ha ha ha and then let them know, yeah, you’re incorrect. So I kind of—I was there prior and I left when it was ATG. And I went and worked at the Interstate Nuclear Services which is a laundry facility off of the Bypass there, on 240. I left and went there for five years. My old supervisor sent a note saying, hey, come back, with the truck driver that was picking up the laundry from ATG. And I read that note, and I thought, you know, maybe I should go back now. But I kind of knew going back that there was things that I wouldn’t tolerate if I go back. Because it was majority—I was sometimes the only woman on the whole crew, with all men. And you know, growing up with boys kind of made me thicker-skinned for some of the stuff. So when I went back, one of the guys, the leads, was saying, you know, you’re going to be on a respo all day. And I said, yeah, I know. And he—I guess he didn’t realize I had worked there before, and he thought he was trying to scare me, intimidate me. I just looked at him like, yeah, I know. He didn’t know I had worked there and I let him know—I know. So some things like that would happen. And I guess, like you say, you’re a woman and lunchroom chatter and belching and farting and the cursing and everything. And the first time, they go, oh, sorry. And I’m like, it’s okay, I’m used to it. I worked here before. But if it became racist or slightly, I usually nipped it in the bud. Because that’s something I’m not going to listen to or tolerate. So pretty much indirect now, people know with me. Oops, I’m sorry. But they usually—right now, we got a good bunch of people I work with and it’s a minority-type—so I’m still the only black person there but it doesn’t affect me like before. Because throughout the years there were other black males there and a few black females, and they kind of gradually left to go out further to the Hanford Site. I remember one of the workers there was from Louisiana—one of the male workers. He came to my office one time and said, Rhonda, I’m leaving you. And we were the only black male and female on the site. And I said, it’s okay. And he said, I really feel bad. And I’m going, it’s okay. I go, I’ve been here before. This is nothing new to me. So I let him know, hey, it’s okay. But he really did feel bad that he was leaving me. He felt like he was really leaving me. And I told him, no, you got to do what’s right for you. This is okay for me to be here, and I accepted it. I don’t feel—I don’t know. I was gone for two weeks here just a month ago and I had emails from coworkers, females, males, saying, when are you coming back? We miss you. How’s your arm—I had arm surgery. They were happy to see me back. I do bring a little life to the party, so, I mean— Franklin: Yeah, I can see that. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I can see that, awesome. In what ways did security or secrecy at Hanford impact your daily lives? Bryan Rambo: When we worked out there? When I was working out there? Franklin: Yeah. Or—well, maybe starting with your father, if any, and then kind of progressing to when each of you have worked out there. Bryan Rambo: Like I said, for my father, he was, like I said— Rhonda Rambo: Pretty quiet. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, he didn’t talk much about work. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: He just, not that out there. Not Hanford. Rhonda Rambo: I just remember one time we went on a trip, he’d point to those mountains. And say, you know, there’s missiles out there. And that’s what I remember. Bryan Rambo: Yeah. He didn’t tell me that one, but I’ve been the one ‘til I got out there— Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, he said if we were ever to be under attack, he said, there’s silos out here that are going to shoot missiles that are going to come up. And I still believe that today, that’s probably true what he was saying, but you know, you ain’t going to hear it on the news. But I can’t imagine them not having something out there to protect the Site if need be. But that’s all I remember Hanford work that he’d be saying—we were driving down the road going to Yakima or something, and he’s like, you know there’s silos out there with missiles that would shoot them. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, he never told me that when we were driving through on a drive-around. He didn’t tell me that, so you got something I didn’t know about. [LAUGHTER] Rhonda Rambo: I don’t know, I just think both our parents were strong Afro-Americans and I think that they wanted us to grow up and be strong Afro-Americans in society. And I remember my mom saying, whatever you do in life, whether it’s garbage pickup, working in a fast food restaurant, whatever, do the best you can. And that’s what I believe in today. You give it your all, good or bad, you try your hardest. If you don’t like it, try something else. And I believe in sticking through the thick and thin of things. And when you have a family, I think you have to learn to take a lot of stuff to put food on the table and learn that life’s not that easy sometimes and you have to take whatever’s dealt out to you in life and make it the best that you can. I try to, again, instill that in my family, that, yeah there’s good times and there’s bad times and you just have to learn to strive as a family knit and grow old and learn from your mistakes if you have some. And have faith. I think that’s a lot of it. Franklin: Yeah. How did you feel—how do you feel about your experiences working on the Hanford Site, given the mission of Hanford was to produce material for nuclear weapons, and that larger connection to not only national security but also this element of mutually-assured destruction and the destructive power of nuclear weapons? Bryan Rambo: Ah. Rhonda Rambo: Oh, yeah. Bryan Rambo: Let’s just start with her again. You. Rhonda Rambo: I guess I understand that we have to have something. But how much do we have to have? And what’s the point? Why threaten other countries with annihilation when it’s going to not affect just where you shoot it but everything else around it that may not ever come back? I don’t think that life should be taken so lightly. When you say, oh, I’m going to shoot this and take care of this, when you know once that thing drops, it’s going to take care of a lot of other stuff, too. And I don’t think that we should use that as a means of controlling or getting your way, like a bully type of situation. That, to me, is like—that should be the last streams of something to be used, I would think. But I know we have to say we can protect ourselves. But I don’t know. I just think that that’s—I know my dad was in the era of when they were building the plutonium for the bomb. But he probably didn’t care about that. He cared about putting food on the table, I’m sure. I mean, that was probably the last thing on his mind. He’s probably thinking, I’ve got seven kids I’ve got to feed. And that’s probably all he was thinking about. And the job, it was a good job to have at the time. I don’t know if he was worried about it like that. If he did, I never saw it. Bryan Rambo: He did keep the food on the table, that was important. We never went hungry. Never. Rhonda Rambo: Never. Bryan Rambo: Mom and Dad, they kept it going. For me, it’s different. My sister’s saying a lot that I agree with. It’s just, again, as a patrolman, I can see national security’s very important to me. But the same token, we’re on a—especially here at the Hanford Area now with the cleanup, I want everything to be safe for everybody. And even my sister, she does her part; her part is cleanup. And the plutonium in the Area, that happened, it was the time for it, and I guess they’d consider me a Cold War warrior like my dad was. And making plutonium and stuff was—we needed to have it. But again, do we need it that much? Who’s to say? The way things are going now with North Korea and the other countries—Russia’s even changing their philosophy on how many nukes they’re going to need. But I believe for us right now, for me, it was like my dad’s philosophy probably was. Just, hey, it’s there, it’s a good job. Even more paying job at the time than my father did and it helped me and my family. It kept, again, food on the table and got them to school. Did things I needed. But I do care a lot about the security. But I do also care about cleaning the stuff up, keeping it clean and minimizing it. Less nukes would be better. But on the same token, I’d like to clean up what we have and maintain that and try to not make new ones if we don’t have to. But right now it’s the way it is. Franklin: Yeah. What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Rhonda Rambo: The most important? Bryan Rambo: Oh, this is—well, it was needed during the war—the big war, World War II. It ended it. Questions whether it was needed to make the bombs for the bombing of Japan for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are questions that wasn’t part of my era, but I know it was important then. It was always going to be part of the history of America that Hanford did this. One of the bombs, at least, was built here and produced. Rhonda Rambo: I think that— Bryan Rambo: Its legacy, though, is—right now is that— Rhonda Rambo: The energy. Bryan Rambo: The energy it still produces. And we had good things that we produced too. Our nuclear reactor that was both producing electricity and made nukes, which was very interesting. The N Reactor. Franklin: The N Reactor, yeah. Bryan Rambo: And the B Reactor, of course, was one of the big first ones built out there. I’m just thinking, it’s a part of our history. You can’t get away from it. Rhonda Rambo: No. Bryan Rambo: If I go to Hawai’i and I visit there—when I went there just to go visit, and when I went to school there, too, you bring up the name—you brought up the names and you live in the Tri-Cities, they wouldn’t say Tri-Cities to me. Oh, you live near Hanford. They wouldn’t even think about saying Pasco, Kennewick or Richland. Oh, you live in Hanford. This is in Hawai’i. This is in Honolulu, with tourists and I’d say that name. Say, I live in Pasco or I live in the Tri-Cities, they’d bring that up. I mean, the ideal of Hanford is, it’s abundance of opportunity for this area to grow, and it did. But then you got—like you said, you got your negative connotation of whoa, it’s the place we built the nukes and also this place has got to be cleaned up because it’s one of the biggest areas of cleanup in the country. So it’s got its goods and bads. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, I think it’s developed—I think due to the energy that it does produce, still, is good. If you think about all the people that has been employed through there—this place would be a ghost town if that was to go away. So I think that Hanford is—it’s a plus, but it’s a negative, too, because we have to have it. We need to clean it up. We got the energy from it, but we also got the nuke side that was bad, too. So it’s kind of a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t. Franklin: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hm. Rhonda Rambo: So, I think we’re thankful for what it has given and even what it’s still taking. Because a lot of lives are being lost due to the exposures that are being done out there. And that’s what’s scary, too. When we, like you said, you go traveling and you say, oh, I’m from Washington. Some people say, oh, Seattle? And then you say, no, Tri-Cities. They’re saying, Tri-Cities? And then you say, Hanford, and then they get it. So that’s the stigma of knowing what does happen here and what goes on here. People say, oh you’re going to glow at night. And I go say, yeah, sure. Franklin: I’ve heard it, too. Rhonda Rambo: So. That’s the good and the negative. Franklin: What did you guys know or learn about the prior history of African Americans at Hanford during the Manhattan Project? Bryan Rambo: There was segregation going on. A lot of segregation. They would work there, particularly in B area, I heard they had— Rhonda Rambo: Separate. Bryan Rambo: You know, your white area and your black area and the folks would stay there and work. They was some interaction but not a lot of interaction. But they all did the same mission, but they had their own—they were still segregated because of the situation during that time. And at the time, Richland, as far as I know, there was no any blacks there. And in Kennewick, I know there wasn’t, or if there was, very few. And of course Pasco was the place for all the black were living at the time. But other than hearing a lot about B area at the time when B reactor was running, I didn’t hear—I was hearing at the time, there was even prison areas out there, believe it or not. We had areas there, just different spots and things were going on that I didn’t know were out or realized were out there that the Army was using and had out there. It’s just interesting. But they—it’s hard to explain other than—just from some of the older folks, though, he was saying, that have been out there. But then they wouldn’t say too much about it. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. I don’t even remember the bridge being—I remember them saying that there was a sign that said no blacks after a certain time. But like I said, my mom shielded us from a lot of it. So I think we were going to church so much—[LAUGHTER] I don’t think we had time to worry about what was going over on that side of town. I just remember sports stuff, there would be sports after some of the games from the different local—from Richland and Kennewick. I remember there was a riot in Memorial Park. Franklin: When was that? Bryan Rambo: That was in— Rhonda Rambo: Oh, god, that had to be back in— Bryan Rambo: ’60--? Rhonda Rambo: The ‘70s, wasn’t it? Bryan Rambo: I think it was ’70 or ’69 or ’70, but— Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, but— Franklin: Did either of you participate? Rhonda Rambo: Not me, but my— Bryan Rambo: Older brother. Rhonda Rambo: Older brother, yeah. Bryan Rambo: Artis. Rhonda Rambo: And Dwayne, they were in it, you know. Franklin: What—do you know what--? Rhonda Rambo: It was—well, rumor had it that something—one of the guys from Navy Homes had an issue with somebody over here on the west side. All of Navy Homes kids showed up here at the park, in Memorial Park. And all the west side kids, which was one of our brothers or two of our brothers, had all our neighbor kids go there, and it was a big brawl. Franklin: Oh. So it was more like a neighborhood type of beef than like a civil rights demonstration? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, it was more like a beef between one—the Navy Homes and the west side. Franklin: Ah, okay. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. But— Franklin: That kind of leads me into my next question. What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here when you were growing up in that era? Bryan Rambo: Well— Rhonda Rambo: Civil rights? I can’t think of any. Maybe the high school one with Whittier. Bryan Rambo: Well, the high school, it was an issue, too. Artie was more or less—our older brother—was more or less involved in that. But for myself at the time, I was in middle school at the time at Stevens, it was some issues going on. Because it was during the civil rights of the Watts thing, riots were going on. ’68 was the assassination unfortunately happened there, and Kennedy and Martin Luther King further in there. Franklin: Yeah, Malcolm X, too. Bryan Rambo: Things were really static but I was still just going into middle school. Nothing was per se, I was just hearing a lot, hearing a lot of what was going on, but didn’t see a lot of major instances I can remember. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: But my older brother could, he could probably tell you more insight on that. Franklin: Were either of you involved in any civil rights efforts? Marches, protests? Rhonda Rambo: Nope. Franklin: Anything? Rhonda Rambo: No. Bryan Rambo: No, we were—I was part of the black African American scholarship group. They got that, but— Rhonda Rambo: AA. Bryan Rambo: AA. You weren’t—you were a part of that, too, weren’t you? Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, but I didn’t participate in too many—I mean, I’ve never been in any kind of walks or protests. No. I was a good girl. I was. Bryan Rambo: But again, like—the situation with us, because we were living in the fringe of the west side, I was stigmated myself—I don’t know if my sister wouldn’t say so much or my older brothers—but when I would go there they would say, you talk like you’re a white guy, you talk like you’re black, you’re on this side of town. And there was some—because you moved and you’re over there, now you’re part of them kind of— Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, I do remember that kind of atmosphere. Bryan Rambo: Oreo stigma, I would call it. Rhonda Rambo: You think you’re better because you’re living on the west side. That kind of stuff, you know. Franklin: They maybe see you as being kind of whitewashed. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s what I would say. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah. You don’t have to ride a bus because you’re in walking distance of the schools, that kind of thing. Franklin: So you were seen as being maybe in a position of privilege Bryan Rambo: Yeah, and that kind of put a stigma on me, or tried to. But like I said, it’s something that you just get over, but. Franklin: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: But that was our situation. Rhonda Rambo: Yeah, I remember that. I remember that feeling, too, of—you know. But again, my mom taught us, again, it’s only words, so you can’t help but where you were raised. I mean, your parents chose you to live on the east side of town, there was an opportunity for my dad to buy a house, he bought a house. He wasn’t worried about what side of town. I guess maybe he might have been worried about what side of town, but maybe it was closer to work. I don’t know. I mean. I just thought that they just wanted us to have a home. It wasn’t a mansion. It was just a home. A four-bedroom home. Imagine that, trying to put six boys in a four bedroom home. Somebody didn’t get their own room, so. Bryan Rambo: Bunkbeds, it was bunkbeds! Rhonda Rambo: Bunkbeds, you know. Franklin: Yup. Yeah. I forgot to ask, were your parents both from the same town? Rhonda Rambo: Yes. Franklin: Was that how they knew each other? Bryan Rambo: Yes. Rhonda Rambo: Yes. Franklin: Okay, okay, that makes a lot of sense. So I just have a couple kind of large-scale questions and then, I guess this is for both of you. What would you like—this is usually a Cold War question, but I’ll kind of open it up to now and cleanup—but what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford? During the Cold War and then during this cleanup phase. Rhonda Rambo: During it? Bryan Rambo: Like I said, being out there. You mean, opportunities for the folks coming in now? Rhonda Rambo: Or just the opportunity of— Franklin: I guess if you had the chance to reflect on your experience and you could talk to someone in the future and someone was like, wow, what was that like to work at Hanford? What was your contribution, or what do you think Hanford’s contribution is? How would you answer that question if you had to tell a future generation what it was like, or what would you want them to know? What’s the most important thing for them to know about? Bryan Rambo: Well, like you said earlier, it’s a long—of course you got to go from the beginning, and you’re part of that, you’re part of that generation, that long generation from the war, World War II times to now, and the cleanup. You’ve got several various spots you got to look at. Because you got the war, then you got the Cold War era, then you got the cleanup. Each phase has its own—people will probably say different on each phase. Me, being out—again, I’m from the Cold War era because we stopped making a lot of the material, and then to cleanup, I would say, it was a job opportunity and it was a job that had to get done. And it still is. I mean, it’s still—you can’t let it sit out there and not have nothing done with it. You’ve got to be safe, and I trust all the time on my time, those years I’ve been out there, safety was one of the most things—safety and security. You don’t want to take that stuff home. You don’t want to get contaminated. You didn’t want to bring it home to your family or your cars or stuff, like I’ve been hearing about today, last few weeks. Very disturbing to me. Franklin: God, yeah. Bryan Rambo: I think that the newer generation coming in, I think the folks from the older generation that were operators and that stayed out there, been out there, and leaving, like I said, security and safety was the utmost, personally for me. And my feelings now is that the folks out there now is kind of going away from a lot of security. They want to clean, clean, clean and not be safe, safe, safe. I hear a lot of safety, but I think that we need more of doing real protection of the worker to get the job done and not use—if it’s got to be slowed down, so be it, or stop it. But it’s got to be slowed down. Because during my years out there, we’ve had—there have been incidents out there, unfortunately. There have been cleanups that have taken place there that have helped. And then also there’s times there that they could’ve been better, more diligent in the cleanup as far as how to do it and how to protect themselves and all of that. And it hasn’t been done. It hasn’t been done properly. Particularly, areas that as patrolmen, some areas that I would go and check out, areas that I was really worried about, things—a farm that my vent, like they’re talking about now, a lot of venting and things going on—things could happen. And you’re just doing a security check and you don’t know what you’re going to get, you know? I just think, it’s more safety needed out there. And give the folks the tools that the people that are out there, that know, have been out there, give them more of the tools they need. If they say they need masks or they need more equipment to do protection, so be it. Don’t—do it now, don’t wait. Just do it. And do all the proper procedures and do all the procedures. Your full stop, your operational, and then after it’s all done, you do an evaluation and make sure everything’s done right. And what didn’t, what could’ve been done better? Do it even better. As my sister would agree with her job, the same thing, you just have to— Rhonda Rambo: The safety. Bryan Rambo: I just think, the less we hear about it on the news, it’s better for me, always better for me, hearing about it. Especially PUREX that just—that brings some history back there about that issue, about that tunnel. And I’m not too happy about that. Because that could’ve—that situation should’ve been done properly through the years, taken care of. And PFP and things like that. They need to slow down and just do it properly and safely so everybody’s happy, so everybody comes home. That’s the important thing. You want to come home. You want to come home to your family. Franklin: Yeah. Bryan Rambo: And it is a good job, and it is an opportunity, and it is good, because you’re taken care of, not only yourself, but you are taking care of your environment, your future environment in your surrounding in the future as well as the present. It just has to be done right. Rhonda Rambo: Mm-hmm. That’s what I think, too. That it’s important for the generations—I’m sure that if my dad was to talk about it, he probably would’ve said, you know, if you ever work out there, be safe. My mom’s biggest fear was where I’m at now because of our dad working at Hanford. She just kept saying, you know your dad worked in there. You know what he went through. I don’t want to see someone suffer like our dad did. He didn’t die fast. So when I talk to the young people at my job, I specifically tell them, you don’t want to be on an oxygen machine with your lungs collapsing in bed and your family watching you. For me, that’s all I remember of my dad, is really laying in a bed, on oxygen. I remember him being at the veteran’s hospital in Walla Walla and me and my younger brother were so young, we weren’t allowed to go in there to visit. So the older ones would prop the door and we’d sneak in and say hi anyway. You don’t—that’s a legacy you don’t want to leave your family when you’re working out at Hanford. You don’t want to have to think about the ifs and the ands from what could happen to you from coming home—from being exposed. So safety, to me, is a main important thing. And the cleanup is also necessary. We don’t want it in our drinking water. We want this environment—the river runs through all these counties. Everybody enjoys it. Everybody wants to be out there fishing and boating. I tell my kids, I don’t—if you go out to the water, waterskiing with your dad, try not to drink that water. Because we don’t know for sure it doesn’t have the potential of that. Every time the wind blows around Tri-Cities, I worry, because that’s not—everything’s not fastened out there. So a dust storm comes through, that stuff is lifting. So, where is it going? In our air. So we have to think, it’s always here. It’s always around us. The mindset of what people have to think about out there is that same way. Just because you can’t physically see it doesn’t mean it’s not there, and you just have to take all the precautions of if it was there. Safety is the first thing. Training is important. And health is everything. So I want the people to think that it’s a good thing. It’s provided a lot of things in Tri-Cities. The growth is because of Hanford, mainly. Like I said, I don’t think it would be anything here if that was to shut down completely. So the generations of families that come through here, generations of families—children are working in the Area and making better money than probably their parents did and enjoying better things than their parents did. So Hanford is a blessing but it’s also something we really have to be cautious about, too, and treat it safely in the right way. Bryan Rambo: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Yeah. Great. Is there anything else you would like to mention related to migration, segregation and civil rights and how they’ve impacted your life at Hanford and the Tri-Cities? Rhonda Rambo: I just believe that my parents moving here, they moved here because they heard the good news. This project here. To come here and work and the families that moved here were close-knit in some ways. Yeah, they had—most of them—multiple people were in different churches, but those churches still fellowshipped in some way. So those families still hooked up and saw each other and talked about how they grew up and when this happened and when that happened. I just think that they saw it as a big opportunity for black families to come and raise their families in a safe environment and make some kind of living. I think that’s what brought us here today, is that I believe that same token. I tell people all the time, it’s a great place to live. You can make good money here if you apply yourself and look for it, it’s here. Franklin: Yeah. Agreed. Bryan Rambo: And the same—same thing my sister was saying, like I said, it was the great migration. They could’ve easily went north to Chicago or New York, too, at the time, because folks were moving—California, even. I’m glad that our parents moved here. I’m glad that they did. Because we had the opportunities galore here. Even recently, hearing on the news that folks are just moving into Pasco itself is just growing extremely fast because of the housing opportunities, it’s cheaper, and the living conditions is a lot better, everything. And Hanford is a big part of it. Would I like to have Hanford as the big part in the future? Less, I think. I think hopefully we diversify more into less Hanford but more maybe scientific, I would say R&D, more or less. And less of—and things that we learn how to clean up will help other areas across the country and around the world. But I would like it to be less emphasis on Hanford and more emphasis on other products and other things. I know we got a big agricultural base, too, here, that helps also. But looking back, I just—I wouldn’t have any other way, either. I love it here. I mean, I’ve got our children here—we had our children here, we have grown here. From my father, like I said, he got me a good work ethic, my mother had a great work ethic. It helped me get through a lot of racial barriers. If there were, I—I worked harder. My mother said, work harder and Dad said, work harder, and I did. And I succeeded. I feel like I succeeded a lot in life. We’re very blessed and thankful for that. So looking back, I have—I think it’s a great opportunity and I’m glad they did move here and advanced our life and our kids’. Franklin: Great. Well, thank you so much, Bryan and Rhonda. I really appreciate you coming to interview with us and talk about your life and your parents’ life. Rhonda Rambo: Thank you. Bryan Rambo: Yeah, thank you. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Hanford Patrol 400 Area 100 Area 300 Area 200 East Area N Reactor Perma-Fix Northwest Battelle PUREX Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) B Reactor Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bryan and Rhonda Rambo Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Migration School integration Segregation Discrimination Racism Radioactive waste disposal Nuclear energy Civil rights Civil rights movements Description An account of the resource Bryan and Rhonda Rambo were both born in Pasco, Washington. Their parents moved to Pasco, Washington in the early 1950s. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 03/23/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8b36bf3f96a36d6f03be61d76aa1a43c.JPG e6c57e88700e3daf112882bfe107728a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe858263aff645c79e7a9c2b67dd4702b.mp4 eceb2621daa76c475cbce2aad1d28218 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Andy and Shirley Miller Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Okay. All right. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Andy and Shirley Miller on June 26, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Andy and Shirley about their experiences living in the Tri-Cities and/or working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Start with— Andy Miller: Andy Miller, A-N-D-Y. M-I-L-L-E-R. Franklin: Okay. Shirley Miller: And Shirley Miller, S-H-I-R-L-E-Y, M-I-L-L-E-R. Franklin: Great, thank you. Shirley, let’s start about talking about your life before Hanford and the Tri-Cities. Where and when were you born? Shirley Miller: Where and when was I born? Franklin: Yeah. Shirley Miller: Well, I was born in Kansas. Franklin: Okay. Shirley Miller: In Pratt, Kansas. Andy Miller: In 1929. Shirley Miller: Uh-huh. Franklin: How did you hear about the Tri-Cities? How did you come here? Shirley Miller: My husband got a job. Franklin: Okay. For--? Shirley Miller: Who did he work for? Andy Miller: General Electric. Shirley Miller: General Electric. Franklin: And what year did you move out here? Shirley Miller: Oh, God. Andy Miller: It was right after your wedding date. Shirley Miller: Oh, I can’t remember. Andy Miller: In 1951. Shirley Miller: 1951. Andy Miller: And you want to tell him where you met Dad? Shirley Miller: Where’d I meet him? Andy Miller: Uh-huh. Shirley Miller: Where’d I meet him? Andy Miller: In college. Shirley Miller: Oh, in college. Andy Miller: At KU. Shirley Miller: At KU, okay. Franklin: What were your first impressions when you came to Richland? Shirley Miller: That it was a bare town. Franklin: That’s pretty fair. And where was the first place you stayed after you arrived? Shirley Miller: The first place? Franklin: Yeah. Shirley Miller: Well, probably in the hotel, and then I went to a place they gave us to stay in. Franklin: Where—what kind of place was that? Shirley Miller: Wasn’t that a little house? Andy Miller: The prefab. Shirley Miller: A prefab? Andy Miller: You know what street it was on? Shirley Miller: No, unh-uh. Andy Miller: Snow Street. Shirley Miller: Oh, Snow Street, okay, it was on Snow Street. It was right across the street from the school. Franklin: Oh, okay. Andy, was that where you were born, or is that where your parents were living— Andy Miller: I was born at Kadlec, and I went from Kadlec to the prefab. Franklin: And what—do you remember the address of the prefab? Andy Miller: It was right across from Marcus Whitman. I think it was 512. Shirley Miller: 512. 512 Snow. Franklin: Okay. I used to live on Stanton. That’s where I stayed when I first moved here, yeah. That’s a cute little neighborhood. So what was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to? Shirley Miller: Oh, you asking me? Franklin: Yeah. Shirley Miller: What was the hardest part--? Andy Miller: What did you miss the most about Kansas? What was the hardest thing about living here? Shirley Miller: Well, I— Andy Miller: It was hard on your asthma. Shirley Miller: I mean, just the difference of a town like this, that was just built from different houses. I mean, it was a different type of living. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Okay. Shirley Miller: I mean, not having different homes. Yeah. Franklin: What did your husband do for General Electric? Shirley Miller: He was an engineer. Franklin: Engineer, okay. And, Andy, you said you were born—what year—you said you were born at Kadlec. What year were you born? Andy Miller: 1953. Franklin: 1953, okay. And how long did you stay at the house on Snow? Andy Miller: We moved to a ranch house on Cottonwood in 1958. Franklin: Okay, that’s also in Richland? Andy Miller: Yup, and it was also one of the government houses that was built right after Hanford was constructed. Franklin: Okay. So when did you—Shirley, when did you first become involved in the groups like the NAACP or CORE, Congress of Racial Equality? How did you become involved with trying to help the African American community? Shirley Miller: How did I come--? I don’t know, how did I? Andy Miller: Well, Nyla Brouns. That’s where you met Nyla. Shirley Miller: Yeah? Andy Miller: And Randy Jones. Shirley Miller: Randy Jones, uh-huh, Randy Jones, okay. It was Randy Jones, I lived next-door to her, yeah. Yeah, I lived next-door to Randy Jones. And I went to meetings and became involved. Andy Miller: Randy was an African American, married to her husband Herb, and they had two children. So our families became social friends and Rindy was one of the African American leaders in the city of Richland. Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Andy Miller: And she worked in Pasco. She helped get CORE started and was very active in the NAACP. Franklin: And CORE stands for Congress On Racial Equality. Andy Miller: Congress Of Racial Equality, I think, yeah. Franklin: Congress Of Racial Equality. Okay. Do you remember what year—either of you remember what year that would’ve been, around? Andy Miller: I think it’d be about ’62 or ’63. Franklin: Okay. What were the primary activities of CORE and the NAACP in the Tri-Cities? Shirley Miller: Hmm. Trying to find houses for people. Is that one? Andy Miller: Uh-huh, yeah, that’s what you’ve mentioned. Franklin: What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Andy Miller: Well, I think Mom just mentioned the housing issue. And she actually has a good story about helping the first African American family move into Kennewick, because up until that time, Kennewick did not allow African Americans to live there. Shirley Miller: Yes, and we worked on that. Andy Miller: You want to tell him what you did with the Slaughters? Shirley Miller: No, what did we do? I mean, tell me. You— Andy Miller: You were just telling me, you remember when the Slaughters would call for a house to rent? And they were told, no, what would you and Dad do? Shirley Miller: Oh, yeah. Then we would call up and ask, and they would say, yes, and then we would call back. Andy Miller: And who else did that? Nyla? Shirley Miller: Nyla, oh, because Nyla did it more than I did because she’s better on the telephone than I. Yeah. Andy Miller: So they would—because there was no written ordinance, but it was a practice. So what would happen is the Slaughters would respond to an ad and they would be refused. Then Mom and Dad and Dick and Nyla Brouns, they would then call the same people and they would be offered the ability to rent the house. So that put a lot of pressure. They actually did file complaints. The law wasn’t as good as it is now, but there was some legal leverage and finally the Slaughters were able to find a house in Kennewick to rent. Franklin: Okay. Yeah, we interviewed John Slaughter early on. Andy Miller: Good, good. Franklin: And he told me—he mentioned this part of his civil rights history. That’s excellent. Who were other important leaders of civil rights efforts in the area? Andy Miller: Do you remember some of the other people you worked with? There was Robert and Evelyn Jackson. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Andy Miller: And Robert was a lawyer who worked for what was then the AEC. Shirley Miller: Oh, they were very important. Andy Miller: Yes. And do you want to tell the story that Robert hit home for us some of the background of how Robert was able to go to law school? Shirley Miller: By sitting in the back of the room. Andy Miller: Not in the back of the room. In the hallway. Shirley Miller: In the hallway, okay. Andy Miller: Yeah, Robert was admitted to University of Virginia Law School by court order. But he had to sit in the hallway because the law school would not sit him in the room. They had said they couldn’t be in the same room with white students. So he had to—they would leave the door open while he would listen to the lectures. And then after graduating, he came out here where he got his first job. So he was—and him being a lawyer made him a leader. He lived in Richland, but we had—you worked with a lot of people. Iola James, do you remember her? Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Andy Miller: And do you remember some other people that lived in Pasco that you worked with? Shirley Miller: Oh, I can’t remember. Andy Miller: Okay. But it was a combination of professionals who lived in Richland and then with other African Americans who lived in east Pasco. And then you got to know people like Wally Webster. Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Very definitely. He was the leader. Did you talk to Wally Webster? Franklin: We are talking to Wally Webster in about less than a month. He’s coming over from the west side for a family reunion. Shirley Miller: Good. Franklin: I’ve talked to him on the phone, though. I’ve talked to him, and we’ve talked to Webster Jackson. Andy Miller: Yes. Franklin: And we’ve talked to Pastor Albert Wilkins. Shirley Miller: Yeah, he was very active. Franklin: And talked to Dallas Barnes. Andy Miller: Mom was good—they still have dinner together with Dallas and Lozie. Franklin: Oh, okay. We wanted to kind of—we’re closing in on the end of the interview project, but I don’t know if we can kind of round out—we wanted to get some of the experiences of allies of the civil rights effort to round everything out. You know, why people would get involved to help others at a time when there was a lot of violence directed at African Americans and certainly a lot of resistance towards— Shirley Miller: Well, it was only the fair thing to do. Goodness. Franklin: Yeah. Yes, that’s true. Were there ever any tensions between the professionals in Richland and the residents of east Pasco, as to, like class tensions within the movement? Andy Miller: Do you understand what he was saying, Mom? Did sometimes people in east Pasco resent or be suspicious of the African Americans from Richland? Shirley Miller: Right, yes. Franklin: How did that play out? Were there any manifestations of those tensions? Any disagreements or violence? Shirley Miller: I think there was, not violence but disagreements. Kind of anger at each other. Not anger, but— Franklin: Kind of a dislike or— Shirley Miller: I think. Andy Miller: My memory from what Mom and Dad told me was that there were frank discussions. Shirley Miller: That’s a better word. Andy Miller: But they never got angry at each other, and there was always a working-together coalition. But there would be suspicion and sometimes some resentments that would be expressed. Shirley Miller: That’s right. Andy Miller: But there was never—at least from what Mom and Dad have told me over the years, there was never a fracturing of the movement in Tri-Cities. They stayed united. Shirley Miller: Yes, yes, there was never a fracture. Franklin: Did each city—you mentioned housing in Kennewick, and I know that for east Pasco, a lot of the civil rights effort was focused around things like street improvements, right, and water and sewer, and employment. Did Richland have any unique civil rights challenges? Because—was housing an issue? Was it similar to the other cities, or was there something different about Richland? Andy Miller: Yes. Mom, did you want to tell him about when you were on the Richland Human Rights Commission and your work on the fair housing ordinance? Shirley Miller: No, go ahead. Andy Miller: No, do you remember? Shirley Miller: No, unh-uh. I remember working on it, but I don’t remember any action. Andy Miller: Well, certainly, Mom talked, and I do remember, is that there was housing discrimination in Richland also, but more on the individual home owners basis. Shirley Miller: Yeah, that is definitely true. Andy Miller: And when you first were on the Human Rights Commission, when you first went to city council, were they for it at first, or were they against it at first? Shirley Miller: Well, I don’t think they were for it at first. But they were later. Andy Miller: So, Mom and I think—was Mr. Mitchell on the Human Rights Commission? There were some other people on the Human Rights Commission. Shirley Miller: He could’ve been. Probably, because he was so active, yeah. I can’t remember. Andy Miller: But you remember working to get—in Richland was I think one of the first cities to adopt a fair housing ordinance in the Northwest. Franklin: Okay. That’s great. Andy Miller: And thanks to Mom—and it was a coalition of whites in Richland and African Americans that were on the Human Rights Commission and they worked together to pressure the city. Franklin: Great, great. What were some of the notable successes of the civil rights activities in the Tri-Cities? Shirley Miller: What? Franklin: What were some of the successes of the civil rights efforts in the Tri-Cities? Shirley Miller: I don’t know what that— Andy Miller: Well, I mean, what are some good things that came out? I think part of it is, you had a lot of the marches. Shirley Miller: We had good marches. Andy Miller: And do you remember what the marches were for? Shirley Miller: No, what were they for? I remember the marches. Andy Miller: Well, I think it was during the time that Dr. King was working. Shirley Miller: Oh, you’re really going back far. Franklin: Yeah. Andy Miller: That’s what they wanted to know about. Do you want to tell them where the marches would start when we would go to Pasco and have the marches? Shirley Miller: At the park in Pasco. Andy Miller: In east Pasco. Kurtzman Park. And where’d we go after we left Kurtzman Park? Shirley Miller: We’d march across the bridge and through the town— Andy Miller: Through the underpass. Shirley Miller: Underpass. And then we went up usually to where that other park was and what building is that? Andy Miller: The courthouse? Shirley Miller: Uh-huh, the courthouse. Andy Miller: And then we’d go back to Kurtzman Park. Do you remember what kind of reaction we got sometimes on those marches? Shirley Miller: Well, negative, sometimes, yes. Andy Miller: From people that would drive by? Shirley Miller: Yes, uh-huh. Andy Miller: What would they do? Shirley Miller: I mean, not—down. Andy Miller: And would they ever wave anything? Shirley Miller: A flag, yes. Andy Miller: They would—my memory was that you would have people driving by and yelling obscenities and waving a confederate flag. Shirley Miller: Yes, oh, yeah! That was the main—yeah. The confederate flag held up. Andy Miller: And that is why I never understood people who talk about confederate flags being a heritage. Because my first experience with a confederate flag was that it was used as a hate symbol to try to intimidate African Americans and whites with them during these marches that were there to support. Another memory I have is the marches back then, and I was only probably about ten, but the marches back then had a different atmosphere than marches that people go on today. We would get pep talks about the types of things that may happen, that people are going to try to goad us into violence. And I remember one African American woman, she was older, coming to me and specifically saying, there’s going to be people to try to get you to yell back, or try to do something and back. And I think she really focused on some of the younger white boys, to making sure that we would not undermine the march. So I just really remember being impressed with the strength. Shirley Miller: Yeah, that’s good, you have the better memory. That’s good. Andy Miller: And another thing that—when he’s asking about things that made a difference is, do you remember the Elks? Shirley Miller: Yeah, I remember the Elks. Andy Miller: And what did we do with the Elks Lodge? Shirley Miller: We picketed. Andy Miller: Because? Shirley Miller: Oh, they wouldn’t let white people in. I mean, not—they wouldn’t let black people in. Andy Miller: Mm-hmm. And back then the Pasco Elks was—I mean, some people said it was a private club and shouldn’t—they should be able to decide who should be members or not. But what Mom and Dad were upset about and everybody was upset about is, at that time in Pasco, so much of the power structure of the community groups—the Hanford groups would all meet at the Pasco Elks Club. Shirley Miller: And then blacks weren’t welcome to go in. Franklin: Right. So thereby excluded from— Shirley Miller: Yeah. Franklin: From the power structure of the community. Andy Miller: Right. And so, Mom, what did—what happened, were you and Dad invited to other functions, like political functions and community functions at the Elks Club? And people invite you to dinner at the Elks Club? Shirley Miller: Yeah, but we didn’t go. Andy Miller: Right. And you lost some friends over that. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Andy Miller: And you always say that—that one march that we talked about one time picketing, who was there when you were picketing? Shirley Miller: I can’t remember. Andy Miller: Dad’s boss. Shirley Miller: Oh, yes, uh-huh. Franklin: Jeez, wow. He was—you were picketing at the Elks Club? Andy Miller: Dad and Mom were picketing an event that was being held at the Elks Club. It was a community event. And I know that Dad and Mom came back—they never backed down, I want to emphasize that—but I remember Mom and Dad came back and Dad was told by a lot of people he worked with that he had hurt his career by picketing at the Elks Club. I think that his— Shirley Miller: Yes, he was. Yeah, he was told that. Andy Miller: Yeah, but his boss later talked to him about it, and I think that it ended up being a positive experience. Of course, the Elks Club, I think though it may have been legal action, they ended up discontinuing their policy. Franklin: Yeah. Well, I also heard about an incident in Kennewick where some Richland High students—I think, was it Norris Brown that told me this? I’ve heard so many stories now that—where there were a group of Richland High students who weren’t allowed to go to a teenage club, because there were a couple black students with them; the black students were excluded. Do you have any memory of that? No? Okay. Andy Miller: I don’t, because Norris is probably about ten years older than I am. Franklin: Okay, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Okay. What were some of the biggest challenges, or the—I don’t want to use the word failure, but some of the biggest—some of the harder things to get accomplished with civil rights, or maybe even failures, things that were tried but weren’t—never fully addressed? Shirley Miller: What was that? Andy Miller: Well, he was wondering, what were some of the biggest challenges? Like, what were some of the hardest things you worked on in the civil rights movement? Shirley Miller: Well, my memory isn’t just— Andy Miller: Well, I think that— Shirley Miller: Housing was one. Andy Miller: Yes. Because even at the end of the civil rights movement, did blacks—did they really, were they able to live in Pasco except east Pasco? Shirley Miller: No. Andy Miller: That was something that I think that you—at the meetings that you guys let me go to, was a big issue for people, that that was not an easy thing to get done. As opposed to now, where I think the certain demographics are there in Pasco, located, but not anything like there was. Shirley Miller: Oh, your memory’s so good. Andy Miller: Well, I’m mainly remembering things that you told me. Shirley Miller: Okay. Franklin: Yeah, you guys are both working well off each other. So I think that’s good. You probably wouldn’t have as much to remember if you weren’t there with him. Andy Miller: Right. That’s right. And I think the school is—Whittier School. Remember Whittier School, Mom? Shirley Miller: Yeah, and it was definitely segregated. Andy Miller: And was Whittier School, were the facilities as good as the other schools in Pasco? Shirley Miller: What? Andy Miller: Was Whittier School as nice as the other schools in Pasco? Shirley Miller: No, unh-unh. Andy Miller: And that was something that you and Nyla and Iola James, the Jacksons, something that you worked on. That was not, I don’t think that was easy, from my memory of you talking about that. And finally, Whittier School was closed, is that right? Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Where did the students—did the students then get bussed out to other— Andy Miller: I think they were dispersed, and I think that there was issues about the lack of fairness, the way that was handled. My memory, just being told of the time, was Whittier School was closed, but then that wasn’t an instant solution, because the way they were dispersed and everything was not fairly handled, is my memory. Franklin: Right. What about—were you involved with the redevelopment, the Urban Renewal, in Pasco? Andy Miller: I think he’s talking about Art Fletcher. I think he was involved in some of that. Franklin: Yeah. Were you involved in that as well? Shirley Miller: Went to meetings, but not as a leadership. Franklin: Okay. Shirley Miller: He did that. Franklin: He was a big—he was the—who was Art Fletcher? Andy Miller: He was an African American in Pasco. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Andy Miller: And I think he was on the city council, and he actually authorized, I think, or helped create some self-help projects and Urban Renewal. Shirley Miller: Uh-huh, he was very active. Andy Miller: But I do remember, speaking of tensions, I think that—I don’t think the approach he was taking was not universally advocated by a lot of the African Americans in Pasco. And I think there were some disagreements. But the people you’re talking to would have a better handle on that. I think Wally Webster was the first director of the Community Action Committee. Shirley Miller: He was very active. Talk to him. Andy Miller: He’s going to talk to him pretty soon. But I think he replaced another CAC director. And there was some controversy over that. Shirley Miller: I can’t remember anyway. Andy Miller: I think Pat Cochrane was the prior director. Shirley Miller: Oh, oh, yeah. And he—yes, we wanted him rather than Pat Cochrane. Andy Miller: Yes. And then Art Fletcher later on became involved in the Republican party and ran for lieutenant governor and he actually got a high job with the, I think, HEW in Washington, DC. Franklin: Right, under the Nixon Administration. Andy Miller: Under the Nixon Administration, that’s correct. Franklin: Yeah, I’ve heard lots of people have mentioned that, oh, he went on to be in the Nixon Administration. How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights efforts in the Tri-Cities? Shirley Miller: I think it influenced but not—what do you think? Andy Miller: I think you’re right, influenced. A lot of the marches that we went to in Pasco were to support what was happening in the South. Shirley Miller: Uh-huh, definitely. Andy Miller: Like after the bombings on— Shirley Miller: Oh, yes, they were, too. Andy Miller: And to build support. They also—and I do remember Mom and Dad talking, and they certainly understood, but CORE changed its emphasis during that time on a national level. Shirley Miller: And CORE became much more active locally after that. Andy Miller: Yes, CORE did. And then later when CORE changed is that CORE then became more of a thing, that CORE was more of a group for African Americans, as opposed to African Americans and whites. And that—you and Dad talked about that here. Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Andy Miller: Whereas NAACP remained more of an integrated organization. Is that—my memory right? Shirley Miller: Right. Franklin: So CORE became kind of more exclusive then, or they— Andy Miller: I want to emphasize that Mom and Dad never felt upset with the local CORE leadership. Shirley Miller: No, unh-uh. Andy Miller: But I think there was an acknowledgement that while NAACP continued its traditional approach, that CORE really wanted to foster leadership among African Americans and so they could be frank with each other and work on that, which reflects what CORE was doing on a national level at that time. Franklin: Right, right, right. Thank you. What was different about civil rights efforts here, compared to the national civil rights effort? Shirley Miller: I don’t know. What did you think? Andy Miller: Well, I mean, we were not down in the South. We certainly didn’t have police dogs break up demonstrations, and there wasn’t probably some of the blatant things that happened in the South. Shirley Miller: Oh, not at all. Andy Miller: No one was—there were no bombings or no killings here. So that was certainly different, though there was pushback. Mom, do you want to talk about some of the phone calls you got back then? Shirley Miller: What do you mean, the phone calls? Andy Miller: When you would go to a meeting in Pasco or go to a protest in Pasco, what kind of phone calls you would get later? Shirley Miller: For me to stay home, because I wasn’t a member of Pasco. Yeah, I had that. Franklin: Wait, who were the phone calls from? Shirley Miller: People in Pasco. Andy Miller: But did they tell you their name, or were they just telling you kind of anonymously to stay out? Shirley Miller: Anonymously and some would say where they worked. Franklin: Oh. Shirley Miller: Like I work over in east Pasco, or I work here. Franklin: These were presumably white people calling to harass you to tell you to stay home and don’t get involved? Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Yeah, wow. Did that happen a lot? Shirley Miller: No, but it happened some. Enough to bother me. Franklin: Yeah. Was there any kind of way you could report that, or was it just something that you had to face, endure? Shirley Miller: Yeah, I didn’t report it to anyone, other than other people in the group. Franklin: Right. Andy Miller: But I think the consensus was there would be no point in reporting it, is that right? Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Just kind of look the other way? Andy Miller: Right. Franklin: Did your husband or your father ever face any reprisals or anything from his work in civil rights? Any like job or, with his employment or anything? Andy Miller: I do remember a story that when one of his bosses retired that he was told that he may have been named president, if it wasn’t for his wife causing all these problems in Pasco. Shirley Miller: Oh, yeah, I remember that. Andy Miller: But Dad—I want to emphasize, Dad ended up being promoted to executive vice president of United Nuclear and so he had professional success. But I think there was—he received some pushback at work. Shirley Miller: Yes, there was pushback at work. Andy Miller: But Dad always discounted it and said it didn’t bother him. Is that a fair--? Shirley Miller: Right. Franklin: Oh, that’s wonderful. When you came here, and when you grew up here, Andy, what did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Andy Miller: You know, I—well, we knew that most African Americans, when they were brought up here, had to live in east Pasco. So we had that understanding. Shirley Miller: Yes, that was very, uh-huh. And it was very true. Andy Miller: But I will say that CBC’s had a recent exhibit and there’s been some writings on books, and I will say I learned a lot of that, the real history of African Americans in the Tri-City area for the first time just a few years ago. And coming from my family, it shows, if I wasn’t as aware as I should’ve been, people in the Tri-Cities just don’t want to talk about it. And I think you still see some of that now. People—there’s still a reaction of, why are we talking about what happened 60 years ago? Shirley Miller: Yeah, that’s definitely true. Andy Miller: But it just—it wasn’t discussed as much 50 years ago as clearly it should’ve been. Franklin: Yeah, I’ve heard that same kind of thing. Luckily not when I brought up this project, specifically, but—actually, I did hear that in a meeting of an organization I belong to, the B Reactor Museum Association. An out-of-town member who was wondering why we were focusing on all this. Andy Miller: Right. Franklin: All these black people, when whites made up the majority of workers anyway, so we should be focusing on them, was something like the comment. I’m wondering—well, I have a follow-up question to that question about African Americans at Hanford during World War II and after. From your perspective, what were their most important contributions in the areas of work, community life and civil rights? Shirley Miller: What was that question again? Franklin: From your perspective, what were African Americans’ most important contributions in the areas of work, community life and civil rights? Shirley Miller: Oh, I don’t know. What do you--? Andy Miller: Well, I think he’s just saying, what makes you the most proud? I think, Mom, weren’t you always impressed—I think you were equally impressed by the people you met in east Pasco and the professionals in Richland, as far as showing a lot of leadership and courage— Shirley Miller: Yeah! Andy Miller: --in trying to integrate the Tri-Cities. Shirley Miller: Uh-huh. Andy Miller: And— Shirley Miller: Gosh, these are so questions of olden time. Franklin: Yeah, that’s the conflict in doing oral history, is that we often don’t think to start asking these questions until a long time has passed and we want to really know what happened. Shirley Miller: Gosh, I got stuff in my hair. Franklin: Because we don’t think it’s history when it’s happening, and then when we realize we need to get it, it’s often—that’s why I really appreciate you sitting down with us. Andy Miller: I do have a memory, too, of—especially African Americans in Richland, I think were held to a different standard sometimes. They all had to be successful and perfect behavior. And you talk to some of them and their parents, it was acknowledged that I could do something, and an African American student could do the same thing, and the reaction was not going to be the same. And I do remember comments and things like that. So I think there was a lot of pressure, especially on African Americans in Richland going into school. There weren’t that many, and it seemed like, and often many of them talked about, being on display at all times. Franklin: Yeah, that—people have alluded to that, but I don’t think have stated it quite as succinctly as you did. Although maybe they wouldn’t have wanted to—that certainly seems—one of the things that’s come across, especially a lot of the Mitchells and the Browns were told, you know, you got to just be the best student you can be, and turn the other cheek and things like that. Shirley Miller: I can imagine that, and they acted that way, too. Andy Miller: Yes, and Duke Mitchell was two years ahead of me in high school, and he was. He was one of those people everybody in the high school looked up to. He was, I guess, kind of perfect. And he got a scholarship. He went to Air Force Academy, I think. Franklin: : Yeah. Andy Miller: But I think, it’s nice that he’s come back and he’s leading a lot of the efforts now. But he was kind of an example of somebody who—if there was a double standard, he always met it. But I always looked at him and thought about some of the pressure he was under all the time. Franklin: Yeah, I would imagine so. Shirley, did you ever work at Hanford? Shirley Miller: Yes, I worked at Hanford. Franklin: Oh, and what did you do? Shirley Miller: Well, I was not a professional. I was kind of a— Andy Miller: File clerk? Secretary? Shirley Miller: Yeah. Franklin: What time period was this? Shirley Miller: I can’t—what time period? Franklin: Yeah, what— Andy Miller: Was it before I was born or after I was born, or both? Shirley Miller: Both. I mean, I had to quit because I was pregnant with you. Franklin: Oh, okay. Andy Miller: And she came out here with a master’s in counseling and biology from—she got her master’s in KU and a master’s from Northwestern, and the only job she could get here in the early ‘50s was as a file clerk. Shirley Miller: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That’s saddening but not surprising. My grandmother had a PhD from Cornell in molecular—in biology, and never worked professionally because no one would hire her to do a man’s job in the ‘50s and ‘40s. Andy Miller: Right, yeah. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. Did you ever use your degree in any way? Did you ever have professional work? Shirley Miller: Did I ever get professional work? Franklin: Yeah. Shirley Miller: I don’t know. I think that I did, didn’t I? Andy Miller: Well, you ended up owning a bookstore. An independent book store along with a couple other women. A very successful business. Shirley Miller: Oh, yes. Andy Miller: So she used her skills in that. Franklin: Where was that? Shirley Miller: In Richland. Andy Miller: Uptown Richland, called the Book Place. Franklin: Oh, okay. Interesting. Andy Miller: And you worked at a college instructor for a while, too. Shirley Miller: Uh-huh. Andy Miller: At Central Washington. Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Oh, great. Okay. Let’s see here. I’m just trying to figure out what the rest of my questions fit. Did you participate in many social events in east Pasco or in the African American community, like cookouts or Juneteenth or things like that? Or was your involvement mostly with civil rights? I mean, were you close with African American families? Andy Miller: Yes. Mom, he’s just talking about sometimes we’d just go into Pasco just to have like a barbecue. Shirley Miller: Yeah, uh-huh. Andy Miller: And sometimes it’d just be completely social. Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Andy Miller: And then in Richland, the same thing? Shirley Miller: Yes, right. Andy Miller: And then what would happen when you were living on the river, what would happen when you would extend the invitation to African American families? Shirley Miller: I would have sometimes objections that people didn’t like me to have African Americans swim in the river next to us. Andy Miller: Yeah, at the time we lived on—well, Mom still lives on Ferry Road which is about half a mile south of WSU Tri-Cities. So, live on the river, and back then, it was different. There was a little swimming beach down there. And Mom does remember—not many of the neighbors would confront her directly, but they would talk about her a lot. And didn’t understand why she was bringing African Americans to north Richland. Is that a fair--? Shirley Miller: Right, fair. Franklin: And you actually got complaints about them swimming on the beach in the river? Shirley Miller: Yeah. But they quit, too. But I kind of quit, too. Franklin: What was the objection? How would they harm the river? Did they ever explain it to you, or was it just a--? Shirley Miller: Just a—it was never like a harm that they basically—no, unh-uh. But it was probably the color of their skin. Franklin: Right, they didn’t want them in their space. In their white space. Andy Miller: It made them feel uncomfortable, I think. And people didn’t feel like they could go down there and swim in the river when there were African Americans there. And I want to emphasize, not all the neighbors—Mom and Dad had neighbors that were strong with them and all that. It was some of them who usually would forward the complaints. I don’t think it was direct complaints. But then Mom and Dad had neighbors who stood up for them, too. Franklin: That’s good. Did you attend church? Andy Miller: Yeah, we went to Central United Protestant Church. Franklin: Okay. Did you ever go to any of the traditionally black churches in east Pasco? Andy Miller: Yes. And that was an experience. And I remember—Mom, remember the first time I went? Because our church was you were silent for the entire hour. And I just remember being stunned within three minutes. It was exciting, I mean, the back and forth, and the enthusiasm. And sometimes we would go to church for a specific reason: they would have a specific service. I know they had one when Dr. King was killed. But then sometimes there’d be a reason that we’d be invited by a family just to attend church. Certainly different experience. Franklin: Did the church play— Andy Miller: Morning Star Baptist was— Franklin: Morning Star. And New Hope, as well. Andy Miller: New Hope, mm-hmm. Franklin: Did the church play a special or different role in the African American community as compared to the white community? Shirley Miller: I don’t know. Andy Miller: Well, people talked about the churches. Shirley Miller: Yes, uh-huh. Yeah, they talked about it, yes. The churches are more of an important part to them. Andy Miller: Yes, and sometimes, some people, some of the African Americans in the civil rights movement did not see eye to eye with ministers on certain issues. Is that right, or--? Shirley Miller: Yeah, uh-huh. I can’t remember all of this. Franklin: : A lot of the civil rights movement came out of the churches, right? Andy Miller: Right. Franklin: A lot of the ministers— Shirley Miller: Yeah, the ministers played an important role. Franklin: Was that the same in the Tri-Cities as well? Were some of the folks prominent here, were they also prominent church people? Andy Miller: Well, yeah, I mean, you mentioned Reverend Wilkins. He was certainly prominent here. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Andy Miller: And a lot of the events happened at the churches. And the churches, a lot of times, formed the base of the— Shirley Miller: Yeah, I think the church were kind of the leaders, yeah. Franklin: So many of the African Americans that came to the area migrated from the South that we know. Andy Miller: Especially Texas. Franklin: Especially Texas, right. Do you recall any traditions or community activities that people brought from the places they came from? Andy Miller: Do you remember any Southern traditions or anything, Mom? Shirley Miller: No, I don’t. Andy Miller: I don’t, either. Shirley Miller: But there could easily have been. But I can’t remember. Franklin: That’s okay. Let’s see here. We talked about—I think we talked pretty much about the rest of that. I just have a couple, like a couple large questions. How did you feel at the time about working near or on—your family working on the development of nuclear weapons? Shirley Miller: How did I feel? Franklin: Yeah. Shirley Miller: I accepted. Was I proud? I don’t think so. But I think I just accepted it as a part of the workforce. Huh? What do you say? Andy Miller: Yeah, I think— Shirley Miller: I think my husband was proud. Andy Miller: And— Shirley Miller: He was definitely proud. Andy Miller: And he was active in the B Reactor Museum, later on. They certainly talked about the effects of the nuclear bomb and the effect of the atomic bombs in Japan. But on the other hand, the other side of that is how many people would’ve been killed if not for the bombs. Shirley Miller: Yeah, that was definitely— Andy Miller: Probably was not talked about in Richland as much, but it certainly was talked about in family. But my dad always also maintained that no one made him work there. So he understood the role of nuclear weapons during the Cold War and as just part of the foreign policy. Franklin: Right. How do you feel now about that experience? Kind of looking back on the Cold War and looking at the environmental restoration that has to be done? Andy Miller: Well, Dad always talked about the safety and the waste issues and I know that he reflected there’s a—there’s some things that he wished they had done differently, but he also was proud of some of the things that they did do. That was an important issue to him. But I think that Dad would be—Dad was very progressive in his political views. Shirley Miller: Yes, he was a very strong democrat and active in the party. Andy Miller: But I think he would be irritated at times when people would try to impose late 1990s/early 2000s values on people who were living in the Cold War at the time. And I think he did not know that maybe certain revisionist history does not really take into account the actual climate with what the Soviet Union was doing at the time and some of the political decisions that were made. Franklin: Sure, sure. What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Shirley Miller: The what? Franklin: The most important legacy of Hanford. Shirley Miller: Oh, I don’t know. Well, do you have an idea? Andy Miller: Oh, I think—people can certainly argue with this—but I think Hanford can be proud of helping end World War II. I think that’s an important legacy. And the Cold War, the work that Hanford did in the Cold War may have prevented more wars during that time period. Shirley Miller: Okay, that’s— Andy Miller: Given how the Soviet Union was then. And I think that certainly people would say that perhaps the environmental impact of some of the—when the reactors were being rushed into production, is that better care could’ve been taken of that. And then also I think the benefits of turning the emphasis from weapons to peaceful energy use— Shirley Miller: Yeah. Andy Miller: --N Reactor—Dad was very involved with N Reactor, and he was very proud of the peacetime use of nuclear energy. Franklin: Were there many Manhattan Project employees that were still around when you moved here, Shirley, or when you grew up here, Andy? Shirley Miller: Any what? Andy Miller: He was wanting to know if people who were here in the 1945, when the Manhattan Project was done, if they were still here when you and Dad moved in the ‘50s and were still here when I was growing up. Shirley Miller: I think so. Andy Miller: Yeah. Dad talked very—Dad moved here in ’51 and he really admired a lot of the people, admired the brilliance of a lot of people for getting that accomplished. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Andy Miller: And he always talked about how smart and how hardworking they were. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Franklin: Did you know any African American Manhattan Project workers? Andy Miller: You know, my—I don’t think my dad made a distinction on that in his telling. I do know that Dad was friends with a lot of people working, because I know that—as I became an adult and came back to the Tri-Cities after law school, many, many times when I was out doorbelling or meeting people, I ran into an African American who would say, are you Norm Miller’s son? And they’d say, well, you know, Norm Miller was one management guy who made me feel comfortable. So Dad had a relationships like that. I don’t know if they were here during the Manhattan Project or not, but I know that Dad had made a lot of friends at Hanford. Shirley Miller: Yeah. Franklin: That’s great. Shirley Miller: I can’t remember. Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Shirley Miller: Hmm? Andy Miller: What would you like people to know, like, your grandchildren? What would you like them to know, what it was like to live in Richland in the ‘50s and during the Cold War and Dad working at Hanford? Shirley Miller: Well, I hope not much different than someone living in Seattle. But I would like them to know that, but I mean—wouldn’t you say so? Andy Miller: Yeah, I want to say, I certainly think we need to debate what happened at Hanford and nothing should be immune to that, but I’m actually, I’m proud of the work that my father’s generation did-- Shirley Miller: I am, too. Andy Miller: --at Hanford. Especially given the realities and that the main decisions were made by the leaders. And that Hanford is a viable institution going. There were certainly many unique aspects. None of us who were going to school in Richland at the time, none of us had grandparents living around. Mom and Dad—Mom has talked about the social life being different. Everybody in Richland at that time tended to be young, professional couples. And that’s why they had so many bridge clubs and stock market clubs and— Shirley Miller: Yeah, that’s right. Andy Miller: A lot of social activities. Franklin: What is a stock market club? Shirley Miller: A stock market club? Franklin: Yeah. Shirley Miller: Well, you basically get the group together and decide to watch stocks to buy. And if they make money or not. And someone makes better choices than others, and they say, oh, good, Mister. Andy Miller: There were no extended families, so like Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were always not with family, but they were with couple friends that Mom and Dad had. That was our traditions. And that was one thing, I think, that was different than most people’s experience growing up. Because everybody was thrown into this new city together and they had to make everybody together. Shirley Miller: Yeah, and we had many friends. Andy Miller: You did. And that’s one reason you got involved in the civil rights movement, is you said you also saw some of the African Americans that were neighbors and that Dad worked with that you thought were treated unfairly. Shirley Miller: Yeah, right. Franklin: How so? What would he say about their treatment at work? What sparked that? Andy Miller: Oh, I think the obvious one was the housing that we already talked about, that was a big issue. And that a lot of businesses in the Tri-Cities would not hire— Shirley Miller: Not hiring people is one of the things. Andy Miller: And then there were still social issues. I think that there were certain unfortunate incidents that happened at schools with African American children. Shirley Miller: Yes, definitely. Definitely. Andy Miller: You would hear about that. Franklin: What kinds of incidents at school? Mostly in Pasco or anything in Richland? Andy Miller: Oh, I think in Richland. Shirley Miller: In Richland, too. Andy Miller: The use of the N-word, the taunting, things like that. Shirley Miller: Mm-hmm. Andy Miller: And Mom and Dad, I mean, they didn’t put pressure on the kids, but they certainly wanted us to be on the lookout for anything that happened. My younger brother got in a fight after one of his friends was called the N-word, and he got in trouble for getting into the fight. The kid who used the N-word did not get in trouble. So there were issues like that, but I think those were common to our entire country, not just to the Tri-Cities. Franklin: Right, right. I guess, though, it’s important for people to know that that is a country-wide issue; it wasn’t a Southern issue. Andy Miller: Right. Franklin: It was very much an issue in the North and in the West. My last question is kind of a round-up question. Is there anything else you would like to mention related to migration, work, segregation and civil rights and how they impacted your life in the Tri-Cities? Andy Miller: Is there anything else, Mom, you can think of with having African Americans move here and largely being forced to live in east Pasco? Anything else we haven’t talked about in the interview so far? Shirley Miller: Other than I think we were made more aware of it than the people who lived back in Pratt, Kansas. Franklin: How so? Shirley Miller: Huh? Franklin: How so? How was it compared to here to Kansas? What was different? Shirley Miller: I don’t know, I mean, I’m— Andy Miller: Well, in the North, you certainly had a segregated town of east Pasco, or at least part of it. Shirley Miller: Yes, uh-huh. Andy Miller: And that wasn’t the experience of a lot of other people who came here from the North. Is that right? Shirley Miller. Uh-huh. Yeah, that’s— Franklin: Were there any African Americans that lived in Pratt? I don’t know much about the size— Shirley Miller: Segregated. Franklin: Oh, it was—Pratt was segregated? Andy Miller: But not many very families lived there. Shirley Miller: And not many families. Andy Miller: It was a small farm town. Shirley Miller: But they had a little different school—I mean-- Andy Miller: A swimming pool. Shirley Miller: A swimming pool? They didn’t use the same swimming pool as we did. Andy Miller: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Did it surprise you to find segregation in Washington State? Shirley Miller: Yeah, uh-huh. Richland didn’t have segregated swimming pools. We all used the same swimming pool. Franklin: Right. But Pasco was kind of de facto segregated, just by where people could live and what jobs they could have and when they could go to Kennewick. Oh, we didn’t ask you about that. The sign that was on the bridge, do you recall the sign that was on the bridge, the old green bridge leading into Kennewick? Shirley Miller: No, unh-uh. Franklin: To Pasco. Andy Miller: We’ve never seen a sign, and over the years we’ve heard the debate whether or not there was a real sign or whether that was something said—certainly, just based on the experience helping the Slaughters, there was no one living in Kennewick and there was certainly attitudes, but I’ve just heard different debates whether or not there was an actual ordinance in place, a real sign, or just something—that’s a research project. Franklin: Me, too. No, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to track it down, whether it’s—certainly, yes, certainly there was that attitude. The attitude was very plain, but whether there was a physical manifestation of it remains to be seen. Yeah, we’ve still—we were hoping to uncover that in this, and I don’t know if we’re any closer. But we’ve documented the attitude, so that gives us something. Well, if there’s nothing else, I just want to thank both of you, Andy and Shirley. I want to thank you for coming out and sharing your history with us. You know, your history as an ally and everything, so thank you very much. Andy Miller: Well, thank you! Franklin: I appreciate it. Shirley Miller: Thank you! Franklin: Okay, awesome. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview General Electric N Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Andy and Shirley Miller Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Civil rights Civil rights movements Discrimination Segregation Human rights Description An account of the resource Shirley Miller moved to Richland, Washington in 1951 and was involved in local civil rights movements. Andy Miller was born in Richland, Washington in 1953. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06/26/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F115bb71b1265322a2c524550b06836dc.png 39382a0f67b8a6e3791777d8beeecd5d https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1ce003197be6b98ea0b26e05a97de05d.mp4 793915522b780c8818451da5c7e285d0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Liz Curfman Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Okay, great. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Liz Curfman on July 16, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Liz about her experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Elizabeth Curfman: Elizabeth, E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H, Curfman, C-U-R-F-M-A-N. Franklin: Great, thank you so much. And you prefer to go by Liz? Curfman: Liz, yes. Franklin: Okay, great. So, tell me how and why you came to the area to work at Hanford. Curfman: I actually came to the area in 1968 because my grandmother was living here. And the job prospects here were much greater than they were in Memphis, Tennessee, where I was born and raised. Franklin: Oh, okay. So you were from the South. Curfman: Yes, uh-huh. Franklin: How did your grandmother come here? Curfman: My grandmother was sort of a black migrant worker; she went wherever the work was. She’d go to Florida, she’d go to do oranges, she’d go to different places. She’d come to Washington and do mint and potatoes. And it seemed that Washington had more seasonal work, so she decided to settle here. Franklin: Where was she living when she first got here? Curfman: Pasco. Franklin: In Pasco. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: In east Pasco? Curfman: East Pasco, yes. Franklin: And did any of your other family members come here? Curfman: I have two sisters that came here, yes. Franklin: I want to ask about your grandmother’s experiences as a black woman in Pasco in the ‘50s. Did she tell you about any—about her life and any hardships or struggles? Curfman: Not really. She did a lot of domestic work and she did a lot of factory-type work, like at the potato sheds and things like that. But she was the kind of person where, when I came here, I was still saying yes, ma’am and yes, sir. She was adamantly against that. You don’t say, yes, ma’am and yes, sir. That’s a slave thing. Franklin: Right, but that was part of the Jim Crow system, right? Was you would say, yes, ma’am, yes, sir, to white people, children and adults, right? Curfman: Yes, yes. Franklin: So you—what year were you born? Curfman: 1950. Franklin: Okay. So, you were born, then, during the Jim Crow era. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: Did you go to segregated schools? Curfman: Yes. Franklin: Did you live in a segregated neighborhood? Curfman: I did, yes. Franklin: How did segregation of the South compare to the situation in Pasco when you arrived here? Curfman: Oh, it was definitely a culture shock, you know? I came to east Pasco to live with my grandmother until I found my own housing. My own housing was in Richland, and I had white neighbors, which I had never had in the South. So there was definitely a culture shock. Even my parents, you know—I have white neighbors, they’re like, oh my goodness. And they were from the—Ma said that that meant you had moved up in the world, kind of. So it was something to be proud of, I guess. Of course, my grandmother was totally the opposite. She was of a different generation than my mom and dad, because she was like, that’s nothing to be proud of. You deserve—you know, you’re just as equal as they are. So she had a different mindset for her generation. Franklin: It sounds like it. Because your—I imagine your grandmother would’ve been born sometime in the 19th century. Curfman: Yeah, she was born in 1897, I think. Franklin: Okay. So she would’ve grown up with segregation as well. Right after Plessy v. Ferguson. What do you remember about some of the landmark civil rights legislation or events when you were in Tennessee? School desegregation and civil rights protests? Curfman: You know, being in the city, we weren’t involved in very many protests. I do know that I went to a segregated school, as most—well, all black kids did. But we didn’t have the yellow school buses; we had the city buses. And the process was that it would pick the white school districts before it got to the black school district. So I can remember at times getting on the bus and having empty seats next to a white person, but they would have their books sitting on the seats, so you couldn’t ask them to move. You know, so that you couldn’t sit there. It never even crossed our minds to even ask them to, you know. It was just one of those things that you go to the back of the bus. Franklin: Right, just the way it was. Curfman: Yes, the way it was, yes. Franklin: And then do you have any memories of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, how that affected your life or your family’s life? Curfman: In 1964, I happened to be up here in the summer, visiting. I was like 14. There was a civil rights march in downtown Pasco. So that was the first involvement I had with anything like that. Franklin: Oh, did you participate in the march? Curfman: Yes, I did. Franklin: Why was that important to you? Curfman: Because it was something, you know, having been from the South and not having those rights, it was important that those were the kinds of things we were fighting for. At that time, when I came in ’64, there was a lot of things about, we can’t go to Kennewick, or we can’t be in Kennewick after dark. So those were the things that the people doing the march said that we were marching for. Franklin: Yeah. Greater inclusion. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: In the Tri-Cities. How would you describe the community in east Pasco when you first encountered it? Curfman: Mm-hmm. It was—I don’t know how to explain that. It was definitely different from the South, because the people were—some were working out at Hanford in construction, so their economics was totally different than in the South, where the people that I knew worked in restaurants or did domestic work, those kinds of things. So economics were totally different. Franklin: What were your first impressions of the Tri-Cities when you first arrived here? Yeah, first impressions. Curfman: You know, of course there was a little bit of fear. But then there was, I don’t want to say shock, but I was in awe of the fact that I could go into the stores and that the store wasn’t all-black. You know, there were white clerks, white people buying groceries. You know, it wasn’t an all-black store or things like that. Franklin: What about the environment? How did it compare to Tennessee? The physical environment and things. Curfman: Well, being in Memphis, being more of a city, we had a lot more trees and sidewalks and things like that, compared to east Pasco. But I felt like the people of east Pasco were more involved. I never really had any involvement with civil rights and stuff in the South. My parents didn’t. But when I came up here, it was marches. The NAACP was really active in east Pasco. So I joined that and did some things with them. They just seemed to be more—doing more for black people. They weren’t accepting the status quo; compared to in the South, it was like this is the way it is. Franklin: Why do you think that was? Curfman: That’s a good question, based on the fact that a lot of those people came from the South themselves. Again, I think it’s, maybe, making more money, being financially able to do and say things, not totally dependent. You take, for example, working out at Hanford doing construction, versus being a domestic person that’s, you can’t say what you want to say, because you could be fired tomorrow kind of thing. So I think they had more freedom to talk and do things. Franklin: So you had come out to visit when you were 14. Curfman: Mm-hmm, yes. Franklin: And then after ’68—I’m just kind of going by date—you must’ve graduated high school and then you took the big jump and came out here. Curfman: Yes, I was actually married at that time and had one son, one child. And my grandmother said the job opportunities were better out here for black people than in the South. So she paid for me and my family to come out here. Franklin: Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s a very common thing we’ve heard, doing this project, was the—yeah. That jobs were the main pull force out of the South for people was the employment. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: And you said that you, when you first came, you stayed with your grandmother until you got your own place and then you lived in Richland. Where did you live in Richland? Curfman: My first house was on—actually, my first house was in West Richland which was even worse. I felt like I was treated worse in West Richland than I was in Richland or Kennewick, as far as the white neighbors kind of a thing. It was like I was totally out of place in West Richland. They treated you like you should not be here. Franklin: Really? Curfman: Yes. Franklin: Were there any specific incidences that stand out? Curfman: Just, the neighbors weren’t friendly. They had kind of one little grocery store and you’d go in, it seemed like everyone would be staring at you. The clerks weren’t friendly. You know, they’d just take your money and not say hi, not even give you eye contact. You just felt very unwanted. So, it was a welcome release when we found a rental in Richland and moved to Richland. Franklin: And where did you land in Richland? Curfman: I was on Wright Street—Wright Avenue, right by Duportail, right in that area. Franklin: Yeah, okay. Yup. I know that area very well. Curfman: Mm-hmm. Franklin: So you must’ve been living in an Alphabet House or a prefab? Curfman: Yes, a prefab, yes. Franklin: Prefab. A two-bedroom? Curfman: Two-bedroom, mm-hmm. Franklin: Just try—I lived the past two years in that neighborhood, so I know that neighborhood very well. So what sort of work did you do at Hanford? What was your first position? Curfman: My first position was as a lab—at that time they called them chemical analysts in the laboratory, at 222-S Laboratory. Franklin: Oh, okay. All the way out in the 200 Area. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: So you—how did you get out there? Curfman: Of course, my grandmother had brought me up here to go to work out there, because she heard that they were hiring. At that time they had a program that was called the TOP program. It was specifically designed to bring minorities—hire minorities into the library. So they were actively pursuing minorities to go to work out there. Franklin: That must’ve been somehow connected to civil rights legislation, right? Curfman: Yes. Franklin: Forcing, kind of— Curfman: Affirmative Action. Franklin: Affirmative Action, thank you. So I assume you weren’t the only minority to come out there. Curfman: Right, no. Yeah, the entire program was all minorities, yes. Franklin: How were you and your cohort received? Curfman: I think there was a little bit of fear. I actually worked with one lady that was from Prosser. At that time, there was one black guy working in the laboratory. She was saying that, except for him—he was the first black person she had ever seen, when he went to work out in the laboratory. So we talked about things like that. It was like we were always being watched, and it was kind of like being on the TOP program was kind of a put-down. Like there might have been some kind of resentment that we were being brought in. Franklin: Right. So you’re saying that there was kind of like the modern-day criticisms of Affirmative Action that some people say, you’re here for quota reasons and maybe— Curfman: Yes. Franklin: --you took the job of a local or a white person. Curfman: Yes, absolutely. Franklin: But you—so, was that just an initial thing, or did that kind of hang over the program for its— Curfman: No, it was an initial thing. I can’t even remember how long the program lasted. I don’t even know if there was a class after the one class that I was in. I can’t remember. So, it was basically an initial thing. There was some that made it and some that didn’t. Franklin: What did you know or hear about—did you learn about the prior history of African Americans at Hanford from the Manhattan Project on? Did you know that African Americans had helped to build Hanford and the buildings that you were working in? Curfman: In the construction area, yes. Yeah, I knew that. Franklin: Was that something that was kind of common knowledge or talked about? Curfman: Yes, and being in east—there were people in east Pasco who were still working out there in the construction area. So, you hear about them coming here from Texas and different places in the early ‘50s and late ‘40s. Franklin: What did you—your work at Hanford was kind of beyond—it seems like you were the class that really went beyond—you expanded the boundaries of blacks at Hanford from construction into labs. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: How was that received in the African American community? What did the earlier workers, did they ever talk to you about that, or anything like that? Curfman: The earlier workers, no, I can’t remember talking to any of them about it. Franklin: Okay. How did you get out to the labs? Did you take a bus? Curfman: The bus, yes. Franklin: What was that like? Curfman: It was interesting. You know, we would drive to the bus lot and catch the bus. When I started working out there, of course everyone had to do the shift work, so I worked the A,B,C,D shift, which was seven days on, two days off kind of thing, and then once a month, you had the four days off. But again, it was one of those things, getting on the bus, you felt like everyone was staring at you. Especially going out to the labs, because at that time, there wasn’t very many black people in the labs, so. Or on the buses period. Because the construction workers normally worked daytime; they weren’t out there at night and things like that. So there would be people that—you know. And almost like old habits never die, still kind of went to the back of the bus kind of thing. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. That makes sense, sadly. What did your husband do when he came out here? Did he find work out at Hanford? Curfman: Yes, he was a chemical operator in 200 East area. Franklin: Was he part of the same program? Curfman: No, he was not part of the TOP program. Franklin: Oh, okay. What do you know about his experiences out on Site? Curfman: I don’t think he had any negative experiences. I can remember having his boss for dinner, things like that. Of course was a white guy. I don’t remember anything negative that he would ever come home and say. Franklin: Your children eventually must’ve enrolled in Richland School District, right? Curfman: Yes. Franklin: How was their experience as a minority student in the school district? Were there any people that were really influenced them or mentored them or was there any negative experiences? Curfman: No, I don’t think there were—because they were both into sports, so that always kind of carried them a long way. They started out in Richland schools. I got divorced and remarried and moved to Benton City, which, again, put them—they were the only two black kids in the all-white school. [LAUGHTER] Curfman: But, you know, they had lots of friends. We didn’t have any problems. I probably had more issues than they did. Franklin: Yeah, I would imagine there were not a lot of blacks in Benton City. Curfman: There was not. We were it. We were it. Franklin: Yeah. I grew up in a very small farming town and I think it was a similar situation for my friend who was the only black kid in our school for quite a long time. Curfman: Uh-huh. Franklin: So how was Benton City different from Richland, living there, the community? I wonder if you’d talk about that. Curfman: Yeah, again, it was about the same experience as being in West Richland. You didn’t feel like you belonged. If you went to the grocery stores, the post office, the bank, you were glared at. Somewhat treated rudely. Not rude to the point of where they could get in trouble; it’s just that they weren’t as friendly. You could stand in line and watch them talk to the white person ahead of you, but then when your turn came, it was, like I said, not even eye contact. Just business as usual. I personally noticed those types of things. Franklin: Sure, yeah. I think, I guess today we might call them microaggresions or something like that, yeah. But they add up, though, don’t they? Curfman: Yes, yes. Franklin: How come you moved out to Benton City? Curfman: The guy that I remarried was raised on a farm in Montana and he wanted farmland. So we moved out there and bought four acres. He was white, so. Franklin: He felt that—was that—not to pry too much, but that was kind of a stir at that point, interracial marriage? Curfman: Yes, yes, yes. Franklin: Did you ever receive any negative attention because of that? Curfman: I think so. Actually, I can remember this one time not too long after we moved out there, we were out kind of moving the irrigation pipe around, and this neighbor from around the corner drove up and introduced herself to him. It was almost like she thought me and my kids were his hired help. So she was talking directly to him, inviting him over, you know. We’d like to get to know you, blah, blah, blah. To this day, I really think that—I’m sure after we were there for a while, she found out I was his wife. But at the time she was talking to him, to this day, I think she thought we were just hired help. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. Wow. This would’ve been—‘70s? ‘80s? Curfman: This was ’76, ’78, yeah, in the late ‘70s. Franklin: How did your family—how was your family, how did they adjust to the marriage? Were they more welcoming? The black community, was it more welcoming? Curfman: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yes. Yeah, my grandparents and I had an aunt in Pasco at the time, they had no problems. My parents were still in the South. Of course, we didn’t go there and visit. I felt—a couple times I went back and visited, I felt like I had a couple uncles that treated me kind of cold, and I think it was because I was married to a white guy. They kind of took that personally. Franklin: Because that would’ve caused probably much more of a stir in the South. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: Especially among that generation, right? Curfman: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Because that had been illegal for quite—not only just a social taboo but it’d been illegal until—some states didn’t even change that until the ‘90s. Curfman: Right, yeah. Franklin: Okay. So, you mentioned that you—so you were 222 chemical analyst and you worked shift work. I’m wondering if you could describe a typical work day. Curfman: Basically, we’d get to work in the morning, we’d have a little short safety meeting. Ahead of time, we’d be assigned stations. We had different stations, like if you were going to be analyzing plutonium. We had different procedures. So I might be assigned to run strontiums tonight; someone else might be assigned to do H-pluses tonight. So you just came in, you know. You expected the shift ahead of you to restock the supplies at the end of their shifts. Sometimes that was done; sometime it wasn’t. So that was always kind of a sore spot, because our analyses were timed, in a sense. Operations would need the results in a timely manner so they could empty a tank or adjust a tank. And if we came in and had to—if the other shift left samples undone and we came in and had to get our supplies together before we could even start, then that just—kind of a snowball effect. So there was always tension between the shifts, depending on if that shift did their housekeeping before they left, before the next shift came in. But as a rule, we were almost like a family. We did a lot of—for instance, on graveyard, we would do like a communal breakfast on our breaks. Sometimes there was times where people didn’t want to do breakfast; they wanted to take a nap during their lunch hour. So it was one of those things where, I’m going to sleep for 30 minutes; you wake me up. Of course, we had those little clocks we could set. So we just took care of each other. Franklin: Yeah, how would you describe your relationships with your coworkers? Curfman: Oh, awesome. Yeah, we did lots of things together. Went to Richland basketball games, we followed the Bombers. A lot of parties at our homes. So, yeah, we did. It was good. Franklin: You became very close with your fellow coworkers. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: And did you feel a sense of belonging with your coworkers? Curfman: Absolutely, yes. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your supervisors or management? Curfman: I’ve always had a good relationship. When I was on shiftwork, one of my first managers was female, Louise Gray. I think she was—I’m pretty sure she was the first female manager in the laboratory. And we would have—we would go to her house for things and we would do things away from work, like Halloween parties and things like that. So we had a good relationship. Once a month, on our long change there for a while, we would always get together as a group for dinner, like at Chinese Gardens and things like that. Franklin: Oh, wow. Curfman: So it was always fun. Franklin: Oh, that’s wonderful. Curfman: Yeah. Franklin: And then you became an engineering tech in ’78. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: Where was that at? Curfman: That was at Plutonium Finishing Plant. Franklin: At PFP. Curfman: Mm-hm. Franklin: How long did you—did you work there, then, for the rest of your career? Curfman: Yes. Franklin: Okay. And what is an engineering tech? What does that mean? Curfman: We kind of assisted the engineers. We would go out—I mean, I would go out and take readings off the tanks in the morning and bring them back to them so that they could do their engineering data calculations and things like that. So that they could in turn tell operations what adjustments they needed to make. So, a lot of data analysis, data gathering. Versus in the lab, I was doing hands-on work. Franklin: Were your—I imagine, kind of growing up in Tennessee, you know, Hanford may have been the last place you thought you might have ended up, working out with plutonium. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: How did your family react to your—did they ever express any concern? Were they proud? Were they just really kind of curious? Curfman: Well, they were afraid when I had to apply for my Q clearance, and at that time the FBI went to your house. So of course, the FBI went to their house in Tennessee and it scared them to death, because what is she doing? [LAUGHTER] What did she do? But I had somewhat of the same reaction from neighbors in the Tri-Cities when the FBI would go talk to them. I actually had a neighbor mention that here just a couple months ago, that when I moved in—well, it wasn’t when I moved where I am now, but just when they do the every five- or ten-year update, they had gone and talked to this one neighbor and he was saying, like, scared me to death! You know. And that was not too long ago, you know. Franklin: Wow. Curfman: Yeah. Franklin: Wow. And then in 1982, you were promoted to shift supervisor, lab manager. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: And you were the first African American woman lab manager on Site. Curfman: That’s true, yeah. Franklin: Was that—how’d you find out that you were the first? Curfman: You know, right now it’s just from talking to people and looking back. I’d like to find that out for sure, because I think it would be a legacy to leave to my grandkids. We know that Louise Gray was the first female. I know that a guy by the name of Jim Burden was the first black male. So right now, just from talking, I can’t think of anybody before me. Franklin: And, certainly, even if you weren’t the first, you were one of—a groundbreaking thing. So you moved into management. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: And how was that different? How’d you adapt, and what did you do to adapt to that role? Curfman: Of course, a lot of classes and a lot of training. It was a struggle for a while, because a lot of the people that worked for me had degrees like they may not have necessarily been scientists or chemists but they might have been the next teacher or some other profession where they had a degree. So I think there was some resentment sometimes when not only was I a black female but I didn’t have a degree. So, you know, so that was, just depending on the people. Franklin: Did you ever have any difficulties managing—being a minority, managing largely a majority white workforce? Curfman: Yes, uh-huh. Yeah. Franklin: Could you describe that? Curfman: Well, you know, certainly there were—of course we had the cultural differences, but I think more than me being black, it was more me not having a degree. Even though I had white counterparts. The male manager that hired me didn’t have a degree. There were a lot of them out there, didn’t have—they did have nuclear experience from the Navy, but they did not have degrees. But it seemed—there seemed to have been a lot of emphasis on me not having a degree. Which, I kind of resented that. I’m like, look at him, look at him, look at—you know. Franklin: Right, I mean, as long as you can do the—I mean, seniority experience counts for quite a bit. Curfman: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Yeah, that makes sense though. I mean, you know. Certainly something to point to. Curfman: And it did start—I’m sorry. Franklin: No, no, go ahead. Curfman: It did start being less of a problem, because at one point—and I never saw it in writing, but it was said that eight years’ experience was equal to a four-year degree. So, as I got more experience, then it was kind of like, well, in a sense she does. Franklin: Right, and I feel like you kind of see that on job postings, where it’s like x number of experience or a degree in the field. Curfman: Yes, yes, uh-huh. Franklin: And so you were—what kinds of—I mean, as much as you can talk about it, I know PFP there was a lot of secret work going on out there, but what kinds of—what kind of work did you supervise? What kind of work was going on in the lab? Curfman: Okay, basically, what we did is analyze samples from the operations. You know, they’d send us a sample and they’d want to know if it was, how many grams of plutonium was in it. So we would analyze it and then send the results back to them, and based on the results, they’d say, we’re good, or no, we need to add more acid, or no, we need to add more base. Things of that nature. Or we need to empty the tank or we can’t empty the tank. We can’t empty the tank—it’s full, but we can’t empty it because the results aren’t what they need to be. So it was—so we were quality control, mainly. Yeah. Franklin: Ah, that makes sense. And you did that until 2010? Curfman: Yes, but I went from shift manager—in 1983, I was shift manager, and I can’t remember but I was promoted throughout the years in different levels of management. And when I left in—well, I actually left in 2007 because of a health issue. But when I left, I was a Level 3 which was the top laboratory manager. Franklin: Oh, wow. Curfman: Yeah. Franklin: What were the most challenging and/or rewarding aspects of your work at Hanford? Curfman: Challenging was every ten years they would change contractors, so it was always challenging to learn new management, what the expectations were, new procedures. I had bargaining unit people working for me, so it was always a challenge to work with the unions and answer grievances and things like that. It seems like there was always people that if they could have you in a grievance meeting, they wouldn’t have to be in the lab working. So sometimes you felt like people created problems just to get out of work. Rewarding was having come from where I came from, to be in the position that I was in. I was 1994 Westinghouse Women’s History Month nominee. So there were things to be proud of. There was a lot of—I did a lot of things, like I represented the laboratory in Washington, DC and won a black national caucus. Represented the caucus at universal Washington black engineers’ conference. Things like that. Franklin: Oh, wow. Yeah, those are—those really are rewarding aspects. Did you still have family in east Pasco for quite a while after you moved here? Curfman: Mm-hm. Franklin: Did you go to attend any church events or community events in east Pasco? Curfman: Oh, yes, uh-huh. I was librarian for East Pasco Church of God for quite a few years. So, yes. Franklin: Is that a predominantly black church? Curfman: It was at the time, yes. Franklin: At the time. What role did church play in the black community? Curfman: Very important role, and actually, the majority of the churches now are still pretty much black. Morning Star is one of the—used to be one of the biggest in east Pasco, and it’s probably predominantly still black. New Hope, predominantly still black. So, yeah, I don’t know. Franklin: What about did you go to any cultural celebrations like Juneteenth, or— Curfman: Oh, yes, uh-huh, yeah. I actually worked with the Juneteenth committee, with the contestants for Miss Black Afro-American—Miss Juneteenth. I was part of that committee with Eloise Williams. Did a lot of that. What else? A lot of church activities. A lot of involvement with—we used to have what was called confederated choir where once a month, the first Sunday of the month, all the churches would go to a different church at 3:00 in the afternoon and all the different choirs would sing. So that was always fun. A lot of church picnics and potlucks and things like that. Franklin: Yeah, I’ve heard of, I think Pastor Wilkins was telling me about that, the all-church meeting. Curfman: Yes. Franklin: What’s special about Juneteenth? Why is that such a big event for African Americans? Curfman: Because we feel like that was when we were really freed. It wasn’t July 4th. So it’s just something to be proud of. We don’t seem to be—the younger generation seems to be losing it; we don’t seem to be getting as large a crowd as we used to. It has diversified. We get a lot of white people that attend, which we like that. You know, we don’t have an issue with that. But we like to keep it going, something that the community can be proud of. Franklin: Did people bring—or did you or others that migrated from the South bring any other traditions with them, like food, especially? Curfman: Oh, yeah. Yeah, my family in particular, pecan pie is a big deal for my entire family. But just—I have a sister in Pasco now, I mean, every day she still cooks the soul food, the greens and the cabbage and the black-eyed peas type of thing, because that’s how she was raised. And my grandmother and my aunt and people like that, I think most of the old-timers cook like that. They brought that. Barbecue, of course. Chicken—fried chicken. Franklin: Yes. Very, very, very good. How was your civil rights experience here different from Memphis? Curfman: I just feel like it was more freedom. You know, I can remember coming home from church—my mother worked in a restaurant where it was all white. She was a cook. So if we went to visit her, we had to go to the backdoor. She had to go in the backdoor; she couldn’t come in the front. She used to not like us to call at work because the phone was out front. If we called her, she’d have to go out front, and her bosses didn’t want the black people out front. So that was always an issue. If we had some issue at school and we had to call her, you know. I can remember coming home from church once and it was really hot outside. We cut across the park that was a whites-only park, and we were drinking water from the water fountain, and we saw the police, they were all like, hey, hey, hey! There was like three or four of us and we ran home. Went home, changed clothes, messed up my hair. Because if the police came by looking for us, we didn’t want to look like we had just came from church. We didn’t want to look like the same people. So coming from that environment and coming here, and going to any park. There were a lot of barbecues back during that—a lot of things in the parks and there were other people besides black people. When I moved on Wright Street I had a neighbor that was a white lady, and she was real strong German, still had a real strong German accent. And she was just lovely to us. She baked cookies for my babies and was just, wow, this is pretty neat. I mean, she was really nice. So that would be something that I could write home and tell my mom: I have this white neighbor and she’s really nice. Franklin: That’s quite different. Yeah, that’s a very striking difference. Curfman: Yeah. Franklin: Let’s see here. Right there. Could you describe the ways in which the security and/or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? Curfman: Yes, because we couldn’t—for instance, when they do the background checks, and I’ve had family or neighbors talk about the FBI coming asking questions, I could tell them it had to do with work, but I couldn’t really tell them why. It didn’t impact the work that much, other than we knew what was secret and what wasn’t, because we had to stamp things secret and we knew what we could talk about and not talk about. I think it was a little better when I was out there, we were starting to lean a little more towards closing down and doing cleanup, versus the people back during construction, as to why were building this plant. The secret, when I was there, the secret stuff came down to analysis. We didn’t want to say what our analysis was, kind of thing, versus what we were doing. Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Curfman: I think I would like them to know that opportunities are there. I feel like I’m an example of it. I came from Tennessee, segregated community, no degree and went to work at Hanford and retired at the top of, you know, the management chain. And I do still have family right now that that’s something that—because I still have family in Tennessee that’s doing domestic work and working in restaurants. So, to them, I’m a success story. Franklin: Is there anything else that you wanted to say in regards to race and your life at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Curfman: Not really. I can’t think of anything in specific. Just that I think you have to work harder than anybody else, and I definitely felt like I had to work harder. I had to take more classes. I felt like I had to take more classes than anybody else. I actually had one manager one time tell me, well, no, we need to let someone else go; you go to too many classes. But the opportunity was there, was presented to me, and I took that opportunity. So, yeah. Franklin: Like, you kind of had to compensate extra? Curfman: Yes. Franklin: For being African—a black female. Curfman: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Franklin: Well, Liz, thank you very much for a very enlightening interview. I really appreciate you telling your experience and your accomplishments. Curfman: Thank you. Franklin: Awesome. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 222-S Laboratory 200 Area 200 East Plutonium Finishing Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1968- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1968-2007 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Liz Curfman Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) West Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation Civil rights Civil rights movements Affirmative action Basketball Description An account of the resource Liz Curfman moved to the Tri-Cities area in 1968. Liz Curfman worked on the Hanford Site from 1968-2007. Description A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 07/16/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F54b7d20ee0fcb15c4aebd8d1af46a357.JPG 40b102488e4fb85911aee5b9a13e2f64 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe08d7b8e6f2d6e24e1c536f63f7f699a.mp4 96bdc31eb1aa12d2238a3fd1220bdcaa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Emma Peoples Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Emma Peoples: --American families. And I suppose with other cultures, also, sometimes. People were known by initials only. But that was his legal name. Franklin: Interesting. Peoples: And that was my father’s legal name. C.J. Mitchell, Senior, C.J. Mitchell, Junior. Franklin: Interesting. Okay. Great. Like I said, I have a little bit of boilerplate before we start, but I’ll have lots of questions for you about C.J. We got a chance to interview him—I didn’t, but our project did back in 2013. Bob Bauman, who’s a colleague of mine, a friend of mine sat down here with C.J. I’ve not only watched C.J.’s interview; I’ve assigned it in my history class when talking about race in the Tri-Cities. So it’s definitely been a—he was quite a guy. And we’ve interviewed Duke, Greg, we’re going to interview Vanessa, and I think that’s it for your nieces and nephews. And then— Peoples: You haven’t gotten to Cameron yet? Franklin: Haven’t gotten to Cameron yet, no, no. Peoples: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: We’ll get there. We will get there. Because I’ve heard lots about him. And then of course you, we’ve really wanted to talk to you, too. But anyway, there’s some boilerplate and then we’ll just get right into it. And I’ll ask you a bit about how you got here and your life in Texas, and then how things were here. We’ll go from there, does that sound good? Peoples: Mm-hmm. Franklin: And there’s some water next to you there if you need it at any point. Peoples: Okay. Franklin: And also I really like your jacket. I wanted to say that. Peoples: Oh, thank you. Franklin: It looks really cool. It kind of looks like really cool lizard skin, you know what I mean? Like scales. Peoples: Yeah. Franklin: I like it a lot. It’s really neat. Okay. Peoples: One other thing I want to tell you, though. Franklin: Yeah? Peoples: The Bartons. Franklin: Yes. Peoples: You know how they are related? Franklin: Kind of. Keith explained it to me, but— Peoples: My mother and Keith Barton’s father were first cousins. Franklin: Okay, okay. So your mother and— Peoples: Their parents were brother and sister. Keith’s grandmother and my grandfather were brother and sister. Franklin: So your mother and Keith Barton’s father. Peoples: Yeah, were first cousins. Franklin: Yeah. Because he said, oh yeah, I’m related to the Daniels and the Mitchells and— Peoples: My mother was a Daniel. Franklin: Right, right. Okay. I need to draw this tree out. Because I have it kind of in my mind, but— Peoples: Okay. Okay, my great-grandfather was named William Daniels. I don’t know how many kids he had, but the two oldest were Keith Barton’s grandmother and my grandfather. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: And—well then it gets to the—my mother was a sister to Vanis Daniels and William Daniels that lived in Pasco. And they have children who live in this area, too. And then Keith—well, they all came during the—when they were building Hanford and the jobs were good and all this, I believe how they got here. Franklin: Was your mother—you said William Daniels was your great-grandfather, so then he had a son and a daughter that you remember. Was your mother the child of the son or the daughter? Peoples: The son. Franklin: The son. So then that’s your mom. Okay. Peoples: And Keith’s dad was a child of the daughter. Franklin: Okay. Okay, that helps a lot. Thank you. Okay. All right, let us officially begin. Sound good? Peoples: Yes, I think. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, we can take—any time you need a break or have a question, just feel free. Well, do you have any questions before we start? Peoples: No. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: Not that I can think of. But I don’t know—didn’t know what to expect, so— Franklin: Yeah, that’s kind of an odd request, isn’t it? It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Okay. Ready? Lori Larson: You’ve been going. She’s already giving good stuff, so I started. Franklin: I know. Okay, well, then we have all of that. Okay, good. [LAUGHTER] My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Emma Peoples on May 2nd, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. We’ll be talking with Emma about her experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And Emma, did you ever work out at Hanford? Peoples: Yes. Franklin: And working at the Hanford Site. For the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Peoples: Okay. Do you want my full legal name, or do you want all of my name? Franklin: Oh. Which one is more interesting? Peoples: Well, I consider my legal name my married name. Franklin: Okay. Can we do both because that way we can kind of talk about how you’re related to other folks that we’ve interviewed? Peoples: Okay. My legal name, currently, is Emma Ruth Peoples. E-M-M-A, R-U-T-H, P-E-O-P-L-E-S. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: My maiden name was Mitchell, M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L. Franklin: Okay. And you’re C.J.’s little sister? Peoples: I am C.J.’s younger sister. There were five—my mother had—I have four brothers, I’ll put it that way. All four of the boys were older than the three girls. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: My youngest brother was born in 1933. My older sister was born in 1938. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: I was born in 1940, and my younger sister in 1942. My younger sister, by the way, never saw her father. Franklin: Right, because— People: He died before she was born. He died the 7th of June; she was born the 26th of October the same year. Franklin: Oh, wow. So where—you already said when you were born. Where were you born and where did you live before coming to the Tri-Cities? Peoples: I was born in Kildare, Texas, K-I-L-D-A-R-E. That was a small community—farming community that was on between Texarkana—Texas-Arkansas—and Marshall, Texas on the Texas and Pacific Railway line. My father was a railroad man. Franklin: Okay, so between Texarkana— Peoples: Well, Texarkana’s 36 miles this way; Marshall is 32 miles this way, by rail. Franklin: So nice in-between point. Was the rail kind of the main—was that— Peoples: There were a lot—a gentleman that I did not know but I grew up with a cousin of his, and he wrote a book recently that I have. The way he described it, there were three groups of people—and he was talking African Americans—they were the timber people, northeast Texas is rich in timber; there were the railroad people, the Texas and Pacific Railroad went right through Kildare; and there were the—I said, railroad, timber—and farming. Franklin: Okay. Sounds like a typical Western town setup then. Peoples: You don’t really think of—when you think of Texas, most people think of west Texas, because that’s what you see. But east Texas is, as I said, rich in timber. Franklin: Yeah. Yes, it is. What education and work experience did you have before coming to the Tri-Cities? Peoples: Actually when I came to the Tri-Cities, I had just finished high school two months earlier. The only actual work that we did during the summer, there were crops that needed to be worked that we had a chance to do that, which we didn’t think of it so much as work as a way to see our friends during the summer. [LAUGHTER] But it did give us, I’ll just say, spending change. And people that did have things that needed to be done, community people, would have us do things like that. But as far as work-work, there was none because there was a rule in our house that you did not miss school. And you did not—and I found out from my second-oldest brother that they were not allowed to bring home a C. That was my father’s rule—which he was gone by the time I started school. But my mother was a very strong single parent, and the rules held fast. Franklin: And you said you graduated high school at 16? Peoples: Yes. Franklin: So you left Texas then, at that time? Peoples: I was 16 when I left. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was the end of July, and I turned 17 the 10th of August. Franklin: Okay, so ’57? Peoples: ’57. Franklin: So school—the Brown v. Board of Education happened in 1954; did that affect you in high school? Peoples: That, we heard about—was that in ’54? Franklin: I believe so. Peoples: Was it that soon? The only thing—what I remember is the Little Rock Nine. I was in high school at that point. And we heard about that, and there was—she went to Texas College, I believe, and she was another person that stood out in my mind. This was all before I finished high school. Her name was Autherine Lucy. She went to Texas College. Well, maybe it wasn’t Texas College, but it was in Tyler, Texas. That was another one that we saw in the paper that was a part of this. And then the college was James Meredith—what was her name? There were two. There was a young man and a young lady. I know his name was James Meredith. Franklin: Yup. Peoples: Was that the University of Mississippi? Franklin: Yeah, Ole Miss. Peoples: Okay. But I was not so much involved in that, but my younger sister actually was a part of the sit-ins. Franklin: Of the what? Peoples: Of the sit-ins. Franklin: Oh, the sit-ins. Peoples: She was a student at Bishop College in Marshall, Texas at the time. That was after I left, but— Franklin: So, your high school—going all through your schooling, your schools were segregated, right? Peoples: Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, I think there was a forced integration and I read this not too long ago. The State of Texas had a forced integration. It was not until several years later that they actually integrated the schools, though. Because when I—I went back to Kildare for several months in 1960. That was during the time my husband was military. He was stationed in Germany, and we went there before we went to join him. It was during that time that they were doing the sit-ins and all that stuff. So I was not a part of any of that. But like I said, my sister was a college student and she did get involved. Franklin: And Kildare was a segregated town, right? Peoples: Absolutely. But Kildare was unique. My sister and I—my older sister and I would talk about this periodically. Where we grew up, it was segregated. But there seemed to be a healthy respect for each other. I don’t know how to describe that. But you didn’t hear about the rioting and that sort of thing. That kind of thing was kind of foreign to us. And I think because it was a farming community, and people had a history of working together, might have made the difference. But we knew the schools were segregated, but I guess maybe we just didn’t know any better and we didn’t think about it. Franklin: Things, too, like restaurants and movie theaters? Peoples: Kildare had no restaurants! [LAUGHTER] However, movie theaters, yes. If you went to the movie, Atlanta, Texas was the closest town to Kildare. It was like 14 miles going toward Arkansas. You would go through Atlanta going to Texarkana. If you went to the movie, African Americans had to sit upstairs. You could not go in the lower part. Franklin: And did you go up— Peoples: There was a stairway. Franklin: Was there a different entrance, like an outside entrance? Peoples: You know, I don’t remember for sure. Franklin: Doesn’t really matter. I was just curious. Peoples: I don’t really remember. Franklin: But nevertheless, you had to use a separate— Peoples: Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. And I assume you heard about the area from your brother, C.J. Peoples: My brother came here when he was 16 years old, I believe. Franklin: And do you remember what year that was? Peoples: 1947. Franklin: 1947. And why did he come to the area? Peoples: For work. We had uncles that were up this way. He took the train. And what I didn’t know was that he didn’t get all the way here the first time. He had some bad luck and ended up staying in Chicago, coming back. I learned this from my youngest brother. That was something I—as a little girl, I didn’t know anything about this. But I just knew that my big brother left, and I was unhappy. I was happy when he came home, and he left again, and I cried again. But like I said, C.J. was the father figure. C.J. was the one that was always there. He was the one that—he was actually, as a teenager, superintendent of the Sunday school. So when we went to Sunday school on Sunday, he was going to always be there. Although the churches didn’t have church services every Sunday, they did have Sunday school every Sunday. So naturally, on Sunday, that was time that was spent with C.J. also. Franklin: When did your uncles come up to the Hanford area? Peoples: I don’t remember exactly when they came up, but they came in the early ’40s. Now, I never remember my uncle Willie living in Kildare. Franklin: Was Willie’s last name, was that Daniels? Willie Daniels? Peoples: Yes. But I remember when Uncle Vanis came. They were brothers. Franklin: That’s Vanis’ father, right? Vanis Daniels. Peoples: Yes. Franklin: Because you said your mother was a Daniels. Peoples: Right. Franklin: Okay. So they came sometime in World War II? Peoples: They came up, and then Uncle Vanis came back. And then I don’t—they actually—and then he and my aunt and the youngest son came to Washington and then the rest of the family followed, I think, like six months later. They came—I remember that they left in the summertime. They waited until school was out before they came. And they did have an older sister who was an adult that was with them. So they weren’t—it wasn’t just the kids left without any adult there. But that, I believe, was in 1951. Franklin: Okay. What was it about the Hanford area that was drawing folks? Peoples: Money. Franklin: How so? Peoples: There were no jobs. Franklin: In Kildare? Peoples: Anywhere, practically. But when the war effort started, then jobs were created. And so you basically went to where the jobs were. I do know that my grandfather had a brother who lived in Seattle. I remember they went to, I believe, Bremerton. And I remember an aunt, my mother’s sister, living in Bremerton. You traveled to where the jobs were. And the families were quite often left behind while the breadwinner was gone. I think there were a lot of very strong women during that time that made sure the family’s needs were met while the breadwinner had to be someplace else. Franklin: Right. Or even some women that were breadwinners themselves that were also helping making sure the family’s needs were met. Peoples: Right. Franklin: So you moved here with your brother, C.J. Was that just to be closer to family, but also for job reasons? Peoples: Well, no, I don’t know why he asked me to come. But he did ask me to come, and there was nothing else for me to do. So it was—when I look back, it was a blessing, actually, rather than say it was a good move. It was actually a blessing. Franklin: Oh, wow. What were your first impressions when you arrived? Peoples: The first thing that happened when I arrived. Well, I rode back with—well, there was six of us in the car. My Aunt Maxine was with us, my Uncle Willie, my brother, and then a first cousin who lived in Pasco, her husband and his brother were with us. And they drove to Texas together for the funeral. And I rode back with them. We first went to my uncle’s house in Pasco; that was Uncle Willie. C.J. had left his car with them there. And we got in the car and we drove home, we drove to Richland. And it was late at night and the next morning, when we all got up, up in the day, my sister-in-law said—she told me that a friend of mine was staying with her aunt, well, it was actually the next street over. During that day, she said to her two-year-old, why don’t you take Emma up to your friend Bruce’s? And this little toddler took me up to his friend’s. [LAUGHTER] I said, smart kid. He knew exactly where to go. I just walked along with him, and when I got there, I actually saw my—he walked up in the yard, and of course what do kids do when they walk up in the yard? He saw his friend, he went over to play. But my friend that had—she had come up to Washington earlier with her family, and she was at her aunt’s. She and a friend of hers was sitting out in the yard, so I recognized them and she recognized me when I walked up. So that was my first experience. But I don’t know. I just—when I look back now, the way they embraced me and the kids, and right now—that’s why I say this is my second family. They are so very special to me. And they make me feel special. Franklin: That’s really wonderful. So you stayed with C.J. after you arrived. Peoples: Yes. Franklin: Do you remember what house that was? Was it an Alphabet House? Peoples: It was a prefab. A two-bedroom prefab. Now, bear in mind they had four kids. [LAUGHTER] That’s why I say, you know, this had to be a blessing. It was on the corner of Adams and Cullum. No, no, I take that back. Adams and Craighill. Franklin: Wow, two-bedroom. Peoples: The first house we bought was on Adams and Cullum. Franklin: That’s like seven people in a two-bedroom prefab. Peoples: Yeah. Franklin: Wow. That sounds tight. Peoples: Well, they had three boys. The girl was a baby, so she had her crib, and the parents had their room, and Emma slept on the couch. Franklin: Wow. Peoples: We made it work. I say, they made it work. Franklin: And how long did you stay with them? Peoples: Until I was married. I came up in June—no, July of 1957, and I was married in November 29th of 1958. Franklin: Did you meet your husband here? Peoples: Yes. Franklin: Did you know him or his family where you came from? Peoples: No. He was stationed at Camp Hanford. Franklin: Oh, okay. Peoples: Actually, the first time I remember—well, wait a minute. The first time I met him, there was—my friend Carolyn Barton and another friend, Catherine Perry, and Lula Mae Tate, we all went to the same church. There was a lady that had—it was a restaurant, and she had some—I think they were three apartments or something like that. But it was kind of like a ballroom. It wasn’t a ballroom, but it was a small room and she would let kids have sock hops there. But there was no liquor, none of that. Her place was strictly food. So you didn’t—but the guys from Camp Hanford would come down there because they loved her chicken. Franklin: Was this Virgie’s Chicken Shack? Peoples: Virginia’s Chicken Shack, yes. Anyway, this particular Friday night, I had gone over and we went down to the sock hop. I went with Carolyn and Catherine and Lula Mae. There were some guys there—that’s where I actually met him. There was another guy with him, his last name I think was Rogers. But anyway, I don’t know why they were there, but they were. That’s where I met him. But they also—I never saw the other guy, but he would also come to our church sometimes. That was New Hope. Franklin: New Hope, okay. I was just about to ask you that. Where was your husband from? Peoples: His hometown was Forrest City, Arkansas. Franklin: Oh, okay. Was that— Peoples: Eastern Arkansas, it’s about 40 miles east of Memphis, Tennessee. Franklin: Oh, okay. Peoples: Right on what is now Interstate 40. Franklin: And what is your husband’s name? Peoples: His first name was, I’m going to spell it for you. Everyone called him Al. Well, actually, they called him Peoples. Because with the military, everyone is last names. But his first name is Alpheus, A-L-P-H-E-U-S. Franklin: I can say I’ve never heard that name before. Peoples: It’s a Biblical name. Franklin: It sounds Biblical. Alpheus Peoples. Peoples: Yes. Franklin: After you got here, what was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to? Peoples: I don’t know. I don’t know. I think being surrounded by family made things so much easier, because it was not just my brother, C.J., and his family. Like I said, I would go over on Saturday nights, I would spend the night either with the Bartons or at my uncle Vanis’. And I would go to church with them on Sunday morning, with Carolyn mainly, on Sunday morning because we went to the same church. But I also had a cousin that lived on the next corner, on Craighill. Franklin: Who was that? Peoples: On Abbott and Craighill. The Rockamores. Franklin: Rockamores, okay. That’s a name I’ve heard several times. Peoples: Yes. Now that was my father’s niece. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: And they were—well, I always, when I thought about it, I thought about the fact that they—I felt they treated me more like a younger sister than a cousin. But our families in Texas were very close. Franklin: It really seems like a lot of your family migrated—moved from Kildare. Seems like a pretty sizable chunk of Kildare moved up here. Peoples: Absolutely, absolutely. Because when one person found out there were jobs, then they let the other people know. There were people that came and didn’t stay, but there were quite a few that did. Franklin: It wasn’t just the job itself; the pay here was also greater than it would have been for an equivalent job in Texas, right? Peoples: In the first place, there was no equivalent job in Texas. And in the second place, the wages were almost non-existent. I mean, you worked a lot of hours for not much money there. So they came here and the ones who did not move their families here came and they sent money back to take care of their families. Sometimes eventually the families moved here and sometimes they didn’t. Franklin: Yeah. You mentioned that you went to New Hope Church. What role did church play in the community in general? Peoples: In my life, it was always the center, basically, of life. I’m going to tell you this, because this is what I told a group of people that—I was wanting their vote. Franklin: Wanting their vote? Peoples: I ran for national office in an organization, and I had to go to the caucuses. When I went, I introduced myself and I started out with where I grew up and I said, I was raised by a widowed mother who was a very strong single parent. I went on to say, every time the church door opened, my mother made sure all those little Mitchells walked through it. So we went to church more than anybody else in town. That was our lives. Everyone in Kildare—I don’t know of anyone in Kildare who did not have a very high respect for my mother. I mean, we even went to church on Thanksgiving Day. Franklin: Wow. That’s impressive. Peoples: That was the one thing I missed, and when I went to Texas one year after that, after I had been away, and I wanted to be there on Thanksgiving Day. But they no longer had church on Thanksgiving Day. So that was something that I remembered. You hold onto your beliefs and what you remember and it doesn’t always work out the way you would hope. Franklin: Why do you think church was so important for your mother, why she passed that on to you? Peoples: I think it’s just a strong belief in Christ. And no matter where I go, and whether I’m—I’m not in church every Sunday, but it still is very—that life is still very important to me. Franklin: Yeah. And the church also plays a very prominent role in the black community in general, right? Peoples: Yes. But it doesn’t have to be a black church. It can be—I was a military wife. And when you are away from home and you don’t know where the closest church is, you go to the chapel, which is what I did. I went to the chapel. Franklin: Great. Do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions, including sports and food that people brought from the places they came from? Peoples: You mean traditionally? Franklin: Yeah, like different types of traditions or customs that people would have brought from Kildare up to Washington. Peoples: I don’t know. Franklin: What about food? Did you or C.J., the Mitchells, did your family cook Southern food, soul food, or— Peoples: Well, that depends on what you call soul food. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: I love to cook. There are some things I don’t do. I’m not a cookie-baker. And I don’t do a lot of pies. However, I do do sweet potato pie. Franklin: Okay, because that’s a staple, right? Peoples: Well, my older sister didn’t really care for sweet potato pie, but I love sweet potato pie. I have a granddaughter—actually, she’s a great-granddaughter. When she was—oh, she was maybe two-and-a-half, close to three, maybe, and the family was living with me at the time, and I had baked pies the night before, and I left them on the counter, on a rack, right by the stove. They was just sitting there on the counter. She got up before anyone else that morning, and she went into the kitchen and she saw the pies. She didn’t touch one of them, but the other one, she took her little finger and she ate pie until she thought she had enough. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, she went back in the bedroom and by that time her dad’s up, and she walks in and he looks at her and she’s got all this orange stuff all over her face. He gets, evidently, a look that—she looks up at him, he said, and she gave him this great big grin and said, oh, Daddy, that’s good pie. [LAUGHTER] So that’s the sweet potato pie. However, my thing is—well, Christmas Eve was always a special time for us. And when I say us, I’m saying C.J. and me. We always got together on Christmas Eve. We started that because when our kids were small, we thought they would be happier at home with their toys or whatever on Christmas morning, but we did want the family time. So we did Christmas Eve. And then he told me once that he wanted Christmas Eve at his house. Okay, that’s fine. So he said, when I was growing up, he said, I could not open a gift until Christmas morning. If we’re at my house, I can open my gifts any time I get ready. So. But Christmas Eve was very special for us. I’ve gotten to the point—now, I don’t feel physically up to doing like the big dinners we used to do for Christmas Eve or whenever. So this past Christmas Eve, I just decided we’ll have dessert night. So I said, everybody, if you have someplace else to go, you can just stop by. You don’t have to stay; just stop by, have dessert and go on to wherever you want to go. And that worked out really quite well. I think that’s probably—we’ll try doing that more. But what I told them, I said, what I will do, I will try to have everybody’s favorite cake. When I said that to my nephew, Robin, he said, well, I’m sure that if you don’t have everybody’s favorite, they’ll make do with whatever you have. It’ll be fine. But it turned out quite well. I know my one nephew, they were going to church Christmas Eve, so they stopped by on the way to church. That was basically what I was hoping for. If you had something else that was traditional that you wanted to do on Christmas Eve, that’s fine. But if you have a chance, just stop by and have dessert. Go on your way if you choose. But when my nephews were growing up, I made it a point to—these are the three oldest ones. I always made them a birthday cake on their birthday. They always got a birthday cake from me. Franklin: That’s Duke— Peoples: Duke, Greg— Franklin: Greg, and Cameron? Peoples: No, Nestor. Cameron asked his mom once if she would ask me to bake him a birthday cake. Now this is her—the way, what she told me. She said, he told him, no, I will not. And she said, because if you want her to bake you a birthday cake, you ask her yourself. So he did. And I did. But like I said, I like to cook and I like to think I’m a good cook. So that is one of the things I enjoy doing. Franklin: What about the Juneteenth celebration? I understand that originated in Texas, right? Was that a— Peoples: I don’t know that it originated in Texas. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: Because—what year was it? I forget the exact time, but my two sisters and I went to Springfield, Missouri. And I had never heard of it—I had never heard it called Juneteenth until then. There was a lady there that said something to the effect that it was actually August 4th, was the celebration. So I don’t know, different states, evidently, celebrate that particular event at different times. But what I learned in history was that it was the June 19th when they actually got the message of the Emancipation. Although it had been declared, what, three years earlier or something to that effect. But actually I don’t know how or where the Juneteenth celebration started, but like I said, I’d never heard it called Juneteenth. It was just referred to as the 19th of June. Franklin: Interesting. Peoples: But maybe that’s growing up in a small place like Kildare, that—I don’t know what the official—[LAUGHTER] Franklin: In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation or racism? Peoples: Do you want something that happens right now? Franklin: Sure. Peoples: It’s still out there. It is still out there. So, I don’t know what I should say about that. Franklin: Okay, that’s important to say that it’s still out there. Peoples: Because you will find, and it is not limited to small organizations; it is not limited to small businesses; it’s out there, big-time. And you will find that—well, if I say this, I would ask you not to put it on—but just for information. I work at Wal-Mart. I see segregation every day. Franklin: How so? Peoples: I’ll relate one thing that pertains to me, but I feel that at this point in my life, I am strong enough, I’ll just say, in my own skin, in my own right, that I will not let it hinder me from doing what I choose to do. Number one, they will find reasons that you don’t need certain options or you don’t need certain—they judge you. They feel you can’t do this; you’re not capable of doing this, when I know in my own self that I am just as capable as anyone in that store. And I said that to one manager one day. He said, I understand that you wanted to learn more about merchandising. I said, oh really? I don’t know, where’d you get that? Well, someone told me you wanted to learn more about merchandising. I said, well, I don’t really think so. I say, because, to be truthful with you, I would go so far as to say that I know more about merchandizing than anyone in this store. Which, I felt was true, and I still feel that it’s true. Because it’s not because I’m doing a particular job now that I’m not capable of doing anything more. But I wanted to say to her, if I were in charge of merchandizing, the store would look a lot better than it does now. Because number one, that’s not my first retail job. I mean, I’m not a member of management at Wal-Mart because I choose not to be a member of management at Wal-Mart. I have other things that are important to me now. But I have worked in management in retail a number of times. I actually managed the plus sizes and maternity at JC Penney before I even thought about Wal-Mart. This sort of thing. I was in management with Macy’s back in, oh, 1970s. You know? I chose to leave retail, because I had a family, and my family, when they were small, it was important to me to be home to get them off to school. When they got to be in junior high, I thought it was important for me to be home at night and not getting off at 9:00 at night, because my schedule was usually 12:30 to 9:00. I chose to go do something different. That’s when I went to work for Hanford. Because I was home—they were old enough that they could get to school, or I could drop them off at school. But I felt that I needed to be home in the evening with my teenagers. Franklin: Yeah. Peoples: So that’s why I made that choice. But had I stayed with retail, I could’ve been anywhere I want to be. I don’t think it is—so when they try to look at you and feel you are not capable of doing something, as I say, it’s not important to me now. But it doesn’t make me think it’s right. But I am that person who, if I am going to go to work at Wal-Mart, which I do, 40 hours a week usually, I don’t go in there to make friends, I don’t go in there to play up to anybody, I do not go in there to stand around and visit. I will stop and talk to a customer. That’s the customer. It’s—I’m supposed to talk to the customer, and I feel that is important. You need that rapport with your customer. But as far as just standing around, killing time—that’s not me. If I’m going to be there, I need to be busy. And if I’m going to be there, if I am responsible for making sure these items are in the right place on the shelf or whatever my job is, that is what I’m there to do. I’m not there to— So, it’s still out there, but I don’t let it affect me as it might have at one time. Because, number one, I get to walk every day and I get paid for walking. [LAUGHTER] But I do my job. And that is what is important to me. Franklin: Yeah. You grew up in a segregated world. The Tri-Cities wasn’t segregated by law or outright, but was there an informal type of segregation that existed here? Peoples: Yes. Franklin: Was it something you could see? Were there any incidences that stand out to you? Peoples: Well, it was actually shortly after I came here. There were several that were called a teenage club in Richland, for a place that teenagers could go, and some kids from Pasco and I know one from Richland that went over there, and they ended up in court over that. My friend Carolyn was one of them. Franklin: Did they sue the club, or was there a— Peoples: I don’t remember the particulars, but they did go to court. And I believe they lost. Franklin: They were denied— Peoples: They were denied, yes. Franklin: I think I saw that in some of the old newspapers that we have. Peoples: Yeah. And then Kennewick was the place that no one of color was allowed. I actually worked with a lady once that—this would have been in the ‘70s, early ‘70s—and her husband worked out in the Area. But he built houses. She worked in the next department from me at Macy’s. And she said they would build a house and they would live in it until they sold it, and then he would build another. He just did this, I say, on the side. But she said that they sold a house to a couple, actually, the couple was Oriental. And she said some of the people that they thought were friends of theirs stopped speaking to them because they sold the house to someone they didn’t approve of. But segregation is still out there. [LAUGHTER] A person that I worked with at one point at Wal-Mart said to the person that was store manager at the time that—they would take people to the corporate meetings every once in a while that choose someone, say, you get to go this time or whatever. Anyway, how they do it I don’t know, but he said to her, I would really like to have a chance to go to the corporate meeting sometime. And he happened to be Hispanic. And she said to him, I really don’t think that you are the—what did she say? Not the picture but—the image that Wal-Mart wants to show. So he looked at her and he said he smiled and said, oh, do you mean that’s because I’m bald? But he knew exactly what she was saying. But, see, things like that, I mean, you would think that people would be smart enough now not to go there. I mean. But you see it all the time. But as far as African Americans are concerned, it’s still there. It’s definitely still there. Franklin: Yeah. I want to talk a bit about your work at Hanford. What sort of work did you do? Peoples: When I first went out there, I worked in the mailroom as a mail messenger. Franklin: Was that in the 300? Peoples: That was in the 300 Area. Franklin: And then what— Peoples: And I went from there to what they called Engineering Files; you processed all the documents that came through. And this was in support of the FFTF. Franklin: That was a long project. What on-the-job training did you receive, if any? Peoples: Well, first of all, I had to learn my mail route. [LAUGHTER] But there was quite a bit of training. Any job you took, there would be some form of training. But I worked mostly in—I went from the mailroom to engineering files and then I went to FFTF Engineering. I actually was the liaison between the drafting section and the finance people. Forget what they were called now. But anyway, at any time we had—I worked strictly for engineering, so anytime there were documents that had to be signed, drafting prints that had to be signed, we were more or less the gofers, the go-between. We took the documents from one group to the other and made sure the documents were signed and signed off properly. And then later I worked in what was called Fuels and Controls, and that was all of the fuel—I was in the group, all of the fuel rods that went into the FFTF were analyzed and assayed in our group. Franklin: Oh. And what did you do for that group? Peoples: I was the clerical support. Made sure all, there again, the documents were signed off properly and the documents went to the right place, and to research whatever we needed in support of those documents. Franklin: How long did you work out at Hanford total? Peoples: 23 years. Franklin: Oh, wow, okay. So quite a while. And probably for a litany of contractors? Peoples: Actually, no, I worked for Westinghouse all while I was there. Franklin: The entire time? Peoples: Yes. Franklin: Oh, wow. That’s kind of a rarity. Peoples: Well, actually, they were the ones that were in charge of building FFTF, and then later I worked in security for them. Franklin: What did you do in security? Peoples: The last position I had was, we had documents, again, that needed to be signed. But a lot of it was safety, security—SQS, safety, quality assurance, and security. I actually was the person that, in support of, here again, clerical support, but my one position—one job I had was to take all of the—when they went to the computers and so on, I had to actually take the directories from all three groups. The secretaries would send them to me, and I had to roll all of that into one directory for the entire SQS group. So that was interesting. And that was the computer part. That was really the start of the computer part that I did out there. So you got training in support of any job that you did. There were actually CBC courses and WSU courses that were open to train you for whatever your job was. Franklin: Yeah. Did you acquire any skills or experience on the job that helped you later in life? Peoples: Well, I think everything. Because, number one, dealing with people. Also, being able to get along with people. Well, people skills, I’ll put it that way. Sometimes, you know, you have to think about the better way to do things, rather than the fastest way. And I think I learned a sense of responsibility. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors? Peoples: You mean now? Franklin: When you were at Hanford? Peoples: Or there? I thought they were very good. I had some of the best management, I think. I’m not saying everybody was tip-top, but for the most part, I felt my management was very good. I thought a very good relationship with my management. Franklin: How were you treated on the job? Peoples: At Hanford? Franklin: Yeah. Peoples: I thought quite well. Franklin: What kinds of interactions did you have with coworkers and supervisors outside of work? Peoples: Not much. Not a lot. Because of, number one, I’m a very strong family person. And number two, it’s just not something I did a lot of, outside of work. I have always, more or less, separated work from personal things. I had a—there were two things that I remember when I was in high school, the one teacher used to say—a famous word of his was, or famous saying is, business is one thing and friendship’s another. I have always tried to remember that. Because it doesn’t matter whether you are the friend or not. If it has to do with a job, you get the job done. You don’t let friendship enter into it. And the other one was—this was a different teacher, and he would say, a wise man will not insult you. And you always try to be wise enough that a fool cannot do so. Those are the two things that, from my high school, that I remember, that I have thought about a lot in my life. As far as—now, like I said, I work at Wal-Mart, there are people there—there is one lady there that I have watched—I’ve known her for like 12 years, and I have so much admiration for her and her family that, she’s just a very special person in my eyes. And there are other people that, I mean, I will deal with you if I have to, but I’m not going to go out of my way. But when you see someone with so much respect and such family values that mirrors so much of what you believe in, I don’t know, it just makes you admire that person. Franklin: Yeah. How did your racial background figure into your work experiences? Peoples: Well. There is always someone that thinks that they can say certain things or do certain things, and you’re just supposed to smile and go on. But it doesn’t work that way. I am, I think, very strong in my own right. And like I say, I don’t go to a job expecting any favors. I go there to get the job done. That is the bottom line. I just don’t work any other way. Franklin: In what ways did the security and/or secrecy at Hanford impact your work or daily life? Peoples: Well, when you think of it now, if what happens on the job—are you meaning with people or with my family or--? Franklin: Just in general. How did the nature of the job and the security and secrecy impact you? Peoples: It was just, in my opinion, a part of the job. But the one thing that I saw other people do that I never did, and that was, my husband worked for Battelle. I worked for Westinghouse. We didn’t discuss our work at home. Because number one—and I was not always saying, well, you know, Al did this at work or this, that or the other. That wasn’t my thing. We didn’t do that. And we did not call each other at work unless it was a really good reason for me to call. And for me to go to his building—the only time I went to the building where he worked was when I was on my mail route. Or had to go to that building for a reason. In other words, we didn’t—we weren’t someone that couldn’t go five minutes without calling each other. Because you go out there to do a job, and that’s any job. You don’t— Franklin: What kind of work did your husband do? Peoples: He worked in the lab in 325. It was chemistry. And it was, in fact, I think he was in that for most of the time he was there. That was—where he worked, it was—oh, how do you describe it? They had all kinds of research and stuff going on in the group that he worked in. And there are, not in his name, but a lot of patents that he actually worked on that are not in his name. But that was the type of work he did. And he said one day, the one thing he did say to me, one day he said, you know, the kind of work that I do—we do work for a lot of different people. He said, and the worst thing that we can do is to have one vendor know what you’re doing for someone else. So that was the type of way that we worked. He didn’t discuss what he was doing. Because it was research. And that’s just—if you have to discuss that, then you maybe are in the wrong area. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Is your husband still alive? Peoples: No. Franklin: Okay. And when did he pass away? Peoples: 1994. Franklin: Oh, so some time ago then. Peoples: Actually, I buried him one day before my 54th birthday. Franklin: Oh, wow, okay. Peoples: And he worked at Hanford for a lot of years. Much longer than I did. Franklin: Was he always out in 300? Peoples: Well, he was in—actually, they went to 2-West once for about a year, and he was actually in the same building and the same lab and basically with the same chemist most of that time. Franklin: And he was brought out here by the Army at the Hanford Camp? Peoples: He was military. He was stationed at Camp Hanford. And when they sent him to Camp Hanford, he had no idea where he was. He’d never heard of it. Lots of people never have yet. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And then he decided to stay after— Peoples: Actually, when he was discharged, we came back. Franklin: Okay. That’s right, because you followed him— Peoples: We were—our last duty station was in Fort Hood, Texas. Before that, he was actually in southeast Asia, during when the Vietnam thing escalated, when they had the August 4th bombing, the Bay of Tonkin, the boats, he was actually over in that area at the time. He was evacuated out. It was August 4th, he was evacuated out later that year. Franklin: What was it that made you want to come back? Peoples: I had family here. Franklin: And he was just willing to come, and--? Peoples: He had friends here, too, and, well, like I say, I have two families. When we came back from Germany—well, actually when we came back from Germany we were stationed at Fort Lewis. And then from Fort Lewis to San Francisco, the Presidio, and then to Fort Hood, Texas, where he was discharged at Fort Hood. We had in the meantime bought a house here. Franklin: Okay. So you had planned on coming back. Peoples: So, we came back. Well, we didn’t plan to come back that soon, but—when he went to Thailand, the kids and I needed a place to live. So the house was available, we bought the house, and that’s where we stayed. We were a block from C.J. Franklin: So you must have bought a prefab then? Peoples: No, it was a precut. Franklin: A precut, right. Peoples: Right. Franklin: Okay, and how long did you live in that house for? Peoples: Oh, that was ’64. I don’t remember for sure. When did we move? We moved to Blue Street. Oh, ’67. Franklin: Oh, okay. Peoples: No it wasn’t; it had to have been ’68, because we came back here in ’67 from Fort Hood. Franklin: For your work, or for your husband’s work, how did you feel at the time, during the Cold War, about working for the development of nuclear weapons? Peoples: I don’t know that we gave it a lot of thought. Because research is research. Al was mostly in research. And when I went out to Hanford, it was in support of the FFTF, and it was a test reactor that would—and it was more or less fuel. Fuels and controls, I believe, was the title. So I didn’t think of it was nuclear weapons. Franklin: How do you feel now about your experiences, having worked out there? Peoples: I think it was good experience. I would not—I can’t think of anything that I would trade. It also, you know, you do interact with a lot of different people. A lot of different people. That is one of the reasons that I feel at this point in my life I can feel comfortable, I’ll just say, in my own skin, and not be that concerned about what anybody else is doing out there. Franklin: What did you—when you came to the area in the ‘50s, what did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Peoples: I didn’t. Because at that time, everything was secretive. That was the time that if you left work and you forgot to lock your file, you could be fired. Franklin: Yeah. From your perspective, what were the most important contributions of African Americans at Hanford? Peoples: At Hanford? Franklin: Yeah. Peoples: I don’t really know. I don’t really know. Franklin: Okay. In the civil rights era—this is kind of what my next set of questions is about—what were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here? Peoples: I don’t really know, because I was more or less, up until I was married, it was more like family time, or church, and I worked at a dress shop in Uptown Richland here. It was called Hugh’s Women’s Apparel. As far as Hanford was concerned, it was not something I had a lot of knowledge about. Franklin: What about for African Americans in general here? Were there any civil rights issues that were important to folks that you knew of? For example, kind of the lack of services in east Pasco or the treatment of African Americans in Kennewick, the sundown laws? Peoples: Well, sundown laws was before I came here. But I do know that—well, I just know rumors. I didn’t actually know— Franklin: Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Peoples: No. Franklin: Okay. Then I think that is about—that’s all my civil rights activities questions. Peoples: Well, you know, I was a military wife. When you went to—our first duty station away from here was Germany. When I was in Germany, I went to the post chapel. I didn’t go to the—I went to the Protestant service. There were no African American churches. But I wanted to go to church, so I went to the chapel. So when we came back, when we were at Presidio, San Francisco, I went to the post chapel. When we went to Fort Hood, I went to the post chapel. I took my kids to the post chapel. You know, this sort of thing. When we moved into our house up on Cullum, I don’t know how they got the information, probably from the city, new residents, or new whatever. The people who came to welcome us to Richland and to invite us to their church was from Richland Baptist. And having the experience at the post chapel, I did not have a problem with that. So that’s where we went. Franklin: What do you mean you didn’t have a problem with that? Peoples: Because, well, I didn’t feel that I had to go to an African American church. Franklin: Oh, I see. Peoples: I had become accustomed to worshipping where there was to worship. Whether it was the post chapel or whether it was a small church. Franklin: Were you the only African Americans that went to Richland Baptist? Peoples: No. Franklin: Were there others? Peoples: Well, the Mitchells went there before we did. And then there was Shirleys, the Shirleys went there. And the Abercrombies went there. Franklin: Okay. So really more of a community church than a strict African American—you just felt, you went where the church was closest. Peoples: Yes. Franklin: Okay, that makes sense. Peoples: Now, if you’re in Heidelberg, Germany, there aren’t going to be too many African American churches. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That’s very true! Peoples: But they had a church service there, not too far from our quarters that you could drive or you could walk, it was that close. So that’s what I chose to do. Franklin: When did your work at Hanford come to an end? Peoples: 1996. Franklin: And what did you do afterwards? Peoples: Well, I devoted my time to the American Legion Auxiliary. Franklin: Is that the national organization that you mentioned earlier? Peoples: Yes. Franklin: Okay. Peoples: In fact, I had gone—the day that my—actually, it was my second national convention that I came back, and they had—there was a notice on my email that they were having involuntary—oh, let’s see. Involuntary reduction of force. But you could volunteer for it. If you chose. Franklin: That sounds like Hanford. Peoples: So that’s what I did. Franklin: Kind of like an early retirement. Peoples: That’s what it was. But in 1995, my husband and I had discussed this earlier, when he was still alive, I told him that I really wanted to go through the chairs up the ladder for the American Legion Auxiliary. So when do you—I said, when I really make the decision, it’ll take me three years to reach that point. And I said, when do you think would be a good time for me to start? So we’d talked about it, and I’d actually been endorsed by my unit for second vice president in 1991—for 1991. Then I found out that there was someone from Cheney that had also been endorsed, and I had decided in my own mind that I would never oppose anyone from the east side. So I didn’t send my endorsement in. However, it was like two months later that we had the meeting with my husband’s nephrologist and I asked him, after he explained everything, I asked him, would you be comfortable in giving us a prognosis? And he said, well, the way I see it, I would say he has three to six months. So, I said, well, I would have had to back away anyway. So I didn’t do anything. So he lived another three-and-a-half years. So after he was gone, I decided the next year that I would go for second vice president again. So I wrote a letter to each one of the units in the state introducing myself and telling them what my plans were. I made it clear that the reason that I had not been active for three years previous was because of my husband. I felt that if anyone, knowing why I was not there, votes against me for that reason, so be it. So I went for that office. That was 1995, and I did have competition. There were two of us. When the vote was announced, I was the one that was the winner. So I took that position, but when I took that position, I made a commitment. And the person who opposed me actually ran again the following year and was successful, and she ended up being—we ended up being—I had to go second vice president, first vice president, and then you go in as president. She ended up being my first vice president. We had a wonderful relationship. That was—I mean, it’s just, I couldn’t have had anyone more supportive. I could not have had anyone that did a better job of keeping me informed of everything that she was doing and so on. We had, I’ll say, the two of us, we had two really, really good years. But I made that commitment, and after that, well, we put Washington on the map. We did a really fantastic job, got all kinds of compliments from the national organization, and then I got an appointment for the following year as a member of, what I think, one of the most important committees on the national level, and that was the Americanism Committee. So I did get a national appointment every year for about five years. Then I decided that—well, I had actually promised one of our past state presidents that I would go for national office. So I really wanted to be national chaplain. So I went for that office. And I actually had competition from Kentucky, part of the Bible Belt. And I actually ended up with more than two—almost two-thirds of the total national vote. Franklin: Wow, that’s quite a resounding victory. Peoples: I thought so. And I had the national president, several times during her year, to tell me that she was so happy that I was her national chaplain. Franklin: That’s really great. Peoples: That’s something that, I will cherish that for a long, long time. I don’t have to be national president or something like that. I was happy being national chaplain. And it was more or less, with my background and my beliefs. The one thing that was unique—or maybe not unique, but—it is a non-denominational organization. You must be very, very careful with your articles and everything. When our Washington State Public Relations chairman called me one day to interview me and she wanted to know how I think about it. I didn’t know she was going to put it in the paper, but she did—but I made the statement to her, was that, I know it is a non-denominational organization, and I will never intentionally offend anyone or their religion. But I say, I will never deny my Christianity. So I had a good year as chaplain, too. So it’s one I’ll remember for a long time. Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Peoples: Actually, I don’t know that there’s much I could tell them. Because, number one, I didn’t see it as the Cold War. I saw it as a research project. It wasn’t focused on the bomb anymore when I was there. It was focused more on research and the things that are important to our survival, like the power that FFTF could have generated. Franklin: Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to migration, segregation, and civil rights and how they impacted your life in the Tri-Cities and at Hanford? Peoples: Well, in the Tri-Cities, the one thing I remember and the one thing I mentioned a little bit about this earlier, and that was with the families that—well, I’ll just say Kildare. When I came here, it was like I wasn’t just one person. I was part of—it made me feel like I was part of a huge family. Because I remember the—sometimes—well, on Sunday mornings, the Browns, Mr. Brown, they would come by and pick me up to go to church. You know, this sort of thing. Things like that. So in other words, I guess I would call it outreach and just the way they embraced me as a person, just because I was from Kildare. And they would go out of their way to, I guess, make me feel comfortable. Franklin: That’s great. Well, Emma, thank you so much for coming and taking the time to talk to us today. Peoples: I hope I didn’t bore you too much. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: No, no, it was wonderful. It was great. Okay. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area FFTF Fuels and Controls Westinghouse Battelle 325 Building 200 West Area Camp Hanford Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1957- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1973-1996 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Emma Peoples Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation School integration Migration Segregation Description An account of the resource Emma Peoples moved to Richland, Washington in 1957 as a teenage and worked on the Hanford Site from 1973-1996. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/02/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fcfcebe345921d062fc38562de1cbefbb.JPG e6ce36cb30b9f1e09252def218218e87 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F778869c15a7f92f5091d0594692c20a2.mp4 f38c1e4976ea1b7344a9ce14b66e8ae5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Vanessa Moore Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Vanessa Moore on May 11th, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Vanessa about her experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Vanessa Moore: Sure. My full name is Vanessa Bernetta Mitchell Moore, I guess. That’s with the married name. So, V-A-N-E-S-S-A, B-E-R-N-E-T-T-A, maiden name M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L, married name, M-O-O-R-E. Franklin: Great. And Vanessa, when and where were you born? Moore: I was born in Richland. And December—well, December 2nd of 1956 is my birthdate. Franklin: December 2nd 1956. And how did you or your family first come to Richland? Moore: They came to Richland in the ‘50s, I believe, as a family. We came as a family. My parents and a couple of older brothers. But originally, my father and mother both were born in Kildare, Texas. They actually lived, basically, next-door to one another. So they grew up there. My father first came out here, I believe he told me 1947 as a single teenager. He was following a couple of uncles of his. It was William Daniels and Vanis Daniels, Senior. So he came up and was here, I think, briefly at first. Now, I may not be 100% accurate because it’s second-hand, but he was here for a while with them, went back to Texas and got married. And then he went briefly to I think it was Chicago, because his older brother, William Mitchell, was in Chicago. So he was there for a bit. And I don’t know if my oldest brother was born there or before they went. But anyway, it was in the early ‘50s that Mom and Dad came to, I think, Hermiston, maybe, first, and then they lived in Pasco when the three oldest children were born. I’m number four, and I was born in Richland. I can’t remember if Nestor was born in Richland or Pasco. But we lived down on the south end of Richland—what I call the south end. I don’t think they call it that anymore, down near Aaron Drive and Winco. Franklin: Right, the south of old—you know. Moore: Right, old Richland. Franklin: Before the river. Moore: Right, that used to be called south Richland. So we lived on, I think it was Craighill. 100 Craighill Street, that’s where I was born—or where I lived when I was born. Franklin: What first brought your father and his uncles, your great-uncles, to Hanford? Moore: Opportunity for work and to make more money. The way I understood it, wages were low and they were in southeast Texas, and people either farmed—my mother’s family farmed. My father’s was a single mom household because Grandpa had gotten killed when Dad was young. So I think she did domestic work, and he as a teenager did some work at the sawmill or something here and there. But the opportunity to come and make more money in construction, I think it was, because I know Dad worked on McNary Dam and what we call the Blue Bridge in Pasco, and some other construction-type work. As I said, part of the time, they lived in Hermiston and then also in Pasco. Dad was a, I think a chem tech for General Electric in the early days. Franklin: A chem tech? Moore: Mm-hmm. Franklin: What—do you know anything about that? Moore: Because I know he took chemistry. He would always go to school. So we were little kids, and he was working, but I remember him taking a lot of night classes at CBC. He was a—I guess they worked in the chemistry labs or something, the chem techs. We have them still now at PNNL now. So that was one of the things he did before he got into what they called personnel back then instead of human resources. Franklin: What was your father’s educational level? Moore: He had graduated, I think, top in the class or high in the class in high school, Perfection High in Kildare, Texas, I remember that. At the age of 17, because he would tell me—or 16 or 17. Then, as I said, when we were young, he took a lot of night classes at CBC and I think he got his associate’s degree at some point. My older brother may have more accurate information, but I believe he did. And he would be studying, like, he’d work shift work. So sometimes he was off during the day, and some of the little ones who were still home, we’d go fishing with him or something, but when it was time to study, he’d just say, hit the road. [LAUGHTER] We knew what that meant. And he said—one time he told me, he said, I want to stay ahead of you, of all you kids, so that I can help you with your school work. And he insisted we all had to take chemistry. I didn’t do that well in it; I think I got a B. But it wasn’t my favorite class. And you know, like, math and all those different things. Or he was taking some sort of course to learn to do something, like small appliance repair courses and things like that. So he could make a little extra money, or save a little extra money. Either one. Franklin: The way I understand it, there was a large extended family migration from Kildare up to Pasco and Richland. What other—what were some of your other relatives that came up from Kildare? Moore: As I said, the Daniels. So, my great-uncles, Uncle Willy and Uncle Vanis, and then Edmond Richmond, I didn’t know we were related until some of these projects started but he also—they called him Shorty--I knew of him all my life. And Sparks is another family name, Groves. Trying to think of some others. Brown. I know that his name is Primmer Brown, and his wife, Suzanne, is somehow related to my mother. So there were the Browns and the Miles, because she had two or three sisters whose families were also here, so. The older I got, the more family I met. So it’s quite a few. Franklin: What was your mother’s name? Moore: Her maiden name was Castleberry. Franklin: Castleberry. And what was her first name? Moore: Bernice. Franklin: Bernice Castleberry. Moore: She worked out in the so-called Area at one point, also. Franklin: What did she do out there? Moore: She was—they had a differentiation between secretaries and clerks, and I think that she was considered a clerk. She started in a time—let’s see, my youngest brother was just going to school. So she was a stay-at-home mom until the sixth child was like in kindergarten. And there was a program, I don’t know whether it was Battelle or GE at that time, but where they were trying to increase the number of women and I think minorities in particular—I could be wrong, but I think so—into the workforce. So you might think of it as like a steno pool, or the secretarial pool. Quite a few ladies came to work at that time. Before that, maybe they were doing domestic work or stay-at-home moms or doing other things. But it was an opportunity to learn while you worked, you were paid while you learn, and then you would be sent out on assignments. So I remember her taking speed writing and typing and different things. So you may have an assignment to fill-in for someone who’s on vacation, and eventually have an opportunity to have a full-time position yourself. So I know she and several other ladies that I’m familiar with did that and worked until retirement. Unfortunately, Mom had to retire early for medical reasons. But Opal Andrews, I think, is another individual that you were going to interview. She did that. She’s in the Miles family, so she would be CW Brown’s first cousin, I guess. Franklin: Oh, okay. Moore: Yeah. And I think she last worked for Westinghouse or DoE. So I’m hoping she will eventually come sit with you. Franklin: Yeah, me, too. You mentioned, you have five siblings, right? So six of you total. Moore: Yes. Franklin: Duke, Greg— Moore: Nestor. Franklin: Nestor. Moore: Cameron. Franklin: Cameron. Moore: Robin. Franklin: Robin. And you’re fourth? Moore: I’m in between Cameron and Robin. So Duke’s name is actually David. Franklin: David. Moore: So David Mitchell, Gregory Mitchell, Nestor, Vanessa, Cameron, and Robin. Franklin: Okay, thanks. [LAUGHTER] Moore: But some people say there’s no girls in that family, so. All my life it was, what? There are no girls in that family! Franklin: And how did that make you feel? Moore: It was all right. [LAUGHTER] I said, well, there must be, because I’m here. Franklin: What else do you know about your parents’ lives before they came to Washington? Moore: On my mother’s side, I know that Grandpa had about 150 acres that they farmed, because he was able to participate in the, I think, forty acre and a mule program. So he had an opportunity to get that going. My mom had, I don’t know, five or six siblings. So they raised what they ate and they had some animals, and mom would say, people thought we were rich. And she’s like, huh? They’re just making a living. But they would help others around them maybe who didn’t have as much. Maybe it’s time to kill a hog or something, you know, how families would get together and share whatever, share the work and share the benefit. So I think they worked hard and school was always very important. Mom and Dad went to the same little one-room schoolhouse in Kildare. I’ve been there a few times. It’s very small. It’s still very small. It’s kind of like a cross in the road, it seemed like an intersection for the city, when we were little, although there were homes around there. And it’s in southeast Texas where it’s very humid, so we’d go in the summer and that wasn’t that much fun. But, like I said, my father’s father was killed, I believe in a railroad accident. We were always told that he was hit by a train. But I don’t know if they were certain of that, or if it was just because of the circumstances of where his body was near the train tracks, they assumed. So there’s still some stories around what happened there. So my father as a young person had to kind of assume the father role. I know his younger sister, Emma, who lives here also, she followed him up and is still here, that he was more like a father to her because Grandpa had been killed so early and Grandma just had to work really hard to try to make ends meet. So I think his life was a lot harder there than here. He and Mom, from what I’ve been told, were like high school sweethearts because my aunts, my mom’s sisters were always saying, oh, he just loved Bernice. CJ and Bernice. So. They were like 18, 19 when they got married. Franklin: Oh, okay, wow. Did either your father or mother ever talk about their first impressions when they came here? Because it’s such a different environment from east Texas. Moore: When we asked them about it in our latter years, you know, as we were older, they would talk about it. I don’t recall them talking a lot about it when we were growing up, except the way they did things. Because my mom, having grown up on a farm, she still had ways she did things, from carrying on from the farm to the house to the yard, the way you work and when you work. Franklin: Do you have any examples? Moore: Their work ethic, I think, was good. Let me try. Some of the remedies and things that my mother would come up with. She would make us drink cod liver oil. Like once a year, she would get about a quarter of a cup of orange juice and stir a tablespoon of cod liver oil in it really fast and say, drink this. Franklin: My grandmom, when I was young, made me do the same thing. Moore: Yeah, and those were things— Franklin: She grew up on a farm in the Depression, and yeah, I don’t-- Moore: I don’t—it was supposed to keep you healthy, I guess. Franklin: Well, you’re still here! Moore: And she would talk about people eating a little bit of sulfur to keep bugs from biting them. We never did it, but that was something they did there, where they would put—and I remember seeing this once when we visited and I was a child—they would take powdered lime and put it in a ring around the house to keep critters from crawling in. Have you ever heard of that? Franklin: I have, actually. Moore: I think that’s what it was for. Franklin: That can still be done today. You can get that bituminous earth that you can line your house and it’s sharp and pointy and any bugs that try to crawl over it get all shredded up. Moore: Oh, okay. Franklin: So they don’t—but it’s harmless to people and animals. Moore: Sure. So that was one thing she would do. She talked about Grandma, when it was time to like kill chickens, bring in the chickens and axe and how you did all of that. And using the lye to clean all of the stuff off like a pig or something, if you’re getting ready to butcher animals. I remember visiting in--it was in the ‘60s, so I don’t remember how old I was--but I was amazed that my grandmother was so strong. They didn’t have indoor plumbing, so you’d have to go to the outhouse in the cow pasture. [LAUGHTER] That’s where the outhouse was. But all the boys, all my brothers, had these Levi jeans. You know, in the old days jeans were really thick and heavy. She would just wash them and wring them out like this, these arms. I thought, wow, Grandma! Grandma knows what she’s doing. And she had this habit of—I shouldn’t put this on tape—snuff. You know what snuff is? Franklin: Yeah, the powdered tobacco. Moore: Yeah, she always had some right here. And she’d have a little can that she carried around with her. And I know Grandma couldn’t read and write. My mom would—she made an X and then other people would sign for her. My mother used to tell me how she spent a lot of time with her dad, helping him get ready for his preaching. He was sort of like a—even though he was a farmer, he was also like a circuit preacher. So she said, I’d run Bible verses with him. So she would help him, or she would read things to my grandmother if she needed that. Franklin: Did he know how to read? Moore: Yeah. Oh, Grandpa did, yeah. Franklin: Oh, great, your grandfather did. Moore: My grandfather did, yeah. But Grandma, she did not. It seemed like a time where she had to take care of everything at the home, in the house. Making sure there were meals there when people came in from the field, because you had to eat and get back to work. By the time—Mom would say she would get everything ready for everybody else, but she never had time for herself. So I always thought that was kind of sad. I felt bad, because Grandma didn’t get a chance to do some things other people got to do. She would make their clothes. My mom would tell me stories of—I think she had four sisters, Robbie, Dessie, Marjorie—about four. She’d get bolts of material like every year, say, okay, we’ll go to the store, I’ll buy five bolts of material. You guys tell me what you want. They’d look at the Sears catalogue or whatever and say, I want the sleeves from this dress and I want the bodice from this dress, and Grandma would make them. I thought that was amazing, too. Franklin: Wow. Moore: How do you do all these things? They’re like wonder women back in those days! So, anyway, that’s kind of a side story. Franklin: No, that’s really wonderful. It’s nice to kind of set the—you know, inform people what life was like in the South and the kind of conditions that people left. Did your grandmother, did she stay in Kildare her whole life? Moore: She and Grandpa would come up here during the off-season from farming, because my grandfather would work at Hanford to make extra money so that he could pay his farm off faster. Franklin: And that was your mother’s father, or your--? Moore: Yes, my mother’s father. Franklin: And what was his name? Moore: David Castleberry, my oldest brother is named after him. Franklin: Oh, okay. Moore: So it was David and Rilland. Grandma’s name was Rilland, R-I-L-L-A-N-D. Franklin: That’s an interesting— Moore: Interesting. Franklin: I can’t say I’ve ever heard that name. Moore: I know! But it’s kind of an interesting story that later on in my life, I found out that my husband’s grandmother and my grandmother actually were neighbors. When Grandma was living here when she’d come up to visit, they lived in houses that were back-to-back. Here, what, I don’t know how many years later, their grandchildren end up marrying each other. To me, that’s just amazing! Franklin: Yeah, that is amazing. Wow. So you’re talking about your grandparents and then your husband’s. Moore: Right, my mother’s parents and my father-in-law’s mom. My husband’s grandmother. Franklin: Your husband’s grandmother. And what was her name again? Moore: Her name was Campbell. Franklin: Right, the last name was Campbell. Okay. Moore: Yeah, I don’t remember her first name. I think they called her Mama or something like that. But Grandma Campbell. Franklin: What did David Castleberry do at Hanford? Was he just a general laborer? Moore: That I don’t know. I imagine. I don’t know. Vanis might know. Franklin: He knows a lot of things, that Vanis. Moore: He’s enough older than me that he would know, kind of the in-between generation. Franklin: Sure. He just also seems to soak up all of that lore. So for yourself, growing up in Richland, how many other black families were there in Richland when you were coming of age? Moore: I can think of a couple. The Rockamores, the Wallaces, the Browns. I guess more than a couple. And a family named Shirley, Calvin Shirley, I think is the son’s name. Oh, and I think Fred Baker. My dad had a friend named Fred Baker, and they were here. So there were a few. When I was in grade school, sometimes there wouldn’t be anybody else in the school except for me and a cousin, or me and a brother, that type of thing. So it’s not—it certainly wasn’t like it is now; it was very rare. You’re probably going to be the only black face in the school class picture back then. And everyone pretty much knew the other families, I guess, because the parents knew each other. Maybe they would socialize or maybe they were related or worked in the same area. Franklin: How would you describe life in the community? Moore: Well, to me it was normal. You play with the kids on the block, and we went to school together. I’d get some odd questions sometime. Franklin: Like what? Moore: Like, is that your real hair? Or, if someone touched you, would it rub off? Franklin: Are these questions from kids or from adults? Moore: From kids. From kids. And then as I got older, there’d be name-calling here and there. Franklin: Like racial name-calling? Moore: Yeah. Not real harsh, maybe like Oreo or Tootsie Roll, or something like that, the type of thing a kid would say. I remember one time I was at Jefferson School, and I think I was in fifth or sixth grade, and my brother, Bill Mitchell—excuse me, not brother—my first cousin, Bill Mitchell, he and I were actually in the same class, and I want to say my younger brother Cameron was there, Nestor was already out and Robbie was too young. So there was like probably three of us in the whole school. I was always a good student, always thought of as the leader. You know, you put kids in groups and the teacher would always say, you’re going to be the leader in this. Or if you have to pick the leader, they’d say, well, why don’t you do it?—the other kids. So, I think one thing I noticed is that the teacher would remember my name by the first day. Because you’re the only person who looks like you, and my name is a little unusual so maybe that had something to do with it. But you know what I’m saying? It’s easier to associate and remember that person because they look different than everybody else. I had positive experiences for the most part, but I remember one time a boy saying something, calling me a name and another boy who heard it said, you better not say that; her brother’s going to beat you up. And I thought, Cameron? He’s not going to beat anybody up. But I think my brothers’ experiences—I know their experiences were different than mine. And I know my parents protected me a little bit. Like when we got older, I couldn’t go to, say, a basketball game in Pasco just with my friends. My brother had to be there. Part of it was the Pasco/Richland rivalry, but part of it, too, was, we don’t want you to be there by yourself. Or wherever it was. Just to be careful. So I know it was there. I learned some things sort of after the fact or by figuring things out. For instance, we were looking for a house. We first started on the south end and then, I think I was going into third grade, and we moved to what’s called Richland Village, which you would not know what that is. But these houses like Newcomer Street, just south of here, like the other side of Spangler, the older ones that kind of all look alike, that was called Richland Village. Those were the government homes that you couldn’t buy them at some point. The ability to buy them came about when I was a child. I don’t know exactly when, but my parents bought a house in there. But we had looked somewhere else and everybody liked the house and we didn’t get it. Found out later that, well, no, they weren’t going to sell that house to us. That was in Richland also. And my father became a realtor later on after—well, maybe right before he retired and continued on. So seeing some of the documents that realtors work with opened his eyes about some other things, too. Franklin: Right, the covenants. Moore: Redlining and the covenants and things like that. But anyway, he knew those things. I remember Dad saying he moved to Richland to be closer to work and also to move us to where we would have maybe a different experience. Franklin: Different from what? Moore: Because originally most everyone was in east Pasco because that’s where you could be. And so was he. But the community, maybe, was a little smaller and more—not close-knit, that’s not the word I mean, but isolated, maybe? Separated? So we would go over, a lot of times, Sunday after church, Mom and—I don’t know if my dad went so much, but you’d visit. That’s what people did after church, is they’d go visit friends and family. So we’d go to Pasco and visit with a lot of people that she knew or was related to. And Mom and Dad would, sometimes both, and the kids would play and that kind of thing. But I don’t know, he just wanted to reach out and branch out and do some other things. I thought it was interesting. Franklin: Yeah. Moore: Can’t tell you all the reasons why. But it was deliberate. Franklin: I mean, I guess in hindsight it’s easy to—or you can kind of understand. It seems like more opportunity maybe, a better chance for—because east Pasco was physically separated from the rest of Pasco by the railroad tracks, by the underpass, but always had that reputation that followed it and its citizens, undeservedly, but it certainly was—might be fair to say that less was expected from people in east Pasco than would have been from people from elsewhere. Moore: I don’t know, that could be. And then you may spend a lot of time reminiscing in the way we used to do things and where we came from, instead of moving forward to new experiences. Franklin: Yeah. Moore: And I think he liked to see what was new and try it out, and wanted the kids to get involved in different things, so. Franklin: Yeah. What did you do in your spare time? Moore: What do I do in my spare time? Franklin: Yeah. Moore: Like right now? Franklin: No. Moore: Back then? When I was a kid? Franklin: Yeah. Moore: Oh, gosh. It was always, go outside and play. [LAUGHTER] There were no video games, and there weren’t places to go and hang out and that sort of thing. So you spent time either with your siblings or with your friends or by yourself, just coming up with things to do, exploring the outdoors. I didn’t get involved, really, in sports, like the boys did. I liked to run and chase with my friends and ride bikes and things like that, but not really organized sports too much. Seems like there wasn’t a lot of spare time. Really when you think about it, school and church and chores and—[LAUGHTER] We lived in a two-bedroom prefab with eight people when I was small. [LAUGHTER] You just didn’t—you’re trying to picture that, right? Franklin: I lived in a two-bedroom prefab for about a year—a little more than a year, actually. Moore: Did you? Franklin: Yeah. So I’m really trying to— Moore: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: It felt small for two people, honestly. Moore: Oh, yeah. I don’t know how we did it. I slept in the living room. Mom and Dad had a room; the youngest child was in a bassinet in their room. And then four other boys had two bunk beds in the other room. I do remember my dad busting a hole in the back and putting a backdoor in so you could get out the back. Yeah. So, just—I don’t know. You’d go to the park, you’d go fishing with family. That kind of thing. Franklin: Do you remember any particular community events, either here or in east Pasco? Moore: I remember picnics. Like after church picnics. One was—I don’t know if it was a regular event, but everybody went to Sacajawea Park and we’d take all kinds of food and just spend the day. I do remember that. And then in my early married days, the Juneteenth celebrations that go on in Pasco every June, those seemed to become more and more regular. Other than that, I don’t recall. Franklin: What can you tell me about Juneteenth? What’s its importance to the black community? Moore: It has to do with the Emancipation and when the news of Emancipation made it to the community in Texas, and people realized we’re free. So it’s a celebration of that. Franklin: What does that mean to you? Moore: Juneteenth? Franklin: Yeah. Moore: Well, a tradition. Right now, it means a tradition to me. It’s an opportunity to inform people of history, remind others of history, and to appreciate what your ancestors went through and did for you in order for you to be who you are and where you are. That’s what it is for me. Franklin: You mentioned attending church. Which church did you attend? Moore: As a child, I grew up going to Richland Baptist Church here on George Washington Way. That’s where I was baptized when I was nine. But Mom and Dad would also take us to Morning Star Baptist Church in Pasco. I think before they moved to Richland, they attended either there or New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, which—before my mother passed away, I know she had started going back to that church. I came to find out that it’s like a sister church to a church in Kildare. So that’s one thing that I’ve realized as a child that people did the things they did because they brought it with them. The style of church, the fact that you’re there all afternoon. Because they were farmers. So when you would go to town to go to church, it’s too long a trip to just go and come back. Like, you and I, we can go and go home and get home in five minutes. But it came an event in itself, a social event as well as your worship. When you finished, you would stay and socialize. Franklin: Right, because it would also—back in the day, it would have been hard to socialize given that people were so—farming communities were so spread out. Moore: Right, so now we’re all here, bring a pound cake. Some of the food traditions are because of that. Franklin: What other food traditions did people bring? Moore: Oh, pound cake, greens—I never liked chitlins, never had them, but—just some of those traditions. I asked my mom about it once. I said, why didn’t you ever make those? She goes, because I don’t like them. [LAUGHTER] And they don’t smell good. But anyway, I think the barbecues you see, some of the things that happen at Juneteenth, people will come in and they’re making their special form of barbecue, or their cakes and jams and pies, whatever it is. Those were traditional to them. Sweet potato pie, that’s one of my favorite ones. And I’m perfecting my recipe. Franklin: Awesome, I’d like to try it sometime. Moore: Yeah, I’ll let you try it. It’s pretty popular. Franklin: I don’t think I’ve ever had sweet potato pie. Moore: No? Franklin: No. Moore: Oh, you’d like it. Franklin: It’s never been a tradition in my— Moore: I had never had pumpkin pie until—I didn’t know—when I did have it, I thought, ehh, I don’t know. Do you like candied yams? Franklin: Love them. Moore: Then you’d like sweet potato pie better. Franklin: My family’s a big rhubarb family because in Alaska that’s what grows. Moore: Oh, really? Franklin: Rhubarb and strawberries. So strawberry rhubarb pie is just like— Moore: I’ve heard it’s good. Franklin: Oh, man, nothing beats my mom’s strawberry rhubarb pie. Moore: Oh, okay. I’ll have to try that. So some of the things you start to see, the traditions, the way, like I said, the style of a church service or the picnics. Even the reunions now that have grown up. My family has a reunion that’s been going on for I don’t know how many years, the Daniels-Cole reunion. It’s every-other-year, the first week of August. People come together. Franklin: Does it happen here, or--? Moore: It happens here or Seattle or California. This year it’s here. Franklin: Oh, the Daniels-Cole? Moore: Daniels-Cole, and that’s because Vanis Daniels, Senior, his wife was a Cole. So they’re starting at those two, and that’s where the--- Franklin: And it radiates out. Moore: Right, so I’m considered third generation from that. For years and years and years, my father was very involved. Vanis is still very involved. I’m not as involved as I used to be. Franklin: Well, I’d love to come to that and map the family tree. Because I’ve interviewed so many people in this extended family network. I didn’t realize when we started this project—I got all these different names— Moore: How many people were related. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Well, and then it’s really like, it seems like a lot of the town just picked up and—I’ve interviewed a few folks from— Moore: That’s what I wonder about. Franklin: I’ve interviewed a few people not from Kildare, and even not from Texas. But 80, 90% have all been from Kildare. Moore: In recent years, we’ve talked about, people should just have a Kildare reunion. Franklin: Yeah. Moore: Because there’s so many people. Don’t even call it a family reunion. Just anybody who can trace themselves back, this is your reunion. That would be quite an undertaking. The last Daniels reunion where I hosted something, I want to say we had over 100 people, and most of them were within Tri-Cities/Seattle/Portland. Before you even leave town, there’s a lot of people. Sometimes it’s like, I’m going to have Thanksgiving at my house, but mum’s the word because I don’t want to have 50 people. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, no kidding. You mentioned your mom didn’t cook chitlins, but did you ever grow up with any other—were those food traditions—any other Southern food traditions an important part of your diet growing up? Moore: Yes. Franklin: What else--? Moore: Dressing. And I called them dumplings—she called them dumplings. I don’t know what other people call them. For Thanksgiving, she would make cornbread. Cornbread and buttermilk was one from my dad. Whenever Mom made cornbread, it was like in a 13x9, and he would take a swath off the end of it and crumble it up in this special rectangular bowl that he had and pour buttermilk over it and eat it. He loved that. I just thought it didn’t sound very good. I’ve never had it, but that was a tradition for him. She would use cornbread and all these other ingredients to make a dressing to go with turkey. Well, she would make pie crust to make the sweet potato pies and the scraps from the crust, she would boil like a broth, like the stock from the turkey innards, you know? Where you’re making broth, and she would just let those down in there and let them boil and they were like big, thick, fat noodles. We called them dumplings. I think they’re called slicks or something, somewhere else. I was watching the cooking show one day and they were making “slicks.” I thought, looks like dumplings to me. So that’s something I love to pour over the gravy and turkey at Thanksgiving. My father made really, really good candied yams. It wasn’t the cans with the marshmallows and all of that. He would take yams, not sweet potatoes, and slice them in spears and bake them with lots of sugar and butter and nutmeg. So when I would host Thanksgiving, I’d have him bring the candied yams. Those are the things that I really liked that she made. And she had some—oh, it’s like beans, pinto beans, but I think it was something she developed on her own; I don’t think it was a tradition. It became a tradition. She was known far and wide in the Tri-Cities for her chocolate chip cookies, because all of my brothers’ friends from the sports teams would want—why don’t you get your mom to bake cookies? That was our thing. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: This question seems kind of self-evident, but I’d like to hear your take on it. Were there opportunities available here that were not available where your parents came from? Moore: Most definitely. Franklin: What kind of opportunities? Moore: More work, just the availability of work. Education, schooling. I don’t think there was higher education there. Like I said, the one room—not necessarily one room, but the schoolhouse was where everybody in every grade grew up there, went to school all together. Mom talked about the difference in the quality of the books from the school she was in versus where the white kids went to school down there, that there was a time where the superintendent came to their school and they were all supposed to put their books on the desk, and he walked around because he wanted to pick the best one to take back to the student at the white school who needed a book. I just thought, are you kidding me? That’s how people were? But that’s just how it was. Franklin: Right, it’s kind of hard to believe. Moore: So those kinds of things are evidence to me that what people have told us is true. When we would go to visit--this would have been in the ‘60s I guess, we were going to Texas to visit and my dad told the boys, I remember him saying to them, it’s not like Richland. Now, when you’re here, just—giving them instructions about what to do, what not to do, who you speak to. Franklin: Do you remember what some of those instructions were? Moore: Well, I think, like if you were walking down the sidewalk and there was a woman coming, you would need to move over to the other side, or don’t look people in the eye, that kind of thing. So you’re listening to this, thinking—because his thought was, you can’t act the way you act in Richland, because it will not be accepted, is basically what he was telling them, telling us. Franklin: Right, because your father had grown up in a segregated society. Moore: Right, right. Yeah. So certain things you do and don’t do. Franklin: Was that shocking for you and your brothers to hear, or was it just kind of accepted? Did you have knowledge that Texas was different from Richland? Moore: It was a little bit shocking to me. I must’ve been, I don’t know, eight or nine. I didn’t say anything. In those days, too, when your parents told you something, you didn’t really question them. You might think to yourself, wow, I wonder why that is. Well, Greg might question it, but—[LAUGHTER] It depends. I guess everybody has their own personality. Some of those kinds of things bothered me a little bit. Some things, maybe we should do here, like yes, ma’am and no, ma’am. It was interesting. I thought to myself, I see why people wanted to leave, why you wouldn’t want to live there. I could see that. Franklin: You got kind of the push and pull factors in play. Moore: Yeah, you might miss your family, but I wouldn’t think you would miss that way of life. And when they came here, things were still—there was still the “colored” areas, I guess, as far as certain stores or lunch counters. I understand, like in Pasco, there was a lunch counter in the drug store that wouldn’t serve. So it wasn’t like it wasn’t here. But by the time we were of age, that type of thing wasn’t happening. Franklin: It wasn’t happening at all? Moore: Not to my knowledge, but I’m sure it happens more covertly. Because I do remember a time when—and this was after I was married—my husband and I—I don’t know if the kids were with us, but we were with my parents, and we went into a local restaurant. It was pretty evident after a little while that they didn’t intend to serve us. You know how you’re just ignored, or we don’t have that, or whatever the case may be. So either you make a decision that you’re either going to make a ruckus, or you’re just going to go somewhere else. Franklin: Is that a restaurant that’s still around? Moore: The building is still a restaurant, but there’s not the same restaurant. There’s a restaurant in that location, I should say. And I wouldn’t want to say because I don’t want to infer anything about them. Franklin: Oh, sure. Do you remember the name of the restaurant—is the business since closed? Moore: Mm-hmm. I’m trying to think. I know the name had—I don’t know the actual name. I think I know the previous name, but I don’t want to say it. Franklin: Okay. Moore: But my husband was the one who picked up on it first. He said, let’s go, they don’t want us here. And he tells me stories of going—he and I are the same age, okay, and he grew up in Pasco and I grew up here. He and his family were going to Spokane. You know how a lot of us stop in Ritzville, you have the bathroom break or whatever. They didn’t want them to use the bathrooms. So if he was five or six—he was born in 1956, so this was maybe early ‘60s? The attendants were telling them everything’s broken, you can’t use, they’re out of order. Leonard’s this little kid, he’d already jumped out of the car and run to the restroom and back. He goes, no, they’re not! I was just in there! [LAUGHTER] But you know, just that sort of treatment, I have experienced that as an adult here. But not often. And I think it’s—in my opinion and the way we were raised is you just kind of consider the source and move on. Because it’s not worth your energy. So. Franklin: Sports was very important for your father. Moore: Yes. Franklin: Right? Was it something that was brought—baseball, specifically—was that something that was brought from the South? Moore: I think so. I think so, because he talks about them playing with a stick and a rock. The more people you talk to, that’s what they did. They played baseball. My father-in-law talks about it, Vanis talks about it. Because it was something you could do with whatever you had. You didn’t have to have special equipment, right, you didn’t have to have special facilities. So you could just mark out a diamond in the dirt somewhere or lay some pads down on the grass. I remember us even doing that in the backyard, or out in a field. So everybody played baseball, from what I understood. So it was very, very popular and he played it here. He played, I think they call them the merchant leagues or whatever, like the stores would sponsor them maybe. Dad also played a little basketball here, too. I saw a picture of him on the Battelle team. Even my mother did, too. There’s a picture of her in uniform. She played basketball in high school, and she played a little bit out here in one of those leagues, which, I can’t figure out how she had time. She had six kids and lots to do. But she played basketball. And she did teach us—she was the one who was out there teaching you how to shoot and playing the game of horse or whatever. So that was kind of fun. But baseball was my dad’s greatest love. If he could’ve been a professional baseball player, he would’ve liked to do that. Then he switched, of course, to umpiring later on. So he stayed connected to baseball. He could tell you so many details of so many games, no matter when it was. Franklin: In what ways were opportunities limited here because of segregation or racism? Moore: In what ways. I would just be giving my opinion, I guess. Job opportunities were limited in some respects, because people—I think it’s human nature to gravitate to people who are like you. So if you’re going to fill a position or if you’re going to do a job search, you have something in mind. Or you have a preconceived notion about a particular group of people, so maybe you don’t make an effort to reach out. Or these people, you would make an effort to reach out, but you’ve got to have trained, skilled people, so who has those skills? So there was some effort made to help improve the skill set of people, too, so there would be more opportunity. So that was a good thing, a very good thing and that opened doors for people. So there are things maybe externally that you can benefit from if you take advantage of them, or you can kind of make your own way, or you are, I guess, hurt or disadvantaged by the practices that exist. I do believe that happened. But I don’t know, I guess I just don’t want to dwell on it a lot. Because people are making progress, but we can’t forget there are those who don’t want to make any progress. And would like it to be, no, you’re not allowed in this area because I don’t want you here. That still goes on. It’s just done differently. Franklin: Hmm. Where did you go to school? Moore: I first started in Lewis and Clark, kindergarten, first and second grade. And then when we moved up to Richland Village, to Jefferson, then to Chief Joseph when it was still a junior high instead of a middle school. It had a different mascot, different colors, because it closed there for a while and then reopened. I went to Hanford High School the year it opened, 1973, I was a sophomore. I was going into my sophomore year. At that time, we didn't have four-year high schools. So your freshman year was in junior high school. And we lived on Newcomer Street, which was the line. We lived on the Hanford side of the line. So I was one of the first classes to go there. But I ended up transferring back to Richland High. When Hanford opened, we had no seniors, because they allowed everybody who was going to be a senior to finish at Richland. And then we also did not have all the classes. So you may be going to Hanford, but your accounting class, you had to get on a bus and go to Richland. Franklin: Oh. Moore: So for me, I was kind of doing this back-and-forth and got involved in the Cooperative Office Education program when I was a junior. So I was only going to class for half a day anyway. Franklin: What was the cooperative office— Moore: They call it COE. It’s where you take business classes at school, and then you have a job where you work at least four hours a day, so you get credit for the work and then also for the class. They still do it. They still do it. They call it something else. I work at PNNL, and we hire students who do that. You’ve heard of DECA, which is the retail type? Have you heard of the DECA clubs? Franklin: Mm-mm. Moore: No? Tsk. You didn’t grow up here. Franklin: I did not. Moore: No. Franklin: No, very much no. Moore: So anyway, that’s what I did, and that’s how I got into banking. Actually, I wanted to work at Battelle, because many of the students were picked by Battelle and they paid better. At that time, minimum wage was $1.65 an hour, in 1973 when I was 15-going-on-16. I wanted to go to Battelle, but they wouldn’t allow me, because my father worked there in the personnel department. Some of my friends did, and I ended up going to Seattle First National Bank. Which is what it was called then; now it’s Bank of America. Yeah. So graduated from Richland High, ’75. Franklin: Your brothers had been pretty involved in sports. Moore: Yes. Franklin: Right, kind of sports. And it seemed like a lot of—the Browns were also really big—it seemed like sports was a big avenue of acceptance for young black men in Richland. I wonder, from your perception, were things—being a girl and really not being able at that time—there weren’t a lot of sports options available to you, right? Moore: Not a lot. Franklin: Because Title IX hadn’t really come into effect yet. Moore: Yeah. There weren’t a lot. I mean, there was softball and tennis. There were opportunities I didn’t particularly choose to get involved with. I think I went out for tennis in seventh grade and didn’t think that was my thing. But sports, that’s an avenue where a lot of young men kind of excelled and were interested. The Browns were—they were kind of a half a generation older. Because they were teen stars, I guess you would say, at Richland High back in the ‘50s, like in the mid-‘50s. Whereas then my oldest brother graduated high school ’69, so it’s kind of a—I don’t know if you were—Theartis Wallace, he’s first cousin to CW and Norris. He played for the Sonics when they first—didn’t they start out with an expansion team or something? He played. His family’s here still. There was a lot of sports activities which was good because everybody liked—sports were huge, period in the Tri-Cities. I think part of that was Hanford, too, providing outlets for people to have activities. Remember when we went on the tour and you see the size of the schools and the gyms and the pools. They had teams. So these young people would have had parents who were maybe on these—like my dad, he played. And Vanis’ relatives, they’re already playing on what they called the merchant leagues or the Hanford leagues. So it was going on, and people would get you involved. Like my dad coached, for one, and I remember him helping get Little League started in Pasco. We were out the house one day and Vanis and Edmon—I think Edmon was there, too—but they had this big bag full of, you know the wool baseball—baseball uniforms were wool. They were going through bags of uniforms trying to sort out some things that they might be able to use, and I think that was sort of the beginnings of Little League in Pasco. But I know my dad coached my brothers. One of the reasons he got into coaching was because he wanted to be there. He was concerned about their experience. Franklin: What was the root of the concern? Moore: Just how are the kids going to be treated when they’re out there on the ball team. I don’t think he did it initially. If you were to talk to my brother, Nestor, he might be able to elaborate. But I think at one point, he was having some—some experience that he had led my father to want to be a little closer to the game. I don’t think it was necessarily—it wasn’t a racial thing; it was just the coaching interaction with the kids type of thing. Franklin: How were things different for you, just compared to your brothers. Or was it different for you, not having that sports outlet? Moore: Probably less social for me. Less social. I had my few close friends, we walked to school together, we played tetherball at recess or whatever. I had a lot of friends in school. I got along with people, I was involved in things, like ASB and that sort of thing. So I wasn’t like in my shell, but it was different, because you look at boyfriend/girlfriend interactions, right? I’m a black teen-aged girl, and there’s mostly just white guys in the whole school. So there wasn’t as much interaction as far as dating and that kind of thing. I didn’t really date. Franklin: Was that discouraged, do you think? Moore: I don’t think it was necessarily openly discouraged; it just was not done. You know what I mean? It just was understood that it really wasn’t done. Especially not black female and a white male. Maybe the other way was more likely that you would see. But then you had to be careful, because how’s that going to be received by your peers, by parents, by the public? I know they could probably tell you some stories. Or even church, because there are certain sort of things that—we just don’t do that. I remember my mother, seeing the cover of a, they call them quarterlies, what you’d get every quarter for your church for your next upcoming Bible studies. And I think maybe there were a black teen-aged boy and a white girl or something on the cover, and that was like—[GASP] for some people. We can’t use this! Or if you wanted to date someone’s daughter, I know the boys would have to think about that, because it would be different. I didn’t experience it because it wouldn’t be that dynamic, do you know what I mean? Franklin: Right that was even—your situation would have even been rarer. Moore: Rarer. Yeah, you get it. That would be rare and this would be rarer. I do remember there was a guy that, we were friends and he’d asked me out to prom or something. We went and kind of started dating a little bit. At some point, I think I said to him, I felt uncomfortable. Like if you’re walking down the mall and people are looking, and I felt a little bit uncomfortable. So I thought, hmm, I just don’t want to do this anymore. He got really upset—and I don’t know if you should show this on your tape, but I’m just going to tell you. He says, do you know how many friends I lost because of you? So, you know, like I went out on a limb, and now you’re saying this? And I just remember thinking, well, then I guess they weren’t your friends, were they? Franklin: Yeah. Moore: That’s the first thing that came to my mind. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. Moore: I mean, it’s out there. Franklin: I like how that’s somehow your fault. Moore: Right, it’s my fault. Franklin: Well, I mean there were—it’s funny, because I try to teach—when I teach American history, I teach this in class that there were miscegenation laws up until the ‘60s and ‘70s in a lot of states. Interracial couplings were illegal for—and today, I think we look back on that and just be like, well, why? What was the rationale? The decay of society, and the loosening of morals, and it seems silly now. But 40, 50 years ago, it wasn’t—it was very alive. That thinking was very alive. It’s interesting to me how quickly that has changed and how normal that is to a lot of us now. Moore: Yeah, but then there are those that it’s not okay. Franklin: For still, yeah. For some. Moore: Depending on where you are, you’re taking your life in your hands. Franklin: That’s true. Moore: Literally. Franklin: Yeah. It’s become a lot more unpopular to express an opinion about that, a negative opinion towards that. Moore: Right, it has, but. Franklin: Yeah, interesting. Moore: The reactions to it are—some are out there. Franklin: So many of your brothers and other men I’ve interviewed have mentioned that sports was a vehicle to acceptance. One person, I can’t—I think it may have been Emmitt Jackson that mentioned that he thought it must have been—he heard it was—imagined it was harder for girls. Because without that outlet there for acceptance, there just wasn’t—because everyone liked sports. So if you were a good sports player, people overlooked a lot of maybe other prejudices they might have had and were able to accept you better. Moore: Because of the—I don’t know, it’s almost like you’re being unique. Because there was a lot of acceptance. People looked at me as an individual. Not as a black person. Because they would say things, and I’m thinking, I’m right here. [LAUGHTER] Or make a generalization. And I’d say, well, you can’t say that about everybody. And they’d say, well, that’s not you. You’re Vanessa. You know what I mean? So they’re saying that because they know you, that’s not you. Franklin: You’re the good one. Moore: Yeah, you know what I’m trying to say? Franklin: Oh, I know exactly, yeah. I have heard things like that before. Moore: I’m not sure I expressed it very well, but—they don’t see it. But I could go all day and never see another black person until I went home. But I’m not thinking about that. Just like they’re not thinking about it. That’s Leslie, this is whoever, this is Pam, this is me. We’re just who we are. It’s not that they’re white and I’m black. Which is, I think, the way it should be. But it seemed hard for people to be like that if it was someone they didn’t know personally. Franklin: How did racism or segregation affect your education? Moore: I think, for me, it probably affected it in a positive way, because my parents emphasized it, emphasized education being important. Because people who were denied it, they saw it as the way to have a better life. So it was just sort of assumed, you’re going to work hard in school and that’s your job and you’re going to get good grades, and college is what comes after high school. So it affected me probably in a good way in that sense. But the overall opportunities, I don’t know. Because where I lived, it probably wasn’t a big factor. But in a way, too, though—this is kind of an odd way to say this—but when I was applying to colleges, I kind of had this, I don’t want to go too far away from home feeling. Maybe that’s normal, but in retrospect, I think it would have been neat to seek out some of the historically black colleges and universities, just to have the experience. I had been accepted, but I was afraid to go, or thought my parents couldn’t afford it or whatever. We have odd ideas when we’re teenagers, right? So the experience could have been different. My father actually wanted me to apply to the Air Force Academy, because that was the year they took girls, and my brother, Duke, had graduated from the Air Force Academy. And I thought, oh, no. [LAUGHTER] Nope. I ended up, I went to WSU for my first year. I got married spring break, and kind of went to school off and on after that, ‘til I finished at CBC, and now I’ll finish here at WSU this December. After all these years— Franklin: Congrats. Moore: --I’m back to finish what I started back in 1976. So I’ll graduate and retire. How does that sound? Franklin: That sounds good. It’s never too late. It’s never too late to finish something. Moore: Some people think I’m crazy. Like, why are you doing that? Franklin: You know what? If it matters to you, then that’s what’s important. You want to be able to say you did it. Moore: Yup. Franklin: Yeah. Who are some of the people who influenced you as a child? Moore: Mostly my mom. Franklin: How so? Moore: Because she was a person who trained us and explained how the proper way to be, what was important, value systems. My dad also as far as—but he was gone a lot more. So I think Mom—and that happens to a lot of families. That’s the person you’re closest to. Teachers, also. Teachers would encourage me, like, say, nominate you for this position or that position. Or choose you as the—I think I was the—you know you have the patrol that go out in grade school and have the sign for you to cross the street? Franklin: Oh, the crossing guard. Moore: Yeah. The fifth grade teacher, of course, appointed me as captain. So I remember that experience. There was this one big kid who didn’t want to listen to me, and so we had a run-in. [LAUGHTER] So teachers. And the encouragement about your skills or your abilities or your potential and your future. So I got that from teachers from grade school all the way up to high school, and then people that I worked with who were very encouraging. Franklin: Members of your family had worked out at Hanford, some of them during the Manhattan Project like your great-uncles and things and your father later, and the Cold War. What was your reaction, or what do you know about your parents’ reaction in learning that the work they had done out there had contributed to the development of atomic weapons? Moore: My father, I think he looked at it as having done something good, and I think most people did when they realized, because it was to help stop something from getting worse. And for many of them, I don’t—I can’t speak for what they thought, but what amazes me is the fact that everybody was so consistent with keeping the secret, and saying, you just don’t talk about that. And dedicated to the work that they were doing. The people that I’ve talked to and interviewed myself, they were thankful to have been able to raise families and make a wage that they could have a good life. And I think people were patriotic that they were supporting the war effort, I suppose. But then there are also times where you think, that’s just so horrific. When I learned about it in school--and I didn’t connect it back to Hanford when I first learned of it, when we talked about Nagasaki and Hiroshima and all of that, I thought, oh my goodness, how could we do that to people? You know? Just the devastation and the killing power of it all, it was just kind of upsetting to me that any country would do that to any other country. And then the way that people were treated. I had an art teacher who—he still lives here, Mr. Yamamoto—who told us the stories of the internment camps when he was a little boy. It just was very upsetting to think that anybody could treat—that people could treat other people the way that they were treated. Franklin: I think that kind of—you kind of get right to the heart of why this is such an interesting issue for people not from here, and kind of the divide. Because I think the horror is often what people who are not from here immediately think of; whereas when you first mentioned that people were grateful for the opportunities it gave, that it helped to win the war, that it provided stable income is something that people from here think of. There seems to—I guess what’s—the truth is really in both. I mean, those are both true experiences, those are both true reactions. You can’t say that one side is objectively true. And I think that’s-- Moore: And some things we just blindly went along with. You know, like, when it came—I don’t know how long ago it was—but, okay, growing up in Richland, you have the mushroom cloud at the school. It’s on everything. Everything’s “atomic.” And the plane and all of that. We thought nothing of it. And then when some—I think it was students or some people from Japan, years ago, coming in, seeing those things and being so upset and insulted, and you realize, oh my goodness. Why do we do that? You just feel bad. Franklin: Mm-hmm. That’s what—in March, we had the visitor from Nagasaki who survived the bombing. He toured the B Reactor. But I think what upset him the most was the mushroom cloud symbol, and that it was a source of pride for the community. Moore: Talk about insensitive, right? Franklin: Right, and it wasn’t a source of pride to him. He had been a child during the bombing. Yeah. It’s reconciling that. So you had mentioned, though, when you first heard about the bombings you had felt this kind of shock. What about when you connected—do you remember anything about drawing that direct connection from that event to where we are right now? Because there is a very—there’s a very distinct line— Moore: No, not at that time. Franklin: Okay. Moore: Not at that time, because it was just something we were reading in the history books, and I’d never heard about the Manhattan Project. Franklin: What about when you did find out? Moore: I wondered what people, like the question you asked, the people who had been working here and didn’t know what it was, what in the world did they think when they found out? Some of them must have felt like, I wish I hadn’t been a part of that. We don’t know. We can just speculate. I never really talked to anybody about that. But it comes to your mind, what must they have thought? Franklin: Or maybe what—yeah, because I always feel like there’s a difference between what feelings people might harbor inside and what they say outwardly. Because they don’t want to criticize or be unpatriotic. Certainly the physicists had deep misgivings about it. But it’s always interesting to hear. Yeah, I’ve always wanted to know what people really think. Moore: Yeah, I would like to know. I guess there’s some of them we’d better ask before it’s too late! Franklin: Well, I’ve asked a lot of folks, you know, over 100, and it’s always kind of— Moore: That were actually there and doing it at that time? Franklin: Only a few that were actually there, but it’s interesting. So the last question, the second-to-last question I ask in all these interviews is, “What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and/or living in Richland during the Cold War?” And I’ll ask you that question later, but just to bring that up, because usually when I ask that question, for people who, their parents may have worked here or even some that came here in the Cold War, nine times out of ten, they always say, well, the bomb won the war, and we should always remember that. Even though they weren’t directly involved in that event at all, that has seemed to be this unifying point of this community’s history, this kind of objective truth. Not that it’s not true, but it seems to just be—it dominates the whole thing. Moore: Is that to make it feel okay? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I don’t know. Sometimes I—I don’t know if I should say this on camera, but sometimes I think so. It’s just interesting, because as an outsider, I have a different perspective. Moore: Mm-hmm. We’ll have to talk about that. [LAUGHTER] But you know, when you’re talking about that just now and the actual war itself, I think some of the things I remember were the whole-body counters and the drills. Get under your desk. Franklin: Did you have to do the whole-body counter? Moore: Yes, yes. Franklin: And tell me about that. Because I’ve—I haven’t talked to people about that direct experience. Moore: They would bring a big like semi-sized truck to the school every once in a while, and we would have to go in and lie down and go through what they called the whole-body counter. Just because we lived here. We lived near Hanford, so they were checking us. I want to say, I think the building is—it hasn’t been that long ago, don’t they still have a building downtown where they have a whole-body counter? Franklin: Yup. Moore: Okay. Yeah. But they would bring it to us. Franklin: It was like a mobile one. Moore: Mm-hmm. And I was in grade school, so I know I did it at least twice. And then we would do some of the other drills where if you heard certain sirens, you were going to have to get under your desk. At the time, we just did it. But you think back at it now and you’re like, what would that do for you? You would be dead anyway. It’s not going to help you. Because we’re talking about, in case of a nuclear attack, get under your desk? No. But the body counts to check and seeing the symbols on certain buildings so that you know that that’s where there’s a shelter. Franklin: Ah, the civil defense. Moore: Uh-huh, and the radiation in the bomb shelter symbols. Franklin: Did the whole-body counter ever—did you ever connect that with the possibility of receiving something that could have been picked up by that machine? Moore: Yeah. Franklin: Did that—what kind of feelings did that elicit in you? Moore: Just that we just did it and nobody ever seemed to have any problems so it must be okay. But I remember also—and not knowing the significance of it, but I remember my father having to leave specimens. They’d put these little kits on your porch. Franklin: Yeah, that would be like a metal— Moore: Yeah. Franklin: With a glass— Moore: Yeah, and so you had to leave a urine specimen, and then someone would come and pick it up. Franklin: Yeah, we have some of those in our collection. Unused. Moore: We didn’t think about it. It’s just like, oh, that’s, my dad works there. Franklin: Right, he just has to do this. Moore: he just has to do this, or seeing the guys come with their lunch pails. Everybody had those black metal lunch boxes like you see in the cartoons. They’d get off the buses on the corners and be walking home. Because the big—like, the bus they had down there at CREHST, I think it’s brown and yellow, those buses were driving the streets everyday. Only in Richland. It didn’t dawn on me until quite a bit later that, well, some of the people that worked out there lived in Pasco or Kennewick. How come they don’t get a bus? But there was a reason. I mean, you had to be in Richland. It was just part of life. As a little kid, you just see it go by, and that’s what happens. But I do remember as a young adult, the scene, that incident that Vanis described to you when we were on the tour and the man fell through. Franklin: Oh, yeah. Moore: I know his family. And I asked Vanis the other day if that was who I thought that was, and he said yeah. And I remember when it happened, because his sister—well, his parents and my parents kind of knew each other because everybody’s kids played baseball. So they knew one another and I just remember thinking how tragic that was for their family. How could something like that happen? But people go on and life goes on and it just does. And then when—was it McCluskey? Was that the contamination? Franklin: Yeah, the americium. Moore: Yeah, that one really got me. Franklin: How so? Moore: Because you realize how easy it would be for something to happen and people to be contaminated. When I worked out there, I know they checked us all the time. It took me a while to get used to the term of being “crapped up” because we didn’t even say words like that. [LAUGHTER] I thought, what are you talking about? Franklin: Just very quickly, because I know it was much later, but when did you go out to work at Hanford? Moore: It was 1991. Franklin: And you started on with Westinghouse, right? Moore: Westinghouse. I was going to be a field clerk at PUREX, at the PUREX facility. I was going to be supporting the radiation technicians. We called them—they have had different names, HBTs, RCTs, the rad tech people. So I was their clerk to keep track of all their records and reporting and doing some different things and it was quite an experience, because it was another world to me. I was used to being somewhere where you had nice surroundings, you had an hour lunch, things were comfortable. And I interviewed for this position in town, but then the assignment was out there. And later on, the manager told me, well, if I had let you see it, you wouldn’t have come. And I think he was right. It was like Hogan’s Heroes. You’ve seen the building, the camp where they’re in? That’s what it reminded me of. The razor wire and the guard shack, and you had to put your purse—everything down and it went through the little turnstile to check it and the guards had their guns, and you went through radiation monitors to go through different sections of the building. So it was a real eye-opener for me the first day. They were getting ready to go to shutdown; nothing was being produced anymore. So I was after that. It was all about remediation and then restoration. Franklin: How long did you stay out there? Moore: I think I came into another position that was into the 300 Area, maybe a couple of years later, and then back out to the 200 Area in the 2750 Building I think it was, so it was in more of an office building. There it was more like being in town. Like, once you get there, it’s no different if you were at the Federal Building; it’s just that you’re far away. And you can’t run to Zip’s or something on lunch. [LAUGHTER] But it was nothing unusual. My brother, Greg, worked out there at that time, too, and I had other relatives. And I realized once I went from my banking world to the Hanford world, a lot of classmates, former classmates, that I thought didn’t live here anymore, they worked out there. So everyday I saw somebody that I knew. So it was interesting to kind of get reacquainted and I didn’t feel so much a fish out of water, because I knew people and there was help to learn what was going on. Franklin: Kind of like one big extended family. Moore: I know! If you’re not related to me, I went to school with you, right? At one point I became an activities administrator, so I monitored the budget for the Tank Farm’s HBTs to make sure they had the equipment that they needed and they weren’t overspending, or if there was going to be training, that kind of thing. Bob Heineman, I think I saw him on one of the films for these productions— Franklin: Yeah. Moore: He was my boss at one time. Franklin: Oh, okay. Yeah, I had a really interesting interview with Bob Heineman. Moore: I thought it was good. I just heard part of it. Franklin: He was quite an interesting guy. Moore: Yeah. He and my brother, Duke, went to school together, I think. Franklin: Right, yeah. Moore: So Bob was—he was one of those encouraging people that kept after me. When are you going to finish school? When are you going to do—what are you going to do next? Just that kind of thing. So the community was—people were pretty close-knit and my family was, in a way, kind of known. So if I just said the name, they knew you were a Mitchell, then it was like, okay, I know you, practically. So that’s the value of a small community. My kids say it’s not, because, Mom, I can’t go anywhere with you. Everybody knows you. To me, it’s comfortable. Franklin: Right, right. Because you would’ve been used to it, right? I mean, your father had such a large role in the community, and it seems he was a very beloved figure. What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here? Moore: During my time here? I think equal pay would be probably one. And in some realms, acceptance. I know my dad tells a story about moving into a particular neighborhood, and— Franklin: Just kind of down the street here? Moore: Yeah, and you have neighbors who are your peers and behave as if, ooh, you’re getting a little too close to me. You-shouldn’t-be-able-to-afford-to-live-where-I-live kind of reactions. So he’s told me a couple stories about that. Not too long ago, actually. Several years back, but, I’m like, really? Because I knew the people. And he says, oh yeah. So you just—and Mom and Dad were not the type to fill our heads full of a lot of things that were going to get us agitated. You just kind of deal with it, I don’t need to talk—and maybe it was just kind of a generational thing, too, though. There’s grown-up conversation and you don’t need to know everything. So they lived life without burdening us with their troubles. And my mother would say sometimes, you just don’t need to worry about that. Whatever “that” was. And I think that’s, in a way, a good thing, but then it also shelters you from some things maybe you should be aware of. Franklin: What actions were being taken to address the issues that you just mentioned? Moore: I know some of the major employers, just from having been in the workforce here, have deliberate plans. Like they pay attention to affirmative action, and they maybe have set goals that they try to adhere to. And sometimes, depending on who is in charge at the time, how much effort goes into some of those things. You understand what I mean? Franklin: Yeah. Moore: Yeah. Like they exist, but are you actively working your plan, or is it just one of those things that, you know, I’ll do it if I have to? So I think that’s one thing, from my point of view from being in the workforce. Franklin: Who were the most important leaders of civil rights efforts in the area? Moore: My goodness. I’m not sure I’m the person to ask. Are there—yeah, not like the ‘60s, like people organizing marches and things like that. I can’t— Franklin: Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Moore: I kind of fell in the in-between, where there was not a lot of activity. I do remember having cousins whose parents were kind of involved, and so would be marching in downtown Pasco, I think it was maybe ’65 or something, when there were some civil rights marches. They would make posters and get involved and get the whole family involved in. We didn’t participate so much in those kinds of things, not that—I as a child wasn’t aware a lot of it was going on. I’d see it on the news or something. But not direct participation. So I don’t know if that’s because I was too young or wasn’t active enough. Franklin: So now to the big question that I mentioned earlier. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and/or living in Richland during the Cold War? Moore: I think, about working at Hanford, that you should study it and understand it to—study the history of it to understand why things are the way they are now. Because there’s legacy in regards to behaviors, I think, in this community. Maybe people’s expectations and worldview of—maybe it’s not the worldview—but what they should be entitled to, or how life should be. Because it’s residual from that timeframe, where things, for some people, were just provided to them and handed to them, or you just get this job and you’re going to do that forever, you don’t have to worry about it, you’re going to get a good pension, you’re going to get to retire. So they got to remember that one thing they should learn is, things change. Right? Don’t get too comfortable. Because life can change, even though in past generations they just thought it would go on and on and on. At some point, it’s got to be changed. Because the government can’t support everybody. And people should have a work ethic and some people would tend not to feel they had to. Right? Don’t let yourself be complacent, I guess, is what I’d think they should learn. And to always be looking for opportunity and doing what they can do to grow. Franklin: Yeah, I understand. I’ve been out there a little bit. [LAUGHTER] Moore: I had a hard time coming from outside Hanford and going to Hanford, and people’d say, oh, don’t worry about it. Or, you’re working too hard. And I thought, what? This is my job. Franklin: I was surprised—you know, I started in the summer of 2015 being out there a bit. I was surprised at how much of the good ole boy attitude is still there. You do think that’s a thing of the past, but—wow. Moore: Yeah, it hasn’t died out yet. It hasn’t. Franklin: No, it’s a strange incubator. It’s just its own world out there. And some things are great about that world. What about living in Richland during the Cold War? And growing up during that time and in this kind of unique community? Moore: It was kind of a unique community, because of so many people in the town had the same employer, basically. So it became one of those things, if you didn’t work there, or your parents didn’t work there, you just felt like you were somehow out of the loop. You know, you couldn’t be in a conversation around dinner or going out with somebody, because they’d get onto the Hanford, and you'd have nothing else. You’re just the outsider. So I learned that it’s definitely a culture of its own. But it’s a big supporter of the community, and the companies made sure that the schools were good. So I think educational opportunities were much improved because of it. Look at all the things that go into CBC just so that the contractors can have what they need. Community college—I don’t think it would be what it is today without Hanford and making sure that the high number of highly educated and trained people in science and technology is what drives part of what goes on with all the STEM everywhere. This school is going to have a computer lab, because my kids are going to go there and they need to know this. You almost get the feeling that you’re getting the extra support that some other community is not going to get because they don’t have a Hanford in their backyard. So there’s a lot of horsepower there. Franklin: Yeah. Moore: I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it, but there is. Franklin: No, no, no, believe me, I very much have. People have high expectations for their children here. Moore: They did, which translated into high expectations for their educators and all of that. I remember being struck that non-Richland people—like I said, my husband grew up in Pasco—there seemed to be more entrepreneurs outside of Richland. Like you have very successful farmers, or, his father had his own business. There’s dentists and lawyers and just people that were in different walks of life, because they had a different experience. I thought it was pretty cool. Because, like, not everybody works for Hanford; some people do other things! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right. Did you spend a lot of time—you mentioned that sometimes you would go to Morning Star Baptist Church. How connected with the community in east Pasco was your family? Did you have a lot of friends—did you have friends over there? Moore: My parents were very connected. We as kids weren’t so connected, because we were almost, I think, by other children, looked at as outsiders. Franklin: You mean, like other children in east Pasco would have looked at you as— Moore: Yes, yes, yes. Because, you live in Richland, you think you’re better than everybody. That’s quote-unquote, you think you’re white. Or why do you live there? Because my parents do. I live where my parents live. That was very hurtful for me. When I got married, I moved to Pasco because my husband’s business and family were in Pasco. And I saw a change in some people who had been that way toward me. It was like, okay, now she’s okay. And I never understood that. I’m the same person I’ve always been. Franklin: You left your airs behind. Moore: Yeah. Because Richland people think they’re better than everybody else. Did you know that? That was the talk. Franklin: Oh, no, I’ve heard that. A lot. I mean, I’ve heard— Moore: We Richland people don’t understand why. But I was subject to that, too. From relatives and non-relatives. Franklin: I think that happened, from a lot of the folks I’ve talked to for this project and the general oral history project, that seemed to be existing for just people from Richland in general, from Kennewick and Pasco were just like, oh, you Richland people. It wasn’t a secret closed city, but it did—everybody there had this Hanford connection, and it was different enough— Moore: And there was a time where you apparently couldn’t live in Richland unless you worked—you couldn’t own property. I mean you might live on a trailer camp, right, or rent, but you couldn’t own. Franklin: Well, you couldn’t own property, period. And you couldn’t rent unless you either worked at Hanford or you were a contractor in the way—like, for the folks that ran the retail in the Uptown, they were contracted through the Atomic Energy Commission to do that, and so they were allowed to do that in Richland. But, you know they were still— Moore: And for a time, if you were a black, you couldn’t either, so— Franklin: Right. Well, you had to work at Hanford and most of the jobs for blacks were menial. They weren’t recruiting people into the science and engineering for a time. Certainly it was mostly construction. Moore; Right, construction and laborers. Because you hear that over and over. I was a laborer; oh, I worked construction. And some people it became very, very skilled and built all kinds of homes. Well, the people who built Morning Star. Joe Williams was one of the people who helped build that and he was a skilled worker out here that helped with the lining of the tanks. We have him on one video, and he talked about his work. Or my uncle, Willy Daniels, who—he was a school teacher when he was back in Texas. So when he came back here, he was one of—some people, I guess, couldn’t read and write or needed some assistance, so that was one of the things that he helped with, which put him in positions that other people weren’t. Even when he was an old man, I’d say Uncle Willy was in his 80s, and I remember—I was a stay-at-home mom then and I lived in Pasco and I would see Uncle Willy every once in a while. I’d go visit him. He’d say, oh, I have to go to take so-and-so to the bank, because I have to help them. He was still doing it. Up until he died, I think, he was still helping people with things. But yeah, you just—you don’t know what your life is going to be like. It’s been interesting. Everybody has their own story to tell, right? But I did have that experience where it hurt my feelings that people would talk to me that way or feel like I thought I was better than they were. Yeah, it upsets me still. Franklin: Understandably. Is there anything you would like to mention related to migration, work experiences, segregation and civil rights and how they’ve impacted your life here at Hanford and Tri-Cities? Moore: Here at Hanford. I don’t think there’s anything in particular. I am thankful for my ancestors. I am thankful for the upbringing and training that I had, and the exposure that I’ve had. And the opportunities that I’ve had. I think I would want to try to carry that on. I’ve been involved in the community as far as volunteering and working with non-profit groups and trying to help keep history alive. So I think maybe I could’ve been more outspoken or involved. It wasn’t my nature; it wasn’t my experience. But I think, speaking up when something needs to be said is something that we should do. Franklin: Great. Well, Vanessa, thank you so much for coming and taking the time to interview with me today. Moore: I appreciate being here. Thanks for having me. Franklin: You’re very welcome. Moore: All right. Franklin: All right. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview General Electric Battelle Westinghouse PUREX 300 Area 200 Area 2750 Building Tank Farms Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1956- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1991- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Vanessa Moore Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Discrimination Segregation Baseball Basketball Civil rights movements Nuclear industry Description An account of the resource Vanessa Moore was born in Richland, Washington in 1956 and started working on the Hanford Site in 1991. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/11/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fa5a8dcdd12fbca9989b5d633fc57f0e3.JPG fae2178edeeec17f60766a4a4d89ea45 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F57f37ea890397fdef25ac5a08b33b79f.mp4 b876e5a6903fef8c367009890b5ce932 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ellenor Moore Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Ellenor Moore on March 21st, 2018. The interview is being conducted at Ellenor Moore’s home in Pasco. I will be talking with Ellenor about her experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Ellenor Moore: Yes. My name is Ellenor Louise Moore. It’s spelled E-L-L-E-N-O-R, middle initial, L, Moore, M-O-O-R-E. Franklin: Great, thank you so much. Where and when were you born? Moore; I was born in Louisiana. Franklin: Okay. Moore: In 1932. I’m 85 years old. So. Franklin: I’d like to talk about your life before coming to the Tri-Cities, so I’m wondering if you could kind of—what type of environment was it to grow up in Louisiana in the ‘30s and ‘40s? Moore: Well, you know, I was in the late teens when I came, when my father got work here and came from Louisiana here to work. Growing up in Louisiana, it was really—well, we went through part of the Depression, the big depression and everything. But you know, everyone was kind of in the same conditions. So, as a child, I didn’t realize how bad it was. But it really was. It was bad. At that time, we lived in the country. My father worked—he wasn’t a farmer. He just didn’t like it; he never—he wasn’t one. And he had grown up partly in St. Louis, where his mother had lived. He came back to Louisiana. The story is that he met my mother and then he was there and he stayed there, but he didn’t like it at all. He always had the idea he was going to get away and he was going to go wherever he could go. During World War II, he was thinking he wanted to go back to St. Louis. But housing and everything was so hard to get, he never did really do that. He wound up—he went out and worked in the defense, when they were building the army camps and stuff like that, back in 19—what would that have been? ’41, ’42? So that was the kind of work, he did that. And then when he came back, of course he couldn’t find anything to do except worked at a sawmill. We lived in the housing that was there, which was very poor. There was no indoor plumbing or anything like that. You grew up—I remember at like eight, nine years old, ten years old, it was really, really bad. So that was the only thing that kind—that kept us there. After the sawmill, we moved into the little town, which was Jonesville and that’s where I went to school there. Then my dad got a job at a car—automobile franchise, I guess you’d call it. He worked there until he was able to leave and come here to work. Franklin: What year did your father come here? Moore: In 19—the early part of 1950. Franklin: And what did he come here to do? Moore: He came here to do whatever kind of work he could get. I mean, he wanted to get away. From my understanding, most of the people that came here, a lot of them, they just—they were looking for work. We heard about it from—well, my uncle had been in the service, and when he came back he was stationed in Bremerton. That’s how we knew about, you know, the Northwest. I had never even heard about it. Here I was, I don’t know how old I was; I was probably eight years old, and he came, he was stationed there, and then he was discharged and he came back home to Louisiana, but he stayed for a very short time, because he did not want to be there. He’d gotten—he had been overseas and stuff like that. And he came back and settled in Seattle. Then my aunt came. I remember when he came back up here and he was saying that he was going to live up here. I remember my aunt saying to him, well, as soon as you can, send for me, because I don’t want to be here either. And she came. Then my grandmother, they sent for my grandmother, my mother’s mother. And they were in Seattle. But it took a while before my father was able to get away from there. The way he got away is that my grandmother had met this man, Mr. Jones, that had worked at Hanford. He was talking about how they were hiring people and they wanted people to work and that’s how my dad found out about it. As soon as he could leave there, he did. He came here to live. It took him two years to save enough money to send for the family. Franklin: Oh, wow. Moore: What I remember about it is the living conditions and housing was just horrible. Franklin: Here or in Louisiana? Moore: Here! Here. Because there was no housing for black people. You had to live in east Pasco. The housing wasn’t adequate at all. We moved into—I remember when we came—I didn’t come with—at that time, my grandmother had moved back to Louisiana, so when the rest of the family came, when my mother and the other two children came, I stayed with my grandmother, and they sent for me later on. But in the same year. My mother actually cried because of where they had to live when they first came here. Franklin: Really? Could you describe it? What kind of— Moore: Well, I can remember, it was like a little encampment over on, what, Idaho Street, I believe it was. It was owned by a family called the Haneys, and you probably—because they were here for many, many years and they still are here. They have grandchildren, all of them still here. And they owned some property and they’d put up some little shacks that people could rent. That’s what I’d call them, they were little shacks. They were—no inside plumbing; they had like a public bathhouse on the property. All of that was just so foreign to us. So my mother spent most of her time trying to find a place for us to move. I think we lived in that place about three months. And then she found a house over on—what was that? On Douglas Street. And so it was—that was just—we were all so glad to get out of that place where we were. So that’s what I remember about it. There was not very much—now, I never worked out at Hanford. My dad did. But that was the conditions. And by that time, I finished high school and my first real job, I got it at Our Lady of Lourdes. Sister Anthony Marie was my supervisor. I never will forget her, because when I applied for the job, I was just going to take any job. It wasn’t any special job; I just wanted to work. I had finished high school, and I’d started to go to business college in Kennewick. It was very difficult, because I didn’t have very much money or anything like that. But I needed to work, and I thought, well, I have to get a job. I applied at Our Lady of Lourdes and I was hired. I was prepared to work wherever if it was cleaning up in the kitchen or whatever. Sister Anthony Marie hired me and trained me as a hospital aide. That was—at that time, the aides had to wear the white uniform, the white stockings and everything except the cap, as a nursing aide. So that was my first real job here. The pay was $120 a month. And I was glad to get it. Franklin: How would that have compared to the job back in the—to the similar type of job back in the South? Moore: Well, before we’d moved, my mother—it was two doctors in the little town where we lived. My mother got a job where she worked at that doctor’s office. I think she was getting paid, maybe, $15 a week. Franklin: Oh, okay, so, $120 a month was quite a bit more. Moore: Yeah. And my first real job. Oh, I was very happy to get it. I worked a year-and-a-half. Things had started to improve a little bit. That’s when they started building some other housing in east Pasco. But I worked 15 months at Our Lady of Lourdes and then I moved on to Seattle, because my aunt and uncle and all lived in Seattle. I got a job as a hospital aide at the veterans’ hospital, the new one that they opened that year. And so that’s where I worked until I’d gotten married. You know, so it was a real journey. But I also kind of wanted to go to school and it just seemed like I never did get a chance to do it. I had to work. And then I got married, and of course, three children, just one right after the other. And I worked a lot, but it was at home, taking care of kids. I married Thomas Moore. Now he had been here since, I guess, 1949. He was a divorcé; he had two girls. So I had a family right away. And then, as I said, three children. It was five children. The girls were—when Tom and I got married, the girls were ten and five. So that was a nice experience for me. But I had helped raise—actually, at home, I was the oldest one. So my three brothers and—my three siblings, I’d always helped with them. So I knew how to take care of kids. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Did you meet Thomas in Seattle, or—Thomas was from here? Or he had moved here? Moore: He had moved here. When he came here from what I’ve heard, from some of the things he said, he always wanted to be a businessman. He had a restaurant downtown near the overpass, you know that street that—what is that? The main street that comes through Pasco there. Lewis Street. Franklin: Lewis Street. Moore: Lewis Street. So he had—and, you know, at that time, it was kind of segregated in the sense that—but he went out of business with that. I don’t know how long he had it. At the time I married him, he had a pool hall over in east Pasco. That was when he had the other restaurant, I think, that was when he was married to his first wife. And then when they were divorced, he still had that pool hall. But that—at that time, things had opened up. There was some housing where people of color could get housing—rent places near the railroad track on the east side. But that’s about as far as they got. Took a while for people to be able to get decent housing. Franklin: Right, because Pasco was divided into— Moore: It was divided into east Pasco and north Pasco. The railroad track actually divided the community and—I have to get—I have hay fever here. Franklin: Oh, no problem. Moore: So I got to get my tissue. I remember when working at Our Lady of Lourdes, I had to walk to work because I didn’t have any transportation. And at that time, there was not—it was a lot of empty spaces over there in east Pasco. It wasn’t that much housing, a lot of tumbleweeds, which I’d never seen in my life. I didn’t even know what a tumbleweed was. [LAUGHTER] I can remember, one of the things that I remember, walking to work—and the wind blew a lot then—those tumbleweeds would just come rolling down the street, well the roads, mostly. You didn’t want to get caught in that bunch, because they’d gather up as they’d come, and you don’t want to get caught in that. [LAUGHTER] So I can remember, walking, trying to dodge tumbleweeds on my way walking. And coming under that underpass, that always frightened me. I never wanted to do it, but I had to. You either did that or you walked across the railroad track. I was afraid to walk across the railroad track, because of trains. So, you know, going under that underpass was not easy for me. So anyway, that’s some of the things that I remember about that. It’s just the hardships. Dad would come home from work sometime and he would say things like, oh, well, they had to hose us down today. What is that? Well, you know, they wash you off, because they could read that we had been in a hot place. Now, here’s the thing. I don’t think anyone, pretty much, that was working out there understood what that really meant. They didn’t really understand. I mean, they didn’t know how dangerous it was. Franklin: Yeah. Moore: And so—we didn’t. I was the oldest one in my family, but I didn’t really understand anything about that. I didn’t know that it was really dangerous and it was something that he could’ve still had on him, on his clothing or whatever, when he came home, and I’m sure he did. But that happened a lot, where he was working, he said, we got into a hot area. They didn’t really explain that to workers. They told them, but, you know? Who knew? I mean, most of the people, a lot of the people were just like my dad. They’d come from an area that nothing like that had ever happened. They didn’t really know what it was all about. Franklin: What kind of education level did your dad have? Moore: My dad, I think he went to—let me see—he finished the eighth grade. Franklin: Okay. And when he got a job out at Hanford, did he ever talk about what he did? Was he like construction, or--? Moore: It was construction. He belonged to the labor union. And it was construction, and a lot of it, I guess, was clean-up stuff that they did. Cleaning up what, I have no idea. You know, we didn’t know, and they didn’t either. They just did whatever they were told to do. Franklin: Was he happy with the compensation of the job, like the pay, was it a good job for him, or was he still kind of looking unsatisfied, kind of looking for— Moore: Well, it was a good job for him. I mean, he had never been able to get a job that paid as much as it did. Yeah. I don’t remember him complaining about the work; he was just glad to be working. Franklin: How long did he work out at Hanford for? Moore: Oh, let’s see. Oh, he worked there until—in the ‘70s. Franklin: Oh, okay. So quite a while then. Moore: Yeah, so from 1950 until—I don’t remember exactly in the ‘70s. Mother finally convinced him that she didn’t want to live here, and they moved to Seattle. Mother—my mother never was satisfied here. She also got a job at Our Lady of Lourdes, the same year that I did. Because my oldest—my youngest brother was like two years old or something, three years old. So I worked the swing shift, and she worked days. So we kind of worked out the remaining—and in between us going, she coming from work and me going to work, there was a lady that we knew that my father had actually helped that family to come to Pasco, too. They were from Louisiana. The Wilkins. I don’t know if you— Franklin: Was it a family that he knew personally? Moore: Yeah. Franklin: Is that how a lot of— Moore: Oh, yes. Franklin: Seems to me that’s how a lot of migration into this area happened, was people tell family and friends and is that— Moore: Right, that’s what happened, because from where we came from in Louisiana, I don’t think there was anyone there that even had heard of Hanford. Didn’t even know that much about Washington state. The thing of it is, you know, I remember the first time I noticed Washington state on something, during the ‘40s, we would get boxes of apples that they gave—I think they called it commodity or something, that the government—it was surplus fruit and stuff that was sent to help the people. Dad helped to distribute that stuff to families. We got a box of apples, and on the apple box it said Washington State. So that was pretty much what I knew about Washington state until I got into school and got to learn more about geography and everything. But yeah, that was my first knowledge of Washington state. We got a box of apples with what the government gave. And they gave things like—I don’t remember getting any other fruit, but I remember the apples, we did get apples. Franklin: In Louisiana where you lived before you came here, where you lived was—was where you lived segregated? Moore: Oh, it was definitely segregated. Franklin: How deep did segregation go there? Did it go all the way to— Moore: [LAUGHTER] About as deep as it could get. We had separate schools. My first school that I went to, the very first I can remember, we lived about probably three miles from—well, it seemed like to me it was a very long way, being a young child. But I would imagine it was about three miles. That’s when we lived in the country. Daddy was working, at that time, he worked at the gin—gin cotton where they baled the cotton. We lived in the country in this little area. We had a house that they built on the plantation. It was a plantation. There was a plot of land just adjacent to the house that my mother would work in that. I remember her out there hoeing and stuff when I was very little. I went to school. It was a church, a one-room church house. And one of our cousins was the teacher. And all the kids were in this one room. The big—she trained the kids that were in the fourth, fifth grade to help the young ones. So that was my first of going to school. I went to school. And believe it or not, we had a horse. His name was Shorty. Mother would put me on the horse and my brother was a baby at that time. She would hold the baby, and I’m sitting behind her on the horse and drive me to school. Franklin: Wow. Moore: And then come pick me up. That was—the part I remember about that was, I was so afraid the first day that I went to school because—the only thing that made me not so afraid, one of our cousins was the teacher. So I did know her, but I didn’t know any of the other children. And we didn’t live close, as I said, children—they were at least three miles away from me. So I didn’t know any of them. And I was so afraid. I just did not want to be there. [LAUGHTER] I was so glad when Mother came and picked me up. But that was the beginning. Then we moved—going back now, I’m kind of going back and forth, because we moved to another area that was close to the sawmill where Daddy worked. Because he’d work at the sawmill and then during the season when they were doing the cotton, he worked at the gin, baled the cotton. And it was other people did live closer to us then, because they had a house that there were several houses in the area where the sawmill was. The people that worked there lived in those houses. And then the school I went to was still another church house thing. So from the first through third grade, I went to a one-room church house school. Franklin: And these were segregated schools? Moore: Oh, of course it was segregated. The teachers were all black. When we moved to town, that’s when I actually got to go to a real school building. Because there was a settlement of black people in that area. There were white people that lived across the highway. The highway ran through. They lived, they had different schools and everything. But in that—that’s when I went to school in a real school and we had several teachers. It was, the high school was there, too. So those were—that part was really good experience, and I remember feeling good about it. I was a very good student and the teachers liked me. I had friends and there were other kids there and everything. When I got in high school, I played basketball. That was nice; we’d go to the little towns to play the other teams and that type of thing. So that, I enjoyed, even though it was segregated, but that’s all we knew of, being segregated. I mean, when you went to the movies, we had to sit upstairs in the balcony. You had to buy your ticket from another window on the side of the building, and then you couldn’t go into the front of the building in the lobby and buy the ticket. You had to—they had a window on the side and you went upstairs to the movie. But we would go, we’d go to the movies every week. [LAUGHTER] You know, every weekend, we went to see—I remember the only thing they played was Western movies. It was like Gene Autry—you probably don’t even know who I’m talking about. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: No, believe it or not—believe it or not, I do. Yeah. I grew up with my grandmother and she was really into old Westerns. Moore: Yeah. So that was a real treat for us. The tickets cost $0.12 for children. So you should see me trying to save up my pennies during the week so I could go to the movies. Franklin: What about other elements of life in—like the store and restaurants and things? Were those also segregated establishments as well? Moore: Oh, yes. They were segregated here, too, when people first—when my husband first came here, as I said, the restaurant he had down there on Lewis Street, it was sort of segregated. I mean, it was segregated to the point to where black people couldn’t go to other restaurant—they had their own little restaurants and stuff, even over there in east Pasco. Franklin: Were there— Moore: There were a couple restaurants, and they were— Franklin: Were there signs here? Was it as formal as it had been in Louisiana? Or--? Moore: No. No, it was just subtle in the sense that you weren’t going to get served or you just knew that you—you know. There’s certain places you didn’t go. There was no one—no black people living in Kennewick. You couldn’t—even when it got to the point here in Pasco when more and more black people came in, and it sort of opened up, you could rent a house in some parts, as I said, the parts near the railroad track, on this side of the railroad track. But there was no black people living in Kennewick. They wouldn’t rent you a place. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Moore: So that was completely— Franklin: I wanted to ask, we talked a little bit about your coming here, but I wanted to ask, what were your—how did you—did you take a train here? Moore: I took a train. It took five days to come from Louisiana to Pasco. Franklin: What were your first impressions of Pasco when you got here? Moore: Oh, I was upset! Just kind of like my mother. My mother, as I said, she was still in tears. She just hated the place. [LAUGHTER] I didn’t like it. I knew that—well, my dad was working, so we did have a roof over our head, and he was feeding the family and stuff. So it was not that we didn’t have that; we had—in Louisiana, after we moved out of the country, things weren’t too bad. It was segregated, of course, but every—the black part of town had their own restaurants and a couple stores, and they did have a big grocery store there in that part of the town where people go. Only one that I remember, one big sort of big grocery store. But you know, I kind of lost my thought now. Because I’m going back and forth. Is that okay to do that? Franklin: Oh, yeah, yeah. Moore: Because I’m remembering— Franklin: That’s just the way our memories work and how life is. Moore: And when you compare some things. Franklin: Yeah. Moore: But you were asking about—you said if there was signs here? Franklin: Yeah. If the segregation was as formal, or—if formal’s the right word. Because Louisiana’s segregation, the South, there were signs, it was in the law. Here it seems to have existed but kind of outside the law or informally, and I kind of wanted to just get your memories of that. Moore: Yes. It was here. It was here, you felt it if you were a person of color, you definitely felt it, and you knew that—there were no black people working at any of the restaurants or anything. There may have been some in the kitchen, but I don’t remember because I didn’t go to them anyway. But in my young adulthood, you just didn’t, you didn’t go. When you went to a restaurant—as I said, I don’t remember ever seeing any signs, but there were only certain ones that you could go to. There were no black people working in any of the restaurants where you could see them. As I said, there may have been some in the kitchen, working. But I don’t know. When I got the job at Our Lady of Lourdes, as I recall, there were only three people of color working there, including myself. Franklin: And your mother? Moore: And my mother. But there was two—one lady worked in the kitchen at Our Lady of Lourdes, and then there was one that was—I don’t know if she was an aide or not. She worked there for years and years and years. Franklin: How were you treated by your coworkers there? Moore: Very nice. I never had any problem with anyone. And it was a Catholic hospital, and I was Catholic, and the sisters, as I said, I remember sister Anthony Marie. She was just such a lovely, nice person. Because when she hired me, I didn’t know what she was going to hire me for. I said I was ready for any kind of work. When she hired me, I really knew nothing about working in a hospital. So she taught me pretty much everything. I didn’t even know how to read a thermometer. I remember the first week that she gave me a thermometer and she taught me how to read it, and you know, the first few days, I could not even see the line in it. I would turn it and turn it, and I couldn’t see the line. But once you learned how to do it, it’s so easy. The minute you hold it up, you see the line. But she had a lot of patience and she taught me the terminology and everything that we did. I was soon on the floor, following the other aides at first for about a month, and the nurses. And I learned quickly, so within two months, I knew how to do the different things that they needed me to do. Franklin: Oh, wow. Moore: So it was nice. Franklin: Did you finish high school in Louisiana, or did you finish high school here? Moore: I finished in Louisiana. That was the year we moved, that Mother moved. Franklin: Okay. Moore: So when Mother and the other kids moved, then I came. But I had finished high school there. Franklin: What was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to, moving from Louisiana? Moore: [LAUGHTER] As I said, the housing, the places where we had to live when we first came here. Because we had a nice little house in Louisiana, once we had moved to town. Yeah. And so, it was just—and the conditions. It was dirty, the wind blew all the time, sand was everywhere. During those days—and sand would get in; I don’t care how you—everyday, you had to dust, you had to clean in the places where we were living, because sand would get through any little crack. And there were some cracks! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, that’s a common story, all around. Yeah, wow. Moore: Yeah, that was the worst part of it. And when I—after I’d started work, actually, within six—well, within six months, I had bought myself a little car, and I didn’t have to walk in the wind blowing the sand. So that was—I was actually pretty satisfied until—I knew I didn’t want to live here, though, and that’s why I moved to Seattle. Franklin: When did you come back to the area from Seattle? Moore: I came back in ’54—moved back in ’54. Franklin: Oh, okay. Moore: So I worked 15 months here and then I went to Seattle and I worked almost two years. Franklin: What was it that brought you back, was it your husband? Moore: Mm-hm. I got married, and as I said, then I was stuck here, because—you know. He lived—he always wanted to have his own business. So the restaurant business and the other—a pool hall, I think he had, it didn’t work out too well. So actually when we got married, he was a laborer, which he had never really done. And he had joined the labor union. He got a job working on Ice Harbor Dam when they were building it. We had one of the houses over there on California Street, which is facing the park over there, now. That park, they actually—that was all—that park was just all open field when we got married. But there was a row of houses. They dismantled and moved all those houses and then set that up as an industrial area, you know, from the area on over to the railroad tracks, I think, is all industrial. Franklin: That was part of the redevelopment? How did you feel about coming back to Pasco? Were you— Moore: Well, when you’re young and you get married, and you’re in love—it was okay. Because my husband was here and so it was okay. Evidently, it had to be okay because I lived here then thirty-something years, raised my kids here, anyway. But when they had divided that area and was redeveloping that area, see, my husband built a fourplex over there on Douglas and—I don’t know if that’s Wehe; I can’t remember if that’s Wehe or not. I don’t even go over there anymore. I mean, I hated east Pasco so bad. [LAUGHTER] Since I’ve been back here, I’ve only been over that way about three times. Franklin: Oh, wow. Why is that? Just— Moore: it was because it was just such a horrible beginning over there, you know? I just didn’t—I didn’t like it. Now, there’s nothing there, really. Now, my husband, see, he developed a business there. He finally went into build a wrecking yard, which is one of the biggest wrecking yards, I guess—it was at that time—right there on Wehe and A Street, on the other side of the railroad track. So that was the business that stuck with him, and the one that he was able to develop, and made it successful, and that’s what we were able to raise our kids with, with that business. Franklin: How would you describe life in east Pasco and the community and what did you do in your spare time? Moore: I didn’t do anything. There was no social life. As I said, I was lucky enough to get a job pretty soon after—within three months, I had a job. So I worked and I came back home. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Any community events that stick out to you? Moore: There was a church that—I’m Catholic, so I’d come to church, but you know it was over here, Saint Patrick’s. Once in a while, I’d visit some of those other churches over there. There was only a couple at that time. But there was really no social life. Franklin: What kind of role did church play in the community? Moore: Oh, it played a big role. It still plays a pretty big role for the people that belong to those churches. They play a pretty big role. The churches, always in the black community, play a large role. Because the churches were there when there was nothing else. It’s not only for their spiritual satisfaction; it’s the social thing, too. Franklin: Do you recall any family or community activities or traditions or events that people brought with them from the places that they migrated from? Moore: I wasn’t really involved too much—the church, as I say, was the—oh, well, now, you mean back then, or now? Over the years, yes, they brought some things with them. Like they celebrate Juneteenth which came from a Southern celebration. Franklin: Mm-hmm, the end of slavery, right? Moore: Well, when they found out about it was the end. It was June, it took until June, yes. So, yes, that’s one of the celebrations that they have here. Franklin: Because that’s now a pretty big pageant and community event all around the United States. Moore: Right. And it’s because of black people coming from the South and they brought that with them. That would be something, a celebration that they would have every year. And it has caught on. So, yeah, they do have it. And they celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday and stuff like that. And that’s something, of course—it was people from the South really pushed that to happen. In the small communities. Franklin: Right, right. Moore: You see, when I came here, I had—there was nothing for me to do, except work and I would go to mass on Sundays, and then I worked and I’d go home. And I wasn’t here that long, then. When I came back, and once my children got up, I didn’t work until—I didn’t go back to work until my youngest child was old enough to go to school. So, from the time my first child was born until then, I just took care of home and the children. I got a job at Safeway, which was the second black person to ever work at Safeway. They had a little store downtown Pasco on 4th—or was it on 5th? And I worked there—I got that job in 1963, and I worked there—and I worked part-time; I didn’t work full-time because my children were still young and I didn’t want to be away from them that long. So they were very, very accommodating to me— Franklin: Safeway was? Moore: Safeway. Because I made arrangements with them that during the summer, they would hire a student to work in my place so I could stay home with my children. I didn’t want them all summer without having me there. So, Safeway did that, and I worked with Safeway for 12 years. Franklin: Ah. You said you were the second— Moore: I was the second black person to work there. The first black woman, she’s still here, Doris—I can’t remember Doris’ last name now. But they moved her to one of the stores, I think it was either Kennewick or Richland, that she went to work over there and they hired me in Pasco. Franklin: Where was the Safeway located in Pasco, was it in east Pasco, or was it— Moore: It was on 5th—no, it was on 5th and Clark, I think. Yeah. It’s where that—it’s a bank there now, used to be a bank. I haven’t been over there since I’ve been back now. Franklin: Hmm, I don’t know if I’ve been over there either. Moore: Yeah. But it was on 5th and Clark. Franklin: Were you treated fairly by the management and the patrons? Or— Moore: Well, the management was fine. The patrons, when I first, I would say the first week or the first two weeks I was in there, they would line up in the other checkstand. We had three—did we have three checkstands or two? We only had two checkstands, I think. It was a small store. And they would line up in the other stand and I’m just standing there at my checkstand, because—and pretty soon, they realized that, oh, yeah, if I can go through that checkstand, I can check out real quick and I’m gone. [LAUGHTER] So it took people about three weeks or two weeks to realize that, okay, it doesn’t make sense for me to stand over here in this line when I can go on through the checkstand. And they did. And I was a good checker. I learned to be a very good checker. At that time, it wasn’t like scanning now, you scan through; we had to memorize the prices, and you keyed everything in, you subtotaled, you put the tax in and totaled, and you had to count out their change to them, because there was no automatic telling you how much change that was coming back and everything. Well, I’ve always been a real fast learner, so, as I said, within a month, I was a real good checker. I worked twelve years there. A couple times, I went out—they sent me out to Richland, but after that—my kids were teenagers then, and I worked in the Richland store, out there. But I had no problems with people, because I treated everyone the same, I was courteous. At that time, we had to be nice and courteous when you worked in a store or something. Now people will check you out and won’t even speak to you. You know, they scan the groceries across the thing and never even say a word to you sometimes. I was just very nice and courteous to people; I treated everyone the same. So, it worked out fine. I actually enjoyed working at that store. I did, I had no problems. And I never did—at that time, the employment office was next-door to Safeway downtown. There was an employment office down there. That’s when they had really started to hire people of color, minorities and blacks, out at Hanford. I mean, other than just doing the labor work and stuff like that. So I was asked to take a test and go out to Hanford to work, and I refused, because I didn’t want to be away from my children that much. See, that was my thing. I worked. My family was more important to me than my job, really. And so I just—I didn’t want to put in full-time work and having to travel out there and everything to work. So I never—that was one of the reasons I never did go. Several of my friends did, and they were trained to do clerical work and different things like that. So they’d opened up to where they were actually training people to— Franklin: Around what time was that? Moore: That must have been, let me see, I have to think back here. Oh, gosh. That had to be like in the late ‘70s? Franklin: Oh, okay. Moore: I think it was like in the middle to late ‘70s and early ‘80s when quite a few people that I knew went out to work. During the time my kids were growing up, I did volunteer work. My kids all went to St. Patrick’s through to the ninth grade. I did volunteer work there and of course a cub scout leader and PTA and all that stuff. So I was involved in that type thing. Then my children, when they got into high school, I was appointed my Governor Evans to serve on the Washington State Women’s Council. I did that for about almost three years. That was during the time when we worked for the equal rights amendment and different things like that. I had always wanted to go back to school. I went to college, CBC, and at that time, I quit work for two years and I went to CBC. And then I got my two-year degree and I decided I wanted to go ahead and get my bachelor’s. I did that through programs that were brought down from Eastern Washington. And I went back—oh, after that time—I’m trying to keep this in the right way, now. I was still working for—oh, when we had the big problem in the school district where they reassigned the high school principal which had been there for years and years and the town just went crazy and recalled the school board that was the school board at that time. And they recalled the whole school board. Franklin: What was that over? Moore: It was over not treating minority kids right at the high school. And all the schools, really. But the high school is where they had the biggest problem. That was during the time when the civil rights movement was everywhere and going on. So that year, they had recruited a black music teacher that taught at the junior high school, and his wife was appointed—there was an opening on the school board, and she was appointed to serve on the school board. So, she actually saw what was happening, how the black students were treated at the high school, and how if there was a disagreement between a white student and a black student, the black student wound up getting suspended; the white student didn’t. Regardless of who started it and what it was about. And different things like that; it was just stuff going on. She and the other school board members started trying to do something about that, and bring about some equal treatments, wanting— And the community—and so they thought the best thing to do was to reassign the principal that had been there for years and that was his little kingdom and he could do whatever he wanted to do. When they reassigned him to another job, he refused it, and said he was treated unfairly and that type of thing. He had his group of people that sided with him, and then the group of people that wanted to change things in the community. So the school board was recalled. I mean, they just recalled that whole school board. They had also hired—while that school board was in together, and after they had started trying to make some changes—at that time, I really wasn’t following it too much until they appointed—a new superintendent came in, a young man from—I don’t remember where he was from—and he had brought in a group of people that was progressive, that wanted to make changes and stuff like that. So anyway the school board was recalled and the principal decided he wasn’t going to take the job that they had offered him. He thought he could make them change and get his way. I was one of the people that was appointed to be on the temporary—on the school board until—it was three of us, three people appointed to serve on the school board. One was a farmer from out in the blocks, and another one was a guy that worked at Hanford. So the three of us had to come in and serve on the school board and it was a learning experience for all three of us. I mean, we had not had that kind of experience. It was really some trying times going on. They wanted to force us to hire the principal back at high school. And we said, no, we weren’t going to do that. Our job was to appoint two other people; it was a five-member board, and our job was to appoint two other people to make up the board, and we did. We appointed a minister that was a minister in this part of Pasco, and then a businessman, too. So I was the only minority person on the board. I had to really be on my mark. I mean, I had to really learn as fast as I could about what was going—all three of us did—I mean, all of us did, really. To appoint the two other people, we had to be really careful who we appointed, because we had to be people that were open-minded and wanted to carry the school district forward instead of falling back into that same type of mentality that was before. So, it was very, very difficult. We would have—when we’d have the first six months or the first year, the levy failed, because people were all upset and everything. So the levy would fail and they cut out a lot of the good programs, I mean enhancement-type programs, because they levy failed. My son was in high school. At that time, he was in the tenth grade, coming out of St. Pat’s. He was on the debate team. That was canceled. And he was so upset, he lost interest in school. So that was a personal problem for me. [LAUGHTER] Trying to get him, you know, so he wasn’t so upset about something that he really enjoyed doing. He was a very good debater, and that didn’t work. But getting back to the big problem, the school board problem, we had to really make up our mind what way we were really going to go with this. Three of us, we had to appoint two other people, which we did, the people that we picked, we thought they were people that would be open-minded. And at that time, also, they had very few, I think maybe there were three black teachers in the whole district. So it was a real big problem. I remember, our school board meetings would be so full, we had to move them to the auditorium at the grade school, McGee. No, was McGee over there? I think it was. In order to have room for everybody. And they were rowdy, and they brought cameras, and they brought recorders and everything, so they could record every word that we said in the meeting. How long—excuse me, I’m going to ask you a question. How long have you been around? Were you around during that time? You were there, so you know what happened. Tom Hungate: I was over in Kennewick. Moore: You were in Kennewick. I know you were, but I mean, the Tri-City Herald, every day there was a big article in the paper about everything, and people were making threats. I mean, I had phone calls where they’d threaten me that I’d better vote to hire back the principal that had been there, or either—whatever. So we had to make up our mind what we were going to do. I had to really be on top of them when it came to choosing the other two people that was going to be on that board. Because the two guys that were on the board, as I said, they were both very good—they were good people, I liked them. The three of us kind of clicked. But we had to be careful who we appointed. Several times, I had to really just speak up and say, no, that person is not going to work, because of research I had done. I had to do research! The other two guys, they weren’t thinking so—they had never been exposed to segregation or anything. I mean, these are two people who didn’t know where I was coming from. I had to speak up and let them know what was really happening. It worked out, and we had the other two people appointed, and we decided that we would offer this principal that had refused to—he started driving a potato truck to make people feel sorry for him, you know, the ones who were on his side. So they’d march around, we’d have people marching in front of the school district office and everything when we were in there having meetings. That was really something. Franklin: Sounds like a real circus. Moore: But within a year, we also had to hire—we had to hire a new superintendent, because he—that was all going on, so he decided it was best for him to leave and go somewhere else. So that was another big problem of hiring the right person. We had to interview all these people for superintendent, and we had to interview for people to fill in the place as the principal. We went through two people we hired, and one of them stayed for a year, and he was gone. He just couldn’t take it. [LAUGHTER] Because the high school was just—many of the teachers had been there for years, too. And they were used to what had been going on before. So that was difficult. We finally, within a year-and-a-half, the levy—we got the next levy passed. That was the beginning of people trying, really getting together and doing what they needed to do. And it worked out. That was a real learning experience for me. I learned more in—I served on the board for three years. That was worth a college degree. Franklin: The experience? Moore: The experience was, it really was. Franklin: Do you remember the name of the first—the principal that had been reassigned, and what happened to him? Moore: You know, I don’t. Franklin: Okay. Moore: I’m 85, okay? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I understand. Moore: I really don’t remember his name. Franklin: Does the name, last name Ferrari, does that ring a bell? Moore: No, that wasn’t it. Franklin: Okay. Moore: No, it wasn’t. Franklin: In preparation for this project, I went and did some research and looked through some of the records from the Congress of Racial Equality branch that was here in the Tri-Cities, the CORE movement, and they had mentioned this—the records were from the ‘60s to the early ‘70s. They mentioned this—what was going on in Pasco, at Pasco High School, and that there had been issues with the principal, that there had been issues with some students, that there was a fight between some white girls and black girls. Moore: Well, that—yeah, that had started happening quite often, when everyone was all upset and everything like that. You know how teenagers act out? So there was quite a bit of that that would go on. You know, to bring order to all of that, it was really—it was something. Franklin: I bet, I bet. Moore: It really was. Thank goodness we did—we got things in pretty good shape. Franklin: Yeah. Thank you. I had taken a lot of notes about that, but I want to go back through that material when I get back. That should be a—it seems a good part of my research. Moore: Well, I’m going to tell you, I have to say this about the Tri-City Herald. They were really biased in some of the stuff they printed. Franklin: Okay, I’ll look for that. Biased against who, or for who? Moore: They were biased against—well, I felt they like they were biased against the new school board in a sense, for what we were trying to do. Because it was overwhelmingly on that other side for a while. I mean, we had to work really hard to turn things around. We really did. And we had to do it in a way where we were trying to make everyone feel good about what was happening, you know? Franklin: Yeah. Moore: So it was a very difficult job. Franklin: Right, you needed that community buy-in. Moore: Yes, you definitely did. Franklin: And community support. Moore: But it didn’t take—as I said, within two years, we had it so that the community was behind us—the majority of the community. There’s still those holdouts that were there. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right, there will always be a few. How long did you serve on the school board? Moore: I served on it three years. Franklin: Okay, so you passed the reins when things had— Moore: Well, I was appointed, at first, for one year. Because they’re staggered, so when we were appointed, I was appointed for one year. And then I was elected and served the next two years. And I would have gone on, but my husband started complaining I was away from home a lot. He was used to me being at home taking care of things. [LAUGHTER] But my kids were in high school and everything, and they were old enough to where I felt like I could go ahead. And it was such an important thing, I felt so obligated. I had to follow through with it. I had to try to help things to be better than what they were. Franklin: Do you feel like things did end up being better? Do you feel like you made progress there? Moore: I think we made progress, yes. I think we made a lot of progress. We also recruited a lot of black teachers, smart people, some of them wound up being—at least three or four of them wound up being principals of schools here and then went on to other places. Carl Peterson was one that we recruited. He was one of the assistant superintendents that had been here, the group that had resigned and went on at the beginning of—after that first year of going through all that turmoil. He was recruited to the Tacoma area, and he—I mean, he’s retired now, but he went on to build two schools there. So when he was recruited to first go over there, he was principal of the school for one year, and then they assigned him to build a school. And then after he was there two years, they wanted him to build another school, be in charge of building and setting it up. So when we recruited—but that was only because we were on that—I was on that schoolboard. I was on that schoolboard—I was the cause of them celebrating Black History Month. Okay, I have to say this. After I was on the schoolboard, I was also then hired to work in the school district. So I worked as a community liaison person in the school district until I left here and moved to Seattle. But I helped to organize, and all the time trying to recruit very good black people to fill in some of the teaching positions, to have some black aides in the school district, which they didn’t have any before. So I did a lot of that type of thing. Which helped, because then you had people that could come in with some other ideas. Here’s the thing I find about—a lot of people do things out of ignorance, just because they don’t know, and they haven’t been exposed to minorities. And once they’re exposed to minority people that’s educated and interesting, they change their mind about a lot of their feelings. It opens them up. So, anyway, I thought recruiting and having black teachers in the district and stuff like that really helped a lot of people. And it helped to make things different. Franklin: And it helped to reflect the population, too. Moore: Right, yes, it did. Of course the black population anymore is very, very small. Because I think most—many of the people just moved away. Their children did. Their children didn’t stay here. At one time, I think we had about, what, 5% of the population in the school district was black. Now, I think it’s about three. I’m not sure, but I think it’s about three. But at that time, see, when I first came here, there were no minorities hardly at all. Now we have a lot of Mexicans, too, in the school district. At that time, there wasn’t. So all of that has helped to just—helped the area grow and the school districts to change their mind about the way they were doing certain things. So, I think it’s better. I’m not—I’ve been away from here, though, like I said, I moved. So I just came back, and I haven’t been involved. I’m too old now to be involved with stuff. And then, plus, I’m sick. But I think we did a lot of good. And I worked a lot on the different charitable organizations that were here. I served on the boards of probably seven of them and brought in some awareness. That helped, too, because all the charitable—many of the charitable organizations had no minority representation. And so, that was one of the things that I did. I helped them to realize how important it was to have that type of input. When I was gone, they would still have the input. So that was my idea of trying to do that. And I think that helped a lot. I served on the United Way board for years. Anyway, I tried to do my share of working in the community. Franklin: It sounds like you really did. I mean, that’s wonderful. Moore: I actually enjoyed it. You know, I enjoyed meeting people, I enjoyed bringing about some awareness. And you know what I would say is, I can’t speak for everybody. I can’t—well, it finally got so I had to turn down different things that I was asked to do because it was too much. People were acting as if I was a spokesman for the whole black community, and I had to just let that—that couldn’t be. I’m not a spokesman for them. So it was—I enjoyed that part of my life, because I was involved with community, and we got some really good things done. I didn’t have anything to do, much, with employment-type things that happened. I served on the planning board for the skills center that opened in Kennewick. I don’t know what it’s called now. Franklin: Is it Tri-Tech? Moore: Probably that is, the skills center? Franklin: Tri-Tech Skills Center? Moore: Yeah. Franklin: They have like a radio station, and— Moore: Well, they opened up with a lot of different beginning skill things that went on there. Training for carpentry, auto mechanics, what, I think they had a beauty school, radio-type thing, a lot of different things that the high school kids could be exposed to. Franklin: Great. Moore: So, you know, those were things that I thought, I was glad to serve on those commissions and things, to try to help them plan that. Franklin: Great. I wanted to ask you, were there opportunities available here in the Tri-Cities that were not available where you or your parents came from? Moore: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it came to be, as more people came in. I think maybe, back in the late ‘40s and stuff like that, that’s when minorities started coming here to work. But Hanford was the thing that opened it up to get more people in. As that happened, then things grew to where people—there were opportunities. Franklin: In what ways were opportunities limited because of segregation or racism? Moore: Oh, I think so. You said where was it? Here, in this area, yes, they were. Franklin: In what ways were they? Moore: It was just very subtle. I think a lot of it was very subtle. I mean, I went to—oh, I tried out a lot of things. I went to put my application in at a lot of different places. And I knew it was just thrown in the wastebasket when I left. [LAUGHTER] You know, I mean, but that’s the way it was. They didn’t turn you down. Franklin: Yeah, you can laugh at it now, but— Moore: Yeah, they didn’t turn you down and say, we’re not going to take your application. That’s what they would have done where I came from. They’d say, well, you’re not—you can’t be hired here, you’re not going to work, we’re not taking your application. They would take the applications, but nothing ever happened with it. Franklin: Right, they’d smile and take it and then probably— Moore: Yeah, right. I don’t ever remember anyone being rude or anything like that. The only rudeness, and that wasn’t really in this area, that must have been in 19—let me see, what year was that, maybe ’78? We never got a chance to do any vacation or anything, but we did decide that year we were going to go camping, when the kids were big enough to where they could enjoy going camping. My husband and I, we had a trailer that we hooked up onto our car and we were going camping, we were going to go up into Montana. And so the only trouble, the only rudeness we ran into, we stopped in Ritzville. I think it’s Ritzville, between here and—yeah. We stopped there and we went in the restaurant, and we had food, and when we came out, my daughter, which was four, about four years old, she said, Mom, I need to go to the restroom. I said, okay, so there was a service station right there, and I said, we can go here, then. Because my husband and the boys were still in the restaurant. And I went, and it was locked. I asked if I could have the key, and he said, no. It’s broken. It’s out of order. So as we were standing there waiting for my husband to come out, because there was another service one across the street, and I thought, well, we’ll just go across the street over there and go. And we were standing there waiting, and I saw other people come and go in the restroom. So when my husband came out, I said, you know, we asked to use that restroom, and he said it was out of order. But other people are going there. And my husband went over and said to him, oh, I see your restroom, you got it fixed, huh? And the—oh, that man just went all to pieces, started yelling at Tom and stuff like that. And then the ones across the street said, hey, man, are you having any trouble over there, you need help? And I caught my husband’s arm, I said, don’t argue with him, let’s just go. Just go. But, you know, if he had continued, in my mind, I thought, they’d probably beat him up, throw him in jail. And so that was the only thing I’d ever had that kind of trouble with. So when I came back, I just couldn’t let it go. I had to write a letter about it. I wrote a letter to the Tri-City Herald saying how we’d been treated there. I didn’t think any more about it. It was printed. And then in a few weeks—I was working at Safeway then. That’s right, it was in the ‘60s, must have been in the late ‘60s. I had just started working at Safeway, and there was—people contacted me that worked for, what, the civil rights or something. But it was a white woman that came and interviewed me, and she asked me about it, and I told her what happened. She said, well—at that time, we lived over there near the highway on Lewis Street. We had bought a house over there. It was right on Lewis Street. She said to me, be careful. You know, someone may decide that they may do something—hurt you or something about this. I hadn’t really thought of it in that manner. But that was disconcerting, to have someone come and say that to me. But she came to find out, to see what they could do, if they could bring charges or something against them. Then, about a week later, it was—was it Texaco? I think it was a Texaco station, representatives from the Texaco station came to my work at the Safeway to interview me. And I just told them what had happened, and I said they were so rude, and all I wanted to do was take my daughter to the bathroom, and I told them what happened. I did get a letter of apology from the company after that. See, but that’s the kind of things that happened, the kind of things that people go through that went through and may still go through in some places, I don’t know. But I mean, it wasn’t anything that we were doing wrong, it’s just that, I guess Ritzville was one of those places they didn’t see very many black people. And they thought the restroom at the service station, you couldn’t use it. That was the idea. Franklin: Yeah. Moore: So when you ask about that type of thing, it was sometime very real. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Moore: You know? Franklin: That’s an important story to tell, because I think it’s—for folks that don’t experience that, it’s hard to imagine and I think people need to hear about things like that, because it happens. Moore: It happens. And as I said, something bad could have happened back there. And I just knew it, and I just—I just said, come on, let’s go. Let’s just go! Because the man that was talking to him had one of those big wrenches—I don’t know what you call it—in his hand. I imagine, if my husband had kept arguing with him, he may have decided to hit him. Franklin: Right. Moore: You know? And if that had’ve happened, no telling what would have happened. Franklin: Yeah, that would’ve been bad. Moore: That would’ve been bad. Franklin: I wanted to—your father participated in Hanford’s early Cold War history. I wanted to ask, what did you learn or know about the prior history of African Americans at Hanford during the Manhattan Project, and from your perspective, what were their most important contributions in the areas of work, community life, and civil rights? Moore: Well, I think at the beginning, they did most of the dirty work. They were put into areas—and as I said, no one understood; it wasn’t explained to people what they were really getting into. I think the people that were in charge didn’t really understand themselves. They didn’t know the ramifications of what it could turn out to be. So, yeah. But I think most of the black people—it was later on that I think blacks were hired in more—that they recruited people with more education, people that had other skills and stuff. But I think, my feeling is that most of the black people were hired at first, they did the labor work, the cleanups, the things like that. You know, it’s a lot of cancer in this area. I’ve been diagnosed with myeloma since I’ve been back here. I probably had it for—I remember about 30 years ago, actually a doctor when I went in for my regular checkup, and I was a very healthy person; I never was ill—but just doing my annual checkup, and he said to me, your white cells are kind of out of whack. And so, of course, I didn’t know what that meant, and he did several tests. I went to him three times. Right here in Pasco. And I went to him three different times, and he finally told me, well, I’ve done everything. I’ve done run all these tests and I don’t see anything wrong with you. White cells is to help combat any kind of infection or anything, but you don’t have any. He said, you’re healthy. I don’t see anything wrong with you and the test doesn’t prove that there is. So, I don’t know anything to do about it, except just occasionally have a checkup. So it went on for years, and I never had any problems, so when I’d have my annual, no one else ever said anything about it, and it kind of just slipped my mind. Okay, I got sick in California and I was having all this pain, all this pain, and I didn’t know what it was. My primary doctor was a very good doctor. She sent me to all these specialists, and they did tests, and they did all these things, and they kept saying, well, we don’t see anything wrong with you! You’re in good health. I was just, I mean, before then, I was such an active person. I’ve always been active. I was going to exercise classes three times a week, I took up ballroom dancing, I was dancing twice a week. No sickness except the blood pressure. I had high blood pressure and taking medication for that. But I wasn’t having any pain or anything. And I went to all these doctors; they all did every test you could think of, and they would say to me, well, I don’t see anything wrong with you. There’s not anything we can do for you. So, then, when I started to getting so weak—and that’s when I said—my son just kind of insisted that he didn’t like me being there by myself. It took 12 different doctors before I got a diagnosis. I just got a diagnosis last year, here. My primary doctor here really paid attention to when I had my blood work done, paid attention to what was going on with my white cells and sent me to an oncologist. He went through my medical records and everything and there he said, I think I know what’s wrong, but I’m going to have to do two more tests to be able to diagnose it. So, he did a bone marrow exam and did complete skeletal scan. And so it’s multiple myeloma. So, see, it’s something that could be in your body for years and years and years and then finally show up. Franklin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Moore: But then that made me think about my dad coming home saying, well, they had to hose us down today. Yeah. Franklin: Yeah. We talked quite a bit about civil rights activities in Hanford and Tri-Cities and you mentioned your work on the school board. Were there any other major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here? Moore: Well, let’s see. I don’t know about Hanford, because I never worked there, you see. I never did work out there. Franklin: Right. Moore: I just knew it from my friends that worked out there and my dad that worked out there. But— Franklin: What about here in the Tri-Cities? Moore: Oh, in the Tri-Cities, major—well, as I said, it was just kind of subtle. You knew it was there and there were things that happened that you didn’t feel you could get hired by certain things because—Hanford actually opened it up for people to be hired, for minorities to be hired, because otherwise there wasn’t—my stepdaughter was the first person of color to be hired at a bank here. It just hadn’t—it wasn’t happening. They weren’t hiring people there. But she was hired. So I think the work, it just evolved after everything else surrounding we were doing—things had opened up in other places and stuff, and bringing in new people, people from all over the world have come here. I think that has helped a lot. Franklin: What action was being taken to address these issues in unemployment and in living, and African Americans being able to live outside east Pasco? How did that situation— Moore: Well, you know, different laws and stuff were passed, too. I’ve always thought that Washington State was—actually, when you think about it, I think it’s a very good state that tried to be fair. As more and more minorities came in here, I think—there was other people coming, too, so it was people with—more progressive-type people. Franklin: How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights effort here at Hanford and the Tri-Cities? Moore: Well, I don’t know, I’m sure it had a big influence. It had a big influence. It was kind of slow catching on, but it had a big influence. Franklin: From your perspective and experience, what was different about civil rights efforts here? Moore: Well, oh, let’s see. They started hiring more people and recruiting minority people to come in and work— [VIDEO CUTS] Franklin: I think, and then we’ll wrap up, because, yeah, it’s been a long interview. It’s been a great interview. A long interview is always a good interview. Moore: Well, when you edit it and everything, it’ll be okay. Franklin: Yeah. Okay. So, I wanted to ask, and these—Tom gave me a couple great questions here. I wanted to ask, why were you appointed to be on the school board? Who reached out to you and why? Because you would’ve been a stay-at-home mom at the time, right? Moore: Well, no. Well, I think it was because there weren’t very many black people in the community that was—well, I wasn’t—see, even when I was a mom, I still did things with the schools. Franklin: Oh, okay, yeah. Moore: So I was active in that. And I was outspoken. [LAUGHTER] That’s kind of one of the things. I was always—I wasn’t afraid to give my opinion about anything, so I think that’s probably what happened. But I’m trying to think of who—it was this other black lady that had—oh, it was Virgie Robinson, that’s who it was. She worked for the school district-- Franklin: Yes. Moore: --at that time. She said to me, they’re looking for someone to have minority representation on the Washington State Women’s Council, from this area. And she said, I was telling them about you. So she told somebody that was connected; I don’t know. They called me and asked me if I would be interested in serving on it, and I said, yes, I would. So that was a good experience. That was for the—you know. That was before we had equal rights here in Washington State. So I served on that for, what, two years, I believe it was. Governor Evans was the one that appointed me, and then after then, I guess I might have served on it more than two years, yeah. Franklin: That’s great. Moore: You know, I was being—I’d have to go to like Seattle and Olympia sometimes when they’d have meetings over there and that type of thing. Franklin: Another question, earlier on you mentioned that your grandma, who had come out here, went back to Louisiana. And why? Why’d she do that? Moore: Well—oh. Oh, I told you about—I think I said that she had met this man, Mr. Jones, she married him. And they split up. And she just decided she didn’t want to be here, out here. So she moved back to Louisiana. Now, that was before my father moved out here. See, that was a couple years before he moved out here. Franklin: Gotcha, okay. Moore: Then after I was here, and married and everything, I sent for her. So I had her here with me. Franklin: Oh, so she came back out. Moore: She came back with me for—and she stayed with me for—I fixed her a little place, and she stayed with us for about three years. And then her daughter, my aunt, in Tacoma, she went over to live with them, and she passed over there. Franklin: Gotcha, okay. That makes sense. Moore: My grandmother was a very—I think she was kind of my hero. Because she was not afraid to just get out and do new things. She’s a very independent woman. Yeah. I learned a lot from her. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That’s really wonderful. How were opportunities different for your children here in Tri-Cities than had been for you in Louisiana? Moore: Oh, my goodness. It was a lot of difference. Oh, yes. I mean, it’s so different. By the time my children graduated, things had changed a lot. They had the opportunities were there. You just had to take advantage of it. Yeah, oh, yes. Just like daylight and dark. When I went—when I graduated from high school in Louisiana, I wanted to go to college, but of course we had no money to go to college. The only way I could’ve gone, I would’ve had to—they had 4-H. I belonged to the 4-H club. I don’t know if you know what that is. Franklin: I was also in 4-H. Moore: Oh, you were in 4-H? Franklin: I grew up in a farm, yeah. Moore: Oh, okay, 4-H Club. So, they had those clubs and they had scholarships. You could get a scholarship, but you had to go into farming stuff. Agricultural-type thing. And that was not for me. I had no—I was in the club in high school, but it was just a social for me. I just wanted to be with the other kids. I had no idea about staying on a farm and doing—so I passed that up. I didn’t want to do it. The only other opportunity was to go into the service, which some kids did. I just thought, no, that’s not for me, either. You know, they’d go into service and then you’d have to go off to college. Most of the only opportunities was what they trained for. I know a lot of the boys, they actually went and they took agricultural as their—that was their major, that’s what they majored in. And then there was teaching, you could either get to be a teacher, you know, and I didn’t really want to be a teacher. So, I actually had no opportunity—I was so glad when my dad left and came and I had a chance to leave there. What I wanted to do was go into business. I did actually start business school here, but I had to work, so that kind of went out the window. But I always wanted to go to college. And I did it. My kids, my youngest child was a senior the year I went back to school. Franklin: Oh, wow. And did all your kids go to college as well? Moore: No, they didn’t. My son that lives here, he worked with his dad and he still runs the business, Tommy’s Steel and Salvage in east Pasco. He started working with his dad when he was like 12 years old down there. So he went to CBC for one year, and then he was still—he worked with his dad everyday. Franklin: That’s Leonard, right? Moore: Leonard, yeah! Franklin: You’re talking about Leonard? Moore: Yeah, Leonard. So that’s what he went into. My other son went to Western for one year, and it was just—he couldn’t get a job, and we just didn’t have—it hadn’t been long—my husband had just started the business; we just didn’t have the money, and he didn’t. So then he came back home and he got into the Electricians’ apprentice program. So he went through that. He worked out at Hanford for a little bit, but he said, Mom, I don’t like it out there. I just don’t want to work out at Hanford. Because he realized the dangers of them crawling around in these places. So he went to—where did he go next? He went to Colorado and he worked there for a while, and then he wound up in California. He got a job at the University of California there, as an electrician. He worked his way up to management and he took classes the whole time he was there so he could get his certificates and everything for management. So that’s what he does now, and he does, as I said, now he’s working at San Jose State, and he’s the building—I can’t remember exactly what it’s called, but what he does is he’s in charge of the building and remodeling at the school, whatever they do there. So that’s what he went into. And my daughter was a model and she actually was the first black Miss Tri-Cities. Franklin: Oh, wow. Moore: She wound up in Chicago and she married an attorney and she had modeled for several years, she traveled to Europe and places like that. And then she came back, as I said, and she lived in Chicago. And she got married and they have twin boys that will be 16 years old this year. And she’s been a stay-at-home mom. [LAUGHTER] She decided she didn’t want to—she stayed at home and raised her kids. Franklin: Yeah. So my last question is, is there anything else you’d like to mention related to migration, work experiences, segregation and civil rights, and how they impacted your life in the Tri-Cities? Moore: No. Well, I’ve always wanted to take advantage of opportunities, and I tried to get my kids to do that, too, look for opportunities that’s out there. After they opened up, well, you had some opportunities. We didn’t have that much at first. But I felt like my kids had opportunities, and they didn’t always take advantage of what I wanted them to do, but they did okay. They all doing fine. I actually enjoyed working with the school district, because I was able to be in contact with young people, to try to encourage them, and that’s not an easy job sometimes. Franklin: No, it’s not. Moore: I mean, they’ll look at you, and it just goes in one ear and out the other. But that always has been my goal, to try to encourage people of color that I was around—or anybody, actually—because I’ve worked where there are no minorities at all. Many of my jobs have been that way. It doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter to me about that, because I just love to see young people try to do the best they can do, and take advantage of the things that are there for them. It really hurts when you see many of them don’t do that, or don’t even try. I just—it’s upsetting. Franklin: Well, great, Ellenor, thank you so much for taking the time to interview with us today. It was a wonderful interview. Moore: Well, I thank you for coming. Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1950- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ellenor Moore Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation Migration Civil rights Civil rights movements Discrimination Racism Description An account of the resource Ellenor Moore moved to Pasco, Washington in 1950 as a teenager. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 03/21/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff96e4ac54ca8209081ef823bf78f766e.JPG 8d5dfc28e03857a588f64655c85def6c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F352c93051f62d9c5ef4ce99e165b9188.mp4 484166c12110093d691c25964d5b012c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Greg Mitchell Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin and I am conducting an oral history interview with Greg Mitchell on April 23rd, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Greg about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Greg Mitchell: My full name is Gregory, G-R-E-G-O-R-Y, last name Mitchell, M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L. No middle name. Franklin: No middle name. Mitchell: Or initial. Franklin: Wow, okay. Where did your parents move here from? Mitchell: Well, if we go way back, my parents started in a little town called Kildare, Texas, which is in the northeastern corner of Texas. Some people will know the town of Texarkana. The closest airport there is Shreveport, Louisiana. And then they moved to Chicago, where my older brother was born. And then from Chicago they moved out to Washington State. There’s some history prior to that with my dad and mom and going back and forth. But as far as I remember, my folks were living in Hermiston, my brother was—he’s two years older than me, so he was probably a year or maybe a little bit, not quite two years old. Dad was here working on McNary Dam, so they were residing in Hermiston. Shortly after that, when that project was completed, they moved to Pasco. We had relatives here—he did, on his mother’s side, two uncles. He moved here to work construction on the Blue Bridge. From there, he migrated work-wise out to the Hanford Site. As a youngster, I remember, my best recollection is remembering my dad coming home, getting off the Hanford buses when we lived in the south end of Richland down in the Craighill area there. Our address was 100 Craighill, I’ll never forget it. Never forget my phone number and the experience of growing up in the south end with lots of friends and going to Lewis and Clark Elementary School in Richland. Franklin: Great. What year did they come to the Tri-Cities? Mitchell: Well, like I say, I was born in Pasco, so I assumed that they arrived shortly before that, and I was born July 31st, 1953. So I would assume that they had to move prior to that. Franklin: What do you know about their lives before they came to work out here? Mitchell: What I know is just been in conversation with my mom and my dad and then the visits that I made to the Kildare, Texas area as a youngster, and then later on as an adult, that they were—they brother grew up in a rural area, very small community—very, very small. And they were neighbors, field-to-field neighbors, approximately probably quarter-mile apart, up the road and around the corner from each other. So my dad married the girl next-door. Yeah, and they ended up out here, and rest is history. Franklin: Heh heh. What do you know about their initial experience of coming to work here and finding a place to live? Mitchell: Their initial experiences is just related to being black in a predominantly white community. What I know about it—I don’t know a lot about it, what I’ve heard about it after the fact, was strictly conversational. As you may have gathered in your interviews with my father and maybe interviews with my brother, that the Hanford—the Manhattan Project, Colonel Leslie Groves, when they embarked on this whole project, it was made known to the point of being put in writing that blacks were going to be used for construction. They were not going to be used for operation, maintenance and follow-on. And then addition to that, that blacks were being steered to the east side of Pasco. With that type of environment and atmosphere, again, being a youngster, I didn’t experience it, but I did hear stories about it. From my parents, from folks that—relatives that were here, locally, friends of my parents, older folks that had been around that had migrated up here when all the livable wage jobs became known and people tended to come this way from the South and other parts of the United States. My personal experiences came a little bit later. But I did hear about it. We didn’t question it too much. It wasn’t real overt. But when the topic came up, they were pretty open about the fact that there were some restrictions driven by the times and the thought processes of the times. They were centered on the color of your skin. Franklin: Your family wasn’t steered towards east Pasco. Mitchell: My family originally was. Franklin: Originally was? Mitchell: I was born in east Pasco. Franklin: Okay. Mitchell: I remember as a youngster going over to visit relatives. Shortly after I was born, my parents chose to move to Richland. I remember asking Dad about it. He said that he felt he was closer to work; it just made more sense, very practical, and that he was very excited about the school systems. Being so close to the Hanford Site, Richland had a tendency, at least in the minds of lots of folks, to be pretty heavy math-science-oriented. And Dad was very interested in getting us the best education that we could get. So those were the two factors that kind of drove the move: work and education. Franklin: What do you know about your parents’ education, educational experiences when they were children, and how was that different from yours? Mitchell: Well, the one thing that I remember—I remember as a young man seeing an old photograph of my father’s graduating class, and he would chuckle. There were five people total in their graduating class, all black, and he said, yeah, of the five people you see in here, if you take me out of it, three of the four are my cousins. So they grew up in a segregated area in eastern Texas, small school, it was all—they had black educators, black administrators. That was under the guise, I guess, of separate-but-equal. We know that that’s not necessarily true, but that was the selling point of segregation at that point, as explained to me by my parents and other people that I’ve talked to and me doing my studies on history, and then actually visiting and seeing some of these situations. But, yeah, they grew up in a small school, segregated school. I remember one of the things that really caught my attention was the fact that my mother was playing sports. I thought that was so ironic, because my sister—I have four brothers and a sister; there’s six of us altogether. And as we went through the Richland School District at the time that we went through, there were no sports for my sister. So with six of us, my sister kind of had to make it three-on-three and she was, I thought, very gifted, as a youngster. But she had no opportunity to do it. I thought it was so ironic, because we grew up watching my mom play basketball here in Richland, listening to her stories about being involved in athletics and being able to play athletics as a youngster. But then we moved here, it wasn’t color-driven, it was just the date and times that were going on that girls did not have the opportunity to participate in athletics as I went through high school and down through probably, I think, almost everybody in our family, there was no girls’ athletics. So to me, that caught my attention. You know, Mom, you played sports? Well, Vanessa doesn’t get to play. That always has been a little bone of contention for me, particularly now that I have granddaughters. I like the fact that they have the opportunities, not only educationally but athletically. Franklin: Yeah. How would you describe life in the community? In Richland. Mitchell: Well, I guess that for me, personally, I felt that I grew up like Huckleberry Finn. We had lots of warm weather, good summers, playing baseball, going down to the river, being adventuresome out on Columbia Point, which is now pretty well built-up, but at the time that we grew up on that end of time, it was a pretty rural area. There were people that had pastures down there and horses, one of our neighbors had horses down there and my mom would give us permission occasionally to go down. Sometimes we would sneak down, and go down and do our thing along the riverbank. In those days, the wild horses would actually come into town, into the shelterbelt area down in the south end. So for us, as young kids, you know, we thought this was great. It was outstanding. As we went to school, we did notice that there weren’t many people that looked like us in the school district. We had a couple of neighbors, and we had one cousin, female cousin, that was a year older than me, and then their families that had gone through. But we didn’t see a lot of other blacks in the school districts. But initially, it didn’t seem to be a problem. We interacted with the people that we were around, we seemed to enjoy it, they seemed to enjoy our company. I think we kind of naturally fell into positions of leadership, some of it driven by athletic prowess, some of it driven by just, I think, our personalities to extend towards others and they would react. There were times that you would be taken back by an instance that would be racially motivated, or have racial overtones or undertones associated with it. But overall, great place to grow up. Franklin: What did you—hold on a second, you already answered that. Do you remember any particular community events? Mitchell: Community events? Franklin: Could be here or in Pasco. Mitchell: Well, community events, I remember not so much if they were necessarily community—well, I think we used to have what was called Pioneer Days. I don’t know if it was associated with our elementary school or just the community in general. I think that I hang on to the elementary piece of it because I went to Lewis and Clark Elementary, so when you talk about pioneers, that’s about as pioneering as it gets. And there were pretty fun events around the community. I noticed that one of our neighbors, his father was—if he wasn’t the fire chief, he was pretty high up in the fire department in Richland. They would have the Fire Prevention Days and the parade and setting up your bikes and doing your thing. All that kind of stuff, that was fun. But as far as major events? City-wide, no, this was pre-Water Follies and Boat Race Weekend days. Franklin: What was housing like where you lived? Mitchell: Well, where I lived, we lived in prefabricated housing. As some people may or may not know, Richland was, because of the Manhattan Project influence and being driven by the Corps of Engineers, it had a lot of army flavor to it. Armies would set up their living quarters as it was associated with rank. We have what’s now called the Alphabet Houses. The size of your home and the amenities associated with it were driven by your rank, and that carried over in the Manhattan Project. So if you were a laborer, you would usually be directed or offered smaller overall footage housing than somebody that might happen to be a manager, than somebody who might happen to be an upper-level manager. So for us, with my father being a laborer, we were in some of the smallest housing there was. There was eight of us, at one point, in a two-bedroom house with one bathroom. But for us, again, we were happy. Franklin: Did you attend church? Mitchell: Yes. Franklin: What church did you attend? Mitchell: We went to Richland Baptist Church on George Washington Way. My parents, I think, believed it was very important that if we were going to live in the community that we immerse ourselves in the community in all aspects, whether it be social, whether it be in giving back to that community, whether it be in leadership positions in the school district, as a student, them in PTA or whatever it was. And part of that was going to a church that was all-white. We did go back and forth to Pasco, and we got exposed to black churches in Pasco. But our church was Richland Baptist Church, and we were the only black family in that church that I recall for a long, long time. Franklin: Was there—what was different about the white churches in Richland and then the black churches in Pasco? Mitchell: Well, I think the difference had to do with the fact that—one of the things that a black church, even to do this day, has, and it has a legacy of, being a sanctuary for slaves. People that work six days a week in the field, that were owned by other people, one of the few places that they were able to express themselves was at the church without some type of restitution being paid. So that became a location of celebration, outward celebration. Dancing, music. Whereas, I think, when you look at church elsewhere, in this case, a white church, you tend to have a reverent overtone that is quiet, respectful, et cetera. Those differences were very, very obvious. But no less respectful or religious. Franklin: What—oh, sorry, you already answered that, too. Do you recall any family or community events or traditions that people brought from the places they came from? Mitchell: Well, family traditions, let me just think a little bit. I think one of the things—I don’t know if we participated in it so much, but we heard about it. One of the things that people from the South, regardless of color, would do, on New Year’s, the New Year’s Day dinner would always involve black-eyed peas. The idea of eating black-eyed peas—and again, this wasn’t a racial thing; if you go to the South now, they will do this on New Year’s Day, white or black—that is, that it’s supposed to set up good luck for the remainder of the year. So that tradition came with people from the South, again, black and white, that had migrated up to this area for work. But in our house, we would talk about a little bit, my mom would share some of those stories and talk about that being a tradition. It wasn’t so much that we did it all the time. Black-eyed peas were a pretty standard food source. But I don’t recall that we did it specifically for New Year’s, but I remember her telling us about the story and the tradition that that was one of the things that came up with all people from the South. So I thought that was kind of unique and interesting and fun. Franklin: What about Juneteenth? Mitchell: Juneteenth, for me, I wasn’t aware of Juneteenth early as a youngster. I didn’t become aware of Juneteenth until post-adulthood. It started being celebrated with parades and food and different things. But once I was introduced to it and asked about what was it, I was informed that during the Civil War—a lot of these folks are from Texas, and Texas was slow to get the information that the Civil War was over. I believe that Juneteenth is associated with—I don’t know if it was the 16th or the 19th of June—in 1865, was when Texas finally found out that the war was over. In this particular case, war being over, the North winning, slaves had been emancipated, but not necessarily considered free in their own mind and the mind of others. So, this tends to be the celebration date and series of days that commemorates Texas being informed the war is over, slavery is officially ended, et cetera, et cetera, and thus the celebration and follow-on that is done annually to include not just Texas, but is done here because of so many people, particularly blacks, that migrated here from Texas. Franklin: Were there opportunities available here that were not available where your parents came from? Mitchell: Well, I would have to say yes, simply because my parents went to segregated school. So that, the first thing that pops into my mind was, we did not. So that’s a very glaring difference. Opportunities to do other things? I don’t know; I didn’t share any conversations with my parents as to what types of things they may have felt they were limited in being able to do down there that we were not limited to do as their children up here. I can make some assumptions. I don’t think that my parents were able to avail themselves of the opportunities because the information wasn’t there. For example, my brother and myself gaining appointments to military academies with the assistance of congress people and senators. I don’t believe they were able to do that. One thing that I know they weren’t able to do in Texas, which my grandfather on my mother’s side did, and that was black people weren’t allowed to own property unless they were ministers. So my grandfather on my mother’s side and my great-grandfather, his father, and I believe his brother all became ordained ministers for the purpose, not only for religious purposes, but also for the purpose of gaining the right within the State of Texas to own land. So my parents weren’t forbidden from owning land here. So to me, that’s another difference. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. What about work or housing? Mitchell: Worker housing? In what respect, how that differs from what my parents were able to do? Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Mitchell: I don’t know what kind of worker housing my parents were restricted in down there. [COUGH] Excuse me. But I do know that worker housing here was segregated, in the form of domicile, food, and that type of thing. You may recall in the interview with my father talking about the Hanford facilities and the shower facilities and how they were segregated and how he and some of the people that came up here with him that were black were given tents initially to live in. That is not something that me or my siblings had to experience in our working at the Hanford Site, or working anywhere else in this area or in the United States, as we grew and moved about. Franklin: In what ways were opportunities limited because segregation or racism? Mitchell: What ways here? Franklin: Yeah. Mitchell: I don’t really feel that they were totally limited. I think that they were probably a little bit scrutinized. And by scrutinized, I think that there were people that were either taken aback or would complain. But in the long run, I would be remiss if I didn’t credit lots of non-black people that assisted in me and my siblings’ development, encouragement, support, whether it be in the school district, whether it be in the neighborhood, whether it be in the church, just as friends, whatever. There were a lot of people that weren’t black that assisted us. For example, my brother getting his appointment to the Air Force Academy, me getting my appointment to the Naval Academy Prep School. I think all the way through my brother, Cameron, and some of the things and accolades that he’s achieved, my sister being involved in some of her work opportunities, working in a bank, my brother, Rob, doing different things, my brother, Nestor, being involved in certain things, were because there were a lot of people that either looked past, felt it was ridiculous, or simply just said, hey, the right thing to do is to judge somebody on character and merit. So in that regard, I don’t believe that we were ultimately limited. I think there were hiccups along the way. There were a couple of things that occurred that were surprising and/or hurtful. I remember one time, I was playing basketball at Richland, I was on the junior varsity team, we had gone to Pasco. I'm the only black player in the program at any level. The game is over, JV team, we had played earlier; the varsity team played later. The varsity game had gotten over. Richland had won the game; Pasco was very upset--obviously, at that time a very predominantly black-populated high school. There were some hard feelings because the rivalry is very intense. And I remember that there were some folks banging on the door accusing one of the Richland players of using a racial slur towards one of the Pasco players. There were folks—black individuals of Pasco, parents, other students or whatever—that wanted at this young Richland player. Well, the coach’s reaction to the banging on the door was to call my name, open the door, push me out the door, close the door and yell, talk to them! Assuming that, because I’m black and they’re black, I could quell the situation. Nothing ever really came of it. In other words, there was no fighting that resulted or anything like that. But it caught my attention that for whatever reason, folks were—and I didn’t feel it was so racial as it was an uneducated fear of black people on the uprise. Please, you’re black, go talk to them. And I thought that that was interesting. But as I got older, I kind of chuckled about the fact that, you know, it was just simple ignorance. Lack of understanding, knowledge, sitting down with someone and finding out about those people to the point of understanding that, if you have 100 black people in the room, you have 100 different personalities. But we had lumped together. I was part of that lump, so, Greg, please go talk to them. I thought that was interesting. Franklin: Could you describe any interactions that you or your parents had with people from other parts of the Tri-Cities area? Mitchell: When you say other parts of the Tri-Cities area, you mean like, outside of Richland? Franklin: Yeah. Mitchell: Well, one thing that, along that line, it was common knowledge that in addition to signage—and I’m not sure, but the last time we looked, in the “blue laws” on the books in Kennewick, that blacks were not allowed in Kennewick after dark or after 6:00, sundown, or whatever came first. That was pretty common knowledge growing up, not only for me, but for my white counterparts and colleagues and friends, people pretty much knew that Kennewick, blacks didn’t reside in Kennewick. And to the point where—I didn’t realize until I got older and looked it up, and at that time it was still on the books, not enforced, but it was still on the books. And then I realized that that wasn’t untypical of other places around the Northwest, as we moved around and got a little bit more exposure outside the Tri-Cities. But that was an interesting situation. I didn’t feel that when we would leave for school purposes, whether it be athletically or academically to go and visit in Kennewick school district, I never saw anything that made me fearful, apprehensive or scared. But we would—we being me and my teammates, white and/or black—would laugh about Kennewick. Blacks not living in Kennewick. And then that barrier was broken by a good friend and their family of ours, that when they moved to Kennewick, and they weren’t prohibited from moving— Franklin: Who was that? Mitchell: That was a family, their last name was Slaughters. Greg Slaughter and my brother, Nestor, became very close friends. And then we met the rest of the Slaughter family. Quality people. They seemed to be well-accepted. He attended Kamiakin. So there was—I won’t say that it went away, but I think that they were warmly accepted in their community. I don’t know if it took a little while. I know for us, it took a little while, as we moved within Richland. I remember in my—the summer between my sixth grade and seventh grade year, we moved from the south end of Richland up to the north end of Richland in what was called the Richland Village. The first part of the summer, we lived in a house on Cove Street, and then we moved to the house that I pretty much grew up in on Newcomer Street. At that time, we got there, my mom always encouraged us to get out and do things. As kids, we would cut lawns to earn money and do different things. There was a young man down the street from us, his father was one of the local Merrill-Lynch investment executives. This young man had a paper route, Tri-City Herald paper route and he wanted to give it up. I told my mom about it, she said, oh, get that. We can pass that paper route down through the family so we got a little opportunity to generate money. So I ended up accepting this paper route. At that time, the Tri-City Herald did not have a Saturday paper. Sunday paper was the only morning paper, and Monday through Friday was delivered in the evening. So after school, go and deliver papers, et cetera. I remember when we moved to the Newcomer Street address that my dad had mentioned to me and the three of the oldest of us, of the six, that the day after we moved, that a lot of the houses on either side of us up and down the street and across the street from us, the very next day had for sale signs on them. We just kind of looked at that. Oh, okay. And then it came time for me to collect for the newspaper for that first month that I had been delivering. Across the street and one house over, there was an older couple, and I went to collect for the newspaper. At that time--to set the scene for this--at that time, Little League baseball was put in the sports section just like the Mariners, the by-lines, per inning, and who got hits and who did different things, and it was done regularly. Small paper looking for news. Well, the Little League games were publicized and people could read about it. I go over to collect, and I knock on the door, and this gentleman opens the door. And I said, hi, my name’s Greg. I’m your paperboy. I am collecting for the Tri-City Herald. And he says, just a minute. And I said, okay, fine. So I stood on the porch behind the screen door. He came out to pay me for the paper. And he said, what’s your name again? And I said, my name’s Greg Mitchell. He says, are you one of those Mitchell boys we read about in the paper? Hitting all those home runs and doing all that stuff? And I said, you’re probably talking about my older brother, Duke. He says, yeah, that Duke guy! He says, yeah. I said, yeah. Yeah, we live right over here. He goes, oh, really? He goes, you guys are those Mitchell boys? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, well, come on in. Well, I’m not going to enter anybody’s house, regardless of their color or my color, you know? I said, no, I’ll stay right here. And so he leaves and he walks down the hallway and he yells for his wife. I can’t remember if her name was Elaine or Ethel or Irma or whatever. And he yells for her, Irma/Ethel, come up here! And she’s going, what do you need? And he says, we got a future Bomber standing on our porch! He goes, you got to come out and meet this young man. And it hit me right then, even as a eighth grader. It hit me right then that I guess it’s okay if I can run fast and jump high. You’re going to accept me because there’s something in it for you. But if I wasn’t that Mitchell boy that could run fast and jump high and I just was good at playing clarinet, or if I was really good at doing math equations, or if I was really good at chemistry, would you show me this same respect? I don’t think so. So, at that point, I realized that people may look at you differently for your physical abilities versus your mental abilities. Even to the point where they might overlook the color of your skin. So that stuck with me. I didn’t feel so insulted or hurt, but it was a good lesson. I would experience that a little bit later on as I got older and continued on to high school and became one of those Bomber players and then went on to college to play collegiate football and watched people and fans react. Because of your ability to jump and run and do different things. I always remember my father telling us that, these big sports guys—well, you know, you interviewed him. I’m still involved in sports quite a bit, whole family has been. My kids and grandkids are. And I think it’s great. But my dad would always say, sports is something you do; it’s not who you are. And he always drove that home with us. As much as we were immersed in athletics, education was always first, your character. And that it’s something you do; it’s not how you define yourself. And that was a moment that drove that home. Franklin: Interesting. Do you think--for you and your brothers, sports was a clear path, and as you mentioned, and as I’ve heard in other interviews, sports was a path for acceptance, but it wasn’t so for black women in Richland of your generation. Mitchell: Well, I think that most of our acceptance wasn’t necessarily driven by sports. I think our acceptance was driven by the fact that—as I look back on it, I think our parents instilled in us—either developed and/or instilled in us leadership qualities. Whether it be communication skills, the ability to stand up for what we know is right and different things. I think it was enhanced by athletics, but for us to be able to—like I say, again, I reach back to Duke going to the Air Force Academy, me getting an appointment to Naval Academy Prep School—it’s not because of athletics. I don’t care how good an athlete you are, you don’t get in the Academy because you can run fast and jump high. If you don’t have the academics and the character, you don’t go. But for women, I think they were definitely suppressed. And I don’t think only by white people. I think that there was a general belief at that time—we’re talking ‘50s, ‘60s, early ‘70s—where you were still back into grow up, get married, raise a family type of a thought process. We were fortunate that we got to see my mom initially start that way and then move into a working mom. But when I look at it, I think you’re correct in the fact that black women and/or other minority women were looked at as, outside the homeworkers, only in the service industry: housekeepers, cooks, maids, et cetera. So, yeah, I’d have to agree that there was limitations there. Franklin: So you mentioned your elementary school. Where did you go for middle and high school? Mitchell: Well, at the time, we had junior highs, which were seventh, eighth and ninth. We only had three-year high schools here in Richland. They have since moved to the middle school, four-year high school program. Franklin: Sorry, I went through middle school. Mitchell: Yeah, yeah, and I understand. As have my kids and now my grandchildren. But I went to Chief Jo. And at that time, it was really interesting, because, as I mentioned, as I was getting ready to leave elementary school at Lewis and Clark and go into junior high, my brother, my older brother, David, was already at Carmichael. So, my friends were all headed to Carmichael. Lewis and Clark is the geographic feeder to Carmichael, just because of proximity to the school. Logistics. Well, we moved up to this end of town, which put me into the Chief Jo Junior High district. My brother was allowed to continue at Carmichael because, as a ninth grader, which—that’s when your high school grades start counting. And they said if you can find a way to get there, he can stay there. So my parents said, yeah, we’re not going to change schools; this is his last year there. But for me entering, they said, ah, start fresh, et cetera. So I was a little bit disappointed; I was excited about wanting to go to the next level of education with my classmates. So we moved up here, and I ended up getting introduced to new friends. Some of which I had known from summer athletic endeavors and different things or just social interactions at the community pool or whatever. You get to meet other people. So I knew a few names here and there. But overall, I didn’t have this network of friends going to the same school. So that was a little bit interesting. When I got there, I was able to build new friendships, meet new people, and one of the things that was very distinct in Richland is that, because of the housing, the south end is where the laborers tended to be; whereas the farther you got—the closer you got to the Hanford Site, which means moving north, the more you would run into kids of managers, administrators, and decision-makers. So at Chief Jo, we had quite a few kids of folks that kind of made—the decision-makers of the Hanford Site. So I was exposed, now, to the people that were laborers, artisans, good folks with their hands, craftsmen—and very good craftsmen—to folks that were more in administration, science, decision-making, management, et cetera, and their children. So I got exposed to a little bit more of that type of an environment. As I look back on it now, it was very helpful. It gave me a broader picture, and expanded my knowledge and exposure to what goes on in a whole corporate business, et cetera. And then it also started to expose me to more opportunities and avenues and options as you get older and what you want might want to do and what you might want to become. Not that I felt limited when I was living in the other end; it’s just that this was so professionally expansive. I enjoyed it. So I felt that I kind of got lucky. I had a whole new group of friends. Franklin: Yeah. Did racism or segregation affect your education? Mitchell: My education? I don’t think so. I think that—my classroom education, I don’t think so. My social education, I think so, sometimes. Franklin: How so? Mitchell: Well, I just remember—and I remember being a senior at Richland High School, playing football, and I was playing both offense and defense. And in the first two weeks, I was performing very well. After the fact, I found out—the coach came to me and said, well, we’re just going to use you on defense. I said, oh, okay, all right. And it was right after an article had come out in the paper that says to stop Richland, all you gotta do is stop Mitchell. He’s the one that’s scoring all the points. So, anyway. The very next week, the coach says, we’re just going to use you on defense, and I said, okay. And the season went on, and we got through it, and at the end of the year, the person that they had started to highlight when I was moved just to defense ended up becoming an all-conference player. That leads to scholarship opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought it was very interesting that this player received all-conference honors and had twelve catches—pass/catches in the season, and I had 14 in the first three games. It was interesting as we got older, that young man, a good friend of mine, came up to me and said that it was his mother who had gone to the school and complained that, you’re throwing all the passes to that black kid. You’re not throwing any to my son. He came up to me and apologized. We were friends at the time, and we’ve been friends since. But he came to me after the fact as we were adults and said, do you remember that? I said, yeah. He said, well that was my mom. And he says, I have to apologize for that. And then I remember my younger brother, Nestor, playing baseball at Richland. He had the highest batting average in the entire conference. So summer baseball came around. He didn’t make the summer team after being the batting champion and being the trophy as being the batting champion for the entire conference. But he couldn’t make the summer team in the city. And then years later, one of the dads that was making the decision on who would be on the summer team, his son, he said, his dad came home that evening, and he was very upset. There were three coaches, and he was very upset, and his wife asked him, she said, why? What’s going on? He goes, all I can tell you is we made a horrible decision today. And I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of myself. We made a horrible decision today. And come to find out later on, that their son came to me and said that when Dad came home and said that, it was about the fact that the other two coaches didn’t want your brother, Nestor, on the team. He said, he’s the best player in the conference! How—you know. He’s been evaluating these guys out of town, and he can’t make the team in town? And he said, they—two-to-one, he didn’t make the team. And this young man came up to me and said, Dad was just almost in tears about the injustice of that decision. And then that young man came up and said that my dad just felt horrible, felt absolutely horrible. And then the one that really—I don’t know—that really got me was, my mom occasionally, when we lived on the south end as youngsters, my mom occasionally—we would sometimes go up and meet my dad get off the Hanford buses and then walk with him home. Well, one day, my mom went to meet him. I don’t know if this is while we were too small to go, or whatever. But anyway, my mom was standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus to come and for Dad to get off the bus so they could walk home. There was this youngster that was probably nine or ten. Came running up to her and started screaming at her, “nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger!” And then took off. And my mom said, come here. And he came back, you know, he’s ten. And my mom looked at him, she said, young man, I’m not a nigger, and you go home and tell your mom and dad that. Because she knew that’s where it was coming from, and sent him home. Well, years later, I’m done, I’m working here locally, and I’m on the board of Columbia Industries and we’re doing some things, and we’re getting ready to dole some money out. There’s this one young man, a couple of years older than me that we were considering as a board to be the director of this one particular non-profit entity. It’s time to vote. And so they ask him to step out of the room and do whatever. Are we going to put him in charge of this particular non-profit? And we installed him and we funded him and the board, we approved it. As a board, we approved it. We were done with the meeting, we walked outside, and he comes running over to me. And he recounted that story. And he said, I was that young man. Come to find out, he and his family went to our church. I didn’t know him; he was three years ahead of me. I didn’t know him. But that was interesting, to see, not only hear about and experience the episodes, but to see the full-circle transition. Where people come in and recognize—and I don’t know if that’s something we did, to help educate, my parents did, or we did as a group or a family. Or if people did a little bit on their own, if the community was responsible for some of that. Whatever, but I thought that those were interesting starts and very interesting circular finishes. Franklin: So I want to move to talk about your work history and experiences at Hanford. Mitchell: Absolutely. Franklin: What sort of work did you do? Mitchell: Well, when I started, I mentioned to you earlier that I started—I got a job as a field clerk in the summer of 1972, working at J.A. Jones Construction Company. I was supporting a group of people that were involved in quality control of fabricated piping materials. Basically, what I did, I was a gofer, and I ran paperwork here and there, here and there, here and there. And then—that lasted for a little while, and then they moved me actually on the Hanford Site. I was supporting the quality control and inspection unit that was installing the evaporator building and they were supporting the building—at that time, the double-shelled waste tanks were under construction. These are million-gallon tanks and they had moved from the single-shell design to the double-shell design because they thought that they were more structurally durable and would result in, obviously, a safer holding tank. So I supported that group and learned a little bit more about what was going on out at Hanford. Went to school, came back, and then post-school, I went looking for work, and I got hired on as what they call an NPO, nuclear process operator. Basically what it is, is you are—in a normal construction field, you’d be considered a field laborer. You do basic labor work: haul this, pick up that, sweep up this, clean up that. I was assigned to the Tank Farms in the 200 East Area. I don’t know if you have any knowledge or have a chance to go out there, but it’s where the farms—it’s right in the heart of the farms, it’s right in the center, geographic center, of the Site. We were in support of the construction of those tanks as well as the day-to-day operations of the tanks that were already had, mixed waste, some that was just environmentally hazardous, some that was radioactive, and we would go out and take monitor readings on some of this. I worked as a shift worker in the summertime, which was interesting, being out there at night and having to go out in the desert, drive out in a truck and check gauges on these tanks to make sure that the pressure—checking pressure gauges or other things, and then having to make—switching. Because all the tanks are connected by piping, and they would move the material in the tanks by pumping them from one tank to the other. That’s why, to this day, a lot of times—because the records don’t exist—all that pumping that would go on, almost on a daily basis, they don’t know exactly what’s in what, because they didn’t keep the records. The records that were kept no longer exist. So now they have to go out and sample these tanks and chemically identify what’s in them. But initially, we were part of the people that were associated with, in support of, that movement of these wastes from tank to tank. Franklin: What on-the-job training did you receive? Mitchell: Well, at that time, you had certifications that you had to go through before you were allowed to be involved. What they would do, there was initial safety trainings that everybody went through that was on the Site. Then there were job-specific trainings. Most of them were safety-related and some of them were job-specific-related. The job-specific training, as you would pass you would get what they call certified at different levels. What it would do for you, it would allow you to be of more usage of them, you were more capable to do things and do it in a safe way. And over time, it would also allow you to make more money. So there was a way to progress, not only just due to time and tenure, seniority, but also due to certification and, you know, your value to the company and your ability to assist in more work. That was my initial introduction to Hanford. Yeah. And it took a different turn shortly thereafter. I wasn’t out in the facilities. Franklin: What happened? Mitchell: Well, what happened was, is that, shortly after I got out there and was working, we went on strike. This was in 1976. We went on strike, and there wasn’t any work, because the union was on strike. Shortly thereafter, I got an interview, based on my education, I got an interview from one the engineering firms to work in the project accounting office, because of my business background, educationally. When I walked back down, after the initial interview, I walked down to the personnel department, now known as human resources, and the personnel manager asked me, he said, well, we’re going to offer you a job. And I said, well, that’s great. He says, but I’m going to give you an option. I said, oh, really? He says, yeah. We’re not going to bid against ourselves as a company. It’s going to be the same pay for the accounting job, or you can come and be my assistant. I said, what? He said, I need an assistant here in the personnel department. It’s just me and my secretary. And he goes, we’re starting to grow and I need more help. He says, again, I’m not—it’s going to be the same pay. It was a whopping $235 a week. Same everything. You can either do the accounting side or you can come and work with me. And I said, I don’t know anything about personnel. He goes, your dad’s a personnel guy. I’m sure you’ve had enough exposure with table talk at the dinner table to know what’s going on. Again, this is pre-human resources degrees where you study all this stuff. It was simply people that knew the most about the company and how they got paid and all this stuff over time that they would stick in the personnel department; whereas now, it’s something that you actually go to school for. I said, well, yeah, maybe. I said, well, can I give you an answer in a day or so? He goes, oh sure. So I scurry home and I talk to my dad about it, and my dad summed it all up. He simply said, well, he said, educationally, you have a business background. If you go into the business side and down the road decide you want to go into the personnel side, I’d think it would be harder than if you start in the personnel side and then decide that you want to go on the business side, because your education’s on that side. He says, you know, it’s not that you couldn’t return to the business side. I think it would harder to do in reverse, if you go into the business side. Okay, okay, so I took my dad’s advice. So this gentleman, I called him, and I said, okay, I’ll take the personnel assistant job. [LAUGHTER] And he said, okay. Meet me at the Tri-Cities airport on Sunday—I think this was like a Thursday. He said, meet me in the Tri-Cities airport on Sunday, and bring enough professional attire for eight days. Okay. He says, yeah, we’re going on a recruiting trip. We need some designers—it was an engineering firm—we need some designers and some engineers. I said, okay. He said, we’re going on a four-day trip. We’re going to be two days in each city. Travel on front end, travel on the back. Okay. So we took off, and the first place we went was Adina, Minnesota, which is a suburb of St. Paul-Minneapolis. We stayed at this Ramada Inn. He looked at me and he said, okay, we’ve got a full slate tomorrow. We’ve landed, and tomorrow I’ll meet you and—the standard scenario was you would take a technical recruiter or interviewer and you would take a personnel person and tell them about money and relocation and benefits and all the people-side of the stuff, and he would talk about the job side of the stuff. Well, anyway, we had the chief of our engineering department and he says, we’ve got a full schedule tomorrow. We’ve got an interview every hour on the hour, all day. He says, we’re going to meet downstairs at 6:00; our first interview’s at 8:00. What you’re going to do is you’re going to be in the room with me, working on the people-side and telling them about relocation, listening to me talk about it. At noon, I’m going to watch you the second half of the day, and then on Tuesday we’re going to split the schedule. That was my training. I said, okay. So we go, I do the trip, and we come back. And the secretary says, don’t you think we ought to sign him up as an employee? Seeing as how he’s already been on the trip, and thank goodness he didn’t get hurt on a business trip before he signed up as an employee. So we kind of chuckled about that and whatever. That kind of launched my HR side of my exposure to Hanford. And then from there, I started doing new graduate recruiting on the technical side, science and engineering. So I spent nine years on the road a lot, going to different locations, interviewing people, new grads, to come out as first year, first time engineers or scientists that come to our company. And I spent a lot of that time with the Westinghouse Corporation at that time, and then moved on to different types of work within human resources to include benefits. I was the EEO officer for a while, which meant that I interacted with a lot of the federal compliance agencies that any company with over 50,000 employees have to deal with. Franklin: EEO is Equal Employment? Mitchell: Equal Employment Opportunity. We had the EEOC, which is Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the federal side of it. We have OFCCP, which is the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, which oversees any company that has a government contract. So there was a lot of what they call oversight, whether it be state, federal, and different branches within the federal that the companies and the contractors have to, are responsible to report to, to send annual reports and different information, to interact with. And so I moved in that direction for a while. Later, towards the end of my career, I ended up being over in the employee and labor relations, labor being union, and employee relations being non-union, dealing with day-to-day issues in the workplace, which was very interesting. As it relates to the civil rights and all this other thing, it was interesting to go into that arena and that side of a corporate situation and watch the evolution of women, minorities, as it related to pay, promotion and including age discrimination type of things. There was no ADA at that time, Americans with Disabilities Act, to where now you see the ramps and all these other things. And having to be a part of getting companies to comply with that, and to watch the corporate culture push back against it—because it cost money. It may have been the right thing to do and some people would go ahead and do it. Whereas now you see upstart companies, newer companies, even companies that have been around a while but are still considered newer like Microsoft—that was just part of their business profile. Because they came after all these things were “normal,” standard. But to be on the end where this became—you know, the term glass ceiling, where women weren’t being promoted. I remember for the first time hearing glass ceiling. I remember for the first time meeting a Westinghouse corporate vice president, female. Black female, which was interesting. I remember meeting the Secretary of Energy, black female. That was different. So we were on the edge of this change, and seeing how it manifested itself in the workplace, and the grousing that would come about. Because you would find people that were upset about affirmative action. They only got the job because of the color of their skin. They only got the job because they’re female, et cetera, et cetera. You didn’t hear much grousing about, well, they only got the job because they were a veteran. You know, you didn’t hear that. But it was interesting to be on the frontline of that change and evolution and work through all of that, and personally be a part of it, being promoted to management as a black male, and then watch the opportunities for other people that traditionally were not white male under 40. That was interesting. That was a historical time, in that regard. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors, management? Mitchell: My relationship with them? Franklin: Yeah. Mitchell: My relationship was great. Are you asking me my relationship because of the color of my skin? Franklin: Yes. Mitchell: Okay. The relationship because of the color of my skin, I don’t think played a really big part. I think that one of the things that I am frankly proud of is the fact that I believe that my approach to people—and I believe I’ve seen evidence of this in multiple different types of workplaces, most recently even in the school district and across the street here at Hanford High School, where I spent some time working in the special needs program—is that I think that my training and my personality are such that people aren’t afraid to ask me questions that they’re really curious about, that I think generate communication and understanding. I don’t think people are afraid to come to me and ask me a question about being black, or what’s that like? Is it truly different for you? That kind of thing. I think it started when I was in elementary school. I remember a young man came up to me and asked me if my blood was black. I think I was in fourth grade. And I said, no, I said, do you want me to show you? So I cut my hand and I said, see? To me, I thought that was always important. I remember being at Chief Jo and the kids wanting to know. It wasn’t because they were prejudiced. That frustrates me to this day, is that we tend to walk on eggshells rather than to talk to each other. Is it different being black? Is it different being a girl? Is it different, you know, being Hispanic? Is it different now that you’re coming to the United States? What’s it like for you when you come in and you’re dressed in Islamic attire? What’s that like? We don’t talk to each other! I think that a lot of times, people are so afraid that they’re going to offend, that they’re going to move off of the political correct line and communicate with each other, that they tend to assume and proceed with ignorance, and come up with the wrong result. And I believe that, as it related to my work relationships, I think I’ve always created an atmosphere, at least around my own space and within my groups as a manager, that I wanted to foster that and nurture that. And I think I was successful in doing that, more often than not, whether it be social or professional. Franklin: What kinds of interactions did you have with coworkers and supervisors outside of work? Mitchell: Not a lot. I think one of the things that I learned in my brief military stint was that there was a reason the officers didn’t fraternize with enlisted men. I thought it was because they were just smug. But in its barest sense, that philosophy and that term and that cliché comes from the fact that if you learn to know them, respect them and love them, you’re not going to be able to send them over the hill and never come back. So from a military standpoint, it’s simply practical. If I know you and I know her, and I’ve got to pick between you two which one I’m going to send around the corner to Afghanistan, knowing that you’re going to have to stand there and fight and we may not get over there to get you. And I have this deep, in-depth relationship with you, it’s going to complicate my decision-making. I think that I tended to have a little bit of that in my non-work related deal. Not so much that I was a big wig making lots of decisions. It was just simply, one, I felt that my family’s privacy was important; I felt that my own personal privacy was important, and I respected the privacy of others. But not to the point where I wouldn’t interact with people or do any of those things. But I was mindful of that, and it’s purely out of respect. Franklin: How did your racial background figure into your work experiences? Mitchell: I think that it played a role in me getting the equal employment opportunity, EEO officer/manager job. There was a real trend as this became—you need an in-house person. You would see almost 90% of my peers were black males. Franklin: Why do you think that was? Mitchell: Well, I think that it was a tangible evidence that a company had embraced the idea of in-house equal opportunity oversight. If you go in, and you see equal opportunity office, and you walk in and you see the manager is black—because it started out primarily as a “black” situation. It was an offshoot of affirmative action, which is primarily black male. Franklin: Sure, sure. Mitchell: So I think that’s as tangible evidence as you can get as a company that, we’re involved in this. Now, involved in it versus taking it seriously might be two different things. But I think that that gave me the opportunity and a platform to actually add some substance to it. Because once they put me in the position, don’t give me the job and the authority and that oversight within the company and not expect any results. Because once I got the authority to go in and oversee some of the decisions for promotion, for succession planning, for initial hiring and whatever, that’s where I could make some inroads. I don’t care if it was because I look good, because I was black sitting in the office. Shame’s on you. Now you’re giving me the hammer, I’m going to go use it. So, to me, I’d say, yeah, fine. They’d say, they just put you in there because you’re black. They’re just window-dressing. I said, they may be window dressing; I’m not. I’m going to find some qualified individuals, females, other minorities and whatever, that can come in and do this job. I saw it as an opportunity to expand my beliefs and improve our company. Because I thought that they gave me direct input to building the character of our labor force. Franklin: Yeah. A common way that some companies addressed equal opportunity was to hire African Americans, sometimes as maybe just window-dressing, for appearances sometimes substantially. I wonder, is there a connection between that kind of action and your story about the basketball tournament in Pasco, where you were represent—the coach thought you would be representative, or would have the unique ability to speak to another group? I’m just wondering, is there any kind of—is that a similar train of thought, or do you see a connection in those? Mitchell: Not necessarily, because I think what it was, was simply—you know, it was just our regular season game over at Pasco. And I think that the coach, really, was—it was a knee-jerk reaction to something that genuinely scared them. And I think the first reaction was, oh man, how do we get this hostile group of people, in this case black—how do we put a firehose on the fire? And, Greg’s black! I think the first thought was, they’re not going to want to hear from us; they’re already mad at us; we’re white. You know, they’re here banging on the door because they’re angry at white. Maybe they’re not going to be angry at him. Okay, boom, go help us. Like I said, nothing really resulted from it, but I don’t necessarily see a direct correlation. I think the only correlation would be that the coach’s reaction—because they were human—in that day and time, is not much different from what you would find in the corporate management group in that day and time. And so when they were charged with having to address that, I think that you would run into some of the same lack of information, ignorance, prejudice, some people that simply were just prejudiced, some people that were just mean, and some people that wanted to do the right thing and didn’t know how. You know? I think it was a compilation of all of that. But I think that that’s the only correlation I would make. I would think that were people on the school side as well as on the corporate side that were victims of the reality of the situation, times, thought processes, and societal norms. Franklin: Sure, sure, okay. Thank you. In what ways did security and/or secrecy at Hanford impact your daily life? Mitchell: The secrecy part of it was interesting, because I remember, even prior to getting to Hanford, when my brother went to the Air Force Academy, at that time, he had worked at the Safeway down on Cullum Avenue and then right after that I followed him there, because, hey, we got a job, you know, and he’s getting ready to go and take off. So I got this job. Well, I was back in the back, working in produce. I think I was—I believe I was unloading a pallet of Cabana bananas. All of the sudden I see this guy come in and he’s got a tie on and he’s got a hat on. The tie didn’t bother me, but the hat made him a little suspicious in my opinion. And he comes up and he’s got this little flip notebook. Well, what it was is they were doing a background check on my brother. Because if you graduate from the Academy, he’s going to go—maybe he goes to NORAD, which he did do, which is where our nukes are at. So they’re doing security background checks on him. So that was my first exposure to anything secretive and whatever. I knew that my dad had a badge, but I didn’t know what it meant. So when I went to work out there, they said, okay, we’re going to get you what they call a temp badge. So I went to work out there as a college student in the summer, I got a temporary badge. And then you would hear people talking about, well, you need an L clearance. You need a Q clearance. I didn’t really know what those were. Well, as I moved into human resources and we start bringing people on, we have to determine what level of classified material they are going to be allowed to see. If it was low level, that was L. If it was Q, okay, that was a little bit higher. And the OPM, the Office of Personnel Management, for the federal government, does all the background checks for every agency. We happened to be contractors of the Department of Energy, but they do the same thing for the military, they do the same thing for everybody. And that was significant because once you—you’d have to do this horrendous amount of paperwork. Every place you’ve ever lived, every college apartment you’d ever had, the whole works. So it’d take a while to compile this information, and then you had to send it back and get in line. Well, you might be in line behind everybody else that OPM’s got to do a background check on. So, it could be months. Sometimes a Q clearance would take a year or even more, depending on what was going on. Boy, you were really disappointed if they found anything they had to go back and reinvestigate because it would just push you back in line. So from that standpoint, I didn’t have any problems. But I did get exposed to it, because I started out with this temp, I went to an L, the higher I got in management, I would go to a Q. And then I had a little bit of that on the Academy side where they were investigating you. But as far as the impact on my job, per se—what I thought was comical was, for example, if I had an L clearance [LAUGHTER] I could go in, and—let’s say both you and her have Q clearances and you’re looking at something and you need my help. And I walk in as an underling, and I’m reviewing something with you. You guys are okay, because you have the Q clearances. I’m not supposed to see it. But an element of it, you need my help on, because it’s my area of expertise. The government says, it’s okay as long as you guys are there. I couldn’t look at it by myself. But if you guys are there, as if you were going to keep me from reading it, remembering it, and selling it down the road, you know, type of thing. So I thought that was comical. But that was the only impact. It wasn’t really—it was more a nuisance than it was anything else. Franklin: Did your parents ever talk about their reaction or did they have a reaction to learning that Hanford had contributed to the development of atomic weapons in the nuclear weapon stockpile? Mitchell: Did they ever make any comments about it? Franklin: Yeah. Mitchell: No. Franklin: What about— Mitchell: Not directly. Not that I ever really heard. I think that they were—my parents tended to be—both my mom and my dad tended to be, when they communicated with us as their children, tended to push the pride in what we were doing and wanting to do a good individual job. Now as it related to the big picture, they didn’t comment much on the political/societal impacts of it being, oh, this is where elements of the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Japan took place. Franklin: How do you feel, or how did you feel at the time about working for a company on a larger scale for the development of nuclear weapons? Mitchell: I felt fine. Because my initial exposure, like I said when I left here and went to Naval Academy Prep School, I had looked at those things, I was looking at the potential career of being in the military. So for me, the idea of the possibility—because my big goal was flight. I might be carrying the bomb. Now, did I have a problem with that? No. Did I have a problem with the idea of the bomb being used on people? No. I had the idea of the bomb being used on the wrong people. To me, again, I felt that I may have some level of control. Not much; I guess you take orders and do what you’re supposed to do at the time, if that really were to have come about. But did I think, like people say, well, god, how would you feel about a bomb and being somebody to actually deliver that, or being somebody to actually help make that bomb? To me, I have two things that I think about. One, I want to hold the people accountable for making decisions to use it and how to use it, and I’m going to do the best job I can to make sure that the technology that I’m responsible for is being used responsibly. From there, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the rest of it and the social impacts and oh my goodness and all that stuff, no. Franklin: What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Mitchell: The most important legacy? I think the most important legacy is the fact that it did contribute to--most people think about the war. I think about all the science things that have come out of the Hanford Site. I a lot of people don’t understand or recall that the first artificial heart was developed down the street. Dr. Christian Bernard put it in. It was developed at Battelle. The scanner bars, developed at Battelle. Just like NASA has come out with all the things that we have: freeze drying, irradiated foods. I think Tang was the first thing that we use everyday that came out of NASA. There was a lot of things that came out of Hanford that don’t get—they don’t get any airtime compared to, oh my goodness, the bomb. I think their legacy is the day-in and day-out things that they’ve used or that they’ve developed that we use everyday. Whether it be x-rays and how we use it, how we do carbon dating, not necessarily developed here but enhanced here. And I think there’s so many things that go on that people who lived right here don’t know about that folks out there don’t communicate exist that have, they’re way above and beyond the bomb. And I think that’s the most important legacy, is the day-in-and-day-out contributions to our quality of life, and the life or quality of people worldwide that have come out of Hanford, I think is its greatest legacy. Franklin: What did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Mitchell: What do I know or learn? FranklIn: Yeah, what did you learn about it? Mitchell: I learned over time that it was a segregated, it was initiated as a segregated situation, just like the rest of 1940s America, that I think it has evolved into a much better-educated and socially responsible legacy than how it started. I think that’s good. I think it has tremendous amount of continued potential. I hope it’s used in that way. We’ll see. Franklin: What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities when you were coming of age? Mitchell: Well, I think the major issues were similar to the national issues. I don’t think Hanford was unique. But I think that Hanford was probably more specifically honed-in on employment opportunities. Because that’s what it was about, work opportunities. But as it related to the overall issue, no, we didn’t go downtown and get kicked out of a place. Franklin: What about housing opportunities? Mitchell: And housing opportunities? Franklin: Was that a struggle as well? Mitchell: I think that was a struggle. But the thing was is that I think housing opportunities were limited or directed similar to like they were in the 1940s anywhere else. And especially up on a military base, which this was based on a military base concept. In fact, we used to have a Camp Hanford. I have an aunt—I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to speak with her, my dad’s sister—but she met her husband here. She was living with us and met her husband at Camp Hanford. Camp Hanford is all of these streets that you see up here behind you between George Washington Way and the river, all these streets that were up here that now people build up on, where these condos are, where the E.L. Food Factory is and all that was part of Camp Hanford. This was part of Camp Hanford, where we are right now. Franklin: Yes. What actions were taken to address those issues of employment and housing? Mitchell: I don’t know, then. I just know what I was involved in, and I know there were federal laws that were involved, obviously the civil rights movement in 1964 had some impacts on that. In 1964, I was 11. So it took a while before, one, I was aware of it, two, I was knowledgeable enough to make a, develop a thought process about it and be involved in it and/or impact it. But I think because of that timing, I was able to be involved in the beginning of some of those things actually coming to fruition to where you did see some movement. Is it still necessary? Yes. Yes, it’s still necessary. I think that— Franklin: Is what still necessary? Mitchell: Assisting and overseeing that people are getting equal opportunities. Some people say that, you know, affirmative action type of things and that type of mentality was, okay, load the numbers for a federal report. That’s not what people wanted. That’s not what people have ever wanted. That I did know, whether I was young or not. It wasn’t that somebody, well, I didn’t want you to give me a job. I don’t want you to give me a job. I want to be able to earn a job. I want to be able to be evaluated for my performance. I don’t want you to give me anything. I just don’t want you to stop me from earning anything. And I think that that mentality still needs to be constantly educated, nurtured and supported. Whether it’s because of the color of your skin, your gender, your religion, whatever. I think that’s still important. I think it’s real simple. It’s very, very simple. Martin Luther King said, character not color. Don’t make it hard. Don’t overthink it, people. If the person’s character merits the opportunity, we’re done. The rest of it creates problems and extra energy that’s unnecessary. It’s not hard. Franklin: Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Mitchell: Directly involved? Franklin: Yeah. Mitchell: You mean like marching in the street? No. Franklin: Well, or— Mitchell: Do you think—I would say yes as being the manager of the EEO office for a Fortune 500 company and one of their subsidiaries and evaluating their hiring practices and who they selected, who they promoted, and how they paid people. Yeah, I was directly involved. Franklin: And which company was that again? Mitchell: Westinghouse. Franklin: Westinghouse, so here at the Hanford Site. Mitchell: Mm-hmm. Franklin: How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights efforts at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Mitchell: Well, I think that once you bring national attention, the one thing that happens that influences nationally, including what happened here at Hanford, is that you have the responsibility and the authority to implement. Doesn’t mean it’s done well, it’s done accurately, timely, or efficiently, but you do have the responsibility and the authority to implement. And I think that’s the influence that a national movement has. Franklin: Yeah. From your perspective and experience, what, if anything, was different about the civil rights efforts in this community? Mitchell: I think the civil rights efforts in this community, for me personally, I think that there were folks that were surprised that there was any need for it, particularly in my community as it related to me being in school. Being a predominantly white school, there’s a lot of folks, in this case kids, that didn’t see any racial episodes that imprinted them. Franklin: Because they were kept away from it. Mitchell: Well, I don’t know if they were kept away from it, or if they—it didn’t happen everyday. You didn’t see that many other minorities, so you didn’t see it on a daily basis. They may have heard something at school, but the race riots, those things, they didn’t happen down your street, they didn’t happen at your lunch counter, they didn’t happen at your movie theater, they didn’t happen at your drive-in. Not very much. Some of those things would happen, but usually you wouldn’t see it. We had a few things that occurred here. Franklin: Such as? Mitchell: Well, I remember that there was a shotgun discharged on Lee Boulevard at Zip’s that unnerved us a little bit. We don’t know if it was directed at my brother or not. There were a couple of episodes where you would have people get in fights and that type of thing. There would be situations in the school districts, at athletic competitions where you would see a predominantly black school, such as Davis out in Yakima or Pasco High out of Pasco, come into Kennewick or Richland or even Eisenhower-Davis, Yakima-to-Yakima, that you could say were based on the energy and concerns people had related to the civil rights movement and what they would see on television and the frustration that they felt that they needed to support, whether it was happening to them everyday or not. I think there were some influences there, where people said, oh, yeah, that’s right, we ought to do something here. What are you going to do? Have you done your homework? Are you educated? Do you know what you—a lot of people will stand up and jump around, and if you stop and say, what do you want the outcome of all this to be? I don’t know; we’re just mad. Well, that’s not good enough. What is it that you really want? What do you see? What do you want changed? When are you going to say that something is actually happening positively towards the goal that you understand and articulate? A lot of times, the back end is not part of it. It’s just a front-end reaction. Franklin: What were some of the issues here that existed for people to focus on, that weren’t just misdirected energy? But was there any civil rights issues here in the community that needed people’s attention? Mitchell: Well, here in Richland, not so much. I think in Pasco there were. I think if you recall at all the discussion that you had with Dad, even as a youngster growing up, I remember in Pasco, them fighting for simple things. Water and sewer on the east side. I remember walking over to visit my relatives, and we would go over and I had one great-uncle and we had a set of really, really good friends of ours. To get from one place to the other, there were these boards laid over this, basically an open cesspool. And we would have to walk across the boards to go over the cesspool and then get back on the sidewalk—on the street; there was no sidewalk—get on the street and then walk over to this guy’s house, and then walk on the boards to get back to my great-uncle’s house. They didn’t have sewer. So yeah, there were some civil rights issues that were just basic. Running water and sewer on the east side. But I would come back to Richland, and I could jump in the shower and turn it on and flush the toilet. So, did I live that on a daily basis? Not where I lived. Did I know that it was part of my overall community? Yes. Franklin: When did your work at Hanford come to an end and what did you do afterwards? Mitchell: Oh, Hanford, I took an early release in 2005. After that, I was focused on wanting to have a professional career as an umpire. I did that for a little while and found out that it’s harder than it looks. You don’t get paid a lot of money on the low end and you have no insurance. So from there, I decided I would continue to do high school and college basketball and baseball. Then I started working in the school districts as a paraeducator, which is basically a teacher’s assistant. I started out in the Kennewick School District and I worked in the special needs department, which is special education. And I had a couple of assignments in the classroom setting, I had a couple of follow-on assignments one-on-one, and I concluded that, in 2015, here at Hanford, across the street with a classroom assignment, special needs classroom assignment, and then I decided to formally retire, which means basically, apply for my social security, August 2015. Since then, I’ve continued to officiate high school and college basketball and baseball, and I’ve always enjoyed the river and been a fisherman and outdoors in that regard, and I’m going to be doing that as soon as I get paroled from you guys. Franklin: Sounds good. [LAUGHTER] Well, I just have two more questions. Mitchell: That’s fine. Franklin: And then I’ll let you get to the river, because it is a nice day out. Mitchell: It’s beautiful. Franklin: It’s going to be nice day outside today. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Mitchell: That it was a very unique place in regards to the amount of really exceptional minds that were here, and I hope continue to be here. At the time that the Cold War was going on—now, one of the things the Cold War did, and I hope someone describes the Cold War to them, what’s the difference between a hot war and a cold war—one of the things that our race with the Soviet Union did is that it constantly pushed innovation. I think there’s where some of the things that I mentioned before that really don’t get their horns tooted as much as, oh, this is the place that had to do with the bomb—that’s when a lot of that was just really going—great guns was the push for innovation and using your mind. I think we had some of the greatest minds ever and still do. We have a collection of some very brilliant people here at the Hanford Site. The other thing I want them to know that during that time, was we weren’t immune to any of the issues that the rest of the country was going through. I think if you look further, it wasn’t just the United States. But I think that we made some progress, that we continue to make more progress. And hopefully they’re grateful for the fact that where they are now is because of other people before, you know, recognizing, standing up, doing for and holding accountable themselves and others. And I hope they remember that. Franklin: Is there anything else that you would like to mention related to migration, segregation and civil rights and how they impacted your life at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Mitchell: Well, the one thing that I always—I will say that kind of frustrated me—[COUGH] excuse me—in my professional career of being a recruiter, I was unsuccessful in getting some of these corporations—even though at one time Hanford was the biggest summer employer of college students in the United States at one time—I always felt that we had kind of missed a little bit by not tracking our own out-going high school students. By that I mean that we have the ability, especially nowadays, through our technology, to identify kids that are interested in math, science, engineering, and other aspects of the workforce that’s needed here and beyond. I don’t think that we do it very well. I think if we were to mine our own high schools for students that are either going to CBC for technical degrees and workability in two years, to folks that are going elsewhere and maintaining some kind of communication and tracking system that says that these 30 kids coming out of this school and these 27 out of this school, where are they? Because what I’ve found was, in my recruiting experience, we didn’t find that a lot of young people at the University of Washington in engineering and science would want to come to Hanford. They tended to be folks that wanted to work in lab coats and on computers and didn’t want to get dirty and didn’t want to leave—when I say dirty, be out and about with boots and a hardhat on, walking down a fence looking at something, standing under a tank, coming in here, brushing the dirt off of something. They wanted to be design engineering, design scientists. Well, it would take kind of a different personality that really wanted to come and live here, because of our geographics, our weather, et cetera. So we would end up replacing a high number of those young people. Once they were here, they got relocated here after school, got a job, they got happy, mom and dad were happy, yeah, they’re working. And they’d say, I’m a young person, don’t have a family established yet, they’d be here a year and next thing you know they’ve got to Phoenix to Motorola. Or they’re going to Amazon or they’re going to Microsoft or whatever. Which is fine. But you still have a need for some folks here, and the kids that grew up here, a lot of them want to go and do those things, too. But in the long run, they tend to come back, and we’d track that part of it, they tend to come back and raise their families here. So we were never successful, in my opinion, in kind of keeping a little bit in touch with those folks and mining our own built-in workforce. So that’s one thing that I wish that we had done better, that I had had more impact on. Franklin: Hmm. Well, Greg, thank you so much for coming and taking the time to interview with us. Mitchell: Not a problem. Franklin: Now, I’ll let you get back to the fishing. Mitchell: Yeah, I’m going to get on the river and have some fun. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview J.A. Jones Construction Tank Farms 200 East Area Westinghouse U.S. Department of Energy Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1953- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1972-2005 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Greg Mitchell Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation School integration Sports Migration Naval education Basketball Racism Football Nuclear industry Engineering Affirmative action Civil rights Civil rights movements Description An account of the resource Greg Mitchell was born in Pasco, Washington in 1953 and grew up in Richland, Washington. Greg worked on the Hanford Site from 1972-2005. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/23/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6e30d3e337609651104e8500b79d2c9a.JPG 556342979eeca9c416457931981a3047 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff603783bd090cbf7b0264ceb196fc541.mp4 98cc7ff788f4b561bb9230343d7a27d4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David (Duke) Mitchell Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Duke Mitchell on March 2nd, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Duke about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Duke Mitchell: My full name is David Lynn Mitchell. D-I-V-A—D-A-V-I-D, I’m sorry. L-Y-N-N for Lynn, and Mitchell, M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L. However, I’ve been called Duke my entire life. I am now 66 years old and very proud of it. But my dad wanted to name me Duke after Duke Snider, baseball player. But my mother said, no. So they named me David after my grandfather, her father, and Lynn after one of my dad’s brothers. Franklin: Okay. Your father was very into baseball, right? Mitchell: Yes! C.J. Mitchell was very into baseball. That was his favorite sport. He grew up doing that, playing that, and he was an umpire for 40 years at least. Umpired in the College World Series four times, did a number of NAIA World Series as well; I think there were about ten of those. And he’s in four or five different halls of fame, not only in the state of Washington, but nationally, in baseball. And then he also umpired and refereed basketball and football at the high school level. Franklin: Wow. That’s great, and we’ll want to talk a bit more about that later. I’d like to kind of start at the beginning. When and where were you born? Mitchell: I was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1951. June 30th. Franklin: Okay. But your father had been to the area before you were born, correct? Mitchell: Yes. Franklin: I’m wondering if you can talk a bit about that. Mitchell: I’ll tell you what I think I know. Franklin: Okay, perfect. Mitchell: He and my mother both told me along the way, but then also I did watch the interview of him just the other day. But I do know that he came out to the Hanford area in 1947 when he was 16 years old, after graduating from high school, Perfection High, in Kildare, Texas. He followed some of his relatives out here looking for work. So he was here for a couple different occasions, it turned out. I didn’t realize until I watched the video on him that he had come here, became homesick, went back to Texas, and then he came back a second time and stayed longer. But then he went back and married my mother, his high school sweetheart, in June of 1950, June 3rd, in fact. Then they moved to Chicago, Illinois, following other relatives, looking for work. While they were there, I was born. We stayed there just a brief time, and then we moved to Hermiston, Oregon in late 1951 or early 1952, as my dad worked as a laborer on the McNary Dam, helping to construct the McNary Dam. Then shortly after that, we moved to Pasco, Washington, and my dad worked on the Blue Bridge as a laborer once again. And he did other kinds of odds-and-ends jobs as well, until he was finally able to get a job out at Hanford, working in construction in all these cases, helping to build the K Basins, he has told us, and other kinds of contracting labor, I guess it would be. Until he was finally able to realize, and was encouraged by some of his supervisors to go to school, go to college. He went to Columbia Basin College and studied chemistry and math, primarily, because those were the things that would apply to what he was doing there at Hanford. And he was able to then work himself into some better jobs as a result, to the point where he became a metallurgical technician in the 300 Area here at Hanford, just north of Richland. That was a good thing for him, got him out of the construction area, into a little more technical fields. And then from there he was able to, again, continue on with his education. Took him 14 years to get his two-year degree at Columbia Basin College it turns out. Franklin: Wow. Mitchell: That’s a long time. A lot of starting and stopping. And in fact, I’m a trustee at Columbia Basin College right now myself, in my eighth year as a trustee. But education has always been an important thing to my parents. All the years as we were growing up, they always talked about education. We were pretty good athletes and played a lot of sports as we were growing up. But my dad and mom always said, that’s not how you’re going to make it, as far as making a living, and you need to get as much education as you can. That’s going to be your ticket to success. They always told us that, and it is definitely true. Franklin: Yeah. Did your mother ever attain higher education as well? Mitchell: Not schooling-wise, but she was a really smart person and hard-working person. And I think the biggest thing is she had a lot of courage and got involved with things. In fact, I’ve thought about them over the last ten years at least, realized how much courage they had to do some of the things that they did as African American people in the time that they did it. So, again, to answer your question, no, my mother did not have higher education, but she did have a lot of experience, life learning, life lessons, I guess you would say. Got involved with a lot of things and allowed us children to also get involved with a lot of things. Franklin: Could you offer any specifics on some of the courageous things that you felt they did as African Americans? Mitchell: Just kind of sticking their neck out, to use one of my dad’s phrases, in that they got involved in areas where they were the only African Americans there. At a time when oftentimes, folks didn’t want to see us around. Franklin: Such as? Mitchell: Such as getting involved with Boy Scouts and the City of Richland. Moving to the city of Richland, for that matter, because—and we moved here in 1955—it was difficult for African Americans to move into Richland because it was a controlled situation. It was a government-owned community; you had to have a full-time job in order to move to Richland. We lived in east Pasco, as all—not all—most African Americans back then, that’s where we lived. That’s where we were allowed to live. So I lived with my parents in east Pasco, probably from the time I was two until I was four or five years old, when we moved to Richland. So the fact that they went to Chicago, following their relatives, places they knew nothing about, then they moved to Hermiston, Oregon. My mother had never been there; my father had. Then they moved to Pasco, and then they moved to Richland, all by the time I was five years old. Like I say, once we got to Richland--and that’s when I can really start remembering what was going on--just getting involved with activities—my mother was involved when I was in Cub Scouts; she was a Cub Scout leader. She used to go to school board meetings, for years, I understand. I wasn’t here after I left in 1969, going to college. But my mother became very active in the community. My dad, also, just the fact that he got involved with a lot of things, took a lot of risks in terms of the jobs that he pursued and he was saying in the video that I watched, the oral interview with him, about taking a pay cut in one instance, hoping to get a job. He did get a job and it turned out real well for him. The fact that he went on 17 interviews, I think was the number that he cited, before he actually got one. Or maybe it was 16 and he got an interview on the 17th. Those kinds of things, in the 1950s, that was courageous for African Americans. I know that now, from my experiences, when I went looking for an apartment to live in in Southern California in the 1970s once I graduated from the Air Force Academy, my first duty assignment. There were certain areas that wouldn’t rent to me, wouldn’t rent to them when they were going through that process. That’s why I call them somewhat courageous. Franklin: Yeah, definitely. Did your parents ever talk about their time living in east Pasco, kind of what the conditions were and why they moved to Richland? Mitchell: Well, I do remember some of the living in east Pasco. I have a lot of relatives that lived there then and still quite a few that live there now. But, to refresh what I had recalled and what I was told along the way, looking again at the oral interview with my father: in east Pasco, back in the late ‘40s, certainly in the ‘50s when I was there, and even into the ‘60s and ‘70s, the infrastructure there was not good. They had outhouses at times while I was there. I remember there were chickens and things walking around, kind of loose in some of the neighborhood when I was a kid myself. Running water, things of that nature, were not what they should have been. It was definitely a second-class environment in east Pasco there. But at the same time, the African American community made themselves a home there. There were a lot of things going on there, there was a lot of cultural things going on there, a lot of activity. But going over to Pasco from Richland, once we moved over here—because we used to go to church in east Pasco, the African American churches, if you will. Franklin: And which church did you attend? Mitchell: We went to Morning Star for one, and there’s a New Hope Church there and there’s some others that we attended. But I had several great-uncles that were in Pasco: Vanis Daniels, Senior, and then Willy Daniels, they were two brothers. They were brothers of my dad’s mother. We used to go over there on Sundays a lot. There were some other relatives that I had there that we would visit as well. But I bring up Willy Daniels because he just lived down the street on Douglas Street there in east Pasco, from Morning Star Baptist Church. I do remember going to church with him. But the reason I get into that, going over there, going through downtown Pasco, Lewis Street was the main drag back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. There was a Sears Roebuck there. I think that might be the Booth Building now; I’m not sure if that’s the same one, where the Pasco School District is located and their facilities. But going again east on Lewis Street, through downtown Pasco, then you go underneath a bridge, I guess it’s a railroad bridge or whatever. That was the dividing line between Pasco and east Pasco. It was like going to almost a different world in some respects, because of just the change in the conditions. Not only the folks, from a Caucasian world, if you will, into an African American world, but just the quality of what was there just wasn’t the same. At the same time, folks made the best life that they could there. I certainly respect and love my relatives who live there, came there, and are still there, some of them. Franklin: You still have some relatives in Pasco? Mitchell: Absolutely, yes. I have a number of relatives still in Pasco. Some in east Pasco, some who have moved. Because when Urban Renewal happened in, what, I think it was the late ‘60s, early ‘70s— Franklin: That sounds about right. Mitchell: Yeah, but then they dispersed some of the ethnic neighborhoods, if you will. Certainly in Pasco it was some of the dispersal of African Americans throughout the community and things of that nature. But Vanis Daniels, Senior lived there, but his son, Vanis Daniels, Junior, is still over there, he and his family. And then Edmon Daniels, his brother. There are a number of others, but I don’t want to name too many names because I’ll leave somebody out and then I will—folks won’t be happy with me. Franklin: I understand completely. It’s so interesting. I like the way you described that, going under the bridge. I think so many of us have heard that phrase, right, “on the other side of the tracks.” Mitchell: Yeah, it’s definitely the other side of the tracks. Franklin: Or sometimes “on the wrong side of the tracks.” But that’s literally how it was. Mitchell: Absolutely. Franklin: I mean, the tracks were kind of this dividing line, this de facto segregated line. Mitchell: Yes, they were. And when I say under the bridge, it was a railroad bridge. The tracks went across the top of the bridge. So going on West Lewis to East Lewis, you’d go down underneath the railroad tracks through this tunnel, this bridge, and then come back up on the other side. Back then, there was Whittier Elementary School, which is where most of the African American students went because that was in our part of town, if you will. There was a definite distinction. Franklin: Awesome, thank you. Okay. So Richland, obviously, was kind of a different world. Mitchell: It was. Franklin: And you described how you had to work at Hanford to live in Richland. I’m wondering if you could talk about your early memories in Richland, and maybe even going back as far as your moving from Pasco to Richland and how that change was for you and your family. Mitchell: I’d love to. As I say, I was probably four to five years old when we moved to Richland from Pasco. At that time, there was myself and then my brother, Greg, would have been—well, he is two years younger than me, so he would have been two to three years old. And then our brother Nestor was born in 1955. He was born in Kennewick General Hospital. I don’t know if he was born before we actually moved to Richland or right after we moved to Richland. But the big thing was, we lived in a prefab at 100 Craighill in Richland and when we first moved there, there was four of us, I would say: my mother and father and myself and Greg. It’s a two-bedroom prefab and it has one bathroom. By the time we moved out of that house in 1965, there were eight of us. Franklin: Wow! Mitchell: That was big, because the bathroom was the crunch point. I mean, that was where—we had to get through the bathroom in order to get to church on time, and we were almost always late for church, which really stuck in my mind. As far as moving there, the community there in what was the old south end of Richland, we were treated pretty well. At the same time, we were—there was another African-American family on the next street, Casey Street, which was the Wallace family. There were a number of children there. Theartis Wallace was a very good basketball player for Richland High School. He had a brother, Maurice, who also played basketball. Another brother, Bruce, several years younger who played basketball for Richland, et cetera. And then down another corner there was the Rockamore family, African American family. They are cousins of mine, ours, as well. All from Texas. Most of us— Franklin: All three families? Mitchell: All three families. Yeah, many of the families that I knew, anyway, came from a place called Kildare, Texas. That’s where my parents went to high school and where they’re from. Franklin: How do you spell that? Mitchell: K-I-L-D-A-R-E. I think my dad did talk about that in his segment, as well. Franklin: Yes, yeah. Mitchell: A lot of folks from Kildare came to the Tri-Cities because once they found they could have a job, find a job, folks came looking for work. Because as my dad always said, you could always find a job here and it paid much better than the jobs did in east Texas. So that was one of the reasons that they were drawn here. At the same time realizing that they weren’t always welcome. But they could find a job, and generally speaking, it was a better condition than what they had left. So they were willing to come here. As far as growing up, once again, I started to say, we were treated fairly well by the folks in our community, the Caucasian folks. Realizing that there were some differences. I’ve thought about those things before I came here today. One of the things that we were always taught was to treat folks well and respectfully. There were some rules, some unwritten rules, certainly, as far as how the races interacted or didn’t interact together. We were aware of those. One of the ones that I think about is, we didn’t go to other folks’ houses, normally, and certainly didn’t go in their house. In my family, we were expected to be home before dark, so we were always home before dark. And my parents were pretty strict with that. We played sports—I was the oldest of the six, of course. When I was eight years old, I started playing Little League baseball, and I was pretty good. My brothers coming along were pretty good as well. Sports was a good thing for us, because it did allow us to interact with others and others to interact with us. And also get to know us, because many of the folks, Caucasian folks, in the community hadn’t really dealt with black folks in the past. So that was a way for us to interact and that kind of thing. That was good. They got to know us, and we got to know them somewhat. Like I say, I was always treated well and the teachers were really helpful. And I was a star on the playground, which was a good thing. But at the same time, again, the school was the big thing for us, according to my parents, and I believed it. However, I finally got to seventh grade, and I played football, baseball and basketball in the seventh grade and eighth grade, throughout. But I didn’t do well in school that seventh grade year. In fact, I got three Ds. Franklin: Oh my. Mitchell: That year, my first report card in junior high school. Not middle school, junior high school back then. My parents said, no more sports for you until you get your grades straightened out. So that caught my attention. Franklin: Yeah, that must’ve hurt, as a— Mitchell: It did, because that’s what I did! I was pretty good. Well, you know, he’d always told me, my parents always told me about the importance of education. And then I was also starting to see that, too. Watching some of the programs on television that I used to watch. Whether it be the sports programs—because I watched every ball game that was on television if I could. Back in the mid-‘50s, late ‘50s, we only had two TV stations, I think, in the Tri-Cities then. Whatever was on that was sports, I would watch it. Especially college football, I would watch that. That’s when I first fell in love with USC Trojan football team, because every November, we could watch Ohio State and Michigan in the morning and USC and UCLA in the afternoon. And I watched them all. I loved what I saw. That was one of the reasons that I started thinking, I think I want to go to college. And then also, the environment in Richland, education is a big thing in Richland, as it is throughout the Tri-Cities, but Richland in particular. And I do—many would attribute that to the fact that Hanford is here and there are a lot of well-educated people here. That trickles down to their kids and it’s expected that you do well in school. Being a competitive individual, some of my classmates were doing really well in education. I can do that, too. In eighth grade I decided that I was going to be on honor roll, because that’s what they do in Richland. I was accustomed—well, being kind of a—I won’t say top dog but certainly competitive. So I wanted to do that. Also in eighth grade is when I had a crush on a young lady and I found out that she liked guys who did well in school. From them on, I did well in school. Turns out, she’s also the young lady that asked me to run for class president when I was a senior in high school. I did, to impress her, feeling I wouldn’t win anyway. However, I did win. I’ve been paying for it for 50 years, in that every time I come home from the military for my class reunions, I had the privilege of giving a speech. And then also since I’ve been back for the last 25 years, my best friend and I have been some of the leaders in putting together the recent reunions. And in fact, I was just asked on Monday at Fred Meyer, what are we going to do for our 50th reunion next year? So, like I say, that’s continued on for a long time, that responsibility. But it’s been a privilege and it also helped me get into the Air Force Academy. Franklin: It’s the gift that keeps on giving, huh? Mitchell: It’s a gift that keeps on giving. Franklin: And what year did you graduate school? Mitchell: Richland High School class of 1969. Franklin: But that would be Columbia High School, right? Mitchell: We were Columbia High School back then. Although we did have an R on our helmets; we were always called Richland, but officially we were Columbia High School. Franklin: I just, I only say that because when I said Richland High School to Ann Roseberry, she— Mitchell: She corrected you? Franklin: She was very—yes. Very, very prompt to correct me that it was indeed Columbia High School. Mitchell: Okay, yeah. Ann Roseberry has recently been the manager of the Richland Public Library. She invited me to be on the Richland Public Library board about nine years ago. So I’m in my ninth year of being on that board because of Ann Roseberry, formerly Ann Chamberlain when we were growing up. Her father is—or was—a retired lieutenant—excuse me, a retired full colonel in the Air Force. When I went to the Air Force Academy one of the people that I talked with when I came back was her father. So we’ve been connected somewhat for 50 years. I’m a lieutenant colonel, retired, and I got through the Air Force Academy as a football player. I was recruited to play football for the Air Force. Franklin: Oh, wow, so sports was— Mitchell: And I did play. Sports was a big thing for us. In fact, of the six of us children, three of us were put through college playing college football. Franklin: Wow. And you played for which— Mitchell: I played for the Air Force Academy. And my brother, Greg, played for University of Puget Sound. He was a wide receiver and defensive back. I was a defensive back and a quarterback and a tailback in college at Air Force. And then our brother, Cameron, who was a high school American football player, and I understand also a high school All-American basketball player at Richland High School, but he played for Washington State University. And he’s now a superior court judge. And I have a brother, Nestor, who was a pretty good baseball player as well. He had the opportunity to play at Washington State University. But apparently he and the coach didn’t see eye to eye, so he didn’t stay there for that purpose for that long. He’s a recently retired fireman from the City of Seattle, however. Franklin: Wow. I imagine when you were growing up watching sports, that would have been the time where the leagues were starting to desegregate, or have more African American players in them, right? Because that would have been— Mitchell: Absolutely. That was one of the reasons, I guess, that I—partially why I fell in love with USC. Because there were not a lot of the major schools that had African American players in the ‘50s, certainly, and into the ‘60s—because I graduated in ’69. But USC had a lot of really good teams; they also had a lot of good—well, not a lot—they had three or four good African American ball players on their team. That was not that big of a—not that prominent—not that prevalent, is the right word. Not that prevalent at that time. In fact, in the SEC, Southeastern Conference, that the Air Force played in Tennessee in the 1971 Sugar Bowl, the SEC was totally segregated. Well, not totally—99.9% segregated. Now you look at the SEC and as far as football and basketball, most of their players are in fact African American. But when we played them in the ‘70s, early ’69, ’70, ’71, is when I played for the Air Force, they did not have more than two or three African American players in the SEC and other leagues as well. Even the Big 10, which had a fair number of African American players, on a given team, you’d probably only have three or four or five and they were all pretty good or they wouldn’t be on the team, probably. So that was a transition period, for sure. In fact, we played, I think at least one game, or one team that was somewhat hesitant to play Air Force because of the African American teams on Air Force. Even in 1969, ’70 timeframe. Franklin: Right. Still definitely well within the civil rights era. Mitchell: Absolutely. That’s another thing that I was thinking about. Again, I went to the Air Force Academy in 1969. I was selected to go there, probably just a little less than a year after Martin Luther King was assassinated. I do know that the United States government was trying to find ways to integrate and to change some of the policies and procedures that were going on in this country at the time. I certainly believe that one of the reasons that I was able to go to the Air Force Academy—I was recruited, again, to play football—but I think there was more emphasis on finding qualified African American students who could be in service academies and other aspects of life in the United States. So. Franklin: Great. You had mentioned some of these unwritten rules and without getting too personal, I wanted to know, how did dating figure into that when you were in high school? Mitchell: Ha, ha. Yeah, that was one of those unwritten areas. It was one of those things that it was pretty well understood that as an African American guy, black guy, you really probably shouldn’t date Caucasian girls, white girls. The first date I had, however, was something called Tolo at Richland High School. It’s like Sadie Hawkins. Franklin: Yes, okay. Mitchell: Where the girls invite the guys. I was invited by a Caucasian lady to go to that with her. And in fact, I was one of two sophomore princes for Tolo in 1967, it would have been. Yeah, ’67. Maybe ’66, ’67, when I was a sophomore at Richland High School. But getting back to the specific question, yeah. We went to Richland Baptist Church on George Washington Way here in Richland. It was—I think we were the only black family there. There might have been others that came and went while we were there. And there were some young ladies that I certainly was attracted to, but at the same time, I knew, no, that’s not going to work. And then also being a Southern Baptist church, just—no. And then another one that has been in the news recently is about Kennewick and how we knew that we weren’t supposed to be in Kennewick. Unless we maybe had a specific purpose, maybe going to a store to pick up something. I think we went to Basin Surplus, I think that’s in Kennewick, to buy something several times with my parents. We played sports over in Kennewick, but then we got on a bus and came home. Franklin: Yeah, I wanted to ask a little bit more about that. I’ve heard from many that there was kind of a de facto rule that African Americans weren’t encouraged—were not encouraged to be in Kennewick after dark and would be stopped by the police if they were. Did that ever happen to you or anyone you know? Do you have any experience or recollection of that kind of treatment? Mitchell: Okay. I have heard about it. I never personally experienced it, because I am one who tried to learn—I tried to learn from others and their experiences. And have always been taught to not put yourself in a situation where you can find yourself in trouble if you can help it. So from my specific situation, I would have to say it’s hearsay. Because I never really saw the sign. But yeah, I certainly heard it, and I strongly believe that I felt it. Even in Pasco and Richland, I mean, there were certain areas that you knew that you probably ought not to be in, and so you didn’t go there. Franklin: Even in Richland? Mitchell: Even in Richland. There were some areas—well, again, in 1965, my dad talked about how he tried to buy a house up in Beverly Heights, which is just to the southwest of Carmichael. Franklin: Yes. Mitchell: Okay. And I do remember that because I was 14 years old at the time and we thought we were going to get out of that two-bedroom prefab with eight of us and get a new house, or a different house. And it fell through. But having been in that area, even in the recent few years, yeah, that would be an area that I don’t think would be welcoming to us, even now. And then my dad who was a realtor for a number of years—he did pass away January 24th, 2016. But he was selling real estate almost up until that time. Franklin: Wow. Mitchell: Well, 2014 is when I found he was ill. He was still a realtor at that time but he didn’t do a lot of selling because I took him to a lot of medical appointments then. But we’ll say 2010, just as a number—a year. But there were some areas in Pasco, West Pasco that he says that he was showing an African American family some potential houses to buy, and some folks came up to him, basically, and said, no, not in this area. You’re not really welcome here. So that was approximately 2010 timeframe in West Pasco. As far as Richland, my dad did experience some difficulties there on 115 Spring Street, which he purchased that house in 2000—excuse me, 1976. 1976. I know that for a fact, because I loaned him $10,000 towards his down payment. The reason that I was able to do that, I was a lieutenant in the Air Force, my wife was working, we didn’t have any children. Also, I had just received a legal settlement and some dollars from my car accident where I had been run into by a drunk in Colorado—excuse me, in Wyoming, on my way back to Colorado. And so, I was able to loan my dad $10,000 for a down payment on that 115 Spring Street house. But he did receive at least one anonymous phone call threatening him and us. And then one of his coworkers there at Hanford did inform my dad that when this coworker was about to move into a house on Spring Street, that this coworker was quizzed as to whether or not he knew about “those folks down the street,” talking about our family. Now, I wasn’t in that house. I was in California at that time. Because, again, I left Richland in June of 1969 on my way to the Air Force Academy. Franklin: Right. Mitchell: Okay. So I would come home during my breaks and such but I never lived in Richland directly again until 1993. So, you know, I observed things, I heard things, but I was gone for 24 years. Franklin: Okay, great. Oh, I say that all the time. Richland, especially when you would have first moved here, was a very peculiar town in that it was owned by the government— Mitchell: Yes, it was. Franklin: --which is a distinction very few towns in America have. I’m wondering if you could talk about whether—I guess it would be more upon reflection, but kind of the peculiarities of living in this government town where everyone had a job and everyone was assigned housing and things like that. Mitchell: I’d love to. Primarily because I’m a retired Air Force officer. And I, along the way, came to realize that the government towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and there in New Mexico and also here at Richland were designed and built on a military model—a military base. And the assignment of houses was based on a military model, and that you received the kind of house that you were offered based on your rank, if you will. Whether or not you were a manager or how high a manager, or if you were further down on the totem pole, if you will. For the African Americans, I do remember that almost every one of us that I can think of lived in a prefab. I think there were three-bedroom prefabs and two-bedroom prefabs. I know we had a two-bedroom prefab. I don’t know what the Wallaces had because they had a fairly good sized family as well. I don’t know if they had a two-bedroom or a three-bedroom, 102 Casey Street. Down the street on Craighill, my cousins, again, the Rockamores, I think—they only had one daughter, so I think they had a two-bedroom. But one of the things living in Tri—Richland, I’m sorry, in Richland—I think they had inspections of the yards and things were maintained very well here. Also, Richland was fairly new, too. Because, now looking back on it, leaving here in 1969, and Richland I think was really built in 1943 or ’42, or something like that. It wasn’t that old. Franklin: Yeah. No, it certainly wasn’t. Mitchell: But things were in pretty good shape. We had a lot of what are called Quonset hut-type buildings. The library was in one of those. It’s the buildings that have kind of the round roof, that kind of thing. There are not many left now. Franklin: A lot of those were military surplus. Mitchell: Well, that was military. Yeah, exactly. That’s what I’m saying. And then just up the street—well, up here was where Camp Hanford was. That was a Army camp, because they had the Army here, I believe, to help with security for Hanford. That’s my best knowledge of why we had that group of military stationed here. In fact, my dad’s—one of my dad’s three sisters, Emma Mitchell, now Emma Peeples, married an Army enlisted person while she was here. She moved up from Texas to here to live with our family in that two-bedroom prefab. So there was maybe nine of us at some point. I mean, I can’t remember how many there were. Franklin: When I first got to town, I lived in a two-bedroom prefab with my wife. It was small just for two of us and a cat. I just— Mitchell: Well, we had bunk beds. I know we had two sets of bunk beds. I can’t remember where everybody slept. We had one sister. I don’t think she slept in the same room with us guys. I don’t know that for a fact. It was tight. Franklin: Yeah, I—it would have to be. Mitchell: Yeah. But again, everybody that lived in Richland at that time was pretty much connected to Hanford in some fashion. So we all had that in common. Going to school, education was significant and important to almost everybody. If you weren’t trying to do well in school, you were an anomaly, I would say. That’s the way I felt, anyway. Because we were expected—at least the folks I hung out with, and I hung out with ball players, a lot, and students who did well in school, just because those were the kinds of folks I was attracted to as well. But taking higher math or physics or biology or chemistry or whatever, those were things that I did do, because I realized, again, going back to eighth grade that I wanted to go to college. I didn’t know what I was going to study, but I just wanted to be prepared. And then when I did take the SAT, I did do well on that. I was a semifinalist on the SAT. I didn’t realize what it took to become a finalist until my son took the SAT when we got back here and he did very well with it and he was a finalist. In fact, he ended up being a Rhoads Scholar candidate. He’s pretty bright guy. He’s got a PhD now in history. And then my daughter’s also pretty bright as well. Franklin: Does your son teach? Mitchell: He teaches at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee right now. He’s been there three years; he’s on a tenure track position. Franklin: Those are—I’m a historian myself, I know how coveted those positions are. So he must really be a bright guy. Mitchell: Yeah, he’s pretty bright. Like I say, he’s—well, yeah. And my wife is pretty bright, too. That’s where they got it from, I’m sure. Franklin: Yeah. That’s a good thing to say on camera. Mitchell: Well, that’s how I truly believe. Franklin: Oh, I know. Mitchell: At the same time, I’m no slouch, to use my dad’s, another one of his phrases. Yeah. Franklin: Social events, what kind of social/community events in Richland or in Pasco do you remember participating in growing up? Mitchell: I didn’t participate in a lot. Primarily, it was in church, whether it would be at Richland Baptist Church. There were a few early on, perhaps in Pasco, when we’d go back to Pasco and spend time with our relatives and that kind of thing. But I didn’t go to many social activities, again, while going through—I went through Lewis and Clark Elementary School, Carmichael Junior High, and then Richland High School. And I didn’t go to dances. I didn’t do a lot of things at night, like I said, because we were expected to be home at night. So I generally was. I was the first-born, and I do believe in birth order having an impact on how you do things. I do believe, oftentimes the first-born tries to be a little more obedient to their parents and do what the parents expect. So I didn’t break a lot of rules or whatever. Now, as my parents had more kids, they became a little less strict. My brothers and sisters, I strongly believe, were able to do a lot of things I wasn’t able to do. But at the same time, I really didn’t want to do a lot of those things just because, as I say, I did have that feeling at times that I wasn’t always welcome or that—you know. I was a little different. Franklin: Yeah. Connected to that, you would have been in middle school and high school at the height of the civil rights movement, nationwide. I’m wondering if you could reflect on how that impacted you. Mitchell: Well, it definitely did in that I have relatives who lived in Watts, California, outside of—well, LA. And when Watts was burning and they were having riots there, I was concerned for my relatives and that. I’d been there before, visiting, in, well, 1964. My family and I were there visiting some of my mother’s sisters and other relatives in Los Angeles, in Watts. And so in 1965 when I’m seeing Watts burn and that—and there’s also riots going on in Detroit, Michigan and in Chicago—which, I have relatives in Chicago; I was born in Chicago, as I said. I have relatives in Detroit, I have relatives in Oakland, I have relatives in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, and lots of other places. So I was fearful, I was concerned. I was concerned about what might happen here, locally. Because there was also some strife in Pasco as a result of just the fact that the conditions were not what they should have been. With other folks around the country expressing their frustration with being suppressed in many respects, some things did happen in Pasco as well. So that started getting kind of close to home. So I was fearful, I was concerned, and then, again, when folks started getting shot, I mean, some of our leaders started getting shot—of course, John Kennedy was out here visiting Hanford Site, N Reactor, I think in 1962 is when he visited? Franklin: ’63. Mitchell: ’63, okay. Franklin: About two months before— Mitchell: So then November 22nd, ’63, he’s assassinated. And then his brother gets killed shortly thereafter, and of course, Martin Luther King gets killed, and Malcolm X gets killed. There’s a lot going on in the ‘60s. Franklin: Yeah. Mitchell: And then we had Sharon Tate from Richland High School and Charles Manson. Franklin: Did you know— Mitchell: No. No, no, I’m ’69; I think she was like ’61 or ’62. No, I mean, I would have been in elementary school or probably not even to junior high yet. But we knew about her. And then we had some other significant athletes and such out of the Richland School District that I think—well, I won’t try to name names again, but we had some folks who were prominent. And then one of the guys my dad didn’t make mention of when he was doing his interview—what is his name? Mike McCormick, former state senator, I think he was, for the State of Washington, and he was one of my dad’s supervisors. He’s one of the ones that helped to encourage my dad—or did encourage my dad to go to Columbia Basin College so that he could move on and get perhaps a different job. That did work out for my dad. I did go to school with one of Mike McCormick’s children, I believe it was. If not children, maybe a nephew or niece. So there were just a lot of folks that were important in my life. The football stadium was named after Fran Rish. I played on his last football team. I did start for him as a sophomore in football. I never played, actually, directly for Art Dawald, who the gym’s named after, but I did have him for a government instructor or teacher. I played on the junior varsity my sophomore year for Richland Bombers. And I actually played for Ray Juricich who was the head of the sophomore team, and of course Art Dawald was the overall basketball coach. And then I ran track and field and went to state and relays twice when I was a junior and senior. Did not have real good technique, but I was fairly fast and we had a really good relay team. We, in fact, still have a school record at Richland High School Track and Field after 40-some years. Because they don’t run that race anymore. Franklin: Oh, well, that helps. Mitchell: Yeah. We ran the 4x220-yard dash relay. Now it’d be the 4x200 meters. The girls run that, but the guys don’t run that race anymore. So we still have that record. Franklin: I’m wondering if—what do you know about the events that happened in Pasco, the strife that happened in Pasco sometime in the late—like ’67? Mitchell: Well, I know—some of my relatives, again, were some of the leaders in Pasco that got involved with some of that. As I understand it, it was trying to get running water and perhaps electricity and paved roads in Pasco, were some of the things that came up during that time. Again, just some basic services that we didn’t have on the east side of Pasco that were in west Pasco, or central Pasco, but the black side of town didn’t have those. So some folks were concerned about that. And then some educational things. And just fair treatment all around to begin with. Because even here in the Tri-Cities, there were places that wouldn’t rent to us, that wouldn’t sell us a house, things of that nature, and those kinds of frustrations and feelings of being second-class citizens and such certainly boiled over. It was just a time of United States history when folks started saying enough is enough and we don’t want to accept this anymore. Some of that was here, too. Franklin: Was there any—did you or your family ever face any discrimination in, like, going out to eat for example? Mitchell: I don’t remember that directly, but sometimes you would get to a place and you would—it was kind of like you weren’t there. Folks would walk by you, and didn’t really want to take you to a table or offer you a place to sit. Things of that nature, sometimes. Franklin: They’d just kind of wait you out? Mitchell: Yeah. But we didn’t go out that much anyway, because there were so many of us. Again, family of eight, my dad was working—he worked two or three jobs, back then, two or three. And then he was umpiring along the way as well. But we didn’t go out to eat a whole lot. I never had a steak in my life until I went to the Air Force Academy. That was the first time I ever had a steak for a meal. We went fishing and we did things of that nature, and that was things they did in Texas, that’s things we did here. So we did fish frys and chicken and things of that nature. Peach cobbler was a big thing in our house. My mom did that really well. We had a lot of collard greens and cornbread and beans and things. We never went hungry in my house. We never, ever went hungry in my house. But at the same time, we just had some of those basic kinds of food, and we didn’t often go to a restaurant. In fact, probably one of the first restaurants I really remember—I don’t remember the exact restaurant, but I remember when I went to the state track meet, it was held—when I was a junior, it was held at WSU Pullman. We were undefeated in our relay at that time, and we ended up going from first to last. I think there were eight teams. One of our guys took off too soon, so we had to stop. So we went from wherever we were to the last place. Then we ended up finishing, I think, sixth overall out of the eight. But I remember going to a restaurant there, and that was a big deal for me, because I’d never really done that kind of thing. I don’t remember what I had to eat, but that was nice. And then another time—well, we used to go to the basketball tournaments over in Seattle, because Richland Bombers used to go to state a lot. Kind of like now, like they’re over there right now. I have a nephew who’s playing for Richland this year, Nathan Mitchell, Cameron’s son. But we had relatives there in central Seattle, went to Garfield High School, which was the predominantly black school, back then. We stayed with our relatives, the Lowe family, but we’d go to Hec Edmundson Pavilion there on U-Dub campus and we went a number of years when the Bombers were playing. One of those times we went to Ivar’s, and I don’t think it was with my family, but I don’t know if it was track or what it was related to, but I remember going to Ivar’s, the main one, the primary one, the first one. That was a big deal for me. Franklin: Just because you hadn’t really been to many restaurants growing up? Mitchell: No, no, no, no. Well, when we traveled places, as with most African American families, you didn’t really stop. When we went to California or wherever, we pretty much drove all the way through, and you’d just change up drivers. Because, again, most motels didn’t really want us, and we didn’t stop along the way. You’d pack up the food that you needed and you hit the road and you get there. Franklin: That’s interesting. I’ve heard that related often when people were from the South would say that about the South, but you—even on the West Coast, your family would—just felt safer not stopping? Mitchell: Well, that was it, and that was how you knew how to do it. Because you don’t know when you pull into a place—well, first of all, they’re probably not going to want you there anyway, and secondly, it might not be safe for you. But, again, when I was—after I graduated from the Air Force Academy, and I’d travel between here, the Tri-Cities and back to Colorado Springs, several trips I went with some of my classmates and friends that were Caucasian and such, so we didn’t run into a lot of problems that way. But when I traveled by myself, and I know when I was a lieutenant—I guess I had become a captain—in 1979, I went from California to Montgomery, Alabama for one of my military schools, and back. I was just careful, and even in ’79, you could tell when folks weren’t real thrilled that you were there, wanting to get a room. But I also made sure that I went to the big chains, like Ramada Inn, I would go to that, or I would go to Holiday Inn, or wherever, as opposed to other places. Franklin: Why? Why would you pick a chain instead of a mom-and-pop? Mitchell: Because they probably were a little more accepting and had rules and regulations about how you treat people and also they wouldn’t want to have a lawsuit if they didn’t treat you well. They wouldn’t want to experience any negative situation. Franklin: Right. Mitchell: So that’s something that I just learned along the way, that you try to put things, again, in your favor. So that if you’re going to have a difficult situation, you want to minimize it or avoid it altogether. Franklin: Kind of leverage their want to keep a good reputation. Mitchell: Absolutely. And their want to help keep you safe. Because it’s in their best interest to do that. Franklin: Yeah. Because your money is just as good anyone else’s money. Mitchell: It is. And my money’s not as good if they get a negative rap, then other folks aren’t going to go there, either. And also they could get sued. Franklin: Yeah, definitely. Mitchell: So there was a lot of reasons. But, you know, we all do that. Even today. I’m sure you do those kinds of things, too. You think about it. What’s going to be in your best interest. And certainly, as African Americans, you learn to do that. Because you know there are lot of folks actively not interested in your well-being, necessarily. Franklin: Right. You mentioned when Kennedy came to visit and your—did you go out— Mitchell: Yeah, our whole family went out there. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk about that day and that experience. Mitchell: Well, I can’t remember it in great detail, other than that there was a ton of people. It was a big deal. Again, I don’t know if I got it from watching my dad’s segment or not, but apparently they had cleared some of the sagebrush away and waste to ensure that more vehicles could get out there, because we parked in the sand and sagebrush out there, when we got out there. And in the last—well, since I’ve been back here and I’ve worked at the K Basins, and I’ve worked out in the outer area at Hanford over my 18 years at Hanford, it’s a long way out there. Franklin: Yeah, N Reactor’s pretty far out there. Mitchell: It’s pretty far out there. It’s almost out to the, well, not the Vernita Bridge, but it’s almost that far, it’s just not that same road. It takes a while to get out there. But it was a big, big deal. Big in the community, and probably—I don’t know if it was a school day or not, but I think that they let us out of school. Yeah, there was all kinds of folks out there. Franklin: It’s not everyday the President of the United States comes to town. Mitchell: No, especially John Kennedy, I mean—they were really—like they talk about Camelot and all that stuff and then Jackie Kennedy, et cetera. It was a big deal. We were pleased we had an opportunity to go out there. Franklin: So your father, when you moved to Richland, your father started working at Hanford from where you were a young boy, and then he continued working there until you left and afterwards. What did you know about your father’s job at Hanford, and what did you know about Hanford growing up? Mitchell: Well, we were here in Richland when they had the buses that would drive around in the morning and pick folks up and that. And, in fact, my dad was in a car—yeah, a car accident where one of the buses hit him in the fog one time. But it was a very controlled situation. Not everybody—well, you didn’t know what everyone else did, and everyone knew you didn’t know what everyone else did. That’s the way it had to be, because it’s Hanford and it’s all secret and that kind of thing. Government town, there was rules and regulations, standards on the houses and that type of thing. Like I say, there were inspections on the houses if I’m not mistaken, on the various houses and your yards and that kind of thing. They expected you to take care of your yard, just like on a military base. Again, everybody that you knew and you went to school with, had a relative that was working at Hanford. So you felt some camaraderie with that. At that time, Richland Bomber basketball team was a big deal. And in fact, we had the current gym, the big gym that we have, was built, I think, 1965. It has three big floors on it. When they rolled the bleachers back, and I know we had our PE classes and that kind of thing in there. Davis of Yakima was probably our biggest rival early on when I was coming along, and then Pasco, later, became our biggest basketball rival. But they had some good players. For Pasco, a guy named Ron Howard, graduated class of ’70. So I played football against him and basketball just one year for me, but I ran track and field against him, et cetera. But he played basketball, Seattle University, and then he played football for the Dallas Cowboys. And then he was in the Super Bowl at least twice. I probably haven’t seen him for about five or six, seven years now, but last time I did talk with him, he was coaching at Rainier Beach High School in Seattle. And then another guy, Albert Wilkins, who’s pastor over here at Morning Star Baptist Church, and in fact, he presided over the funeral of both my mom and dad. But he was a Pasco High running back, class of ’69, good ball player, went to University of Washington, played for them for a brief time. Then another guy that I never played against but know of is Michael Jackson who played for both the Washington Huskies and also the Seattle Seahawks, outstanding basketball player. As far as Richland goes, coming along, Ray Stein was one of the ones that we all looked up to and that. He went to Washington State University and played basketball for them. I think he graduated in about ’63 or so. And then, of course, the Wallace brothers and the Brown brothers, those were both African American families in basketball. When I was playing football for Richland, we weren’t very good. I was team captain my senior year and also I was the quarterback my senior year, although I got hurt a couple times. I had a super sophomore year as a football player in high school, then injuries in both my junior and senior year. But— Franklin: Speaking of Richland sports, Richland High sports in general, there’s been some controversy in recent years over the mascot of—I just would like to get your thoughts on that subject. Mitchell: Okay. I have thought about that. I’ve also thought—not for this discussion, but I have thought about in the past about it for future discussions. I can understand why a lot of folks don’t like it, because of what it symbolizes as far as destruction—death and destruction in a lot of respects. Same time, I, for one, strongly believe that if it had not been for the atomic bomb being dropped in Japan—on Japan, the war would have been quite different in terms of the loss of life; it would have been much greater on both sides, had the United States and its allies tried to go into Japan and the islands and fight the Japanese until they were willing to give up. I don’t think they would’ve given up, just given their culture and such, and the belief that their emperor was basically like god, they would fight to the death in many respects, I believe. And I think, with the bomb actually being used, it did bring the war to an end much more quickly than it would have been otherwise. Now, as far as the symbol and our still using it, I can understand why folks don’t think it’s necessary or would like to see us get rid of it. And having worn that on my helmet, on my uniform in the past, I would be willing to give it up. At the same time, I’m not willing to be an activist to try to make it happen. But, yeah, I think over time, it’s probably going to go. Franklin: That’s a very well-reasoned response. Mitchell: Yeah. Franklin: Well-thought-out. Thank you. I just—since sports were so crucial to you, I really wanted to get— Mitchell: Yeah. Franklin: Because that’s certainly—it’s definitely kind of a flashpoint in a very—as someone who’s not from the community, not from this area originally, it’s a very—mascots are generally of a certain ethnicity or an animal, and it’s very interesting just in terms of that it’s really a mascot for a focal point in time. Mitchell: Yes, it is. Franklin: And that, to me, is pretty—it makes it pretty unique among many mascots. Mitchell: It does, but Richland, Oak Ridge, Tennessee—yeah, they’re unique communities because of World War II and what resulted in the outcomes of World War II as a result of these facilities. Franklin: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And their, of course, also work in the Cold War, and their 40-plus years of helping to construct the US nuclear weapons stockpile, which is a very formidable resource. Mitchell: And we just tore down the Plutonium Finishing Plant, PFP, recently. And we’re tearing down many of the other facilities, and rightfully so. Yeah. Franklin: Okay, we’ve covered so much, I’m trying to—I just want to get a good gather on where we go now. Did segregation or racism affect your education in any way in Richland? Mitchell: I think once we were here, no. I think that—there are other folks that maybe it impacted, because we were here. But me, directly, no. In that, again, I think sports helped in that I was a good ballplayer—we were pretty good ballplayers. There were other African Americans in the community that were pretty good ballplayers. And as a result, we were somewhat accepted. At the same time, I know there were folks that didn’t like it—who didn’t like us, necessarily. But I don’t care who you are or where you are, there’s always somebody that doesn’t like you, isn’t going to care for you or whatever. But don’t worry about that. I don’t worry about that. I do try to treat others the way I would like to be treated, and treat them respectfully. If I don’t necessarily care for them—and I don’t care for everybody; I don’t think any of us do—but I try to stay away from them if I don’t care for them. Franklin: Sure. Mitchell: And certainly they have as much right to be people and do what they want to do as I do. And I would hope that folks would feel that way about me. And if they don’t care for me or my family, that’s fine. Just leave us alone, and we’ll do the same for you. But— Lori Larson: Can I ask a question? Mitchell: Yes, please. Larson: [LAUGHTER] So how did your insertion and your family’s insertions across the Tri-Cities, how did you affect segregation? Mitchell: Okay. Franklin: Sorry, before you respond, could you state your name? Larson: Oh. Lori Larson. Franklin: Thanks. Mitchell: Okay, Lori Larson. Most of the African American folks in the community, including my family—and my family has been fairly prominent in the community because we’ve been blessed to be able to do some things—I think it’s helped a lot, because folks get to know us and find out that we’re people just like them. Many times, when we haven’t been around other ethnic groups, we don’t know about them, we’re a little bit fearful of them, regardless of what group it is, just because they’re different. And we are different. But at the same time, we’re very much the same. We’re all humans and we all have the same feelings and emotions and needs and that kind of thing. So I think that, especially when we were ballplayers, getting to know people and folks getting to know us, and I know I had my name in the paper quite a bit for sports. But also, I really enjoyed having my name in the paper for being in the honor roll. It was a big thing for me. My kids as well when they were on the honor roll. The fact that, yeah, we can compete and we can do things that are positive. Everything we do is not just negative. And sometimes you feel that folks feel that way about you. That, you know, you guys are just negative. So, have I answered your question? I think that we contributed by allowing folks to get to know us. And see us. And see that we’re not a whole lot different than they are. Franklin: Great, thank you. Were there any civil rights actions or demonstrations in Richland that you know of? I know there was a local, I think a CORE office or a human rights commission. But I’m wondering if there were any organized marches or anything like that? Mitchell: Not that I know of directly, but, again, John Dam Plaza was here then, just like it’s here now. And there might have been something at John Dam Plaza. I know that my mother got involved with some activities—I don’t know if she was part of NAACP or not. But I know there was a guy named Art Fletcher who came from Washington, DC, African American guy, he played football, I think, for the Baltimore Colts back when they were the Baltimore Colts. He was one of the presidential appointees for some of the activity out here in the Tri-Cities and Hanford area. He did get involved with some things related to some racial issues. But I don’t know the details. Franklin: Okay. I’d like to kind of jump ahead. You mentioned that you worked at Hanford. Mitchell: Yes, I did. Franklin: And kind of—I assume that was after your career in the Air Force. Mitchell: Yes, as I said before, I came back here in June of 1993. One of the reasons I came back here, is because, again, of my children, 13 and six. Not wanting to go to the DC area with my family, because I told my wife I was going to retire at the 20-year point, which we did, in ’93. But we came back here and—well, what was the exact question again? Franklin: Oh, I just wanted you to talk about your decision to go to work at Hanford and your job there. Mitchell: Well, one of the reasons that I came back here—and the other place we would have gone would have been Colorado because my wife’s from Colorado and we like Colorado a lot. But we came back to Richland because of the amount of family that I have here, because people know me here, because I could get a job at Hanford. Because my technical background—I have an engineering management degree from the Air Force Academy. And I have a safety and systems management degree from the University of Southern California, a master’s degree. Those kinds of jobs—excuse me, that education tied into jobs I could get here at Hanford. Specifically in the project controls area. Project controls has to do with budgets, cost schedule, performance measures, and that’s what I did, first for Westinghouse and then when they reorganized Hanford, I ended up working for Fluor Daniel Hanford, and Waste Services Hanford, and Waste Federal Services Hanford, and other companies as well. But the continuity of service was the same; it stayed the same, it was just a different name on the paycheck, basically. Franklin: You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that. [LAUGHTER] Mitchell: Oh, okay. And that started in 1996. I got here in ’93. ’96. And I ended up retiring from the Hanford contractors community in 2009. Then I went and found another job working for a company, and that company had a job at Hanford in Richland, Washington, so I took it. Well, I applied for it and I got it. So I worked for a company as a consultant to DOE Hanford, overseeing—or assisting with overseeing the contracts for the 200 Central Plateau area, which is where I’d worked—some of where I’d worked when I’d been working for Fluor Daniel Hanford and other companies. So I came back here, again, because of the job and also because of the school system. Again, specifically the Richland school system, because I am a Bomber and I am familiar with the school system. And also when I was in Alaska as the comptroller sitting up there, and I was up there at Elmendorf Air Force base in Alaska, and I don’t know if I was on the internet or I got some materials from somewhere about the rank order of the high schools and their performance in the state of Washington. And Richland high schools, Hanford in particular, Richland, too, were right near the top of all the high schools in the state of Washington. Having been through the system myself, it’s good for me, good for my kids. Franklin: How long did you live in Alaska? Mitchell: Three-and-a-half years. Franklin: I’m from Alaska, originally. Mitchell: Whereabout? Franklin: Palmer, and Anchorage. Mitchell: Okay, I’ve been through Palmer several times. Of course, as you know, there aren’t many highways in Alaska. Franklin: No, and Palmer’s a town you just pretty much drive through usually. Mitchell: Drive through, yeah, driving through Palmer on your way to Fairbanks and then back around. So. Yeah. I—yes. It’s good. Franklin: It’s fine. I miss it sometimes. I don’t miss the winter. Mitchell: No. Well, I was there three-and-a-half years and I tell folks, when they say, how’d you like it? I say, well, after doing everything three times, I was ready to leave, in that, as you know, everything’s based on the calendar in the year, and when it snows is pretty much predicted, and when it’s going to do this is pretty much predicted, and when the fish are going to run, it’s the same kind of deal. So everything’s very cyclical and very predictable. Franklin: Yes, yes, it is. We have three seasons there, right? There’s winter, break-up, and construction season. Mitchell: Yes. That’s true. Franklin: Yeah, fall’s like two weeks. Mitchell: Not long, not long. Franklin: Anyway. Well, I digress. So you kind of carried on this family legacy of working at Hanford. How did you—did you find—how do I word this question? When did your father retire from Hanford? Mitchell: He retired officially in ’93. Franklin: Okay. Mitchell: When I came back here. So, just almost the exact same time he retired. However, then he continued—they’d bring him back, because he was in human resources person, HR person, and he used to give tours of the Hanford Site. Franklin: Right. Mitchell: So probably from ’93 until maybe 2013, 2014 timeframe, he did tours for Hanford Site and he worked for PNNL part-time, however the contract was set up. So he still had his badge and he still had the access to the facility and such, and he would go out on these Hanford tours that they’re doing right now. In fact, at one time, I was a tour guide myself. I wasn’t real good at it. But he was really good at it, I understand, and a lot of folks have told me that. And a number of folks have been working at Hanford in the recent past go, oh yeah—if they work for Battelle—yeah, C.J. hired me in when I came in! Whenever that was. Yeah, he was out there for a long time. Franklin: Yeah. I kind of want to ask about that. How was that—I imagine that your father must have left a legacy— Mitchell: Oh, absolutely. Franklin: --at Hanford, and you would have become—kind of walked into that and been—and everyone—so many people would have known your father, and known you, and you came back and were working. I’m wondering if you could talk about that, kind of the continuation of your family’s work at Hanford. Mitchell: Well, yeah, that was, and is, a good thing, not only to work at Hanford, but coming back—and today, whenever I go somewhere, I usually see somebody that I know, or somebody who knows me, or of my family. I think even you made mention of the fact, the Mitchell family is fairly well-known around here. But my kids, again, my 13-year-old son and my 6-year-old daughter when we moved back here in ’93. But over the years, being associated with—or seeing that, and hearing that and feeling that, it’s a big deal for us. We feel that we’ve done a lot of positive things in the community and contributed in a lot of ways. We’ve also been blessed and given an opportunity to do a lot of things here. Another reason why I came back. Before I left the Air Force, I would come home and go to lunch with the chief of the financial organization there at Battelle. I’m talking specifically about Allan Johnston and then I bought his house when I came back. But I didn’t work with him directly; he’d already left. When I’d come back on leave, I would go to lunch with him, two or three times, during that period of time, feeling that when I did retire from the Air Force, I was going to apply for a job and hopefully work for him—work for them. I did end up doing the application part and in fact I was invited in 1993 for an interview at PNNL and Battelle, went through that process, flew back to Anchorage, Alaska, feeling I had gotten the job. I’m sure I’m going to get that job. Well, shortly after, I did receive a call or whatever it was, letting me know that I wasn’t going to be able to have that job, because they had an individual who had been basically reduction-enforced—ripped out. So they were going to take care of him and give him the opportunity to have that job instead. So sorry. So, then I turned around and applied for a job with Westinghouse, who my mother had worked for before she became ill—she had dementia. Then I flew down for an interview with them, and I went back to Alaska. I know I’ve got that job. Well, I did get that job. And so I went to work for them in July, probably July 1st or right around July 1st, 1993. And that all worked out. But again, folks knew something of me, they knew about me, they knew something of my history. A lot of folks think they know more about me than they think they know. But that’s with all of us. But, again, my family’s been here for a long time and has been observed for a lot of people, folks know my brothers and my sister and my mom and my dad. And so they feel that they knew me and that’s been a positive for me. And that’s one of the reasons I came back. Franklin: I wanted to ask you about your mother. Was she a working mother, for your childhood? Mitchell: Well, one of the things I’ve learned is that all mothers are working mothers. But! Outside the home. Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Franklin: Yes, I should be more specific. Mitchell: No, no. She did not work outside the home when I was coming along, but later on, she did go to work for Westinghouse. She was a secretary for a number of senior folks, I understand. But that did have an impact on my youngest brother. Unfortunately, it has been a negative impact, in that he did get involved—I don’t know if it was here or when he was at University of Washington. He went to University of Washington, was a cheerleader there and graduated with a degree in marketing. But he also got hung up in drugs there. I think that’s where it happened. Somewhere. But in 1974, ’75 when I was a lieutenant in Los Angeles’ GPS program, I got a phone call from Robin, my youngest brother. And he was very distraught in that he felt really lonely, he said. Because my mom wasn’t there when he’d come home from school, and just other things. So he felt alone. He was the youngest of the six of us. For the rest of us, we always had younger brothers or sisters. He didn’t have anybody that was younger. We all grew up and moved out, well, he’s still there. So, yeah, that had an impact on him. Even to this day, he’s still dealing with some of those issues. As far as we know, he’s clean, he’s—he went back to school, Columbia Basin College, and then Washington State University Tri-Cities, where we are. And right now, he got an electrical engineering degree two or three years ago. I mean, he’s over 50 years old. But he’s not using that degree directly. He is currently working as a counselor in one of the organizations here in the Tri-Cities, assisting other people who are having substance abuse issues. But, I, for one, tie a lot of his problems to the fact that my mother wasn’t there, the rest of us weren’t there, and he did get off-track. So, yeah, she did work outside the home after I was gone. There was a different dynamic in the family as a result. And I talked about the birth order situation. That was part of the deal in my view, and my perception—and this is all, obviously, just my opinion. But overtime, many parents become a little less attentive to their kids as the kids are growing up and that kind of thing, they’re doing other things in addition to being the parent and that, so things do loosen up a little bit, as far as the strictness. I believe some of that happened in my family when my mom went to work. Not that she shouldn’t have gone to work, because she had the issues—not issues, but needs as well and desires to want to do other things, and she did become active in the community and in particular going to school board meetings and other things. Also, she was one of the committee members on getting the what we call, still, I think, the “new” police station here in Richland on George Washington Way. Her name’s down there on one of the plaques because she was one of the active members on helping get that done, as far as—I don’t know if she did lobbying or help raise money or whatever, but I know that she was a participant in that. How’s that for an answer to your question? Franklin: That’s a great answer. I wanted to go back to Hanford for this next question. When you left the community in ’69, still very much in production mode. Not high production, but still, N Reactor’s running, we’re still processing. And when you came back, the Cold War was over. And you would, of course, in the Air Force would have been a service member during the Cold War and then still been in the—I’m wondering if you could talk about that shift in production to cleanup and the end of the Cold War as you observed it at Hanford and how it changed the community. Mitchell: Well, when I came back here in ’93, they were still hiring more people. Excuse me. That’s why I was hired here, to help with Hanford cleanup. Hanford cleanup was going on for quite a while. I think it started in the late—like ’88, ’89 timeframe. Christine Gregoire who was our mayor—not mayor, our governor, I think at least twice—in fact, when I became a Columbia Basin College trustee, she’s the one that appointed me as a trustee. The reason I get into that is, it’s been going on a while. It’s been a change, certainly. It’s something that has to happen, should happen. We’ve had to fight for it, and we’ll probably have to continue to fight for it, because it has taken a long time and it’s cost a lot of money to clean it up. So, before, during production when I was here as a high school student, things were very secretive, we didn’t know what was going on, but everyone was pretty much supportive of, whatever it is that’s going on needs to be going on. So when I come back—you know, I’d come back off and on, but when I came back in ’93, and now the mission has changed from production to cleaning up all the mess, at that time, in ’93, it was still supportive in that we need to clean up the mess. But over the years—I’ve been back 24-years-plus now—some folks—personally, I do believe that we have some strong senators and other representatives. Sam Volpentest was one. But again, as far as our senator, Patty Murray, I know she’s been a big supporter for Hanford, and others as well have had to fight for the dollars to ensure that we get things cleaned up and that we get what we need in order to do the cleanup. So that’s a big change. But, having been out there, and having been a financial person out there, I am concerned that perhaps there’s definitely some waste going on out there, and I know that we—Hanford gets a rap for that; DOE gets a rap for that. But I’d have to say that, yeah, Hanford and DOE deserve a rap for some of that stuff, my opinion. Because I just think that it’s taking too long and it’s costing too much money. And I could get into some other specifics about my opinions about the Vit Plant and other things, but I won’t do that. Franklin: Okay, sounds good. Maybe off-camera. Mitchell: Yes. Franklin: Let’s see here, I think we’re almost—I think we’re almost done here. I just have a couple kind of larger questions. So, second-to-last question is, what would you like future generations to know about living in Richland during the Cold War? Mitchell: Well, that it was an important mission that we had during the Cold War. And that it was truly a privilege to live in Richland, and I’d say the Tri-Cities overall, for that matter--a lot of folks who work at Hanford don’t live in Richland; they live in Pasco or Kennewick or Yakima or other places. But living in Richland, it was a wonderful place to grow up. One of the reasons to bring my family back here in ’93 is because it was still a wonderful place to raise my kids. And I think it’s still a wonderful place. I do have two grandchildren now in West Richland, my daughter and her family, and they’re going to grow up here as well. I think it’s definitely needed and desirable that we try to build an economy outside of Hanford and diversify and come up with other things. I’m really pleased that my children don’t work at Hanford. Again, my son’s a history professor. I did try to get him to become an engineer, but he says, I don’t want to do that, Dad. And then my daughter’s a nurse. She also has a business degree, as does my son, has a business degree as well. She’s a Cougar and he’s a Husky. Franklin: Quite a household. Mitchell: But I’m a Trojan, and Trojans rule in my house. But I’m just really pleased to have grown up here. Like again, talking about my parents’ being courageous and that type of thing. The fact that they came here, they stayed here, and they built a great life here, I’m really thankful for that. Again, the friends and acquaintances that I have made nad we have made in the Tri-Cities overall and certainly in Richland, we’ve been blessed as a family for over 60 years. Franklin: I’d say so. Is there anything else you would like to mention related to migration, segregation and civil rights and how they’ve impacted your life in the Tri-Cities? Mitchell: Well, certainly they have impacted our life tremendously. One of the reasons my family came here in the first place, my dad was 16 years old and then back a couple different times and then married my mother and came back with me, because of the Cold War, because of the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South, happened because of World War II or after World War II, again, to the big cities of the North in particular, out to the West, resulting in really a much-improved for most all of us who migrated out of the South. Although some did better than others, certainly, and are still doing better, some, than others. But that also gets into, well, you have to do some things for yourself, and also we all have different circumstances and different situations we’re dealt. But I think overall for the African American population, it’s worked out pretty well. There are a lot of problems, still. I certainly—well, education is one of the things, like I said, was big in my family. I think it’s still a key to success in this world. One of the reasons that I’m really pleased and happy to have been, and currently am being a trustee at Columbia Basin College, is to help other people of whatever background to find a path for themselves, to build a better life for themselves. I think a lot of that has come out of—well, again, World War II, the Cold War, the Hanford experience, and as I already said, we were blessed to have taken advantage of it. A lot of folks didn’t or haven’t, but a lot of folks still can. So I hope that they do. Franklin: Great, well, Duke, thank you so much for coming and interviewing with us. It was a fabulous interview. Mitchell: Well, thank you. I’m, again, happy that I was asked and had the opportunity. I’ve watched my dad do a lot of things for a lot of years, and I feel that he’s been an inspiration to others and helped other folks, including myself, to do better than they might have done otherwise. So I’m thankful for that. Franklin: Great. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview K Basins 300 Areas N Reactor Plutonium Finishing Plant Fluor Hanford 200 Central Plateau Area Battelle Westinghouse Hanford Vit Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1953-1969 1993- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1993-2009 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with David (Duke) Mitchell Description An account of the resource Duke Mitchell grew up in the Tri-Cities first in Pasco, Washington then Richland, Washington. Mitchell worked on the Hanford Site from 1993-2009. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 03/02/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Baseball Discrimination Segregation School integration Basketball Sports Football Nuclear weapons industry Civil rights Civil rights movements Radioactive Waste Disposal Migration https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Facc23c7b2edfd56da0af412011f8ef6b.png c1a5bfd981e679ff3c36c7ec02391ac2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Wayne Martin Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: --the beginning and then we’ll get right into it. Does that sound-- Lori Larson: And you don’t have to politely look at me. [LAUGHTER] You look at him the whole time. Wayne Martin: No, I will look at him. Because they always say is, if you’re being interviewed, look at the interviewer. Larson: Very good. Franklin: Right, don’t stare into the camera. Martin: Don’t sit there staring at the camera. Franklin: Yeah, looking into the camera freaks the people out that are doing it later. Because it feels like you’re staring at them, and you’re just like—ooh. Okay. Ready? Larson: Yeah! Franklin: Oh, we’re on. All right. My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Wayne— Martin: Wayne Martin. Franklin: Wayne Martin, thank you—on April 5, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Wayne about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Martin: Wayne Martin. W-A-Y-N-E. M-A-R-T-I-N. Franklin: Wayne, when did you first come to the Tri-Cities? Martin: First time I came to Tri-Cities was like 1975. Franklin: Okay. Martin: I came and did work as an intern and then a couple jobs here in the Area. Franklin: And where were you from? Martin: I’m an Army brat. Franklin: Oh, okay. Martin: So I’m from a lot of places. Franklin: Yeah. Martin: Since birth. Until I was 15 or 16. We moved all the time. A lot of different forts and Germany and the South and just a lot of different places. Franklin: Okay, and what did your father do in the Army? Martin: My dad was a long-range artillery trainer, which is why he moved a lot. He was in the Army for 21 years. So, we ended up—he got to pick his last station, which was Fort Lewis. We had been to Fort Lewis once before. He picked Fort Lewis because he—pretty much, he kinda liked the Northwest. And that’s how we ended up in the state of Washington. Franklin: Wow. When and where were you born? Martin: I was born in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Although I don’t think we were there very long before we moved. Franklin: Okay. And what year was that? Martin: 1954. Franklin: Did your father serve in the military when it was still segregated? Did you ever ask him about that? Martin: I don’t recall when the military was segregated; although he started, I believe, right around 1950s, if I recall. Franklin: Okay. Martin: He was Korean War. He was in the Korean War. Because he was from New Roads, Louisiana. And as he told me, the only way out of New Roads, Louisiana was to join the service—along with several of his other brothers and friends. Franklin: Where is New Roads, Louisiana? Martin: It’s about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge. Franklin: Okay. Martin: A little, small town. Very small town. Franklin: Have you been there? Martin: Yes, I lived there when I was in fifth and sixth grade. Franklin: Oh, okay. Martin: My father was set up to do three short-term what they call temporary duty assignments. So he plopped us down with my mother’s family. Because both of them were from New Roads. We stayed in my grandmother’s house when I was—pretty much all of fifth and sixth grade, for as best my memory can be. Franklin: What was it like to—do you remember what year that was? Martin: Okay. Sixth grade, that was mid-‘60s. Franklin: Okay. Martin: To be honest, it was my brothers’ and I first real experience with racism. We had lived in posts, they call them posts. Base for Air Force, post for Army. And we had lived in, like I said, Germany and a lot of different forts. And pretty much our lives were on posts. But going there was different. Franklin: Why do you think the Army was—because certainly there were blacks and whites, all from around the US, but especially from the South, together in the Army. How was the racism different or more apparent off-post? Martin: Well, if you know anything about the service, it’s like forced integration. You are under command. You are—and my father stated that they were subject to certain negative things if they didn’t have a decent one. And when you’re amongst the kids on post, everybody moved a lot, we all interacted with each other for usually a pretty short time. So we didn’t really experience a lot of negative racial tensions. You had a decent mix. I interacted with whites, Asians, and it was a—I always looked at it as a balance, balanced mix. When we went to New Roads, Louisiana—I’ll tell you an experience there, the very first one that really kind of shocked me, is when we were driving into town, I saw a theater. When we got into—moved in with my grandmother, and we were playing. We went to a Catholic school, because one of our parents put us in the Catholic school. We were playing with the kids in the neighborhood. My brother and I, we were used to going to the theater. We always went to a movie on Saturdays on post. So I said, hey, wow, we saw a theater when we came to go to the movies. And they looked at us like, what are you talking about? Well, when we came into town there was a theater down there. And they basically looked at us and said, well, that’s not for us. We don’t get to go to that theater. And I said, well, why not? Well, that’s only for white folks. And that was a shocker for my brother and I. We went home and asked my mom. And they politely explained things to us in a little more detail. So sometimes, I think, as you’re growing up, you kind of get protected a little bit, you know, by your parents. And from that point on, in that town is when I understood a lot more. Because there were a lot other incidences that happened. When we went to Catholic school, it was Catholic school for blacks. The public school was for blacks, and then on the other side of town was for whites. We started to see that difference. So, that was when the real lights came on about racism. That’s a long way around, here answering your question. Franklin: No, no, that’s a wonderful, detailed answer. Were there still signs up when you were there for Whites Only/Coloreds Only for public accommodations or restaurants, drinking fountains or restrooms, that kind of thing? Martin: To be honest, as we lived there—you gotta remember in fifth and sixth grade, we didn’t explore much of the white side of town. Black side of town was where we stayed, played, went to school. So we didn’t really see a lot of those. We saw maybe—I remember seeing maybe one when we went to the grocery store. But it wasn’t a real big part of our experience there. We were informed about certain things. Certain things came to me later on in life that I didn’t recognize at the time. The movie The Help? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Martin: My aunt and several other of my aunts and other ladies in town, I remember them going off, saying they were going to work. And they would be dressed in something similar to what you saw in The Help. But they never really explained to me that they were going to take care of a white family. Later on, after asking questions about it, that’s what they were doing. So, some cases you feel a little bit like, why in the hell didn’t people just explain things to us? I think there’s a lot of protectionism that occurs when you’re younger. So get a little bit from the kids, going to school, but not as much as when, later on in life, you start to see and recognize things. So, like I said, that was an interesting experience. Franklin: Yeah, I would imagine so. So you said you first came here in 1975. Martin: Yes. Franklin: As an intern, and I’m wondering, what was your internship? Martin: It turned out to be more of a record-keeping thing that I did for one of the contractors out here. At that time, I didn’t work for PNNL, which, at that time it was actual Pacific National—no, Pacific Northwest Labs. I did that because a friend of mine, Nestor Mitchell, which is the son of CJ Mitchell, had said, hey, you can come down here and get a summer job and make some dollars. So, that’s how I ended up coming here for the first time. Franklin: How did you know Nestor? Martin: Nestor? He went to school at WSU. Franklin: And is that where you went to school as well? Martin: That’s where I went, Washington State University. Franklin: And what made you choose Washington State University? Martin: When you’re young, you make decisions in odd ways. When I was going through high school, one unfortunate thing that happened was I lost my mother at 17. I was the oldest. She passed away when I was in eleventh grade. And so I became kind of like the surrogate mother. My brother is 32 months younger than me, and then my other brother is ten years younger than me. So he was seven; I was 17. I tell you that, because the whole time I was growing up, I was always told, you’re going to go to college, you should go to college. All my aunts said, it was always evident that you’re smart enough, you should go to college. Well, I always intended to go to college, right? But that event caused me to have to think a little bit. But then when the time came, my dad said, well, you know, I’m not going to be able to afford to send you much. I got a few scholarship things. And I said, well, I wanted to stay in-state, because of the cost. There was really only two options: University of Washington and Washington State. I said, you know, Washington State is just far enough that I don’t have to worry about being too close to home. A friend of mine, Dave Ware, he was a good friend of mine in high school, we both wanted to go and possibly become wildlife biologists and we figured that WSU had a good program. So I picked it, applied, and was accepted and that’s how I ended up there. Franklin: How was campus life at WSU? Was that a big—I know you’ve been an army brat so you moved around a lot, but was that a big change? I understand there were—you would’ve been there in the early ‘70s, right? And that was kind of a period of some activism, turbulence, on campus, and real attempts to create multicultural opportunities for people. Martin: Coming out of high school, there was a lot of issues in high school. I went to Clover Park High School. I remember there being, you might want to call them racial riots, but racial disturbances, racial interactions on campus. I came up in the era where, when we said the national anthem, we said, and justice for some. You know, we used to yell that out really loud. And moved on into WSU. And WSU, there was a very small African American population, very few minorities. You used to get looks and kind of wondered what people might be thinking. But there wasn’t a whole lot of in-your-face as there was when I was in high school. You heard about those, you heard, talked to people, they were experiencing certain deals. But to be honest, when I went to school there, I worked a lot because I couldn’t afford not to. A lot of my time was spent working and going to class and studying. That’s really—I mean. As a matter of fact, Nestor and a couple other of my friends, they didn’t study as much—matter of fact, Nestor ended up leaving after his third year. I think they partied a little bit too hard. But with that, they were talking about experiences they were having. They had a lot more free time than I had. That’s how I heard about most of them. Didn’t have a lot of in-your-face situations. So. It was reasonably comfortable, but, like I said, I probably worked 30, 35 hours a week while I went through school. Franklin: Wow. Martin: Yeah, I had to play a little bit of soccer. Because there was a soccer club there. I learned soccer when I was in Germany. When I came to the United States, there were never any people who played. So they had a club, and I got to play that for maybe about two of the years, two-and-a-half of the years. Interacting with those guys, you interacted with a lot of people from other countries, because that’s who played soccer. So, it was interesting to run into people that were from Italy and Germany, and we went around to different schools and played. So, got a little bit more culture that way than just at the campus. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. How large was the black community when you were there? And was it a close community? Martin: Oh. One, I don’t know how large it was; it was small. And as far as a close community? When you don’t have very many people, then people don’t really come together very much. I don’t really ever see myself as an activist. Heard about things. People called a few meetings and you’d go to them. But I didn’t see a large groundswell. Let’s just put it that way. Franklin: Oh, okay. Martin: You’d have to go back and maybe get some data on what the size was. Franklin: So what was your major? Martin: When I went there, my intent was to become a wildlife biologist, so I majored in wildlife management. Wildlife management, and along the way, I minored in chemistry. Only because I was taking chemistry classes and kind of liked chemistry. And they said, well, you only need x number of credits and you get a minor. At the time, I thought, oh, okay, that’s nice. I’ll do that. [LAUGHTER] And in the end, it worked out to be advantageous for future things that I did. But wanted to be—me and Dave, we used to go fishing a lot. Franklin: And who, sorry? Martin: David Ware. David was a good friend of mine. White guy. We became pretty good friends. He lived down the street not very far from us. We always used to do stuff together. So, yeah, we’re going to go into the game department. That’s what I originally went for. Didn’t work out that way, but— Franklin: Do you remember which contractor you worked for when you came out here? Martin: Oh. I want to say Westinghouse. But I might be wrong. It’s been a while. Franklin: Yeah, I understand. And you said it was mostly record keeping? Martin: Yeah, it was just some records stuff. It was a lot of paper stuff. Which actually I didn’t care as long as I got a paycheck. Franklin: How did you hear about Hanford and—yeah. And why’d you come out? Martin: Through Nestor, that’s how I heard, for the one summer. How I ended up selecting PNNL? Actually, it was CJ Mitchell. Because what happened was CJ was recruiting on campus at the time— Franklin: At WSU. Martin: At WSU. And I was getting closer to finishing, and Nestor says, you know, look! My dad’s recruiting up there. You might check with him and see if there’s potential for a job down here. Because he had come down, established himself for about a year and had a house. I was looking at game departments, Oregon and Washington. There were some openings, you know. But CJ started talking to me, and said, hey, PNNL has things in the area for wildlife and studies of wildlife. You should check into it. So I did. And to be honest, what ultimately made my decision was the amount of money they were going to pay me, relative to the other amount of money. Again, I looked at the salaries and I looked at that. And then he talked to me about it and he says, hey, there’s a possibility for lots of different things you could do at PNNL. And at that time it was PNL. And I said, huh, okay. And then I put my deal in. What they told me was, we have a department called Water and Land. There’s a job coming in for a project that’s going to start in February—which I was getting done in June. But you have a chemistry background, and what we’ll do is we can give you a job as a chemical technician for that eight months until this job opens and then you can transfer. Well, again, I was looking at how much they were paying me. And I said, well, I can do that. So I accept the job, and it was a rotating shift job. Again, not being very wise or understanding what rotating shifts really do and really do to your body. That was the last time I worked a rotating shift of any kind. That was murder. But that’s what brought me here. Franklin: What is a rotating shift? Martin: Every week you change from days to swing to graveyard. Franklin: Whoof. Martin: Every week. Franklin: Wow. That sounds— Martin: Ha! Franklin: How long would it take your sleep schedule to adjust to your new shift? Martin: I would say it never did. [LAUGHTER] Martin: I was a walking zombie in many cases. It was a forced thing. But you’re young enough that really—that’s really what it was. You’re young enough to adapt. Franklin: Yeah. Martin: The work was—we were actually working out in one of the buildings that had a lot of radiation and high rad fuels. That’s what we did. So the work was active enough. So you weren’t—you never sat anywhere. You were constantly moving. So that’s what I did. Franklin: Do you remember what building you were in? Martin: The 324 Building? Franklin: That sounds— Martin: There’s 325 and there’s 324. I think it was 324. The one that had all the manipulators. The actual project at that time was, they were looking at fuel rods and chopping fuel rods and formulating for glass mixture. That was one of the first vitrification projects. That’s what I worked on. Franklin: Wow. Martin: Yeah. That was my first introduction to radiation. And all of the training you have to have and protective things and everything you have to do. Franklin: Kind of not what you thought you were going to do when you were in school. Martin: Not—no. That first job was not. But, you know, it got me started. So it was good in that sense. Franklin: What were your first impressions when you arrived, down to the— Martin: Here? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: Warm. I like the warm, compared to on the west side and the rain. Since I had a connection through Nestor and his family, so I had that connection and was able to get engaged with their family and all of Nestor’s friends when I first came. So my landing here was pretty soft, as I would say. And I enjoyed it. Got to experience a lot of lab and got to understand more about the lab as I looked around. Because one of the things we were saying is, this one job was going to open. Periodically, when I had time, I would check into that organization, and then read a lot of materials about what the lab did. Coming into it, you know, you had a lot of colorful pamphlets and all this stuff about—well, you know, it’s not untrue, but it highlights things in a way that makes it a lot more attractive than really what was going on. I’ll just put it that way. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Yeah, I understand. We have a lot of that material in our archives, and, yeah, it certainly paints—I mean, it’s all promotional material, right, it paints the rosiest picture that it possibly can without outright lying. Martin: Right. Franklin: Yeah. Where was the first place you stayed after you arrived? Martin: There was a house that Nestor had, and it was on Hawaii Place in Kennewick, not far from the Columbia Center. He already had a house, he had a roommate, they had an extra room. Like I said, it was a soft landing. Franklin: Yeah, no kidding. What was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to? Martin: There wasn’t a lot to do for young folks. We did a lot of traveling outside, going to Seattle, and making contacts with some of my friends from college in other towns. So, like I said, there wasn’t a lot. I got used to a lot of different things in this area with Nestor and his family. Enjoying the water. Nestor and I, we got boats and played around on the water. I already had a passion for outdoors. Fishing. Got a little bit more into hunting. David introduced me to hunting when I was in high school, so I got to do a bit more hunting. So I ended up meeting people who, after being here about a year or so—met a friend, Doug Usher, he was really into outdoor activities. So I made connections pretty easy. I think, to be honest, as I grew up, with us moving as much as we did, you learn to make friends or make relations pretty fast. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Martin: I would say that that’s a characteristic that I’ve acquired, and I think it came from moving a lot and then interacting with people. You make friends quick. Otherwise, you’re a loner. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right, right. Martin: I think that that helped me in connecting with people here. A wide variety of folks. So, like I said, it was a pretty soft landing. From there, I mean, I never had any intentions—I didn’t think of—some people come and say, well, shoot, I’m staying here a couple years and then I’m off to something different. Didn’t really come with that intent. I was just coming off of being in college, being poor, or what I considered poor, most of the time. Actually had learned about food stamps when I was in college. Some guy says, for as much as you make and stuff, you should check into food stamps. That wasn’t until—because I went five years—wasn’t until, I was in my, I think my fourth year that I found out that I could get food stamps. That helped out a lot. But learning, coming out of that kind of environment, and coming to an established—and having a decent salary. Again, all of that was a big leap for me. And I use that term “soft landing,” because some people have hard—get hardships coming out, with very difficult to find a job, very difficult to make a connection into a town, right? I didn’t really have those. Franklin: How long did you work the analytical chemistry job? Martin: That was eight months. Franklin: Okay. And then what did you do after that? Martin: Then I got into the Water and Land group. What you find out when you want to go into wildlife, wildlife management and wildlife biology, you really don’t do a lot of studying of animals. What you study is habitat. Because if you want to control the population of a particular species, then you control their habitat. Control how much food they have, how much hiding cover they have, how much water accessibility they have. So I had a lot of soils. Soils, and botany. And by going into Water and Land, I got hooked up with a group that did soil science. That soil science, we looked at a lot of different aspects of soil. But what connected me, initially, was I got into waste and waste soils. One of the very first big projects was Uranium Mill Tailings Remediation project, where they were looking at these big waste sites from the mining of uranium. I had just come out of this group that was a lot of radiological, so I ended up learning a lot about radiation. So it was kind of the perfect project. But one thing you have to understand about PNNL: it’s all about projects. You get the work on projects. If you don’t have a project, you don’t have a job. So whatever projects needed people, you worked on that. If you had a set of skills that would help that—so, by having a lab background, and then having a background in understanding environments, it was kind of a little bit of a match. And that’s where I got connected into waste management. That’s kind of what kicked off the first beginnings of what I consider the primary elements of my long-term career. Franklin: Which was around waste management? Martin: Yes, around waste management. And then it ended up focusing on geochemistry. Franklin: What is geochemistry? Martin: Geology, chemistry. So the chemistry of the earth. So, understanding the interaction of water, soils and how they interact. How once you put waste in the ground, it transports, subsurface transport. If you look at the things I’ve told you that I had in my background, they all kind of came together in that field. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Martin: Yeah. Franklin: So you had mentioned earlier about your soft landing on the Tri-Cities and this connection with the Mitchell family who was a real—one of the big families in the area that people remember. CJ was a very public-spirited person. How would you describe life in the community? What did you do in your spare time? Do you remember any particular community events? Martin: There were different types of events, but there wasn’t—you know, first off, the black population was not that large. I would say a couple percent. I don’t believe it has changed much over the years. I don’t follow the population numbers. I did follow some of the population—or, employment numbers within PNNL over time. But we created a lot of our own events, to be honest. Franklin: Such as? Martin: Such—well, we’d have potlucks and we’d have—oh, I would say, I know that there were some black churches that would throw some events and so I would go to those. Franklin: In Pasco? Martin: In Pasco. Franklin: Yeah. Martin: And I got to meet a number of other black families. The Sparks family, which is a pretty good-sized family here. I’m trying to think of the other names. It started with a B. I can’t remember the name of the family right now but maybe it’ll come to me. So that’s how I got to meet individuals in the community. They are the ones that explained to me a lot of the history. Or their experience. And about the different cities. Matter of fact, they’re the ones where I had heard about what they called the sundown law in Kennewick. He goes, man, you realize back not that long ago, this is where blacks had to be back across the green bridge. At that time it was a green bridge. Any person that was in Kennewick at the time had to be back in Pasco. Of course, not even sure if that law is still on the books. You know how sometimes laws are still in the books but just not enforced? I’m not sure if that law ever got officially removed, how’s that? Now, take that for what it is. I don’t know. But they explained to me these things. So they asked, well, where are you going to live? And I said, well, I was living in Kennewick with Nestor. And he says, yeah, yeah, we know the Mitchells. Many of the Mitchells lived in Richland. And I got to know a lot of his brothers, and they have one sister. Cameron actually came up and was at WSU for a little while, his younger brother, while I was finishing up. So that’s how I ended up meeting and going to different events. Like I said, there wasn’t a lot to do here. You had to make a lot of your own activities. We’d spend a lot of time going to Seattle or Portland, up to Spokane, for different reasons. To be honest, a lot of them for what we might call partying. [LAUGHTER] I didn’t experience a lot of racial deals. Oh, every once in a while, you’d hear somebody call a name out of a passing car. And you’d look at the car and then they’d be gone. But I didn’t really experience a lot of in-your-face—I think I might’ve said that before—here. Although others have. It could’ve been who I was around. Could’ve been just, I didn’t go to certain facilities or—it was difficult to find, getting your hair cut. Another reason I had to go to Pasco, because you would find folks. I found a young woman who everybody knew. Carmen Will was her name. Franklin: Was it difficult in that you weren’t welcome there, or a white barber would refuse to cut black hair, or was it just, you were more comfortable in east Pasco? Martin: Not necessarily—well, not necessarily east Pasco, but in Pasco. Franklin: Pasco. Martin: Once you talk to folks, you would say, okay, it is a little more comfortable in Pasco, there were more black faces in Pasco. I got introduced to—because you get your hair cut—look, I mean, you’re not going to go to a white barber. Not initially. You’re going to ask, and say, who cuts, man? And they tell you. You’d go to that barber. There was a black barber in Pasco. And then later on, I got introduced to Carmen. Carmen, she was in several different spots and she always did a good job. She also knew a lot was going on. Franklin: How so? Martin: Oh. She’d say, well, did you hear about such-and-such and what happened to her at work? There were some incidences of people, racial situations, and some of the contractors. Interesting, you said something about union, people that you might have interviewed? Some of the black individuals who were in unions, they got a harder reaction and a lot more negative reaction than I did within PNNL. Now, I would call white collar/blue collar. I think the blue collar situation, a lot of times, those guys got in-your-faced, and had to react with people who were a little more vocal with their opinions. They also experienced lack of opportunities within their jobs, promotion, and we ended up talking about that. I can’t say that I had a lot of that in PNL. Oh, I mean, I would talk to a few other black individuals there and they would say, yeah, well, you know, to get a job at such-and-such, you got to know x, a person. And some of the black individuals didn’t see promotions like they thought they should’ve seen within PNNL. The number of people, of black individuals, within PNNL was very small. When I looked at the numbers, I never saw more than—it was less than a hundred. As a matter of fact, I remember always seeing the number floating between 50 and 75, and the number of staff at PNNL increased from like 2,800 to 4,500-ish that I recall, watching those numbers. And that number of black individuals stayed very low. There seemed to be people attempting, as I would say, to bring about diversity. The Hispanic population increased. But of course, when you—what you have to recognize with the national laboratory: it doesn’t recruit locally. So it doesn’t have to reflect the local demographics. It has to reflect the national demographics, as they always say. So because they recruited nationally, internationally. Which tend to make sense. But there are some jobs, hate to say it, you don’t need to be international to do. Janitorial, let’s pick. They have all those types of job. Welders. Some people in the bargaining units, you’d have to talk to a number of them. So back to the original deal, I didn’t experience as much of it as I heard about people who were in other contractors on the site, out on Site. And I think you’ll have to compare my knowledge or experience or anecdotal information with others who may have truly experienced it. Franklin: Sure. You’ve mentioned the barbershop earlier. Was that a real kind of locus of the community—was the one of the major kind of meeting points or locus for the black community in the area? Martin: Absolutely. [LAUGHTER] Absolutely. You’d go in there, and you would get to hear about a lot of things. I always would say, you know—I have a scientific—my background’s in science. I’m very careful about taking a broad input of information and then deciding what’s real and what’s not. So, with that said, you’d hear of a story. So I’d go and check with somebody else, and go, what did you hear what happened? And they’d have a little bit different twist on what happened. I’ve also been a manager for a long time. And not something necessarily racial, but when an incident happens, it’s not always as it was first initially reported. You have to go gather—so, the same thing goes for things that are race-based. Go and really find out what really happened. But more often than not, things did happen. Then, as a black individual in the community, I’m going to be careful. And if somebody tells you there’s a certain place that you maybe shouldn’t go, then you don’t. Franklin: Yeah. Did you attend church? Martin: No, to be honest. I wasn’t a regular—I was raised Catholic. So I went to Catholic school, went to catechism, my brother went to Catholic school. So, yeah, we always went to Catholic church. But once I got into college, I just stopped. Just wasn’t a major goal of mine. It wasn’t—so I never did. Franklin: Sure, sure. No, no. Martin: So it wasn’t until later on, after being married, I started going to a more interdenominational church. Because I just—I am a Christian, I am faithful in that sense. But I’m not sure what your life is like, but you tend to flow the way everyone you’re around flows. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, yeah, no, absolutely no judgment. I don’t go to church. So I understand completely. But I was forced to go as a kid, and so was my wife. She went to Catholic school all twelve years. And you know, you just kind of, yeah, it can have the opposite effect, when you’re an adult. But I was going to ask because—I ask that question because it’s my understanding from a lot of these interviews and research that the African American churches in Pasco played a large role in the community. And you had kind of mentioned that you would go to events at a couple of them. So I was just going to ask, for you or what you saw, what role did church play in the African American community in the Tri-Cities? Martin: For many blacks, it was the bedrock for them. It is where they could go and actually feel comfortable. To go and commiserate with individuals who are of their same upbringing. Many that may have come from the South, which a lot of them did and their families did, the church was a central point for the African American community. It is, should be, and well-recognized, and that still exists today. That is how it was in Pasco. I didn’t find myself attracted going to doing that. It just wasn’t in my—wasn’t something I really wanted to do. But I knew a lot of black individuals that did. For them, it made a big difference. Black churches help people cope, okay, with what was happening around them. It was a central point for discussion; it was a central point for a lot of families and helping encouraging a lot of the youngsters make those next steps. So, yeah, I knew that—Morning Star is one of the churches that probably—I would say it’s probably the biggest one, but I’m not sure. So I heard a lot about them. The Mitchells, they went, if I remember—they went to the Baptist church. Franklin: New Hope. Martin: Yeah, yeah. But they didn’t corral—Nestor never went. [LAUGHTER] We never really went that direction. Franklin: Right, I mean, yeah. Yeah, no it’s— Martin: So that’s about as much as I know about the churches. Franklin: Okay. Martin: And with time and off time—because I’ve been here 40 years—I’ve always heard about them interacting with people who had—and gone to some of their gospel events, gospel singing events. I’ll tell you, they’re always extremely welcoming, open arms, in those churches. There’s no doubt about that. Franklin: Hmm, that’s good to know. We’ve been planning to do some outreach to the churches and talk to some of the folks there and interview—maybe hopefully interview the pastors about their roles in the black community. Martin: That would be a very good thing to do. Franklin: Yeah, thank you. Well, it was not our original idea. It was the idea of AACCES and Tanya and Vanessa. Do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions, including food, that people brought with them from the places they came from? Martin: Well. Soul food, always the case with black individuals. But to be honest, the thing that I learned here, and the food that I learned here that I ended up liking is Mexican food. I mean, in Pullman there wasn’t a lot of it. So you ate fricking dorm food. Franklin: Still isn’t any good Mexican food in Pullman. Martin: Or you cooked your own. But here, it was everywhere. And it was inexpensive. And a taste that I wasn’t familiar with. I mean, we only lived in one fort, Fort Huachuca, and I think that was in Arizona, Fort Huachuca, and I don’t even remember a lot of it then. So I wasn’t exposed to it that much. But coming here, and then you learned a lot about Hispanic food. And damn if that stuff ain’t good. Franklin: Yes, it is. Martin: But people did bring a lot of their traditional Southern food. I knew how to cook a lot, myself. My mother was very good at teaching us how to cook. Franklin: Did she teach you how to cook soul food-type stuff? Martin: Yes. As I look back on what my mom did for us, or did for me, probably not knowing she was going to pass early: she taught us how to iron our clothes, wash our clothes, taught us how to cook. She was a stay-at-home mom, because we moved all the time. And in the end, that actually worked out extremely well for us. For me, after she passed, because then I had to do all that. Because my dad was still in the service, so he had to go. So I was the one that ended up taking care of a lot of that. But as I moved on as a young man, I knew how to take care of myself. Which was—that’s not something I saw in a lot of other young people. I don’t want to say both female and male, but most of the males, they didn’t know how to hardly do any of that. But my mom taught— When I lived in the South, you got a real good understanding. And of course we visited our aunts and uncles. There was a migration from New Roads to LA. So I have a lot of relatives that live in LA. Whenever you go to their houses, pfft, they’d always have food cooking, and it’ll always be Southern-type cooking. So I ended up learning how to do it myself. Even today, I mean, like, I still eat grits. You have to actually—you’re not going to go to a restaurant around here and find grits. If you do, you found something interesting. I bring up that one food, because that’s something from the South. So here in the Tri-Cities, not a lot. There’s a couple of soul food places now. But you go to some families, you know, they would have—some black families, and you’d have a meal other than what I cook for myself. So, again, it’s kind of odd that the one food that really was new to me was Hispanic cuisines. I still, like I said, today, I love it. I go to taco wagons. You know. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I know, me too, it was a real pleasant—I grew up in Alaska and lived in Hawaii. Martin: Oooh, Alaska. Franklin: Not really food meccas. Besides, you know, kind of the normal Chinese food and the normal American food. So moving here was—yeah, the variety and abundance of Mexican food—I’ve always loved Mexican food and it’s pretty legit here. You can get—as legit as you want to go. Martin: Yes, you can. Franklin: Which is great. What about community activities or events? Things like Juneteenth or—did you attend any of those? Martin: Yeah, I probably—for Juneteenth, I think over the years, I think I’ve gone to about a half a dozen. Franklin: Why is that celebration so important to the African American community? Martin: As you look at past history, there was an event that most of the black community would lean toward. A lot of things that are—people will ask the question, why do you have events like that that are separate from the white community? Not only that, but anything with having to do with black history. I’ve read a lot of books on black history. Our society, as I was growing up and going to school, they never highlighted much of the black history. Which actually, as I grew, really upset me, that I didn’t know these things. It wasn’t in the books. So, Juneteenth is just one of the events. They wrap the beauty pageant around that particular event, because it was an event which helped the changing of recognition of slavery and so forth. But all of the other aspects of black history and highlighting it were so that’s not forgotten. And here in the Tri-Cities, there wasn’t a lot of events. I can’t remember when Black History Month was actually established. Sad that I don’t know the actual dates. But when that thing happened—I know I did a lot more within PNNL as time went on to lift the people’s consciousness around what the black experience and the black history has done for America. People will question, why should there be something separate for you? And I always say to them, because if we didn’t do it, you may not ever really know. So, we want you to know that a bedrock of the United States was built on the backs of blacks. People need to recognize that. Not only white individuals or Hispanic individuals, but black individuals. I mean, some black individuals really don’t know the history. If they didn’t go to college and get exposure, they’re going to get what’s ever fed to them. Without highlighting it, and they get to see certain things, they might not have known. I just went to the Smithsonian African American Museum of History. I’ve now gone twice. Anybody I say, you need to go, and you need to walk through that a couple of times to understand the lineage there. I say all of that, because when an event happens here in town, you need to go and understand it. And I mean any person should go to it and understand some of the aspects of it. So Juneteenth, back to the original question, is just one other way to highlight an event in black history. Some people say, well, why do you have one just for black girls? Well, in the Tri-Cities, I’m not sure many black girls would make it in the Miss Tri-Cities Pageant, you know? Was there something in that pageant that made it so that black individuals wouldn’t do very well in that pageant? I don’t really say that I would go there, because I don’t know. I would be making a falsehood. But with that event, it was more about the Juneteenth event and black individuals being highlighted for their experience and their talents associated with that event. Hopefully—you’re going to always get your naysayers and negative folks about just about anything. But it’s important to have those. The people who have done that—the ones that have also supported the awards: one for African American kids, for educational awards; there’s also HAAP, the Hispanic Academic Achievement program; there’s also the African American Achievement Program, to bring funds to create scholarships for African Americans and for Hispanics. And people will say, well, why just for them? And I’ll keep going back to, there’s sometimes a competition that they don’t win in the big scheme of things, if you just pool everybody in one set, you don’t see the attention given to the minorities that are there. And trying to create some things and give advantages to some of the folks who don’t get those. But if certain people were to see my interview, they would say, well, we’ve heard that before. They just don’t want to agree. But you know, we can agree to disagree. Franklin: Certainly. In what ways were opportunities limited because of segregation or racism? Martin: Here, in the Tri-Cities? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: During my time here? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: Because that’s the only thing I can— Franklin: That’s fine. Or were they? Did you see anything? Martin: I would say that there has been some, because I would always question why haven’t we seen more—and this was within the lab—why haven’t we seen more black individuals in interviews? It came from—to be honest, where I first got my eyes opened up was in the late—the mid-‘80s. Dr. Wiley, I’m sure some people have brought up that gentleman’s name. He is the one who—he became my mentor. He exposed me to a lot of what was possibly going on within the laboratory that he wanted to bring about change. So I can only speak to what I experienced in the lab. Outside the lab, it’s what people would say that happened that you would hear. I already kind of covered that; you’d hear different things. But in the lab, there were situations where you could see that there was something not quite right. As I said, I told you the numbers. Why is that? So, he helped me ask questions and improve my understanding of what he saw during his time. Now, I remember he came from the South. He went to Tougaloo. It’s a historically black college. As a matter of fact, that was one of the very first things he hooked me up into, is doing a lot of things with the National Urban League and going around the country interacting with historically black colleges. Because I will say that, you know, I go to a lot of these conferences and give papers and whatever. I rarely see a black individual. Rarely. He went through and explained to me why we were not seeing a lot in some of the things around. So therefore that translates into not seeing a lot of them coming through our interview process. Because they aren’t at those, right? It took a long time for me to see and understand, and interfacing with a lot of historically black colleges. And that particular case was to let them know that science was an option. But in the lab, there has been certain situations that occur. You know, like I said, a lot of things are not blatant or just obvious. You kind of have to dig a little to understand why you’re seeing what you’re seeing. Bill helped me to understand a lot of that. And I became a lot more proactive within the lab to bring about some of the changes and give some individuals interview—in the interview process. So, again, I mean, nothing’s—with time, as time changes, you have to understand that things are slow. Sometimes you aren’t—I had a job. So I wasn’t spending a whole lot of time investigating that kind of thing. I’m mostly trying to keep my credentials up and doing what’s necessary, both in the lab and outside the lab. But it took me a little bit, but I got a lot more active in understanding what’s going on within the lab and encouraging and getting more diversity within the lab and did a lot more things, helping managers, helping our internal human resources department engage. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors and management when you were at the lab? Martin: Actually, I had a very good technical mentor. His name was Jeff Czerny, white male, who took me under his wing and taught me a lot and gave me a lot of opportunity. Engaging with most folks, I think—and this is my own perception is—I have a general rule of saying, the best thing you can do is perform. Bill Wiley said, you know, you have to have the credentials. Without the credentials, they don’t even really let you in the door. And then perform. So I had two paths I started off on. One, getting credentials, and the other, performing in my workspace. People picked me up on a lot of projects, because I had a performance rep, a very good performance rep. Once you get that and people get comfortable with that, they put you on their project, they’re going to get what they paid for. The credential route was not something—I’ll tell you, honestly, no fricking way was I going back to college. [LAUGHTER] My first experience in college, five years, long, drawn out. And I figured, that was enough. I should get real, get a good paycheck, and I should be able to launch, right? Well, Dr. Wiley said, you are sadly—it’s sad that you have that perception, because it’s not going to work. Long story short, I went back and did the master’s thing. Did that, took me four years. During that four years, I had gotten married, had a couple kids— Franklin: What was your master’s degree in? Martin: Radiological sciences, the study of radiation. Franklin: When did Dr. Wiley come to the lab? Martin: Ooh! Franklin: Was he there when you started? Martin: Oh, yeah. He was—he was in the ranks. I want to say he came there in the late ‘60s. Franklin: Okay, okay. How long—was he manager of the lab when you started? Martin: When I first interacted with him on a one-to-one basis, he had become the lab director. Franklin: Okay. Director, sorry. Martin: Yes, became the lab director. And I knew of him, in the lab. But I didn’t have a lot of—his area was biochemistry, microbiology. The lab is set up around projects. And if the project subjects don’t overlap, you don’t interface with folks. So I knew of him. But, like I said, my relationship with him started in the mid-‘80s. Yeah. So. Franklin: How were you treated on the job by your coworkers and supervisors? Martin: Well. I didn’t really—again, didn’t really experience a lot of negative. If they held some kind of negative feelings, they didn’t make it obviously known. And so I got along well with folks. Franklin: What kinds of interactions did you have with coworkers and supervisors outside of work? Martin: Not a lot. Pretty much focused on work with them. I had a couple of people who I met on the job that became really good friends. Doug Sherwood and Brian Opitz. We became good friends, two white males. That part, I did get a couple of folks that I knew and interacted a lot with. Then later on, there was a few—as time went on, I picked up a few more that I did a few things outside. But for both the professional folks, not a lot. Franklin: Could you describe the working conditions? Martin: In what way? Franklin: When you were at the lab, like, kind of what environments did you work in? Martin: I was primarily—I’m an experimentalist. So, when you say environments—environment is a big term. So I don’t know if you meant the environment—working environment, physically in a lab, doing your things, or the relational environment. Which one do you want? Franklin: Both. Martin: Relational, I only really focused on a few people who I felt comfortable with that I felt were actually giving me good scientific tutelage. And Jeff Czerny was one, that’s for dang sure. A couple other scientists, Ken Krupke, he was kind of a hardnose. I’m trying to think. Oh, I can’t remember the one guy’s name now. There were a couple other scientists who—Don Rai, he was another—he was an east Indian background. They were helpful. They were—and I think a lot of it came from is that—I don’t give up very well. And they could see it. And no matter what, I kept pushing them, pushing them. And I said, I don’t understand this. I need to understand this. What book do you got? Because I’m used to books; give me a book. And I’d come back with a lot of questions. I think if you really showed initiative and really wanted to, you got a very good reception from the science community. Again, once given a task, and you perform for them, they got what they wanted, they came back, they kept coming back. And that was how things migrated into me being involved a lot more. So the tutelage part, the working with folks, the experimental side, I learned a lot about safety. Working with rad—radioactive materials—you had to be very diligent about what you touched, how you dressed, you know, how you handled—it’s different than working in a non-rad. So operationally and safety-wise, that built up a strong working skillset that not many people had. I never had contamination issues. I always got what they wanted in a reasonable time. And then I was building up the academic part, so I made a very good connection between the two. So when they got stuff from me, it had already been thought-through. I think those two environments—I learned a lot. I got a lot of—so, me, as one person in there, I was okay. Others didn’t experience—of course, again, there wasn’t a lot of black individuals. Very few. A few Hispanics, but mostly white individuals, to be honest. And I think part of my—again, if you go back to my background, I was around white people a lot. So, I wasn’t uncomfortable; it wasn’t an issue for me to walk in a room and start talking to them. Which I think some of them, initially are not too friendly. Franklin: Some of the white individuals? Martin: Yes. They not quite knew how to react. But if I just focused on work, then there wasn’t a whole lot issues; I just didn’t talk about stuff about outside of work. Then they’re okay. You learn. Franklin: Were there any people that you were able to talk to about stuff outside of work? Have kind of more— Martin: Yeah, Doug and Brian. We talked a little bit about—well, the racial things I experienced, they didn’t see a lot of it. But Doug had a really good friend, Mark Francis, a black individual. Actually, ironically, he was his first roommate and he actually went to Whitworth and I played soccer against him, against Mark. Then we all became roommates. So Mark was from, original background, from Trinidad but grew up in New York and was out here. Franklin: Wow. Martin: Believe me, he—yeah, man. Wasn’t good, I mean, it wasn’t the greatest thing going to Whitworth. And Doug went to Whitman in Walla Walla. Where there’s hardly any blacks in school there. Franklin: Yeah, I’d imagine. Martin: But Doug has the right kind of personality. And Mark and I, we would talk and he would tell me the things he experienced. So, as roommates, we would hear and see—and then you just learn where to go, where not to go, who to talk to, who not to talk to. But as far as inside work, I had a few relationships that came out of it. But, again, there’s other people—hopefully you’ll get some other individuals that may have been at PNNL that can tell you what they experienced. I’m sure CJ must’ve said something. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. You mentioned where to go and where not to go. That’s something that comes out in a lot of interviews. That’s kind of, it passes through the vine and it’s informal. Do you have any examples of where were places to go and where were places that you avoided? Martin: There were some clubs. You didn’t want to go out to the smaller towns: Finley, Burbank, Benton City. Do your shopping in town. You never know what you’re going to get if you go out there. They didn’t speak a lot about Walla Walla. They said, well, Walla Walla’s—you know, there’s not much for you out there. So I wouldn’t go. Now, that may give Walla Walla a bad rap, but I’m going to go by what people who’ve been living here tell me. If I don’t really need to go, I didn’t go. There were certain restaurants they would say, well, you might not get as good service there as if you went to this one over here. So I’m going to try to stay away from the names so much, but that’s how— Franklin: No, that’s fine. I was just kind of trying to— Martin: Yeah, that is how you end up picking. It’s based on what people—you’ve got to put some trust in the people you’re meeting, that they’re telling you the truth. And why go test it? [LAUGHTER] Not when there’s other choices. Franklin: Sure. Right, right. Excellent. Back to working, what were the most difficult aspects of your job? Martin: My career at PNNL was like 36 years, so you could split it into 17 and 17 years. The first part of my upbringing was actually being a researcher. The second was becoming a manager. I’ve told you a bit about the research side. I wasn’t—I went into management kicking and screaming. Franklin: As many do. Martin: [LAUGHTER] How they wanted and tried to encourage me to go into management, they said, look, you’ve got a good reputation, you have people skills, you have good enough technical foundation that you could lead technical people. I said, is that what it takes? I mean, the reason I say that is because it’s the management side of my work experience that was more difficult, because you are interacting with people—you’re now managing folks who, predominantly white individuals, a few females, and you’re dealing with big kids. Franklin: Sorry. [LAUGHTER] No, it’s funny because it’s true. Martin: Well, yeah. So, you transition out of this environment where you controlled a lot of stuff—your experiments, your writing. And then over here, you’re trying to get these folks to understand what they need to do in order to succeed at the lab. Being in management was difficult. Franklin: Why’d you do it for so long? Martin: [SIGH] As you leave the technical world, you—in order to be good, technically, you have to be actively and building all the time. Once you leave it and you go out of that realm, you’ve now left it behind, and to go back is not easy. So that’s first and foremost. I like challenges. And there’s challenges in the management side. Back to Dr. Wiley again, before I really kind of left the technical world—he encouraged me to get my master’s. He strongly encouraged me to get my PhD. And in doing that, it helped me technically as I did it. But then he said, now you have the credentials, because in order to really move forward in this, he said—he told me, I knew I wasn’t going to become a Nobel laureate. I wanted to accomplish something. He was a very visionary kind of guy. He says, I was going to do that on the management side. His experience in the management area, he said, you know, you could do this, follow that track. So he encouraged me to go that route. And, doing that, once you get into it—if you want challenges, you take the challenge and you move forward and you overcome certain things. So by doing that, I got exposed to a lot different world in the area of technology and research and development. And one thing led to the next. And you then start to somewhat enjoy it. In management, what you primarily deal with are the bad actors and bad incidences, we’ll call them. You don’t get to focus a lot on the good. You allow that to happen, you make sure that the environment that that is happening in stays safe, encouraging positive. And then you deal with, when there’s a safety issue or there’s a behavioral issue, you learn to deal with it. An interesting conversation I had when I first became a manager, there was a lab director—this is after Bill Wiley had passed, and I’d done a few management deals—but Bill Madia came in as the lab director, and there was going to be some opportunities. He brought me in and we talked, and I’ll never forget this conversation. He goes, yeah, you’ve taken statistics, haven’t you? And I go, yeah. Yeah, I’ve done quite a bit of statistical stuff. He says, well, this laboratory’s made up of, it’s a subpopulation of a population. Oh, yeah, well, that makes sense, yeah. He goes, so, all the stuff that happens out in the population, it’s the same things that happen inside this lab with the same people. So the things you might find and what you might need to do is, your number one job is to protect the laboratory. You’re a manager now. You must protect the lab. And you will find there are people that steal, there are people who are sexist, there are people who—I mean, he went down through the list of the bad stuff that happens out in the population. Some of those same people working here. I go, like, uh, yeah? Your job is to make sure you understand those individuals. And if they exist, and if they’re bringing about negative things that happen in the laboratory, you need to find those out. People that drink on the job. Now, you know, let’s say I was relatively young, okay, and you hear this, and you’re like, whoa, what did I get into?! That opened my eyes up to what my job was. And people who will try to cut corners, people who are not going to do the right things from a safety point of view. That made me think so much differently about how I managed, and it really helped me. Because I did find certain situations that were happening. You can see certain behaviors. I didn’t take psychology or sociology. I never took management classes, okay? You learn by doing. I got to go to some Sloan management deals and they had some management training deals. But you learn—as I said, I learned a lot on the technical side, I just took those same skills and learned more about how to be a manager. And as time went on, I learned how to enjoy. So that’s it in a nutshell, really. I stayed into it because I kept getting other opportunities. Could’ve left and gone to other sites and had job offers at other places. But I tended to stay within PNNL, because I felt comfortable in the area and as well as my family too. Franklin: How did your racial background figure into your work experiences? Martin: My racial background? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: Being black and being in there? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: I had several assistants. Here’s a thing, a game I used to play with my assistant. I was a hiring manager. My tonation and my ability to speak and whatever, I would have conversations with some individuals on the phone, and I don’t think they knew I was black, okay? Unless they—maybe back in certain times, they didn’t have Google. Google—[inaudible] some of them didn’t. So I told my secretary, okay, when this guy comes in, I want you to watch his expression when he walks in and I’m in the office and he walks to the door and sees me. And my secretary, white, she’s like, oh, okay. So she would walk him in and then she would look at him. And their first is they stop. And you know right then, they weren’t expecting me. Now, I don’t want to make it sound like that’s a bad thing. But that shows you—the person comes in, and then we sit down and we talk, and we talk through the job. What do they want to—what is it they’re—I’m going to talk to them just like I talk to anybody else; it doesn’t matter what color you are. And I think they tend to get somewhat of a comfort. But, you know? Being black in a predominantly white institution, I mean not just PNNL—the institution of science. It’s different. I learned early on that you must be aware as best you can when someone’s for you and when they’re not. You can make that measure, and I had to do that on a number of occasions. But being a hiring manager and being involved in that kind of stuff, you want to be fair. Some individuals would come to me—black individuals, who were experiencing—totally not even in my department, but wanting to know if there was anything I could do for them. In some cases, you have to be careful about where you go out and what questions you ask, about other managers. But I had to do that for some individuals, and I was willing to. But it was a challenge. I enjoyed it, for the most part. Franklin: Yeah. In what ways did the security and/or secrecy at Hanford impact your work or daily life? Martin: Oh, well, I had the highest clearance you could have. It’s called Sensitive Compartmented Information. It’s like Top Secret in the Army. So I did a lot of classified work. In limited areas, in what they call a SCIF, which is Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, which is the next level. Quite impactful. I’ll tell you in the trainings, there’s a phrase I heard: for life. You had to keep this information that’s going to be provided to you confidential and secret for life. [LAUGHTER] I was like, whoa. So when you are in that kind of environment and being shared that kind of information, you learn to be careful about your speech, what you talk about, what you don’t talk about. Very enlightening. You only—it’s a thing called need-to-know. So you’re only privy to what you needed. Franklin: Right. Martin: Okay, so you weren’t exposed to everything. But for what you were exposed to, you understood why it was sensitive. It has a fundamental impact on how you viewed the sharing of information. Absolutely. And you know what, as Americans, tell Americans, there’s some stuff you just don’t need to know. Everybody thinks, everything should be free and out there and everybody should know everything. No. And that’s as much as I say! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Okay. All right then. What did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Martin: Only through what people told me. I mean, I learned a lot in the article you sent that I didn’t know. I didn’t know the living conditions. I knew they were relegated to east Pasco. But that one picture in there reminded me of Louisiana. Franklin: The one of— Martin: The shacks. Franklin: The shacks, yeah. Martin: The shacks. That’s the way it was in Louisiana. And I didn’t realize that it existed that way here in Pasco. Franklin: From your perspective, what were their most important contributions in the areas of work, community life and civil rights? Martin: Here? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: I would say that the individuals who came here were courageous, were the ones who took a lot of the brunt of racism. As the article put it, Jim Crowism. The movement from the South to the North was no different than the move from the South to Chicago and the movement to here. They experienced some of the same things. Those individuals set—as I said, for me—set a path where I could actually thrive here. Without what they experienced in going through and hurdles they had to go through, like opening up the ability for me to live anywhere in the Tri-Cities. They did that. I didn’t. A lot of what they experienced and what they went through. And you know what? That’s the same as it is in America. There’s a lot of patterns of the same. Again, I was shocked to hear that Kennewick was the Birmingham of the Northwest. I guess Portland was pretty bad, my understanding is. The Northwest was probably that new horizon. I think people that lived here didn’t know, or didn’t expect that migration to this—you know, the dam and the Hanford Project brought a lot of minorities this way, was the idea that there was work. And they actually could get work, is what brought them here. I don’t believe in why you don’t see the numbers. The number of blacks that came to the Northwest was nothing like what went to Chicago and in there. I mean, a lot migrated to the main cities. Not as many here. I don’t really know much about Seattle. The Northwest doesn’t have a really high African American population. Again, I’ve seen the number sometimes but it’s pretty low. So, point being is, not as many came. I think they got the brunt of that racial—because a lot of the Southern whites also came for the same reason. Franklin: Yeah. Martin: But they came in much larger numbers. So, I think it provided a platform for me to do reasonably well here. Franklin: Great. What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here? Martin: Equal access to work. Equal access to promotions. Many were relegated to certain types of jobs. I even hear it, matter of fact, just like yesterday. I was at the barber. [LAUGHTER] Went to the barbershop and a black individual that I hadn’t seen in a while was working at PNNL and he said he had to leave because he wasn’t being given opportunities for a promotion. But then he got called by one of the other contractors out at Hanford and said, hey, we got a supervisor’s job for you. Of course, he shifted and went. Now, why was there an opportunity there and not at PNNL? I don’t know. But it tells you something, that these things happen, and they happen more often than you might think. I would say, something I learned through some training, actually, it’s called unconscious bias. Have you heard that term? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Martin: Okay. Franklin: But maybe you could explain it for the sake of the interview. Martin: People unconsciously make biases. They don’t realize they’re doing it. It’s probably—no, it is—from their upbringing. They have a built-in bias that expresses itself, but it’s unconscious to them. Unless they recognize they have this bias, they don’t see it happening. They just think this is just a normal occurrence for them. I think, within PNNL and other management situations, people have them, and they don’t realize it until something brings it to the forefront for them to: one, accept that it exists. I make that statement because they will say it isn’t, but it’s there. And I’ve got them, you’ve got them, she’s got them. Oops, talking about the camera person. Everybody has them. It may not be about race. It could be about religion. It could be about just about anything. It could be about foods. They have never test—some people may have never tasted Mexican food, but they—no, I wasn’t taught that. Franklin: Right, they just know they don’t like it. Martin: Yeah, for some reason they just don’t like it. But anyway, that unconscious bias is a big deal, still today. That is something that I got exposed to and I also shared that with a lot of other managers to get to understand how to expand their consciousness about how they make choices, make decisions. Franklin: What actions were and are being taken to address those issues of civil rights in the— Martin: I think they’re talked about a lot more now. I believe, in some cases, some things were brought about in the lab because it was regulated. I may forget this agency’s name; I think it was called—it’s called OFCCP? Office of the Federal something Compliance. They monitored the contract, and there were certain things that—in order to have a federal contract, there were some issues around racial, ethnic, women—requirements that in order for you to hold this federal contract, you must comply to. Some of that drives behavior and management action. It’s sad to say that a lot of things that happened in America is not necessarily done because it’s the right thing to do, but because they got forced to do it. Some through regulation. And I think some of what happens in the lab was driven by being reviewed and being under certain types of consent orders, that they must do a better job. I saw that happen. There is a lot of individuals within the lab who have—who truly do have a desire to see change. Some of them may be hampered by the environment they’re in. They have good intentions, but unless it’s driven all the way down, it just doesn’t happen. So I’ve seen a cultural change within the lab, over probably a 15- or 20-year period. Slowly but surely, people will put their arms around the fact that, you know— And once—I brought in a lot of black students from historically black colleges through a lot of programs. Once they see that these individuals could perform and they could do just as well, they had credentials, you know. It’s just that they didn’t go out to certain venues that exposed them to where that population was there. And I think once they started seeing those and they said, oh, okay. There’s a little more comfort in that. I think more has happened over time. And you’ll find champions. You’ll find people willing to open up and willing to take—in some cases I think they’re taking a risk. And they do. Which is very—it was and is very encouraging. Franklin: Who were the important leaders of civil rights efforts in this area? Martin: Whoa. Well, you had Webster in here, didn’t you? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: Yeah, he’s one. I think that CJ Mitchell, because he had a platform that he could. When you look at AACCES, that organization, it has done a lot. Because it approached it from an exposure point, a cultural thing, and a gathering of information, and then presenting it to the people. What’s Eleanor’s last name? Eleanor, she’s the one that runs the Juneteenth pageant. Dang. I think her last name’s Sparks, because she married a Sparks, Wayne Sparks. Is she on your list to interview? Franklin: I don’t know. We interviewed Ellenor Moore. Not the same Eleanor? Martin: Ellenor Moore is Vanessa—is Leonard’s mother. Franklin: Mother, yeah. Eleanor Sparks. Martin: But look up Juneteenth in the—I think it’s—her short name is El, but Sparks. She’s the director of Juneteenth. If you can get an audience with her, I think you would get a very—and you know, she’s heavily in the black churches, she leads the gospel singing. Franklin: Do you know her well? Martin: Yeah, I know El. Franklin: Oh, okay. Martin: If you want, I can call her and say—pass on your name or something. Franklin: I find that’s some of the most helpful when doing these, especially across cultural barriers— Martin: Yeah. Franklin: You know, just trying to peer into a different community, that introduction helps a lot. Martin: I’ll do that. Franklin: Thank you. I would really appreciate that. You know, it just makes it so much more smooth. Martin: She has had some situation within the lab, with the racial issues. Franklin: Okay. Martin: And I remember having—she would come to me, was one of those people that came to me and asked me, this is what happened. And I’d bring it up with other managers, saying, this shouldn’t be happening to her. And the guy—I’m not going to say his name—he had a pretty abrasive personality in the first dang place. He just—more of it got exposed. And she wasn’t going to put up with it. And some people just put up with things, right? But I’ll make sure that I give her your phone number and she calls you. Franklin: Thank you. What were some of the notable successes in addressing civil rights issues in the area that you noticed or were a part of? Martin: Never really part of any. Seeing, whenever they would have a soul food event, how welcoming the people would just flock to it. When they did that—because around food people just—I don’t know what it is about food, but it just brings them out. And then they would get a cultural lesson at the same time. Those kind of events always brought about real positive celebration, and across racial lines. Juneteenth was another one, get people rallied around it. Those kinds of events are the ones I remember the most that are more positive. I rarely saw any large protests. I remember, when I was on the board at Columbia Basin College; I was a trustee. And it happened that Katrina occurred. And there was a huge—the issue of poverty just rose its ugly head. So I put on three workshops on poverty that were held on campus. I say that because I don’t believe people realized how many black individuals lived in New Orleans. It’s like, greater than 50%, maybe it was 60%. It was a very large percentage. People didn’t understand why these people didn’t get out. And events were held so that people recognized, when you’re poor and somebody says get in your car and leave—you don’t have a car! How you leaving? No buses are coming down to take anybody anywhere. These people were trapped. Franklin: Right, yeah. Martin: The poverty level in New Orleans was, like, I think it was like 50-some-percent in poverty. Mostly black but also white. Well, I bring that story up just because people here, once we started having these workshops, they were like, wow, they didn’t realize—you don’t get it in the news. The news wasn’t sharing it. They just showed the aftermath. So I had a young man who was working for me, black individual—I had a lot of relatives that lived—I think I counted 40, 42. Many of them were recently well-off, I mean, middle class. But they were devastated, right? So this one young man who was a black scientist, I brought—I helped him get his PhD. His mom lived down there, near one of my relatives and gave him time off so he could go down and help his mom. I bring these little ones up because people in the lab—there was a connection and I could tell them, I have relatives down there. I’m sending them money, whatever. I didn’t physically go down. These people are out. And that’s a huge black community. That brought an enlightenment about poverty and racial perceptions. By having those workshops—and we had a lot of agencies come in and there was a lot of talk, primarily about poverty. And they didn’t realize how much poverty was in the Tri-Cities. How many people were in poverty. Numbers were shared. And people were surprised. I think the folks that work at the laboratory are a little bit more affluent. Tend to stay where you’re most comfortable, right? There’s also a financial culture. People will stay amongst people who have money. Franklin: Right, well, we segregate ourselves based on class, which often breaks down on race. Martin: Yes, it does. Franklin: And people but houses in new subdivisions and they move farther away and they just don’t interact anymore. The people without money get left behind. And those neighborhoods decay. And it just compounds the problem. Martin: So the whole issue of poverty brought in both the perspective of race and class to this community. And there was a lot of conversation around it. Just the fact that—just because a person is homeless doesn’t mean they’re a drug addict or they’re this—no. An unfortunate thing happened to them where they were out of home, because they didn’t have the money. And it’s not like they’re bad people. If you look at it, that happened, and so Katrina brought a different type of conversation in this community. I think it did across the country. But it happened here. People, I think, were a little bit more aware. But as with everything, it fades. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. We talked about some of the kind of successes in addressing civil rights in the area. What were some of the biggest challenges? Martin: In order to get people to come and live here, as far as black individuals, there’s not a lot for them. I think that’s a major impediment. I think just the area itself, just its physical location, the actual population of African Americans here, I think, it’s probably around 2%. It’s low. Franklin: Yeah. Martin: The Hispanic population is probably more around 30-ish, Tri-City-wide. Check my numbers on that one. But in Pasco it’s probably more like 70? Franklin: Yeah, I think it’s, overall, we’re almost around 50, I think. Martin: Overall in the whole Tri-Cities? Franklin: I think—last time I checked—at least in schools. Because I taught at— Martin: Oh, in schools, yes. Franklin: I taught a class in American history, and Pasco was about 70% Latino, Kennewick’s about 50, Richland’s about 20-25. So I think if you average that out, you’d get somewhere probably around 40-50. Martin: Between 40-50, okay. Franklin: But it could be 30-40. Martin: No, you’re a lot closer numbers. Franklin: It’s still pretty significant. Martin: Yes. I mean, real significant. So, the fact that we have—it’s changing. That’s what’s changed here. I think it’s no different than the rest of the country. There’s this fear factor. I mean, I think you see all this immigration topics and fear. It has a lot to do with that changing face of America. I think you’re seeing some of that here. I don’t think. I know you’re seeing some of that here, okay? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: I’m not sure how people want to react to it. I sit on the board for Kadlec Hospital. Matter of fact, at present time, I’m the chair of the board. And looking at your service areas and looking at the makeup of who comes in for services and having to deal with the poor and the vulnerable. We have three hospitals: Lourdes, Trios, and Kadlec; Kadlec being the biggest, and we have probably 55-60% of the market. Trios has about 20-25. And Lourdes is a critical care hospital, so it’s going to be low. It’s restricted to 25 beds. And it has probably 10-ish percent. I tell you that because in working that scheme of things, you can see how people’s attitudes will get to who is the primary customers there. More and more people are of the Medicaid, which is healthcare for the poor. And of course with the changing baby boomer retirement deals, a lot of them go on Medicare, and those are hard to balance, because you get paid less for those for services than you do in the commercial market. And in that comes a conversation around who is the makeup of your customers. So I hear conversations. I say, well, that is who we are. That’s who we have to serve. We have to figure out how we’re going to serve those better. So people will tend to, eventually, coalesce around certain aspects of race, of what you’re seeing. And understand that that’s who our customer is. It’s actually a very positive—I’ve seen a very positive change. You want to make sure people understand and represent—and I represent myself as well as I can in those scenarios. So, the Tri-Cities is going through a change. Like you said, the Hispanic population being as large as it is, they’re more impactful, both from the dollar, as well as what they want to see for services. You know, you have some people say, why does everything have to be in Spanish and in English? Have you looked at who we’re serving?! I mean! It has to be. We must do that, in order to be fair, right? So I’ve seen those, I see them happening. It’s a good thing. So the Tri-Cities—you notice, I just say Tri-Cities. I’m not a native. Well, I guess I am now, but. Franklin: I was going to say, you’ve been here a lot longer than I have. Martin: I didn’t grow up here, right? Franklin: Sure. Martin: So I just look at it as three cities. I call it Tri-Cities. It’d be nice if they were consolidated, but— Franklin: Me, too. It could just be one city called Tri-Cities. I know, I’ve always— Martin: That’s the way I put it, anyway. So, I hope for the better. I stay active. Even though I retired, I stay active and involved in things in the community. Less than I was, but enough to see change. Franklin: Yeah. I wanted to add, just real quick, fill in some previous information. Where did you get your master’s and PhD? Martin: My master’s I got though what they used to call the Joint Center for Graduate Studies. Franklin: Right, right here. Martin: Which is WSU, right here. And I got it through the University of Washington, because that’s who offered that particular degree. When I went to get my PhD, it had become WSU, and I was the first person who was able to stitch together a PhD program that was a joint between main campus and here. They had this thing called the residency rule. Pfft. Basically, what it said was, you must spend at least two years of your PhD on campus, on the main campus. Franklin: Right, probably because they want your residence money. Martin: That’s not the way they present it to you. Franklin: Well, of course not. Martin: They say, what we believe is necessary is for you to be able to be embroiled in the academic environment for which you are— Franklin: Paying handsomely? Martin: No, no, not paying handsomely. That will make the foundation for your PhD. Franklin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Martin: What a crock. Franklin: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Martin: But I had to spend—I ended up, I had Karen [UNKNOWN] was the provost. We worked it out; she got approval through the main campus. I did three—two-and-a-half semesters on the campus. So I had to travel back and forth, left my family here and yadda, yadda, yadda. And then I finished it out here. Matter of fact, I had my office down here in the basement. I finished out here. So I got my PhD through Washington State University. I was the first person to get a PhD in environmental and natural resource sciences. Franklin: Oh, wow. Congratulations. Martin: I was the very first person. That’s not always good. Because you’re the guinea pig. I really questioned whether I was going to go and get it, but Dr. Wiley, he was retiring. He said—you know, that’s the credential thing. If you look at me, I was close to 40, I guess. It was in the early ‘90s when I jumped off the cliff and did it. I was leaving an environment, scientific environment where I knew who my mentors were, I knew who my colleagues were. They were supportive. And I was going to go into a whole different thing on campus with professors I didn’t have any clue who they were, they didn’t have, necessarily, my best interests in mind. So, I did that. They had my life in their hands. That’s a scary thing. At least it was for me, going and doing that. But I did it, and I worked my way through it. As I say to people, they go, what does it take to get a PhD? I say, well—I’m very simple in my approaches of things—I say, well, you only have to do two things: satisfy your graduate school; satisfy your committee. Get them to sign off on the documents. Once you’re done that, you’re done. You know? But! It’s not easy to do either one of those things, either one of those. And long story short, I ended up getting it. I think I was the first person—because at the time when I finally got it, I got it as a WSU Tri-Cities student. I was the first person. So not a lot of the people now don’t have to do the residency program. There’s PhD programs here. But that’s where I got my education. So, my bachelor’s was WSU, master’s is University of Washington, PhD, WSU. Franklin: Wow. When you came here in 1975 and then came back, how did you feel at the time about working, if not directly on the development of nuclear weapons, at a site that played a large essential role in the development of nuclear weapons? Martin: Well, let me correct you. Franklin: Okay. Martin: The national laboratory is in Richland. It has some facilities that happen to be on the Hanford Site. Franklin: Right. Martin: So I never really worked for Hanford, how’s that? I worked at Hanford only because the facilities were on the southern part of the Site. Franklin: You did work for a Hanford contractor. Martin: Well! I don’t even count that. Franklin: Okay. [LAUGHTER] Martin: That was something I did to make some money. Franklin: Certainly, though— Martin: But we had an association now with the Hanford Site. I did projects that were related to problems at the Hanford Site. Some of the waste issues, some of the burial issues, yes. But I always want to correct people: I never worked, in my, let’s say, my real career. Franklin: Right. Martin: So, how did I feel about working at the Hanford Site, the thing that was associated with the bomb? Franklin: Yeah. Martin: You got to remember, I’m a scientist. That was one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever. Although, what it did to Japan was horrific. But yet, it’s the same science that creates nuclear power. So, it’s scientific discovery. I’m good with it. I never had any—as far as waste disposal and its impact on the environment and all that, I understand a lot of that. I think a lot of it is overblown. There are contaminants; yes, yes. Some of them got in the river; yes, yes. But there’s actually more negative impact from fertilizers going into the Columbia than there was with radioactive material. Most of the problems out at Hanford, the waste problems, are pretty contained. There are certain amounts that are in the subsurface, granted, they’re there. But they’re there. Don’t be going out and drilling a well down there and pulling up water to drink. Wouldn’t be a good thing. So, I have probably a slightly different perspective. But I’m very comfortable. Once again, because my background in science and I got to study a lot of those waste contaminants. As a matter of fact, my PhD was related to one of the components, carbon-14, and its transport mechanisms through the subsurface, explaining exactly how it happens, what happens. And I was able to prove that the general understanding was incorrect in how it is retained. So I have an association. Franklin: What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Martin: Wow, legacy. Most important legacy. Well, it helped end the war. Some people may not be—there’s a debate on whether we should’ve dropped the bomb or not. I’m not probably telling you anything haven’t already heard. But that is its legacy. It’s connected to the bomb. Now, there are some scientific advances that are being made associated with the cleanup that have now been able to use in other cleanup activities that are related to Hanford and what was done there. Transport of materials above ground. This whole vitrification plant that’s going in. There was a vitrification plant, I think, in the UK, but this is going to be way bigger, much more complex. There is going to be science—there has been science that’s come out of it, from understanding what they had to do, and I think there’ll be further. So the first legacy is the bomb. The second is, what are the spinoff technologies that we’re going to see from what we study in the creation of the vitrification plant. Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about working near Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Martin: Say that again? Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about working near Hanford, or related to Hanford, and living in Richland during the Cold War? Martin: Present and future generations, if you want to be involved from a scientific point of view in problems that are challenging, you come here. You come to the lab or you come to work at the Site, you are going to experience science challenges that you’re not going to find anywhere else. National labs, there’s more than just this one. Okay? So always, in part of my recruiting of individuals, was if you want to be involved in scientific discovery that is new, challenging, and transferrable, you come work at the lab. You want to take on a challenge that’s like nowhere else as far as waste disposal, you come to Hanford. Hanford has a lot of different aspects to that cleanup, from the mundane, people just driving trucks, moving dirt from here to there, burying it, to the people who have put together the vitrification plant and taken on the challenges of putting together a system never been done before. So that’s—if I put it in a nutshell, that’s what I’d put in it. Franklin: Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to migration, work experiences, segregation and civil rights and how they impacted your life at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Martin: The way I look at a lot of those issues, you just put them all together, I always say to folks, me as a black individual in America, I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t’ve had the opportunities I had, if it wasn’t for civil rights, if it wasn’t for affirmative action. For all those people who piss and moan about affirmative action, I would not have had—and I know it to this day—I would not have gotten the opportunity to go to school, gotten a job at PNNL. You might call me an affirmative action hire. I’ll be proud of that. Okay? So, I believe, as an individual, I ride on the shoulders of many. I will tell you, this is kind of a story. I have an aunt, she’s passed away now. Auntie Anna. Auntie Anna was my mother’s favorite aunt. When I was struggling to decide whether I was going to go and get my PhD, because, seriously, I was like, why do I really want to go do this? I went down and sat with my aunt—she lived down in what they called the Jungle in LA, not a good part of town. We sat in her room, she smoked, and we’re sitting there talking, and I said, you know, Auntie Anna, I’m trying to decide if I’m going to do this. And she was pissed. [LAUGHTER] She goes, Wayne, I have known you for forever, and you know, me, your aunts and your uncles, we went through a lot of struggles. And they’re offering you this opportunity to go back and you’d be the only one in our family to get a PhD and you’re sitting here trying to decide whether you’re going to do it or not?! What is wrong with you? When you leave here, you go sign up right now. She made it apparent that I have opportunities because of her and others. I won’t forget that conversation. It is kind of part of why I went through and did it. She was one of them, besides Wiley. So a lot of what is happening in America, for those that might hear me speaking or wherever, and for those that might even know me, I might not have shared some of these things with them. But without those things happening, I could’ve been born in New Roads, Louisiana and still be there under oppression. Because when I go back there, there is a lot of people who are not doing a whole lot, didn’t get a whole lot of opportunity. But for many of those, like my father, who left and went out and became in the service and we moved and I got to be exposed to different things. That’s who I’m made up of now. And without those, yeah, I have skills. But you know, there’s a lot of people have skills. They just may not have the opportunity to express them. A lot of the civil rights stuff is why I have the opportunity that I’ve had. Franklin: That’s very well said, Wayne. Thank you for coming to the interview with. Martin: Hey, that was great! Franklin: It’s been a wonderful interview. Martin: Hopefully I said the right things or did the right things. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, no, you-- <a href="https://youtu.be/ww1Zsn1-Slk">View interview on Youtube. </a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Westinghouse Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 324 Building Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1975- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Wayne Martin Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Segregation Discrimination Racism Civil rights movements Radioactive wastes Radioactive waste disposal Geochemistry African American universities and colleges Migration Affirmative action Poverty Civil rights Description An account of the resource Wayne Martin moved to Richland, Washington in 1975 and worked for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/05/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ffd781828edeb2314000be5b7ce99cbe5.JPG 3e6d729eb90dd295e216a22a0d75d903 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Aubrey Johnson Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Aubrey Johnson on April 9th, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Aubrey about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And for the record can you state and spell your full name for us? Aubrey Johnson: My full name is Aubrey, A-U-B-R-E-Y, Lee, L-E-E, Johnson, J-O-H-N-S-O-N. Franklin: Great. So, Aubrey, your parents came here, right? They brought you here as a small child? Johnson: Yes, my parents moved here in 1946, April the 2nd. Franklin: Where were your parents from? Johnson: They were from Mississippi. Franklin: Is that where they moved here from? Johnson: No, they moved from Mississippi to California, and then they went to Portland and worked in the shipyards. Just up at the end of the war they then moved here after they heard about the Hanford Project in order to gain employment. My mom, she worked at the cafeteria and my dad, he ended up working on the railroad. Franklin: Oh, okay. Johnson: We lived in various places. I can remember my mom telling me that when we first got here, not having a place to live, we stayed in the kitchen of a pastor, Reverend Stewart’s house for a while. After they got employment and stuff, we moved into a trailer. And eventually, we bought a little small house, and we lived there for a few years. In 1948 they moved it down to the property they would live on now at 705 South Douglas. It was a shotgun house. I once asked, well what is a shotgun house? It’s where you walk in the front door and you can look straight through and right out to the back door. There was no rooms to the side. In there, there was a bed on each side of the wall, there was a heater in the middle of the floor and there was an ice box. There was no running water, no bathroom or anything like that. I stayed there until ‘49 and I went to Mississippi to stay with my grandmother. And I stayed down there with here for a year and then I moved back here to Pasco. That’s when I started going to kindergarten and going to school. Franklin: Where were you born? Johnson: I was born in Vancouver, Washington. Franklin: Vancouver, Washington, okay. And were your parents living in Vanport, do you know? Johnson: I think they were living in Vanport, because I know my mom talked about it all the time, Vanport, Bagley Downs, and I’m sure that was the area that they lived in, the Portland area. Franklin: You mentioned your dad working on the railroad. Was he a railroad man by trade or was he just kind of-- Johnson: He was a railroad man by choice. Franklin: Railroad man by choice? Johnson: Yeah, any job that you could get, that’s what you took and you took whatever you could get first. Franklin: Right. What do you know about your parents’ lives before they came to work at Hanford? Johnson: I really don’t know a whole lot about it, for me to see it because I was a baby, but my mom, she would tell me stories about her living in the South and the wages they had to work for. She’s like, son, I remember when I worked for ten cent an hour. I worked for twelve hours and made $1.20 for the whole day. But you could do a lot with $1.20. She told me about when they were sharecropping and lived on the farms with her parents and stuff like that. There were 16 children in her family and so it was really hard for them having so many. It was basically farmers. You had to just try to scratch out a living the best way you could, especially when you don’t own your own place. It’s almost like you are an indentured slave. You’re in that situation. One of the things that impacted me as a kid is that they never broke even. It was almost even, so they kept you there on the farm. So if you were trying to move or go somewhere else, it’s like you’re still owning. If you own somebody something then you can’t leave. And so that was the situation until when she got to be 16 years of age and then she got married and took off and left the South. My dad, he had told me he worked in restaurants and various places, and different type of work. They lived on a farm, also, in Mississippi. And you know, the struggles and stuff that he went through living there, and how hard it was. But the good part of it was that they lived in the country. So, the racist thing was there, but they wasn’t impacted with it like the people was in the city. That was a good thing. I think my growing up, as a child, I wasn’t taught to be racist. So in our house it wasn’t talked about until I got to be about 14 or 15 years old and my mom she would tell us about the things that I just told you that happened to them, et cetera, et cetera. When I started going to school, there was only three kids in our classroom that were of color, and two of them were Oriental, and myself being black. We all played together, we laid on the floor and took naps together, et cetera. You find in kids, there is no racism until it’s taught to them, we all got along really well and so I didn’t see that. Living where we were living at, there were Caucasian people that lived on the next block up from us and over, which I went to school with and we all got along really well and it was a good thing. I didn’t start seeing the race issue until I got in junior high school. One of the first things I saw is when they had a dance that we all attended. And it was probably about maybe eight or ten black kids that went to the dance, and the rest was Caucasian. And all the Caucasian kids stood over on one side of the wall; black kids stood on the other side of the wall. After dancing with the three or four girls that was there, I attempted to ask a Caucasian girl if she wanted to dance, and she said, no, not now. I said, okay. I turned around and walked back where the other kids was. When I turned around and looked, she was dancing with a young man of her own kind. And it’s just kind of like, well, why she didn’t want to dance with me? You try to reason out in your mind as a kid, well, maybe that’s her boyfriend. But it wasn’t her boyfriend because of who she was. I couldn’t understand why it was that way. When I went home, I told my mom about it. And she said, well, you know she is probably forbidden by her parents. They don’t want us to intermingle because they are afraid that you boys are going to get interested in them, and this will result in interracial relationships, that’s the reason why it’s that way. I still couldn’t really understand it. I had a friend, his name was Nolan Bench, I went over to his house one day to play. His dad came from Texas. We were in the house, and we were playing around, and his dad come home and he looked, and he looked at his wife and he looked at us and says, what do you got them kids in here for? We just looked at him, and his wife says, you leave those kids alone, let them play. When I went home I told my mom about it. And she said what did he say? I said, he said, what are those—the N-word—kids doing in here? And I told her, his wife said, you leave those kids alone, let them play. My mom told me, she said, don’t pay no attention to him, you go back over there and play. The next day, me and Nolan Bench, we were good friends, I went back over to his house. After a while his dad got so he’d come home and he wouldn’t say anything to us. We just kind of grew up together until actually after we got out of high school and he went in the military. When he came back from the military, he told me his mom had passed. And he said, Aubrey do you want to go see my dad? And I said to myself, what on earth for? I said, well yeah. We went over and his dad was living right below the Blue Bridge in the trailer court that they had there. When we walked in his dad was sitting over in an easy chair. He had this big head, no hair on the top and just prickly hair sticking up on the side. He said, Dad, he say, you know who this is? His dad looked at me and says, no. He says, this is the little kid that used to come over to the house when we lived over in east Pasco. He stood there and looked at me for a minute. I guess he was trying to realize who I was. And then all of a sudden he stood up—which I thought was a giant of a man—but now, mind you, I’m six-three-and-a-half. I look at this guy and he’s only probably about five-nine, but he still had that big head. He says to me, he says, you know, I’m really sorry that I treated you kids the way that I did. That just really warmed my heart. Found out that he had cancer and shortly thereafter he passed. And at some point he realized how he had impacted his kids’ lives, and our lives by being the way that he was. So he was just, I figured, trying to reconcile in his mind, wow, I did a bad thing. Because at some point, we got to realize the things that we do and be accountable for them. As we get older, we can look back on hindsight and see what we should’ve did different, and I think that was the kind of thing that he had there. There were a few other incidences with a friend of mine as far as racism. North Beech in east Pasco, Caucasian people lived up there and I heard that there was a covenant for them not sell to any black people. Wehe Street was a street that ran north and south, and you could go North Wehe and go all the way through to the Dietrich’s city dump disposal. Anyway, my friend Mickey Donnell asked me, hey, Aubrey, do you want to go over to my house and play? I have a swing set. Well, I had never seen a metal swing set in somebody’s yard. We had like a wood swing set, and he had like the metal ones at school. I said yeah. We walked up Wehe Street and then we walked across the field and went in his back gate. We were there playing probably for 45 minutes or so and he heard his parents coming home because when they closed the gate, it was one of those metal gates, and clank! He says, Aubrey, you got to go! I looked at him and he says, run! I went out the back gate and I ran over to Wehe Street and then I walked on home. So the next day that I went to school, I asked him, well, what happened? He said my parents were coming home and you wasn’t supposed to be over there. I said, well, why did I have to run? He said if you made it all the way over to Wehe Street without them seeing you, then they wouldn’t know if you had been over there or where you had been. I’m like, wow, that’s odd, that we played at school every day. But then that kind of showed me the racism that was there with his parents and stuff. Because now I’m beginning to be aware of the racial issue at this time, because this is like ’57 or ‘58 as we are getting older. It was just a bad thing to try to live through. I’m going to fast forward. I’ve been out of school 55 years. And this will be my 55th year class reunion. I’ve never gone to any. I was talking with a friend of mine through Facebook and I told them, well, do you know I’m going to go to my first class reunion this year? I told them, you know the reason why I never came? He said, why? I said, because when I was going to school, because I wasn’t a jock, I didn’t have that many friends, I said, kids never really socialized with me that much. I said, so if they didn’t socialize with me then, why do I want to go and look at them now? I just thought within myself, is that you can’t hold yourself back with grudges and all the rest of that stuff, or thinking how it was then. You got to look forward to how it is now. I said, I’m just going to go and take a good look at all of them and see what they look like. And there were a few that I was good friends with. And I’m hoping that they’ll be there and haven’t passed on. There was this one guy that I was really looking forward to seeing, and he died here about three weeks ago. Dave Balfour. And he and I were real good friends as we grew up. His dad worked at, and he did also, at Pasco Clothing when it was in Pasco. But I just want to just see what they look like and stuff. So I had talked to this one guy and he said, man, last time I went to a class reunion it was like going to an old folks’ home. I’m like, really? He said, everybody is broke down and really bad. It just kind of amazed me, because look at me, I’m 73 years old and I’m still holding on pretty good. People are like, you don’t look like you’re 73. Well, I’m not trying to look like I’m 73. You try to be the best that you are, at what you do, and you try to look as good as you possibly can while you’re doing it. It really makes a big difference. Franklin: It does, yeah. You’re the same age as my dad and he’s—sorry, Dad—he’s in rough shape. Because he didn’t take care of himself. Yeah, it does, the way you take care of yourself plays a big role. Johnson: Exactly. It’s like my father-in-law told me about forty years ago, or longer than that because I was 22 years old. He told me, he says, I want to tell you something. I said, what’s that? He said, don’t stay up all night every night. He said, if you take care of yourself when you’re young, yourself will take care of you when you’re old. And with him saying that, I stopped going out, staying out all night long. Because as a youngster, that’s what I did; 19, 20 years of age, like 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, you come home and then have to get up at 7:00 and go to work. And go to work all day and you’re half dead. Those were words of wisdom that I just grasped. I said, well, I know how to do that. I’ll go out on Thursday night, on Friday night, I’ll go out my wife and I, and on Saturday, and on Sunday I’ll go to bed so I can get a rested up for Monday to go to work. With that, I think it made a big impact on my health. As I begin to get older, I didn’t have all the aches and illness a lot of my friends did and stuff, because when I look at a lot of them, they—bad shape. I’m not trying to brag, anything like that; I’m just blessed to be able to be still holding on. Franklin: That some good advice. Good to heed it when you’re young enough to actually make good use of it, too, that’s pretty smart. What part of Mississippi where your parents from? Johnson: My dad, they came from right outside of Jackson, Mississippi—Florence. And my mom, she came from Lyons, Mississippi, L-Y-O-N-S. And they lived on Mr. Pillar’s Plantation. See, I don’t know what his first name was; his first name was always Mr. Pillar. You know what I’m saying? My dad’s parents, Willy Johnson and Charlotte, they had their own farm and stuff. Franklin: Did they sharecropping or did they have their own? Johnson: No, they had their own farm. They may have had sharecropped before, but they had their own farm. Franklin: Your parents were pretty young when they left Mississippi? Johnson: Oh yeah. Yeah, like I said, at like sixteen years old, momma like, hey, I’m getting up out of here. Franklin: What was the pull factor? You said they went to California and then Oregon/Washington, what brought them out there? And how did they find out about the opportunity? Johnson: Okay, well, it was a better way of life. I’m sure that they had heard on the radio about the work and stuff that was going on out in Arizona and California. And so you want adventure, you want to get away from the -ism from the old way that it is and go out and see what’s new. Whether you can make it or not, you feel that you can. As you move, and I’m sure that they didn’t just make one stop; they made a lot of stops along the way and they probably worked a little bit over here and made some money so you could move forward to the next place, and the next place. I heard a lot of my mom saying, well, yeah, we worked in Arizona there for a while and then we went to here, we went to there. I remember her mostly mentioning working in California at the shipyards, working at the shipyards and she says, well, I was a scaler, I didn’t know what a scaler was, but what you’re doing is you’re taking a chipping hammer and you’re knocking the slag off of the welding and stuff. My dad, he was a welder in the shipyards. So she said, yeah, you’d go down in those tanks, but you go down in the bottom of the ship where they are doing all the welding and stuff at, and you work for long hours down there. You come out and get a breath of fresh air and then you go back down. When they ended hearing about—the shipyard, after it closed, I think it was during the period that they had that explosion, because I know she was saying that they were living in California, I forget what they—it was right there out of Antioch, California, Vallejo area, and it was a shipyard or ammunition dump and it blew up. Port Chicago, that’s what it was. Then they moved to Vancouver, Bagley Downs or somewhere in that area and worked for a few years. When the war was over, everybody was hearing about this Hanford Project and they were building the mechanism for the bomb, and hey—well, it was just before the war was over—let’s go out there. In ‘46, I guess that was right at the end of the war, that’s where they came to, was out here at the Hanford Area. Then, like I said, moved to Pasco and working in the cafeteria and my dad, he went to work on the railroad and that’s where he worked at for a while. You’re kind of a jack-of-all-trades. You just have to have a confidence level and say, I can do it if anybody else can. Such as myself, I’m a welder by trade, I drove truck, I drove a motor grader for years, I’m a cosmetologist, I had a restaurant, Aubrey’s Barbeque in Pasco, I was a furniture mover when I was down in California, I’ve been a laborer, I’ve been an inspector on a rock gravel equivalent and condensate tests and stuff. I’ve been well-rounded in doing a whole lot of different things. Whenever a person—hey, can you do this? Even if I couldn’t do it, I said yeah. Because they’re going to give you some instructions or they going to show you the way they want you to do it. It gave me the opportunity to get in there. So I’m sure my parents did the same thing. Hey, can you do this? Yeah! Well, come on over here, let me show you how to do it. And then they show you what to do and that’s the way you do it. Because everybody want you to do it their way. If you were a dressmaker and you went to work for a seamstress and they say, can you make this? Well, sure I can. Well, this is the way I want you to do it. They’re going to show you how to set up the mannequin and they want you to do it just like they do it. Even though the results would come out the same, they want you to do it their way. Franklin: That is pretty confident. What kind of education did your parents go through? Do you know the highest grade they achieved? Johnson: Mom, she had a third grade education. Franklin: Oh, wow. What happened after third grade? Sharecropping? Johnson: Well, that’s what she was doing. Mom told me, she said—I didn’t ask the question at the time because I didn’t know the question to ask—how old she was when she completed the third grade? Okay? She wasn’t eight years old; she probably was twelve or thirteen, or fourteen maybe when she completed the third grade. Because I remember her telling me that she was one of the oldest kids of the family and she had to help take care of her brothers and sisters and stuff. She says, when I went to school, she say, I had to catch a turn row, and I’m like, well, what is a turn row? She say, when you came home from school, you had to work all the way down that row picking cotton, or hoeing or whatever you was doing. When you get to the end, you turn around and you work your way all the way up to the road, then you go home. She said we only went to school for like maybe two or three months of the year, because during the spring and the summer time and stuff we had to hoe the fields, cultivate the fields, pick the crops, and there wasn’t much time left for school. Because you were trying to make it so that you had a living. And having a big family, it made it a lot easier, but then there was more mouths to feed and stuff. She said, well, you know, son, when the Depression came, we never really knew it was a depression. Because we had food to eat. We didn’t have no money, but we had food. I’m like, wow, that’s really amazing because the people that lived in the city, they couldn’t grow food in concrete so they had to wait for some kind of assistance, for a kitchen or something. You see pictures of them standing around burning barrels and stuff and everybody trying to figure out where are they going to get their next meal. But in the South, they had food and little or nothing of anything else. She said, well, we made cotton sack dresses. I’m like, well, what’s a cotton sack dress? The sack that they got they seed in, they would take it and cut it up and make dresses out of it. It was the ingenuity that they had with no education to be able to make stuff. And like mom said, she worked in a dry cleaners for a long time, and she say it was like a sweat shop. It would be so hot in there, no air conditioning or anything like that. You was in there washing clothes, you had to do a steam press, ironing clothes all day long. She said, I would be so tired that I work sometimes twelve hours a day, and I would be so tired at the end of the day until I couldn’t go to sleep. I’m like, that’s pretty doggone tired, to where you’re so tired you can’t go to sleep. And I’m like, wow. My dad, I didn’t really get to know him that well, because him and my mom didn’t stay together and he left at an early age. So I didn’t get a chance to reunion with him until in the ‘70s and I got a chance to—so my whole childhood, basically kind of missed being with him. And then as he got older, there wasn’t much conversation about the way that it was; it was about the here and the now and moving forward because we had to try to live as quickly as we could, and try to have camaraderie before he passed. He lived in Michigan and I lived out here. He had a pacemaker—I don’t know if they were excuses or what, he’s married again to another lady and stuff. Everybody is running interference, because they’re afraid that you trying to get something. They want to keep all their time. It’s just like, if you have a children by your first wife and you have a children by your second wife, your second wife really don’t want you interacting with your children from the first marriage, because you take away from this. So that was kind of the feeling I got from that as a young man and I look at it. He said, well, son, let me explain to you, see what happened. I’m like, you know what? Let’s not worry about the past; let’s just move on. So I didn’t really get a chance to learn any history about him, or how it was, or how his experience was. I stayed with his mom and dad a little over a year, we were little kids out in the country. I can remember telling my friends, yeah, I remember we didn’t have no car. We had to go to town and when we went to town we went to Jackson, Mississippi a couple times we were in a horse and a wagon. He says, aw, you weren’t in a horse and wagon! You’re not that old! I’m like, yeah, I may not be that old, but I’m telling you we didn’t have no car, that’s all we had, was a horse and a wagon. It looked like it took forever to get to where you was going. My sister and I, we would hop off the wagon and we would play and run along the road, the horse was walking so slow. Then we’d hop back up in the wagon. We went to church, horse and a wagon, we went to the store, horse and a wagon. And talking with my cousins, they tell me that the same store is still there that we went to back in—when we were little kids, in the early ‘50s. I said that’s amazing, and the same old church, they kind of renovated it a little bit, but it’s the same old church, right across the street from the cemetery. And I don’t know what the name of that corner is, but-- I was being told, like, my uncle he was 102 years old; he died two years ago. And my dad, he was 89 when he passed. And the year before he died, our conversation was, I sure hope I live to be old as you is when I die. And he looked at me and said, I’m not dead yet. I said, that’s what I’m saying. If you lived to be 100, I hope to live to 101. I didn’t know that my dad had cancer. And he died the next year. I didn’t know he had died of cancer until the year after he was dead. I went back to Michigan to visit with my stepmom and she asked me if I wanted to go to the hospice house where he had been. I’m like, hospice house?, in my mind. We went and it was a new establishment and I met the people that was there and his nurses, et cetera, et cetera. Once we got home, then I said I didn’t know dad was at the hospice. She said, oh yeah, she said when you came out here, they had moved him from the hospice house home. So he was basically at home so that he could die. I was talking to him on the phone the week before he died, and he dropped the phone and I heard the silence and I asked my stepmom, I’m like, Mom, is Dad all right? She said, aw, your daddy done sit here and he dropped the phone. I say, is he okay? She said, well, I believe they’ve been running some tests on him and stuff, but they haven’t said what was wrong with him, blah, blah, blah. But she wasn’t telling me the truth. I said, maybe I should come up there and see him. And she says, if anything happens to him, I’ll let you know. I said, I don’t want to see him when he’s dead; I want to see him when his alive. And the same week I got there on a plane and I got there on a Monday and I stayed until Thursday. And I came back home, and I told her before I left—because when I got there, I could see that he was in bad shape. I said, if he dies anytime soon, I’m not coming back up here. And he died that Saturday, two days later. I’m like—kind of blew me away and she kind of got an attitude. Well you coming? I said, I told you I wasn’t coming back up there. This is my thing. My memory of my dad, seeing him sitting on the living room with his silk pajamas on, with his legs crossed, I don’t see him dead. I see him alive. And in my mind, that’s the memory you have as your last memory, and that’s my last memory of him. And I can see him right now. When she said, could you help me take your dad to the bathroom? And I got up and I helped walk him to the bathroom and she could took him in there so he could do whatever he do, and then he came out and said your daddy want to go lay down because he’s tired. And that’s when I knew the condition that he was in, but I didn’t know that he had cancer. Until the next year. That’s neither here nor there. Just—knowing about my dad and trying to give you a sense of not really knowing him. My mom, she remarried and I was raised basically by her husband for a while, and when they separated, it was just me and her and my sister. We just made it the best that we could as kids. I didn’t get a chance to go and do stuff like other kids so much, because my mom, her thing was, because of lack of education, was work. Son, you got to go to work, son, nothing comes to a sleeping man but a dream, get up and go to work. I wanted to go and play. So my work was come home, we had chickens and ducks and stuff, you come home and you feed them chickens and them ducks and you give them some water and then you go out there and water that garden. You go out there and hoe them weeds off of the yard and we had a pretty good-sized place. For me it wasn’t go play, it was go work. That is what she instilled in me, is work. Now, my sister was completely different. Oh, sister, she’s so smart and it was like, education for her and she ended up going to college. But for me it was just like a struggle. When I came home from school, I’m like, Mom, look! I got a C on my paper! And she’d look and say, aw, son, I don’t have time to look at it right now. Just lay it over there. I’ll see it later. It made a real big difference, because my mindset was that she really don’t care. If you don’t have that positive encouragement, it doesn’t push you to be better than what you are, you know what I’m saying? It was like, as I grew up, I thought that I didn’t have the ability to really learn, so I was very manual. Just show me how to do it and I can do it. But the thinking part of it—I didn’t think that I could think the process all the process through. I didn’t realize that I was as smart as I was until I went to school to become a cosmetologist. You got to understand and learn “hyponichium,” how to spell it, the definition, [UNKNOWN], et cetera. My friend told me, you got to burn a lot of midnight oil, you got to do a lot of reading. Now, it’s really hard to read a word that you don’t even know how to pronounce it. I was, I think, 43 years old when I went to cosmetology school. I would ask so many questions until the instructor told me, Aubrey, just write them down on a piece of paper and then I’ll answer them. Because you’re holding up the class. I was as old as my instructors and for me it was like, wait a minute. I paid $3,000-something to go to school and it was through a rehabilitation class where I got my back hurt. I’m coming down here to learn. I’m not gay, I’m not a woman, so it’s going to be harder for me to get the concept, because I don’t see it in my eyes the way that a woman sees doing another woman’s hair. So it would be just like, me doing like, oh, yeah, well, I see it’s just like this. You know? I don’t see that in my mind. So you got to draw a picture, or if I see a picture then I can emulate what I see. But you know what? I didn’t let that hold me back. Man, I would stay up and read and read. I got some little tapes that one of my instructors gave me and he says, take this home and put your headset on and listen to them. I’d put them on and go to sleep with them on. The next morning it would be as clear as a bell. I graduated with a 97-point-something average when I got out of beauty school. And then I started my own business. I was able to do that, it was the hands on and being very manual, gave me the opportunity to learn it. [off-camera voice]: Are you guys doing an interview? Franklin: Yup. [PHONE RING TONE] Franklin: Man, interruption city. Johnson: It is what it is. My phone over there doing its thing. Franklin: Oh, it’s fine. Yeah, usually people know if the door is closed— Johnson: No big deal, because you’re going to edit it anyway. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: All right. When you went back to Mississippi, I kind of want to—how was Mississippi different from Pasco when you went there? What was remarkable to you? Johnson: For me, going there, because I was so young when I went back, is that I was free. That’s how I felt when I went there, because we was out on the farm. It’s like, I didn’t see Caucasian people; I just see our family and our family friends would come over. It was just like, the first time that I saw a truck, to know that it was a truck, it was a guy sitting up on the hood of it, and he had two horses hitched to it and he was pulling it down the road. I’m used to seeing a wagon. So when I look and I saw that truck being pulled like that, I’m thinking wow, that’s amazing. I’m four years old and to me, it’s like, is that the way it’s supposed to be? When I started seeing cars, the only cars that I’d seen down there in the country—because we lived way back off the road—was the mailman would come down and put mail in the mailbox and then they would leave. But people rode horses. I just didn’t see it, being there, it was freedom and we was out on the farm, and we were kids and the only thing that we had to do was harvest eggs and just play. Out here, I had ate some pills and stuff and I had gotten poisoned kidneys. And I was in the hospital up at Our Lady of Lourdes. I can remember this just like it was yesterday. They had me and this Caucasian kid in the same room and my bed was on the same side of the wall, but it was first when you walked in the room, his was behind mine. He had a little whistle that was a motorcycle policeman and when you blew it, it had little balls in it and they would spin around the wheels. So I walked to the edge of my bed and he was over there blowing the whistle and I stuck my hand over and he gave it to me and I blew it. Now, imagine this, I’m three years old—people say, oh, you can’t remember back then, but I can remember this as well as I’m looking at you sitting over there across that room. When his mother came, she demanded that they move me or move him out of the room. Because she didn’t want him in the room with me because I was black, I’m sure. And that whistle that I was blowing, she snatched it out of my hand and grabbed her kid up and then that’s when she made her demands and stuff. That was my first part at racism. After I got to be in my upper teens to look back and see how it was, that’s the reason I make the statement of, man, I was free. Because I was free from—just that one incident that I can remember even there may had been some more. When we would go to the store, my mom would tell us before we went, don’t put your hands on nothing. Don’t touch nothing when you got to the store. When we went to the store, we was forbidden to touch or do anything. We were just there with her and that was it. Like she had told me, she said when they went to the store, when she lived in the South and say she wanted to buy a dress. You couldn’t put it on and try it on. You just had to know your size. And if you took it home, it was yours, because no one wanted to try a dress that you had put on. Nobody knew you had put it on except for the store proprietor. But that was one of the conditions that they had. So it was just little things like that, after I got of age made me aware of how it was, their living in the South and how prejudice started to become—like I said, I wasn’t taught to be, but then I heard about it and it just really didn’t stick in my mind until up in the ‘60s. When the ‘60s came, then I was really aware, because I had started really paying attention, I had heard about Emmett Till getting killed down in the South and different stuff. When my grandad died, my dad called up and he said, well, Papa died. I want you to come down here and go to the funeral. My mom took me and she said, son, do not go down there to Mississippi. I said why? She said because I’m telling you, them people will kill you. Because firstly, they know you’re not from down there. And you are not going to be saying yes, sir and no, sir, and all of that, she said, so don’t go. I didn’t go. I just heeded what she was saying. Because Papa died in ‘69 and the revolution, basically, what you want to say, of racism and trying to go to school, get education, the Jim Crow, sitting at the back of the bus, the freedom marches and all of that. They was killing black people like you wouldn’t believe. And a lot of it you didn’t really hear it on the TV, the bad side of it. Every now and then they would show you people strung up and stuff like that. She wanted to make sure that I wasn’t one of the ones that was in that situation. Without making a sound too horrific. She never said, you have to hate white people because of what they doing to us and blah, blah, blah. My sister told me, you got to love them to death. And if you love them long enough—the same thing that Martin Luther King preached—pretty soon we will get over it, and be able to live as one person, instead of being so divided such as we are. I hate to say it, but I’m going to say this—in my mind, the only reason that racism is so alive, is because the Caucasian people are afraid that we are going to do them the way that they did us. And you can hear them, I watched a segment on TV a few weeks ago and this guy was saying that, well, black people are inferior, and the Oriental, they’re first, and we’re second. Our numbers are getting so small until they’re going to take over, and we are the superior race. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all this superiority stuff that they trying to beat into your head because they are afraid. And there is no reason to really be afraid. Because the first thing, black people are god-fearing people, and they love God, you see, because it would be hard for me to do something to you, unnecessarily, unless you were trying to do something to me. Because I’m afraid of what God is going to do to me. You know, that’s just like going to the church and stealing. I’m not going to do that. That racist thing is getting worse by the day. And it’s like they’re reliving the past, all these guns, and shooting people, and police brutality, et cetera. Those were the things that was happening back then. And now here it is the reoccurrence of the same old thing, and it’s almost like it’s okay to go out and be brutal when you see they shot a guy 17 times, well, why didn’t you just shoot him in the leg? Well, we got to neutralize, is the word, we got to neutralize. If we neutralize it, we just kill it, and we done with it. You know what, if you kill it the person won’t have a chance to view his opinion. Well, he had a cellphone in his hand. Well, I thought it was a gun. But he’s dead. It’s so that it’s okay, and people allow it, so it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And you’re just like, what is it going to come to? It’s the bad side of life that you wouldn’t want everybody to pick up a gun and start shooting and killing each other. That wouldn’t make sense. But, see, to me, out of fear, the people that’s in power will create a war in order to remain in power. And we see that happening with China, Russia, the ones that they empower, they impose they will up on other people. And they will start a war in order to maintain that power. It’s kind of the sort of thing that we’re doing here in the United States, is trying to maintain the power by advocating all this racist stuff that they got going on right now. We need to get out of that and just learn that we all need each other to be able to live together in peace and harmony. That’s the way it was designed for us to do. It wasn’t designed for all of that. Franklin: Out in the country in Mississippi, do you remember, was it pretty segregated out there or was it mostly black folks that lived out in the country where you were? Johnson: It was mostly all black people that lived out there where we were. There was one Caucasian family that lived down by where our mailbox was, but I hardly ever seen them. Like I said, we were quite a ways from the road and stuff. But it was mostly black people. Now, when you went to Jackson, where my aunt and stuff lived, that’s where the segregation was. Because now you in the city, and the city is where the Caucasian people lived. It’s just kind of like, say, east Pasco: it’s a rural area. So at one time, it’s where all the black people lived, over on the east side. And all the Caucasian people lived on the west side. If you didn’t have a reason to be over there, there was no reason for you to go over there. We lived in the country and the only time that we went to the city was to go and visit my aunt and her family and then we in turn left and went back to the country. So I didn’t get a chance to really see that racist thing. I was just a little kid, so I didn’t see it there. Franklin: Right, I was just trying to build a comparison, I guess. Johnson: I understand. Franklin: I want to ask you about the life in the Tri-Cities. How would you describe life in east Pasco growing up? Johnson: We was a village; we were a family. That was a highlight of my life, living in east Pasco until the ‘70s when it was Urban Renewal came in and removed, replaced. I mean, everything to me was east Pasco. At one time, there was four groceries stores in east Pasco. There was a dry cleaners and there was Kitty’s Grocery Store, the East Side Market, there was the Tin Top and there was JD’s. There was two night clubs, there was Norse’s and King Fish separate club. I think there were probably about eight cafés: it was Squeeze-in Diner, Bobby’s And Rays, Haney’s Café, Big Mikes, there was a café at the tavern, there was Belgian’s Pool Hall, there was Avery’s Café, there was a little record shop. It was like everything, basically, that we needed was in east Pasco, other than—we went uptown to buy clothes and stuff like that. For east Pasco it was just like a family. My mom would say, son, you be at home before the sun go down. I mean, be in this yard. And she could yell and I could hear her for like three or four blocks away, and then I would head home. All my friends and stuff that I basically went to school with, all of us black kids—because they were doing busing—once we got off the bus, we all walked home together, we played together, we threw rocks, we rolled tires. It was a lot of fun growing up out there, I hated to see it when Urban Renewal came. Because what it did, it removed the black people from the little shacks, they call them, the little homes they had to the projects. And then we lost everything that we had, because all of that was gone. It was just kind of a bad situation. It was supposed to be in the name of interests, the self-help co-op. Art Fletcher, I think, was the guy that came there that just pushed that over on us. We had no representation. When they got ready to open that corridor to Big Pasco, they wanted to grab A Street—not A Street, Oregon Street. That’s a throughway from the freeway all the way to the river. Well, black people owned all that property from the railroad over. When I was growing up, we always heard that railroad property is worth no money, okay? So when this redevelopment come in, it wasn’t redevelopment; it was was reclaim. They came in and the city—you had to sell it. They gave you nothing for it. I was talking to this lady the other day, her mom owned a block of land. I asked, how much did your mom get for that block of land? She said $18,000. There were no representation, so whatever the city said this is what you get, this is what you take. There was no negotiation. That broke down our whole community, because from Main, Front Street all the way over to Elm Street was all black people lived all through there. When they took half of it away up to Wehe Street and made an industrial area, you couldn’t go down and buy any that property six months after they bought it for the same price that they bought it for. The price had escalated so much. It was just a travesty, because it was basically, probably a couple thousand people that lived there and they built a housing project. And I can remember there was only two families that lived there that wasn’t black. There was one Hispanic family and one Caucasian family. I don’t know what the capacity was, but the whole Arbor Elm Project was filled with black people. What happened is that the few dollars that they gave you, you ended up moving somewhere else if you didn’t move in a project, out of state, out of town. And slowly our little community just broke down to where it was nothing. Now when I look at it and you say, well, what’s over there on the east side? Nothing. There’s no restaurants, there’s no pool hall, there’s no taverns to go to—even though I don’t go to taverns anymore. But there’s just nothing, everything was broke down. But as a kid growing up, they can feel—we’d go over there and play baseball me and our friends and stuff, we could go to each other’s house and eat. It was like you was everybody’s kid, because everybody knew each other. If I went over to Sonny Boy’s or Leroy Milton’s and he was out there raking leaves, his mom would say, Aubrey, you go get a rake and you go out there and help him rake them leaves up. Or, you kids come in here and eat. That type of thing. It was just really a lot of camaraderie and playing and just having a lot of fun as kids and stuff. We would go over to the railroad and shoot pigeons when I was a kid and stuff. That was one of the things that the boys did, we raised pigeons, bring them home, kind of doctored them up and stuff, the ones that we didn’t kill. The ones we killed, we’d come home pick them, clean them, and eat them. People would say, you’re eating a pigeon? Well, that pigeon was pretty good. It was a lot of playful times and I had a good time living in east Pasco. I wouldn’t change nothing. And just thinking of it, I moved from Pasco and I went to California seeking a better life. Man, I’m thinking about all these things that I’m going to do and talking all about how great California is, and I moved to Los Angeles and I lived down there in the rat race. I moved from Los Angeles up to Vallejo, California and I stayed there for a while. But let me tell you something. I couldn’t wait to get back to Pasco. And when I came back, like I said, I got two houses. I didn’t live on the west side; I moved back over on the east side. And I’ve had the opportunity, countless times, people like, hey, you want to sell your property? They send you stuff in the mail telling you about how much your property is worth and we’ll buy it, so and so want to buy your property. Franklin: You’re talking about the property in east Pasco? Johnson: Property in east Pasco. I get that all the time, right now. I’m not going to sell that property. That’s kind of like my heritage. My mom gave it to me, I’m going to pass it on to my daughter and I’m going to try to her, don’t sell it, keep it, because this is part of your heritage. And I tell her the stories about when I was a kid being raised up, so that she can pass them on to her kids. Because that’s her history, my history. I didn’t get my history, because I was out of a divided family. My mom worked two jobs and so she had very little time to spend with sitting down, talking to you. Franklin: Where did your mom work? Johnson: She worked out here at the cafeteria at the Hanford Area when she first came here. Other than that she worked at the Hanford House, she worked there for years as a dishwasher. She worked at Top Hat as a dishwasher. Franklin: Where’s the Top Hat? Johnson: It was in Pasco, across the street from the old post office, was the Top Hat Restaurant, that was the name of it. She worked there for years. She worked cleaning house, doing day work for different people. And pretty much as a kid, that’s what she did. She’d get up in the morning and get us fed and we had to walk to the bus and go to school, she got in the car, she drove, she went and did her day job cleaning house, she left that job and went to the other job. She washed dishes and she would always have a night job, and she’d get home at sometime 12:00, 1:00 in the morning. When I got in high school a lot of times I would go out and help her when she worked at the Hanford House, up here. I can’t think of the name that it was called before then, it’ll probably come to me later, but it was some other establishment that it was called, she worked there. Franklin: The Desert Inn? Johnson: Desert Inn, that was it. Franklin: I wasn’t sure as to when that stopped being—we have old photos of it in the ‘50s, like mid-‘50s, and it’s still the Desert Inn. It’s that transient quarters. It looks kind of like an L or like V. Johnson: Right. They added on to it now and upgraded it and made it look good, but it was the old Desert Inn, that was it. I could remember in high school, I would go there and she would call me like, son, I need you to come out here and help me. Because they would have a banquet and they would get dishes from it says Chinook Hotel, wherever that was from, towards Seattle, anyway. And they would have barrels of them, and she would have to run them through that manual washer. And what she would do is I would scrape them and put them on the racks and she would take two hot towels, and she would catch them when they were coming out. Then we would take them and put them in the barrels. And then all them pots—because at nighttime she had to have everything washed for the morning. I’d go out there, I didn’t get paid for it, but sometimes we’d be there ‘til 2:00, 3:00 in the morning washing dishes and washing pots, and I had to come home and go to school. Franklin: I was a dishwasher in a steakhouse for about a year and, yeah, it was rough. Washing dishes is rough. It was rough, rough work. Johnson: I know. People that never did it don’t realize how much work it is, you know what I’m saying? Franklin: You’re really one of the most important people in the whole place. No one wants to—you can’t eat on dirty dishes, can’t cook in dirty pots, but yeah, you’re also the bottom of the totem pole. Johnson: That’s right. Franklin: Yeah, that’s always the way it is with those kind of jobs. You’d mentioned earlier that you worked a lot in your spare time, right? You tried to play, but you worked a lot? Johnson: Yeah, I worked a lot. Franklin: Yeah. Do you remember any particular community events growing up in east Pasco? The reasons the community would come together? Johnson: Bible school. Bible school, that was one of the big things that we looked forward to in the summer time, as an event for us all to come together. The baseball games we would do, the school would have what we called wingdings and they would-- Franklin: I’ve heard of that before. Johnson: Wingdings? Yeah, it would just be like a little school carnival that they would have within the school, and they’d have a sheet up. And then they’d have the thing called Fish and you’d have a little pole, you’d stick it over and they had a clothespin on it and stick something to it. They would have cakewalks, where you’d walking around in a circle and they had musical chairs, basically what it was. It was always that coconut covered cake over there that I wanted, and so I tried to position myself so that I would be the last one to sit down in the chair so I could be the one to pick that cake. It never worked out though. Other than that, it was really no events that I could really think of. Bible school was probably the biggest one. Because back then most of the kids went to church. Franklin: Yeah, I was going to ask you if you attended church. Johnson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: Which church did you attended? Johnson: I attended Morning Star Baptist Church. I was baptized in 1956. Franklin: What role did the church play in the community? In the African American communities in general. Johnson: Church was the cornerstone of the community. Basically, everybody pretty much went to one of the churches that was there. And for us kids, it kept us out of the streets, because that’s what we did: we went to church. We would have Junior Mission one night, choir rehearsal one night, we’d have Bible study one night. Then on the first Sunday, we would go out of town or we would go to different churches and stuff, if we were in the choir and sing, it was like an all-day event. You’d get up in the morning and go to Sunday school, you go back home and eat, church starts at 11:00, you do church, you get out of that at 1:00, and a lot of times they would have a visiting church that would come and we’d go back to church at 3:00. It was like an all-day deal, for going to church. But it was a lot of fun for us kids because it gave us the chance to be together. When we would go to Bible study they’d have you looking up scriptures and stuff in the Bible. And then the one that got the most they would put a star. They had this big thing and they would put a star for achievement. So it kept you interested in doing that kind of thing. The preachers of the community and stuff, it is like, they were responsible for the flock. Just like, you got in trouble, say, with the police or something wasn’t going on right, the church always had your back. They’d go down and, hey, what’s going on, or what’s happening here? We need to be able to attend to the situation. Is this person being treated correctly? The church was just like the pillar of the community and it was always the backbone for the black people. Like I said, we lived in a house with Reverend Stewart which was the Pastor of Morning Start Baptist Church. It started in 1945, and we lived with him in ‘46. Like I tell them, I know if my mom lived in the house with a preacher, we had to go to church. [LAUGHTER] You know what I’m saying? So I look at it, when I go to church right now, even though there’s a few people that’s older than I am, like in their 90s and stuff, they haven’t been here all their lives. And I’m probably one of the oldest members of that church, Morning Star Baptist Church, because we lived with the preacher, so I know I was going to church when I was just a baby and as a kid, and got baptized in ‘56, and been going there ever since. And still go. Franklin: What other churches were important to the black community? Johnson: Well, they had the Saint James Methodist Church. And the thing was that we all kind of visited each church. Because whether you were Methodist or whether you was Baptist, it was still kids that played together, and all the churches came together. So if there was any type of a movement or anything, it was just like everybody was together. It wasn’t so much segregation. Like right now, they have Morning Star Baptist Church, they got New Hope, they got Greater Faith. Now, we got three Baptist Churches and you got just enough people would fill up one. See? But it’s all divided. And then there’s Ephesus Seven Day Adventist Church, there’s Saint James Methodist Church and then they had another church that was over on the east side, I don’t think it’s black anymore, I think it’s—Hispanic took it over. But anyway, back then it was Saint James Methodist Church and it was Morning Star in the early ‘50s and then later on they built New Hope and then later on they built Greater Faith. But we were all kind of like together. It wasn’t the separatism like they have now with the churches. One church feels like they’re better than the other church or the members don’t want to go and participate in the other church. I kind of hate to see that because I discuss that a lot, one church got a real good choir, okay, and so when they have an event, a lot of people got to their church and enjoy their music, so forth and so on, their program. The other church over there have a program, the people from that church don’t participate. It would be better if all three churches at least one Sunday out of the month could come together and be just one church. It’s like the bureaucracy go, everybody worried about their dollar. If you can get the money thing out of your mind, and say each Sunday we will all meet at one different church and all the collection that we take in will go to that church. And then the next time we’ll go to that church, and the next time it’ll go to that one. Because everyone wants to have it. Just like living here in the Tri-Cities, why do we need to have three city governments? Because each one wants to be able to get their money and so we got the mayors over here and the city councils over here, and at Kennewick they got theirs, and then Richland got theirs. But it’s all basically geared to the dollar, so we are going to split it all up so we can split it up this money. I got it, I’m going to keep it, I’m not going to let it go. Franklin: You mentioned the housing situation when you moved, first you stayed in the kitchen of the pastor of Morning Star. Then you lived at a shotgun house, right, until ‘48? Johnson: Yeah, I think it was ’48, that’s when my mom and they bought that little shotgun house that we had and they moved it from, on Oregon and Butte Street down to Douglas and Butte. They bought some property there from a guy, Eldon Wallace. I think my mom told me they paid $300 for it and we bought three lots, and they set that little shotgun house up on it. We, as kids, went to Mississippi. When we came back from Mississippi, I can remember this guy named J.O., J-O, probably his name, that’s what they called him. He was a carpenter and he added on to that shotgun house two bedrooms. But there was no bathroom. There was a faucet over at the corner that we got running water from. Franklin: Did you have an outhouse for the bathroom? Johnson: Yes, we did, we had that up until 1956. We had an outhouse. Franklin: Really? Johnson: ‘Til 1956. Because I can remember being in the sixth grade, because the kids would tease us at school about us having that outhouse and we had to go out there and use it. They would go to the yard and poke you in the back with sticks and stuff. We didn’t have a bathroom in the house up until then. Franklin: It took a while for east Pasco to get the sewer connections and things. That was one of the major complaints that the black community had in east Pasco with the city was the lack of water. Johnson: Right, the lack of water, the lack of sewage before they put it down on our street. There was Elm Street, which was one of the major throughways through there now, and then our street and the next street over. Some people had a cesspool. Unfortunately, we didn’t. We had to dig our own waterline and they dug it and it came from the Methodist Church down to our house so we could have water. Like I said, it was just a faucet and you go and turn it on, it was cold water and then you boil your water. I can remember being a kid where I had to take a bath in a tin tub. And they would boil water and pour it in the tub and then run some cold water and put it in there for you to cool it off. Franklin: How did your mom do the cooking and cleaning? Johnson: Well, had a stove. At first they had like a little small stove and they would boil water on it, they would set pots on it and cook on this little old stove that sit in the middle of the floor. I called it a heater, because that’s what it did, it heated and they cooked on that little stove, it was just with an iron on top and it was real small. Franklin: Do you remember what it used for fuel? Johnson: Coal, we used coal. My dad worked at the railroad and so they would bring sacks of coal home. Because he had to attend to the boiler over there, and so he would just get him a sack, bring it home and throw you some coal up in there and would get it nice and hot. It was a warm little old place, I can remember that. But that’s how they cooked until, I think probably around ‘51. My mom got a real stove and we had a propane tank sitting there and so then we had a real stove. We still didn’t have hot and cold water. Franklin: How would your mom wash dishes and clean? Johnson: In a pan, boil water, pour it in the pan and wash your dishes in the pan. And then have another pan rinse them off and dry them off, stack them up, because we didn’t have no counters—I mean we didn’t have no cabinets and stuff like that. They had just like a countertop they had made out of wood and you just put them over there and put a towel on top of them. It wasn’t like you had no six- or eight-piece setting, you just had like three or four plates and you had a few pieces of silverware. You just made do with what you had, the best way you could. Franklin: How many siblings did you have? Johnson: It was just my sister and I. Franklin: Are you the oldest? Johnson: I am the oldest. Franklin: Okay. Who else lived in your community? Were there many families with children or extended family, like grandparents? Johnson: There was quite a few kids lived in the community. Yeah. There was a lot of people living in the community, as a matter of fact, kids, and some had quite a few kids. I don’t remember a lot of people living with extended families as far as their grandparents, because most kids lived with their parents. But I’m sure there were some that did, but I just couldn’t think of them right off the top of my head. Franklin: Sure. Do you remember when Kurtzman Park was established? Johnson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: How important was that to the community? Johnson: To the community, Kurtzman Park was kind of like a volunteer-type situation. Of course we didn’t have a park. And so when that was put in, it even brought our community together even more because of the camaraderie that they had they built the Kurtzman Building. I can remember them putting in the trees around the park and help dig the lines they had around there for water. When we were kids, Mom would tell us, go down to the park. We’d go down there and play, so it was like a safe haven. I remember there was a lady across the street, Big Irene, and the Butchers lived over across the street. Then there was California Street was a street there that nobody even know about, probably, anymore, and Wehe, they intersect. And they intersect right in front of the park and there was a row of houses there and I could probably name you everybody that lived in those houses. We would go there and we could stay there all day long and our parents didn’t have to worry about us, because that was a safe haven and that’s where all the kids would go. So it was a very important place for us. When we had our little meetings and stuff, we would have them there in the Kurtzman Building. Hey, we’re having a meeting on voting or whatever it was, and we would go up there to the Kurtzman Building. That was before they put that Martin Luther King stuff in, in the latter years. It played a real big part because I played there for years as a kid and then after as an adult, Kurtzman Park still was a big thing for me. We’d go down there, and they’d have Juneteenth, and the Fun Day, and baseball. Franklin: I was going to ask you about sports, activities and events, and Juneteenth was what I was going to ask you about. When do you remember that, first participating in that, or that first happening? Johnson: Oh, boy, now that’s something I should really know because I am on the Juneteenth Committee. [LAUGHTER] I interact with them all the time and doing stuff right now. But that was probably somewhere in the mid-‘60s, Vanis Daniels, I think, was one of the--Senior was one of the persons to get that Juneteenth thing started here because they were from Texas. Franklin: What does Juneteenth mean to you? Johnson: It was when the black people got their freedom. We supposedly got it when the Emancipation was, but we didn’t get it when the Emancipation was. They didn’t make you aware of it and so that was a celebration for us. It’s like when you say the Fourth of July. The Fourth of July don’t hold anything for black people. That wasn’t our event, but Juneteenth was. What it is now is a time where it used to be everybody would come together. People that has gone and moved away from the Tri-Cities—Chicago, New York, California—man, when Juneteenth came, everybody would come back to town and just all enjoy each other and be together. They’d have gospel events, then they would have the food and the singing, they’d have baseball games. It was something for the whole week that children and people could participate in. It wasn’t just a one-day event; it was a week event. They’d have roller skating, they’d have baseball, they’d have basketball events. It would play up until that Sunday. That Saturday was the big day, and then the day after it was just like everybody would go to church, and that was the end of it. Franklin: You mentioned Vanis Daniels, Sr. was a big—responsible for bringing that here, you said, because they were from Texas. Is that particularly a Texas event or was it celebrated most strongly in Texas? Johnson: I think there was more than a Texas event. And the reason why I say that is that—the little history that I know about Juneteenth, see, Texas was one of the last states to get their freedom because they wanted the black people to stay in the South. Keeping you sharecropping and doing work and stuff. And the ones that had left and had went to Texas, well, they were trying to keep you going back to the South, so they didn’t tell you that the Emancipation had happened, so that you didn’t know. So you went back. But once they found out, that’s when they got their freedom. So they say that Texas was the last state that they got their freedom from the slavery act, at that time. I think that’s why we focus so much on Texas. And when the Daniels helped got that going up here, and they’re still kind of, over that Juneteenth thing, is that they brought it from Texas. And that was the awareness of it, because if you had lived in Michigan, then I’m sure that you didn’t know that much about it. It’s like living there and that’s what it is. I should really know a lot about it because, like I said, I’m on the committee, but I’m sure that’s what it was. Franklin: And there’s still that celebration every year? Johnson: Oh yeah, every year. I tell you, we’re gearing up for it right now, matter of fact, on the 21st we’re having a fundraiser barbeque, which I’ll be cooking over at Saint James Methodist Church. It’ll be sold at the people at the community and we hope to be able to raise a lot of money to help put on a lot of the events and stuff and bring new stuff. And we can do a lot of recognition for people that’s been instrumental in the community growing and give trophies, and plaques, and stuff for the kids so that they can have games and so forth and so on. Franklin: Can anybody come and eat your barbecue? Johnson: Anybody. Man, that’s what we really try to get in. Franklin: Because I really love barbecue. Johnson: It’s not just a black thing, it’s for everybody to come, we have a parade and all of that. I think they’re trying to incorporate some other people with their parades and stuff so that we could get the Caucasian people interested in it. See, this is like that old stigma stands behind east Pasco to where it’s like, man, you don’t go over there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all this negative thing. Franklin: I heard that when I first came here. Johnson: Anybody can come to east Pasco, man, and when we’re having that event, we welcome everybody to come. Come over and buy some barbeque, and they sell catfish and all kinds of food, man. They even have some Hispanic vendors and stuff that was there, so that we can all enjoy together. Because that’s the kind of thing we can all have camaraderie and come together because we can sit down and eat together. Franklin: That’s true, yeah, food is great. And I wanted to ask—that kind of segue ways very nicely into my next question—do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions, including sports and food, that people brought with them from the places they came from? Johnson: Music. Franklin: Music? Johnson: Music. Franklin: Yeah, what kind of music? Johnson: Blues. There was blues and gospel, one of the two biggest things that we got and most of that originated in the South. They brought it out here and it was like—the blues to me, when I hear it was like the cry for freedom, it was like the slaves in the field, they be singing that downhome blues. It was a cry for freedom, they was telling their story the way that they felt. When it came out here it was just kind of like it was a big thing. It wasn’t jazz—jazz was in the city—but out here it was the blues and then gospel music was another form of cry for your freedom and your love of God where you get into the spirit of. The blues, you get into the spirit. Because if you got a sad—you and your girlfriend just broke up, and things not going right and somebody break down and start singing one of them more downhome blues. [singing] I lost my baby. Lord, what am I going to do? And here you sitting over there and you and your woman just broke up, it makes you feel real sad. And now you kind of reflect on your situation and it makes you think, wow, what can I do? Because now you want to try to rekindle what you just lost, bring it together. And it was through those cries of the blues and stuff that made you do that. So music was one of the most instrumental things that I saw. Franklin: Were there any notable bands, venues, in east Pasco that you remember or musicians? Johnson: I really don’t remember any black people that was—Jesse Cleveland and a few guys, they had a little band. There was a couple—James Pruitt and some of them guys did a little stuff at church. But there was bands that came to Pasco, I remember when Ike and Tina Turner came through Pasco and Fats Domino, they came to Pasco when I was a kid and played music. There were outsider bands that came in, but we really didn’t have any bands that I can think of. There could’ve been some older people that had bands, because I didn’t get a chance to participate. My mom kept me at home pretty good until I was about 15 years of age, so I didn’t get a chance to see and participate. But after I got to be grown, it was Maurice Wallace and a few guys from Seattle would come here and play and he was raised here in Richland. Johnny Guilory, he had a little band with a few guys and stuff, he came from Spokane, they would come down and play at Jackson’s Tavern. That was pretty much it for the bands that I can remember, other than that it was mostly gospel music and stuff, and that was being in churches. Franklin: What about food? Did your mom cook southern food, soul food, did she bring that with her? Johnson: Yeah. I was raised on that. I was raised on it, and my cooking experience—and I think that I’m a pretty good cook—is that she would always tell me, boy, come here and stir this pot. I would say, why I got to do it? How come my sister don’t have to go and do it? And she would say, you might get a wife don’t know how to cook. You come here. She made me learn how to cook. And I’ll tell you the truth: I am a good cook, and a well-rounded cook. That was like fried apple pies and stuff, I haven’t had a homemade fried apple pie in I don’t know when. Franklin: Sounds really good. Johnson: Oh, man, they are. And it wasn’t like when you go to the store and you get this little teeny fried apple pie like this. Man, the fried apple pie Mom would cook, they would be that big and I mean they would be full of apples, big turnovers and stuff. Man, that would be so good. Or sweet potato pies. She could really cook good. My niece, Tansy, she can cook one that taste just like my mom’s. Chicken and dumplings, I cook some really good chicken and dumplings because I cook them just like my mom. At my church there’s different events that we have, the pastor’s anniversary, the church anniversary, et cetera, and they’ll say, well, Aubrey what are you cooking? And I’m thinking in my mind, why are you guys always asking me what am I cooking? I don’t see any of these other guys up here cooking nothing; it’s the women that bring other dishes. But then I try to treat them to some of the dishes that my mom made for us when we were kids. And I can remember, I did some chicken and dumplings. I did a roast pan, one of those turkey roasts for them. Man, they like to ate themselves to death. And everybody was sitting and they were saying to themselves, who made these chicken and dumplings? Somebody said, Aubrey did. I’m over there sitting and eating on them, gloating for no glory. Man, these chicken and dumplings taste just like the ones my mom used to make, and they went on. After that, every time they have an event, Aubrey, are you going to cook some chicken and dumplings? I’m like, no, I’m going to cook something different because I want you to get a taste of all the different things that I know, and I don’t want to be held down to where I got to cook chicken and dumplings every time in this event. We’re going to have the church anniversary here in a couple weeks, and they get up on the signup sheet and they’re already, Aubrey are you going to cook chicken and dumplings? I think I’m going to go ahead and cook some chicken and dumplings, yeah. Franklin: What other types of food would your mom cook, teach you how to cook? Johnson: Oh, man. Collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens. She cooked roasts and potatoes, a lot of rice dishes and stuff like that. She made a lot of sweet dishes, bread pudding, rice pudding, chocolate cakes—which I didn’t like because I don’t care for chocolate—coconut cakes, peach cobblers, just stews. It just depends on what time of year it was and we ate a lot of vegetables. When I say peas, like, purple hull peas—I cooked some Sunday—black-eyed peas, crowder peas, we had speckled butter beans, we had lima beans, we had corn, we had collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, we had squash. There was just a variety of stuff, but it was vegetables. A lot of chicken, very little pork, and very little beef. It was chicken, chicken. Right now, I’m a chicken person; I don’t eat a lot of beef. Franklin: Well, because chicken was, at that time— Johnson: A staple. Franklin: And one of the least expensive, right? Johnson: It was the least expensive, it was a staple food. We would raise 100-and-something head of chicken a year, and we would kill them when they got of age and took them and put them in the freezer. We had chicken all year long. We would go to the river and we would fish, and so then we would have fish. It wasn’t because we were so poor that we couldn’t buy beef, we just didn’t eat a whole lot of beef, you see? Like, I don’t eat a whole lot of beef, I don’t care for steak and stuff. Number one, beef has got to rot in your stomach. When you eat a piece of beef, it’s got so much connective tissue until it probably take about three days for the acids and stuff to eat it up. Chicken, you can take a piece of chicken and you could do it like this here, and you can crumble it, so it don’t take very long for it to break down. Fish, of course, you know that breaks down really fast. And then you get all the nutrients and stuff that you’re supposed to get from it. Firstly, I don’t think—our body wasn’t designed to eat meat anyway. We’re supposed to be like eating vegetables and fish. All that beef and stuff, it’s just too hard for you to eat. A lot of black people, they raise hogs. I used to buy a hog every year, after I got up in my 20s, and I butchered myself and put it in the freezer and we’d eat pork chops and pork steaks. But then, when I started having high blood pressure, it was like, well, okay, you can’t be eating all that pork. So I couldn’t tell you right now when the last time I ate a piece of pork, like a pork chop or a pork steak or a pork roast. I ate a piece of bacon the other day for the first time in probably over a month. I haven’t eaten any—I eat a piece of sausage every now and then when I go to my girlfriend’s house, but I don’t eat a lot of it. But now chicken? Man, I had some chicken tacos the other day, my daughter, she baked some chicken the day before yesterday. And so eat lot of fish and eat a lot of chicken, and we eat a lot of vegetables. Franklin: What about sports? Were sports important to you growing up? Were there particular sporting events the black community was really involved in, or any teams? Johnson: Baseball. Baseball was one of the most sporting events that we were involved in and stuff. They would have, like I said, out of the park, Juneteenth, that was one of the highlights was the baseball games that they had. As a kid growing up, we played baseball on every vacant lot that they had in east Pasco that we could get on as kids. It wasn’t so much like playing tennis—I learned to play tennis when I got to be an adult. Basketball, well, I never had a basketball hoop. So I tried to play at school, but my mom was always like, well, you come home so you could do this work and make sure that we have food and stuff. That wasn’t something that I got a chance to participate in. And plus I probably wasn’t that good anyway, because everybody can’t be a Michael Jordan. You have to do what you do, for me it was work. Franklin: Too true. Were there opportunities available here that were not available where you or your parents came from? Johnson: Yeah, most definitely. Because in the ‘60s when Equal Opportunity came, it opened up the doors so you could get into apprenticeship programs that they had out here, so you could make more of an income. And then the job market opened up so that you could have better jobs and stuff. It was a lot better out here, to be able to get an education, to go to school. Because you know in the South—my mom told me about when they went to school, she said half of the books wasn’t there because the books that they got were the books that the Caucasian kids had had. Then they tore pages out of the books and stuff, so that’s what you had to learn from, was the hand-me-down stuff that was no good. You’re only as good as your teacher, and if your teacher don’t have the facilities and the stuff to teach you with, then you’re not going to be able to get that much of an education as far as the books and stuff is concerned. Some kids, depending on where they lived, they were fortunate and they got a chance to get a good education. A lot of times where it started off with is like their parents were working for some Caucasian people that had kids, they played together and so they got a chance to read the books that those Caucasians kids had. But then when you’re living out there in the country and stuff, you go to the little country school and when the city, or the county, whoever was giving you the books, they weren’t really trying to keep you—get you to have a good education. Because they wanted to keep you so that you couldn’t read, you couldn’t write; then you could always be taken advantage of. That was the thing for education. Out here, is that we got a chance to go to school, I got a chance to get the same opportunity as education as a Caucasian did, I got a chance to read the same books that they did. I had some very loving teachers when I went to school out here, I didn’t see real prejudice thing from my teachers and stuff. Most of them were young, and the one that sticks out of my mind more than any teacher I ever had, her name was Esther Day, she was my first grade teacher. Mrs. Day was a mother figure to every child that went to school with us, especially black children. Because she was the type of teacher that would, well, Aubrey, what is it about it that you don’t understand? And she’d take and put her arms around you and she’d hug you. It made you want to do better, to learn more, just because of the way that she treated you. Franklin: Was she black or Caucasian? Johnson: She was Caucasian. I didn’t have any black teachers when I went to school out here. They were all Caucasian teachers, but she was-- Franklin: For your whole educational-- Johnson: Whole educational thing. No. It’s just trying to emulate what you see, there was no black teachers out here, there were no black lawyers. So how could I want to be a lawyer when I didn’t see any black people being in that role? If I had been older when I left the South, then I probably would’ve seen some of that, but me just being a little kid, I had to emulate what I saw, and I didn’t see that. My dream was always to be a truck driver, run heavy equipment, to be a police officer or a beautician, and I got to be all of them except for the police officer. Franklin: Yeah, I wanted to ask about that, kind of diverting form childhood here, but you mentioned a couple times. What was it about cosmetology that made you want to go into that? Johnson: It was a gift. It was a gift from the man above. When I was a kid, I’ll say at the age of seven, and I remember very well, the girls were wearing poodle skirts, saddle oxford shoes, and I had to comb my sister’s hair. She was a year younger than I, and I would pull her hair back into a ponytail and then they’d take and tie a ribbon around it. Man, I thought that I could make that bow better than anybody that I knew. I think that was my first introduction into doing hair. When I got to be about 13 years of age, a friend of mine, Leslie Williams, his parents had a TV and you would see different entertainers on there and they had the finger waves in the men’s hair and stuff. I remember this friend of mine, Robert Orange, he had to put a process, which was straightening his hair and he asked me if he wanted him to do mine. So I’m like, well, yeah! I came home one day from school and went over and he did it. When I came home my mom was so mad with me. Boy, what you put that stuff in your head for? Are you losing your mind? What’s wrong with you? We wanted to have the DA ducktail like some of the movie stars that we had seen, Elvis Presley, when they slick their hair back and they had like the greaser with the little thing in the back, they call it a DA. Anyway, I got so that by the time I was 17 years of age and wearing my hair straight like that, in the process, I took and I started making finger waves. I could finger wave it and I got so good that I could close my eyes and I could see it, and I would comb it, cross my head, I’d go back and forth and I’d end up with a horseshoe in the back. When I went out and people would see me, like, man, where did you get your hair did at? I said, I did it myself. Ah, there’s no way that you did that! I’m like, yeah, I did, I did it myself. And so then it was like, well, do mine! $7, and you buy your own stuff. They went out and got them a jar of Posner’s, or Ultra Wave or we used Easy Off. Anything with lye base in it would straighten your hair, right. They’d come over to the house and I’d put it on them and we’d be out in the yard with the water hose, and washing it out of your hair. Because we didn’t know nothing about neutralization and stuff like that. So it’s a wonder any of us had any hair, because the chemical didn’t stop working, we just washed it, we didn’t even have sense enough to shampoo it afterwards. I would finger wave their hair and I’ll tell you, one guy told me, he said, man, you added many finger waves in my head until it made me seasick. [LAUGHTER] That was my introduction to it. As time went on, I always had that interest in that. So by the time I got 18, 19 years old, watching TV and 77 Sunset Strip, and you would see everybody in Malibu, California and all that. To me, that was a means of being around a lot of women, was doing hair. That also gave me a big interest in wanting to do hair. As I had said earlier, I had to go to work, and so when I went to work, it wasn’t like I could go to school to learn how to do hair. But I would freelance and do different people’s hair all the time to make a little extra money. There was a friend of mine had a beauty salon, he said, man, why don’t you come work for me? And hey, you can come in here and you can work and blah, blah, blah. When I got off work, working for the county, I was so tired I didn’t feel like going and doing—I would just do it on the weekends just for myself. And I always kept that interest. When I was like 43 years of age, I got my back hurt when I was working down in California, moving a piano. So they gave me a rehabilitation. What do you want to do? And I thought to myself, I want to be a beautician. And the guys said, well, why do you want to be a beautician? I said, because that is something that will be here forever. Because women are always going to get their hair done. See, I didn’t want to be a barber. I’d have to do like four or five heads of barbering to make the money that I could make off of doing one woman’s head. That was the interest. Then I was pretty good at art, being creative. I got so after I completed my course and started doing hair, and then when people would allow me the opportunity to create, I could do my thing on they heads. People are so used to just cloning, they want the same thing all the time. So it’s really hard to, hey, why don’t you let me cut your hair? Especially with black women. Like, hey, I grew it out this long, I’m not going to let you cut it off, because it took me too many years to grow it, right. And I’m like, well, just let me cut so I could—so they are afraid to let you be creative and do something, until you find one person that will let you do something and everybody well, I didn’t know you could do that. I’m like, well, yeah I can do it. I’ve been doing hair for 27 years. You didn’t think I learned nothing? It’s just that you don’t get a chance to experiment the things that you know how to do and create new stuff, because people are so used to being afraid of getting their hair cut off and stuff. That’s how my interest came was from my sister and then it was something that I always knew that would be wanted and needed. And then it allowed me to be around a lot of women. And right now is that I enjoy being around women. Because women don’t talk about stuff that men talk about. I listen to they problems and it just goes in one ear and out the other one. I’m not interested in a bunch of junk that guys talk about, because it is always the same thing, it’s about women. See, women are more intellectual. They would talk about stuff that makes sense. They would be sitting there and well, hey, Aubrey? And you get to be just like a place they can drop they problems. And what we do is we sit down and try to solve the problems of the world. And they’ll just like, well, what do you think about so and so and so and so and so, and I’m like, well, you know, I don’t know. What do you think? I throw it back on them to get they views and to see where they think about stuff that is happening. And women are smarter than men anyway. I like being around women. Earlier? It would have been all about having a bunch of girlfriends. But you’d have a bunch of girlfriends but you wouldn’t have no money. I got smart to that. My thing was, you don’t date your clients, because you won’t have no money. You just have your girlfriend and the other is just about getting paid and be done with it. I enjoyed it, it’s been good to me. Franklin: You still do hair? Johnson: Oh yeah, I go out to—I got some clients and stuff, especially, I like the old people. They can’t get out, they shut in, and they’ll give me call, hey, could you come over and do my hair? And I’ll go over and do their hair at they house for them. That’s a blessing for me that God enabled me to be able to do it, because they are so thankful to you. Because they wouldn’t be able to get it done otherwise. So, yeah, I enjoy doing it. Franklin: That’s really sweet. In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation or racism? Johnson: In the work place. I worked Franklin County Road Department for 13 years. I started off with the survey crew. I was the first black person that worked on the road department. And I’m going to tell you, I call it natural hell. It was like, I always got the worst job dumped on. I can remember the first. The first day that I worked on the road department, and engineer, Pat Thompson, he said, hey, you want to work on the survey—I mean, I had just left the survey crew because the job had ended. He asked me, he said, do you want to work for the road department? And I’m like, well, yeah. He said, okay, well, come to work Monday morning. So Monday morning I went to work and he took me out to Chiawana Park, and he wanted me to dig a ditch, me and this other guy that had just had got hired, Bruce Sanders. The ditch was probably form here to that wall over there, so I’d say maybe 40 feet. So what we did was measured the ditch. We’ll start in the middle work to the end. You got 20 feet; I got 20 feet. That’s being fair. Every time I would turn around and look, he’s sitting up on the side of the ditch smoking a cigarette. I’m like, man, we never going to get done with you doing that. When I got done doing my 20 feet of ditch, he wasn’t even halfway. So I walked down to the river and I threw a few rocks in the river, and I was walking back up the hill and the engineer drove up. It was around 1:00. He says, what are you doing? I said, well, I got done digging my half. He said, I didn’t hire you like that. I hired you to work all day. I said, but we took half the ditch. I said, if he would have gotten down there and dug the ditch just like I did instead of smoking cigarettes all day, he’d’ve been done. He said, I didn’t hire you like that. I hired you to dig a ditch. And I said, well, then if I have to dig the whole ditch, take him with you and I’ll do it by myself. He put him in the car and took him with him, and I dug the rest of the ditch. And about 4:00--because we got off at 4:30, he came back and picked me up, and I was done. I worked patching holes in the roads and stuff, me and this guy, Amos Whitmore, this old guy. I did that for a long time and then I started driving truck. I can remember asking them repeatedly, when am I going to get truck driver wages? Oh, you haven’t learned how to drive the truck yet. I’m like, okay… And I’m driving dump trucks and we’re hauling gravel, and spreading gravel, and so forth and so on. About four or five years passed and I’m still saying, when are you going to give me truck driver wages? And it’s still the same old story, well, you haven’t learned how to drive the truck. All right, well, I’ll have to go down and talk to the engineer or I’ll have to go talk to your supervisor. It’s always a put-off. We had a meeting with the county commissioners and the meeting was pertaining to how we got our funding for the road department. They put a pie, and we got so much from gasoline taxes, we got so much from this, we got so much from that, et cetera. When they got through explaining how the pie was cut up, they said, is there anybody in here have anything else that they want to discuss? Basically, what they were talking about is about that pie and how that money was cut up. Well, I stood up and said, well, I do. Everybody turned and looked at me, my coworkers, supervisors, engineer and the county commissioners. I said, how long do you have to drive truck before you get truck driver wages? I said, because I’ve been driving truck now for about five years, and every time I ask when am I going to get truck driver wages, I always get put off. And I don’t understand why it is, because everybody else that drive truck getting truck driver wages. That was the end of the meeting and I left and went back out to the shop. And my supervisor comes out and says, well, Aubrey you didn’t have to do that. I said, I don’t see why I didn’t. I said, they asked a question and I said, yeah, that was the answer—I answered the question that they wanted me to give—well, no, they wasn’t talking about that. I said, I understand what you saying. But I wanted them to know that—why I couldn’t get truck driver wages. About an hour later, the engineer came out. So evidently the county commissioners went to talk to him and he said, well, you’ll get truck driver wages on your next paycheck. I noticed one day, my supervisor, he says, hey, Smokey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I kind of turned and looked at him, because first I’m wondering, like, who is he talking to? He says, hey, Smokey, I want you to go over there and do so and so and so and so and so. I just went over there and did what he told me to do. I’m thinking in my head, why is he calling me Smokey? Because, see, there is nothing black on me except for my hair at the time—which I don’t have nothing now—because I’m paper-sack tan. Okay? It’s got to be a word of -ism or racial slur but it’s okay. But, see, the thing to me was, I didn’t want to make a big issue about it because I wanted that job. Now here is something now that I got to swallow this and go on along with the program so I can maintain this job, because it was hard enough to get. I had been putting an application after and application. I think that I had worried Franklin County so much. Because every day, I would go up to the Franklin County and I’m like, do you got any openings today? No, not today. I went so much until they finally told me, you don’t have to come up here every day. We got your phone number; if we got an opening, we will call you. Believe it or not, I got a phone call on a Saturday asking me to go to work for the survey crew. And it was only going to last about six weeks. They were building SR-16, a road up out of Mesa. And I worked on that until the completion and then I went over to working for them. But that was one of the kind of bad issues for me because I had to live with that, and pretty soon it just got so that I just let it roll off my back, okay. I can remember working out on the Road 32, 36, 38 in that new housing area off of River Haven, and they were putting in these oil streets. Now we got a tanker truck with the oil spouts running off the back of it and it’s shooting tar out onto the ground at 440 degrees. In order to keep the tar from getting on the curbing, they had me and another guy to walk along with a sheet of ply board. He had one end with the rope and I had the other end with the rope, and we kind of drug it along the edge of the ground and kept even with the truck so that they nozzle was right in the middle, you see. They’re squirting the tar there and it’s not getting on the curb in that River Haven area. The next day, my supervisor says, well, you know, Aubrey we’re going to have Theo to go down there and do blah, blah, blah, blah. And what they did is they took the rope and they nailed it to one end and nailed to the other end. Now, you take this and put it around your neck, and you carry this plyboard along the edge of the curbing, and I’m walking up on the edge of the grass, carrying it on the curbing. But this is the ironic part of it, the nozzle from the spray truck was right in the middle of the board. And when they hit the ground, where does that steam—it’s going to come back up. Man, I would have so much tar on my face until my eyelids would be stuck open. Because you’re getting that mist that’s coming up off the ground. And then you get so far down the road, you get down to where the curbing is and I would take diesel fuel on a rag and then wipe my face with it so I could get it off of my skin. And that burned your skin a little bit and stuff. But it’s just little stuff like that, that I had to endure in order to keep that job. And I can imagine—which I never heard them make any ridicule, laughing and going on. But when I’d go in in the evening, I would take off my shirt and I’d be out there, man, and I would have tar all over my arms and stuff, on my face, and get it off. No one never said a thing, but it was always was that same old thing. Whenever there was a demeaning work or anything to be done, it was always, hey, Aubrey. Come over here and dig this ditch, come over here and do that. Me and a guy, we was out unloading cross-ties off of a truck. We were building a fence out there at Chiawana Park. I remember, he would catch one end, I’d catch the other end and we’d throw them on the ground. Another guy driving the truck along. He drops the doggone thing on my finger. Finger fills full of blood, right, aching like you wouldn’t believe. It was this finger right here. And he says, aw, you’re just being a cry baby. He had this sharp knife, he took it and drills a hole in and it let the blood out. Well, when the blood popped out, then the pressure went off and it quit hurting. So we kept throwing cross-ties. The next morning when we went out there to go do it, they sent him to go do something else. Well, Aubrey you can throw those cross-ties off by yourself. You don’t need him. So that’s what I had to do, unload that whole truck by myself with the cross-ties. You see, it was like I had to strain to do it. And I was a pretty good size fella, nice and strong, and stuff. But it was a strain trying to drag them things off of there and then drop them right beside the hole and stuff. When it would have been just as easy with a guy, got it done much faster with two people doing it. Instead of saying—what I’m saying is, I always got the demeaning jobs working for them, and I worked for them for 13 years. I finally managed to get truck driver wages and then later on I got to run motor grader. And as my supervisor says, he said, boy, you’re the best in the business. Because I learned how to do stuff on the motor grader that most people couldn’t do. I could do it backwards. My supervisor, he would look and he had been a motor grade operator and he says, I don’t see how you do it. I said, well, see, it’s real simple; but I would never tell him. See, you got a level in your butt if you know it. So if you’re going down the road, and the road tips and your body is go over this, your body equilibrium always is going to keep you sitting straight up. Even though the road is set like this, your body is going to tip back the opposite way, you understand? And so all you got to do is keep your body sitting straight up all the time. So whether its tipped like this, your body just want to keep it set, so the machine is tipped over, so you’re still keeping the same cut. To me it was simple, so if I’m going backwards, say, like, we’re fixing a crosscut, I’d push across the hole, pick the mobile up, drop it on its side and then I would just drag it backwards. So if the machine started to tip this way, I would push over to this side and raise my body back up. So I could do stuff. And he says, well I’ve never seen nobody do it like that. But I never did tell them how to do it. They would always come and get me. They had one guy which was the lead operator and we were building the new road. Hey, Aubrey, I want you to run first and let him run behind you. And, boy, he would be so mad. Because my supervisor say, you go straight; he goes crooked. He wants the shoulder of the road to be cut straight. So I’d get in that thing, and what I would do was I’d look down the road and I’d pick out a fixed object and just head to it and just keep it between your legs. That would keep you going straight. And he’d be doing like this here. He would go and so it would be crooked. It was a lot of stuff that I had to go through working for them. It showed me the bad side of a person in a good way. I learned that you have to go through a lot to get a little bit. Now that I’m at the age I am, I can look back and I can see all the bad stuff. What I try to do is not to duplicate what I see. That’s why I say, there is so much hatred in the world, and for no reason that it is, other than just ignorance. People have to learn how to get over it and start doing better by everybody else. Because I wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to them that happened to me. So why would I do the same thing that happened to me to them? You don’t. Seemed like that should have been a lesson that should have been learned a long time ago. It’s like—I hate to hear this term, illegal aliens. See to me, an alien is somebody come from outer space. Why can’t they just be illegal immigrants? But it’s a demeaning word that’s used when all of us was immigrants to this country. I mean, I was born here, but this is not originally where we came from. We all migrated here one way or the other, by force or by choice. Everybody wants some of the horn of plenty. That’s what this is, the horn of plenty. That’s why everybody wants to come to America. And so, it’s like, I got it, you want it, you can’t have it. By all means, it’s like, keep everybody out of it that you don’t want to have none of it, and the ones that’s here that want some of it, you try to deprive them of having it. It’s not a good thing and it’s racist, for number one, and it’s bad. I don’t know how people can live with themselves at the end of the day when they go home. Do they ever think about it? And they’ll pray to the same god that I’m praying to. And I wonder, do they ever think about the consequences of their actions? And if someone did the same thing to them that’s being done, how would they feel about it? You know. Franklin: What about your parents’ work, education, I’m thinking specifically about Hanford. How long did each of your parents work out at Hanford? Johnson: Well, my mom, she worked there, probably like two or three years, until they phased out that area. Because I can remember in the ‘50s, she was still working out there in the Hanford Area, in the cafeteria. She did dishwashing, waiting on tables and stuff like that. Like I said, I was so young until, I really didn’t get a chance to really hear a lot about what she did. I know she married a guy named Eddie Gix and he worked out there. I can’t remember—he wasn’t in engineering, because he didn’t have that kind of education—he worked in the machine shop. So he had to get some type of formal training from wherever he had worked at before, or whatever he did, he was shown how to do it and then that’s just what you did. Franklin: This would’ve been your stepfather? Johnson: Yeah, Eddie Gix. Franklin: Was he Caucasian or black? Johnson: He was black. Franklin: How long did your father work for Hanford? Johnson: He didn’t work for Hanford. My father he worked for the railroad. Eddie Gix, he worked for Hanford, and my mom she worked out there at Hanford. Franklin: How old were you when your mom married Eddie? Johnson: She married him in, probably about ‘49, ‘50, probably about ‘50, ‘51 somewhere in there. So I was real little, yeah. Like I said, my dad, see, he left. Franklin: Oh, right. So, Eddie, you were close to-- Johnson: Yeah, I was real close to him. As a matter of fact, I even carried his name until I got into high school. I went into school as Gix, Aubrey Gix, G-I-X. Some of my friends, they see me right now and they’ll say, aren’t you Aubrey Gix? And I’m like, yeah, that was the name I went through in school, but I’m actually a Johnson. That was my dad’s name, and that was my birth name. But Eddie Gix was the person that I could emulate, that I cared about. Having a step-parent is the one that do the most with you, it’s the one you care the most about. Franklin: How long did Eddie work at Hanford? Johnson: I don’t know, actually, how long he had worked there, because I believe he was probably working there before him and my mom got together. I’m sure he was. But until, probably about ‘54, ‘55, five or six years somewhere in that period that he worked there. Because in, oh, probably about ‘56, somewhere in there, that’s when they separated. What happened is that he was working on the dam by then down at The Dalles. And he came up missing, so everybody thought—because they did a search for him and everything—thought that he had fell off in the water and had drowned, but he hadn’t. He had took off and went to Chicago. We found out, oh, probably about fifteen years later, he got in contact with one of our friends, my mom’s friends. He looked in the phone book and he’d seen their name in there and he called them and then they got in contact with my mom and then she was in contact with him. He had left and went to Chicago and stayed with his sister and did whatever. I didn’t really ask a whole lot of question about why or what or what he was doing. All I know is he was gone. By then, my mom, she had moved on. So she was just taking care of me and my sister, the best that she could. She didn’t have a husband. She finally got married in the ‘70s, yeah, the latter part of the ‘70s, she finally got married again. I don’t know what happened to that marriage, because I left and went to California. When I came back, that was over. I don’t know whether they was compatible, or if she was mean and talked too much, or what the situation was, you know. Franklin: Could you describe any interactions you or your parents had with people from other parts of the Tri-Cities area that stand out to you? Johnson: My mom, she was kind of a private person, so we didn’t really visit a lot. She had a couple friends that she visited with that I looked up to. Other than going to church, we didn’t really interact that much with other people because she worked two jobs, so she was too tired to really interact. We went to church. She didn’t go every Sunday, because she was trying to fix something to eat for us, and she’d just be tired. Franklin: Mm-hmm, oh, yeah, I can imagine. Johnson: She had, Aunt Etta Bee, was one of her best friends who—that’s what we called her, Aunt Etta Bee—her and her husband, and they lived down the street and they were best friends. They would go back and forth to visit with each other. We would do the boat races, that was the big thing, the Water Follies, back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. We would go to that every year; that was a big event for us. Watch those boats go down at Sacagawea Park go back and forth. They were doing like the circuit, it was the little hydroplanes; it wasn’t the big stuff they have now, the unlimiteds. Your pen not working? Franklin: Oh, yeah, I guess. Oh, there it goes. Johnson: Oh, okay. Franklin: It’s got plenty of ink, I just haven’t used it for a while. I wanted to ask you, where did you go to school? Johnson: I went to school, grade school at the naval base, that was my kindergarten. I went to Whittier School for a couple years before going over to Longfellow and then back to Whittier School in fifth grade, fourth, fifth grade. Then over to Emerson school, sixth grade, and then to McLoughlin, and then from McLoughlin to the high school. I got ran over working for the Franklin County Road Department. I got my foot crushed and so I got rehab and I went to CBC and I took, I think it was about a year-and-a-half, and I took a welding course. I went to school at night and completed that and got a certificate of welding, a certified welder. That was basically my schooling, was right there, just right there in Pasco. Franklin: How did segregation or racism affect your education? Johnson: It didn’t give me anyone to emulate was number one. Because there was no black people there with a higher education, that I knew of, to really want to emulate. I heard about this guy called, I think his name was Duke Washington, and he had went to college. CW Brown and Norris Brown, they were basketball players for Richland Bombers, and that was in ‘50s. There wasn’t nothing about academic subjects that made me want to be anything of a lawyer or a doctor, or anything like that so it didn’t really impact my education. Racism, it didn’t really hold me back from getting an education, because you could’ve went to school. But there was nothing there that enhanced—I didn’t hear about a lot of stuff when I went to school, that the other kids heard about. I’m sure that they never told us about going to college. That wasn’t a thing that I heard about, going to college when you get through with high school. It was just like, try to go to high school and get a high school diploma so that you can go and get a job working in various work forces out here in the area, or getting into an apprenticeship program or something like that. Franklin: That’s a really good way to put it. You were able to get one, but the structure of it was one that, you didn’t have role model—no role models, there were no successful blacks for you-- Johnson: No, there wasn’t. I think there were a few older guys, I think Tom Jackson, it that was his name, he used to be a school teacher when he was down in Texas. I didn’t know nothing about him. Joe Jackson, he was the first black mayor of Pasco, and he was a city councilman, and he was a dear friend of mine until dying here just a year ago. Franklin: Yeah, I’ve been trying to talk to his brother-- Johnson: Webster? Franklin: Webster, he’s been very reluctant. I shouldn’t say that on camera, but I’m going to have coffee with him this Friday. So hopefully, we’ll-- Johnson: Yeah, they just live right there on the same street, so Joe, he and I, we’d go down and sit there and solve the problems of the world, we’d sit and talk about different stuff like that. He was a person of higher education, but he was an engineer. By the time that I was aware that he was an engineer, it was like, I was up in my 20s. It’s just like saying, hey, I want to be an engineer. Well, what is an engineer? There wasn’t nothing that was in school, to me, that set apart that was something that I wanted to do. To me, I was like manual. I need to get into something that I can use my hands with, to be able to do. Franklin: Right, because your parents worked, your friends’ parents worked. Johnson: That’s all I saw, was work. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Kind of on the flipside of that, who were some of the people that influenced you as a child? Johnson: Heh. Phew. Now that’s a hard one there. Because, like I said, there was really no big influence that was there for me. And I guess, maybe watching TV? It was just, I just didn’t see it. For me my influence was just work. When I would pass the truck lines and I would see diesel trucks out there, I was intrigued, like, man, I would really want to drive one of those. Well, up here it was ran by Caucasian people, so it was my thing just to be able to get up in it and see what it looked like. I worked for a guy named Hezza Thompson. No, his name was Ezra Thompson, and he stayed out here by Connell and he was a farmer. A friend of mine and I, we were just looking for work and we was passing by his farm. I’m like, hey, let’s go down and see if he got something we can do. So we did and he looks around and he says, well, I got a bunch of tumbleweeds out there. He says, you boys can go out there and cut them. And I’m like, yeah, okay. My thing was, never ask a man how much he’s going to pay you if you want a job. Just go and do the job and get paid whatever he give you when get done. We went out there and we was cutting tumbleweeds until when end of the day came, he says, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you come back tomorrow. I came back the next day and went out there. And he raised Hereford cows, bulls, and we went out there and did some more tumbleweeds. He asked me, he said, well, I got a fence I want to build. He says, you want to come out the next day and I’m like, sure. So I went out there the next day and he had a diesel truck out there and it was loaded with posts for fencing. He said, you know how to drive that truck? I said, yeah. [CHUCKING] He says, well then just go ahead and unload it, he says, and when you get through unloading here, just drive it down a ways and then unload. Because it was on a flat bed. I’m like, yeah, okay. Of course it has instructions right up there in the truck. All you got to do is just put in one gear and I knew how to drive a stick-shift, a manual. I got up in the truck and I looked up there and I kind of read it, because he was gone. And then I figured where it said air brake and then I pushed it—pssssheeeew--the brake went off and then I put it over in first gear and pulled my foot off the clutch—rrrr—and just kind of walked along, like, man, I would just really like to drive this on the highway, because I want to get out of just one gear. So that right there was intrigue for me, just to be in that truck. I worked all the way until the end of the day, until I got down to the end of the line. That was my thing with the truck. I would see different guys out on bulldozers and I’m like, man, I would love to just run one of those bulldozers to get on it. I never did get a chance to get on a bulldozer or a tractor, anything like that. So it was just trucks. When I got the opportunity to go into trucking, that’s what I did. I drove truck, and I drove truck for years. When I was moving furniture I drove truck down there, in Northern California for about four or five years. That was my thing, just being the guy thing was driving the big truck, do the big rigs and stuff. I got on a bulldozer—I worked for George Gant. He had his own construction stuff. We was out doing the fairground, we did that over in Kennewick, the center part of it. It used to be like a dump site and we leveled all that off and made it to what it is now and he had this big D9 Cat he had rented. He said, do you think you can handle that? And I’m like, well, yeah. I jumped on it and I was driving, I drove maybe one pass with it. When I backed up, it took so long to get from point A to point Z, to push that load of dirt that you had in front of it, I was done. I backed it up and I got off of it and I went and got back on the motor grader. Because you could see your quick results. That was just, you move a whole lot of earth at one time, but that was too slow for me so I never want to run a bulldozer after that. Franklin: You mentioned bussing and I just wanted to know, was that bussing of the integration bussing kind, or did you just catch the bus to go to school? Johnson: It was the integration bus. That was the ideal thing is to bring the kids from the east side and the black kids to the west side in order to bring the kids together. Because they brought kids, Caucasian kids, et cetera, from the west side of town over to integrate and went to Whittier School. There was black kids going to Whittier and then there was Caucasian kids that was raised in the area that was there and then from out of town and we went back and forth. That was something that I went through was the bussing at that time, back and forth. Franklin: How long did that go on for you? Johnson: All the way up to high school. Franklin: What do you remember about that? What was it like to go to school with kids who weren’t in your neighborhood, and to leave the confines of the neighborhood? Johnson: You know, let me tell you a short story. A bulldog will hunt if he like you. He’s not a hunting dog, but he will hunt if he like you. So is that, when I went to school with kids that was outside of my neighborhood, I was as I am to you. Just like you’d say I’ve been knowing you all my life. I interacted with the other kids, and the kids liked me so well until I had a few friends that I brought home with me to spend the night. And I went and asked their parents, hey, Jerry wants to come and spend the night with me, you think it’d be okay? Well, if it’s okay with your parents, it’s okay. They came and spent the night with me and we went to a wingding and stuff, and it was just like the time of his life, the times that we spent together and there was a few kids that were like that in school. But up until I got into junior high school, it was that we were all as one, everybody just played together, we had fun together—there was really no really racial issues with the kids. They parents was probably racist, and I didn’t really go to their houses and stuff. It’s just like, there was no reason for me to go to the west side because I didn’t live over there. So I basically stayed over in my own neighborhood and did my own thing. But I went over to the west side to go to school with the kids, and when that was over with, I went back over. Whatever they views was at they house, I didn’t get a chance to see it, I didn’t hear it, because when they came to school we were just all kids playing together, going to school together and having fun. When we got into high school, I think that was at the time when kids got to be promiscuous as girls and stuff. They were afraid of the interracial thing, not having to be around those boys. I mean boys, period, and then especially the black boys and stuff. Because you want to not have that interracial thing, and so it was almost something that was forbidden. At school we kind of associated a little bit but not a lot. That’s why I was saying about going to the reunion, is that I didn’t socialize with those kids when we went. It was kind of like—shh. Standoffish-type of a thing when you got on the one-on-one. But as long as we was sitting in the classroom, it was okay. But outside of the classroom, it was a different thing. I remember going to a parade downtown and the girls that were on the float was throwing candy. And all of us kids from school, we’re all just standing out there and we are running and grabbing candy. Some candy fell on my feet, and me being the dummy, I said, ooh, look! And when I did that the kid that was standing next to me jumped down and picked it up. And I’m like, well, hey that’s my candy! And he said, no, I picked it up. It’s mine. But they gave me half of it. That made the connection with us kids to be closer, even though I’m sure at their homes, their parents probably told them something that was completely different. My mom told me, she said, don’t bring them to my house if you can’t go to their house. And she was talking about girls. Not no boys—girls, Caucasian girls. She said, do not bring them here if you can’t go there. She was instilling in me a racist-type scenario, because I knew I couldn’t go to their house and so I didn’t bring them to my house. Let me tell you the story. I remember we had went to a teenage club, was called Avery’s. And there was a couple girls that would come over on the east side and go to the club. One was Ginger Frohlich and this other girl, her parents—what was her name? Anyway, it was this other girl. And we were just friends, we weren’t dating or none of that kind of stuff. I had a car. And this one girl, she asks me, she said, let me drive your car. We’re in high school and I’m about 17 years old and I’m like, okay. We were driving the car and I remember we went down on Oregon Street and when we got down to the corner of A Street and turned on A Street, we were getting ready to go to her house. And the police the police was coming up the street. She had her lights on bright because you flicked the lights before you dim them, that’s when the dimmer switch was on the floor. And I told her, I said, dim your lights. And she said, what? I said, dim your lights. So she stepped on the dimmer switch, the police makes a U-turn, and he comes and he pulls us over. He asks for a driver’s license, she showed it to him and stuff. She had just turned 18. I was still 17. His question was to her, what are you doing over here? Because it was on the east side. And she says, well, I was over here at the teenage club and I was on my way going home. He says, okay, you get there right now. And this is in Pasco, okay, and I’m going to follow you home to make sure that you get there. We’re driving on and she was living on 14th. Janet Khan, her dad owned Khan Construction. When we crossed Sylvester Street, they lived in a duplex right down the street, a duplex. When we got to the house, their parents were standing out in the yard with their bathrobe on. Meanwhile she says, just before we got to her house, she says, where do you guys want me to drop you guys off at? And I said, what do you mean, drop us off? Because you’re driving my car. You’re not dropping me off nowhere. She said, oh my god, what am I going to do? We pull up in front of the house and meanwhile the police gets out and their parents is walking over. They had called to the dispatch, the dispatch had called their parents and—okay. They didn’t read her the riot act or none of that when I was there, because once she got out of the car I just slid over in the driver’s seat and it just pulled on off and went on. But then that made me realize that she didn’t want her parents to know that she had been over there on the east side, socializing with us black kids. That just kind of put a wedge between the camaraderie that we had. At school we could be one way, but then when we wasn’t at school in the private sector, then it was a completely different story. And it was kind of a bad thing but, hey, it is what it is. Franklin: Did you ever have any relationships with any Caucasian girls, growing up? Johnson: Oh yeah. After I got older. Franklin: After you got older. Johnson: Yeah, after I got older, I did. I had a relationship with a Caucasian girl, matter of fact, she’s an attorney now. But I didn’t have many. Matter of fact, I didn’t have many relationships with girls, period. Because my mom, she made me stay at home. So I was in my 30s before I had a relationship with a Caucasian girl. But my mom she always made sure that I was at home, working and doing stuff like that. Something that was kind of like—I want to interject it, that I hadn’t even thought of—she had (?) because we used to go swimming a lot in the summertime and that was to keep us active and doing stuff, and basically not getting into trouble or doing stuff that the other kids may do. We’re at the swimming pool, your parents know where you’re at, they don’t have to worry about nobody kidnapping you, or doing nothing to you, and then my mom would come and pick us up. I often wondered, after I got in my 50s—my mom would take us to the Pasco Carnegie Library. And we would go over there, and we would read books, and we joined the book club. A few years ago, I was at the Pasco City Hall and they have the showcase with memorabilia and different stuff in it, and I’ve seen this paper that was in there. It was on the celebration of x amount of years the Carnegie Library had been there. But when I started reading it, and it was saying that a library book club that they had back in 1957 or somewhere in there, and then it started naming off all these kids that had participated and completed. I saw my sister’s name and it said Elaine Gix, because I told you that we were going under Gix name. And when I saw that, I said, well, my name got to be in there. When I read down, got almost to the bottom of it, there my name was. I was so excited until I started yelling, there’s my name! And this guy walks up and says, where? I’m like, right there, that’s me, that’s me! Because I had completed that. The point that I’m going to make with that, the parallel of this is, that every day my mom would take us to the library. Of course, we didn’t want to go to the library; we wanted to go and play. And back in those early days, man, I’m talking about hot. See, there wasn’t all these trees around here to absorb and put off oxygen for it to be cool. It was like a 108, 110, 116. I mean, there was days when it was 120. It was hot. My mom would always say, you can’t go outside and play because you’ll get sun stroke. So she would take us to the pool. And then she would take us the library. You know what, I was in my 50s, if not in my 60s when I realized why she took us to the library. It was so they had air condition. We didn’t have to be out there in the sun. So the days that we didn’t go to the pool, we went to the library. At our house, we didn’t have no air condition. Until up in the latter years and we got an old swap cooler and it was so humid. Then she would be there to try to cook and stuff and she would come and pick us up at 5:00 in the evening and bring us home so that we could eat. When I thought about it just a few minutes ago, the things that they did to ensure that we had a good simple life, that you don’t even think about. And you know what, it was just amazing that I even thought about that. It was really good to be a kid, being brought up then. I learned how to be visual at that age because I never got a book that was all words. I always got a book that had pictures. I could look at a picture, and a picture’s worth a thousand words. After you completed reading a book, you had to go and give an oral report to the librarian of what you read. She would take the book, and she would be thumbing through it. Man, I could be so precise about what I read in the book, but I absorbed part of the writing of what I read, but it was the pictures that told the story. Because I’d always get a book that had pictures in it. It told the whole story for me. That was why I was so amazed when I saw my name, because then it reflected back is that, how I made it through that. And you had to read a total of maybe 20 books within a month’s period of time. That was a lot of reading. Now, my sister, she could read so fast until the teacher would tell her, slow down. Because, boy, it was just like—prrrrrr. Franklin: I loved doing the reading club when I was a kid, too. It wasn’t because of the AC, but, yeah, my mom would us out of trouble. Go down to the library and do the summer reading program. Johnson: It was basically the same. Keep us out of trouble, and to me, it was the air conditioning because we didn’t have no air condition. And I’m a lot older than you, so you probably had AC in your house and all of that, so it was just to read. I’m sure that had something to do with it because they were trying to figure out how they was going to make it so that it would be easier on us. Because she would always say, I don’t want you to go through what I went through. You need to learn how to do this, this and that. And for my sister, it was like, you need to get an education. But me, son, you need to get out there and do this. Son, you need to get out there. She made sure that I had to be manual. Franklin: It was still important, though, for her to—going to the library was an experience that she wouldn’t have had as a kid. So, practical reasons but also important—yeah. Johnson: Exactly. It’s just like going to school to be a welder or a plumber, everybody is not able to go to CBC or to a college and get a master’s degree. But I mastered my skill. I have mastered being a cosmetologist. I know the theory of it, I have years of hands-on, I am a master at what I do. When I went to school, I could show my instructor stuff that they would just sit there in amazement and like, wow, how did you learn that? A lot of stuff, I created myself, like doing finger waves and stuff like that. And I still do them, and good at them. I could show you some pictures on my cell phone. Anyway, it was just, impacted my life so much of the little simple things that had happened growing up as a kid that I really didn’t think about until after I got to be older, to see the things that my parents had to go through in order to make sure that I was able to take care of myself. I think that was the whole idea. And my mom could look at me and say in her mind, he’s not going to be the one that goes to college and gets no degree. If he can just learn how to do something to where he can take care of himself and put food on the table and put clothes on your backs—that’s all they were really looking for then because everything was simple. It wasn’t like living in a $300,000 house when you could live in a $20,000 house and be perfectly comfortable. Because in a $300,000 house, all you got is just more bills, you know? And you got a certain level of expectation that goes along with it. You got to keep it in a certain condition and all of that. There’s only three things you’re going to do in any house, I don’t care how big or how small: eat, sleep, use the bathroom. You can do that in a cardboard box. [LAUGHTER] Seriously. Franklin: Yeah. So I wanted to ask—since your mom, for a small time, worked out at Hanford, and your stepfather worked at Hanford, I wanted to ask, what was your reaction, or what do you know about your parents’ reaction to learning that they had kind of worked at a site that was crucial to the development of nuclear weapons? Johnson: That was something that was never discussed. Matter of fact, I don’t know whether they even really realized what Hanford was doing, when they were doing plutonium and all of that—because I had heard that they had built the mechanism for the atomic bomb and all this different kind of stuff—that they really realized what they were doing when they were working there. Because I heard just recently when they came and that a lot of guys, black people were doing the cement work and stuff for these reactors and all of that, and they was going down there and digging holes and doing different stuff and they wasn’t told what detriment that that was having on their body. And, hey, later in 30 or 40 years you’re going to have cancer. They wasn’t told that, even though the government knew it. But it was like, hey, we got to get this work done, we got to have somebody down here to do it. So, who are we going to get to do it? And that’s just the way that it was. I don’t think that it was something that was discussed; it was just a job. You didn’t really realize what you were doing. One of the things that really upset me with this Hanford thing is, because I know of a lot of people, black people that ended up with cancer. Man, it took them forever to get any money out of that, when the Caucasian people had been getting paid all the time. And you go to the doctor and then you’d send all your research papers and stuff back, and then they’d say, well, you need this, or you don’t quite have all that together. And it was years, and years, and years, because there was no awareness there. There was no person that was really reaching out from Hanford to make you aware of the moneys and the stuff that they had out there for you to receive. A lot of times, I think people was already dead. And then they family members or somebody didn’t tell you, hey, your dad died and he died from cancer; you probably need to get into contact with them out there to see if there’s any moneys that you are due because of his death from working in that. It took them 20, 30, 40 years. I know John Mitchell, he just got his money and he was in that plutonium incident that they had out there. Before he died—I think he’s been dead maybe five or six years or something like that. And he just got paid. And he was in it back in the ‘50s. It’s like totally ridiculous. To me, I don’t know if you want to put it on say, being racist, but why are we so uninformed as black people about the benefits and the conditions of where you at? Why are you putting me in harm’s way? It just—pfff—it kind of just blows my mind. Another thing I want to touch on, I had brought a couple of things that I had did. They were just like this one right here. I was one of the persons that—and I’m going to let you read it—that help formulate and start it—I was the first Acting Secretary of East Pasco Better Development Association. I did an interview with a reporter. As you read down, Aubrey Johnson said, blah, blah, blah, blah as we went all the way down, okay? And it just behooved me that when they came out that weekend and we were out doing the cleanup, is that they took a picture of the Caucasian person, which was the president, to show that we were out there. Why didn’t you take a picture of all of us out there cleaning up? You understand what I’m saying? And to me it’s like, we want to put the captain at the helm, and to show it. When I mentioned it to him, he said the same thing to Dennis. He says, I don’t know why they put my picture on there, why they didn’t put everybody’s picture on there that was out there doing the cleanup. And it takes the emphasis off, in my mind, of what it was all about. And it goes on, well, Aubrey Johnson said, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he was a person that helped start this thing and yadda yadda-- Franklin: They also misspelled your name, is it A-U-B? Johnson: A-U-B-R-E-Y. Franklin: Yeah, they also misspelled your name. Johnson: [LAUGHTER] Like my daughter told me, she said, Dad you get no credit. And I’m like, yeah, honey I understand how that is. Franklin: Yeah, they spelled it A-B-R-E-Y. I almost missed it for a second, because I was like-- Johnson: Yeah, who is that. And they misspelled it and they mispronounced it. And I don’t know why it was, always when I was growing up, I heard them say, well, what’s your name? I’d say, Aubrey. And they would say, well, do you have a short name for that? I’d say, yeah. Aubrey. Well, they’d say Ay-brey. I’m like, what it is about your hearing that you can’t hear Aubrey coming out of my mouth, where you’re trying to make my name be everything else except for Aubrey? Franklin: It’s not really an uncommon name. Johnson: It’s not. Franklin: You’re not the first Aubrey I’ve ever met. Johnson: Yeah, and it’s a Southern name, Aubrey. Yeah. So, I don’t understand why people-- Franklin: What did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Johnson: Would you repeat that? Franklin: What did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? You mentioned a bit that you knew that they had built some of the reactors and poured the concrete. I’m just wondering, were you ever interested in learning or did you ever take it upon yourself to learn about the contributions of African Americans at Hanford? Johnson: I know a lot of them were scientists, because I have a some of my friends that are scientists that work out there for Hanford, engineers and stuff like that. But I never really talked about them—I have a nephew that works out there and he says, well, I work on the Star Wars project. It’s stuff that they do that they don’t talk about, you know what I’m saying. It’s kind of held in secrecy, so you don’t get chance to really ask a whole lot of questions about a whole lot of things that they do. Other than doing the manual part of, oh, I run the copy machine, I work for the Federal Building, I do this and I do that. It’s just menial things. But as far as them being able to tell you exactly what they did, a lot of it was held in secrecy, and so they couldn’t tell you. Not only that, I didn’t have a whole lot of interest in it, so I didn’t ask them a whole of questions about it. It’s like, even today, the only thing that I’m glad of is that I didn’t go out there to work. Because I’m telling you man, I see a lot of my friends with cancer that’s all of a sudden. And I mean young guys! Some of them are younger than me, and women, cancer, And where are they getting it from? They got it from out there. Franklin: What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Johnson: It brought a lot of work here to the area, it opened up the doors so that pretty much anybody could get a type of job. Even though you started off at the bottom as being a custodian, and kind of like, if you stayed there long enough you might be able to work your way up to a management part of it. If you was—a lot of the black people that’s here that’s in scientist and managers and stuff like that, mostly came from other areas, Savannah River, different places like that to come out and fulfill the needs of the scientists and stuff like that. But there wasn’t homegrown to go out there and work. So it’s like the basic person, if you get to be a manager or you got a BA degree and you could go to work, you might make it up to be a manager. But if you don’t have an interest in scientist, or if you’re not in drafting, or engineering, you’re just a basic hands-on scheduler or whatever, it pays good money and it gives you the chance to have a better living condition, better home, more money to spend for yourself and for your kids. Franklin: What were the major civil right issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cites? Johnson: Civil rights. Civil rights in Pasco was—I remember one time we had a march over in east Pasco. And we marched all the way downtown. I think it was in the latter part of the—no, it had to be in the—see, I was working for Franklin County Road Department, started work there in ’66. So it had to be probably about ’68, somewhere right in there. I think if you research it you’ll find that someone set a tree on fire up there at Volunteer Park. But we had a march from east Pasco and someone had set a cross over there at Whittier School and set it on fire. And we marched all the way downtown, and we was chanting, We Will Overcome the conditions that they had. And it was basically an outcry for the whole United States of America, because it was from the South. Some of the same conditions that they had in the South depriving you of the economics, the fair housing, all of that was things of concern. When they did that east Pasco—not east Pasco development, but the co-op, and the reclaiming that area and they built the housing project. Oh my, I’m getting lost here in my thought because there is a point that I want to make, is that, my thought is just gone on that one right there, because there was a point that I wanted to make about that and it was during that period of time. Oh, I know what it was, is that, when they came in and bought your houses, they gave you a little bit of money—so what they did, my mom had a little house, a little shot gun house that my mom had bid on. They gave her x amount of dollars for the house, but we kept the land. And so what we did, we built another house which is the one that is there now. The contractors that they had to do it, as far as I’m concerned, they didn’t have no inspectors or they just didn’t care. Because the houses that they built was half-built, it wasn’t built right. They guy that puts in the patio door is either put in backwards, because the screen should be on the outside not on the inside. That door should’ve been over here. But you wouldn’t walk in from this end because you’re up against a dead wall. So they put it in anyway. Or like the dishwasher, they put it in and there was nothing for it to bolt to except for the little edge that was about a quarter strip wide and they put two screws to hold that in there and what is the vibration going to do? Tear it up. So my mom never did use it. She’d wash dishes in the sink. Because it busted that. And I was like, Mom, they’re not doing that right. Now, son you’re just—just leave that alone now. They know what they doing. Since she was from the South, never having a voice, she didn’t want to really complain a whole lot about the construction of the house. But I didn’t live there, and I’m looking at it being done. And I’m like, Mom, they’re not doing this right. I’m not a carpenter, but I mean some stuff you can just see. It’s like, in our hallway, if you put a sheet of ply-board, you don’t carry it into the living room and then cut it. You could look up there and you’ll see this long piece of ply-board go across like this and back, sheetrock. Then there’s an edge where that protruded—that should’ve been cut off flush at the wall and then the next sheet of ply-board going all the way across it, or sheetrock. Why they did that and how they could get away with it, I don’t know. I went to put a ceiling fan in in the kitchen. Well, you know what? When I went to screw the screws in, there was nothing to screw them into. Because it had to be a hole this big and the light fixture sit over here on the side, and all that was over there was like tape and they had puttied over it. When I went to put in the screws, it just went straight through into nothing, no sheetrock. It is like, the ceiling fan is there, but you can only use the light. Because if you turn it on, it does like this. Franklin: Oh my gosh. Johnson: I didn’t take it down; I just left it, but I don’t use it. Stuff like that it. It just half-done. And the inspectors for the city allowed it to happen, because they didn’t go behind them and check what they was doing. I think that they gave the bids to all these private contractors to do stuff looking for the federal government to ensure that it’s being done right. But the city government is contracting it out and then Bob Smart, he built all those houses over there and they was all done wrong. There was one house, I heard, that got burnt down because they wasn’t doing it right and so they had to go back in and redo it. They burned it down during the era of the black movement, with the Black Panthers and stuff. To make them redo it. Stuff like that, it just irritated me to no end. And as I got to be an adult, and I’d go down and I would look, and I would say stuff to my mom. And she would say, you know, son, just leave that alone. I don’t want to make waves with. Franklin: Was there a local Black Panther organization here? Johnson: They came from Seattle. Franklin: They came from Seattle. How long—did they come and set up shop for a while or would they just come over from-- Johnson: They would just come over. They came down and recruited a few people from the Tri-Cities area that was interested in getting involved. But there was no big movement over here. It was kind of like a hush-hush-type situation. Because if you can’t get a big movement of people involved and you only got maybe ten people involved in the Black Panther, then you really don’t have no Black Panthers. Franklin: Were they welcome in the community? Johnson: Well, yeah, of course. Because, see, Black Panthers—people look at it like, the first word associated with it is black. It makes you think that it’s something that’s bad. But they wasn’t, they wasn’t bad people, they were trying to get equality. Where you could see something was indifferent or something that wasn’t being done right, they would voice their opinion about it. Because we were so held back from our views, as soon as you had a peaceful organization trying to get something done, all of a sudden the government would paint it as bad organization. And it would make everybody think that these people are really bad. The name of Black Panther, they associated with Huey Newton down in San Francisco. What they were trying to do is to help the people rise above the poverty level. They was distributing food, they were doing medication, they were doing doctors and all that. But how did they paint the picture? They painted the picture like it was a bad organization of people. But then once they got to be so big and then when the government come in and tried to remove you through force, hey, there was a person that you had to reckon with, because they fought back. That’s what they don’t want. They don’t want you to fight back. They want you to do everything in a peaceful manner, but they are the ones with the guns that come near you. In Philadelphia, when they burned that, blowed up that whole city block of people just to try to get a few people. That’s the government that is doing that. That’s why I say, there is no win because they got the Air Force, the Army, the National Guard and the Marines. How are you going to win? There is none. So we have to learn how to sit down and discuss it, just like we’re doing, and figure what it is that we can do to get rid of it. I had a friend of mine who said, well, hey, man, why don’t you get involved in the politics or different stuff so that you have a voice? I was like, man, I ain’t interested in that. I was young, and I ain’t interested in that. Don’t nobody want to listen to me. It’s just like, oh, he’s just babbling on, he’s just a radical. If you say how you feel about something in one way, or you show your indifference about the way that things are done, it’s like, if it’s not somebody else’s idea, if you ain’t going along with them, then they don’t want to hear it. The Black Panthers, if it had been enough young people that was involved and organized, I think we could’ve gotten a lot better situations here during the ‘60s. And if we had had a voice or some educated people here, we wouldn’t have gotten taken advantage of, of our properties and stuff that we had, we would’ve got the top dollar for it. Just like, right across the street from where I live, they took some of those same houses that they had to move—they either tore them down or you had to move them. There were some people that had a little bit of money, they bought some of them old houses and moved them over across the other side of the fence and set them up and then lived in them or rented them out. So if they was good enough for you to move them over there and live in, why they wasn’t good enough for them to be over here? But they wanted that industrial area, because they have that corridor all the way to the river, and they got it. They just redefined and reclaimed. Franklin: Yeah. What about the NAACP? Was there a functioning NAACP here? Johnson: There’s not a functioning NAACP now. With Dallas Barnes and Joe Jackson, and his brother, Webster, and I, and a few people, we talk about it all the time trying to get people recommitted and let’s getting that started again. But it’s really hard to, because young people don’t see the struggles that the older people, such as myself, went through to have equal opportunities and stuff like that. There’s no safeguards that we have. The young people don’t see it, so they don’t really understand it and the old people are dying out. So there’s no one to carry that on. When I was in California, I was involved with the NAACP, and my girlfriend and I and stuff. And so there was like job opportunities. There was a Safeway store that people had complained about putting the applications, they didn’t get a job or stuff like that. We had some Caucasian people that was affiliated with us, so we had them to do is some of the black people had put in the application and then we had some of the Caucasian people went down and put in the application. Weeks later, the Caucasian people got hired, but the black people didn’t. So now we got something that’s valid, you understand. So what we did is we boycotted that store. The black people in the community just didn’t go down there and spend no money. We was out there marching with our signs and it was hurting they business so bad until they were like, wow, okay. We’re going to hire three people to work in the butcher shop or blah, blah, blah, blah. So it ended up getting some black people jobs. The NAACP was really good for, as far as I was concerned, job discrimination in various forms, or a lot of times with your employer. The only thing that I saw that was negative to me about the NAACP is that if it didn’t go national, it was really hard to get something done on the local level. To me, that was a negative thing, because you know what? A small concern of yours is worth all the weight in gold to you, but to them, it’s not a big issue. And I don’t feel that you’re being represented the way that you should. When you have to take your concerns to the national level and then they got to view it and see if it’s something that they want to get involved in, to see if they want to help you with that situation. Franklin: Yeah. I wanted to ask, so you talked about local issues, what actions were being taken in the ‘60s and later to address the local civil rights issues? Johnson: We had meetings at a few churches, where some of our black leaders would come together and we would discuss, trying to take a group of people, our church leaders and stuff—like I say, Boise Cascade, and they wasn’t having fair practices as far as hiring and stuff. Voice your issues with them as far as trying to get black people hired out there. The thing was, now you got to go through the employment office to be able to get hired. But now, if you have Caucasian people that’s running the establishment—and I think it was Floyd and Jerry Frasier was working there—you can’t hire black people just because you’re black. See, it was just like when they voted in president Obama. The black people had the illusion that, hey, we got a black president, man, we are going to rise above, he going to be able to do this and that. But the bureaucracy—because he got to get with the Congress, with the Senate, the House of Representatives, and everybody is so bent on trying to keep you from doing as much as you can until you really don’t get the chance to do the things that you could. The black people are now saying, here a few years ago, well, he did nothing for us. Well, it wasn’t so that he did it for us; he did it for everybody. He made it so that no child should be left behind. You have the opportunity, if you could keep a C grade level, then you would be able to go to school, go to college, and you won’t have to pay for it. They’re looking at getting a piece of the rock in their hand just for themselves, but they’re not looking at the big picture. The big picture is that you got to do it for the mass. It’s like asking the question, what did Martin Luther King do? He did it for everybody so they have equality, instead of just for the black people; he did it for everybody. That was the thing here and with our black leaders, the few that we had, was trying to see that we had the opportunity to get good jobs. When they was profiling, you’d go in and you’d have to put down there, the first thing when you put in the application, are you Indian, Native American, Island Indian, they have all these different, black, blah, blah, blah, blah. How do I know that when you see that I’m a black application, you take it over here and drop it in the garbage can or run it through the shredder? The economical thing, it said that you got to hire so many black people on this job in order to fit a quota. So in that period of time, it made it so that you may have 100 Caucasian people working, but you got to have at least ten blacks. That’s 10%. So you have a quota that you have to meet. How do we know that quota is being met? We don’t know. Until you go out and see how many people’s been hired since that point. But now you had 100 people to put in an application, why wasn’t there more? We all put in application for the same job. It should be first come, first serve. Especially for menial work like being a janitor. It’s like, how many janitors did you have, how many people did you have running the Xerox machine? So you kind of had to have somebody to oversee what they were doing, and those were the groups of people that were doing that in order to make it so that it wasn’t being profiled in that way. Because it was very negative. Franklin: Who were some of the important leaders of civil rights efforts in the Tri-Cities? Johnson: Reverend Bill Wilkins; Magee, and I can’t remember what his first name was; Art Fletcher; Tom Jackson, that was Joe Jackson’s dad; Franklin D. Noah, he was an educated man and he was very boisterous, went to city council and different stuff like that. It was even on a smaller level that we had a few people that was, could kind of help out with that civil rights movement. James Pruitt, he was very instrumental. He was a liaison between the police department and the community. Reverend F. A. Allen, he was a pastor at Morning Star, and I know he was one of the spokespersons for some of us as black people. And I’m sure there are some others, I’d have to really think, from the top of my head I don’t remember if C.J. Mitchell was affiliated with it, but I’m sure that he was with the movement. Franklin: What were some of the notable successes of the movement? Johnson: Well, the successes was Kurtzman Park, the job opportunities that we had. Housing, it opened up the doors so that we could buy houses in Kennewick. Which I know you done heard about they didn’t want any black people there anyway. So it kind of opened up that door. I won’t say a whole lot for Richland. I remember when it was just a few people, C.J. Mitchell, the Browns and the Rockamores, when they first bought houses out here in Richland. That movement, that era, opened up the door for us to move up and have a better way of living and better housing and something for our kids to be able to not go through, that’s already been set in place for you. Franklin: What were some of the biggest challenges? Or failures, or kind of things that weren’t solved? Maybe things we’re still struggling with. Johnson: You know what? Since I’m not really in the workforce, I don’t know if it’s the work, but I’m sure that a lot of working conditions at Hanford in particular, is like, I know of several people and this is what I was told, they say, well, we’re going to phase out your job. But I want you to train so-and-so and so-and-so how to do it. So now you actually are losing your job, but you’re training somebody else to do your job. Why would they need you to train somebody else to do what you’re doing—and this is a black person now—and you’re going to give the job to somebody else? What you do is you change the title of the job and then you give it to somebody else, of course you’re doing the same thing. You can say that you phased it out, and now you have to go somewhere else and look for a job. I heard that in several instances from different people that was working out here in the Hanford Area. That’s what they did. The thing that really got me is, with one person it was like almost at the point of retirement, and all of a sudden it’s like, we are going to phase what you’re doing out. If you don’t have the amount of years that it take you to be able to get your full retirement, you got to figure out something else in order to be able to get it. And you got to work back for the government. If there is no government job for you to do, you just kind of, your dream of being able to sit down and do nothing, you end up having to go back to work somewhere else. I’ve seen a few people that do that. I’m like, I don’t understand it you worked out there for all those years to retire, and now you got to go and work somewhere else? Something is wrong with that picture. Franklin: Yeah. Do you have any memories of—you would have been very young, but I wonder if you heard about the Hazel Scott case in 1950. Johnson: I heard about it, as a matter of fact I read about it. When she came, she came to the bus station in Pasco and she tried to eat at the lunch counter. And they refused to let her sit at the lunch counter and eat. She complained about it. I believe that I read in the history that she was married to a Caucasian person. You can probably google that because I had time when I was like, just a couple, two or three months ago, I was telling somebody about it. [PHONE RINGTONE] That’s my girlfriend. Franklin: She’s like, where are you? Johnson: Yeah, are you done yet?, is more likely. Franklin: Did you get abducted by these guys or something? Johnson: Yeah. But that was something that my mom had told me about, her being there and stuff. Because what really got me is, I always wanted to eat at that lunch counter when I was a kid. We would go to the bus station and I would go downtown and get papers from the Tri-City Herald. I’d get ten papers and we got a nickel a piece for selling them. 50 cent was a lot of money for us little kids. And we would go to various places to try to sell these newspapers. I’d go by the bus station and I’d see that big lunch counter in there and stuff. When you go in, there was never no black people in there, there was always Caucasians, and they’d always turn and looked at you. And not only that, even at Woolworth’s, it was the same way. When you went in there to sit down at that lunch counter, the Caucasian people that was in there, they wasn’t used to seeing blacks sitting next to them, eating. So they’d turn and look at you and it made you feel somewhat indifferent to where you’re, hey I’m not going back there anymore. So it was kind of a—[PHONE RINGTONE] Would you please quit? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Johnson: Not really involved, but I participated in the march that they had. That was about as much as I could do, or making people aware, or talking with the black people that was my age and giving them my view about stuff that we need to be trying to do to change ourselves. That was my thing, was trying to keep people motivated, and telling them the things that I think. See, because me, since I wasn’t being raised racist, when I hear somebody saying something that’s racist, then I would try to show them the difference. You don’t need to do that, well, why don’t you do this, do that. Then they’ll make it even better, because now it’s, like a friend told me, if you can educate one person on how not to be racist, he’ll change 100 people. Because he’ll go back and say, hey. Have you ever heard this before? A Caucasian guy walks over to a black guy and he gets annoying—and I’ve had this happen, I’m going to give you a scenario. A friend of mine and I, we went over to the Cowboy Club over on Kennewick Avenue, over in Kennewick, that’s what it was named at the time, I don’t know what it’s named now, because that’s when I used to go to the tavern. Since I was kind of a western-type dude, I used to ride horses and all of that, I had boots on, my hat, my duster and all my gear; my buddy Johnny Mock, he had on his stuff. We went in and we sat down and the bartender came over and gave us a beer. Everybody was looking at us like what are they doing in here. We sat there drinking our beer and stuff. So pretty soon one Caucasian dude, he got up and walked over and says, hey, how you doing? Well, pretty good, how you? My name is Bill. What’s yours? My name is Aubrey. He extended his hand; I shook his hand. Then he just made this little trivia talk. And I told the bartender, I said, hey, give Bill a beer. Man, let me tell you something, when that conversation ended we was best of buddies. You know what he did? He went back and told his buddies, he all right. Next time we went over there, people didn’t look at us the way that they had looked at us the first time we were there. Because they were afraid of the unknown, but because he got educated just that quick, you understand, and he’s like, man, they’re all right. I hear Caucasian people say all the time, man, you’re different than the other people. And I say to them, what other people do you know? Because you’re trying to make it different, but what you’re doing, you’re stereotyping off of something you seen on TV or something that you heard. Because evidently you haven’t interact with enough black people to be able to see what their views is, to see how they feel about the situation. And we all feel, and pretty much bleed the same. We all want the same thing. It’s just that you got it and I want it. That’s the only difference there is. But once you get to know me, you’ll say he’s really a nice guy, he’s not as radical as I thought that he was. But I can be. Yeah, I can be. If you’re doing something to me, brother, you better believe I’m going to put it on you as best I can. But because you don’t see that side. When my friends, when I would hear them saying stuff that was negative or that it was going to be detrimental to them, I’d say, no, you don’t want to do that. This is the way to do it and then you don’t have to deal with that problem. And then it’s like, whoa. That was kind of my thing, as far as the black movement is concerned, is educating your friends that’s around you to emulate what you’re doing. Don’t do what’s expected of you; do something that is totally different, and then you catch everybody off guard. And then they’ll say, wow, he is different than what I thought. I didn’t realize people was like that. And I get that all the time from people. I’m very outspoken about whatever it is. If you don’t want to hear it, don’t ask me. If you don’t want to hear the truth, don’t ask me. Because I’m going to tell you just like it is. Franklin: How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights efforts here in the Tri-Cities? Johnson: It made us aware, because we were looking on the media down South and in Detroit, Chicago, Michigan, and New York. We got a chance to hear a lot about Malcom X, Andrew Young, Abernathy, Revered Martin Luther King, and all the things that they were doing trying to get equality, in all the places. Even though there had been black people in New York area since back in the 1800s that was prosperous, when they redefined the area, when they first came in I think it was 98th or 99th Street, somewhere in there, they came in and they tore all that out in order to be able to build the high rises and all of this and that. The black people was musicians, you had your doctors and your lawyers—and I didn’t know that back then until I started doing a little research on it—to see that we was well-represented back then. When I started looking at the movement, I started seeing the movement in the South. Then I looked at the same movement that was happening, that was in New York, up in that part of the area in the North. The difference was, Martin Luther King was preaching peace; the Black Panthers was, if you do it to me, I’m going to do it back to you. That was the difference. The Black Panthers wasn’t willing to take the head beating, the dog biting, the water hoses and all the rest of what the people in the South had tried to endure through a peaceful movement. That was the difference that really impacted me, because I had two views to look at: a peaceful view, and a positive-negative view. Out of the positive-negative, don’t allow it to happen to you, then it won’t happen. But if you allow it, it becomes a condition. Such as my telling you about the guy calling me Smokey, my supervisor. If I hadn’t been so feared of my job, I could’ve stopped that the first day that he did that. Then he either had to let me go or he wouldn’t’ve did it no more. It’s like looking at the positive out of it and so it’s a positive-negative situation. Franklin: From your perspective and experience what was different about civil rights efforts here, compared to the national effort? Johnson: We didn’t have a big enough movement here; we didn’t have enough people involved. We had too many older people that was afraid. They brought the South here with them. Don’t make waves, just go along with the program, go along to get along. Then the younger people had more of a radical view, and I among them, that is I’m not going to let it happen to me. That was up into the ‘60s, I started feeling like that as far as getting beat up and that type of a thing, is like, that’s not going to happen to me. Franklin: Did it ever happen to you? Johnson: No, sir. No, I never did get beat up, none of that, I never was in no fights, I never was in no fights at school. I kind of missed all of that. Most of the kids didn’t mess with me because I was pretty big. I mean I was skinny and tall, but I was pretty big. I think I got into one fight in junior high school and man, after that was over with-- Franklin: What were your experiences like—did you ever go over to Kennewick, because I’ve heard a lot about—I guess what I want to ask specifically about is sundown laws and the sign. I wanted to ask you if you ever had any experiences with that. Johnson: I never saw the sign. I heard about the sign. The only time that I went to Kennewick, I can really give you some views on that, because I can remember as a little kid my mom took us over to the Roxy Theater that was over there. That was in the daytime, at a matinee, and then we were out of there. I didn’t know nothing about no out-of-there-before-dark. But I can remember in probably about, let’s see, I was in high school, junior high school, probably about ’60, somewhere in there, you still couldn’t live there. It was a Caucasian lady and I can’t remember what she had did, but she had to go to prison, and she had a black lady, name was Martha Walker, I believe, that worked for her. She gave her her house and I can remember it was next to Colers’ grape field. Because I can remember we were going to the grape field—you know what, it might’ve been even in the ‘50s that that happened—they burnt that house down so that no black people could live over there. I can remember, my sister was married to a guy named Dave Dumas and he was—we went over to the dojo that they had over on Kennewick Avenue, which is a karate practice. And when the karate practice was over, we were driving back out of Kennewick, and we were in a Volkswagen and the police pulled in behind us. I told Dumas, I said, man, the police is behind us and he said, yeah, I know. I said, well, make sure you don’t be speeding because you don’t want to get no ticket over here. We were coming out of the highlands, going down and we were going to go down and go on over the overpass and come back into Pasco. We got right to the top of that hill where that church is. The police put his light on us and pulled us over. He comes up and asks for his driver’s license, he shows it to him and he looks all in the car. My sister was sitting in the back and I was sitting in there and him. He asked him, he said, what are you pulling me over for? He said because you was driving too slow. And he says the only reason I was driving under the speed limit is because I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t speeding so you wouldn’t give me no ticket. The officer said, well, what are you doing over here? And he says, well, I just came from karate practice. He says, well, I’m going to tell you something, don’t let me catch you over here no more. And he turned around walked back to his car and we got out of Kennewick. The only time that I can remember going over to Kennewick other than that, we went to the Highland Theater Drive In. And you know where that was, as soon as you get up there, right there on Clearwater, across from Vista. And man, we would go to that theater and then we were out of there. We would go to Sander’s Field was where we had baseball games and when we got through doing baseball, we were out of there. But it wasn’t like, go over there and hang around. Something that I reiterate, you didn’t live over there, so there was no reason to be over there. It wasn’t like, hey, I’m going to go over here and just joy around over here in Kennewick at nighttime. But it was that I found that the police didn’t even want you over there in the daytime. Even since back then, I’ve been pulled over in Kennewick, and get a negative attitude out of the police. Because when he pulls me over the first thing I say when he walks up to the car is, what’s the problem, officer? Do you have your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance? I’m like, I do. And I get it and I give it to him. And I want to know, again, what is the problem? Well, I noticed that your taillight is out or you didn’t give a turn signal; it’s always some negative misdemeanor crap. And I’m like, okay, well, let me check it and see. I flip on the turn signal and the turn signal is working, the brake light is working. There’s really no reason for him to pull me over than just to see who I am and get my information, so in the event that he see me over again, he knows who I am. Because he really don’t have no reason for stopping me and then let me go. I’ve had that happen right here in Pasco, not only in Kennewick. But in Kennewick I was just, as a kid and as a young adult, I knew, as they say, your place, and I knew it was not in Kennewick because I had no reason to be over there. I stayed out of there because I didn’t want to have no problem with the police, period. Franklin: Makes sense. Johnson: Yeah, because the police is the higher authority. And whenever he says something, that’s what it is. A friend of mine and I had been out in Richland one night. This is in the late ‘70s and he had this beautiful black Cadillac, four-door Brougham, with the gangster white walls and all of that and we were coming out of Richland. And I told him, Columbia Center Boulevard, that overpass, I told him, I said, make sure you’re not speeding because the police always sits up under here and you won’t see his car until you’re right up on him. Because it sits in a shadow. He said to me Aubrey Lee, I’m not speeding. I looked over the speedometer and he’s going 60 miles an hour. Sure enough, State Patrol. The State Patrol gets behind us. He didn’t pull us over; he just followed us. When we got about halfway of the distance between the bridge and that overpass there, at Columbia Center Boulevard, because it wasn’t Ely, because it wasn’t built then, he put his light on. My buddy Charles said, man, I don’t know why he turned his light on because I’m not doing nothing, I told him, I said, well, you better stop. He said, man, I’m not going to stop, I ain’t thinking about him. I’m not doing nothing. He just kept on driving. Next thing I know, I see State Patrol coming from the other direction, coming from Pasco and he comes up to where that little turnaround is. He turns around in the turnaround, and so I’m telling him, I’m like, man, you better stop. I said, because you don’t want no problem with these police. He says, but I’m not doing nothing. I said, man, just go ahead and stop. Then he finally pulls over and he stops. The police pulls up behind him, State Patrol, and then there was a State Patrol behind him. Both of them get out of their car and they’re on each side of the car. He says, what’s the problem, officer? Give me your driver license, registration, and proof of insurance. So he gave it to him. He goes back and gets on whatever, and he calls in to find who he is or whatever information he needs and he comes back. He says, what are you pulling me over for? And he says, you were speeding. And he said, no, I wasn’t speeding. He said, yes, you were, because I have you on my radar and it say you were speeding. So then I spoke up and I said, no, he wasn’t speeding. I said, that’s not true, because, I told him, I said, make sure you slow down because the police is always sitting up underneath this overpass, I said, and he told me he wasn’t and I looked at his speedo and he was going only 60 miles per hour. I said, so he wasn’t speeding. He says, yes, he was, because I have it on my radar that his going over 60 miles an hour. He asked him, well, how fast I was going? Officer said, you were going 80 miles an hour. He said, I wasn’t going no 80 miles; I wasn’t going but 60. Now here is this argument. So I tell him, I said, man, don’t even argue with the man. You know how fast you was going; just wait until you go to court. He said, why would I sign a ticket, accepting a ticket for going 80 when I know I wasn’t going that fast? He said, when I go to court the judge is going to look at the ticket and see where I signed it and that’s what it’s going to be. The officer said, well, I’ll tell you what, you’re going to have to sign this ticket now. If you don’t, I’m going to take you to jail. So he said, I’m not going to sign the ticket. He said, if I write the ticket for $70, would you sign it? He said, no, I’m not going to sign it, because I wasn’t going over the speed limit. We hashed back and forth, back and forth. Charles got frustrated and he drove off and the police is right behind us, man, the lights is going like you wouldn’t—I’m like, man, what are you doing? You better stop, I say, because you don’t know what these police are going to do. Finally, I talked him into stopping and the officer came up and he wasn’t irate about it. Why did you drive off? Because, he said, man, it’s frustrating. You’re trying to force me to sign a ticket saying that I was going 70 miles an hour, when you said I was going 80 at first, when I was going the speed limit. He says, I’m not going to sign that ticket. The officer told him, well, when you go to court, you have the opportunity to explain to the judge what he situation is. He says, but, see, that’s not fair. Why would I have to go to court to explain a situation when I didn’t sign a ticket saying that I was going 70 miles an hour when the judge is going to hit the gavel and I got to go and pay for it? And he says, well, that’s blind justice. And he signed the ticket and then we left and went on about our business. When time came to go to court, he said, I lose more money—because he was an ironworker—I lose more money going to court than what I would missing work. So he says it don’t make sense for me to go to court, because it’s saying already I’m guilty, because I signed a ticket. And I’m like, yeah, that is kind of messed up. The judge is not hearing nothing that you’re saying. Anyway, he went ahead and paid the ticket so that he—as far as they was concerned, he was guilty and he was guilty anyway when he signed it. It’s kind of a bad thing and I talked to a person and he says, well, it’s not an admission of guilt. It says down at the bottom of the ticket that it’s not an admission of guilt. But if you sign it and accept it, who do you think the police are going to believe, you or them? I had the same thing happen to me out here in Richland. Edward Ash and I had went to the river shore back in the day. I went there to get a drink and the guy that was there, he was dancing back and forth, a little fat guy and he didn’t pay any attention to us standing at the bar. I didn’t yell at him, hey, I want a drink, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just told him, I said, man, come on, let’s go. We got in the car and we saw Rayford Guice and Ray Andrews and they said, man, where are you going? We’re going to go down here to the bowling alley and they had some super good hamburgers with the egg on it and all of that. You know, let’s go and have a hamburger. And it’s probably about 11:30 at night. We left out of there and we were crossing Swift. And I look down the street and I saw the State Patrol coming from where the Federal Building is. And now he’s about a block from the intersection. The light changes, just as I pull off, this guy is trying to beat the light, so he turns in front of me making a left-hand turn. So I stop right in the middle of the intersection. The guy behind me had pulled off behind me, so when he stopped, now I’m trapped in the middle of the intersection. And here the police is, now he’s about half a block or less. So then I went ahead and crossed the intersection. As soon as I cross the intersection, he throws his light on me. He pulls me over, gets my license and all of that, and he asks me, had I been drinking? I told him, no. I said, I haven’t had a drink. I said, I went down there to the club to get a drink, as I said, and I didn’t get served, so we were going to get something to eat. He says, okay, I want you to do a sobriety test. I want you to hold your head back and put your finger on your nose and all this different crap; I did that. Then he wanted me to walk backwards up the incline of the sidewalk in that crack; so I did that. Then, he says, well, I’m going to have to write you a ticket. I said, what are you writing me a ticket for? He said failing to yield the right-of-way to an officer. I said, but I didn’t—you didn’t see that guy that turned in front of me? I said, he forced me to stop in the middle of the intersection. I said, I couldn’t back up, I said, I only had the choice but to go across the street. I said, I saw you when you was down at the Federal Building. That was two blocks away. I said, why in the world would I pull out in the front of an officer when I’m seeing you down there? He wrote me a ticket anyway. When I went to court, officer wasn’t there. And the judge asked me how I did I plead; I told him not guilty. And so he says, well, we going to have to get him in, and so I probably stayed in court for a couple of hours before they finally got in touch with him and he came. They had the officer to get up and tell his story. He said, well, yeah, he failed to yield the right-of-way and I was blah, blah, blah, blah. Then he had me to get up and tell my story. And I told him just what I told you. I said, I saw him down the street, I went to cross the intersection, I say, and just as I start crossing the intersection, this guy was trying to make a left-hand turn and actually he ran the red light. I say, he turned right in front of me. I had to stop, I had no choice. And now I’m like in no-man’s land in the middle of the road; I said, the only choice I had was to go ahead and go across the street. I said, the officer was far enough down the street, there was no danger to him. He says, well, do you have a witness to that? I said, I sure do! Because Edward Ash that was with me was there. He says, well, you better get him up here. So he got up and told the same similar story, which was true. And so then he says, well, I guess I have no choice but to not find you guilty. I said, well, I sure appreciate that, your honor. But tell me this, since it cost me to lose a day off of work, am I going to be reimbursed for being off of work? And he told me, just like that other man had said, well, that’s blind justice. He hit the gavel, telling me to get on—he didn’t say get out of here; he just hit the gavel and the case is over, you can leave. That’s no fair, because I told the officer, please, don’t give me no ticket, because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. So what’s up with that? It’s just like, did he not want to be wrong? Was he being racist? Because racists exist in every place that you go; it’s not just in Pasco, it’s not just in Kennewick, it’s not just in Richland; it’s in Eltopia too, it’s in Sunnyside, it’s in Prosser. I’ve been in Yakima as a teenager and had police to pull us over in the ‘60s and the ‘50s. The question is, what are you doing over here, and don’t let me catch you over here no more and stuff like that. We was afraid to drive our cars over there. We would borrow our parents’ cars or somebody else to go back up there. Because we were interested in them young ladies that was up there. And you had to go right through Union Gap and it was always in the Union Gap area where you got pulled over the majority of the time from the police. It’s not just a situation that’s here in the Tri-Cities; it’s a situation that’s everywhere. And we have to learn how to get beyond that so we can all live here together, because we’re all dependent on each other. It just doesn’t make sense to me. And I’ve lived long enough to where most stuff I could just let it slide off my back and just continue to go ahead and do my thing. I don’t have to interact with you if you don’t want to interact with me and I’m perfectly fine with that. And if do, then, hey, we okay. Franklin: How were your experiences in other places different from the Tri-Cities? What kinds of work, housing, and social opportunities were available to you? Johnson: Well, I won’t say Los Angeles, because when I went to Los Angeles, I had a friend of mine that owned an apartment building, which I managed for them. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law, they owned an apartment building, had a 28-unit apartment building. So I worked for them managing their apartment building and stuff like that. I went to Dominguez Institute when I was down there, and had took a welding course, because I wanted to be an underwater welder. Until my instructor told me, he says, do you realize how much carbon and stuff that’s going to be in your nose when you’re down there in a bell? I’m like, no. He said, well, do you ever blow your nose when you get through welding and all the soot and the carbon coming out? I’m like, yeah. He said, well, it’s going to be way worse. So if I were you, that would be something I wouldn’t do. And he was like, as you say, a soul brother, but he was a white man. And whenever I seen him, and I still say it today, he says, what it is, what it ain’t, what it be like, bro. [LAUGHTER] I thought that was so cool. That was the thing that he told me. And I said, well, I want to be an underwater welding. He said, no, Aubrey, you don’t want to do that. I’m telling you that these are the conditions that you’re going to be doing. And if you’re going to do anything, just go and get you a job, but you don’t want to do that. He was a person that had my interests at heart. I really liked that. Like I said, I worked for my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law when I was there. When I moved to Vallejo, California, I had a girlfriend that was well-established and she was involved in politics and stuff, and she was retired at an early age and so I lived with her for a while. And then I went to work for a moving company, Cozy Moving and Storage. And I drove truck, moved furniture, until I got my back all racked up moving a piano. Because they never did want to fix their junk and stuff, and like, hey, you need to fix that truck, you need to do this. I was driving a diesel truck and the passenger’s seat actually had a metal band that you band boxes with to hold the seat to the floor. And when you stop, the seat would do this, rock. I told my supervisor, I said, you know what? If I ever have an emergency where I have to slam on them brakes real hard, if that band busts, that guy is going to go through the windshield. That guy drove that truck over a year in ‘65 and they never did fix that seat. And all they had to do, they could either weld the frame to the thing that was on the floor—well, we don’t have to time to fix that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was always one of them old kind of excuses. It was like, your value really wasn’t worth anything to them, other than moving their furniture and getting stuff done. When I finally hurt my back moving one of them pianos just like that, the upright. Me and another guy, we got it tipped back bringing it out of a storage vault and then he let it go. It had that strain on my back and my hand was on that thing, I couldn’t even turn that loose. And I had to raise that piano back and it messed up three of my vertebrae, my L4, 5, 6 and my lower lumbar. I ended up moving because my mom was sick, I went through the state industrial deal, and I went to beauty school and that. But down there, I don’t know if it was a black thing, I don’t think it was; it was hard to find a job, it just took a long time, especially when you relocate from one area to the other area. Like I said, girlfriend she was well-established, so she had a nice house and all of that so I didn’t really see the poverty thing in LA. I very seldom went over to the east side in Watts or over in Compton. The few times that I did go through there coming from school, you could see a lot of the destruction that had happened back in the ‘60s, where the buildings and stuff was burnt down. They didn’t go back in and redo it. They had built a project stuff, because I was looking for them to reclaim that whole area. Because that area used to be really central, was really popular back in the ‘30s, and ‘40s, and the ‘50s. It had night clubs and theaters, et cetera on it. When it got burned down, I thought to myself, they will come back in, and an urban renewal type situation will come in and buy all of this vacant land along the strip and then redevelop it, which is maybe something that’s coming in the future. I don’t know what’s happened to it since I’ve left, those are the things as far as housing. The police—psssh, was murder on you in California. I tell you, they had Chief Daryl Gates’ battering ram. That was his thing. They even had a song out about him. The police was extremely hard on you. I had an officer to pull me over—as a matter of fact, I was going with a Caucasian girl at the time. And I won’t say it was just because she was in the car with me. Even with the black police, is the thing that got me. He’s got, his co-person is this Caucasian police officer. I said, is he trying to be extra hard on me because she’s in the car with him, to show her, hey, I’m equal on black people such as I am, on anybody else? Because he had no reason to pull me over. And he says, well, where are you going? No, he says, where are you coming from? I said, I’m coming from home. He said, where do you live? I said, I live at 4044 Gelber Place, which was right up the street. He says, here on your registration, it says that you live in Washington. I said, well, yeah, I do. He said, I just asked you where you live. I said, well, listen, I got to live somewhere. I said, I’m down here going to school. So it don’t require me to change my driver’s license or registration as long as I’m out of the state every 90 days, I said, I go back home and then I come back. He made me prove to him that I was going to school, which I had my welding gear and all my credentials and stuff was in the trunk and I showed it to him. When he got through looking at that, the thing that surprised me, he told me—and it’s a black officer, now—don’t let me catch you back over here, because if I do, that car is going to belong to me. I said why you’re going to take my car? He just turned and walked away and got in his car and drove off. But I tell you what, every time I left the house, man, I was looking for him. Because if he had impounded my vehicle for whatever reason it was, it was going to take an act of congress for me to take it out and money. Because all they got to do is move it and take it over to Inglewood, and I’m living over in the Baldwin Hills area—I don’t know where it’s at. Because LA is build up in different precincts in the city and stuff. So if you’re over in Compton, they got a whole system over there, if you’re in Inglewood, they have police station over there, and if you’re in Baldwin Hills, they got a police station on there. In different areas, depending on—they can shift you around, they shift your stuff around. So you just can’t say, it’s going to be there. So if it’s there for four or five days and they charging you $35 or $45 a day to get your car out plus the initial towing fee, suddenly it costs you $200 or $300 for no reason. Anyway, I hate to just babble on, but it’s just—to answer the question, it’s like that, and most of the people was living in, in LA, was the jungle. And all the black people that had moved in to all these real nice apartments that the Caucasian people used to live in. They had moved out into the Valley and that was being bought up and renovated in a real nice area. The other people was, like I said, over in Watts and Compton. I never really went over there so I didn’t really have a chance to see what that was like or their project. Franklin: I just have two questions left, kind of big reflective questions. What would you like future generations to know about living in the Tri-Cities during the Cold War? Johnson: The contributions that we as black people made, to help build up, and the sacrifices to help build this project out here. Because we did a lot of the basis for the reactors and stuff. We poured the floors and did all that hard menial work. Not saying that Caucasian people couldn’t do it, but it was a lot of back-breaking work that you had to get in there to do. Then you had to do the rebar and all of that. It was kind of like we were black gold, in essence that we were very important to the contributions that we made and it probably would’ve taken a lot longer to do what we did. You don’t take a mule to the Kentucky Derby. He can’t outrun the thoroughbred. So it’s just like me and the guy that is digging the ditch. I dug the whole ditch, because every time you look around, he got a cigarette in his mouth. I could out-work him on any given day, because it was something that I had to do, because I had the motivation, because I was trying to be able to put food on the table, I had to pay rent. With him it was like, oh well. He had somebody that was looking out for him; I didn’t have nobody looking out for me. For our future generation, they need to know the contribution that we had, and why we had to work so hard. It wasn’t just to put food on our table and clothes on our backs and for shelter. We had to work hard because that was all that was there for us to be able to do. We was the mule for that generation. When they didn’t have tractors, we had to go out there and plow. They didn’t have enough strong-backed people to get in there and do it with a song in their mouth and in their heart. You go to the resource that you have. They recruited, from what I’ve heard, and what I’ve read over the past, they recruited black people from the South to come here and work out there in the Hanford Area. That’s how a lot of them got out here, was through that. And then some came, and then they would go back home, or call back home, or write back home and tell them how good it is. Hey, man, check it out, I’m making 65 cent an hour. Man, that’s more money than I ever made. I’m only making 25 cents an hour out here. I’m going to send you $10 and you get on that bus and you come. So they’d leave their family, they’d come out here and they work, and they make up enough money to send back and get their family and then they’d move out here. Franklin: Is there anything else that you would like to mention related to migration, segregation and civil rights and how they impacted your life in the Tri-Cities? Johnson: Something that we don’t want to have to go back through. I hope that I’ve helped lay the foundation and the black people that gave contributions, too, to where if you read the story, you don’t have to experience it, it’s like listening as someone else. My friend told me at one time, he said if you listen to what I’m trying to tell you, you won’t have to experience it, so just take my word for it. That’s what I did. When I bought my first house on 17th, I had just got a settlement from Franklin County when I got my foot crushed and I think they gave me $4,000 or something like that. And my friend which was an older man, he told me, don’t take your money and spend it on buying a car. He say, go and buy you a piece of the rock. I looked at him and I said, what is a piece of the rock? What are you talking about? He said, buy you a piece of America. I said, what do you mean? He said, go and buy you some property or buy you a home. He said, because that car is going to depreciate in a few years and won’t be worth nothing. He said, but that house or that land will appreciate, and it will always be of value to you. The longer you keep it, the more value is going to go up. His last words was, take my word for it, so you won’t have to experience not doing it. Because I already did and I’ve laid the groundwork for you, so just take my word for it. I looked at him for a while and then when I got my money, I took half of it out and went and bought me a car and then I took the other half of the money and I went and bought me a house. Let me tell you something, I still own that house and I just said, thank god for that. Because I see so many of my buddies that don’t have a house and they’re still paying rent. That was in ’72. I’m like, wow, that was the best piece of advice that I could ever have had, from a person that already went through getting to where I want to be. So for the young people that’s coming along, I hope that they’ll be able to realize the sacrifices and stuff that everybody did, so that they can have it much better. With my daughter, I try to educate her all the time about how it was so that she can see how it is, so that she can move along and take advantage of all the advancements that’s at her fingertips. And for her to educate her children, so that they can move along and get better chances in life, so that they don’t have to go back through the struggle that they went through. God forbid if things continue to go the way that it is, is that we will regress, the whole United States of America. Let me say this before we discontinue or get done. I had went to the Caribbean on a cruise, my girlfriend and I. I think Jamaica and they were showing us all these plantation—rum, places that they had. We didn’t see any of the cane fields and all that kind of stuff, but they showed these old plantation rum factories that they had, and how they had the channels for the water to go through them. And you can actually walk into them and see all of that. The guy that was giving us the tour, he started laughing and then he says, you know, when we want comedy, we watch the news of the United States. That’s the comedy to us, and he started laughing. My girlfriend’s daughter told him, she said, listen, we’re not here to hear that. We’re here for you to be a guided tour guide and just tell us about what we’re seeing and what we’re going through, and what it was, et cetera, et cetera. We don’t need to hear that. And with saying that, the United States right now is the laughingstock of the whole world. Everybody is looking at us when they used to look up to us. And it’s that we have got to make a change. And if you see something that is being done wrong and you don’t do something about it, you are as much of the problem as anybody else. As we become adults, we all know the difference between right and wrong. It would be wrong for me to do something to somebody that’s not done anything to me. Those are the things that I tried to instill in my daughter. Because the rest of my kids—well, all of them are grown, my daughter, she’s 27, will be 27 on her birthday. But I try to instill that into her so that she won’t have all that negative stuff to look at. She have nothing but positive stuff. She wanted to be a veterinarian when she was going to school. Love animals and still do. And I would tell her all the time, now, this is what you do. All those Caucasian kids that you’re going to school with that want to be doctors and stuff, you take the same classes that they take. And that’s going to be your guidebook to get you into college, to where you’ll be able to be that veterinarian. Because you’ll have taken all the required courses. Because their parents know what classes for them to take, and they’re going to make sure that they get them. I don’t know. She was like, well, yeah, Dad, that’s what I’ll do. She was honor roll student and all that kind of stuff. She was right up the ladder until she got right at the end of high school. I don’t know what got I her or got in her mind, it’s just like, she lost focus. And it seemed like—you know, and I should know; this is what I think it was, but I don’t know. We were staying in 17th and all of her friends were Hispanic and a few Caucasian, and a couple Asian. Very few black kids. When she started going to high school, it was like a whole new world opened up for her, to be around the black kids and her being raised semi-white, and having a whole different outlook, and the culture is like, all this is new to me, and if it’s new, I want to do it, I want to be around it, I want to see what it’s all like. And it’s all fun and she’s trying to solve the problems for everybody else is that she let herself go lacking. So then she lost her vison, and once she lost her vision, then being a veterinarian is something that just flew out the window. I’m like, wow, I say, that’s too bad. We got to stay focused on what we want to do, don’t let nobody deter you from doing that. You got to have somebody to help you along the way to put you in to the things that you need so that that vehicle will get you to where you want to go. She’s doing okay now; she just started a new job today with Charter College as an intake counselor. She’s doing okay. She was working for T-Mobile as a consultant there, selling phones, and she did quite well with it. But with this job she wanted to work as hard, and she’ll make as much money, if not more. Because she was doing pretty good; she’s only 27 and she was making $50,000-something last year selling cell phones. But man, you look at all the hours that she worked for minimum wage. But then her commission check would be the thing to take her over the top and make her the money. The thing that got me is that—which I didn’t know much about it is that, out of the commission check, they take a higher percentage of taxes out of it. And I’m like, how do you know where your taxes is going with that? I mean, it’s on there, but how do you know? Okay, they take 8% normally and they’re going to take 10% or 20%. How do you know that they pay that 20% into whatever fund they said? They just put it on a piece of paper and tell you that. You don’t know. Is they taking that money and say, okay, we’re going to split this up between our managers over here and then we’re going to take this other 10% percent and put it into this fund over here? You really don’t know. So I encouraged—I said, you know what? You need to get in contact with the IRS and tell them, hey, they was taking out 15% of my money because I made x amount of dollars. Because it seems like you being double-taxed. Because the IRS is going to get you when you go into different tax brackets. So why is there a different tax on commission? I don’t understand it. It might very well be. But I just don’t understand—it’s almost like a double standard because you don’t really know what’s going on with your money. It just kind of like concerns me. I told her the other day, I said maybe it’s something that I need to look into for you. Because she is just kind of passive-aggressive, if you don’t do nothing to me, I won’t do nothing to you and, Dad, I’d rather let it go and not be bothered with it. Because you know what, I got another job now and no big deal. I’m going to make more money with them, you know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, yeah, I see what you’re saying, but-- Franklin: Aubrey, thank you so much for coming and interviewing with us today. It’s been a wonderful interview. Johnson: It was very enlightening for me. Franklin: Excellent. Johnson: You can see I got the gift of gab. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, no doubt. Well, thank you so much. <a href="https://youtu.be/wEZQwVvihkg">View interview on Youtube.</a> Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1946- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Aubrey Johnson Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) School integration Racism Segregation School integration Cooking Baseball Affirmative action Migration Civil rights Civil rights movements Description An account of the resource Aubrey Johnson moved to Pasco, Washington as a child in 1946. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/09/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe4e50841d285d72b4528d830e3088d31.JPG 6cc82704ef009805ffaeed10b387016f https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9feca12a12b9e9cbfd55292b8456d72a.mp4 ddd27f490df8e74a98061feb5126553c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Emmitt Ray Jackson Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Emmitt—it’s Emmitt Jackson? Emmitt Jackson: Correct. Emmitt Ray Jackson. Franklin: Emmitt Ray Jackson, on March 23rd, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Emmitt about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name? Jackson: It’s Emmitt, E-M-M-I-T-T, Ray, R-A-Y, and then Jackson, J-A-C-K-S-O-N. Ray is important because my mom entrenched that into me. You know when you’re young and she says, never let anyone call you out of their name. Franklin: What do you mean by that? Jackson: Oh, you know, well, growing up, being one of the first black families here in the Tri-Cities and Richland, and growing up and you’re really into an all-white school or neighborhood and that type of thing, you know, there’s a lot of—in that time in the ‘50s, there’s a lot of people getting used to each other and understanding their ways. You know, you being different and as far as the color goes, you were sometimes a target, okay. We have people coming from all over the country here, so it wasn’t—you didn’t know what kind of individuals, their background or where they were from and what their culture was and how they were raised. So it was easy to single you out, if you will, or to say, oh, there’s one of those, whatever “those” is. So that’s always stood with me. Franklin: Gotcha. Emmitt, where and when were you born? Jackson: June 5th, 1950 in Kadlec Methodist Hospital. And you know if you’re born in the Kadlec Methodist Hospital, you’re a native, because it was the old Army hospital in Richland. Franklin: Right. Yeah. So you were born here in Richland. Jackson: Yes. Franklin: Where did your parents move here from? Jackson: From Louisiana. Shreveport, Baton Rouge. My grandparents and mom then came up from California up to here because they heard there was jobs here. Franklin: And when did your family come to the area? Jackson: Oh, man, they were in—probably, I don’t know exactly. My sister was born here, too, Joyce. Franklin: Older or younger? Jackson: Older. Franklin: Okay. Jackson: Joyce, so she was two years older than me. There’s ten of us in our family; we’re all like two years apart. Franklin: Wow, that’s a big family. Jackson: Yeah, it is. So ’47, ’48. I’m not quite sure about that. Franklin: Your parents moved to Richland? Jackson: They moved—well, actually, to north Richland, to the trailer courts. Franklin: Okay. So your parents, from the moment they moved here, were connected to Hanford. Jackson: Yes. Franklin: And what did your—did both your parents work out there initially, or how--? Jackson: See, my father—my step-father, that’s who I really know--my father worked out—he was in the Army. And at that time it was a military—you had the military here. So, when the military broke up—I’m sorry, when the trailer courts broke up, then we moved to Richland. 409 Robert in Richland. That was, oh, jeez, I wasn’t in grade school then, so that was somewhere like ’54, something like that. But my sister went to John Ball Grade School in north Richland. You know what’s interesting about all that, I don’t know if you know who Joe Essie is, but he’s a trainer out here. So we were talking one day about segregation and integration and all that. And he was talking about segregated communities, and I go, you know what, Joe? I actually lived in a segregated community. Because north Richland, you know, the trailer courts were divided. You had your black section and then you had your white section as well. So it was interesting. But I never knew the difference; I was young. Franklin: What did your stepfather do out on Site? Why was he there? Jackson: You know, the way I understand it from Vanis—Vanis told me this, is that when the trailer courts broke up, I think it was DuPont or GE here at the time. A lot of the Afro-Americans moved to Pasco, and a lot of them went to work at the railroad or went to work for the construction. My stepfather was one of the first ones to go to work for the contractor. So he went to work out at the Site for GE. He was a janitor. He worked 24/7. Franklin: Yeah? Jackson: Well, yes, you know, ten kids. In fact, he was a janitor here at—what was it? Franklin: The Joint Center? Jackson: The Joint Center for Graduate Studies. He was a janitor down at Joint Center for Graduate Studies on Lee Boulevard. We spent many a day in there washing and waxing, mopping them floors and that type of things. Our treat was great, because we used to go to Zip’s and we’d get hamburgers and fries and milkshakes. So then when they moved it out here, he was a janitor out here. He was the first janitor here. He worked at Lourde electric in the evenings. He did a lot of work on the side in the evenings as well. Franklin: Right, working hard to support—for a big family. Jackson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: What do you know about your parents’ lives before they came to Hanford? Jackson: Okay, my mother grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana and she—as much as she went to school there, she went to college there for a couple years, and then they moved up here. Then she started raising a family, yes. And she was a mother—that’s all I’ve known, she’s been a mother, yeah. Raised kids, she raised ten kids: six boys, four girls. She also babysitted. She raised a lot of other kids here as well. She did that for quite a long time. She spoiled each and every one of her kids. [LAUGHTER] It’s interesting, because we think about now—because my daughter and how she was raised, you’re always trying to do better for them and make it easier for them and that type of thing. People talk about—I can remember growing up, and kids—because I played sports and stuff, and I can remember a lot of times the guys would say, god, I got to get home because we’re having steak for dinner! We didn’t know what steak was. It was like, neck bones and ham hocks and red beans and rice and greens and cornbread, and different things like that. So it was pretty interesting, the cultures and just the learning that went on while we were growing up here in this community. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. How long did your stepfather work out at Hanford? Jackson: Oh, man, jeez. Man, I’d have to look that up. He was out there for 30 years. Well, you think about it, let me see if I can go back. Let’s see. So I was in the service, so, ’50, ’72, came home started working ’77, ’78, ’79. He probably passed away about ’80. So I would think about 30 years. Yes. Franklin: Did he ever talk about his work? Jackson: No. We knew what he did. And in fact, he worked at the building that was up a ways here. Franklin: In the 300 Area? Jackson: The 300 Area, yeah, he worked in the 300 Area. In the evenings we would go with him, on weekends and stuff like that, to his other jobs and help him and that type of thing. So we knew what he did and we knew what the work was and that type of thing, yes. When you say work—you know, the one thing I always wondered about though was—he was really good with his hands and carpenter. There wasn’t too many Afro-American craft people out here, right? So I always wondered, well, how come he never got the opportunity to go into one of those crafts? That’s always bugged me. Will always bugged me. Franklin: Felt like maybe there had been a ceiling there or maybe an expectation of black workers at that time? Jackson: Well, there’s definitely a ceiling, yes. Because when Hanford was being built, you had your black dorms and mess halls and everything was separated out there. Franklin: Did he talk about working in any other areas, or was he mostly in the 300 Area? Jackson: He was mostly in the 300 Area, yes. Franklin: Okay. So you initially grew up in a segregated area of the Hanford—the north Richland trailer camp, which is different from the trailers in the construction camp. Jackson: Correct. Franklin: And then you moved into the town of Richland. Jackson: Right. Franklin: So moving into the town of Richland, that would’ve—Richland was a closed city, in that you had to be employed by GE or doing government work to live there, but was it a segregated area? Jackson: No. We lived on 409 Robert which was right off of Thayer, across—it was a two-block street, and across from on the other side of Masonic Temple and Richland Baptist Church. And then Shirleys, the other black family that lived out by Denzo’s, and then the Wallaces lived below the hill, the Lewis and Clark area. And the Rockamores lived down there, and the Mitchells lived down there, too, as well. Let’s see, what is that? One, two—and then a little bit later, the Bakers came and they lived right behind us on Rossell Street. So we’re all scattered around. Franklin: But you can, it seems like you can distinctly remember the black families in Richland. Jackson: Oh, yes, of course. We—[LAUGHTER]—oh, yeah. There wasn’t many of us. It was like, you’re alone sometimes. So, yeah, we knew each other and we recognized each other whenever we saw each other and that type of thing. Franklin: When so many other African Americans had moved to east Pasco, whether by design—whether by—because east Pasco was unofficially-slash-officially the black area of the Tri-Cities— Jackson: Correct. Franklin: So many families had moved there and had a very vibrant black community was there, did your family feel a pull to move there, or was there a reason why your parents didn’t move to Pasco and stayed in Richland? Jackson: I don’t know why we moved to Richland, other than maybe it was close here. We bought that house there, 409 Robert. Our grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson, they moved up to east Pasco. In fact, they helped to build the Greater Faith Baptist Church there. Our grandfather was a deacon, and our grandmother was in the choir. Franklin: Okay. Jackson: We were always going back and forth from one city to the other. Franklin: So you had a lot of interactions with folks in Pasco. Jackson: Yes. Franklin: Okay. That makes sense. Jackson: You know what’s interesting about that, is that it was like—because most of—the Wallaces and the Browns—oh, I forgot the C.W. Browns, the Browns, they lived on Smith, over by Marcus Whitman. There was always that connection because of athletics and then that type of thing and the competition and all of that. So there was a little—there was always some competition that went on there between us. Franklin: Yeah. Jackson: Yes, and we played for the Bombers, for Richland. We’re quite proud of those connections. Because it always seemed like, going through school, there was someone older than us who would lead the way and chart our path. That type of thing. In fact, Fred Milton. Fred Milton lived out in West Richland, his family. I don’t know if you heard that name before? Franklin: No, I haven’t. Jackson: Well, Fred Milton was—he was a beast. He was very athletic, very powerful. Let’s see, Fred was two years older than me, yeah, two years older than me. Theartis was five years older than me and of course then you had C.W. and Norris Brown, they blazed the trail as well. They’re the oldest. I can remember this one time, this guy was picking on me in junior high. Fred found out and he talked to the guy, and the guy left me alone after that. But you always had that protection. You could go for help or support, which was very, very important. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah, right. Jackson: But Fred was—do you know? He was a heck of an athlete, nice guy, nice person. When he was, I believe when he was a senior, you know we had Arctic Circle here, you know where the—what’s the Greek place in Uptown Richland? What is it? It’s—oh, Fat Olives, the Italian place, I’m sorry, Fat Olives, yeah. So Fat Olives is there, used to be an Arctic Circle. Franklin: Sorry, what’s an—is that like a— [camera operator]: A drive-in. Franklin: A drive-in, okay. Jackson: Italian. It’s what? [camera operator]: A burger. Jackson: Oh, I’m sorry. A burger—Burger Ranch is a--you know, in Kennewick, is after them, they’re the same principle. Franklin: Is that like a chain? Jackson: Yeah, it was at that time. It was an Arctic Circle and they had burgers, and, man, that’s where, you know the fry sauce? Franklin: Yeah. Jackson: Yeah, that’s where the fry sauce generated from. Franklin: Oh. ‘Kay. That’s funny, I grew up in Alaska; I feel like if any place I would have heard of that, it would have been there, but you never know. Okay, a drive-in. [camera operator]: You’re from above the Arctic Circle. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] It wasn’t quite above the Arctic Circle. Jackson: And so I can remember one time, they went down to go to lunch there, and they wouldn’t serve him. Franklin: Fred? Jackson: They wouldn’t serve Fred. So the seniors there at school, they boycotted them, boycotted the Arctic Circle. And God, that was in the early—like in ’64. Franklin: Like the entire senior—like, the school seniors? Not just the black seniors, but— Jackson: Yeah, well, there wasn’t—there was only one or two—Bob. Bob was Fred’s brother. There wasn’t many of us around. Franklin: Was that an effective—did they—? Jackson: I don’t really know the outcome, but the fact that they did it, and they did it in Richland was very supportive. It said a lot about how we progress and how we come together as people. Franklin: Right. Wow, that’s really something. How would you describe life in the community growing up in Richland? Jackson: You know, what’s interesting is that—we’re getting ready to have our 50th anniversary, right? And so I can remember, we’d be down—or at Marcus Whitman, that’s the grade school that we went to. The Bakers and I would be down there and there was Theresa Kay, Levon and Levette, they were twins. So we’d be down there swinging or doing playing or something, and inadvertently, some kids would come by on their bikes and call us the magic word. And, man, it was amazing. They’d be on their bikes, and don’t you know the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But of course, they have to go on the pavement, so golly, they could never outrun us. There’s always retribution to be paid. So growing up, you had that kind of stuff. But then on the other hand, you had people that were just the opposite, and just treat you just like people, welcome you into your homes, played with you, your kids and family, that type of thing. I can remember one of our rules was, growing up, is that we could never go into another house. That was one of the rules, that you can never go into someone else’s house. Franklin: Why was that? Jackson: It was—I don’t know. I think it was protection. Because you never knew what to expect and that type of thing. And you didn’t want to be overbearing, if you will. Not knowing—it was virtually an unknown. My parents—everyone came from the South. That’s the way they were raised and their cultures and their attitude. That was one of our rules. But growing up, man, I can talk about my life growing up. I can chart my brother—since I was the second oldest and we had, there’s ten of us, and you can see that the progression of the differences and the change in relationships within their friends and the other families and how people treated them or reacted to them as time went on. And it was a positive. It was really positive. Franklin: Yeah, things trended upward? Jackson: Oh, yes, oh, yeah. Definitely did. Growing up, you had your issues. I can remember one time in high school, there was this—in fact, we were juniors. There was the ASB president. You ran for ASB offices. So one of the guys there was running for office, and Mac Hall was the science hall and math hall. Man, that was taboo for me; I never went over there. Franklin: Why? Jackson: Science and math? Math and I did not compute, did not get along very well, right. I’m a history major, by the way. And you have slogans and you have pictures up and that type of thing. So they had—and in fact, the guy that was on the team, we played ball together. He was from Chief Jo; I was from Carmichael. Carmichael and Chief Jo came together at Col High. So we played ball, sophomores and juniors. At that time, when you’re a junior, you played varsity or you didn’t play. They didn’t have the different teams broke out, sophomore, JV and all that kind of thing. So he was running for office, so there was these slogans, and they had these black kids, stereotypes with big eyes and big lips eating watermelon, right? It was very derogatory. Franklin: in the high school? Jackson: In the high school, in Mac Hall. I never went there, I’d never go over to Mac Hall very—I think I went to typing, had a typing class there or something. No, I had a speech class there with Mr. Law. Anyway, so we went—one day Levon came, and Emmitt, have you seen this? The Harrises were there at that time too. I don’t know if you’ve talked to--run them down, the Harrises? Franklin: I don’t believe so. Jackson: Yeah. So, they came to me and said, Emmitt, have you seen this? I said, no, I haven't seen that. So we went up there and we saw it and I saw it. So then we went to the principal’s office, and they took made them take it down. I’ll never forget this. At that time, they told me, he says, Emmitt—these were the girls—and they said, Emmitt, they treat you different because you’re an athlete. I’ll never forget that. Because you are treated different because you’re an athlete. But particularly, within the community, if you’re playing basketball at Richland, you’re looked at as one of the leaders. Now, everybody, all the boys want to become a Richland basketball player, at that time. That’s what you went for. Franklin: That’s kind of come out in several of our other oral histories, that there was an additional status in there for the athletes and maybe some of it trickled down to the non-athletes, but there was a distinction there that was made and led to a larger acceptance, it seems. Jackson: Mm-hmm, it definitely was. If you’re an athlete, because you’ve got additional contribution for the whole, I guess, is why that is. Franklin: What else did you do in your spare time? Jackson: My spare time. My spare time was around ball. Because, you know, there’s ten kids in my family, and I recognized at an early age that, hey, if I’m going to get to go to college, it’s going to be on a scholarship. So I really—that was my effort. I can remember in ninth grade, Mrs. Black, she was my history teacher at that time. I loved that lady. Washington State history. She made me work, man, but I remember I got an A and I studied for once in my life. I mean, I really cracked that book. She used to tell me, Emmitt, you know what? You know how many people make it into the NBA and go on and this and that? You got to study. You got to get your grades and that type of thing. So she made a difference in my life. Most of my time I was doing athletics, that type of thing, and went to church. We did a lot of fishing, a lot of riding bikes, a lot of listening to music and dancing amongst ourselves. Just trying to enjoy life and get through it. A lot of fishing. Franklin: Yeah. Jackson: Yeah, fishing was good. Franklin: Do you remember any particular community events? Jackson: I was involved—one of the things that I’m quite proud of is that Don Dicenzo and I started the Bomber Fallout. That was the radio station that we did. It kept going after we left and for a while, and I don’t know if they do that anymore. But that was quite fun. We reported on different events and different activities that happened at school on the radio, played music and that type of thing. Franklin: Wow, that’s cool. You said you were living in Richland. What type of house were you living in? Jackson: At first it was a three-bedroom prefab. And then we expanded it to another room, another big room. Franklin: That’s still not a huge— Jackson: We had bunk beds. Franklin: Yeah, I would imagine so. Jackson: Yes, we had bunk beds. Franklin: Wow. Did you attend church? Jackson: Yes. Franklin: What church did you attend? Jackson: The First Baptist Church, it was right around the corner on Thayer Drive. And also the Greater Faith Baptist Church. Franklin: And that’s the one in Pasco. Jackson: That’s the one in Pasco. Franklin: What role did churches play in the respective communities? Jackson: We went fishing on Sunday, but we couldn’t go fishing unless we went to church. So we always went to church, always in our white shirts and our Sunday best. Always did that. But then, when you went to church—if you ever went to church in a black church, it’s most of the day—then-days, it was most of the day. So we would go in the morning, and you’d eat at church, and you would go to evening church, evening services as well. So you were there most of the day. It was enjoyable, because there’s kids and you get to listen to the Word. The one thing about it growing up is that you found out that you had more than one mother. Because it didn’t matter if that was son or your daughter, you got reprimanded all the time. So you really learned to be respectful, you learned to treat people with kindness, help people. You learned the godly way of how to live. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. You mentioned this a little bit, but I’m wondering if you could expand. Do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions, including food, which you kind of talked about, that people brought from the places they migrated from? Jackson: We had a lot of barbecue. But I think it was the food, like all portions of the pig, for example. I ate cow brains. I used to love pig feet. We ate neck bones, greens, ham hocks, black-eyed peas, cornbread. All those came from the South, but I’m sure other people that live there had some of that as well. But that’s what we ate. A lot of chicken, a lot of chicken. Lots of chicken, hamburger, that type of thing. Franklin: The cheaper cuts that can feed a family of ten. Jackson: Yes, you feed a family of ten, yes. Franklin: I mean, that’s a lot of food to make. Jackson: Right. Franklin: Were there any other community activities or events that people--may be unique to where they had come from that they brought with them? Jackson: When we were there, mostly it was, at that time, it was Afro-Americans and the Caucasian, white folks, and there wasn’t a mix. I can remember in second grade, the Guajardos, Robert Guajardo was there at Marcus Whitman. Then after that, they moved to Pasco. So there was a few different cultures of people there, but not a whole—not really a melting pot, not like it is today. Franklin: Okay. Were there opportunities available here that were not available where your parents came from? Jackson: Oh, yeah. Franklin: Such as? Jackson: Well, for example, one of the things that really changed me as far as professional was that my stepfather, when he worked out there at GE—it might have been—was it GE then? It was Battelle. They had C.J. Mitchell that started this youth opportunity program. So my father got me into that. So I went to work out there in the summer times when I was like 15. I was a serviceman out at PRTR, that’s Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor. So you got the charts of the atoms and that type of thing. So I’ve got—I started, golly, there’s more to this, there’s atoms and periodic charts. That’s something that you would get in school. But that was kind of foreign to me. The first year when I went out there, I was—and there was a lot of us, a lot of folks from the Oranges, Little Baby and Big Baby, the Oranges from Pasco, Mozetta Orange and Carl Orange. Man, we just had a great time. Because every week, we’d always meet together and we’d talk about our experiences, so we really got to know one another. So the first year, I was a serviceman, I helped the servicemen out there. The people out there were really good to me. They adopted me—[LAUGHTER] We had a lot of fun out there. But then I go, golly—the second year, I go out there, and I go, there’s more to it besides just being a serviceman. Golly, I want to work in an office, I want to be in a shirt and tie. So I went to—the second year, I got to work for Gary Petersen. I don’t know if you know him. Franklin: I know Gary very well, actually. Jackson: Yes. Him and--god, what was the other dude’s name? I can’t think of his name right now. But I worked in communications—no, I’m sorry. The second year I was out there, I was in Xerox machine. I was out there with Mr. Thomas. And the third year, then, I got to work with Gary. I got to write a story out there. You know, they publish in the Battelle Greenie and stuff. I wore a shirt and tie everyday to work. Man, I was on top of the world. I was cool, then. Plus, you get that check every week. So Gary made a difference. He really—yeah. That part was a special moment, a special time for me in my life. Yeah, that made a difference. Kind of looked at, hey, it coupled the real world with the athletic world and you got to work towards your future, that type of thing. So one of the good things about growing up in Richland no matter who you were is that, from the time you go to school, because this is the largest, per capita, the most PhDs in the country. So it’s a scientific community out here, so your aspirations—and you’re expected to go to college. So that was one of the driving forces of living here in this community. Franklin: And you went on to college? Jackson: I went on to college, I got a scholarship to Fort Silicon and played basketball, got drafted. I got drafted, went in the Army. That was interesting. Went in the Army for two years, got out of that, and then I finished up my degree here at CBC and then I went to Lewis and Clark State College on another scholarship. I finished my degree over there. And what’s interesting, when you’re in the service, particularly in the Army, and I was over in Germany, you’re either with the brothers or you’re not with the brothers. Because there’s a big separation, at that time it was really segregated, the different classes of people, and so you tended to stay together. It was difficult for me, coming from Richland, because, hey, I grew up in a white society. I’m comfortable—I didn’t grow up everyday with brothers or sisters; it was always these white dudes. So when I got in the service, I was still—I had a difficult time making the transition, but I still—I went with whoever. But I was still part of that brotherhood. So when I got out of the service, and I lived in Richland, I was getting ready to go to Central, and Fritz Schenkman got a teaching job at Lewis and Clark State College with Dick Hannon. So Fritz comes in and says, hey, Emmitt, do you want to go to school in Lewiston? Lewiston, Idaho? My first question was to him, well, how many black people in Lewiston? Well, there’s Tony, there’s Eric on the team. That’s it. Man, I’m just coming from a different environment, I go, I don’t know. And he says, oh, well, you come out there and go to school there and graduate and have a good time, enjoy yourself. So I said, okay, Fritz. So I went there and surely enough, man, it was a great time, got my degree, played ball, met a lot of good people, yes. And it’s because of my diverse background that that came out. Franklin: Yeah. That’s really interesting. Yeah, I could imagine the transition to Lewiston would have been a little—might have been a little jarring or at least being like, Lewiston, man. Jackson: Yes! Lewiston. Lewiston, Idaho of all places. But it’s not much different from here, it’s just smaller. You know, that culture. Franklin: In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation or racism? Jackson: What I started to say, I think, a little bit a while ago about our 50-year reunion, some people will say, well, golly, it must’ve been tough growing up here in Richland. Golly, you’re in a classroom, you’re the only one. And you’re doing this, you’re the only one out there. You kind of stick out. And you go through, there’s been some—you’re kind of ostracized or there’s name-calling or this or that. And you know what I tell them? I say, I had a great time. I mean, I learned a lot. You learn how to get along, you learn how to deal with different people, you learn how to maneuver within the system. So it wasn’t all that bad. You could take—I guess you had an option. You could be above it, or you could be in the middle, or you could be below it. You could feel like you’re ostracized and picked on and I’m the only one, this person did this to me, this person did that to me. But that’s not the way to live. You won’t get anywhere that way. Franklin: That’s true. Could you describe any interactions you or your parents had with people from other parts of the Tri-Cities area? Jackson: Interactions. Well what do you mean by—some unusual interactions? That type of thing? Franklin: Yeah, anything that sticks out, memorable, positive, negative. Jackson: You know, I really think for the most part, it was good. Our upbringing, like I said, sometimes you had those difficult situations, but that just made you stronger. I can remember, we walked a lot of places, the stores and the doctors, and that type of thing. Sometime people would go by and holler at us, and if I was with my mom, that really hurt me, because they’d drive by in a car, there was nothing I could do. And I certainly—I would liked to have picked up a rock and throw it, but you couldn’t do that, something like that. But there’s a lot of times and things that you’re just powerless, you’re helpless. And you just had to take the high road. You had to keep on going. Because if—you know, when I was little, I used to fight all the time. But gosh dang it, then after a while, you get tired of fighting. You can’t beat the world! So you find different ways to work those situations. Franklin: You mentioned that negative depiction of blacks in the high school. I’m wondering, were there any other ways that segregation or racism affected your education? Jackson: Was there any other ways? You know, man, when I was in school, I got in trouble a lot. Not bad trouble. Because I was like--I liked to have fun. You say different things in the classroom or something to get people—so I knew that they knew me. I remember Tom Lidup, he was the vice principal. But difficult—I think it really hinged upon the attitudes of the administration and the people. For example, Fran Rish, I don’t know if you’ve heard that name before? Franklin: Yeah, the stadium. Jackson: Pardon me? Franklin: The stadium is named Fran Rish Stadium. Jackson: Yes. Man, he was a heck of a man. He was a PE teacher, and he had a lot to do with kids and how their development and that type of thing. I can remember the first day when I went to Richland. We were standing up on the balcony, looking down at that floor, thinking about, golly, we could play there one day, down there. And Mr. Rish came up to me, and he started messing with me. He started jiving. He had—man, he was probably like 6’3”, probably 240, just thick man. He just started messing with me and stuff and had me start laughing. I’ll never forget this, I was leaning over the rail like this, and I went up like this and I hit him in his chin, and his chin went like that. But he was the type of person that didn’t matter who you were or what you were, he would help you. So those kind of people really helped shape the environment of the school and people’s attitudes and that type of thing. When I was—I couldn’t swim. So we had to go to PE. So we went to PE, and the first day there at the big pool, we were all lined up at the pool and you had to swim across the pool. I happened to be at the deep end. So Mr. Rish says, guys, okay, go! So everybody jumped in. I jumped in, too,right, and I couldn’t swim a lick. And he pulled me out. He goes, Emmitt, how come you jumped in? And I said, because you told me to. So you had that kind of a trust in people. That helped counter any of the negative part. Franklin: Were there anyone else that influenced you as a child? Jackson: Golly! Man. My family, my—I told you about Mrs. Black. Teachers, man, teachers—it’s different now, I believe, because the teachers then had more time. They had more flexibility. They didn’t have limits on what they could do to help. Doctors called, doctors came to your house then. Do doctors come to your house now? Teachers don’t go to your house. That type of thing. So Mrs. Biggs, Mrs. Biggs was our first grade teacher. She had, I think, had most of us in our family. She helped shape us. Mrs. Mitchell. I can remember Mrs. Lane, Mrs. Sagaster. Man, she was a short lady, red-headed lady, a spitfire, and everybody called her Mrs.--what did they call her? Sag Bag. But she was really authoritarian person. That’s the kind of person I really needed. So I used to help her like crazy, and I did well with her. And then Mr. Brian Feld. Just the teachers and coaches. The coaches that I grew up—Mr. Jurastich in high school. There’s Mr. Easton—I mean, Mr. Dudley. He was a track coach. But one that really helped, stands out, is Mr. Jenson, Max Jenson, he was the coach for cross country, him and Mr. Hepper, they were cross country and track coaches. They really helped shape me. And they helped so many people. Franklin: What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time there? Jackson: Well, you know, I’m thinking—I was thinking about that, just thinking about some of the things that you went through. Like the signs. Not many people know about that, that it upset us and that type of thing. Franklin: Do you remember any specific signs? Jackson: Oh, yeah. The signs in—well, for example, you couldn’t go to Kennewick. You couldn’t go to Kennewick after night, after dark. You had to be out of Kennewick after dark. And I can remember some guys from Pasco being chased from Kennewick across the bridge because it was after dark. But they got that sign up there, you know, they had the sundown laws. They just, what is it, 15 years ago or something like that, they took them off the books in Kennewick. Franklin: Was it really just that recent? Jackson: Oh, it might have been longer than that. I would have to look that up, do the research. The sundown laws that they had. In fact, they had a plaque on the bridge. On the old bridge, it said that. The Martin Luther King—Martin Luther King, Junior. Golly. Civil rights. I can remember we had the riot here in Pasco. Franklin: Yeah, could you tell me about that? Did you participate in that? Jackson: No, I didn’t participate. Because I lived in Richland. I can remember when we were seniors and we played Pasco, we beat Pasco on Pasco floor, okay, in Pasco. So there was all sorts of stuff that went on. Franklin: Like what? Jackson: Oh, like people getting beat up, some cars were vandalized, and that type of thing. Franklin: Was any of it racially motivated, or--? Jackson: I don’t—people would have construed it as racial because of the differences in the makeup of the diversity of the schools. But it was the fact that we beat them. It was just—it was a way to—oh, well, you beat us, but you’re not going to beat—you’re not going to win the fight. Franklin: Didn’t Pasco have a pretty sizable black— Jackson: Oh, yeah, they had Ron Howard, Diggy Johnson were on the team then. And Gordie Guice, and Madison—yeah, yeah. They had—yeah. Franklin: What kinds of actions were taken to address the civil rights issues that you just brought up? Jackson: Well, you know, I told you about the issue with Fred Milton, and the response was that they boycotted Arctic Circle. Being in Richland, it wasn’t—because there was so few of us, it wasn’t that pronounced, if you will. So I would have to—look, I’m trying to think of what kind of things that occurred then. Other than the riot and the sundown laws and different areas. You know, you’d hear from time to time there was discrimination, actual discrimination, whether it was housing or you couldn’t go here, or something happened to someone or something like that. Other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot of, what should I say? Movement. There wasn’t a whole lot of movement, other than the movement being progression—relationships getting better as time went on because of the movements outside of the area and different people coming into the community. Franklin: Who were the important leaders of civil rights in the Tri-Cities area? Jackson: It’d be the pastors. Yes. Then it would be the pastors. God, what’s his name? God, I can’t think of his name now. He went on to Washington, too. Oh, man, what is his name? He’s passed now. God, I can’t think of his name. Franklin: Was he a pastor? Jackson: No, he wasn’t a pastor; he was a civil rights guy. Oh, man. Franklin: Maybe I’ll be able to find it. Jackson: I’ll get it for you before I leave here. Franklin: Okay, sounds good. What were some of the notable successes in civil rights in the Tri-Cities and at Hanford? Jackson: Notable civil rights. Well, I would have to say, if you think about it, when I was little, I lived in a segregated trailer community. I can remember you couldn’t go past the certain railroad tracks, certain areas. Now you can go anywhere you want to and do what you want. It depends on you. There’s that ceiling—even when I went into the workforce here as a professional, there was a ceiling. There still exists today issues in the classroom, I believe. I can see it, I can feel it. I’ve talked to different kids. My daughter experienced some issues in the classroom. She’s good in English. So she wrote this paper, it was a good paper. This teacher went out of her way to discredit her. This teacher even went to the point of saying that she went on a porno site and got the information off the porno site to put in her paper. So we were there, her mother and I, and the administrator, and I could not believe this. I could not believe the attitude that that person had. But my daughter was able—it made her stronger and she was able to overcome that kind of stuff. But I guess what I’m saying, no matter how good it gets, you’re still going to have those situations, those issues. But as far as movement goes, let’s see. CBC did some things as far as, they had the bell, the Ring the Bell March. Dave Shaw was an individual that impacted the area, came from outside the area. He was here, he was union relations. And so that was—I’m trying to think of other events that happened. Gosh. It’d have to be the churches. Those were very positive. I can’t think of an event, when I was growing up, other than the ones we talked about, where there was actually a civil rights movement or that type of thing. Franklin: Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Jackson: Directly involved in civil rights efforts. I’d say, I would always try to be positive, but I’d always try to lead. Because I knew my brothers and sisters are coming behind me. I’d figure, well, if I could do it, they could see that they could do it. That type of thing. Civil rights. I think, I would think just my attitude towards people. I coached around here for 25 years. Some of the best teams that we’ve had were the mixed teams, we had different kinds of people, kids there. In fact, I believe I might have been the first black coach here, thanks to Jim Castleberry. That’s interesting. Other things. And the outreach programs, I was in HR. At HR, started with Rockwell. I was in management development and training. Franklin: When was this? Jackson: This was in ’77. Franklin: And was that your—because I wanted to actually move to talk about your work at Hanford. Was that your first job out at Hanford? Jackson: In ’77, yeah. ’77, Rockwell hired me, yes. Mary Oxen hired me in ’77. And I always wanted to get in HR and Mary—so I worked in management, development and training with Don Sandburg, and the idea was when an opening came up in human resources, they would see if they could work me in. So it worked that way. I got in HR and, man, I did the hiring out there for skilled crafts for, I don’t know, six years, seven years, something like that. Did labor relations. I can remember, we hired our first black painter out there. First black painter. And then we hired--at that time there was very few people of color out there. So, that was one of my objectives. I can remember, we had servicemen, so we had these interviews. Some of them, I found—Mr. Thompson—they adopted, they took me out there to show me the ropes, to show me the different skills and what was required and that type of thing, and I got to go around the country to do some recruiting. So here, like I was saying, we didn’t have very many different diversity of a workforce out here. You know, there’s always, how do you get there, right? So one of the techniques was, the managers, they always wanted you to give a firm handshake and look at them right in the eye. Particularly Hispanic culture, they aren’t going to do that, most of the time. So, hey, when you go out there, this is what you got to do. It made a difference. So we started getting a diverse workforce in some of those lower skills, and hoped, the idea that they could go up to another level. Then after I did that, I became the college relations person. So college relations, and the comment was from the managers out there in the workfield was, we can’t get any Afro-Americans to come here. They won’t come here. Well, if you don’t go where they are, guess what, you aren’t going to get any. So we started recruiting all over the country. We started looking at diversity in college populations, and it made a big difference. We got—managers started to recognize that there was talent out there and there was people that would come here and go to work. I’m really proud of being able to do that. We had a community ambassador and I did a lot of outreach programs, community ambassador programs. We brought—Xavier University had this math builders program. They’re the number one, if I remember correctly, the number one graduate of Afro-Americans in pharmacy. They contribute to these math builders, bio builders and chem builders program. What they are is that they are programs that students become entrenched in those skills. So then when they get in the actual classroom, they’re comfortable, they aren’t nervous and that type of thing. Then they can do well in them and go on. So the students that go through that program at Xavier, then they went on to Tulane, I believe, and they graduate in pharmacy. So they had the number one graduation rate of Afro-American pharmacy students because of that. So we were able to bring that to here. That model to here to the Tri-Cities. In fact, we did it at CBC. There’s a lot of students, a lot of kids today that will tell you that that made a difference in their life. There’s things like that that really made a difference. Once again, man, I know this stuff. Huh? Franklin: So it’s 3:35. Jackson: Oh, wow! We talked that long? Franklin: Yes. [LAUGHTER] An hour and five minutes. When did you want to—when did you need to leave by? Because I can adjust the rest of my day. Jackson: I should probably be leaving here pretty soon. Franklin: Okay, like five, ten minutes? Jackson: Okay, that’s cool, that’s cool. Franklin: Okay, sounds good. I just have one, a couple, one more question about your work and then we’ll wrap up to the ending big questions. How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and supervisors and management? Jackson: You know, it was competition. It was competitive. There wasn’t many—the workforce out at Hanford hasn’t been that diverse. Maybe—one of the issues is, you look at the executives out there, you look at the management, there’s a sprinkle in here, a sprinkle in there, but there wasn’t anyone—there wasn’t a progression. I did a lot of management boards and that type of thing, so I understood the process and I understood how you get promoted and how it worked. It was difficult for a person of color to get promoted, because they were not—they were in the workforce, but they weren’t in the workforce, if you understand what I mean. It’s like, what churches do you go to, what organizations do you belong, where do you have dinner, that type of thing. All those played a big part. So, I was—the workforce, for me, it was competitive. Being an athlete and competitive nature, but that wasn’t the right way. But it never—we did good things, were able to accomplish things. I can remember this one time, this one time. So we had college relations, right? So, we’d hire internships. I hired Betty Matier one summer. She’s a professor from Walla Walla, College of Walla Walla. We were going to do this symposium. The symposium consisted of different stations—it was at the Hanford House, so we had chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, different stations, different careers there. We invited the colleges to come in. All the colleges of Washington, most of them, came. A lot of their students came, and students from Oregon, Idaho. Man, there was this mass of kids there, young students. We fed them, we were able to feed them at that time, so we feed them and everything. I got the president to come and do the opening presentation. But I can remember our VP calling me into his office, because—see, they kind of left me alone, they let me do my thing, so I just—so I was doing it. When he found out about it, he calls me into his office, and that man was hot. That man was hot! And he goes—he was this close, he got this close to me. He says, Emmitt! He goes, we don’t want a black eye on this organization! [LAUGHTER] Because then Westinghouse—this was Westinghouse at the time, they’re a very conservative company, they’ve never done anything like this before. And it was well-received, did well and everything else. But to his credit, he came back and he says, hey, Emmitt, that was good. He thanked me and appreciated. But it didn’t help me. It didn’t help me. And this was a big thing, this was a big time. Big time. Franklin: A lot of effort. Jackson: Yeah, it took a lot of effort, took a lot of coordination. We had a lot of good networks with the colleges and universities and the people. So it went well, it went well. Franklin: What kinds of interactions did you have with your coworkers and supervisors outside of work? Jackson: Not much. They’d have—you know, they’d have parties and stuff. I wouldn’t go to them. I wouldn’t go to parties. I just—no. Man. No, my friends, we played ball. I was still ballin then. So we played ball. That’s what we did. Got together and that type of thing. Not really—if they played ball or they were involved in athletics or coaching—my outside thing was, I think I started coaching, probably five years after that. Plus I was on the—see, I was on the board of trustees at CBC college for like a number of years, I was a chairman of the board, I was on the state board of education, so I did—I’ve done a lot of things outside of the work environment, too. Because that’s where my interest lies. So I was always doing something like that. Franklin: Okay. We’ll go up to the big wrap-up questions, and this is one of my favorites here. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Jackson: During the Cold War. What would I like to let them know? Future generations. Well, I think it is what you make it. Opportunity exists everywhere you go. You know wherever you’re at—one of the things you need to do is you need to relax and take your time. You need to network. You need to be observant. You need to understand—if you don’t understand, seek the answers. Look for open doors. You know, a door closes behind, there’s always another one that you can go through. I just think you’ve got to network and you’ve got to—one of the things is that, it doesn’t happen tomorrow. You’ve got to have stamina, you’ve got to have energy, you’ve got to have vision, you’ve got to have insight. And you’ve got to pray. You’ve got to be humble, you’ve got to be respectful, and you’ve got to be kind. And you’ve got to be able to lend a hand to somebody else, too, you know? Franklin: Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to migration, segregation and civil rights and how they’ve impacted your life at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Jackson: You know, it’s interesting, because the budget out here is—when the democrats are in, the budget does well. But you talk to—but this happens to be a what? Republican. And it’s amazing, to me, how they groan and moan, people groan and moan about the democrats, but when the democrats are in power, budgets are good, life is good. And then they moan and groan when the budgets get cut, and it’s usually on the republican side. That—I don’t understand that. I just don’t. One of the things we haven’t talked a lot about, Obama, mentioned that. I’m in a workforce, I think there’s only two of us out there, two Afro-Americans. But most of the folks, a lot of the folks out there are Trump supporters. So they had Obama’s picture up in the—you know, we have all the Presidents’ pictures up. So they had, they send you one. This is kind of off the record, by the way. Franklin: Okay, do you want to say this off-camera? Jackson: I’ll say this off-camera. Remind me to say that off-camera. But one of the things, you know, I think of the Kennedys and the Martin Luther King and the impacts that they made, it’s really impacted my life, and I don’t know where we would be without them today. Because the way, the differences in things that happened, they made a big difference, made a huge difference. But I’ve seen since Obama has been president that there’s been a backlash. We’re kind of retrenching, because my sense is that, before it was like, okay, the diverse, the people of color are going to be here, and we’re going to be there, and we’re always trying to catch up. But then when you get the President of the United States is a person of color, then the folks or whoever they are that think that they’re ahead, they really become sensitive and become challenged and they become nervous, because, oh, the most powerful country, the most powerful position in the world now is a person of color, all right? So now, uh-oh, what am I going to do? So I sense a backlash to that. I sense there’s some fear and some re-trenching going the other direction. Franklin: Very much so. I think I would agree with you. Jackson: And it bothers me. It troubles me. My daughter lives in Atlanta. [LAUGHTER] Oh, man. She lives in Atlanta, right. She’s born and raised here; lives in Atlanta. She had some issues in high school that weren’t very good. Franklin: Here? Jackson: Yeah, here in Richland. She was able to come over, part of it was athletics. But she was able to overcome that. So she got this opportunity, she works for Johnson & Johnson. So she lives there and she loves it. She loves it. It’s a chocolate city, as you know. She got this opportunity to go—they wanted her to go to Charlotte. So she went down there for a while, and they just—the people that she worked with really liked her. She’s a very likable person, smart and talented. So she went down there and they wanted her to—an opening came up and they wanted her to go down there. She didn’t want to go down there. The reason that it was so funny to me, comical, because, she goes, Dad, it’s just the opposite of Atlanta. I go, what do you mean? She said, well, here, I interact with black doctors and nurses and all these other kind of professions of black folks. Down there, what do they call, the guys that put you to sleep? The people down there are just the opposite. They’re white doctors and nurses. And I’m going, where would you live? You went to school here! And I’m going, wow, the transition and the comfortability, it’s just fascinating to me. It really, really is. And she likes it down there, but it scares me, because of the attitudes. She goes to some places and I’m going, oh my gosh. So I send her all this stuff to arm yourself with, some mace, this and that. I taught—I’m always checking on her. I’m like, hey, if I don’t hear from her I get a little nervous. And she told me one time this truck went by with these two big old flags, rebel flags. And I go, oh my gosh, where are you at? You know? Hot dang. It just bugs me that she’s there and the attitudes and that type of thing. You never know. Franklin: No, you never know. Well, Emmitt, thank you so much for coming and taking the time. I know you’re a very busy man, and I appreciate you taking the time to come and talk with us about growing up in Richland and working at Hanford. Jackson: Well, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview General Electric 300 Area Battelle Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR) Rockwell Westinghouse Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1950- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1977- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Emmitt Ray Jackson Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation Discrimination Sports Basketball Migration School integration Civil rights Civil rights movements Description An account of the resource Emmitt Jackson was born in Richland, Washington in 1950 and started working on the Hanford Site in 1977. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 03/23/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fb9d99dbe34829b228f289708724b0bc3.JPG 67b815e354f07cfdcb4bb5cdc870a2f2 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0c24d9d36a9d1aadff8a145d38874c8f.mp4 1b2eaeabc4d03bc6668819d7d9650844 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Kathy (Brouns) Harvey Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: All right. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Kathy Harvey on June 29, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Kathy about her experiences living in the Tri-Cities. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Kathy Harvey: Full name. Franklin: Yes, please. Harvey: Katherine, K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E. Helena Brouns Schiro Harvey. Franklin: Okay. Harvey: Okay. Franklin: Yeah. You were born here, correct? Harvey: I was born here in Richland, mm-hmm. Franklin: And so your—when did your parents come to Richland? Harvey: My father—after the war. They both came after the war. My dad came—I know he interviewed for his job here during that big flood that you see pictures of, often. Franklin: The ’48 Flood. Harvey: Yes. He came then for his original interview and then came to work then, about that time. Franklin: Did he come when it was flooding? Harvey: Yeah, he talks about coming for his job interview, and he got off the plane and they had to drive out to Benton City to get to Richland, because it was all flooded. Franklin: And he still took the job. Harvey: He still took the job, yeah. [LAUGHTER] Well, he didn’t want to stay in Oklahoma. That’s where he was working. Franklin: Ah. Ah. And what did your father do—what position did he interview for? Harvey: He was a research chemist with, I guess it was GE then. Yeah. Franklin: Mm-hmm. And was that his background, chemistry? Harvey: Yeah, he was a chemistry—he had a PhD in chemistry from Iowa State University. Franklin: Oh, wow. And then when did your mother— Harvey: Well, probably after the war, because she was in the Army. She was a nurse. She went to Japan after the war. I think the day she finished basic training, the war ended. Franklin: Oh, wow. Harvey: And so then she was sent over after the war, during, I think they called it the occupation. She was there for I don’t know how many years. When she got out of the Army, she came to Richland, because her parents had moved here during the Manhattan Project. Franklin: Oh, so your parents met here. Harvey: Here, yes. Franklin: Not before. Harvey: They met here, because my mother’s parents had come out here, and I don’t know if they came after the war ended, to work. I believe it may have been. I don’t know if my grandfather actually helped build the Manhattan Project or if they—I can’t recall, if he came after for a job. But her parents came out from Wisconsin and they brought, I guess, you know, three of the kids. There were four kids in the family, and three of them came. So two of them graduated from Richland High School. So, they must’ve come when their kids were in high school, I guess. But my mother was the oldest, and she was already gone and moved out. But then she came back here after the Army, because she was discharged and now her parents were here. So she came here to live with them. Franklin: And how did she meet your father? Harvey: It was a blind date, from what I understand. My dad lived in one of those boarding houses that the single guys lived in, down by, I guess it was that big flat area where the hospital, Kadlec Hospital, was. I remember seeing those places. He lived there, and his roommate I think was Jerry Saucier, who also worked out at Hanford. Franklin: Yeah, that’s a name that’s familiar. Harvey: Yeah, okay. They met somehow through Jerry, and possibly my mom’s brother, Bud Neidhold, who—there was something about them hooking up this date. And I do recall my mother’s sister, who is still alive, said that my mother was a rowdy. She was 30 years old, she’d been in the Army, she’d been—had a wild life. She liked a good time. In fact, all of her pictures of her time in the Army, there was young, handsome men hanging around her, most the time. She had this date with my father, who was like the most decent person she could ever go out with. She had spent the afternoon out on a boat with some other construction worker, and she came home drunk, and she had a date with my dad that night. Her sister was furious at her, because she said, this is going to be the nicest guy you ever met and you’re ruining it! And she was so mad, she put her in a cold shower and filled her full of coffee and sent her out on the blind date, because she didn’t want her to mess it up with this nice man. Somehow he must’ve been impressed. So he stuck around. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. Harvey: So he was this quiet, sedate, chemistry guy and she was this wild partying animal. But somehow she settled for him. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. And did your mother ever work out at Hanford? Harvey: Yeah, she did. She was a public health nurse out there. Franklin: Public health nurse. Harvey: Yeah, she worked in the industrial health stuff. They hired their own nurses then. Franklin: Right. Harvey: Yeah, mm-hmm. Franklin: And when were you born? Harvey: ’54. Franklin: ’54, okay. And so tell me about growing up in Richland. Harvey: Well, it was very odd, looking back, although at the time we thought it was completely normal; we thought that was the way the world was. And then when you look back, you realize, oh, that was really strange. You’ve probably heard this before—you know, all of the dads went to the Area every morning on buses. And we didn’t know what they did. They just went to the Area and did their job. And they came back on buses in the evening. And they didn’t talk about what they did. Some of them were engineers, which we thought was odd, because there were no trains around. Some of them were technicians, which we didn’t know what meant. And then there was the people like my dad who were chemistry scientists and we didn’t know, what did that mean. And they never talked about what they did; there was no conversation ever about it. But we didn’t care; we thought that was completely normal. The other interesting thing was, because nobody was from here, very few people had family in the area, other than themselves. And of course we didn’t—I didn’t think of this until later—every summer, in our neighborhood—because there were lots of families with children our age; there was a pack of us. Every summer, the families left and drove to the Midwest on road trips to see their grandparents. Because nobody had grandparents in the area. So that was an interesting thing, that everybody was from the Midwest. And we just thought that was normal. When you read other kids’ books about having family around, we thought, that’s odd. Now, I had my grandfather and one other friend in our neighborhood had a grandmother that lived in the area, but they had come there because they were there. So that was an odd thing, too, that we thought was normal. One of the oddest things was that it was completely flat; there were no tall buildings. We thought that was completely normal, too, and we didn’t realize there was a reason why there were no tall buildings. The hospital was flat. When the Federal Building was built, it was a huge deal because it was the first elevators we ever saw. And it was only so high because you couldn’t be high enough to see out to Hanford. So they kept the height down, is what we were told. Franklin: Is that why--? Harvey: That’s what they told us. That was the word that got out. And one of my friend’s mothers worked in the Federal Building, so she was in the know. It was limited to, I don’t know how many, seven stories or something. But the reason why, it couldn’t be tall enough to look out at Hanford and see what was going on. So everything was very flat. There were no elevators; there were no escalators. There was two stores that had second floors and you walked up the stairs to them. That was very odd, too. And, of course, it was dusty and dry, and the dust blew and stung your legs and the dust storms would come in and mothers would yell, close the windows! Put towels under the windows! To keep the dust out. Franklin: Even in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Harvey: Yup, yup. Because right around town, it was green right in the city. But we were over on the west side of the city, and you were right on the desert line. So the dust came in, yeah. Franklin: Wow. Harvey: The other interesting thing, looking back, is the wildlife: there wasn’t any. That may have been normal at the time, because there was a lot of pesticides used and DDT around that time. But there were no squirrels. There were no crows or blackbirds. Chipmunks. The only snake you saw was a rattlesnake once in a while that would sneak into town. Very few spiders. And the only birds I remember were a few robins now and then. But when you read children’s storybooks about wildlife, we thought that was odd, because we didn’t have that. There was badgers—stories about badgers out at Badger Mountain. The boys would go out there and shoot them and hunt them, but I never saw one. I never knew anybody who ever had one, that ever got anything. Because there was no wildlife. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right, right. Yeah. Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: How did your parents become involved with civil rights issues? Harvey: Well, the story—this is, again, my mother’s sister, I think she was the one that told me this, she asked my mother one time, how did you get involved? Because in their families, nobody else was. It was not anything that they were raised with. But my parents were Catholic, and they were very involved with Christ the King parish, and Father Sweeney was there then. There was a CFM, Christian Family Movement, I think it was like a Catholic married couples’ family, like a prayer group or something that would get together once a month, and there were small study groups in people’s homes. And I know my parents did this. We had people from the parish would come over for an evening and they would probably do a Bible study, something like that, and talk about Christian family life. My aunt Dode told me that when she asked my mother, how did you get involved in civil rights, why did you do this? She said, we were in the CFM movement and we spent time with couples talking about Christian life and living Christian values as a family. And we, Dick and I, we felt like this was something that we needed—we wanted—we had a passion to do something rather than just talk about it. And we looked at what could we do? What would Jesus do? What was the thing we could do in Richland? And that was why they chose civil rights, was that, we can work on that. That’s going to be our passion that we’re going to go with this, because that’s where God was sending us. That was kind of what got them into it, from what my aunt Dode said. They did it, they came home from a meeting, and maybe there had been a discussion at the meeting about African Americans or civil rights or black people, and my parents probably spoke up and said something and realized they were a minority and they were going to move from this prayer group to find a more action-oriented group of people that were willing to fight for social justice. Franklin: Where did they settle? Or, where did they—when they decided to act, where—how did they do that? Harvey: What did they do? The next thing I remember is that they quit having the CFM group and instead they started going to meetings in Pasco, in east Pasco. Because there was nothing much, there was nothing going on Richland; there were no black people in Richland. So, they must’ve connected—I think CORE was pretty active then, or it was a group over there. They became very involved in CORE. I remember hearing lots of talk about CORE. They would go to CORE meetings, we would have CORE meetings at our house— Franklin: And that’s the Congress of Racial Equality. Harvey: Congress Of Racial Equality, mm-hmm. And then the NAACP came in there, too. I don’t know which was first. Shirley might remember all that, because that’s where she met—my parents met the Millers then, through that group. And they met the Slaughters. But the Slaughters came later. I don’t even know when the Millers came to town, I don’t remember that. I just know that whenever this happened—which you might be able to see by the file, by the minutes of the meetings of what years my father was the secretary of the group. I was probably in junior high level then, because they couldn’t have done much before then, because there were so many of us kids that my mom and dad couldn’t have—we had too many little kids running around the house. So I remember it, probably when I was in junior high, they started getting, or maybe fifth, sixth grade, they started getting into it. They would go to meetings several nights a week. They were going to meetings or there were meetings at our house that they would attend. People started coming around, we started meeting black people coming into the community. And then slowly they must’ve identified black people in Richland, because then we started—there was the Jacksons, which you’ve probably heard about from Wally Webster and Robert Jackson. Yeah, they became very close with the Jacksons. In fact, Mrs. Jackson became my brother’s piano teacher. So we were very close with their family. I don’t know, I mean the Mitchells were there, but we weren’t close with the Mitchells because they were republican. From what I understood. They also were very involved with the democratic party. Then it kind of went into the democratic party from civil rights, it kind of evolved. Franklin: So they were republican before the civil rights era— Harvey: No, no, my parents were never republican. Franklin: Oh, no, the Mitchells were—that was the— Harvey: Yeah, there was something about that, that they were republican or—you know, CJ was a businessman, and he was more, from what I heard from my parents, and from what I learned, because I was friends with the Mitchell kids, too; I went to school with them. You know, their family was focused on business. Taking care of his family and having a successful business. And not—they weren’t going to speak out on social justice. He was focusing on his family and his business. And my mother, she was pretty radical and if you didn’t believe the way she wanted you to believe, she let you know about it. Franklin: But you were friends with some of the Mitchell children. Harvey: Yeah, in high school. Because then we all went to the high school. And then I met—my sister was in class with the oldest one, and then I was in class with Nestor. And then my brother—I mean, they were the same ages as us, so we were all in the same classes. We knew each other. Franklin: Did you ever see anything in high school, any kind of discriminatory treatment or adverse treatment? Harvey: You know, I personally didn’t. I’m sure it happened, and it was probably that more subtle, that it wasn’t blatant. In our high school, at Richland High School, there was a small—there were not that many African American kids. They hung out together and they had a club, I think. We were friends—I was friends with them, mostly because they hung out right near where my locker was, and I knew them because I knew the Mitchell kids and the Skinners? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Harvey: Okay, the knew the Skinner kids because my mom was real close to Eddie Skinner; she was kind of in our neighborhood area. So I knew the Skinner kids real well and I knew the Mitchell kids, and then the Thurmans. Have you come up with that name? Franklin: I think I’ve heard that once. Harvey: Okay, they actually were Catholic and they came to Christ the King and lived in Richland. I remember that they were one of the first black families that moved in. So we were close friends with them, because they were Catholic also. Well, any black family that came to Richland, we became close friends with because there weren’t that many of them. So, out of this group of African American kids in the high school, probably half of the families were friends of our family. So, you know, I knew them. And I’m sure there was discrimination going on, but I don’t remember seeing anything blatant. I’d hear more about it from my mother, and it wasn’t in the school, it was more with the older kids that were being treated roughly by the police or by the courts or something like that. Particularly, I remember the Skinner kids. There were some older boys that I used to hear about getting in trouble. Franklin: What kinds of civil rights issues were the focus of CORE and of NAACP? What was the focus? Harvey: What did I hear the most of? Well, housing was an issue. That was a huge issue. I don’t recall Richland—I mean, Kennewick. The housing in Kennewick was the huge issue. That was the one that my mother got involved in. You’ve probably heard the story from the Slaughters about them getting their house and, of course, we didn’t know what anything was going on, but we heard later that my mother went with Mary Slaughter to look at homes. She would pretend she was the one renting the house and get the landlord to say this would be fine. And then she would turn to Mary and say, okay, Mary, will this work for you? And then the landlord would be trapped. So I know there with the housing in Kennewick was the big issue. I don’t know, in Richland in particular. I know there was a lot of political stuff that I don’t even remember, because the issues—we used to hear about issues but I can’t really think what they were. But we just went along with them. There would be picketing, there would be rallies, and the kids would be making the signs. We’d have, in our basement there’d be all these posters hanging out, and us kids would be down there painting the signs that would say whatever they were. I remember, though, the one that my youngest brother, Tom, who still lives here, he remembers—because he was younger; he was in grade school. There was a white supremacist Ku Klux Klan guy coming to talk at a rally in Richland. And I don’t remember the guy’s name, but he was pretty well-known. My mother had a sign—she carried a sign that my brother painted. She had told him what to paint, and it said—his was name was Clark, because it said, Ku Klux Klark, you’re whistling in the dark. And she got arrested for that rally and there was a picture of her in the newspaper holding that sign. She got arrested and I don’t think she spent time in jail. But I remember seeing that picture of her in the paper. My younger brother who was a kid was with her at the time, but I don’t remember his picture. He could tell you more about it if you want to talk to him. Franklin: Do you remember around when that was? Harvey: Well, Tom was born in ’61 and he was probably seven or eight years old maybe. Less than ten, I think. Franklin: Okay, so like 1968. Harvey: Yeah, probably between there and the ‘70s. Franklin: Okay. Interesting. I’ll have to see if I can— Harvey: Yeah, he was—I can find out the guy’s name, because my brothers remember who this guy was. Franklin: Sure. Harvey: He was a Ku Klux Klan guy from the South that came up for some white supremacy rally. And I remember, this was a huge issue. Anytime they could make a stink about something and bring focus to civil rights issues, they did. Franklin: Your—who? Harvey: My parents and their group, the group. I just remember a lot of this, rallies, a lot of letters to the editor, letter to the senators. I remember letters to Senator Jackson and Slade Gorton, I remember letters to him. And they were getting us kids to get involved and stuff and write letters whenever there was some perceived injustice going on, which there was, I’m sure. Franklin: Do you remember any other notable picketing or rallies? Harvey: You know, I’m thinking, there were so many, and I didn’t go to a lot of the rallies. We were put together making signs for them. And then the rallies would happen—I don’t know why I wasn’t there. Maybe I was in school, maybe I was out doing high school stuff, independent, maybe I was working by then. I don’t recall that. No, I’m sorry. I don’t remember what the rallies are. Franklin: No, that’s okay. Harvey: And then evolved until voter rights issues. That was another big issue, too, was getting people registered to vote. I know I did do a lot of that, canvassing to get people out to vote. I did a lot of that stuff, too. Franklin: : And was that mostly in east Pasco? Harvey: No, that was—I remember doing it in Richland, mostly, in my own neighborhood area. Just around Richland, going from door-to-door to get people to register to vote. And our parents would set us out to do that with some of the other, the Miller kids and the Jones kids, Sabrina and Junior Jones. I remember, we had lots of stuff we were doing with them. The Slaughter kids. We’d be out doing that stuff. Franklin: Who were some of the important leaders of civil rights efforts in the area? Harvey: In this area? Franklin: Yeah, in the Tri-Cities. Harvey: The names that I heard, Robert Jackson, I heard a lot. Dallas Barnes, I heard. Ernie McGee, and he passed away, but he was a name I heard a lot of. Herb Jones, until he left the area. Norm Miller was big. My dad. The Slaughters. There were the Pollards, too, have you talked to them? Franklin: Mm-mm. Harvey: Hope Pollard. The Bauersocks. Franklin: The--? Harvey: Bauersocks? Yeah, they’re friends with Shirley. Phyllis and—hmm. Shirley—Andy would know how to get in touch with them. And the Pollards were there. You know, if I look through all the notes over there, I would see all the other names and remember them. But you’ll see them when you look through there, you’ll see the names of people, yeah. Franklin: Sounds good. What were some of the notable successes of the civil rights movement here? Harvey: Well, getting black families into Kennewick was notable. And I remember getting the Thurmans into Richland. That was a big issue. When the Thurmans moved to Richland, that was big. I don’t know if there were any black families. The Jacksons came, and the Thurmans, and the Mitchells. And then the Skinners came. If I look through my high school year book, I’d see all the other ones that were there, but I can’t remember off the top of my head. Just getting people there. And they were good people; they were good kids. In school, they were well-known, they were popular, they were—people respected them, liked them, from what I could tell. I think one of the things that was really noteworthy was the presence. Because in my circle of friends, we lived in, of course, a white middle-class neighborhood in one of the government houses. All the people around us were just white middle-class people from the Midwest. They didn’t have any inclination towards civil right or social justice. And here my parents came in, they brought this to the forefront. I think one of the most noteworthy things was educating the other children that we were friends with. Because there were six kids in our family, and we all had a lot of friends. And the friends all hung out at our house a lot, because our home was one a lot of people came to. It was a very open home, and my mom—the door was always open. There was lots of kids around all the time, the neighbor kids running around. And my mom was very vocal and she talked a lot about what was happening. It was the process of educating and spreading the word out slowly. It wasn’t doing big things, picketing, making a big name for yourself doing public speaking. My parents didn’t do that; they were more the behind-the-scenes workers. The influence they had on the people they met day-to-day, because you kind of slowly infiltrate the thought process of those people. My friends now still talk about the influence my mother had on them and my father had on them to change their thinking and make them look at civil rights as something acceptable. Because what they would hear from their own parents or from the television in this white middle-class neighborhood was that was an issue that was somewhere else. During the race riots of the ‘60s, those are troublemakers, they’re dangerous. As the Black Panther movement and some of those, like, those are really bad organizations. But from my parents, and being around my parents, they learned that, no, those weren’t. And my mother tried to join the Black Panthers, that was another funny thing she did. Franklin: Really? Harvey: Oh, yeah. There was something about the church, instead of giving money to the parish, she wrote a letter and said her funds were going to Black Panthers that year. She sent a letter to them with a membership and wanting to join the group, I think it was in Chicago. Well, they wouldn’t take her. They said, no. They sent it back and said that—I don’t know what, that was what I heard, that they didn’t let her join. But she wanted to join all those militant groups. She got angry. She had a temper and she would get pissed off and angry and want to do these things. But the fact that she did that influenced all the children that hung out at our house. They were young kids from grade school all the way through high school, because they were all there. So that was probably a huge—I would say that was a huge influence that they had, not just on us kids, but on the non—the kids who weren’t coming from families like ours, that had no other exposure to this. Franklin: Right, kind of raising awareness of— Harvey: Yeah, mm-hmm, throughout the whole community. So we’d go to school and we’d talk in our classes and my friends would talk. It became—I think it brought awareness of what the issues were, especially in Richland, because you weren’t surrounded by other cultures to be exposed to, to see that there was—you didn’t see discrimination, because there weren’t other cultures to discriminate against. Franklin: Or for the few African Americans in Richland, especially those in Pasco, it was so much more kind of informal racism— Harvey: Yes, yes, yep. Franklin: --or, what’s the word I’m looking for? Beneath the surface. It wasn’t outright like Jim Crow of the South; it was subtle. Harvey: Yeah, very subtle, yeah. Very subtle, yup, mm-hmm. Franklin: Did your parents spend much time in east Pasco with the community? Harvey: Yeah. Franklin: Did you go out there with them as well? Harvey: I did, but I remember going to houses to do things. You know, pick up this, do that. But my younger brother actually spent more time there, because of his age. When my parents—because my mom got more and more involved as us kids got older and got more independent in school. So we were getting up to high school and then she was free to go, but she still had this young kid at home. So he got tagged-along. So he actually would have more stories about going into homes and he might remember the people there more. Whereas I was watching from afar. Like, I remember, instead of dinner coming at a reasonable hour, now dinner was always hours late because she wasn’t home. And it was some thrown-together thing, because she was gone doing something in east Pasco. She was there a lot. And then she got involved in the Hispanic community over there, too. That became another big focus, that she became very involved with the farm workers union. She became involved in, what was it, Community Action Council, over there that was in Pasco. And that was more—well, now, I don’t—I think it was more of the migrant farm workers active stuff. But I’m not sure, you’d have to look that one up. Because then she got very involved with different groups. We didn’t have any other big ethnic groups around that I recall, other than the blacks and the Hispanics, because they were the farm workers. So those were the two that she got real involved in. And then we started to have—you know, we had friends there in the Hispanic community, too, that became part of our circle. Franklin: As opposed to successes, what were some of the biggest challenges of the civil rights movements? Harvey: Well, from my parents’ perspective, one of the challenges she had was with the Church, because my parents were Catholic and they were very involved in the Catholic Church. And she was very, very angry that the Church wasn’t more progressive. If she would get in fights with the priest, Father Sweeney—she called him a white, racist bigot because he wouldn’t put a political sign in the yard about something about civil rights, in the rectory front yard. And she would get very angry at the Catholic Church about women’s issues. Because then, of course, it evolved into women’s rights, too. That was probably one of her biggest challenges, was her frustration with the Church. Because she was born and raised a Catholic, and she was a very strong believer. I do remember a conversation that—frequently when I’d come home from school, they’d be sitting around—she and Shirley Miller and my mom and whoever else some of the women were in the group—sitting around the kitchen table, talking. Oh, Margaret Gregor was another one that was part of the group. She was in Richland, too. And talking about how pissed off they were with the Catholic Church, and they should just leave the church and go to some other, more accepting—I think Margaret Gregor was the one who said, but if we leave, there’ll be nobody left to change it. So we have to stay and fight. So I know that was a challenge, to stay and fight the Church. And my mother did. I mean, she fought until she died. She fought the Church the whole time. But she kept going, every week, she’d go back to mass. And my dad was more quiet. He didn’t talk as much as she did. He was more of the silent type in the background that was doing the work. Franklin: Did your father or mother ever face any blow-back or recrimination for their work in civil rights, either professionally or in the community? Harvey: Well, in the community, through the parish, they did. I remember them going to some parish party one time, and we kids were home alone because we were older. They went to—it was at a house that I won’t mention the name, but—it was some big parish house. And they came home furious, early. And my mother was just livid red because they were telling racist jokes there. And she told them there was a goddamn white bigot—racist bigot, to the host of the party, she went up and screamed it in his face and marched out the door. Then I think she became labeled in the parish after that. Not that it bothered her at all. Most of her friends became—she became social in this other group. But maybe there, they did. I don’t know about other—my older sister, I think confided—she confided more in her about her feelings about things. So my mother might have confided more—she might know more about it. And I don’t know about my father, either. I do remember the first black man we ever saw—that I ever saw was a scientist who came out to Hanford to work. He was doing some sabbatical work or guest—and he was from Africa. He came out to work at Hanford and my dad brought him over for dinner. I don’t know if—I remember he came to dinner and he had this beautiful African accent. But us kids were just amazed because we’d never known a black person before, and it was just like, wow, this is really cool. So I don’t know if he ever received—if he ever had any repercussions of what he did. I don’t know. I never heard anything about it. Franklin: Was he out there marching as well? Harvey: Yeah. In fact, I have pictures of my parents marching on George Washington Way when my dad was in his late 80s, still standing there picketing the war. Franklin: Oh, the Iraq War? Harvey: Yeah, yeah, mm-hmm. When he was—he was 90 when he passed away, so he was in his mid-80s, probably, and he was still standing on the sidewalk picketing with Jim Stoffels—he’s another name you might talk to, is Jim Stoffels. Franklin: Oh, I know Jim—I’m a member of BRMA. Harvey: Okay. Franklin: I know Jim well, yeah. Harvey: So Jim was out there on the sidewalk with him, yeah. Franklin: Yeah, World Citizens for Peace. Harvey: Yeah, so he was out there, yup, ‘til the very end. Franklin: Wow. Harvey: And my mom, too. I have a picture of her doing it, too, yeah. Franklin: Good for them. Harvey: In fact, when she passed away, the Social Justice Committee at Christ the King Church put up a plaque for her in the church vestibule, in honor of her and her work on the Social Justice Committee at the parish. So I think as the church became more accepting, she became more involved. And they did create a social justice committee and then she became active in that. Franklin: Richland also had its own Human Rights Commission; were your parents involved— Harvey: They were, and I don’t know anything about it. It’s probably in the files. Franklin: Okay, that’s fine, that’s fine. Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Harvey: Not—you know, in high school, other than painting signs—but us kids were more like, it was more like a social activity. It was fun. The parents would be upstairs putting something together and we’d be down in the basement playing pool and ping-pong and painting signs and having a great time. It was this—I don’t know how many kids, whatever parents were up there, we were downstairs doing it. And then there were political—I remember political gatherings at the house. I remember Jim McDermott had a campaign function at our house, and a lot of those people were there, multicultural, multiracial group there. I participated in that, mostly because there was a keg of beer and you could drink. Even though you were only in high school, you could sneak in and get drunk off the beer. And hearing a lot of the politicians’ names that were running for office. I remember Jay Inslee’s name, he was there. Hearing these names all the time—because then as my parents moved into the—you know, it became—I don’t know if CORE disbanded or what happened to CORE, but it went from NAACP and then into the democratic committee, and a lot of those people moved into the democratic party and started becoming more mainstream active there. And they kind of joined, I guess, NAACP and democratic group. Because my dad’s efforts went there, too. So I remember those types of functions. But as far as doing more on my own—other than going to political rallies when I became high school, I remember going to McGovern rallies and Shirley Chisholm rallies and stuff like that. But I don’t remember doing other things. Franklin: How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights efforts at Hanford and the Tri-Cities? Harvey: Well, probably because it brought it up to the forefront. It was in the newspaper, it was on the news, and made people in the community aware. Even though you didn’t have—in Richland, there was nothing going on. I mean, you didn’t see it. And if you didn’t go to Pasco, you didn’t see it. I mean, us kids didn’t see it because you were living in this white community, middle-class community. But seeing it on TV brought it to the forefront. We’d talk about it in school, we had classes that you’d talk about it. And then the Black Power movement with the youth group—the African American kids in school, they had some sort of club they formed—and they would talk about it. So the national brought it in and brought it to the awareness, I guess. Franklin: From your perspective, what was different about civil rights efforts here? Harvey: Well, I don’t think we had the violence that you saw. And we didn’t have—I don’t know about the poverty. It was different, maybe, because it wasn’t inner-city poverty. The poverty was in east Pasco. But there wasn’t the violence of the rioting and stuff that you saw elsewhere. I mean, I never felt unsafe, even when I was in east Pasco. And I had a good friend whose father had a business in east Pasco, and they were white. They traded business with the east Pasco community and were respectful of each other. I don’t remember anything in particular about it. So maybe that’s how it was different. It was smaller, I guess. From my perspective as a kid. And it was just something that was part of—we didn’t think it was anything unusual; this was just the way our family was. So it was mainstream. It wasn’t anything unique to us; it was just life. Franklin: What did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford? Harvey: You know, I didn’t know anything until I saw the video that CJ Mitchell was in. I didn’t know anything about it that I can recall. I don’t remember my parents talking about it with us. They probably did with their own group, but with just the kids, I don’t remember them discussing it. Their conversations were more right now, what’s going on now, what do we need to do right now, with their friends. Franklin: Right. From your perspective, what were their most important contributions in the areas of work, community life and civil rights? Harvey: Of my parents? Franklin: Of African American workers at Hanford. Harvey: Okay, repeat that again? What was--? Franklin: What were their most important contributions in the areas of work, community life and civil rights? Harvey: At Hanford? Franklin: Yeah. Harvey: Well, probably that they built it. That was probably huge. I mean, I can’t imagine that whole Manhattan Project happening without the workers. And they made up a piece of them. And the people—you know, the people that were out there at Manhattan building it, they weren’t from here; they all—so they probably were aware of African American people. Maybe some of them had worked side-by-side with them before, I don’t know. I mean, the fact that they actually came and did the work, that’s pretty significant. Franklin: Yeah. Do you remember when you learned about what was being made at Hanford? Harvey: Well, we knew, because of the Richland Bombers. And we knew that was our mascot. But it wasn’t really something you even thought about. Really, until I got—I remember in high school, seeing the bomb mascot, and then, I remember being very aware then, because—you’ve probably seen at the high school, there’s the bomb on the floor, and you weren’t allowed to walk on the bomb; you had to walk around it. You know, I don’t remember—probably— Franklin: Really? You weren’t allowed to walk on the—why was that? Harvey: Oh. Because it was sacred. It was the school mascot. And it was the warhead. Have you seen it? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Harvey: Yeah! Okay, so, when you were walking—that was the mixing area. I haven’t been in the high school in many, many, many years, but that was the main mixing area, and you didn’t step on that. That was—you didn’t step on the mascot. You walked around the mascot. That was the rule. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Interesting that they painted it on the floor then, but okay. Harvey: Well, it was a tile or something, isn’t it? Or is it painted? I don’t remember. Franklin: I think it’s painted. Harvey: And it’s kind of right in the center, so it’d be like the cougar was right there, the Wazzu cougar was right there. Don’t step on the cougar! Franklin: Sure, sure. Harvey: Or the Husky, you know. You don’t step on, that’s our motto. Yeah. So I don’t remember ever not being aware that what we did at Hanford, I mean, we made plutonium for a bomb. But I don’t remember ever thinking, well, what do they do there? I never even thought about it, you know, as a kid you didn’t think about it. I do remember, one of my friends who went to school with me, and she went to Gonzaga, and at our five-year class reunion, we were at our reunion here, and we’re sitting around talking, and she said she never realized how weird it was to grow up here. Because like I said, we thought this was normal. She was sitting in her dorm room at Gonzaga and they were talking about things you did in school to get out of school. Like, you’d pull the fire alarm. We did that a lot. Or you’d pretend you were sick. Or you’d pretend it was that time of month and you had to go to the bathroom right away. Or you’d have, somebody would call in a bomb scare to the school, you know, one of your friends would skip class and call in a bomb scare. And they were all kind of laughing about these things. And Barbie says, oh, yeah, I remember when the Whole Body Counter came to school. That was great! And they look at her and go, what? And she says, the Whole Body Counter. When it used to come to school. And they said, what was that? Well, you know, you’d get your whole body count of your radiation count, your uranium count done? And they all looked at her like she was completely nuts; they were horrified. So then she explained what it was. But she’s told us, I never realized that that wasn’t something everybody else did. That we did it, and nobody else did that. But it came to the school, and you went through it. And that was what it was like growing up here; you thought that was completely normal stuff. Franklin: Wow. Did your parents ever talk about—being so focused on civil rights, did they ever talk about their reactions to Hanford’s role and the building of the nuclear arsenal? Harvey: You know, I don’t remember them talking about it, other than it was a job at a time where there were no jobs. You know, my mother’s father, when they came out, he was unemployed and they were destitute. So it saved their family. It created a new home for them. And my mother had a very close affinity to Japanese people, because she lived in Japan, and she became friends with some Japanese people and she had a very high respect for them. She never talked about feeling guilty or remorseful for that. I never heard that. Yeah, that’s interesting, because—and they weren’t really involved in the stopping nuclear proliferation; that wasn’t something they were involved in at all. I think Jim Stoffels is involved in that more now. He was the one in the group that went that route. But they were not that—they were in peace, no war, but they didn’t specifically target nuclear war, atomic war. That was something we grew up with; it was just a part of life. And the bomb ended the war. That was it. That was what you learned. Franklin: Sure, sure. And purportedly kept wars from happening. Harvey: Yep, yep, mm-hmm. Franklin: Was Jim involved in civil rights efforts with your parents? How long did that relationship go back? Harvey: Well, he—I don’t recall. His name is on some of those papers in there, though. So, I believe it is. Or you could ask him, because I don’t know when he came and became involved with it. He was more of the peace thing, I got the impression that his focus was world peace and ending war. So it was probably more about the Vietnam War issue or that sort of thing, that he kind of came and became friends. Because I don’t remember when I was a kid if he was around. He was more somebody we got to know when I was older, like maybe even out of high school, that he came on the picture. Franklin: Sure, sure. I’ve interviewed Jim, just we never talked about it, because I knew of his peace/war concern and down that route. Harvey: So you’d have to ask him that. I haven’t seen him in a year. Franklin: It’d be interesting to— Harvey: Yeah, you’ll have to ask him that, because I’m not sure when he came in. Franklin: Sure. I just have a few more questions here. So you graduated from Richland High, right, a Bomber. And then what did you do after that? Harvey: Well, I knew I didn’t want to go to college right away, because I was really sick of school. So I actually moved to Tacoma, because one of my friends from high school was going to college in Tacoma and she wanted a roommate. So I moved up there, lived there for a year with her together. And then met a man and fell in love and we moved in together, and he wanted to go back to school at Wazzu to get an engineering degree. So we left Tacoma and ended up in Pullman together. And I started college there, then. Actually, I started at CBC and then I went to Pullman. After a year, I transferred to the University of Washington. So I went to school there and that’s where I graduated from there. And I married this man and we had children and we divorced 15 years later. But we stayed over there in Tacoma. And I went to school and I got my degree in nutrition. So I’m a dietician. Franklin: Okay. Harvey: Yeah, mm-hmm. Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about living in Richland during the Cold War? Harvey: [LAUGHTER] It was very interesting. Very unique. It was just such a unique, interesting thing. I don’t know. The only thing, I didn’t realize—you can’t explain it to people, it was so strange. But when my daughter, my youngest daughter was in a book club when she was in grade school, and one of the books the book club read was, I think, The Great Glass Sea. It’s a children’s novel about living in Los Alamos during the same time period. And it’s a children’s book. A young girl and her father or her mother or something are physicists or something that go and live there. And when I’m reading this book with my daughter, I realize, this was my life exactly. That the way this story this girl is talking about growing up in this government village, building a nuclear bomb—and there was mention of Richland in the book, because they were all part of the same project. And I just said, it suddenly dawned on me, this is what my life was. And I didn’t realize it was anything unique or different at the time. You didn’t even know it until you talked to other people that came from other places. And I told my daughter that. Because she had been in Richland lots of times. And I said, this is what Richland was like. And you don’t see that now, because now you see this—there’s a lot of green. It’s such a different—almost a normal community now, compared to what it was then. It was not normal. It was weird. But you thought it was normal, that was all it was. As you got older, you could go to Pasco and see a little bit of normalcy over there, that that was what the world was like. Kennewick was kind of odd, because it was more like a suburb; it wasn’t—there wasn’t much in Kennewick. There wasn’t much reason to go to Kennewick; it was kind of just a dull place. Whereas Pasco had some big buildings and old houses that really look cool, like farm houses. So you felt like there was some culture in Pasco. Richland had nothing. It was just ugly. [LAUGHTER] And there was nothing to do, as a kid, you know. There was just—there was nothing to do. You could walk to the river and float down the river. There was not a lot to do. Franklin: Is there anything else you’d like to mention related to civil rights and how they impacted your parents’ life and your life in the Tri-Cities? Harvey: Well, I thought it was really unique and very brave of them to take that on. My mother was like that. She would get a passion about something. And then the thing I learned from them is that if something’s wrong and you’re going to complain about it, don’t complain unless you’re willing to do something. You don’t have to do something big. Because neither one of my parents were leaders; they just became the working bees. And I heard that a lot from their friends over the years. John Slaughter says that to me all the time. He says, your parents were the working bees. I ran into Jay Inslee one time on an airplane flying back from Washington, DC, years ago. I went up to him, because we were walking in the aisle, and I introduced myself and I said, Jay, I remember your name as a kid growing up, and I told him who I was. And his response was, oh, yeah, Dick and Nyla, they were the workers. They were the workers. Those are the people that you really need in your organization. And probably what I learned was that that work is as important as any work. You don’t have to be the leader; you just have to say, I’ll be the person to stuff the envelopes, or I’ll be the person to get the poster board and paint the signs. Any little bit can make a difference in the outcome. And I learned that a lot. And that’s kind of the way I’ve always taken things, that when there’s something—a project that needs to be done, I’m not afraid to say, well, you know, if I don’t volunteer, nobody will. And I have no reason—I don’t have any right to complain about it, if I’m not willing to volunteer. And so I guess my legacy from my mother and father is that I’ve done a lot of volunteer work with the nutrition field that I work in. I work in kidney disease and dialysis. I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone many, many times to—I say, well, okay you need a volunteer; I can do that. And it’s a lot of extra work. It is. I mean, my parents did a lot of extra work. And the family survived. My mother wasn’t there cooking dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the house. We didn’t have any of that stuff, and we survived. She was out doing other things. She was working hard to see what she could do to make the world better for other people. And my dad, too. And I think that’s one thing that I’ve learned from them is you don’t have to be a leader; you just have to be a worker. And if you’re not willing to step up and be a worker, then quit bitching about it. Just shut up and go stick your head in a hole. So. And that was kind of the, I guess, that was the way I see them. Now, my brother and sister may say something completely different. That’s just my impression. Franklin: Sure, sure, sure. Well, thank you so much for coming and taking the time to interview with us today. I really appreciate your perspective on your parents. Harvey: Thanks! Mm-hmm. Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1954- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Kathy (Brouns) Harvey Description An account of the resource Kathy (Brouns) Harvey was born in Richland, Washington in 1954. Her mother Nyla was influential in local Civil Rights movements. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06/29/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Civil rights Civil rights movements Discrimination School integration https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F308708a50c5d3255fff49081116f2946.JPG 7504f73a4fb2271d503d0fd147062f3f https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff5ff790c9c56b6d9393251b940eeb4b7.mp4 c0e41977e83f11154b807d447330db45 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Gordon Guice Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Gordon—how do you say your last name? Gordon Guice: Guice, G-U-I-C-E. Robert: Guice. Gordon Guice on January 23rd, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Gordon about his experiences living in the Tri-Cities and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Guice: Gordon Joe Guice. G-O-R-D-O-N, J-O-E, G-U-I-C-E. Franklin: Great, thanks, Gordon. So I usually start off by asking how and why you came to the area, but your parents actually came to the area. So I’m wondering, I’d like to start there, if you could tell me about your parents and how they came here. Guice: Well my dad, Joe C. Guice, was in the service. And when he got out of service, he came to the State of Washington. Franklin: And do you know what year that would have been? Guice: That was in the late ‘40s. After ’43, you know, around that area. My mom was out this way also, and she came out this way via the railroad employment. She ventured out this way at the Hanford City at the restaurant and she was a waitress there. Franklin: That would have been the construction camp? Guice: Yeah, that’s the construction camp. She was a waitress. And she met my dad. Franklin: Okay. Guice: And the rest is history right there. And they, shortly after that, they got married. Dad was a laborer and he specialized in cement finishing out at Hanford. Franklin: Okay. Where were your parents from? Guice: My parents are from Texas. My dad’s from Longview, Texas, and my mom was from Naples, Mount Pleasant, Texas. Franklin: I don’t know Texas— Guice: Southeast Texas. Franklin: Okay, so kind of close to the Louisiana— Guice: Right on the border. Franklin: Okay, great. It’s my understanding that the Manhattan Project was segregated, that work crews and things were segregated, is that—did your parents talk about that at all? Guice: My dad, he didn’t bring it up very much, but he was a foreman, and back then I can remember when he come home with all of his buddies. They would all carpool. And my dad was a foreman, so he would talk about his crew, and all I seen was Afro-Americans as his crew. So I kind of take it at that. He was just a black foreman and all his crew was black, you know. I mean, when he went to the dams, it was more of the integration. When he went to the dams—he worked on a lot of dams. Lower Monumental, Little Goose, Ice Harbor. They worked on all those dams. Franklin: Oh, wow. Guice: A lot of cement. Franklin: Yeah. Guice: That was his forte. Franklin: Cement? Guice: Yeah. Franklin: And how long did your—did your mom talk about working out on Site at all? Guice: My mom didn’t work onsite. Franklin: Oh, sorry. Guice: Just my dad. Franklin: Just your dad, okay. Guice: Yeah. Franklin: So where did she work during the Manhattan Project, then? Guice: During the Manhattan Project, she was a waitress, she cleaned houses, in west Pasco for some doctors. She worked at Frank’s Grill, that was a restaurant downtown. And she later on, after we got a little bit older, she worked for Pasco School District. She was a bus driver for 35 years. Franklin: Wow, for 35 years. Guice: Yeah, and my mom went to Columbia Basin College when I was in like junior high school, and she got a cosmetology license and she done black hair with the old irons on the stove. She done all the black ladies’ hair. Franklin: Wow. Did she have her own shop or— Guice: No, she done it in our kitchen. [LAUGHTER] In our kitchen. Franklin: That’s great. When were you born, Gordon? Guice: In 1952, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Pasco. Franklin: Okay. It’s my understanding that life in the Tri-Cities was somewhat—although not formally segregated, there existed informal levels of segregation. Did your parents ever experience that, or talk about their experiences with that? Guice: Well, it was there, because you could see it. There was boundaries in Kennewick, and there was boundaries coming out this way to Richland. But my—I was raised to try to get along with everybody. And that helped me in the long run. It was there. And we had some bad times in the early ‘60s, some riots and stuff like that. But I guess there was a lot of copycat stuff going on, because there wasn’t enough of us to cause any real problem. But we wanted to be heard. And there was a few things that happened, but it never got out of hand. Franklin: When you mention bad times in the early ‘60s, do you mean nationally or locally? Guice: Well, I mean, the national stuff started the local stuff. As far as I’m concerned. Stuff would—that’s why I say copycat. It was real problems, but when you see someone doing something, stand up for a cause, you take it upon yourself to try to join in and try to make things right. I’ve always been one to—and I was raised that way—to keep my eye on the prize. My dad always taught me that. To keep my—no matter what. He said, it’s going to be rough. You’re a different color; you’re going to have to do certain things better, and you’re going to have to be there. You know, it’s just a little tough, but that’s life. I took that to heart. It turned out okay for me. Franklin: Great. When you say copycat things, is there anything in particular that you remember from that time that happened locally? Guice: Well, in ’68, I think they had the Watts riots around that time. And then there was a demonstration downtown Pasco where some trees got torched right in front of the—that’s why there’s no trees there anymore. They got torched in front of the courthouse. That’s the first time I ever got tear gassed—was wrong place at the wrong time. But it was a demonstration. I don’t remember anybody really getting hurt. There were a few—[unknown] comes to mind. He got killed by the cops over at— Franklin: That’s someone local? Guice: Yes, someone local. By the cops. There’s rumors around that. They probably shouldn’t have done—come to the certain extent, to take his life. But you know, that still happens now. It was there, and you dealt with it, man. I had my eye on the prize. Franklin: What was the prize? Guice: To have a future. To have a future. At the time being, when we were little, your future was out here at Hanford. That was the best jobs—the best-paying jobs. I really concentrated on what my dad told me. We were to ride around in east Pasco, and we had our old co-op station. Maybe Vanis could—because he was one of my mentors, always. Vanis always done good. You had Ed Smith, you had Dr. Wiley, CJ Mitchell, people out here that lived in Richland and they worked out at Hanford. But getting back to my original story, I would ride around with my dad, and he would see—he would show me guys older than him that worked out here that retired. And he would go see some of those guys over there playing dominoes. That’s what you want to be able to do when you get that age. Franklin: Instead of having to work. Guice: Instead of having to work. So get something that has a pension and some benefits, so you can relax when you get older. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Did your parents ever talk about what it was like growing up in east Texas? Guice: Well, I experienced it. Franklin: Really? Guice: Yeah, that was really segregated. I’m talking like, white-only bathrooms, black-only bathrooms. We would—me and my brother would always get in trouble when we went back to Naples, Mount Pleasant area, Longview. We were just used to getting what we wanted and going up to the front of the line. And more than once, I got pulled on the collar and told that the people of a different color were supposed to go in front of me. And I was just really—really kind of shocking, because I wasn’t used to that. That’s why I’m saying, it wasn’t that bad here. It was bad, but it wasn’t like that. I mean, people calling you down in the South. Franklin: Right, because there was that formal segregation. Guice: It was formal. It was written. And you obeyed. Franklin: Yeah, right, for fear of your life, probably. Guice: Right, right. Franklin: Especially after Emmitt Till and things like that. Guice: Right. Franklin: And how often did you back to east Texas? Guice: Every summer. Franklin: Every summer. Guice: Every summer, we would get on the Southern Pacific, and it would go up north, and we would go to St. Paul, Minnesota, it’d take two and a half days, and go all the way back down to Texas. My mom didn’t want to go on the other trains—we rode the train—because she said it was too dirty. So we spent two days on the Southern Pacific. St. Paul, Minnesota, we’d go to and look out the window in the train station, look at the Mississippi River, which—I was three, four, five, six—we went every summer to be with my grandparents. Franklin: Oh, okay. Yeah, I was going to ask who you were seeing there, but that makes sense. So I’d like to go back to this—you mentioned there was this demonstration in Pasco in the late-‘60s that you said you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Guice: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: I haven’t heard of this yet, but—maybe because we just started the project, but I’m wondering, how were you—why were you there that day? Guice: Well, for one, I was Afro-American, black. I guess I was brown or Negro back then. Didn’t know what I was for a long time. But I can remember there was a bunch of us: me and my buddies, we got together at Kurtzman Park. Why it really started, I can’t remember. But we ended up in the park across the street, at the city park, right across the street. And it just escalated from there. There was some stuff going on, like, all over the country. Like I said, I can’t remember when it started, but we went over and the trees got set afire. The cops came and they shot teargas to disperse the crowds. So that’s how I kind of got caught up in that. Franklin: Wow. Tell me about going to school in Pasco. Were the classes that you went to—actually, I’m going to back up. Where did you live in Pasco? Did you live in east Pasco? Guice: Not at the beginning. Way back in the day, in the late ‘50s—I was born, like I said, I was born in Pasco. But right across from the courthouse, there was—it’s the senior citizen apartments right now, it’s called Parkside. Franklin: Yeah. Guice: Parkside, I was born in Parkside. And then we moved—we were moving on up, one up the street to the Navy homes, and I was in the Navy barracks, right there on 4th—4th and 1st, on the corner right there, where the Boys and Girls Club is now, in those apartments there. I stayed there until 1966, and then we really moved on up, and we moved to east Pasco. We had a house. So we moved into east Pasco in 1966, Owen Avenue— Franklin: Oh, sorry— Guice: Owen Avenue. Vanis lived two doors down, across the street from us. Franklin: Oh, okay. How close to you in age is Vanis? How close were you guys? Or far apart in age are you? Guice: Oh, probably, I don’t know. I’m 65, and I think Vanis might be in his late 70s. Franklin: Okay, so he was somewhat—you mentioned earlier he was somewhat of a mentor to you, kind of someone that you looked up to. Guice: Anybody that stayed—you know, my dad—anybody that stayed out of trouble, went to work everyday, had a car, had a roof over his head, he was doing all right. Franklin: Yeah. Guice: That’s what it was about. Franklin: Right, making a good life for yourself. Guice: Yeah. Franklin: Tell me about going to school in Pasco. Were your classes integrated, segregated, either intentionally or unintentionally? Guice: Well, we were bussed from we’ll call it junior high—not junior high, but in grade school—we weren’t bussed during that time. But in grade school, I attended Captain Gray. I went to Captain Gray, and I look at my pictures every once in a while. And my kindergarten class, my first grade class, I think it might have been, oh, a couple Afro-Americans, and some Latinos, a couple, and then the rest was Caucasian. And that’s just the way it was all the way up through school until we got to high school. Franklin: Did you ever experience any racism or intimidation from other students or school staff when you went to school, because of your color? Guice: Well, you mean me personally? Franklin: You personally, and/or did you hear of any? Did you observe any? Guice: Oh, it happened. I would be really naïve to say it wasn’t happening. But my point is that—I was an athlete. A pretty good athlete. So I might have got away with some stuff that normal people, the average joe, didn’t get away with. I’m not boasting, but I had—because I had to intermingle with some of my Caucasian friends on the competition fields. So, you know, we hung out more than people that were just in a group and didn’t get into the activities and stuff like that. It kind of trickled down. It was there. You would hear it. You would hear it, but I would try—in ’68, our basketball team in Pasco, when the times were kind of heated, we started winning, and it really brought the whole community of Pasco together. It was through sports. Anybody that you interview will know about that time, because it was a real—from ’68, ’69 and ’70, that’s when we really started winning in basketball. And I was a part of that. It brought a lot of people together. Sports does that. You forget about color when you’re rooting for your team or for your town, your city, your state, or whatever. It was there. It was there. It was there. Franklin: Okay. What were your interactions with people from the different cities, like Richland and Kennewick? Guice: Hmm. Well, like I said, it goes back to sports. I done a lot of stuff that if you weren’t playing, people of color didn’t get to do. But I was really fortunate. But you know, there used to be a sign on the Kennewick bridge, don’t get caught over here after night and stuff like that. We would ride over to Zip’s, yell things out the window and take off, and get over across the bridge before we got caught and stuff like that. Franklin: Really? Guice: Oh, yeah. That stuff happened all the time. Franklin: What kind of things—can you repeat them? Guice: Well, no, not on—not on TV. [LAUGHTER] No. Well, you weren’t supposed to be over there, and we were going to show them that we could be over there after dark. It was like—it was pretty bad. And we didn’t branch out to Richland, because we’re not supposed to be over here, and the black kids from Richland didn’t really come to Pasco. So it was—you met them through sports. We’re really good friends now, after all that—you know, after the years. I got some of my best friends are people that I grew up and played against from Richland. But it was just—it was known that you didn’t go to certain places. Franklin: Yeah. I’ve heard a lot about that sign, and I’ve never seen a picture of it. I’ve heard people say that it exists, and that it didn’t exist. Did it exist, that sign on the bridge? Guice: Yeah, it exists. Franklin: Do you remember what it said, verbatim? Guice: No, I don’t remember what it said. Franklin: But the spirit of it, though, was no— Guice: Yeah, as you were going north across the old Green Bridge, it was up on the right. Franklin: Okay. Guice: And Zip’s was right around the corner. That’s how far, just to tell you how intense it was, you could almost throw a rock from the bridge to Zip’s. I mean, it was just right around the corner. Franklin: It is. Guice: And we’d pull out that parking lot, and we had to stay in the car and drive and get the heck out of there before they chased us. Blew a clutch out in the parking lot one time and we had to get out and run. The clutch spring broke on my buddy’s car. Franklin: And you ran across the bridge? Guice: Yeah, we ran across the bridge. Franklin: Wow, hell-raiser, huh? Guice: Well, yeah. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Well, for a good purpose though, it sounds like. How would you describe life in east Pasco, like the kind of community life and community events? What kind of community events were important to you growing up? Guice: Juneteenth was a big one. Franklin: Yeah, tell me about that. Guice: Well, that’s when the slaves got their rights and stuff. And we always celebrated and it was a big deal down at Kurtzman Park. We would have basketball tournaments against Yakima, the black people from Yakima. We’d invite people from Richland. There wasn’t many people in Kennewick, so they were kind of left out. But it was mostly Juneteenth and barbecues. And then back then, east side would play against Navy homes in sports. Because there were a lot of black people in Navy homes, where I grew up. You could just see them walking down the street, and we would meet and have these big baseball tournaments and stuff like that. But official stuff, it was Juneteenth. Franklin: Mm-hm. Why did they call it Navy homes? Guice: Because it was a Navy barracks. Franklin: Okay, and was there a big Navy presence in Pasco? Guice: Yeah. Franklin: Was that left over from World War II? Guice: No, I think—don’t quote me on this, but that’s where the Navy stayed, in the Navy homes. Franklin: Okay. So eventually, you graduated—you played sports throughout high school—basketball and baseball, right? Guice: Yes, sir. Franklin: Tell me what happened after high school. Guice: After high school? Franklin: Yeah. Guice: I went to Washington State University. Franklin: Okay. Guice: I played basketball there. I got a scholarship and played basketball. I was recruited by Jud Heathcote, Marv Harshman—they were my freshman coaches. Jud went on to Michigan State and he and my high school coach, Don Munson, recruited Magic Johnson. Franklin: Oh, really? Guice: Yeah. Franklin: Wow. Guice: Yeah. I got letters from Coach. But I went up there for a year, and I was a snap pledge at Sigma Nu Fraternity—I was a frat boy. It was two black—Afro-American—fraternal brothers on the whole campus of Washington State University. Franklin: Wow. Guice: Bill Skinner was the other one, and he was from Pasco. We were the only black fraternal brothers at Washington State University in the ‘70s. Franklin: Did you know each other? Guice: Yeah, I went to high school with him. Franklin: Oh, okay. Guice: I grew up with Bill. That’s—because I didn’t go through rush, to get to go see all the houses. I was what you call—I was a snap pledge, and it was because of Bill. It was probably six or seven other people from Pasco that were in the house. So, that was a big part of my life. Franklin: Oh, yeah. So it was kind of like a little home-away-from-home. Guice: Right, right. It was probably the Madisons, Bill Skinner and myself. Franklin: And that was in 1970, ’71? Guice: Yeah. Franklin: Still was probably a pretty charged time. Was there anything—any tension out at WSU campus? Guice: Ooh, boy, yeah. Black Panthers. It was really rough for me at the beginning, because they couldn’t understand why this guy was standing all over here with all these white guys. But it was comfortable when I seen Bill. I was 17 years old, away from—not far away, but away from home. And it was comforting. But I would’ve never gotten out of there if I hadn’t joined that frat. It was really—it gave me some structure. It was kind of like being in the military. But, you know, a little lower key, but there was certain things you had to do. Franklin: Sure. Guice: Jud—Coach Heathcote—and Harshman left after my freshman year, and I came back to home. I had a scholarship to play for Dick Hannan in ’72. We were state champions at CBC in 1972. But then I went back and played for George Raveling and got out of school in 1975. Best time of my life. Franklin: Why is that? Guice: I met a lot of good people, done a lot of things, I learned a lot about myself. Because you had to do your own clothes, you had to pay your bills—you grow up. Some of the teammates I had, I still talk to today. It’s just pretty cool. A lot of fun, a lot of fun. Franklin: What did you major in? Guice: Physical education. Franklin: Okay. Earlier you mentioned the Black Panthers. Guice: Yeah. Franklin: Were they active on the WSU campus? Guice: There was a group of Black Panthers on the campus. Yeah, the hats and the leather coats. Franklin: Did you have any interactions with them? Guice: Well, I got called a few names, you know, until they figured out who I was. Yeah. Franklin: Why? Was it because you were— Guice: Because I had no business being over there with all them white people. You know? I was like a fly in buttermilk to them. You know, after they got to know me, and seeing I was there playing ball, and I would go to the parties, and they figured out I wasn’t an Uncle Tom. It was okay, but you still have your militants. It took a while for some of them to come around, but eventually they all came around. Franklin: Was that a common phrase aimed at people, maybe, in your situation at that time, Uncle Tom? Guice: Yeah. Franklin: Because I know—I’m obviously aware of the history of that character, but was that—were you called that by any of them? Guice: I was called—well, I wasn’t called that to my face, but you know, it got around that maybe that’s what I was, I had to kind of prove myself. People from Pasco—it was a bunch of people in Pasco—Affirmative Action, we got financial aid and a lot of kids went to school. They would be in a certain—at the hub, inside of the Student Union Building, you had your little section. And they seen I could go to the section and nobody—I was an okay guy. It’s all right, but yeah—people from California—the students from California that were in that Black Panther group, they didn’t understand that— Franklin: Oh, right, because they were maybe from a— Guice: Yeah, completely different. Through no fault of their own. Franklin: Right. It was a much bigger scene, they had been much closer to Watts. Guice: Right, right there, and maybe even participated. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Pasco’s such a smaller community—yeah. And did you kind of eventually make—you mentioned you kind of made peace— Guice: It was all right. By the end of the year, it was okay, it was all right. You still had your guys that just hated everybody, but that’s all right. I didn’t pay no attention to them. It was okay. Franklin: Was there any organized activity in Pasco, either mainstream like NAACP or militant like Black Panther that you remember? Guice: I can’t remember any Black Panthers. But CAC, Community Action Committee. That’s how I actually got into the theaters—Affirmative Action, back in the day. But, yeah, they would have neighborhood meetings and stuff like that, trying to see what we could do for the community, what they could do at the time for the community. So it was—I’m proud of Pasco. It was a lot of people that done the right thing back then. Franklin: And this CAC, this was primarily an African American aid organization? Guice: Yeah, I guess it was formed by the government. It gave them money, and they would try to—Community Action, you know—make good waves in the community and housing and help people get scholarships and go to school with the Affirmative Action program. That’s how—go to CAC, man, they’ll help you out. Franklin: Okay. Do you remember the NAACP being active in Pasco at all? Guice: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don’t know if you remember, but Art Fletcher? He was the first black Republican. [LAUGHTER] He was—god, what President was that? Was it Nixon? But he worked for the President. And Art Fletcher lived in east Pasco. Franklin: Really? Guice: So the NAACP was kind of big. Franklin: Did you know Art Fletcher? Guice: Yeah, I knew him. I used to hang out with his son, Philip. Franklin: Okay. What role did he play in— Guice: I can’t—he was a mucky-muck, man. He was a bigwig. He’d go back to Washington, D.C. Franklin: And you mentioned he was a Republican. Guice: I think that—yeah, that’s what we called him. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Okay. Because that would have been—you know, that was kind of after— Guice: Yeah, that was way back there. Yeah, I’m thinking he was. Franklin: Okay, that’s just interesting—I mean, not to say it doesn’t happen, but generally, that was after kind of the great political shift, after civil—okay. So you ended up, after college—oh, sorry, before that, I wanted to ask—you went to college and you graduated. What level of education did your parents get through? Do you know? Guice: They graduated from high school. Franklin: They both graduated from high school. Guice: Yes, sir. Franklin: And then you mentioned your mother went to CBC. Guice: Yeah, and got a cosmetology license. She was a hair dresser. Franklin: I wanted to ask about your dad again before we came to your Hanford work. You mentioned he worked at Hanford and then he worked out on the dams. Did he go back to work at Hanford at all? Guice: My dad? Franklin: Yeah. Guice: No—oh, yeah. See, he was in the union. I don’t know if you know how that works— Franklin: I don’t. Guice: Okay. So, they need x amount of laborers, especially cement finishers out at Hanford. They call the hall, the union hall—the laborers’ hall. And they would ask—they have a list—one, two, three, four down. And if you’re on the top of the list, so you’re one of the 12, you got to go out there. See, the dam had a call. So those guys that were 13 are number one, so he would go out there. So he worked on the dams and back out—it just depended on the layoffs and the hiring. He was back and forth forever, as long as I can remember, between the dams and Hanford. Franklin: Okay. Always doing concrete. Guice: Always doing concrete. Franklin: Was the union—you mentioned he was usually a foreman of a crew. Was the union in general, was it integrated, or was it a separate African American— Guice: No, it was integrated. Franklin: But generally, though, he was on an all-black—he was the foreman of an all-black— Guice: Yeah, I mean, just from what I could see. He would talk about his crew and he would name people and those were his buddies. It was five or six of them in the car, and they all worked for them. So I just took it for granted that was his crew. But I wasn’t—oblivious of white people being out there, too. I mean, when you do that, you have to work together, but his crew was predominantly black. Franklin: Okay. How old do you—when do you remember finding out what was being made at Hanford? How old were you when you kind of cognizant of what was going on out there? Guice: I was probably in junior high school. And the reason I say that—my best friend, Ron Howard—we grew up together. I been knowing Ron since the third grade. And we played ball together all that time. But his dad, Roy F. Howard, worked at Battelle. They had the beagles over there, and I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the story about the dogs they had over there smoking cigarettes? Franklin: I have. In fact, we have pictures in our collection. Guice: Okay. He worked over there, and then Mr. Howard would come home and tell us about some of the stuff that was going on out there. So I was probably in the seventh grade. Franklin: Okay. Guice: I figured out that it was something weird going on out there. Franklin: Yeah. Guice: And you didn’t want to go out there too far. I mean, there were stories about the river and getting stuff, but I’m still here and I played in that river all my life. But there’s a bunch of stories going on. Franklin: Yeah. Did you ever—so your father worked there during the Manhattan Project. Guice: Yes, sir. Franklin: Did he ever talk to you about when he found out what he was working on, what all that concrete he was pouring was for? Guice: You know, there was a lot of radiation. I don’t think they really knew what they were getting into, because you know, the statistics are showing now—I’m not going to say that’s what caused it, but the numbers are overbearing. People that worked out there that they started getting all this stuff and they’re now no longer with us. Franklin: Yeah. Guice: So I can imagine—I’m going to tell you like this. I can imagine how it was for them. You got between me and my dad. And I worked out there. When I worked out there at 100-N, Tank Farms, we’d have to do maintenance and we could get 300 millirem a week. And it takes 1,000 millirem to make a rem. Okay, we’d get that in a week. Say you got that in five days, the number that you got on that Monday fell off on the next Monday. So you sat in the bullpen for a week. So, my point being is you can’t even get that a year now. That’s how much has changed. So there was no regulation back when my dad was working, and I don’t even think they knew what they were getting into. Franklin: Yeah. Guice: Because I don’t think he ever had to dress up, or—I don’t remember him telling me that he had to put on booties and a white suit to do anything. Franklin: Right. Did he talk about—did he ever talk about the bomb and its role in ending the war and his part in that? Guice: No. Franklin: Or how he remembered that? Guice: No, he didn’t share anything like that. Franklin: Okay. Guice: No. Franklin: Was your dad working out on Site when President Kennedy came to the Site? Guice: Yes. Franklin: Did you go out there to see him? Guice: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: Tell me about that. Tell me about that day. Guice: Well, we just got in the car and we went out and sat on the side of the road and watched him drive by. That was pretty much it. Franklin: Did you go out to N Reactor and watch the speech and all? Guice: No, I think we were on George Washington Way. Him and his buddies, they got the day off. Just waved at him when we drove by. Franklin: Okay. So, eventually—after graduating, you—what did you do after you graduated? Guice: When I got out that summer, I got employed by Employment Security for the State of Washington. I was interviewing the counselor for the unemployment office—Employment Office, not the Unemployment Office. They taught us the right way to say that. But I was there for 13 months, and then I got wind of United Parcel Service, UPS, was hiring. Back in the day, they didn’t advertise, so it was somebody that worked there that I played softball with that let me know that the main guy from Seattle, Mr. Campbell, was coming down. And I got hired in ’75. I worked for UPS from ’75 to ’80. And then in 1981, I left there—I was getting into the fitters, so I was just kind of waiting on the list. I went out and I worked at Boise Cascade for 13-and-a-half months and I then got in the fitters in ’82. Franklin: And then where did you—and that’s how you came to Hanford, right? Guice: Yeah. Franklin: So tell me about that. Tell me about your time working at Hanford and the different jobs you did and things like that. Guice: Okay, well, I’m a seam fitter out of Local 598 in Pasco. 35 years in the trade. My first job was at Hanford #2, when they were building 2. We had 1, 2 and 4, and 3 and 5 were across the mountains over at Satsop. I was doing the construction, and that was a really—that was really a wild time. I’m surprised that place is still standing up. Franklin: I’ve heard that. Well, 2 is—is 2—one of them is not completed, right? Guice: Well, see, we got 2. 1 and 4 is sitting out there; they’re mothballed. Franklin: That’s right. Yeah, I’ve heard stories about that. Guice: “The Boomtown Cowboys,” it was an article in Playboy about the Boomtown Cowboys. Franklin: Really? And that was the people that worked at WPPS? Guice: Yeah. A lot going on, man. [LAUGHTER] And a lot of travelers. I think at the time there was probably 3,000 travelers in the Tri-Cities from all over the country working there. They had all three of those places going. Well, five of them: 3 and 5 were going also over in Satsop. So it was a bunch of people here and bunch of stuff happening. Franklin: And then it all went bust, right? Guice: Yeah, in what? ’80—God, right, I was only out there for a little bit right at that time—I think in ’83, ’84, they shut it down. The bonds went bad and—shew. Franklin: And what did you do then? Guice: I hit the road. Franklin: Yeah. Guice: I hit the road. Traveled all over the United States. Mostly on the west side. Because of my radiation experience, I worked in Pocatello, Idaho at INEL, on their side. I worked there off and on for three to five years. And then just all over the country. I worked at Oswego, at the nuclear plant in Oswego. Just all over the country. Once you got that clearance, you could pretty much bounce around all over the place at these nuclear plants in the United States. They’d even pay you to apply if they didn’t hire you. Franklin: Wow. Guice: They’d send you 100 bucks just for applying. Because it was so hard to get people that had already been cleared and they didn’t have to go through all the schooling. So that happened right out here. Franklin: Wow. Guice: Yeah. Some of the best training around. Franklin: What are some of the other sites out at Hanford that you worked at? Guice: I worked at 100-N, K Basin, FFTF, Fast Flux Testing Facility, over at 1 and 4 for a little bit, and my last job, I was a general foreman over at the warehouse on Stevens, right down Battelle Boulevard, that big warehouse there. That was my warehouse. I ran that. The pipefitters’ general foreman for 12 years right there. And all that pipe that’s out south of that, that was my laydown. I still call it mine. I’ve only been retired two years, but I still say mine. But we took care of all that, and when they had a material request for the Vit Plant, we put the stuff on the trucks and sent it out to them so they could build the place. And it’s still going on now. Franklin: Great. You mentioned a bit ago about Affirmative Action and the CAC. Did that also play a role in—when you got into the Pipefitters’ Union? And how diverse was that union when you— Guice: Well, like I said, I went to college in ’70. But from ’68 to ’70, and it went on after that; I’m just talking about some of my friends. If you done okay in school, and you—you had to take a test, you had to go the employment office, your math test, your dexterity test—if you got past that, there was a pretty good chance that the people at CAC and Affirmative Action, you could get into the Electricians, Laborers or Pipefitters, depending on your test scores. And it played a big part—I could’ve gotten in in ’70, but like I said, I went to school. So I missed out on probably like 12 years. I didn’t miss out; I wouldn’t be where I’m at now. I wouldn’t say I missed out. But the opportunity was there, if you were a person of color, to get one of these jobs. And that was the way—that was the tunnel to it. That’s how most of the people from Pasco got—Affirmative Action was big. Franklin: Yeah. What are your feelings about Affirmative Action? Guice: Well, it helped me. It helped people of color. I don’t know how it really started. But I’m glad it did. I guess it was equality in numbers. Quotas, if you don’t mind me saying. And they had to have them. Wrong way to do it, but they had to have them. And then—it even went into females after a while. So, it just helped people when people don’t want to stand up and do the right thing, to get your foot in the door. Sometimes you have to knock them down, and Affirmative Action done that. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. In what ways, if any, did security and secrecy at Hanford impact your work when you were— Guice: Can’t talk about it. [LAUGHTER] Guice: I signed. I can’t talk about it. Franklin: Okay. Really? Guice: Seriously. Franklin: Okay, that’s cool. That’s funny; I’ve never gotten that answer to that question before. Guice: I was—I don’t—there’s things I can say, and I’ve seen stuff. I was supervision, so I’ve seen a lot. Some of that stuff—I’m not going to say, to get to where—should I say this, or should I say this—I’d rather not. Franklin: Oh, no, so I’m not asking about what kinds of secret things did you see; I’m asking, like, in what ways did that focus on secrecy and security impact your daily work at Hanford? How was that different from working in a non-secure environment? Guice: Structure, discipline. You had to have it, because there was like zero tolerance. There was, for instance, walking by and looking at somebody’s screen. That was a no-no. Leaving your screen on for more than two minutes, that was a no-no. Just certain things that, due to training—harassment, zero tolerance. That was really a big deal, also. It was just things you learned in your training to get out there. Certain things that you didn’t do. Franklin: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Let’s see here. I’m just kind of looking through the rest of my— Guice: That’s fine. Franklin: Where did you—when you came back to settle in the Tri-Cities—do you still live in Pasco today? Guice: Yes, sir. Franklin: And how come you choose to move back to Pasco? Guice: Well, for work. Franklin: Okay. Guice: I came back in 2000. And I helped build the plant at the Chemical Depot, the demilitarization plant, to get rid of all the bombs. Franklin: Oh, down in Umatilla. Guice: Yeah, Umatilla, the Chemical Depot. So we built that, and that’s the reason I came home. Get on the phone and call, my number came up. And I went out there in 2000, and I was there from 2000 until 2003, and we completed that plant. That’s the reason that I came home, and then shortly after that, 2004, I came here, and I was there until ’16. Franklin: Okay. Guice: Yeah. Franklin: Do you still have family in the area? Guice: My brother’s here; my sister’s in Waukegan, Illinois. Mom and Dad have passed, and I have ten grandkids, nephews and nieces that are still here. Franklin: Wow, that’s quite a big family. I forgot to ask about siblings. You said you have a brother and sister? Guice: Yeah, my brother Rayford, he’s a welder-pipefitter, retired. Franklin: Older or younger? Guice: Younger; I’m the oldest. Franklin: Okay, you’re the oldest. Then you have a sister as well? Guice: Sister, Jackie. She’s a respiratory therapist in Waukegan, Illinois. Franklin: Okay. That’s great. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Or actually—you didn’t work at Hanford during the Cold War. Well, you did a little bit at WPPS 2. I guess, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford, how about that? Guice: This generation? Franklin: This generation and future generations. Guice: What would I—I don’t understand the question. Franklin: I’m going to rephrase that question. In fact, I might just scrap that question. Guice: No, don’t scrap it. Franklin: I think I have a better question. Guice: Okay. Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about growing up during Civil Rights era? Guice: I would probably share what my parents shared with me. It’s to respect where you come from, respect your elders, because there was people before you that paved the way so you could have a better life, and to respect that. And if they carry that on, it’s never going to be okay; there’s just too many people. It’s never going to be okay, but if people keep their eye on the prize, and do the right thing, and respect where they come from, and give back. When you get to wherever you want to go, try to help the person next to you or behind you to get into a safe place. Franklin: That’s beautiful. Is there anything else that you would like to mention related to migration, segregation, civil rights, and how they impacted your life in the Tri-Cities? Guice: Well, I would like to say I’m probably really grateful that I didn’t experience the really, really bad stuff. I’ve always had pride in my color. I was raised that way. But I was also taught you got to get along to get where you want to get. I’m not saying kissing any butt or anything like that—I hope I didn’t say nothing wrong—but you got to get along with people. And we did that when I grew up. That’s the reality, and it’s life. But you can—if you want to, there’s probably nothing that you can’t do if you really want it. Not saying it’s not going to be a rocky road and you’re going to have to take some stuff, but if you keep your eye on the prize, you can get there. And some people do and some people don’t. I wanted it. Franklin: Yeah, and you got it. Guice: Yeah, well, I was raised that way. Franklin: Well, it sounds like your parents did a good job. Guice: Well, thank you. Franklin: Gordon, it was really a pleasure to interview you. Thank you for coming out and talking about your experiences growing up in Pasco and working at Hanford and just your whole life. Guice: Well, thanks for having me. Franklin: Great. Guice: Appreciate it. Franklin: Yeah, no problem. Okay. Guice: Thank you. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 100-N Reactor Tank Farms WPPS K Basin FFTF Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1952- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1982-2016 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Gordon Guice Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation Civil rights Civil rights movements School integration Racism Sports Pullman (Wash.) Basketball Affirmative action Description An account of the resource Gordon Guice was born in Pasco, Washington in 1952 and worked on the Hanford Site various times between 1982-2016. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 01/23/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fda0630464646f72621c91608a1dc2b92.png b21137d55e399764c2563418a2147543 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9753b3b5a7233d9657637096b118b84f.mp4 2c59ed8ae69153b41cc1c9bbd360a0dc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mae Fite Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Yeah, I think—are we ready to go? Lori Larson: All righty? Franklin: All right. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Mae Fite on April 5, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Mae about her experiences living in the Tri-Cities and/or working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Mae Fite: It’s Mae Fite. M-A-E, F-I-T-E. Franklin: Great. Thank you. So, when and where were you born? Fite: I was born in Linden, Texas in 1946. Franklin: Okay. And when did you first come to the Tri-Cities area? Fite: My parents moved us here the first time in 1948. I don’t know when or how long we stayed. And then my mom moved two of us children back to Texas. And then my dad, evidently, came and then they had another child there. And then in 1950, she moved the three of us children back to Washington. And then in 1951, my dad moved back. And then in 1952, he went to Alaska and worked for a while before he came back. Franklin: Oh! What did he do in Alaska? Fite: I have no idea. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I’m from Alaska originally. Fite: It was probably construction of some sort, but I have no idea what he did. Franklin: Yeah, there was a lot of building going on after the war. Yeah, that makes sense. Fite: At that point, I was like four or five. Franklin: Sure, all you knew was he went like really far away. Fite: Well, I don’t even remember him being gone. Franklin: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And when you say came back to Washington, were your parents in Pasco the whole time? Fite: Mm-hm. Yeah, I was in Pasco, yes. Franklin: And Linden, is that in east Texas area? Where is that in Texas? Fite: That would be more, closer to the Arkansas border. Franklin: Texarkana area? There were quite a few families from that area that came up to Pasco area. Fite: They were following someone that came here originally and then they came for work. Franklin: Was that the case with your mother and father? Do you know how they found out about the area? Fite: Well, my mom—my grandmother’s husband is a Daniel. So he was following the Daniels family here. Franklin: Relatives of—Vanis is a relative— Fite: He’s Vanis’ great-uncle. Franklin: Oh, wow, okay. Fite: Yeah. Franklin: So it was kind of this extended family migration. Fite: Right. One came, says—I think it was William Daniels came and said, there’s work here. I’m assuming that’s what they did; I’m not sure. Because this is all oral history, so it might be a little fuzzy. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Sure, as it is, yeah. Fite: Yeah, so my grandmother and her family was here, because it would’ve been my grandmother, her husband and their three children. And then my mom and dad and our family moved. But like I said, my mom didn’t like it here. Franklin: Oh. Fite: [LAUGHTER] So, they moved back to Texas. And then after she had my youngest brother, there was no one there to help her with her kids. So she came back so her mom could help her with us. Franklin: And it was your grandmother that was married to one of the Daniels. Fite: Mm-hm, yeah. Franklin: Okay. What was it about the area that your mom—did she ever tell you why she left and--? Fite: Yeah, there was nothing here. [LAUGHTER] Weeds blowing, tumbleweeds, you know. Texas, at least there was trees. But there was nothing here in the Tri-Cities. Just dirt. She didn’t like it. And she wasn’t the only one that didn’t like it; there was a lot of people as I worked through Hanford, they said their wives came and the dust was blowing, they called it the termination winds? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Fite: And they were out of here, you know? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: What do you know about your parents’ lives before they came to work at Hanford? Fite: They were farmers. And Dad also worked in the forest and drove trucks for the forest. So, Mom was a housewife. She didn’t work. She was busy raising children. Franklin: Mm-hm. How many siblings do you have? Fite: Four. There’s four of us. I’m the eldest of the four. Franklin: Eldest of the four, great. You kind of talked about your mom’s initial experience of coming to Hanford. What about your father, did he ever talk about what his initial experiences were like? Fite: He never really did talk about it, because with him working, you know, he was out to support his family. Franklin: Yeah. Where did he work? Fite: When I was growing up, he pretty much worked on all the dams on the Snake River. Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Bonneville, John Day. Franklin: Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s— Fite: Then he worked one in Wenatchee. Then from there—he was working at Ice Harbor, and he went to work for JA Jones. So he stayed there until he retired. Franklin: Was that when JA Jones had the Hanford contract to do most— Fite: Mm-hmm. Franklin: And what did your father do at all these dams? Fite: He was a carpenter. And when he retired from JA Jones, he was a general foreman for the carpenters’. Franklin: Did your father talk about the work crews that he was on? Do you know if they were segregated or--? Fite: They were all integrated. Franklin: Oh, okay. Great. Let’s see here, da, da, da. Tch, tch, tch. Sorry. I’m trying to formulate my questions for this situation. Oh! Where was the first place that your parents stayed in when they—or that you remember staying in, your family living in when your family arrived? Fite: In east Pasco. Franklin: And what kind of housing was it? Fite: The first home, Mom said they lived in a tiny little trailer, like a little travel trailer. Franklin: Okay. Fite: And then we moved to, in 1950, I think when we moved back, there was a little home there across the street from Morning Star Baptist Church. We lived in there in like a little fourplex. And from there we moved to Parkside Homes. My sister was born in 1953 when we were living in Parkside. Which now you can see the little area over there, they call it the Navy Homes Park over on 4th Street? And then Dad built our home over on Owens in east Pasco, and then that’s where we grew up. Franklin: Do you remember, like, the kind of quality or the construction of the homes? Was it similar to other homes in Pasco, or was it--? I’ve heard that—and our research found that some homes in Pasco didn’t have running water at the time. Fite: Oh, we had all the utilities. Franklin: Okay, okay. Fite: Yeah, so we were fine. Franklin: Okay, good, well, that’s good. Fite: Just dirt road. Franklin: Right. The roads in east Pasco were unpaved at that time. Fite: Right, mm-hmm. Franklin: How would you describe life in the community? What did you do in your spare time? Fite: As a kid, we just played a lot. But as I grew up and I would find part-time jobs babysitting and whatever. So yeah. But my spare time was just reading. I loved to read, so I didn’t do a whole lot of nothing. Franklin: Oh, that’s good. Do you remember any particular community events that stand out to you? Fite: Going to church every Sunday. Franklin: Church every Sunday. Yeah, which church did you attend? Fite: Morning Star Baptist. Franklin: Morning Star. And what role did the church play in the community? Fite: It was our center of everything. Your activities, if you needed information, friends, whatever, the church was center. Our thing at home was if you wanted to go out on Saturday night, you make sure you go, because you’re going to go to church on Sunday. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Always church on Sunday, right? Fite: It was always church on Sunday. Mom wouldn’t allow us to do anything on Sunday if we hadn’t—if we wanted to go do anything, we had to make sure we went to church on Sunday. Franklin: Sounds just like my mom. Fite: Yeah. Franklin: The community of east Pasco was largely, if not completely, African American, right? Fite: Pretty much. At first it wasn’t. It was segregated, because as the blacks moved in, the whites moved out. But where we were living was on Owens. So on Beech there was white families and on Douglas behind us there was white families, and then all over on—north of Lewis was all white until 1971 when they came in with the Urban Renewals. And then as they were removing the blacks out of their homes, they moved over to the north side on Lewis—yeah, Lewis. All the white families moved out. Franklin: Mm. Familiar theme. Were there many families with children or extended families such as grandparents? Fite: All of us had grandparents. Franklin: Oh, okay. Fite: I had one grandmother here with nine grandchildren. All of my mom’s siblings and all of their kids. So it was extended families. If it wasn’t, it was aunt and uncle or something that was there. Franklin: Right, right. Do you recall any family or community events or traditions, including food, that people brought from the places they came from? Fite: I don’t know more than just our families, but it wasn’t anything different than Mom cooked all the time. She was an excellent cook. Franklin: What kind of food did she—did she cook like Southern food, soul food type food? Fite: I don’t think so. Franklin: Oh. Fite: If she did, I didn’t eat it. [LAUGHTER] I don’t remember. She cooked a lot of things different. Franklin: What about, I know Juneteenth is a very important— Fite: That just started recently in the last 30 years I guess. That wasn’t something we did when I was growing up. Franklin: Oh, okay. What about—was Kurtzman Park around when you were growing up? Fite: It developed when I was growing up. Before then, it was just an empty field. Franklin: Right. What was the—did you—what was Kurtzman Park to the community, or what is it? Fite: It was just a park. It wasn’t anything that we did special in the park. I don’t even know where the name Kurtzman came from. When I was growing up, it was just an empty—just another field. Franklin: Mm-hm. Do you remember when the park was put in? Fite: It had to have been in middle school. Franklin: Did you play in the park at all after it had been--? No, nothing too special. Fite: I didn’t, but my brothers and sisters did. Franklin: Oh, your younger brothers and sisters? Yeah. Excuse me. Were there opportunities available here that were not available where your parents came from? Fite: I would say so. That just the fact that they was able to work wherever they was working at was fine. Like my mom, she worked in most of the restaurants. But for us, the one thing I remember is that we could not go into the restaurant and sit down and eat. We could go to the fast food places and take our food, but we couldn’t go into the restaurants. Franklin: And this was here, in Pasco? In all the Tri-Cities? Fite: Mm-hmm. Franklin: I imagine not in any of the restaurants in east Pasco. Fite: Well, they didn’t have any restaurants in east Pasco. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Fair enough. Fite: I mean, there was two, but there wasn’t enough room there to sit down and have a family meal. Franklin: Right. And so you weren’t—do you remember any restaurants or experiences like that in particular? Fite: Well, I went to apply for a job at Louberry’s [?] there on 4th and Lewis? Franklin: Mm-hmm? Fite: And the one question the guy asked me was, if a customer spanked me, what would I do? And I said, I would slap him. And he said, well, then you wouldn’t be able to work here. [LAUGHTER] So—I mean, I was being honest with him, because I had never experienced someone to do that to me. Franklin: Right, like, spank you on the behind? Fite: Mm-hmm, yeah. He was flirting, you know. So my answer to him was, if you’re hitting me, I’m hitting back. Franklin: Well, that’s good for you. I mean, one person’s flirting is another person’s harassment. Wow. So you were—was that something that your parents had told you, like, we just don’t go, we just don’t sit down in these restaurants because we can’t? Or how’d you know that? Do you know what I mean? Fite: Well, there was a restaurant there on Lewis and Wehe? I think that’s where it is now, called Wilky’s. So we would get out of school, we would go there, and all the white kids could go inside and get their food, but all of us African Americans, we had to stand in the window and get ours. So there was nothing that you was told that you couldn’t go in, but it was just, that was the way it worked. Franklin: Would they just not serve you if you went inside? Fite: I have no idea. I never did go in. Franklin: That was just like the way it was? Fite: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Wow. In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation or racism? Fite: I would say pretty much everything was limited as to what you could or could not do. But it wasn’t outwardly spoken; it was more covert. It was just like you couldn’t do this. For instance, there was the Eastside Market that was on the east side. There was no black or any other ethnic groups that was cashiers until later, after ’60-so. Then they finally hired people. But before then, there was no opportunity for working there in the stores. Franklin: Right, so blacks were excluded from employment, even on the east side of town, by white-owned businesses. Could you describe any interactions that you or your parents had with people from other parts of the Tri-Cities area that stand out to you? Fite: Such as? Franklin: Oh, positive or negative interactions? Maybe with people in Kennewick or Richland? Fite: Well, Kennewick, no one had any interaction in Kennewick. You could go there and shop, but you couldn’t live in Kennewick. And Richland, the only way you lived in Richland, you had to be working for the Hanford Site. So, Mom and Dad had friends that lived in Richland that worked at Hanford, so they would go and visit with them, but other than that, I don’t know. And if they—I didn’t really travel much with them, when they went out to visit with their friends. I was pretty much a homebody. Franklin: Makes sense. Well, you’re young, right, too. And probably when they went out you had to look over your brothers and sisters, being the oldest? Fite: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Yeah. Where did you go to school? Fite: All Pasco. Franklin: Which schools? Fite: Pretty much went to all of the grade schools in Pasco. At the time, middle school was McLoughlin Junior High, and then I graduated from Pasco High and then I attended CBC, got my AA. Franklin: Did segregation or racism affect your education throughout your schooling? Fite: It didn’t affect me for the fact that I got an integrated education. But it affected me because the teachers didn’t encourage us to think about going to college, the advisers didn’t talk about extending to college. But when I got graduated from high school, I had skills to be able to get a job as office worker, so it really didn’t affect me in that sense. But the fact that we couldn’t participate in school activities was sort of sad. Franklin: What do you mean? Fite: Well, the girls couldn’t be cheerleaders. Boys could play sports, but the girls pretty much was limited from being on cheer squad, but we couldn’t be cheerleaders. So it was sort of disappointing in that. Franklin: Yeah. Is that another one of those kind of unwritten rules that you just— Fite: Unwritten, but then they would tell you, no, you can’t participate. Franklin: Oh, wow. Fite: It’s sort of sad. Franklin: That’s really sad. And it was just kind of another unspoken or I guess spoken thing where blacks were encouraged probably to go more into trades and not encouraged for college prep. Fite: That is correct. Franklin: And what made you want to—what made you go to CBC, what made you decide to go to college? Fite: Because that was always my goal. I wanted to go to college. Franklin: That’s great. Who were some of the people that influenced you as a child when you were getting educated in elementary, middle and high school? Fite: No one. Franklin: No one?! Fite: I didn’t have any role models, you know. So it was sort of sad. Franklin: Do you know, what education level did your parents attain? Fite: They pretty much got through starting high school, but didn’t graduate. Franklin: Was education for you important to them? Was that something that— Fite: It was. Franklin: --they had stressed to you? Fite: Mm-hm. Very much so. Franklin: Do you think that was a benefit of being here, versus maybe being back in Texas, or--? Fite: I don’t think it would’ve mattered where we would’ve been raised; I think that was something they wanted us to do, was to get our education. Franklin: And then after you got your AA, where did you—I assume you probably went to work. Fite: I was already working. Franklin: You were? And where were you working? Fite: Hanford. Franklin: Hanford, okay, great. So tell me, what sort of work did you do? Fite: I was a clerk, and for years I always was a secretary for Hanford. So I started in—actually, my anniversary date was yesterday, 4/4 of ’67, I went to work at Hanford. I started out as a temporary file clerk, but I passed my typing test eventually and they pushed me up from file clerk to a expediter clerk, worked for two expediters. And then from there, I moved up—at that time, you didn’t have to apply for the job; if one came up, they just pushed you to that next level. So I went from the clerk to the secretary in employment. And in employment they put me in secretary in the Hanford Project News office, and I worked there for four years. Franklin: Oh, okay. Fite: And then that company was ITT. It didn’t renew its contract. So then I went to work for ARCO in 271-T in the 2-West area. Franklin: Oh, wow. Fite: And I worked there for about three years, because when my youngest son started kindergarten, I talked to my manager that I needed to come into town because I didn’t have a babysitter for them while he was in school. So I needed to be in town, because I was a single parent by this time now; I had gotten a divorce. I came back downtown and then I’m thinking, hmm, I’m taking all these classes in accounting. I need to be a clerk; I don’t need to be a secretary any longer. So I talked to my manager and so I was secretary of accounting. So he says, well, there’s an entry level in payroll; do you want to take that job? I said, well, I need the experience. I’ve got the years, but I don’t have the experience as a clerk. So I took that, and from there I just stayed in clerical. I went form payroll to insurance and I ended up being the pension clerk for Hanford. I did all the pension estimates for all of the companies except Battelle management. But all the unions and non-exempt for Hanford. Franklin: Wow, math—you must be really good with math. Fite: Not really, but— Franklin: Oh! [LAUGHTER] Fite: That’s what I was telling her, I did okay here at WSU until I had to take pre-calc. [LAUGHTER] That was the end of that class. I went, oh, no. But I love math, you know, but, yeah. Franklin: It sounds like you received a lot of support for kind of getting moved up or trying to find a position that matched your interests. Sounds like you at least at times had supportive managers? Fite: I don’t know. It was just interesting how I’d be moved one place to the next. Hired in and then it just worked out really nice. But for a while there, I was the only black secretary that they had at Hanford for the company I was working for. That was interesting. And then, most of the positions I was in, I was the only African American in that position in those offices. Franklin: And did you spend most of your time in the downtown, the 700 Area of Hanford, or were you kind of all around the Site? Fite: It was kind of all around, because where I end up was at the Stevens Center. Franklin: Okay. Fite: So you just move where the companies found the position for us to be stationed and whatever. Franklin: When did you retire from Hanford? Fite: 2006. Franklin: Oh, wow. So you were there for 39 years. Fite: Yeah. Franklin: Wow. That’s impressive. Man, they just don’t make careers like that anymore. Fite: Well, I didn’t go to work to stay there that long. I only was going to stay long enough to work until we paid the hospital bill off from my second son being born. But it ended up, I had a career, so when my divorce came, I just kept working. Franklin: Wow. And you were able to support your family on that. That’s really something. Did you acquire any skills or experience on the job that helped you later in life? Fite: Not really. Franklin: Okay. Fite: I— Franklin: Oh, sorry. Fite: I started volunteering after my youngest son graduated from high school doing income tax returns for the AARP. Franklin: Oh, great. Fite: And I did that until 2000—I think 2000. And then I stopped doing that. My granddaughter graduated from high school and I thought, oh, I started doing that when my grandson graduated from high school and I quit when my granddaughter— [LAUGHTER] Fite: --graduated. Franklin: Wow. I love that program. I had them do my taxes this year. Fite: That was rewarding. Franklin: That’s good. Yeah, it’s a really wonderful program. Fite: Mm-hmm. Franklin: It’s a really nice thing to do. Could you describe a typical work day out on Site? Fite: Ah, it was just a lot of work. Because we started out, it was five eights and then I ended up, it was four tens. But I just stayed busy, you know. There’s a lot of stuff you just have to get done. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors or management? Fite: I got along fine with them. There was a lot of politics in your job, but I didn’t get caught up in that. Franklin: How were you treated on the job? Fite: Fine. I mean, if they didn’t like me, I didn’t know it. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Was it ever difficult to often be the only African American in your group or in the— Fite: It didn’t happen until I went to work for Westinghouse, and I worked for [UNKNOWN] and he just had a different management style. I just had to talk to him about, you know, pretty much embarrassing me in front of people. And he pretty much stopped after I talked to him. Franklin: Oh, wow. Very direct, huh? Fite: Hmm? Franklin: You’re very direct. Fite: Yeah. I don’t have time for politics. [LAUGHTER] You know? You want me to work for you, work with me. I don’t come in and—I don’t drink coffee, I didn’t smoke. So I figured if I was giving him eight hours a day for my—I think I should’ve been respected for my—if I did his work, he should respect me in that what I was doing. So if I needed a raise, I went in and said, it’s time for me to get a raise. And I pretty much got them. Franklin: Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you if that worked, but sounds like it did. What kinds of interactions did you have with coworkers and supervisors outside of work? Fite: None. Franklin: None? Fite: Mm-mm. Franklin: Were you based always in Pasco in this time? Fite: No, I lived in Richland. Franklin: Oh, you lived in Richland at this time? Fite: Yeah, I moved to Richland in ’67. And so I pretty much was not in Pasco after that. So I was pretty much in Richland. But raising two boys, that kept me busy, so I didn’t have a lot of interaction with anybody with work. Franklin: Where did you primarily live at in Richland? Fite: On Rossell. I bought a home in Richland. So, before then I rented a couple of little houses. They were always the little prefabs or the precuts. And the home I bought was a precut. Franklin: Oh, okay. Fite: And I sold it in 2015 and moved to Pasco. Franklin: Oh, okay, made the trip back. What made you want to move back to Pasco? Fite: I didn’t want to own a home. So I’m looking at—after my parents passed away, and I’m going, oh, that was a lot of work to take care of their property. So I thought about, hmm, I’m going to retire now. I don’t have anyone home but me. Why am I sitting here doing yardwork? So I sold my home. Now I rent a duplex in Pasco. Franklin: Oh, okay. Cool. Fite: It’s really nice. Franklin: Yeah, I bet. It’s nice not to have to deal with all that. Fite: Mm-mm. And the kids won’t have to deal with it either. Franklin: That’s really—that’s a lot of forethought, I think. If your kids don’t appreciate that, they should. Fite: Yeah, they do. Franklin: Good. Could you describe the working conditions that you worked in? You worked primarily in an office. Fite: Mm-hmm. They were really nice, yeah. They had the best of whatever they had coming out. Franklin: What were the most difficult aspects of the job? Fite: I don’t think there was any, for me. Franklin: How did your racial background figure into your work experiences? Fite: None, because I treated my coworkers just like we did my classmates. You know, talked to them, whatever. If we had a disagreement about something, I tried to work that out. But I didn’t—I never had where I had to have management come and talk to me about something I’ve done that they didn’t like. Franklin: In what ways did the security or secrecy at Hanford impact your work or daily life? Fite: It didn’t impact it, but it was sort of funny, because when I was working for the Hanford Project News office, we would handle the Hanford Science Center. So they sent me down one day to take one of the displays down and to revise it. Well, the next morning, I got called in. They says, you need to get your Q clearance. As long as the thing was on the wall, it was fine, but the minute we took it down to redo it, then it became Top Secret. So I got my Q clearance after that. So that was the fun part. But I’m going, oh, that was hilarious. But since I didn’t go down there and do it on my own, I was instructed to do that, there was no problem with it. But yeah that was interesting. Franklin: But you needed to get a Top Secret clearance in order to handle the thing that previously had been on the wall. Fite: Mm-hmm, yeah. Franklin: That sounds like Hanford. Fite: [LAUGHTER] It was interesting, you know. And then eventually we didn’t need clearances any longer. Franklin: That is a really good story of the security and secrecy. Fite: Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. Franklin: How did you feel at the time about working for a site, for a large organization that was involved in the development of nuclear weapons? Fite: It was fine, because I never did really get involved with any of that. I mean, one of my jobs I had to do as a secretary was keep track of all the precious metals that they use out there at Hanford. And so that was interesting. But other than that, I really didn’t ever get too involved with what they were doing with the Site. Franklin: What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Fite: That they would ever get it cleaned up. [LAUGHTER] Which is never going to happen. Franklin: I really like that answer. Fite: You know, if you think about it, everything has got to be a half-life, so they’ll be out there forever doing that. Franklin: Yeah. Yes, they will. Especially if the—well, I won’t go there. What did you know or learn about the prior history of African American workers at Hanford in the Manhattan Project? Did you learn about— Fite: Nope. Franklin: No? Have you learned about them since you started work there, have you looked into that history at all, what the Manhattan workers did, the building of Hanford? Fite: No, no, I haven’t. Franklin: Okay. So moving on to kind of like civil rights activities, what were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here? Fite: It didn’t happen until ’67, I think it was. They started having some of the different problems, you know, nationwide that came here, but I didn’t get involved in any of that. I could see what’s going on, and you could see some of the differences where you could go in the stores and see different people that had been hired so you see that that did bring some change here. We could live where we wanted after a while. So it was a different thing. But that was nationwide; it wasn’t just in the Tri-Cities. Franklin: Sure, sure. So you would’ve graduated in— Fite: ’64. Franklin: ’64, and was that from Pasco High? Fite: Mm-hmm! Franklin: Were there any episodes of like racial strife or conflict there, or was that after your--? Fite: That was afterwards, if there was any there, yeah. I mean, our biggest thing was having the different schools competing for the homecoming and stuff like that. But that didn’t have anything to do with race; that was just school competitions. Franklin: But there was always, though, that kind of unspoken thing, like maybe you wouldn’t have felt totally comfortable in restaurants in other cities or—you know, because you had talked a little bit about some of that unspoken segregation that was existing at that time. But that didn’t affect the education in any--? Fite: No, because school was integrated, so we didn’t get involved in any of that. I mean, it was just the fact that, like I said, there was things we couldn’t do in school, but that didn’t have anything to do with how we sit in the classroom or anything like that, or ride the bus. It was always, find a seat and sit down. Franklin: Yeah. What kinds of actions were being taken to address civil rights issues in the Tri-Cities? Fite: None that I knew of. I wasn’t participating in any of that. Franklin: Oh, okay. Had you heard about the Hazel Scott case in 1950? Where she was refused service—okay. How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights efforts at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Fite: Nothing that I know of. I mean, I don’t think it ever really made an impact on what we were doing as far as work was concerned. Franklin: Did you see, over your time at Hanford, did you see a change in the type of positions that African Americans were being hired into, or did you start to see greater representation of African Americans or minorities in general at Hanford? Fite: I just worked in that one section of payroll, so I didn’t really see a lot of stuff going on in the larger scale of Hanford. Franklin: What about in your section? Fite: No. I didn’t see any difference there, because there was black managers and the individual employees that had their degrees so they had their jobs. So I was non-degreed, so I wasn’t involved in management at that point. Franklin: Did you eventually—you mentioned you went here for a time, did you end up finishing your degree? Fite: I didn’t. Franklin: Oh, okay. You just took— Fite: I got to pre-calc and that was the end of that. [LAUGHTER] I got most of my basic classes taken care of, so I didn’t ever go off into my electives, because of the calc to do that. I was going for my finance degree. Franklin: Ah, I see. What did you—so you said you quit Hanford in 2006. What did you do afterwards? Fite: Retired! Franklin: Retired, just— Fite: [LAUGHTER] That’s what you do. You just go and do other things, yeah. I didn’t go back to work. Franklin: Right, just kind of keeping busy. Did you travel that much—did you travel much outside the Tri-Cities. Fite: I did. Franklin: Yeah? Fite: Well, yes, my sons and I—because we didn’t have a lot of money, we did an awful lot of day trips. And then whenever I could, I would go take them to Disneyland and different things like that. And then I would allow to go to classes in different places by themselves so their mom didn’t have to be there with them. Franklin: How were your experiences in other places different from the Tri-Cities? Fite: No. Franklin: Okay. Fite: I never run into where I was not allowed service at all. Franklin: Sure. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and/or living in Richland during the Cold War? Fite: Nothing. Franklin: Nothing? [LAUGHTER] Fite: I can’t think of anything I think I’d want to pass on to someone about it. Franklin: Okay. Did you ever feel—just kind of knowing what was being made out there, and maybe about the waste—did you ever feel anxious or scared or nervous about Hanford, you know, about the—all the stuff that was going—all the secrecy and all of that? Fite: Uh-unh, because it wasn’t like that was something that was just talked about. I mean, things that now I worry about, it’s like they’re saying downwinders. They released different things out in the atmosphere and then let us know about it. So now we’re having health issues and we’re saying, okay, how do we get treated for these or that part of some of this stuff that they did back then. Because they didn’t consider the population. Franklin: Hmm. Is there anything else that you would like to mention related to migration, segregation and civil rights and how they impacted your life at Hanford and the Tri-Cities? Fite: Nothing that I know of impacted me at all. Larson: Did you have any, as a single mom, in raising your boys in Richland, did you ever have any concerns or issues with their schooling? Fite: No. Larson: No? Fite: No, they were just happy little boys that got along with everybody. School was good for them, you know, they went through all the schools in Richland. So they just had a really good education and they was able to do whatever they wanted to do in school. There was nothing they came home and said, Mom, they won’t let me do this. They didn’t receive some of the same thing that I experienced. Franklin: They didn’t receive some of the things that you experienced? Fite: Mm-mm. Franklin: Was the situation in the kind of unspoken segregation that you had grown up in, was that different? When you moved to Richland, was it different in Richland? Did you still experience that kind of thing? Fite: We still experienced it, because when I moved into my home, the black cat—stray—and the neighbor guy brought it over and threw it in my yard. And I thought, that isn’t my cat. Why did you do that? And then they would have the welcome neighbors. I never received that. So it was unspoken there, too, when I first moved there. But by the time I left, they were all really nice neighbors. Because I didn’t let that bother me. I said, okay, you don’t want to be a neighbor with me, fine. [LAUGHTER] Fite: But I didn’t create any problems with the neighbors, and so then they didn’t have a problem with me. But they all looked out after my boys after I knew about it. They said, yeah—because they were latchkey kids. So they watched out for them for me. Franklin: Oh, that’s sweet. Well, Mae, unless you have anything else you want to say? Thank you for the interview. Fite: Well, thank you for inviting me. Franklin: Okay. Awesome. All right. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview JA Jones Construction Hanford Project News ITT ARCO 271-T Building 200-West Area Westinghouse Hanford Science Center Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1950- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1967-2006 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Mae Fite Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Migration Bonneville Dam (Or. And Wash.) Snake River (Wyo.-Wash.) Segregation School integration Civil rights Description An account of the resource Mae Fite moved to Pasco, Washington in 1950 and worked on the Hanford Site from 1967-2009. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/05/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4413dba878d935c364e3373f38c08769.JPG d256ea67536b42ca9342d8c9df1ca46f https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F34b536e092c0e476f22d3547ad32e8ae.mp4 f67062fd73e25d245349df92c33957cb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Vanis and Edmon Daniels Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Vanis and Edmon Daniels on May 7th, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the Campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking to Edmon and Vanis about their experiences living in the Tri-Cities and/or working at the Hanford Site. And for the record could you state and spell your full name for us starting with Edmon. Edmon Daniels: Edmon Leo Daniels. E-D-M-O-N, L-E-O, D-A-N-I-E-L-S Vanis Daniels: Vanis Daniels. V-A-N-I-S, D-A-N-I-E-L-S, number two. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Where did your parents move from? Edmon Daniels: My parents were originally from Texas but when he came here he was working in Utah. Franklin: Your father, Vanis, Sr.? Edmon Daniels: My father, yes. He came here from Utah. Franklin: Where in Texas were your parents from? Edmon Daniels: Cass County, which is a little place. Kildare, I guess it is. I guess that’s where—Kildare, Texas. Franklin: How long had the family been there? Edmon Daniels: Forever, I guess. [LAUGHTER] I don’t know. It goes back a ways, quite a ways. Because my mother’s family, her father was Indian, so I guess they had been there before anyone else was there. [LAUGHTER] Her father, I really don’t know a thing about her father. I don’t know anything about either one of them, but, you know. I guess they had been there forever, probably their parents and their parents, that’s how it works. Franklin: What was your father doing in Utah before he came out? Edmon Daniels: You know, I really don’t know. Vanis Daniels: He worked in a defense plant, but what they were doing, I really don’t know. Franklin: What did he do in Kildare before leaving Kildare? Vanis Daniels: He worked on the railroad. Mm-hmm. Southern Pacific. Edmon Daniels: Southern Pacific. Franklin: Great, that’s those questions. Did your mother also come with him at the same time? Edmon Daniels: No, she came the next year, ‘44 I think it was. Franklin: When did he come to Hanford? Vanis Daniels: ’43. Edmon Daniels: ‘43. Franklin: ’43, and then she followed a year later? Vanis Daniels: Yes. Edmon Daniels: Yes. Franklin: What do you know about their lives before they came to work at Hanford? Edmon Daniels: I really don’t know. It was just probably she worked at home. Vanis Daniels: It was during the Depression and my dad had a job. No one else hardly had jobs. I mean, there just wasn’t anything for anyone to do. They did a little farming and stuff like that around here. My dad grew up on a farm, and he said once he left there he never worked in a farm again. So he went to work on the railroad. Since he had a job, and other people in the community didn’t, he helped raise his sisters—well, he had two sisters—both of his sisters’ kids, because the oldest one had eight kids, her and her husband and he got killed on the railroad by a train. Franklin: Who was that? Vanis Daniels: CJ Mitchell. The younger sister had a daughter, and my dad helped raise all those kids, And then my mom’s brother did farming and stuff like that, and he would help subsidize them when they needed money, loan them money or whatever they needed. He was making probably at that time, probably a whole two dollars a day form daylight to dark or sunup to sundown. Edmon Daniels: Big money. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Your father’s sister married a Mitchell? Vanis Daniels: Yes. Franklin: And you said the younger sister—I’m sorry. So, I’m just trying to figure out families here, what was your mother’s maiden name? Vanis Daniels: Ida Lee Cole. Franklin: Cole, okay. I know there were several families that came up here from Kildare, right? Vanis Daniels: Right. Franklin: You’re related to the Mitchells and what other families here are you related to? Vanis Daniels: The Miles, the Richmonds-- Edmon Daniels: The Browns. Vanis Daniels: The Browns, the Weavers. Edmon Daniels: The Wallaces. Franklin: That’s very extensive family network that moved up. Vanis Daniels: Yes. Edmon Daniels: Yes. Franklin: For both of you, I’ll start with Edmon, when were you born? Edmon Daniels: I never tell my age. Franklin: Okay, are you older or younger than Vanis? Edmon Daniels: I’m much younger than he is. Franklin: Much younger. Vanis when were you born? Vanis Daniels: 12th of June, ’37. Franklin: Okay, okay. Thanks. What do you know about your parents—I guess we’ll start with your father since he came first. What do you know about his initial experience of coming to work at Hanford and finding a place to live? Edmon Daniels: Well, at that time when people was coming to Hanford, they all lived out in the barracks. And what my father said, when he came, the barracks were being built but they wasn’t completed. He said his first night out at Hanford, they slept on the ground. I guess they had a tent, I don’t know. But they built those barracks quickly, I think within a year or so. They had—well enough to—50,000 people. Their living condition, that’s where you lived if you was working out there and everything was segregated by race-- Vanis Daniels: Gender. Edmon Daniels: Yeah, gender and the whole works. My father lived over here, my mother lived over there; male and female they didn’t stay together. Franklin: Even though they were married? Edmon Daniels: Even though they were married. Safety’s sake. Because they was working 24 hours a day, so someone was working, you wouldn’t want to leave your wife in barracks full of other mens and everything, and you go to work and she was there. So, everything was segregated and the barracks was made up of—and at that time, they couldn’t tell everything, but they had barracks on everything. People don’t realize this, my mother said there were barracks for homosexuals. The homosexuals had their own barracks. And this is something they told us after we became adults. Most of the ladies’ jobs was to clean up the barracks and cooking. Vanis Daniels: Working in the mess hall. Edmon Daniels: Yeah, working in the mess hall. Franklin: Is that what your mother did? Edmon Daniels: Yes, that’s just about what all the ladies did. They needed some typing done, but like I said, most people at that time was—very few people could type. So they went out to Benton City or someplace to the high school. And I ended—when I started working out there, that lady—they got a couple of ladies that knew how to type from the schools and the Army would go and get them at the school and take them out to the Hanford Site and they were type up whatever was needed and then they’d take them back home. When I started working out there Dolores was still working there, she had the most time—I think she started working out there ‘45 or something like that, she had more time in than anyone. Vanis Daniels: Except Charlie Gant. Edmon Daniels: Yeah, Charlie Gant. Well, he started back East in ’39. But as far as the ladies who was working there at that time, she had more time than anyone else. Like I said, I think she said she was like 16 when she started working there. Franklin: Wow. When did you start working at Hanford? Edmon Daniels: ’66. Franklin: ’66. So your father and mother lived in separate barracks. How did they make time for each other? Did their schedules match up? What do you know about their personal lives during that period? Edmon Daniels: Well, it was sort of like a courtship all of a sudden, because they had a place where the husbands could go and visit their wives or if they had girlfriends, whatever it was. But at a certain hour, you had to get up and leave. But since they could not get a room in Pasco, Kennewick or Richland they would go to-- Vanis Daniels: Yakima. Edmon Daniels: Yakima. They’d catch the bus and go to Yakima. It’s so odd the way people’s mind worked, but an Oriental guy in Yakima let the blacks have rooms. They was out there building something to drop over there, yet the Oriental guy was the one that treated them like they were people instead of just someone. There’s good in people and there’s bad in people. [LAUGHTER] That’s how they would spend time together. They would be able to, I know, like he said, he’d go and visit her sort of like in a waiting room. And then, I don’t know if any of you guys have been out past 300 on out to the ferry—they used to have a ferry out there. My father said that they could get together and go catch the ferry across, over to the Franklin side and picnic, fix up a lunch and they’d have a picnic over there. It was sort of like courting all over again, I guess. [LAUGHTER] Only he didn’t have to worry about appearances, it was just the way things were. Franklin: Just had to worry about making sure he wasn’t in the women’s barracks after closing. Edmon Daniels: Right. The deal of it was that the ladies would go in to clean up the barracks. Like I said, they said, people was working 24 hours a day. So my mother says one time the ladies went to clean up the barracks and some of the guys who probably—if they were working, let’s say, the graveyard, they were sleeping. And a couple of ladies got attacked. So after that, the army would go in and get all the guys out and the ladies would go in and clean, clean up the barracks. It was just a different way of life back then, because—you’ve got to remember, it was the ‘40s, and like my mother said, they ate three meal a day. Like I said, it was the ‘40s, and three meals a day to some people were rare and you ate as much as you want. I know, I remember reading someplace about how much ice cream they went through every day, but she said that some people would eat, eat, eat and put food— Vanis Daniels: Hide food. Edmon Daniels: Because they weren’t accustomed to eating like that. I mean, that was a different time. Franklin: Because they’d come out of the Depression and food may had been scarce. Edmon Daniels: You could just imagine that all of a sudden you got three meals a day, a place to sleep, and you’re working and you’re making more money than you ever made, and its costing very little and you can eat as much as you want. I forget how—it wasn’t very much that they-- Vanis Daniels: It was like $1.30 a week or something like that they paid, and that was for room and board. Franklin: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about like the wages. Do you know what your father was making back in Texas and how that compared to what he made at Hanford? Edmon Daniels: Well, they say that they was making a dollar and hour. Which was a lots of money and they was working like ten or twelve hours a day, five-and-a-half days a week sometimes. So that was a lots of money. Like I always tell him, I had a cousin, he passed a year before last I think; and I was talking to him a couple of years ago, and he said that he was making five dollars a week when he went in the service in ‘43. My mother was making fifty cent an hour. She was making almost as much in one day as he was making for a week. When you look at that, that’s just like, okay, like right now, you make $3,000 a week. I come along and I’m making ten times as that much. [LAUGHTER] And you’re working harder, and I’m not working that hard. Because my father said that they went to work and he said they was getting breaks and everything-- Vanis Daniels: Never heard of it before. Edmon Daniels: All of a sudden, wait, we can quit working, sit and talk for ten minutes or five minutes or whatever their breaks time was. It was just different out there, and, like I said, the money was great and you didn’t have to do that much with it. Franklin: Yeah. What did your father do at Hanford? Edmon Daniels: They was construction. They were just about probably 90% of the people out there, like I said, it was building. Franklin: Do you know what specifically he worked on building? Edmon Daniels: Well, they say that him and few other guys—they just loaded some guys up in the truck and took them out and they poured the first concrete for—was that N? D or whatever. Vanis Daniels: No, for B. Edmon Daniels: That’s what most of the men said, they worked construction. Building things, building all those things that they’re tearing down now. Franklin: Yeah. DuPont mostly recruited through the South, whites and blacks. And you talked a bit about segregation. Did your father ever share any experiences or stories with either of you of racism and segregation from whites during work or out at the construction camp? Edmon Daniels: Well, it was segregated, just—you go in, and they tell you which way to go. You can’t go here; you go here. So that’s a form of segregation right there. I look back and I say, you know, you’re building something to defend the U.S. and yet, at that time, I just call it, tell the truth, people were so dumb, they didn’t even want everything to be level. Vanis Daniels: Equal. Edmon Daniels: There was a guy over there who didn’t care what color you were. If he wanted to drop the bomb, he wasn’t going to go, well, I’m going to drop the bomb on these, but those guys, they’re okay, or those, they’re okay. You think about it and you think, how did people get along with themselves? But that’s the way they was brought up; that’s the way it had been for years, and stupidity grows. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So there were no—well, actually, I’ll ask that question in a minute. Did your father or mother ever tell you what their first impressions were when they arrived here? Did they ever talk about that? Edmon Daniels: I remember my dad and my uncle talking about, when they first got here and they arrived in Pasco at the train station, and it was just completely different. Because they go out and they took them out to Hanford, and even the bus or whatever they went out there on, it was like, you go to the back, the others sit up font. There’s a story that I had a cousin who came here—him and my father came here from Utah—and the bus was full, so he sat down by the white guy in the white section and the guy told him to get the hell up out of there. He said he got up, pulled out his knife and sit on the guy’s lap and put it around his throat and he said, I’m riding and don’t you move or else I’ll cut your so-and-so and your throat. [LAUGHTER] It was something they was accustomed to, because that was their life, but you look at it now and say, god, that was so silly. It’s just something that you tell kids about now and they can’t imagine things like that going on. Franklin: Yeah, I understand that. So there was no children’s barracks, of course, so you guys—your parents didn’t bring you, right? You stayed in Texas. When did you come to the Tri-Cities? Vanis Daniels: ’51. Franklin: Both of you? Edmon Daniels: Yes. Franklin: How long did your parents stay at Hanford? Edmon Daniels: Boy, I really don’t know. Vanis Daniels: Let’s see. Edmon Daniels: I think they lived out here in the barracks. Vanis Daniels: Let’s see. I think Dad came back to Texas and I think he came back again in ‘47. I think it was ’47. Franklin: Where did you stay when your parents were out here? Vanis Daniels: His oldest sister, we stayed in our house, but his oldest sister and her kids moved in with us and she kept all of us while he and my mom and my older sister were here working. Franklin: Oh, your older sister came up here as well. What was her name? Vanis Daniels: Lily Mae. She was named after both of her grandparents. Franklin: Do you know, what did she do up here? Vanis Daniels: She worked in the-- Edmon Daniels: Same thing. Vanis Daniels: Barracks cleaning. Edmon Daniels: Cleaning and cooking. Franklin: Okay. What brought your parents back to the Tri-Cities in ‘51? Vanis Daniels: Work. Edmon Daniels: They were here before. Vanis Daniels: They were here already. Edmon Daniels: I think it was a way of—better living conditions and with—how many of us was it at that time, eight? Vanis Daniels: Well, seven of us because she had Marge with her, the baby. Edmon Daniels: It was a way that he could work and make more money and be able to do more things for his kids. Franklin: Eventually, in ’51, they were here and they moved you guys up here, they decided to move the family out of Texas? Vanis Daniels: Right. Franklin: Was your dad was still working at Hanford at that time? Vanis Daniels: Yes. Franklin: Okay. Was he still doing construction? Edmon Daniels: Yes. Franklin: How long did he work out at Hanford for? Vanis Daniels: He retired in ’64, I think it was. Edmon Daniels: No, it was before then, I mean, after then. Because when I started working out there he was still working for a few months. Vanis Daniels: He had retired, but he just went back and worked some. Edmon Daniels: I figured when you’re retired, you don’t go to work. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: You should tell that to a lot of the retired people I know. Edmon Daniels: Oh, yeah, now, I know, they retire and they bring them back to work. Vanis Daniels: You got to do something or else you not going to be here long. Franklin: Did he work construction the whole time? Vanis Daniels: Yes. Edmon Daniels: Yes. Franklin: What did he—did he kind of progress up through management or did his job change at all? Because I imagine that by ’64, he would’ve built up some seniority. Vanis Daniels: Well, the deal of it was, they worked for different contractors. They worked through the laborers’ union. And at times he was what they call the foreman of the job, he was the boss, and at other times, he was just a— Edmon Daniels: A regular worker. Vanis Daniels: A regular worker, common laborer. Franklin: Yeah. When you folks got here, what were your first impressions of Pasco and the Tri-Cities? Vanis Daniels: To get the hell away from here. [LAUGHTER] Where we were from was trees, there was greenery and everything. And you get here, and it’s the desert and all you see—I didn’t even know what a tumbleweed was. You learn real quick what they are! Edmon Daniels: Well, I really didn’t have an impression. Because, with both my parents being here, and me being the youngest, I didn’t—I don’t remember very much about Texas because I didn’t go any place; there was no one to take me. All my sisters who were older, being a little boy, they wasn’t going to take me any place. Because they might’ve been going to meet their little boyfriend or something and little boys will talk. So they wasn’t taking me with them. [LAUGHTER] So I don’t remember doing very much in Texas at all. Like I said, my parents was here. He remember a lot; I don’t remember anything, you know, about what all was going on. Because, like I said, I probably stayed home all the time and that was it. Franklin: Sure. So, really, when you got here, it was the first community you were part of or where you would have left the house a lot. Edmon Daniels: Yeah, well, like I said, we lived in this house here, my uncle lived here, my great-uncle lived next-door to us, my uncle lived—There wasn’t very many houses around anyway. Like he said, there was nothing but tumbleweeds and fields. Franklin: Where was the first place that you guys stayed at after you arrived? Vanis Daniels: We stayed a couple of weeks on Douglas. And a guy I never knew his name, we called him Radio—and he had started to build a house. He allowed people to put trailers on his property. That’s where my mom and dad was when we got here. My uncle had a house, my great-uncle had a house, and between the two trailers and the two houses, they were able to house us until my dad could find a place. And he found a house, Ms. Jensen, that was like a couple of blocks from Douglas there on Beech Street. She told him that he could buy her house. Well, he went to the bank to borrow some money to buy the house. And no bank in the Tri-Cities would loan him any money or anything. And he came back and he talked with Ms. Jensen. And she told him she say, you mean to tell me they won’t let you borrow money to buy a house? He says, no. She says, I’ll fix that. She went back to the bank and she opened an escrow account and she carried the mortgage herself. And that’s the way my dad was able to buy a house. Now, they would let you have money to buy an old raggedy car. You could buy all the old cars you wanted, but no money to buy a house. Pacific Finance, I never will forget that, was the only finance company that would loan money to blacks. And I don’t know what the interest rate they paid, but I know back then, the ceiling on interest in the State of Washington was 12%. I’m sure that all the blacks paid 12% on their loans from Pacific Finance. Franklin: Did the banks give your dad a reason why they wouldn’t lend to him? Vanis Daniels: The deal of it is, I don’t know what they told him, because I wasn’t there. But it was known that from 2nd Avenue, which was where the bus station was, east, they had what they called an imaginary red line and all the blacks had to live east of that line. And they just did not cater to you at all. Franklin: Right, because if you were in a redline district you could be denied an FHA loan-- Vanis Daniels: Right, any, personal loan or anything-- Franklin: Yes. That is a sad, sad part of American history. Edmon Daniels: Ugly part of American history. Franklin: It really is, it really is. Vanis Daniels: I just saw on the news this morning that they are getting the policemen in this country to go back to Washington D.C. and going through the black museum and learn something about what blacks have had to endure throughout the history of them being in this country. And maybe they will have a little more empathy. Franklin: Yeah. The house on Beech Street, did that become your permanent residence growing up? Vanis Daniels: Yes, mm-hmm. Franklin: What was the hardest aspect of life in this area to adjust to? Edmon Daniels: For me, there was no hard part, because, like I said, as a little kid—kids, they don’t worry about that that much. I mean, we just went and played and had fun. I never worried about, oh, that guy doesn’t look like me. That guy can throw a ball, we’re A-Okay. I didn’t worry about anything like that, and that’s the way it was. I went to Whittier Grade School and we would go visit everybody. If I went to one of the white kids’ house, his mother would fix us some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we would eat. And if they came to my house, my mother would fix peanut butter and jelly sandwich and we’d sit around. Kids, we don’t worry about that when we’re that age. All you’re worried about is having fun and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. [LAUGHTER] But you know, it’s just something that’s not part of your thinking. My thinking was, let’s have some fun. Not, worry about all that other stuff. That was that, though, so we had to worry about that. Vanis Daniels: Well, it was a little different for me. Franklin: Yeah, Vanis, what about you? You were a little—you were a teenager, right? Vanis Daniels: Thirteen. Franklin: You were thirteen? Vanis Daniels: Yes. Franklin: Yeah, what about for you? What was the hardest part? Vanis Daniels: The hardest part for me was the transition. And no one to help you sort of transition. Because in Texas, you went to all-black school; here everybody went to school together. When I go to Pasco High School—because I was a freshman—and you go to Pasco High School and the whole while I was in high school, the most blacks that was in the school at one time, I think, was like 13 or 14, in the whole school. To get thrown in with a bunch of white kids and they are prejudiced, too, a lot of them were, some of them wasn’t, but a lot of them were. And when they would get together, they would just be mean, like bullying. They would bully you. We, as the four or five black boys that were there at the school, we had to get together and shut them down. Because we’d get together and we’d say, okay, now you want to fight? Now it’s time. Let’s get it on. But as long as they could separate you and had you out there by yourself, and there’d be two or three of them, never one on one, then they would bully you and stuff. So it was kind of hard for me to transition. And even years and years later, I have actually talked white kids and white grownups that, if they walk in a place and there’s a lot of blacks, there the first thing they want to do, they say, we get scared we’re ready to get out of there. I say, well, what do you think about me? Everyplace I go, when I walk in the door, I’m the only black there. I say, do you see me running? No! [LAUGHTER] Even on my job—and I retired in 1999. I don’t think I worked but one job in all those years, other than construction, that it was more than one black on the job at any one time. I worked in inhalation toxicology for Battelle Northwest and there were three of us. But other than that… Franklin: Sorry, just writing. Just trying to write this down real quick. How big was the house on Beech that you guys ended up living in and then how big was your family? Vanis Daniels: It’s five bedrooms, kitchen, dining room and it was-- Edmon Daniels: One bath. Vanis Daniels: One bathroom and eight of us kids! [LAUGHTER] Well, no, I take that back. It was nine of us in that house. Nine kids in that house. Edmon Daniels: Was there? Vanis Daniels: Mm-hmm, because Daniel was here. Edmon Daniels: Yeah. And then most of the time, as I remember, that there was always some relatives who would come up and they would stay there. Because I can remember, we had a roll-away bed and we would bring it into the living room. I slept on the roll-away for quite a few years, because it seemed like it was always an adult cousin or somebody-- Vanis Daniels: Or somebody. Edmon Daniels: --living in the house with us. Because if they came up from Texas or wherever, if they didn’t have any place to live, they would come and live with us, the cousins. The house, it was always full of relatives. Because I can remember just lots of cousins who would come up and they would go to work. I never thought about it then because on payday they would give me a quarter. Hey, I had lots of money. [LAUGHTER] It was just natural for me to have someone else there besides my brothers and my sisters. And if I kept a quarter on my pocket or whatever they would give me. At that time a quarter, you could buy lots of stuff with a quarter. Now if you got a dollar you can’t spend it because you got to have some more money to spend it. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Who else lived in the community in east Pasco? Was it primarily African Americans? Vanis Daniels: Yes. Edmon Daniels: Well, at one time it wasn’t. But mostly, that’s where the blacks lived, they lived in Pasco. But when we first moved there, we were the only blacks on the block. But there was only four houses on the block. I know, in front of us and straight on down the street, there was a trailer camp—which we called it a trailer court, and it was black. But up the street, our house is still there—my sister live in it—and a couple other houses that are still—from a three-block area, there are just a couple other houses that are still there. Vanis Daniels: Three. I think it’s three in all that are still there. There are houses where houses were. Edmon Daniels: Yeah, they built some new houses there. But we lived here, my cousin lived across the alley. But that was white families lived up that way-- Vanis Daniels: Yeah, to the north. Edmon Daniels: Yeah, and like I said, it was very well segregated. And then the whites started moving out. And most of the blacks even moved out, later, later on. But I would go to school and walk up the street to Tollivers’, which was a white family, and we’d walk to school. We didn’t worry about, she looks different than I do, he looks different than I do. We just was kids and having a good time. Franklin: Yeah. Were most of your neighbors and people you knew also transplants from somewhere else other than the Tri-Cities? Vanis Daniels: Oh yeah. Edmon Daniels: Most of the people at that time was. Franklin: Were there many families with children or extended family in your neighborhood, like grandparents and such or was it mostly immediate family? Edmon Daniels: You know, mostly it was-- Vanis Daniels: I don’t remember. Edmon Daniels: I know the Tollivers, it was just two girls and the mother and father. And right next-door to them was Leroy, his mother-- Vanis Daniels: He had a sister, too. Edmon Daniels: Yeah. And, god-- Vanis Daniels: I can’t remember the name of the people that lived where Gilbert’s house is, and she had a couple kids. Edmon Daniels: At that time, you don’t be asking where you from. At that age, I could care less where you were from. Vanis Daniels: But 90% of the people were transplants. Franklin: How would you describe life in the community? Vanis Daniels: Terrible. Edmon Daniels: From my viewpoint, it was A-Okay. Franklin: That’s quite a divergence. Edmon Daniels: Yeah. He was a little older, so he—but from my viewpoint, it was just fun. I’m a kid, I’m having fun. Vanis Daniels: You’re, what would you call it of your environment. But we had no streets, we had no street lights, you had no sewer. The only thing we had was running water. You had enough electricity, 100 amps to have lights in the house. We had oil heat, we had a woodstove to begin with, and Copeland Lumber, so wood and coal which was right on 1st and Columbia, all the way up to 2nd and Columbia there in Pasco now. That was Copeland Lumber Company. My dad would buy wood and of course my mom was accustomed to cooking on a woodstove anyways because in Texas that’s what she had. Then about, I don’t know when it was exactly, my dad bought her an electric stove and he had to have a guy come out and update the electricity in the house in order to be able to have enough kilowatts for that stove. And she got the electric stove, she got a Maytag dishwasher with the old hand wringer on it-- Edmon Daniels: Not dishwasher, clothes washer. Vanis Daniels: Clothes washer, I’m trying to say, not dishwasher. And those were the two modern appliances that she had for a long time. And eventually, because we had an icebox even, if you know what an icebox is. Franklin: I do! Vanis Daniels: Okay. And a guy named Junior Philips, that’s we what called him, Junior. Edmon Daniels: No, we called him Iceboy Junior. Vanis Daniels: Iceboy Junior, I remember that. But he would go out to the icehouse, there, right down form City View Cemetery there on the railroad and they made ice down there. Edmon Daniels: Hobo jungle. [LAUGHTER] That’s what it was called. Vanis Daniels: And he went down there and get ice and he delivered ice all around to the people in the neighborhood. And he would come every day if you needed ice, you—I think it was probably a half a cent a pound or something like that. He made a living doing that at first. And when he died, he had retired from Burlington Northern as a diesel mechanic. But it was just one of those things where you lived with the hand you were dealt is about what it amounts to. Edmon Daniels: Think of the progress we’ve made. You probably don’t know anything about it anyway. Vanis Daniels: She don’t. Edmon Daniels: Like the milkman coming around, have you ever seen a milk man? Vanis Daniels: You haven’t? Edmon Daniels: What about the guy who come—see, we had people who would come around and sell ice cream, popsicles and stuff like that. You could get a popsicle for a nickel and the popsicle popped in two, I think they still have them around. Vanis Daniels: They do. Edmon Daniels: Yeah, but that was five cent. I don’t know what they are now. Vanis Daniels: Pop was a nickel. Edmon Daniels: I remember when pop went up to ten cent. Everything just went up all of a sudden. I always tell people, when I was a kid a ten-cent candy bar, I’d put it in my back pocket and I’d eat it, it would stick all the way up. We have seen so much and I’ve seen so much in my lifetime of just progress. I tell people about my grandkids now. When the computers came in, we was working then, the secretary came down she said, Edmon, say, you want a typewriter? She said, I got a new one and we’re getting rid of all of them. She gave me a new typewriter, and I took it home. A few years ago, my grandkids, we were sitting in there and we went into the garage. And he said, granddaddy, what’s that? [LAUGHTER] They knew it looks sort of like a computer but they couldn’t figure out what was that thing and who it was just a typewriter! Franklin: Where’s the screen?! [LAUGHTER] Edmon Daniels: I said, man, I have seen so much in my lifetime, you know, just changing. I remember in high school, I took typing and most of them was standard. We had a couple electrical typewriters, but most of them were just standard typewriters. Franklin: That’s actually pretty progressive. For taking typewriting when you guys would’ve went to school. Edmon Daniels: Yeah. It’s just, I can say I’ve seen so much. I remember, everyone had one phone, well, not everyone had a phone, either. Vanis Daniels: That’s true. Edmon Daniels: But we had a phone and I know the neighbors sometime would come over to call a cab if he wanted to go someplace. If you could put five people in a cab, and my sister sometimes would catch a cab to go downtown and I think it was like fifty cents-- Vanis Daniels: That’s all it was, fifty cents. Edmon Daniels: And if you could ten people in there, it was still fifty cents. And I just look at the progress of things that I have seen. I can just, because my grandkids they just look and they say, boy. I know working at Hanford we had some of the first of everything like the pagers. We had pagers out there before anyone else had pagers. These phones here. We had phones out there. I was walking around with a phone a long time ago. You could make the local calls because if—I worked days, graves and swing, and on graveyard, I always had—because going out into the outer areas, you may run into something and you need to—so I could just call patrol. I just look and I say, man, I have seen so much in my lifetime that I always wonder what will my grandkids see in their lifetime? What all will change? It’s a great thing. Franklin: Especially since, Vanis, you had mentioned that when you guys got here, there were no sewers, right, in east Pasco. They had them—and you only had enough electricity to power lights at first. And you said your mom was cooking on a woodstove and heating with oil. How long did she have the woodstove for? Vanis Daniels: If I’m trying to remember-- Edmon Daniels: It wasn’t that long. Vanis Daniels: it wasn’t that long, but it was—in the ‘50s, because the guy that upgraded the house as far as electricity go, my mom and all of the women in the neighborhood, including me, worked in the grape fields, the mint fields, the bean fields, and all that stuff. That’s what the black women—and they would take me with them-- Edmon Daniels: The kids with them. Vanis Daniels: --and they would allow me to work with them because the women were there. Miss Anna B. Beasley, I never will forget it, we was right here where the bridge come across Richland here, I-82, was a mint field and I went to work with them that morning. I could drive, see, so I drove everybody to work. And they say, well, what are you going to do after you drop us off? I said, well, I don’t know. She say, you want to work? I said, yes. So we got out and we talked to—what’s the family name that lived there, Edmon? Their last name? Edmon Daniels: Harris. Vanis Daniels: The Harrises. They still there now, the descendants are. She talked to him and asked him if I could work with them. He looked at me, he said, no, he said, he’s too young. He can’t keep up with you. And Ms. Anna B. Beasley told him, said, if you let him go to work, we’ll make sure he keep up with us. She said, because if he don’t work with us then he have to go all the way back and then come back and get us. He says, okay, he can work with you, but he better keep up. So we go out and we are hoeing mint. Ms. Anna B. was on this side of me and my aunt was on this side. And they’d be walking along, they’d be talking, and every once in a while, they’d reach over on my row, in order for me to keep up. [LAUGHTER] I was making a whole dollar an hour, and with that dollar an hour, I was able to buy all my school clothes, from socks, shoes, underwear—because you could go to JC Penny’s and you could buy jeans for $2.98 or $3.98 a pair. Edmon Daniels: No, it wasn’t $3.98, because-- Vanis Daniels: It wasn’t very much. Edmon Daniels: I bought them for less than that when I-- Vanis Daniels: And a shirt was for a $1.98 and some cheaper than that. And, man, I could dress as good as I wanted to, going to school. Edmon Daniels: I know, because I could go down to Penny’s as a little kid, and for five dollars I could get me a pair of jeans and a shirt and get some change back. Like I say, everything was—it was the way it was. Like, I had three or four pair of jeans, and shirts and everything, underwear. Things had to be cheap, because wasn’t nobody making the big bucks. The big bucks. But I can remember when my parents had the electricity upgraded. A black guy lived down the street from us, he was an electrician. He came and did all of the work, but then they had to come out and inspect it. And the guy came, and he was there with him. I remember this very well. And the inspector asked who did it and he said, I did. And the inspector said, well, it won’t pass. He said someone will have to come and do it. So he left and the guy said, I know why it won’t pass. He says, because I’m a colored guy, he said I’ll get my friend, who was a white guy, to come. I remember this, I don’t know why it sticks to my head so, he went and got his friend, I don’t remember if the next day or a couple of days passed, but his friend came. He looked at it, and they had been in the service together, he said everything is perfect. He say, I’ll just tell him that I did it. The inspector come out later and the guy’s there. He hadn’t touched a thing, and he said, oh yeah, it’s okay. And it passed. That was one of my first inklings about, okay, you’re limited to what you could do, although you do it the same way this guy does. But all of a sudden it passed, and he didn’t do anything to it at all. He just came and say, everything look okay. Just the appearance. Thank goodness we’re over that. Franklin: Did your family attend church? Vanis Daniels: Yes. Edmon Daniels: Yes. Franklin: What church did you attend? Vanis Daniels: St. James CME Methodist. Edmon Daniels: Yep, Christian Methodist. Franklin: What role did the church play in the community? Vanis Daniels: You mean--? Edmon Daniels: Well, I can remember that most of the ministers, they were just ordinary people, but they were sort of—ministers were sort of like here. Because I know at the church, when I was a little kid, I would go to Sunday school, and all of the older women, they would have us sit down and be quiet. I didn’t want to be quiet, I didn’t want to sit there. And I know this one lady, she would make you sit down and be quiet. Because kids were supposed to be seen and not heard. What they would be talking about a lot of times, I had a different idea about what was what. [LAUGHTER] I don’t know if I was right or wrong. But we had a minister who, he never went to school, he couldn’t read or write, but he was a minister, he was the associate minister. I always wondered, he can’t read the Bible, but someone had told him all about it. And on first Sunday you have communion, and I did not like taking communion, because the minister, he was up preaching and [COUGHING] And then communion come around and he’d come and bless and then he’d pick up and he wanted to put it in your mouth when he has coughed his hand and everything. Then as soon as—I would take off and get there. And pretty soon, she would grab me. You got to stay here! It was called bread and wine. It was grape juice, I guess; it wasn’t wine. Man, I just did not like that because I figured, god, the guy has been coughing on his hand and he’s going to pick up this bread and put it in my mouth. I don’t think I’m being blessed. [LAUGHTER] I just had a different view of what was what at that time. It was lots of older people and lots of these people were born right after slavery, really. I mean, they was 80 or something like that. Vanis Daniels: The deal of it was, most of them were from the South. In the South, you either was able to own your own land or you sharecrop. One of the two. Most of it was farming, and you worked six days a week, five-and-a-half at least, and the Sundays was the only time that they had to socialize. The transition from there here didn’t change there. Right to this day, they still go to church on Sunday, because everybody works during the week, and that’s the time that they do a lot of socializing. If you look at the world around you, right today, the most segregation there is in this country right now is the churches. Edmon Daniels: Sunday morning, Sundays. Vanis Daniels: You still got black church here, white church there. I belong to the St. James CME Methodist Church; there’s a United Methodist Church right here on Road 34, 36 and Court Street. Now, we are all affiliated together; there is no difference in our doctrine. But I go to St. James; whites go to United Methodist. I mean, I don’t know the reason other than-- Edmon Daniels: They say the most segregated time in the U.S. right now is Sunday morning. Vanis Daniels: Well, that’s the truth. [LAUGHTER] Edmon Daniels: Because everyone go this way. And if you think about it, it is. It is Sunday morning. Now, Sunday afternoon they might all meet and watch a football game or something. They all yelling for the Seahawks. It’s just a different way of life. Still, we still have some hang-ups and everything. Vanis Daniels: Oh, yeah. Edmon Daniels: Yup, we have lots of hang-ups. Franklin: Do you recall any family or community activities, events or traditions, including sports and food, that people brought from the places they came from? Edmon Daniels: Well, I really—my father was baseball player. And in Texas, he was sort of like an idol. Everyone knew my father was a baseball player. I remember, I went to Texas once and this guy, he came up to me and he said, hello, he said, you’re Vanis’ son! I said, yes, I am. He say, I remember you when you was a little baby. I said, oh. He said, you play baseball? I said, yes. He say, are you good? I said, yes, I’m good. He said, you’re not as good as your father. I said, I’m not as good as my--? He said, if you was as good as your father, you would be in the majors. He said, he couldn’t play in the majors because of his color. [LAUGHTER] But you go down, and most of the people now are passed away, but they would all talk about my father playing baseball. And my father had black baseball teams here in the ‘40s before they integrated baseball—he had black baseball team out at Hanford there. But I guess, I don’t remember anything about the game, but he was in Pasco, and he was an old man then, and I remember him and my uncle suiting up for the game. But I don’t remember anything about the game. But everyone used to tell me about how great he was. And the only reason why he wasn’t playing in the majors was the color issue. And I said, okay, I guess he must’ve been pretty good. [LAUGHTER] Vanis Daniels: He was. He was good. I know, because I saw him play. And anytime he came to the bat, there were people in the stand bet that he would get a hit. They would make bets that he would get a hit. Edmon Daniels: Like I said, things have changed so much, and it’s all for the better. All for the better. Franklin: Yeah. What about food traditions? Since so many folks are from the South, I assume that Southern cooking came up North with folks, right? What kinds of foods would be pretty typical in your house growing up? Vanis Daniels: Well, let’s see. My dad was the type of a person that he say, when he was growing up, they ate what they had or could get. He did not buy meat with bones in it. He wanted all meat. He wanted no bones. He said, I ate enough of that. Chicken feet, which you see in the store now, which is a delicacy anymore, he didn’t want any of that. He didn’t want the inside of any animal. Edmon Daniels: The guts. Vanis Daniels: None of that. He said, I had enough of that when I was a kid. I didn’t like then; my kids are not going to eat it. But we would do ribs, we would have roast, we’d have pork chops, we’d have steak occasionally. And fried chicken. My mom mostly would fix a roast, some kind of pot roast, or something like that. Because I didn’t eat chicken. And that’s another thing: we were spoiled. After five girls, I’m the oldest boy, and then him, and then we had a younger brother that passed away in ’68. But the girls was all gone, so there wasn’t anybody else home but us. And we were spoiled, because my mom would fix what I wanted to eat. She would also fix what he wanted to eat, and then my dad he ate whatever she fixed for us. [LAUGHTER] Edmon Daniels: No, there was a lots of—because I know, chitlins—you know what chitlins are? Franklin: Why don’t you tell me. Vanis Daniels: They are pig innards, intestines. Franklin: Oh, right. Edmon Daniels: They are called chitlins and sweet potato pie. Chitlins—I don’t like chitlins. But we would have a soul food dinner every year. And we’d cook chitlins and more whites would eat up more of the chitlins than other people would. I know they would be eating and say, man, what is this? And I would tell them what it was, ooh, these are good. How come you’re not—I said, I don’t like them. I had some friends over one time for dinner, me and my brother and my wife and a couple of others. My wife cooked a sweet potato pie. And after the dinner, Jim, a white guy, said, man, that’s the best pumpkin pie I ever had, and we started laughing. That’s not pumpkin pie! He said, well, what is it then? She said, potato pie. He said, well, bring me another slice. He said, ooh, that is good, he said, I’ve never had any of that. So my wife made him a couple of those. And I had some friends over once and she made them some. One time—we always had Thanksgiving dinner and everything out at work—and I took, my mother cooked some potato pies, and I took them out, and they just felt in love with them. After that, every time, they would say, hey, are you going to bring some of that? I guess southern cooking, like you said, the greens and things—I don’t eat green I don’t-- Vanis Daniels: He’s not a vegetable eater at all. Edmon Daniels: I love steaks and baked potatoes. [LAUGHTER] It’s just—well, they cooked back then, they cooked what was there. A lots of the meats and things—I guess my dad would go out, like, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons and stuff like that, they would kill them and cook it. That’s what all the people did like that. Franklin: Your dad kind of wanted a different standard, right? Obviously, it sounds like he grew up really poor, kind of eating, scavenging what was available. But with you guys, it was—because he was making better money, so he could choose—and you guys kind of benefited from that. Vanis Daniels: I can remember being a little boy during Second World War. They would send me to the store. Beef was something hard to get ahold of. The man at the store would tell me to tell my mom that he had beef coming in on a certain date and to let him know what part of the beef she wanted and he would hold it for her. And that’s the way we got beef most of the time. Pork was easy to get, you know what I mean. Edmon Daniels: Everybody had pigs. Vanis Daniels: You could—black people, well, in the South, I’ll just put it—because everybody knew how to do it. They killed hogs, we called them—pigs—in the fall of the year. Then they cured the meat and you don’t see any of it here anymore because they’ve gotten fancy with it. But in the South, if you go back there now, you can go in the smokehouse, take your knife with you, and slice you off a slice of ham. You don’t need to heat it, you don’t need to cook it, you don’t need to do anything except eat it. It’s just cured just that good. And that smell, the aroma, oh man, it’s something else. So pigs was easy; beef was a little different. So you just got beef occasionally, and you had to buy it and cook it within a day or so after you got it. And chickens, well, that’s easy, too, because they ran around on the yard. Edmon Daniels: Chicken and eggs. Franklin: When did Juneteenth start here? Because that was brought up by—that’s primarily a Texas event. When did that start here? Edmon Daniels: I started in ’78, I think. Franklin: You started it? Vanis Daniels: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Okay. Edmon Daniels: At first I called it a Fun Day, because—I don’t know. I was at a funeral one of my parents’ friends. I remember all of the older people were just sitting around crying and talking about it, hugging each other. And I was said, man, I’d like my parents to have a happy time, get together with all these people without looking down at one of their friends. I told my wife, I said, I’m going to have us something, I said, at the park. We’ll just sit around and let these people come and enjoy themself, smiling, laughing and everything. I talked to my brother, my wife and my sister and a couple of other people. I went to the churches first, and they said, they didn’t think they wanted to do it, because they didn’t think no one would come, because I was going to have the kids play softball and everything. I went ahead with my wife. And I got some teams—it was girls’ teams—and I went and I rented all—let’s see, think I had cotton candy, popcorn, I rented all that stuff—hot dog machine. I tell him, I think everybody in town was there, most out of curiosity. Because they was wondering what was going on. And everyone enjoyed themself. I remember one guy came up a couple of years later and said, you should do this two or three times a year, he said. I just enjoy—I get to see all the people and everything and everyone’s happy and having fun. Mostly, we was giving the stuff away. I think cotton candy might’ve been 25 cents, well, everything was just cheap. We still made lots of money and everyone was there. I had just started the Little League program in Pasco, so I had the little boys play. I remember my father was behind the backstop and another man, Mr. Johnson. I remember them saying, look at these little kids. They all got baseball uniforms. And I remember Mr. Johnson saying he was 20-something years old before he had a uniform, and my dad said, yep, I had one a little earlier because I started playing sooner. And they were—just seeing kids in uniform, they were happy as could be. And it’s still going on now and we have people coming over from Seattle to Spokane and all over. It’s not as big as Cinco de Mayo, but people show up and we have a good time and you get to see a lot of people. Franklin: Yeah. When did it become Juneteenth? When did you decide to kind of bring those two together? Edmon Daniels: I think I was talking with my uncles and cousins and they said, why don’t you just call it Juneteenth? My uncle was telling me about—he was educated man, school teacher—about what Juneteenth was all about. You know, in my head it seemed like I can remember something about Juneteenth in Texas, but I know I can’t. It’s just that people have talked about it because they said my father and his baseball teams always played baseball on Juneteenth and they would barbecue and everything and just have a big get-together. Vanis Daniels: Ice-cream, barbecue. Edmon Daniels: I can imagine that people back then enjoyed those things more, because if you were a man, you worked five, six days a week. And that’s what you did. There wasn’t very much time for fun. Franklin: You also worked longer hours back then, too. Edmon Daniels: Sunrise to sunset, they said. They said, from can to can’t. From the moment you can see to the moment you can’t, you worked. [LAUGHTER] So to get those days off and be able to enjoy yourself was a rarity. Where I worked eight hours a day and I tell people, I say, I never went home tired, I never went home dirty and yet I never missed a payday. My father never got a paid vacation in his life, and all of my vacations were paid for. And I came up just different from my parents. My wife—I remember when my wife went to work and people was telling me—the older people—she doesn’t need to work; she needs to stay home. You make enough money. I said, well, we could use some more. I worked all holidays. Because I worked five days a week, no matter what. Like, if I was off on a Monday and Tuesday or Tuesday and Wednesday—if I was off Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Seven days you would work, but two of those days would be for the next week. I remember, I was going to work for Thanksgiving and we would always have a big Thanksgiving dinner, the family, and I had to work. We had this guy living with us named Grover. He said, why do you have to go to work today? You shouldn’t have to work today; today is a holiday. You need to be home. I said, Grover, you know how much money I make today? And I told him. And my dad said, you make more money today than I ever made in a whole week. [LAUGHTER] I said, that’s why I’m going to work. You know, just compare to people my parents’ age and us growing up, things progressed so much that you wouldn’t believe it. That’s why I am so thankful to be born when I was born. I always say, man, I wish I was three years old now, just to see what the future is going to bring. [LAUGHTER] Yep. Franklin: We talked a bit about some of the opportunities that were available here that weren’t where your parents came from, like wages. I assume the housing—was the housing better here than where your parents came from, or was that a better opportunity for them? Vanis Daniels: Well, housing was better there at first than it was here. Because people lived in anything from cardboard shacks to shack-shacks or whatever you want to call them. It was a lady named Mrs. Haney, she owned a whole block right there on Oregon Street. She had little cabins on there, she had-- Edmon Daniels: Trailers. Vanis Daniels: Trailers, and all that stuff on there. She and her oldest son would go around on the first of the month and collect the rent from those trailers and things. Franklin: What about educational opportunities? Were there educational opportunities available here that weren’t available in Texas? Vanis Daniels: No. It was better back there as far as education go. Because once you got out of school back there, they expected you to go to some type of college. There was Wiley College, Bishop College—you may have heard of Bishop, because Wiley and Bishop eventually went together. Franklin: Were those HBUs or HBCs? Historically black? Vanis Daniels: Right. A few went to Grambling—you’ve heard of Grambling in Louisiana. I’m trying to think; there’s another one—Prairie View. You were expected to go to college. Most of the blacks went into education. In fact, one of my cousins and best friends still is there in Texas. He taught school all the way from the time he got out of college, he retired then he went back and taught some more and he retired again, and he’s still there. That was the primary deal for them back there, education. Here, when we were in school, I know several girls, I don’t know no boys, but several girls that were straight-A students. Never got on the honor roll, they never had an offer for any college or anything. The opportunity was not there here like it was back there. One of my friends that passed away last year, I did an interview with her and her dad and she said that when she was in school—because she’s an underclassman under me—that the teacher told her that the best she could hope for was to be like a nurse’s aid or something like that. She say, I resent that lady ‘til this day. I don’t know what teacher it was, but it was over here in Pasco High they told her that. Franklin: Who was that? Vanis Daniels: Her name was Bessie May Williams-Fields. When she died last year, she was a doctor—don’t ask me of what—but in California. So she proved the lady wrong. Edmon Daniels: Things was just different. I remember I went to Texas with my parents when my grandfather passed. My dad and I went to a little store and we were knocking—it was afterhours. And the guy came to the door and he said, Vanis, it’s good to see you. I’m sorry to hear about—my grandfather’s name was Tucker. So he said, I’m sorry to hear about Tuck. He said, it’s good to see you, but I hate to see you in this occasion. We were sitting there talking and he looks down and says, who’s that, Vanis? My dad says, that’s my son. He says, oh, that’s your son. And he just said, Vanis, I hear the colored kids and white kids go to school together up there. Dad say, yeah. He say, how do they get along? And I remember, my dad said, ask him. He play with them all day long! And the guy says, how do you guys get along? And I’m sitting up there thinking, what kind of a question is this? I said, we get along okay. And I remember him saying, Vanis, I don’t think that’ll ever happen here. I just don’t never think that coloreds and whites will go to school together, I just don’t think it’ll ever happen. Next time I go down there, my cousin is the principal of the high school. And we go up to see him, he said, you know, we didn’t have any problems integrating the school here. Because it’s a little community; everybody knew everybody. He said, everything went smooth. And I said, oh. He said, we didn’t have any problems. And here he was the principal; years before, the guy didn’t even think they would ever go to school together. He was the principal of this big school. I said, man, how times have changed. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. Life is funny. Franklin: In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation or racism? Vanis Daniels: Hanford was the biggest employee around here and I can’t remember the man name that started Hanford right at the moment, but anyway, he said that blacks could help build, but they couldn’t work in operations. And that stuck around until, I think, ‘52 or ’53, somewhere in there was the first blacks that I knew of to work out here. And they were very few until ‘66 or so, somewhere around-- Edmon Daniels: The ‘60s. Vanis Daniels: In the ‘60s anyway, before they would ever hire any into operations. I went to work out there in June of ‘66 and the lady that trained me in metallurgy had an eighth grade education. I had a cousin to go out there, and they put him in metallurgy. He didn’t want to listen to the lady, because he had a high school education and she only had an eighth grade education. He say, she can’t tell me nothing. [LAUGHTER] And he quit because he did not want her telling him what to do. Well, the lady had been working in metallurgy for like 25 years. Why can’t she tell you what to do? Franklin: Right. She does know a lot about metal. You’d hope, after-- Vanis: Me myself, when I went to work out there, I went to work as a janitor. The whole 300 Area was mostly black janitors, very few whites. One day, I was working in 325, and I was going down the hall and I saw this black guy. He was coming up the hallway, he met me, he spoke and he kept on going. Well, I noticed him in the weeks afterwards. He never did fraternize with any of the workers at all; he would just be coming through and he was observing. When I found out what was going on—I had a supervisor named Ralph, and he said you take care of the office while I’m gone, talking to me, he say, you take the phone calls if anybody call for a job you give them an estimate on what we can do the job for. He say, I’m going upstairs for a meeting. He said, I’ll be back, when I get back I’ll tell you about it. He say, because some heads are going to roll up there today. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he left and went to the meeting and it was all of our supervisors. There were the supervisors of the janitors, of power operators and what else, Edmon? Edmon Daniels: Probably RCT-- Vanis Daniels: Yeah, electricians anyway, they had a big meeting upstairs in the building. This guy was from Washington, D.C. He had gone around the area there and he had observed, and he got up in the meeting. Well, everybody was surprised because they didn’t know what he was there for, either. He says, I’m from the government from Washington, D.C. and I’ve been observing what’s going on around here. He say, you cannot tell me that you got this many black people and the only thing they could do is janitorial work. He says starting today, not tomorrow, today, you’re going to get some of those people out of janitorial and put them in other jobs, because I know they can handle it as well of some of the others I’ve seen here. That day they started transferring people out of janitorial into different jobs. Because up until that time, I think, Edmon was working in air balance at the time, wasn’t you? Edmon Daniels: I think I was in operations. Vanis Daniels: Operations. We had a guy named Roy Howard that was one of the managers in inhalation toxicology. That’s about—well, it was a couple more but I can’t remember all of them, but other than that everyone was janitorial, including-- Edmon Daniels: Joe Jackson, he was in-- Vanis Daniels: Yeah, he was a draftsman. And they promoted me from janitorial to decommission, decontamination is what it was. We cleaned all of the radioactive material and handled all the waste radioactive material in the 300 Area, including the hot water, we called it. They had the sinks and where they did experiments and washed everything up it went down and it came down to 340, which was great big swimming pools and it was four of them. Only they was much bigger than swimming pools. We had four basins. You started with number one basin and when it filled, you took samples of it, took it up to 326 and they analyzed it. If it was clean enough, it was let out into the cooling ponds and then it would leech from the cooling ponds back into the Columbia River. If it was hot, contamination-wise, then you held it, you called in the teamsters—we had a big shed with about six tanker trucks in it, and you started pumping that liquid out of the ponds into those tanker trucks and the tanker trucks took that out to Hanford right where they were having problems with some of those tanks now. It went out there and it went into those tanks. Meanwhile, by us being decontamination we had to get in that basin and clean it where you could use it again. You didn’t stop the water from coming, you didn’t shut anything down, you just, if it was basin number two you just skipped from one to three and kept on receiving water. But now you did more sampling in basin three because basin two was hot. So you had to sample basin three every 30 minutes and they would analyze it until they got back down to a level where you could run it out. The trenches was called the 318 trenches. And then it leached back into the Columbia River. We did everything when they opened the sodium reactor up out at the 300 Area. Franklin: The FFTF? Vanis Daniels: Mm-hmm. They didn’t know how sodium would react in water. And as long as, when you put the sodium in and the reactor’s running, it’s liquid. So you don’t have any problems. But when it’s shut down, it gels. Now you got to figure out, how are you going to get that back out of those pipes and get them going again. We took sodium anywhere from a gallon container to a 55-gallon-drum-full, and we took them out to those cooling ponds. DOE and everybody was there and we had a zip line, something like that, and you hook it up here and you run it out and once you got over the water you have a tripwire and you’d let it fall into the pond. Then you had to stand back, because you had no idea which way it was going to go. [LAUGHTER] But we did all of that and we started with a gallon container and we went all the way up to a 55-gallon drum. Whenever that sodium hit the water it’s like, oh, man—and you don’t know which way it’s going. One of the guys from DOE, because we were behind shields on top of that, and one of the guys from DOE in one of the five-gallon containers, it came out of the container and landed on shore. We’re trying to tell him not to go down and get it. He goes down there, well, when he tries to pick it up it’s just slippery. Because he was going to pick it up and throw it back in the pond, he thought. When he picked it up, he picked it up and it slipped out of his hand and it landed right in the edge of the water. Well, it just so happened-- [VIDEO CUTS] [camera operator] We’re rolling. Franklin: I wanted to ask, what do you know about your parents’ reaction to learning that their work had contributed to the development of the atomic bomb? Edmon Daniels: I never heard—they didn’t talk about it. Vanis Daniels: They were surprised, because at the time that they were doing the construction out there, like I said, they did construction. They may have suspected something if they had been in operations or something like that. But everything was so hush-hush that even the construction workers could not talk about what they did. And I can remember, like Edmon is talking about, going down there to the tavern on Lee Boulevard. I can remember when they would put guys in there before the people got off work and they had beer in front of them, I don’t know whether they drank it or not. But anyway, when the guys come in after they got off work for beer or something, their job was to engage them in conversation to try to find out just what they would tell about their jobs. Edmon Daniels: You wasn’t supposed to talk about-- Vanis Daniels: Your wasn’t supposed about-- Edmon Daniels: Even the minor little things of what you did at all. Vanis Daniels: Anything you did-- Edmon Daniels: Because I know at one time, guys would keep their badges on all the time, you went to Battelle you go and they would have badges. They said when you walk out the 300 gate to get into your car, you take your badge off, you put it back on when you come back. Because they said there was always someone, somewhere around who wanted to know what was going on. There were people right here in the Tri-Cities who would tell you, ain’t no way in hell I would work out there, you don’t know what’s out there, which we didn’t. But I said, well, I’m still here, everything is still working. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That leads me to my next question, because you two worked on the Hanford Site after World War II and so I’m wondering, how did you feel at the time about working on or allied with the development of nuclear weapons? Vanis Daniels: Well, you know, at the time, I guess I never really gave it a lot of thought. One of the things I was appreciative was the fact that I had a job, a steady job, I got a paycheck 52 weeks out of the year, I got a vacation every year, paid, and I was allowed to raise my kids and do things with my kids that my mom and dad was never able to do with me. It’s a funny story, but my son was probably four years old, and we were in Kansas. We were heading to Alabama because my first wife was from Alabama and we were headed to Alabama. We stopped in the restaurant for breakfast. We were sitting there and they kind of put us in the middle of the room. The place was crowded. And we were there and we had ordered breakfast they brought it to us and everything. We were eating and my daughter says, Daddy? I said, what is it? She said there’s something wrong with my bacon. I looked, I said, oh, there’s nothing wrong with your bacon. She said, yes it is, I keep hearing something. And she took a fork and she raises the bacon up; great, big old fly in her bacon. With the place being crowded as it was, I didn’t want to alarm the whole restaurant. It was a young man that waited on us. And I got his attention, I called him over and I showed it to him. I said, we can’t eat this like that. He says, oh, I’m sorry, I’ll take it. He took it away and brought some more bacon. Well, my son is four years old and he’s sitting and looking at that. And just as loud as he could, I don’t know what you’re worried about but it’s only more meat! I said, boy! [LAUGHTER] Edmon Daniels: Fly and bacon. Vanis Daniels: Yeah, see, I was able to take them. Every other year, we’d go back to visit her parents and grandparents and stuff. And we’d go to California, we’d go to Disneyland, we’d go to Reno. I was able to take them and they could see things and do things. When they were able to walk and talk, then I taught them how to read a menu and all that, so when we went to a restaurant they ordered their own food. I didn’t order it for them; they ordered what they wanted to eat. And stuff like that. That was one of the advantages I was able to do for them that my parents weren’t able to do for me. Because like my brother and I were talking here the other day, and I don’t think until after my dad was retired--or anyway, we was grown up; he may not have been retired—but we were all grown up. We took them to dinner and to lunch and to breakfast and to stuff like that, but I don’t think before then they ever went out to eat. Edmon Daniels: No. It just wasn’t something most people didn’t do. Like you go to downtown Pasco, they didn’t go to the Top Hat or any of those places and say, come on, let’s go to dinner. Their vacation was they’d go back to Texas, because that’s where my father’s fathers was and all of them. Vanis Daniels: Aunts and— Edmon Daniels: That’s where they were. Their vacation was sort of like going to Texas. They went back on deaths and stuff like that, but that’s mostly—But as far as vacation, they didn’t do it. I tell people, I say, I took my parents to—my wife and I had been in Reno. And I came back and was telling everyone about Reno, how much fun we had. I said I want to take mom and dad down there. My mother was a lady who—straight-laced. And I was telling them about it because none of them had been to Reno and they said, no, my mother wouldn’t like that. Momma not going to like that, people gambling and everything. At that time you could be outside drinking in Reno. Vanis Daniels: Oh yeah, all up and down the street. Edmon Daniels: But I said, I think they would enjoy it. We put the money together and we took them. It used to be you walked down the street and there’d be people with rolls of nickels or dimes. They’d give you dimes to go into the casino, because they gave you three dollars in nickels you were going to spend $15 or $20. They had a ball, we went to see a couple of shows, and then we went to see Sammy Davis, Jr. And that’s a treat right there, this is someone you’ve seen on TV, that’s all you’ve ever done. We went to see him and he came over to our table. He shook hands with my dad, he kissed my wife, he hugged my mother and gave her some candy and everything; that’s when he we had “Candy Man.” That made their whole trip because we’d come back and my dad would see Sammy Davis, Jr. on TV and say, I met Sammy Davis, Jr., I shook his hand. Well, that’s not to many people who can say I met Sammy Davis, Jr. and shook his hand an all these other people, you know, that they-- They appreciated us, because we appreciated what they did for us. Like I said, when most kids were doing things working and everything—the only thing I did, I had a paper route. He had a paper route first and I would go with him. That’s the only job I had until I went to work at—well, I worked at the grocery store it was more fun than working there. But otherwise like my dad said all his jobs was work. Work, work, work. Vanis Daniels: Boorish work. Edmon Daniels: And my mother, like I said, when she was out there, all the ladies did was clean and cook, which is what most ladies did back in those days anyway. Like I said, they had to go to the high school to find someone who could type. I’m just happy we made their lives so much easier later on in their lives. We was able to do that. Vanes Daniels: My mom babysat three kids for $15 a week and that was in ‘54. Edmon Daniels: Right there in Old Pasco. Franklin: What do you--? Edmon Daniels: But—oh I said, but out of that deal, one of the guys, the grandfather, he owned a sport shop there in Pasco. So I would get tennis shoes and gloves and things for like two or three bucks. He said at least send that boy down here so I can give him some shoes. I always had nice baseball shoes and gloves. [LAUGHTER] Didn’t cost very much. Franklin: Another question about Hanford. What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Edmon Daniels: Oh, boy. Vanis Daniels: The bomb, but eventually it will be the cleanup. Edmon Daniels: Another thing, they discovered a lots of stuff out there. I mean, there were things out there that you never even think about that we have now. Baby monitors. Where I’m in here, I can put a monitor in the baby’s room and you can tell—Battelle. That was Battelle. And there are just so many things that they invented. There was something else. Because I went to—there was a guy there over at the math department, he finished college when he was thirteen, so he really didn’t have any childhood. But he loved—baseball to him was just something magic. I was a baseball player. And he found out that I had a baseball and he would call me down. He’d say, Ed, come down here. Well, I’m not supposed to be down there. He had a TV in his room and he’d say, come on in. And we’d watch the game and I would be telling him about the game. Just little things that we take for granted. Some of those people out there who was—the calculator, and you could do the calculator and he could do a math problem in his head faster than you could do it on the calculator. He was smart, but he was an A-Okay guy. And just little things, like I said, baseball, baseball season would come, I spent a lots of time down there with him just watching baseball. He had his TV. And I remember one Saturday we were out at work and he was out there, he said, come on in, Ed. All the other guys were working, he and I was watching the World Series. This was just magic to him. And you run into people like this, like I said lots of geniuses out there and you’d run into people like this who didn’t have a normal childhood and just little things that we take for granted. It’s just fascinating to him, just amazing because they never did anything like that. Franklin: What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Edmon Daniels: Number one I think for most of them it was housing. Vanis Daniels: Mm-hmm. Streets. Edmon Daniels: Yup, housing more than anything else. Because there were—just buying a house and I remember in Richland there, all the blacks lived down there on the south end. Most of us were my relatives, they were all together. The Mitchells-- Vanis Daniels: The Rockamores. Edmon Daniels: The Rockamores, all of them, they were all just right in the same spot. Vanis Daniels: The Wallaces. They were almost like next door to each other. Edmon Daniels: They moved—when they—the trailer camp out here, remember the trailer camp? No, you wouldn’t. Vanis Daniels: No, he wouldn’t remember. Edmon Daniels: The trailer camp was right up here, where it was. When they moved the trailer camp, all of the blacks that was living in the trailer camps, except, whatcha call him, Brown, they sent them to Seattle—I mean they sent them to Pasco, because there were no housing here for them. They kept the Browns here because they were such good basketball players. You know, Norris was all-American basketball player. So they kept him and CW and they found a house for them. And just little things like that, you think about it, out of all those houses, and they’re not big, fancy houses, they wasn’t houses that—I know my cousin lived in a house about form here to there, that’s about the size of those little houses. You walk in the living room, you take a couple of steps, you’re in another room. That was the way it was. Where we lived, everyone called it the big house. Like I said and he said it had lots of bedrooms and everything, and when people would come here, they would come and stay with us. But I just thought it was a house. We had the big yard and whole works. Franklin: What kind of actions were being taken to address those issues? Housing and streets, and things. Edmon Daniels: Well-- Vanis Daniels: Let’s see. You had Bill Wilkins and Magee, Katie Barton. All those, Bill Wilkins and Katie Barton were councilmen. Magee was a civil rights worker and they complained to the city, had meetings, and Magee would organize marches first thing and another. Finally, we got streets, sidewalk, sewer, and all that stuff. But like my brother say, when we were kids growing up, we rode bicycles all the time. We would race from our house to A street and back on the bikes. And he say, I don’t ever remember my momma saying, boy get out of that street! A car might hit you! Because there wasn’t any cars. Edmon Daniels: The car went to work with the man. The man went to work the car. And most of the ladies did not work. They didn’t have jobs. So you’d be at home with your mother and everybody on that street that was there, that was your mother. We knew everybody, you knew every kid there. Like if I went down the street, didn’t nobody worry if some girl had to go to the store because all the men was at work and everybody knew who she belongs to. [LAUGHTER] It was just a big-- Vanis Daniels: Community. Edmon Daniels: Community like that. They looked after each other, and they looked after us. Franklin: What were some of the challenges for civil rights in the Tri-Cities? Edmon Daniels: I think one of the biggest things was getting people jobs, like lots of other people, it was just getting jobs. Because most of the older people, they worked construction and that was it. In reality, when they first started working out at Hanford, like for me, we wasn’t making very much money, wasn’t anyone making very much. If you worked construction, like my dad, like I say, he’d been here all those years, most people that was hiring knew him. So he probably worked as much as anyone did. There were a lot of people who would come here and they would go to work, and a lot of them had never made the money that they were making. I know a couple of Dad’s friends, they came to work and they worked for a while, and they went back to Texas or wherever. They had made enough money to go back and whatever they were doing back there, I don’t know. But my dad, he just stayed here. He thought this was a better place for his kids. Franklin: Were either of you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Edmon Daniels: I don’t remember. Vanis Daniels: Yeah, in a way we were. It was like, see, we didn’t even have a park. And when the park was built, the city didn’t build the park. Franklin: You’re talking about Kurtzman Park, right? Vanis Daniels: Yeah, mm-hmm. The community built the park. Edmon Daniels: The mens of the community. Vanis Daniels: And we got the man that owned that land, which was old man Kurtzman, to donate the land to the city. He donated six acres for a park and it’s down there. Most of the people at City Hall don’t know it, but if it ever cease being a park, it goes back into his estate. Edmon Daniels: But, Kurtzman, it was funny— Vanis Daniels: But it’ll always be a park, so you don’t have to worry about that, I don’t think. Edmon Daniels: It was funny, because my brother and I went to City Hall to see who owned the land. And it was Mr. Kurtzman, a letter was written and we signed the letter. He wrote back and said he would donate the land to the city if they would build the park and name the park after him. When the park, like I said, my father, uncles, cousins, just mens of the community, put the park in. I remember one Sunday, the ladies, they got together and cooked up some food and got a big picnic for all the guys that was working. I remember when the park was finished and the city put up the sign, and it said Candy Cane Park. I always tell them, I say, Mr. Kurtzman wrote back and told them my name is Kurtzman not candy cane. That was supposed to be—[LAUGHTER] It stayed up there for about three weeks or maybe a little longer, they finally put Kurtzman. But at first they called it Candy Cane Park. Vanis Daniels: That’s right. Then they had the teeter-totter, they had the monkey bars, we called them, all that stuff, swings, all that stuff there and everything was like a peppermint stick. It was painted red and white stripe. Franklin: Ooh, cool. Edmon Daniels: All the stuff they don’t have anymore. Franklin: How did the larger national civil rights movement influence civil rights efforts at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities? Vanis Daniels: Well, it broke down barriers. Like for instance, blacks were able to work in operations, blacks can live anywhere they wanted now-- Edmon Daniels: If they could afford it. Vanis Daniels: If you can afford to buy the house, you can afford to live in it. Right down here, right over here on Spring Street, my cousin—when did CJ pass away? Three years ago? Edmon Daniels: ’16. He passed away January of ‘16, a couple years. Vanis Daniels: He bought a house down there on Spring. Edmon Daniels: Right over there. Vanis Daniels: Yeah. He had problems buying the house in the first place, they didn’t want to sell him the house. And then he had problems with his neighbors after he bought the house. But then, as time passed, I think the neighborhood probably diversed more, people moved out, other people moved in; then they welcomed him there. And they kept the house plumb up until he and his wife passed away. But it was just areas that you could not live if you were black. Like in Kennewick, for instance. You couldn’t live in Kennewick, period, if you were black. On some of the old homes and things, unless they have changed them in the last 20 years, on the deeds and the ordinances, and all that stuff, it says that you cannot sell your house to people of color, I’ll put it. Because not only blacks couldn’t buy them, Spanish people couldn’t buy them, I don’t remember any Orientals of any kind living in Kennewick. Edmon Daniels: They lived in Pasco. Vanis Daniels: You lived in Pasco, and you lived east-- Franklin: In East Pasco. Vanis Daniels: Yeah. Franklin: From your perspective and experience what was different about civil rights efforts here? Edmon Daniels: Well, for one thing they made it better, they made it a lot better, I think for the whole community. Vanis Daniels: It wasn’t violent as the South, for one thing. Edmon Daniels: It was smaller. Vanis Daniels: It was a smaller community and, although there were protests and stuff that went on, it was done differently than the marches and things in the South. Like for, with Martin Luther King and all those people trying to get across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and Alabama, that type of stuff, and the policemen standing up there water-hosing you and beating you, and running over you with horses. You had none of that here. Edmon Daniels: I think it was because people was getting smarter. Especially younger people that was coming up. And the more you interact with people, the more you find out that’s not much more difference in people. I may like baked potato and you may like stewed potatoes, but, hell, it’s still a potato. [LAUGHTER] You find out that you like the same things and there’s no difference in people. Franklin: Right, like baseball is a great example, right? For a time there were segregated teams, but now everyone loves baseball and everyone can play together. Vanis Daniels: That’s the great American pastime, eating hot dogs. [LAUGHTER] Edmon Daniels: The more you just stop and think… Vanis Daniels: Now, I think people realize that if, when you bleed, you bleed red just like everybody else does. I don’t think there’s anyone that don’t have a prejudice of some kind, but it does not restrict itself to race. You may be prejudiced against red potatoes over white potatoes, but that’s a prejudice. But it’s not one of those things where you are trying to hinder someone from advancing or being the best that they can be. You see? Edmon Daniels: Well, if everyone—it just makes it a better world. Because you just feel that, okay, I see this young man over here, young man over here. It’s something about all three of us, we like something. I feel, if you love yourself, you can love someone else. I’m going to love myself more than I love you. If a guy come in here right now and say, I’m going to shoot someone, I’m going to go that way and say shoot them. [LAUGHTER] Because I love me. Love can overcome all the hate and everything else. That’s what has happened, people have grown and it’s just a better world altogether. We still have a lot of work to do and it may never be—and it has never been. Remember the guy that killed his brother? A long, long, long time ago. There was only two or three people on the earth, a long time ago. There’s a lot of things and now there’s a whole lots more of us. I don’t know. It’s just weird. But we can get along. We can get along. And we are getting—things are getting better all the time. Vanis Daniels: It’s just like, what’s his name out of Los Angeles? Edmon Daniels: Who? Vanis Daniels: That the police beat up. Franklin: Rodney King? Vanis Daniels: Rodney King, yeah, he said, why can’t we just get along? That was a profound statement that he didn’t realize he was making at the time. Edmon Daniels: We just need to learn that everyone has done something good, even right here in the Tri-Cities. Vanis Daniels: There is good in everyone. Edmon Daniels: There is a man in the Tri-Cities, when I was a kid, we called him Peanuts. He was an Oriental man. And right now in Pasco there is Peanuts Park. But most people don’t know who Peanuts were, and I was on the Parks and Rec Board and they were talking about they were going to redo Peanuts Park I said we need to put up a-- Vanis Daniels: Mural. Edmon Daniels: A mural of Peanuts. When most people say, peanuts they think about—and they said peanuts? I said yes, he was a guy named Peanuts, he was an Oriental guy. When I was a kid, he gave me candy; my daughter came up, he gave her candy. We would go down there and Peanuts would fix our bikes and he’d say, give me a nickel. Well, I know it was worth way more than that. [LAUGHTER] But that’s who Peanuts was, and I said, we need to put a mural up there so people will know Peanuts, who he is. Most people saying Peanuts Park, they are not thinking of some guy. I said he was a Oriental guy. He had gold fish down there, had a big gold fish pond, big gold fish, and we would go down there-- Vanis Daniels: Most likely koi. Edmon Daniels: We just need to know that there are good in everybody and there’s some good people and it doesn’t matter what you look like or whatever, you can be a great person. Franklin: Well great, that’s a great place to end. Vanis Daniels: All right. Franklin: I think that’s a great sentiment. So thank you both for coming and taking the time to interview, and talk about your lives and the community, and your work. Edmon Daniels: No problem. Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor Battelle 300 Area 325 Building 326 Building 340 Building 318 Trenches FFTF Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Vanis and Edmon Daniels Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Segregation School integration African American universities and colleges Civil rights Civil rights movements Nuclear weapons plants Baseball Description An account of the resource Vanis and Edmon Daniels moved to Pasco, Washington in 1951 and both worked on the Hanford Site. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/07/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff82a477e980b5eab6aa549537f73593c.JPG 07eedabeb7b7f69b254d9337858f7a73 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Documenting African American Migration, Segregation, and Civil Rights History at Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR), Hanford Subject The topic of the resource African Americans; Oral History Description An account of the resource A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource National Park Service Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/1/2017-9/1/2019 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For permission to publish or for more information contact the Hanford History Project. Relation A related resource RG2D_4D AACCES Oral History Project Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RG2_8 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed C.W. Brown Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with CW Brown on June 12, 2018. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with CW about his experiences living in Richland and working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? CW Brown: C, W, B-R-O-W-N. Franklin: Okay. Does the C and the W stand for--? Brown: Well, yeah, but I don’t go by it that much, but I could tell you what they stand for. Franklin: Sure. Brown: I don’t want too many people to know it, but I will. Because when I went into the military I had to have it. It’s Claude. C-L-A-U-D-E B-R-O-W-N. Franklin: Okay. Brown: Yeah. Franklin: Great. So, CW, your family came to the area to work for Hanford, right? And what year did they come? Brown: I came in ’48, so they were here about three years before that. 1948, when I came out. And they must’ve been here at least two or three years before that. Franklin: Okay, and what—oh, sorry. Brown: That was during when they were, the atomic bomb, they were making out here. Franklin: Yeah. Brown: And they were on line doing all that stuff, so, a lot of them was doing that. And I know my father worked on the railroad out here when that came about, and my mom worked in the cafeteria. Franklin: Out at the Hanford Camp. Brown: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Franklin: And where were your parents from, where were you from, where you were born? Brown: Texas. Texas, Kildare, Texas. Franklin: Kildare, Texas. Brown: I think you can find about most of Tri-City people, you’ll say, Kildare, that’s where I was born! Or where my family—where their roots were started, that’s where most all of them started, a lot of them. Franklin: Right. It seems like the whole, most of the population of the town ended up moving. Do you know how your father or mother found out about the Hanford Site? Brown: Yes, this was through—they had contact with a family which is a well-known, close to the Mitchells, was the Daniels, was the Daniels. And my father was kind of connected with them in a relationship, and one of them came out this way, they’d heard about the work, and sure enough, the information got back, which by being relatives and close partners, like, my dad was on the railroad and they had a lot of that going on. They said, this is how we got started out. And eventually, my mom came out and then we stayed with our grandfolks in Texas. And they came out—during that time, the wives and the husbands couldn’t live together. They had barracks for each one. That was back in those days, yup. So that’s how we came out here, was through Vanis Daniels. And that was the one that, like I say, close relatives. And that’s how it got started with us. And then as we went, our relatives, we got involved and just kept going, and that’s the way it started, yup. Franklin: What do you know about your parents’ lives before they came to work at Hanford? Brown: Before they came to Hanford, we worked at—my dad worked on the railroad there, also in Kildare, and my mom was mostly like a housewife. In Texas, most of the time, we did a little farming, and we did a lot of that. Of course, I can remember back when my brother and I, we was young, we started working—in them days, when you’re 10, 11 or 12, you could work and take care of everything. Because we used to have our own little mule, little wagon, go haul little stuff to people for wood and stuff like that. That’s what we did, mostly farming. Like I said, my dad worked on the railroad for many years, which was good, but we did our own farming, living off the land. Franklin: When were you born? Brown: 1938. Franklin: 1938, okay. So you were about seven or eight— Brown: Exactly, exactly. In those days, when you’re young, when you’re seven and eight, you could do just about everything everybody else did. Because you had to work. You know? You had to work. There wasn’t no playing around. That’s what you had to do. Survivor. On your own. Franklin: What do you know about your parents’ initial experience of coming to work at Hanford and finding a place to live? Brown: Yeah, that was a very difficult situation as a family. Individual, it wasn’t too bad. But family-wise, you had to—to get a house, you had to work for General Electric to get into the homes. And to get into the trailer court was difficult because it was so crowded and you couldn’t hardly find any place. And that was the difficulty of getting us here any earlier. Because you find a space and then you could buy a trailer and then you can have your family. But the husband and wife could not live together. They didn’t have—they had to live in separate barracks, because if you wasn’t working for GE, most the time, you couldn’t get a place to live for a family. And that was the way that it was, especially in the Tri-Cities in Richland. Franklin: And so, during the Manhattan Project, your parents lived in separate— Brown: Yes, exactly. Franklin: --dorms, because they were segregated, right? Men’s and women’s. Brown: Men’s and women’s. Franklin: And also, white and black dorms? Brown: No, no, no, no, no, no. Franklin: No. Brown: That was mixed of whatever. That was a mixed situation there. You could find it mixed. Definitely, because they had to have had a place to stay. And that was very difficult. If you didn’t care what color or whatever you were. Same way in the cafeterias and whatever where my mom worked. They worked together. Franklin: Was that—segregation was literally the law of the land in the South. Brown: Oh, yeah, yeah. Franklin: Did your—what were your parents’ experiences here where segregation was more informal or kind of— Brown: Segregation was—in Richland, Pasco, Kennewick, all of them had part of segregation, as you know. But some of them were worse than others. That’s life, where you go through that. And that’s what you had to put up with, situation like that. And I think Kennewick had not been segregated. To tell you, my wife’s brother was the first black that lived in Kennewick. Walter Howard. Franklin: Walter Howard? Brown: Mm-hm. Because he got a cross on his lawn, his house got burnt, he went through all of that. He was the first black at CBC college, when it was over there by the airport, if you recall any information on that. Yeah. But you know, you run into those situations, no matter where you go. But see, that’s why you had to bypass a lot of that. Which we did. We went through it, but this is what we have to do with that situation when people are listening to me and talking to passersby and look forward. And that’s what a lot of our people has to do for that. Because it’s going to happen, don’t matter where you go. We went through it. We went through it in school, we went through it when we go to play basketball in different towns, we went through some of that. But you know, you have to overcome that. And you have to make a commitment on those situations which carries you through. Because it could be riots, it could be this, it could be that. But you got to be smart. And a lot of times, you have to have trust in God. The Christian way. And that’s what it takes. For nowadays, they forget that. And that’s what—my family was very Christian people. Like my wife now, I bless her heart that she took us through my family and now all my kids are in. And it takes you a long ways when you’re dealing with people. And that’s what you’re going to deal with in life, people. And learn to cooperate. And walk away from things when you see bad. But we don’t do that anymore, a lot of times. But you have to do that. But that’s what we did. And that’s why we got along with people. And my kids are the same way now. You get along with people. You’re going to have conflicts in life, but you got to bypass it and make a commitment to yourself on what you’re going to do, and do it. So simple, really. Yeah. Franklin: Did your parents ever talk about their first impressions when they arrived here during World War II? Brown: Well, yes, yes. It was—see, when they arrived—during those days, they never knew what they were doing, see? Like when people were working on the whatever. Like they never knew exactly what they were doing and what was in their environments. Like they have nowadays the technology to find out what’s this or where you can’t go. But they never knew that. All they knew about was, because they grew up that way, work. I want to work. Work to make a living. I have a family. What do I have to do? I have to work. And that’s the way it was back in the South. They didn’t have contracts. I need your help tomorrow. I experienced it. Pick cotton, all of that. Chop cotton. Pull corn or whatever. All of this stuff. They did it. I need your help, Mr. Weaver, or Mr. Whoever. And that’s the way it was. Yup. That’s just the way life was. Living off the land. Franklin: What were your first impressions when you first arrived in the Tri-Cities? Brown: Well, it was kind of a—I was young. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to accept it. But I’m going to tell you the truth on the situation is that we were athletes. Because we went among people, doing things, playing with people on the playground. Like I said, we used to go in back of the school play basketball, play football, play tag, play this. That’s the impression I got, was good. Because you’re among people, and people accepted you for who you were. We didn’t have a lot of that. Sure, it was around. But that’s kind of the way we worked it out, and it worked out good. Franklin: What about like—what were your first impressions about the environment or the landscape of the Tri-Cities when you got out here? Brown: It was—that’s hilarious. Because jackrabbits? Wherever you see. Fruit? All over. All type of fruit. And fishing? We used to go down to the Columbia River here and fish for fish, throw your line out there and all this. Activities for a family. Something to do, things to do. That was a good impression. Open. It was open, not closed-in. And that gave you more freedom, see? Amongst the people, and they treated you right, and you treat them right. And we got along well that way. But that’s the way we were raised. See? If you’re raised that way, you continue to do it, no matter where you go. Franklin: Sure. Where was the first place that you stayed after you arrived? Brown: In north Richland. In north Richland. What happened was, we couldn’t get out. We couldn’t stay anywhere, that’s why it took us a while to get here, until they bought a trailer and got him a spot. And that’s what it was. In fact, we were probably two blocks from John Ball. We were about two blocks from there. Franklin: Okay. And did you go to John Ball School? Brown: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: Could you describe it? Brown: Well, John Ball, it was made out of—you know how you see these bomb shelters, and it was how they made— Franklin: Quonset huts. Brown: Yes, yes, yes, exactly. That’s what it was. And that’s where they were, they were lined up, one, two, three, down here and in the back the same way. It’s just like that, exactly. That’s the way it was. Yup. Hard chairs inside, and cafeteria. Yeah, but anyway. That’s one thing they did. They always fed people in them cafeterias for the kids. That was the good old days. Franklin: Could you describe the trailer? How big was it and what— Brown: Trailers was based on what you could afford. Franklin: Okay. Brown: That’s the way it was. Because during those days, you wasn’t making a lot of money. But the people that was making a little more money had better trailers. With situation. Some of them had it where you could go to have your water in them and whatever and all that. But most of them out there in those trailers, you had wash houses, they called them, where you do your washing and where you do your showering. Because the trailers we had, some of them was made out of wood, and some of them was made out of the regular trailer stuff, but not very many of them. But you could see the difference of how, whatever you could afford, that’s what you could get. Franklin: What kind of trailer was yours? Brown: It was made out of kind of a wood-ish. Like these little one-bedroom houses, as you see on the TV, where they show those little one-bedroom houses, similar to that, exactly. Franklin: And how many were in your family? Brown: One, two, three, four. Franklin: So it’s you and your brother and your mother and father. Brown: Mm-hmm. In fact, I remember exactly, the trailer was small, and we—[LAUGHTER] It was hilarious, but when we first came here and he had set it up, it was only one-bedroom, but we took the front where the kitchen was and made a bed so we could sleep at night. That’s the way it started. That’s how we were at the beginning, until we could afford to get a better—and that’s what we did. It was quite interesting, but we made it. We made it that way. Survive, that’s what it takes. Franklin: Yeah. And your neighbors in the trailer camp, where were they from? Were they from all over? Brown: All over, all over. All over. Exactly. But in a way, the black community was kind of separate—some of them were separated. In fact, we were right up from John Ball, but we were spread out quite a bit. Because I knew—we had a white family—I know the Hecksons, all of the Heckson Brothers, that was a big family who lived down on the corner by the school, and there was a few more lived in-between, but it was mostly kind of segregated, be honest, with the blacks in this area, and a few over here. Because you had to get what you could get because it was so crowded. And if something come available and you on the list, you go. And that’s the way it was, what color you were, whatever, that’s the way it had to be. Franklin: And who did your father work for at this time, when you were in the trailer camp? Brown: Bronat? Bonat? In fact I did a search on that. He worked for the railroad. I think it was called Bonat, something like that. Franklin: And he was working out at Hanford? Brown: Oh, yeah, he worked on the railroad going out to Hanford and all that. And my mom worked at the cafeteria. They had a big cafeteria. Franklin: Where? Brown: Here, out at north Richland. Franklin: Oh, in the trailer camp. Brown: Well, it was where they, like—I can almost visualize it, give you an idea of where it was, it was the men’s barracks and this was the big cafeteria where everybody could come to the cafeteria, and there was a movie theater right off from the cafeteria, and there was a fire station, up here above, and there was Dawson Richards down here in the little town where the food store, Mr. Dietrich. In fact I used to do a little work for Mr. Dietrich when I was a little kid. Go pick up things and take them and pick up bottles and take them down and sell them. That’s kind of the way the situation was. And then you had the big—as you going up, there was a big house where ice—you had to your buy ice—and that was the trailer court. And it comes right down from by the ice place, right down toward Dawson Richard, little store for clothes, and over there with the food store. It’s kind of—I can visualize it all and see what’s going on. That was major. Franklin: Where did your family move—how long did you stay in the trailer court? Brown: Let’s see. We did it twice. First when we came out, we stayed there until all the work had stopped. Then we moved to the other area in Hermiston. We went to Hermiston, where the McNary Dam started. That’s how the people started accumulating over there in Hermiston, because of the McNary Dam. Same contact with the family. Some more came. There was my cousin, my aunt, my uncles, which was the Miles. They came, and several others came. The Rambos. I can remember that. And they came to Hermiston, probably a few more of them I might miss, but that’s where that started. As soon as the McNary Dam finished, they shot back to Hanford. That’s where we came back to Hanford. The trailer court had went down, but it started booming again in Hanford. That’s why we bought another trailer, which was a better trailer this time. And lived almost in the same spot from John Ball up there, where we had the other trailer. In fact, I can visualize it now. The trailer we had here, the new one we just bought, and we lived right over from it in the other one. And we could walk right on down from—it was amazing. It was amazing. And that’s where my uncle, which are Wallaces, was my mom—his wife and my mom was sisters. And they lived next to us. And you had the Allens, all of those people were at the trailer court, too. That’s when it was booming again back in this area. Franklin: Was that the early ‘50s? Brown: Yeah! Exactly, ’53, ’50-something, because I was in Chief Jo then. Franklin: Okay. Brown: That’s when I went to Chief Jo. Yup, exactly right. Franklin: And then where did you move after that? Did you get more of a permanent residence? Brown: Permanent resident, exactly. We didn’t go anyplace else. Franklin: Where’d you move to? Brown: We moved in—well, we were going to—when the trailer court disappeared and everything was going away, that’s when the Army was out, and everything was going away, people had to move out. Because they were moving it. Okay. Prediction was that we were going to Pasco. We already had had our plans. But my dad had to get a job. And fortunately enough, he got a job for GE, for General Electric. That way, we could get a house. Franklin: And what did your father do for General Electric? Brown: He worked on the railroad also, out at Hanford. But it was through General Electric, doing things. And also they got him another job, he was working kind of as a sevice, somewhere out, I don’t know wherever it was. But I used to take him there, get him on the bus, and he used to go there. That’s how that started. And to be honest with you, athletic ability, they didn’t want us to go to Pasco. Because we had Chief Jo, where we started out athletic ability with Mr. People, which was a great athletic coach, and luckily enough, like I say, before we got ready to move, in fact we were all ready to go, he got a job in GE and that way we stayed. And we got a house right behind the high school, Richland High, in a two-bedroom. Franklin: Do you remember the address? Brown: One’s 805 Smith; this must’ve been 803 Smith. Because we moved from this two-bedroom to the three-bedroom, and it was next-door. So it must’ve been something. But 805 Smith is where we stayed, but we were there until we got our bigger house. Franklin: And how long were you there in those two hosues? Brown: The rest of 19—from when we moved there, we stayed there, in fact, most of our lives. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brown: We didn’t live anyplace else. Franklin: I used to live right in that neighborhood. Brown: Did you? Franklin: When I first lived here, yeah, Stanton. 804 Stanton. Brown: Oh, Stanton. Oh, okay, 804. Oh really? That’s amazing! Yup, so it was easy for us to go to school. Franklin: Oh, yeah, I bet. Brown: And it was perfect. I mean, you could go to school, go home and eat if you want to. That’s where the rest of my life was, right there. Because we went through Chief Jo, went to high school, and went all. Franklin: Okay. Earlier you’d mentioned church and God, and so I assume your family attended church. Brown; Oh, absolutely. Franklin: And what church did you go to? Brown: New Hope Baptist Church. Franklin: And that was in Pasco. Brown: That was in Pasco. Franklin: Or, is in Pasco. Brown: It is in Pasco. We started out in those little—we started out with the church—it’s amazing how things are in life and you meet people. But we started out in them little crib, whatever you call them out there John Ball. They let us have one, and Reverend Wilkins, which is Senior, and Brother Green and Brother Upton came out to teach us Sunday school. That’s how that started back in those days. That was in ’52, ’53, whatever. That’s how it started accumulating for Reverend Wilkins got a church in Pasco. Franklin: And that’s Morning Star. Brown: No, no, that’s New Hope. New Hope Baptist Church, which is by Reverend Dr. Wayne Jenkins now. Which is—but they’re close, still so close together and they kind of associate. But that’s where we went to church. In fact, that’s where my mom was going to church, that’s where I went to church, my brother and all. It’s changed a lot now than then, because during those days, we had one of the best choirs that was around. We had, when the Army was here, a professional singer, and music: incredible—was our teacher. We used to sing all over the place. There was the Tates family, there was Carrie Anne, she’s close to the Daniels family and whatever, myself, and Shep Tate, which is a preacher now, all of that. Miss Owens, Robert Owens and Mary Harrison. We had a heck of a choir. And preachers. It was just fantastic, we’d just sing all over. It was just wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful. And like I say, right now, see, Reverend Jenkins, he works at the hospital now. He is, like God sent him there to do whatever, as the shepherds do. He is excellent. He takes care of people, he takes care—if anybody ever want to know anything about the Bible, which he calls the Bible is a library, and that’s where you can find everything. And he knows it from head to toe. We have Bible studies on Wednesday and it’s amazing. I used to not go as much, but now I go. My wife goes all the time. And it’s amazing how things in the Bible you wouldn’t believe that it’s true. And it’s wonderful. I mean, you say you don’t like—but you get in those classes with him talking and explaining, and it’s incredible. And it’s true life. And that’s what makes it nice that you can—you have faith and trust in somebody like that. And it’s proven. And it’s wonderful. And that’s where we—my daughters are in the choir, they sing. Every one of my kids are in church. Franklin: And is it still New Hope that you go to? Brown: Mm-hmm. Franklin: Okay. Brown: Yeah, they’re in the choir, beautiful sing, they—it’s just wonderful. Franklin: And how come your family went to a—because I know there were Baptist churches in Richland, how come you went to Pasco? Brown: To Pasco? There wasn’t any church—black churches in Richland at that time. There’s a few now. But that’s where most of the black accumulated for the churches. And when we came out, when we were in the trailer court, they’re the ones that came and we got the tent, I mean, inside the school where we started the Sunday school, and that’s how that started. Yup. They came out, gave us Sunday school lessons and whatever. Franklin: What role does church play in the black community? Brown: Major roles. Because in the black community, it’s one of the out-going-est things there is in the community. Because that’s the way they were raised from their environments, early in the years. That’s how they sung. Togetherness. As you can see in some of the movies they make, how they sing and they praise the Lord, and they work together with each other. See, that’s the thing we need to do more now with everybody, don’t care what race or whatever you are. You need to do that. That’s how we got along, you know? Church has a convention, they go up there, they go, oh man, and coming up, seeing that, get in their wagons, they go and accumulate food, and oh my gosh, it’s just amazing. And that’s the way it should be all over. And that makes you feel good when you go and you see that. That makes you, as a whole, work together as everything in life itself. It makes it easier. It makes it easier. If I cut, you bleed, if you cut, you bleed same blood. So you know? And that’s the way it should be. Franklin: How would you describe life in the community in Richland? Brown: It’s wonderful. Especially to have a family. That’s the only place to be in a place like this, with a family. Not—we’re fortunate. And people don’t realize it, how fortunate you are to be in the cities where you can’t go out and run and have a good time. It’s just a fortune-to-be. And that’s what’s happening now, so many people are coming here because of that. Family people. What they have? Activities. Incredible. Franklin: Speaking of activities, what did you do in your spare time? Brown: Most of the time in the spare time, on age-wise, most of the time we played sports. That’s a lot. And what we did is work. We always had a job when we were out of school. That was our main thing, work. Chores, you had to do. It ain’t like nowadays, you tell them to do something, you come, they aren’t done. We didn’t have to—if it wasn’t done, you know what happened back here. That was a true story. You’d get—and people don’t realize, if you obey your parents and do things, life is a lot easier. We used to get up if we had to make our bed and do whatever and get it done, you’re free to go. Just stay out of trouble. And that’s what we did. And that’s growing up here, you have everything in between you. If you want to go to Seattle big city, if you want to go to Spokane, want to go to Portland, everything’s here. It’s wide open. It’s beautiful for family. It’s just wonderful! That’s why you find a family with five or six people, they don’t worry about it. See? It’s a lot of activities for them. Something to do. And it’s not as good as it used to be where you could leave your house open, leave the kids playing, they know they aren’t going to do anything wrong in your house. And that’s the way it was. Franklin: Do you remember any particular community events? Brown: Yes. In regards to which? Good or bad? Franklin: Good and bad. Brown: Yeah. We had a few, like a few in sports, and you’re the only black, you’re going to have conflicts. That’s just obvious with people. It’s over—almost over now, but we had it—I had it in Sunnyside once. We played, we had a little name-calling and whichever. Of course, we beat them pretty bad, but that’s part of the thing. Coming up in school, I can say, we didn’t have as much, because we were athletes, and that makes a difference. Franklin: Why? Brown: I don’t know. The people gets to know you, and they gets to meet you, and you become part of them, I would say. You become part of everybody’s—and they get the wrong impression before they know you of what it is until you—geez, that’s a nice guy, why do they always talk about da, da, da, da? And this is what happens with a lot. They become your best friends. And that’s what happens. A lot of times, if some people let go and let the kids work it out themselves, it’s a lot better. And I had another conflict in school where I was a prince, and we went over to Kennewick to a dance. They wouldn’t let us in. Franklin: They wouldn’t let who in? Brown: Wouldn’t let me and my escort in. We both were black. And they hadn’t segregated that. Over there, it was a teenager house, where we just had had our deal and we all were going dancing. So they wouldn’t let us go in. That’s where that situation—but it got straightened. But it takes, sometimes, something like that happening to start things rolling. So that was a great event. There was myself, Carrie Anne Barton, she was involved in it. It was a big write-up. You probably could go back into history, back in those days, when I graduated in ’58 and around in that area in ’57 you could find it in the Tri-Cities. Franklin: I think I’ve seen that. Brown: Have you? Franklin: I think I’ve seen what you’re talking about in the paper. Brown: Yeah, exactly. Franklin: You were—it was a public place, it was a public dance, and you had been refused entry. Brown: Exactly. Those things happened. I think it happens for the good in some respects, just like everything else, like when Martin Luther King marched and sang “We Will Overcome.” Things happen for a purpose: to make it better for other people. And that what it takes sometimes. Franklin: What about more positive community events? Do you remember like the annual Atomic Frontier Days celebration? Brown: Oh, gosh, yes. All of that. All the different incredible, incredible things on all events and situations like that. A lot of entertainment, and like I say, in the community, they didn’t accumulate as much as black and other races together like they do now on other events, like bringing in stars in and doing this and stuff like that. But I can’t think of too many other incidents like they have now, the boat races and all of this stuff, as a community. They didn’t have a lot of that then-days. [VIDEO CUTS] Franklin: We were talking about events. Brown: Exactly. Franklin: Were there any accommodations or events that you were unwelcome at or refused because of your race— Brown: Race, nah. Franklin: --besides the event in Kennewick? Brown: No, no, no, no. Franklin: How many—blacks were pretty much a minority in Richland, right? Brown: Exactly. Franklin: How many black families were there that you can— Brown: Well, give you an example, I think there was only five black in Richland High School. I think it was myself, and I think it was about five that I know of. I think we were close to one or two coming here. In fact, it wasn’t that very many, because not very many worked for General Electric, see? And the ones that worked out there mostly lived in Pasco, especially in the black community. Pasco was the main area. Franklin: Were there any divisions between the blacks that lived in Richland and the blacks that lived in Pasco? Brown: [LAUGHTER] You had to ask that question. Franklin: I did, yeah. Brown: You had to ask. It’s hilarious! To me, it is. Because people would get on our case. Oh, you guys lived out in the rich part of town. You know how they go. You live in Richland. We live in Pasco. And they thought—that, oh, it used to just ache, especially my mom, my wife. The kids, when we used to go, when I was married and had kids and all, oh, you guys think you’re so good, because you lived in Richland. It wasn’t—we did have that little conflict there with the blacks. Because we lived in Richland, and we were fortunate enough to live in Richland. And it happens. People think you’re more high-class, that’s what they think. Even so, we dressed the kids nice and when they go to church, people get inferiority complex or something along that. Like, hmm. How can they afford to dress them like that or do this? We had comments like that, seriously. It happened. It happened to a lot of the families that’s coming from Richland and living in Richland. And like we say, you can live anywhere you want, if you want to. You can buy any kind of car you want, if you want to. If you determine to do it, and made a commitment, you can do it. And it was jealousy, that’s all it was. Thought we were high-class, but we wasn’t. We just living the life the way God had blessed us to be. Franklin: Do you recall any family or community activities, events, or traditions that people brought from the places they came from, basically, that blacks had brought from Texas up here? Brown: I can’t recall. Events in church, I know they have those. That’s norm for there and here. They had all kind of events there. Franklin: Like what? Brown: Like we just had a—the church been there 60 years—I’m just saying events like that situation. And like they have a pastors’ anniversaries. They have all these anniversaries. They do that now, here. And—go ahead, yeah. Franklin: I was going to ask, what about food, for example? Brown: Food! They don’t have a feast, but they do it on anniversaries. We just had one this past week where it was the 65 years and they—not just a feast. They do have June 16th or 18th or whatever. Franklin: Juneteenth? Brown: Yeah. They do that. Which is a big event together where they have all the different soul foods and whatever. That don’t come about every year. Franklin: What about with the family, did people bring their food traditions with them? Up here? Like did your parents bring the foods of the South, the soul food up with them? Brown: Absolutely, absolutely. How they cook it and how they make it and all that. Franklin: What kind of foods in particular do you remember? Brown: Particular? Barbecue, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, okra, cabbages, greens, good old long onions, where you just take a good old bite. Squash. This is what they lived off the land. Tomatoes. They lived off the land with all of this type of food. Iced potatoes. That kind of stuff, they lived off the land to survive. And that’s what, when you go—we just had a feast in church and they had all the, oh my gosh, corn bread, make they own, used to make they own butter—milk the cow. I used to churn it myself. Franklin: Back in Texas? Brown: Back in Texas, absolutely. I used to do that. Kill they own. That’s why I say, as a family, they got together and they did all this stuff together. And they’d feast, oh my gosh, it’s incredible, incredible food. Good stuff, too. Have all this organic stuff and this. Oh, it’s unreal, unreal. Franklin: Were there opportunities available here that were not available where you or your parents came from? Brown: Absolutely. Your opportunity to go to a store, transportation, that was a major thing. Franklin: What do you mean, opportunity to go to the store? Brown: I mean, the store you had to go to there, you had to go miles, or you had to buy all you need here because you had to go 10 or 12 or 13 miles to get to a store to get the other type of groceries. So you were way out here and farming and wherever, they had it in one little central area, so everybody’d come like this. And like now you could get on a trolley or bus or these things and go or walk to it easily—no, no. That’s a difficult thing. And you’d see a lot of them take their wagon, get the mule hooked up, take off to the store, get all they sugar and all this stuff and flour in big sacks, so they didn’t have to go. So you can see, it’s a great difference, great difference. Franklin: What about education? Brown: Education. Education was good, but not as good, because of the work status. It’d been many times you had to pull out—my uncles—when I lived with my grandmother, there was 14 in my family with my mom—and had to stay, chop cotton, pick cotton. Franklin: You mean they had to be pulled out of school— Brown: Exactly, exactly. And you had to do that to survive on living. Franklin: Right. Brown: And that’s what made it—oh! That’s what made it so—experience to see that and what happened and how they doing it nowadays and what they have, and how they don’t take advantage of what they have nowadays. Like what they had to do back in those days. I experienced that and got to see it. Living off the land. Living off the land. No—how you get irrigation? There wasn’t no irrigation! What is irrigation? God has a way of doing it. And that stuff grow incredibly. It’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe. Franklin: Yeah. Brown: It really is. To think about that. But I got to experience it and see it. That’s what makes it nice. And you see now, water? What’s that? Hot? I mean, hot-hot. But it grows. Franklin: In what ways were opportunities here limited because of segregation or racism? Brown: Well, it’s hard to say. You’re not limited anymore, I don’t think, too much. I think it’s mostly—you don’t find that anymore as much as it used to be. Because it’s changed in the South. And that’s where it used to be, you go to the backdoor, he go to the front. We experienced that. I experienced that. But you don’t have that anymore. Which is good, which is good. Franklin: What about here? Were there opportunities that were limited when you were a child or coming up? Brown: Well, in certain areas it was; like I say, Kennewick was that way. But other than that, I didn’t experience too much of other places. Like I say, by being small group of people in the area, it wasn’t too bad. Because they got along well. But it could still be there, which it’s going to be every place; don’t matter where you go. But you don’t see it as much. Because it was a small community of black in the area. That’s where you—the most of those people was Christians. That makes a difference on a family, you come from Christian families, you’re going to find a cooperation that’s great. That’s what it takes. You treat me well, I’ll treat you well. Franklin: Yeah. Did segregation and racism affect your education? Brown: Say that again? Franklin: Did segregation or racism affect your education? Brown: Did it lure it? Franklin: Did it affect it? Your education. Brown: Oh, no. That was up to me, to do whatever you have to do in your classwork. And to prove the point is that, whatever you did, you didn’t know whether you doing it right or wrong, whether they did that, but you assume you were, because they did pass you, give you a grade, give you whatever. And by that time, you would compare other people, you could tell. You could tell by other people whatever they’re doing in the class or whatever and whatever what you’re doing. And you can tell the smart one and the one that’s not smart. Franklin: Who were some of the people that influenced you as a child? Brown: As a where? Franklin: As a child. Brown: As a child? As a child. I think my parents influenced me by work. I think as teachers, coaches, how to discipline and what you can do with your life. You look at some of the coaching staff and some of the teachers, that they could take more time with you when they know that you’re struggling. That was a blessing. I can go back—because you can look at some of the teachers would take you in and say, you need help in this and help in that. Because like a lot of our people are slow learners because they were taken away from a lot as they grew up, coming from the different environments. But it got where you make a commitment for something, you do it. And that’s what it took. A lot of people—I can use that as an educational with CJ Mitchell, that’s a good example. He was almost—what was he? 35, 40, before he got his degree in something. But he kept going. Still have a job and going, but he wanted to get better. And that’s what he did. And that’s what you have to do when you lose out on a lot of that. You look at your coaches, you look at how they treat you and try to help you and do things for you. That’s a motivator. And I had a lot of it. I had a lot of it in my lifetime. Because I got missed out on school in certain ways when I was younger. Like they normally tutor people, you know, when they can’t—we were moving around here, moving around there. It affects you. It really does. Franklin: Yeah. You graduated in ’58? Brown: ’58. Franklin: And what did you do afterwards? Brown: Afterwards, I went to school, I went to CBC for two years. Played sports there, had a scholarship. I went there two years, my brother and I both. And after I left CBC, I went up to Cheney. Got a scholarship in Cheney. Franklin: For Eastern Washington? Brown: Eastern Washington, yeah, up at Cheney. And I had a scholarship in basketball there, but it didn’t work out. So during that year, I dropped out. And I shouldn’t have. But I did! That’s the year they was drafting people into the service. And I got drafted into the Army. 24th Division Germany, I went. And on a story, as you talk about that, I met my wife at CBC, she was from California. That was her brother that I was telling you about in Kennewick. And I went and got married. She was from Bakersfield, California, my wonderful wife. And I got to Bakersfield, California, took my mom and took all. And my brother didn’t call me and tell me I had my papers for the military. And he finally told us and my wife says, tell them I’m pregnant! Tell I’m this! You don’t need to go. But I went into the service, and went over in Germany, and I stayed in Germany four years. Special duties. I was in the 24th Division. Went all over Europe as basketball divisions. I got to travel all over Europe: Italy, France, Germany, Austria, all over, for four years. I was a basic trainer for physical education, bayonet training, hand-to-hand combat training. I did that for four years over in Germany. And that’s when I was in AIT in California. My wife got pregnant and she says, it’s time for you to come home. And I didn’t come home, because I extended for a year. And that’s when she called the Red Cross. And they said, yeah, he’s extended. And so I didn’t—I wasn’t able to see my daughter when she was born. And that’s where my life started. Right there. But I grew up over there in the military. I would tell anybody, go to the service, whatever you have. It grows you up. It makes a man out of you. Because I knew I had responsibilities. It just was the wonderful thing I could’ve ever done. And I stayed in there four years and got out, went to reserves and I started working for GE. That’s where I started again. Franklin: Out at Hanford? Brown: Out at Hanford. Franklin: What year was that? Brown: ’64, ’65. Franklin: What did you do for GE? Brown: GE? I worked in the mailroom. That’s where a lot of us started, in the mailroom. That’s where I started, in the mailroom. And as they—because when I first left and went into the military, I had started to work for GE, but I had got drafted. And so Mr. Wood, out here the Woods Nursery—he worked for GE in hiring people. And I’ll never forget him. He says, don’t worry about it. He said, when you get back—he worked for GE—he said, we’ll get you a job. And sure enough they did. So when I got out of the military, boom, they got me a job. It was wonderful. That’s kind of the way it happened on that. Franklin: And how long did you work out at Hanford? Brown: About all my—most until I retired here in—of course, they changed companies. As they changed companies, like I went from GE to Westinghouse, from Westinghouse to Bechtel, from Bechtel back to Westinghouse. I’ll never forget when I was working for GE, me and one of my friends, I forget his name, we had to change the lights in the whole fixtures of the lights they had up in downtown in the 703 Building. 703 Building, still there that one. That’s where I started out, him and I. Taking the lights down, cleaning them. And then as the thing go, I started working for GE and then I went to Battelle, and I went to Westinghouse, and that’s where I started most of my work, working on FFTF. Franklin: What did you do at FFTF? Brown: I was a manager—a supervisor. Franklin: Supervisor for--? Brown: Of mailroom, duplicating, reproduction, and all the satellites for the projects. I had, what, 12 women and one guy [LAUGHTER] working for me. I worked there, and I’ll never forget, I worked for a guy named Laurence Smith. He was a go-getter. When I first started working out there in the Area. When we started to put the project number two, I was in charge of all of reproduction, duplicating, buying equipment, buying all that. Franklin: When you say project number two, do you mean the Washington Public— Brown: Northwest Energy, yeah. Franklin: Yeah, Energy Northwest. Brown: Yeah, they used to call it Whups! [WPPSS]. Franklin: Yes. Brown: Yeah, we had five— Franklin: Yeah, they like to get away from that acronym now. Brown: Exactly. We had five projects going at the same time. Franklin: Right, but only one of them— Brown: One of them made it. All of them was—oh, what a mess. Franklin: Yes. Brown: What a mess. I mean, I had equipment going back to people, just—oh, it’s so much—oh! That was a disaster. But we made it through. But the one project going is still going. That was a good experience. I used to have my group have to work litigations and—oh, my gosh. In fact, my kids worked out there, a couple of them. Laquida and Chrissie and one of my others, too, Carolyn, the one’s in Vegas. But it was quite a deal, though, to see all that stuff just go to—ah. With all the money that people—oh. Sad sap, all of that. But anyway, that was my experience working. I worked there and retired out of there. I’ve been retired 23 years. I took the early retirement. My wife worked for Battelle. She put 30 years in. We both retired at the same time, 1994, I think it was. Franklin: Wow. What did your wife do at Battelle? Brown: She was in charge of the library. Franklin: Oh, okay. Brown: She worked in the library. She used to go to Washington, DC to do things and everything. She had a good—it was a good job for her. She loved it. She’s dedicated anyway, because that’s the way she is in the church. She’s on the treasury and this and that. But she loved the library. Mr. Wayne Snyder was her boss. Quite a guy, yep, yep. Wayne Snyder. Never forget it. She always would talk about him now. But anyway, she worked there 30 years. Franklin: Wow. The whole time for Battelle? Brown: Yeah, Battelle. Franklin: Wow. Brown: Yeah, she worked all the time for Battelle. She was in photography for a while, and then she went on to the library and she worked her way up through that. Been married 57 years. Franklin: Wow. Brown: [LAUGHTER] I know it. I need a trophy. I keep telling her that, when we talk to people in the church. And she says, you guys been married, what? 57 years and I need a trophy. [LAUGHTER] But it’s been wonderful. It really has. Franklin: Good. Brown: To be able to do that, travel, and the time go by so fast. And that’s why she says—in fact, the pastor just told her the other day, we was having Bible study and we were on a subject like that, and she says, Leda, how long did you work for Battelle? She says, 30 years. That’s what I want to tell you. You made a commitment to what you wanted to do. And that’s what Christians should do, he said. Make a commitment of what you want to do. And you did it, and look at you now! See? You make that commitment in life what you want to do, and you can do it. But you got to make a commitment and do it and stick to it. Yup, yup. Franklin: How would you describe your relationships with your coworkers and your supervisors at Hanford? Brown: At Hanford? Wonderful. Because whatever they wanted, I did it. And to say it so, they used to call me No Problem Brown. Go see him, he’ll take care of you. That’s what they used to call me. The litigation, the lawyers used to need stuff. I didn’t care what it cost, overtime or whatever. My relation with them was good. It had to be, because I was in a service department. And you got to learn when you’re in something like that, do whatever they want you to do. Not say, I can’t. I’ll try and do it. Whatever it takes. And get it done. Too many people criti—oh, we don’t need to do this; that ain’t right; this ain’t what you need to do. Do it if they want it. And that’s what happened. That’s what made my job so easy. And I’d tell the people, can you work overtime tonight or whatever? Yes, I’ll do it. Can you get this out? What do we need to do? Need to take it downtown, commercial? Do it. I didn’t have any problem with any of them because I did my job of what they wanted. And they was managers and whatever. Let them fight the problem, not me. I didn’t have any problem. That’s why I was successful at retiring in the same place, yeah. Franklin: What kinds of interactions did you have with coworkers and supervisors outside of work? Brown: Outside of work? I can’t recall any outside of work. You saying, people outside of work, or just supervisors or—how do you want to--? Franklin: Yeah, the people you worked with and your supervisors. Because I imagine even in the ‘60s and ‘70s, right, blacks would’ve been a minority, a real minority— Brown: Well, I really didn’t have any problem with that. Honestly. Because I was raised to do your job if you’re working for somebody. And do a good job, no matter what you’re doing. Do a good job, and you ain’t got to worry about who you are or what you doing here or there. Do your job like it’s supposed to be and you won’t have a lot of problem. Franklin: In what ways did the security and secrecy at Hanford impact your work or daily life? Brown: Security? Franklin: Yeah. Brown: Not really. Because you knew the security violations of whatever you had to do. No. Security was good for the people, good for you, because you had to provide by the rules and regulations. That’s self-explanatory. If you do something you aren’t supposed to do in regards to the rules and regulations, you get punished for it. Simply. You know? It’s just like driving a car. If you are supposed to go 25, and you’re going 40, that’s you. Rules and regulations doesn’t say that you can do that. Franklin: What do you know about your parents’ reactions to learning that the work they had done contributed to the development of the atomic bomb? Brown: Well, they didn’t know what they were doing until the fact came out. Franklin: Yeah. What do you remember about that? Brown: Well, I don’t remember too much about it, until I—I was so young during that time—until I found out why and what they were doing later. Kind of frightening about it, because some of the things that came out into the parents’ situation by radiation—which my mom went through it. Yeah. My dad was exposed to it, but not as bad. But other than that, I can’t recall, because I was kind of young when that happened. Until I found out later that the people didn’t know what they were doing; they were just working. And that’s tough. But that’s the way life was, and you had to accept it the way it was. Franklin: Yeah. What do you think is the most important legacy of the Hanford Site? Brown: The most important is work. Nuclear. Electricity. Environments, keeping it clean for other generations. That’s one of the most important because the danger that they set here on Hanford. Soon as you say the word Hanford, people think about radiation this and that. That’s just the way life is. So, that’s— Franklin: I’m going to move on to talk about civil rights now. Brown: Okay. Franklin: What were the major civil rights issues for African Americans at Hanford and in the Tri-Cities during your time here? Brown: I can’t recall too much. In the Tri-Cities? Franklin: Yeah. And at Hanford. Brown: Let’s see what you—how can you put that in another way? Franklin: What kinds of civil rights issues was the black community in the Tri-Cities struggling with? What were the main areas of concern? Brown: Okay, okay. I think work. Jobs. You can see a lot of that. I’m making—I’m giving an example. Ten dollars, they’re getting 12. But I’m doing more than they are. I’m a specialist. I’m a service worker. You see a lot of that. That was really a tough situation. In fact, that go on now. It goes on. Politics, situation of people, you know people and they do this and do this and whatever. That’s the only thing I can see. But actually a lot of people don’t know that, unless they communicate with people and find out. Otherwise it goes on that I’m making a good living and doing good and whatever. But sometimes they could say, well, we’re only getting so-and-so. You getting what? I’m not even getting that. Communication through things, it happens that way. Segregation situation. And I think a lot of time, to be honest, we do it ourselves. We’re afraid to take a chance on situations. Like going in and asking for a job or getting an application or do things like that. We’re frightened and say, aw, they ain’t going to hire me because of my—but that’s not really true. You never know until you do. You got a good background and you have a trace of a good background, somebody’ll see you. But never give up. Keep moving forward. Franklin: Any other issues besides employment that the black community struggled with in the Tri-Cities? What about housing? Brown: Housing? Franklin: Yeah. Brown: No, I don’t think so. No. Because I can go with my family, where I live—I live in all the area with the Mormons. They become as a family. It was wonderful. I had a house built in 1972 over there. I’m still there. And just like now, my daughter lived out in West Richland where the new houses Hayden put up. They bought one there right in the middle of everybody. It’s money counts now. Franklin: What about historically? You mentioned that your wife’s brother— Brown: Yes. Franklin: --had tried to live in— Brown: And he did live in Kennewick. Franklin: So, historically, was housing a concern for the African American community in the Tri-Cities? Quality housing? Brown: Well, because if they could afford it. They could live in Kennewick or Richland. Not Kennewick. But in Pasco or Richland. But over there, you found very few people would live over there in Kennewick because of the surrounding of where you would be. They were mostly on the east side. Now, be honest, it moved. They started moving on up—you know how people, generation to generation, get involved in it. But in Richland, if you could afford it, because it was so—it was expensive more in Richland, in the areas. Different, new areas. The old areas wasn’t too bad where the old, what do you say, during-the-war-houses— Franklin: The Alphabet Houses? Brown: Prefabs and precuts and situation. But they were something like a dime a dollar in those days. But if you had the job to be able to afford it, you could do it. And that was the basic there. Franklin: That kind of goes back to your first point, though, where jobs were a concern because at times jobs may have been there but at the time African Americans were being paid less for the same job or there were classes of jobs that just weren’t really allowed— Brown: Right, exactly. You analyzed it perfectly. That’s exactly-- Franklin: So that kind of influences the quality of housing. Brown: Quality, absolutely. You’re right. Absolutely. I’m only making this, and they making that, and how can they afford it? Situations. That happened. Franklin: Because that happened to CJ Mitchell, right? Brown: Absolutely. Franklin: That he had been—people thought maybe because he bought a nice house, maybe they were paying him too much. Brown: Mm-hmm, exactly! You’re exactly right. And that’s the same way with us. That when we moved over there, and the people at work were worse than the people where we lived. They says, where you live? I live in Westview Acres. What?! And she says she saw a supervisor drive by her place. And says, that’s where you live? And she drove—we had a Mercedes. I drove a Mercedes. 1978 Mercedes. She drove it to work. She didn’t drive it no more. How can you afford a Mercedes?! You know, those kinds of things, how can you do this and how can you do that? She couldn’t stand it. We parked it. [LAUGHTER] We still got it, though. It’s a good car. Still restored. Yeah, it was her baby. Anyway, you’re right. You run into those situation. Yup. You’re paying them too much. Franklin: What action was taken to address the disparity in jobs and housing? Brown: In regards to buying, selling or getting? Franklin: Yeah. Brown: Well, like I said again, I’ll go back to if you could afford to do it, there was no problem. But to get into certain neighborhood, you couldn’t. You know, it was limited to a certain thing because of that. And to tell you the truth, on something else in regards to what you’re talking about, in selling a house or buying a house, people would want to know who’s moving next-door. We just went through that with my daughter. They were selling a house, but the people seeing the pictures and they couldn’t sell it. Soon they took the pictures down and done, showing that was black, it sold right away. That’s amazing. You follow what I’m saying? Franklin: Yeah, I follow what you’re saying. Brown: Yeah? So you can see. It just happened, too, recently, to this house that he got ready to sell out in Richland because his upstairs is five-bedroom and the kids are all mostly gone. He said, I will not leave any pictures or anything here. And it sold pretty fast. Franklin: You mean pictures of the family? Brown: Yes. Knowing that they were black, see what I’m saying? That happens. People don’t realize it, but it happens. And you can see what I’m referring to. Franklin: Oh, yes, very much. Who were the important leaders of civil rights efforts in the area? Brown: In the area? Hmm. I’d have to go way back on that. I think, mostly it was, I’ve seen CJ had a lot to do with some of that. And you have the pastors. Reverend Wilkins, he was a strong man as a pastor through all this. He worked down—I think he worked for GE or some of them people. But Reverend Wilkins was a very strong believer in that. And Reverend—I can go all the reverends really. Reverend Jackson, he was quite a leader. Reverend Upton. Franklin: Reverend who? Brown: Upton? Franklin: Upton? Brown: U-P—I guess that’s the way you spell it, Upton. I’m trying to—well, you had like Reverend—I know he was. I’m trying to figure out his—gosh. Who else was that? Some of those names will come to me later but won’t come to me now. Reverend Allen. Reverend Allen, that’s who I wanted to say. He was a real strong believer in that. Because he—Reverend Allen, he was quite a guy. Franklin: Why were the reverends so much at the forefront of civil rights? Brown: Because of the Christian-type. You know, just like, Martin Luther King situation, Christian. And that’s what they believe in the Bible and believe that all people are created equally and that’s the way it was taught. That’s one of the main things in the church, as a pastor. And like they say, the dictionary is here in the Bible. If you follow that, you can’t go wrong. So that’s kind of the way things were with the people back there. Reverend Allen was a plumb believer in—he was with the missionary through all the big churches. He was in charge of all that through Seattle and whatever and pushed all that stuff. He was one of the head top nachos in that. Franklin: What were some of the notable successes of civil rights efforts in the area? Brown: Oh, god. Non-believers? Did you say non-believers? Franklin: No. What were some of the notable successes? Brown: Oh, the successes! Oh, okay. I follow you, what you’re referring to. Well, I’m trying to recall some of the situation with that, successful. Okay. People used to not vote. That was one of the main things. People would not sit back so they aren’t going to—but every vote counted. They publicize that very well in the churches. That was the main thing. To get us better, to get us where we at, we need to go and vote. That was one of the main things in their life that they would publicize of what you need to do. They would bring that up in church; in fact, they do now. And that was the main thing. So you have to get out and support the things that you want to have done. If you don’t, they’re just going to continue to do them. That was the main issue. One of the main, main issue on that. Get out and vote on the stuff. You’re a citizen and you have the rights. But lot of them just, ah, they don’t listen to me. Franklin: What were some of the biggest challenges? Civil rights challenges? Brown: Of having your right to go places, having your right to buy things, not because of your color. And having the rights to be able to live where you wanted to live. That was some of the big issues, I think. In regards— Franklin: Were those issues here? Brown: Yeah, you’re always going to have those kind of issues. You have them, don’t matter where you go. You’re going to have them. And you’re going to find people that—it’s fading away. Because we’re moving forward instead of staying down where it’s bad. We want to move forward in regards to what’s going on. Yeah, you’re going to run into the issues. You got to ignore them and go on and try to make things right. Because that’s the way life is. You look at the past; you got to let the past go and look at the things going forward. We got to move forward. Because we can’t think about the past of how—and that’s why our ancestors set our paths for us. And come up with these situations, like you say, the Martin Luther King going for the march and this and that, and vote and getting out the vote. These are the things you need to do to make it better. Franklin: Right. Were you directly involved in any civil rights efforts? Brown: No, not really. Not really. Franklin: Okay. Brown: Nope, nope. Nope, I just stayed mostly in sports. Mostly in sports, coaching and— Franklin: Do you think sports was a special kind of path to acceptance for African Americans? Did it offer you something special in terms of acceptance? Brown: Yes. Sports was—like, I coached for 28 years. I did at Hanford and I did at Kamiakin. Me and Emmett Jackson. You know Emmett. Franklin: Yup. Brown: And the people accepted us as who we were and what we did. We didn’t do it as politics-wise. We did it as a person who wanted to make a commitment to do what they had to do. The discipline that they had. And this is the way we coached. People love that. We used to have people say, well, what’s wrong with him? How come you aren’t playing him? How come you aren’t doing this? The simple answer is, come to our practices. He came to the practice and he left. Next day, he say, I see what you’re saying. See? You bring people in to see what’s going on, when you’re trying to help them and they don’t cooperate or do what they’re supposed to do, let them see it themselves. And that made a difference. Because we treated them as human. As if they were my kids or whatever. And we tell the parents, give them to us for an hour, and then you can have them back. Leave them alone. And we have nowadays guys saying, hey, Coach Brown! You can tell how you treated the people to give you that respect that you did it right. Franklin: You and your brother were kind of sports stars in Richland. Brown: Right. Franklin: Right, Richland High School. I forget who I interviewed earlier, but someone said that it seemed to them that high school was harder for black women because they didn’t have the sports outlet; whereas, if you could play sports, there was a degree of acceptance. Could you—what are your thoughts on that? Brown: Well, could be negative and could be positive in some respect. It’s how that other person and you react to the environments of the people. See, I might take it a different way, because they treat me in a different way for what I do than compared to what I do. So there’d be a difference in that situation. Franklin: Were there ever any social or sporting events when you were in high school where your race was an issue? Brown: Yes. There was especially when we were playing. That’s what you’re referring to. Like, Sunnyside, we had a problem. Break out. You probably have heard about that one. Emmett probably told you about that, too. That’s when we was in high school. They didn’t see very many blacks. And when we do go play out, we dominate. And when you dominate somebody in they own place, you get criticized. Don’t matter where. And that was the outbreak. They had to call the police, they had to do this and whatever. Franklin: Really? They had to call the police? Brown: Oh, yeah. They had to call the police and everything. Escorted us out of there. Franklin: Who were the police called on? What was the— Brown: Security, they called them on, because the coaches called them, too. Art Dawald, he was the coach. Franklin: Of Richland? Brown: Of Richland on that situation. Never forget it. Yup, an outburst. Because we beat them so bad. Oh, them so-and-sos and so-and-so—it was bad. It was really bad. It was in the paper. I’m sure if you go back in those days, you could probably easily find it. Franklin: Did they use— Brown: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Franklin: --racially-charged language? Brown: Oh, yeah. It was out. Yup, yup. They don’t belong here, these… But yeah, I’ll never forget that. That was the only most disaster thing that ever happened. That was in high school. I think you’ll go back and find the paper, it’ll be in the paper. Franklin: Do you remember what year that was? Brown: Let’s see. It had to be in my high school year. Because my brother and I both was playing together. So that had to be in ’57, ’55, ’56, ’57. In that area. Because we both was playing. Franklin: Is Norris older or younger? Brown: Older. One year. Franklin: One year, okay. Brown: Yup, he was a year ahead of me. A year ahead of me. That was only the big outburst we had. Franklin: Did you ever—how do I ask this question—what was dating like? Were you ever—you know, because I’m sure you may have had friends—lots of white friends— Brown: I got you. I got you. Franklin: Was there any strict requirement— Brown: Gotcha, gotcha. Franklin: Okay. Brown: Dating was very interesting. Because of sport athletic ability that you have, you aren’t going to have much problem. I had a white girlfriend. Dated her. Lived out in north Richland here. And we were in school together. You know how you go down and you go to the locker with them and this and that, okay? They had an outburst. Somebody did. And they found out who was doing the outburst. Our vice president, I’ll never forget him, Solly? Solly, have you heard the name Solly? Okay, he was our president. Him and Mulligan, George Mulligan, called the guy in and said, we aren’t going to have this. And they called us and apologized to me. Franklin: When you say “incident” and “guy,” what do you— Brown: What they did is, they didn’t want us to date the white girls. And they was prejudiced against it. Franklin: Was this other students or parents? Brown: Students. Students. They even had an assembly on it. Franklin: Had assembly about what? Brown: About this situation. To the people. And told them, said, we aren’t going to have it. Honestly, I’ll never forget that. We used to have assemblies all the time before basketball and things and any activities. The president brought it up. Franklin: So there weren’t a lot of African Americans at Richland High School. Brown: No, no. Franklin: So did you feel like this was—I mean, you and your brother must—this was targeted about your situation. Brown: Right, right. Because that happened in junior high in Chief Jo. As that led on, we didn’t have any problem after that. They showed the support through the faculty, of the president and all of that. Boy, it went away. Never did have any other problem. Never did have any other problem. They treated us just like whatever. And I could say a lot of it probably was our athletic ability of what we did for the school and for the community. Got well-known, and that carries us through it. And like I say, I can only count little ones, not a lot of them. Same way, going to the sock hop, they used to call it. They call your name and call your girlfriend up to start out. I can remember that. It showed how closely you were with the facilities of the people. And that made you feel good, to show you have that support. Franklin: Yeah. Brown: Yup. I went through it, experienced it. Yup. Franklin: I just have two kind of open-ended questions left. First was, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? Brown: During that time? During the Cold War? That’s many years, wasn’t it? Franklin: It was, about 45. [LAUGHTER] Brown: I know it, that’s what I’m saying! Well, I tell you— Franklin: I guess maybe the high point of the Cold War, you know? Brown: Yeah, I know. Of living in that environment? You know, it doesn’t affect you as much as you’d think about it until afterwards. Because you can’t see exactly what’s going on. You can hear about it. Until it happens or what done happened in the Cold War of what your parents went through. Because you can’t see it. All you are is trying to have a good time, go to school and do things like that and enjoy life. Where they were doing things incredibly. So the experience did not change in regards to being a young person or whatever. We still had activities. But in those days, we made our own activity situation where we would be happy. As long as our parents was working and bringing in something for food, we were happy. Because we was not informed with the other situation. They didn’t publicize it like they publicize now. Because they got all this stuff now, they know what’s going on, what’s this and whatever going on, and people know. All we was concerned about: going to school, parents was working, making a living, and getting some food in our old stomach. And having a good time. That’s what we were concerned about, back in those days. Franklin: Sure. Brown: Yup, that was it. And that’s how we met a lot of friends, too, by that situation. Making our own playground, making our own things together. And communicating together. And that’s what made it nice. And made it nice and—wherever you—it just, it’s not like that anymore. Gosh. It just aches you to see it. But that was the good days. Good days. Like now, I see Hecksons—I don’t know if you know them or not—Jerry Heckson and Roger was the old—we used to play together. They’re white, and we just had a good time. We made our own fun. And that’s—they don’t do that anymore. It just—ugh. That’s why you have so many problems with segregation, people and this and that. But Christians, that means a lot, when you have faith and trust in God and those situations, and your family. It carries you a long way through life. Makes you think twice. Instead of blowing up. And that’s what it is. Communicate, you listen. I learned that in, when I was working, when I used to go to seminars. The guy used to get up, after he’d go through everything, he’d say, I’m going to leave this with you people. Learn these two things in your life. Learn to listen. And communicate. And you got it. It’s amazing. Yup. Franklin: Is there anything else you would like to mention related to migration, work experiences, segregation and civil rights and how they’ve impacted your life at Hanford and Richland? Brown: Yeah, I think growing up, as you can single out a person in my life, where I grew up with a lot of black or whatever, I think it was a good experience to be able to communicate with a different race. When you knew you were down, lower race, which they considered, but you didn’t have to be. You proved yourself that you could go higher. That’s what I’m saying to people. Prove yourself. Soon as you prove yourself, bam, you got it. Same way they say, you’re living in an area with the Mormons. They’re human. Treat them right. We used to go to the—my son, we used to take to father days. You do all of that. Human beings. And that’s what I say about Richland. So great with a family. Family people. And that’s what it is. It’s just great. And that’s what we should have all over. Makes it easier for everybody. My neighbors, they have potatoes, they bring potatoes to me. They have this, they bring some to me. Vice versa, they need help, I’ll help you. It’s wonderful. Makes you feel good. And you bring your kids up the same way, and they doing the same thing. That’s all it takes. Now I see some of the kids of his and all my neighbors, hey, Mr. Brown! Hey! You know? It’s wonderful. Makes you feel good. Makes you feel good when the environment that you live in that you can have trust and faith in people. God is good, all the time. Franklin: Yup. Well, CW, thanks so much for coming and interviewing with me today. Brown: No problem. Franklin: I really appreciate it. Brown: No problem. My pleasure. <a href="https://youtu.be/1UtyTpP6R6g">View interview on Youtube.</a> Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview General Electric Westinghouse 703 Building WPPS Battelle Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948- Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1964-1994 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with C.W. Brown Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Segregation McNary Lock and Dam (Or.) Nuclear industry Nuclear energy Civil rights Racism Description An account of the resource C.W. Brown moved to Richland, Washington in 1948, and worked at the Hanford Site from 1964-1994. A National Park Service funded project to document the history of African American contributions to Hanford and the surrounding communities. This project was conducted through the Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystems Unit, Task Agreement P17AC01288 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 05/12/2018 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection. This oral history collection was done in partnership with the National Park Service under Task Agreement P17AC01288.