Month: November 2024

I hope everyone is getting ready for a relaxing Thanksgiving full of food and family! Or… if you prefer a quiet holiday spent doing something solitary that you enjoy, I hope you do that with just as much enthusiasm. This has always been a wonderful place to gather, but sometimes one of the coolest part of being local is how quiet Los Alamos can be during holiday weekends. Even less traffic and big blue skies and outdoor activities galore! Our local ice skating rink is open and it’s certainly time to start enjoying the coming winter season.

In a previous post, I talked about a few silly stories from the ranch school days. As you might imagine, there are dozens and dozens of these anecdotes. But I wanted to share a couple of stories I’ve found in my reading from the Manhattan Project era. Some of them really show how time has passed without things changing as much as we believe they have!

Culture Club Woes

A persistent item of notice to practically every female who came to Los Alamos in the early days, (and honestly every female since!) is the lack of social amenities immediately available in town. In Eleanor Jette’s book, Inside Box 1663, she suggests, “Philosophy changed fast in our cloistered world, and the British wives agreed with the American wives that if you were in the soup, it was best to swim and not worry too much about the social amenities”.

But there was a Women’s Club here in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project era. In the beginning, the club was divided into sections. Two of the most active sections were the book section and the cultural arts section. Eleanor Jette goes on to say that while she opted out of the Women’s Club in general as she had had enough of them in the “Outer World” to last a lifetime, one could not get away from the cultural arts section. Eventually, the Cultural Arts Section became the entire Women’s Club!

As you might imagine, Lady Chadwick of the British Mission was the first to point out that the vegetable counter at the commissary had become far too crowded with the “newcomers” who would cluster about while meeting and greeting. It was decided that this was not a “toney” place for a woman newly arrived from the “Outer World” to make her debut to the Los Alamos social scene. In case you’ve not heard the term, it was a pretty common way in the past of referring to something marked by an aristocratic or high-toned manner or style. I’d imagine for someone like Lady Chadwick, there wasn’t much that felt “toney” in Los Alamos back in those days!

Therefore, it was decided that “newcomer teas” should happen frequently, overseen by Lady Chadwick and the mother of physicist, Joe Hirschfelder. Jette goes on to describe the teas as rather “frenzied” affairs because there were so very many newcomers that it was difficult to find a way to meet and greet them all in one go!

Eventually, the ladies decided to declare the Women’s Club to be the Cultural Arts Club. Unfortunately this name scared the poor woman they nominated for the presidency. Marge Schrieber actually described that role as “too vivid” for her comfort zone as it invoked the idea that she was somehow in charge of high culture in Los Alamos, (can you imagine?). So Marge suggested they call it the Mesa Club. Although, Marge’s first suggested name for the club was the “Hill Biddies”. I’d imagine that to be a fairly accurate description that made too many of the said ladies uncomfortable. If we consider all of the things we ask our County government to address in this day and age, I don’t think it could ever compare to how things were back in the 1940’s.

Where’s Your Pass?

Something else it’s difficult to imagine is needing your LANL pass for everything. Sure, if you’re a LANL employee you have a badge. You need that sucker to get through a gate, probably some more gates, some other doors, and probably your office space. You might need an access card for your work computer or when you take one home. But you don’t generally need your badge to get back into your house…

Just after the Manhattan Project took over the Ranch School, “Deak” and Martha Parsons moved into Master Cottage #3. Of course, Master Cottage #3 had been the home Fermor and Peggy Pond Church built to raise their boys. But Peggy had her little “mom’s getaway” cabin on the edge of Pueblo Canyon and had wandered the plateau, hiking and writing when the urge took her.

Martha Parsons experience of life in Master Cottage #3 was quite different from Peggy Church’s! It wasn’t unusual in those days for there to be armed guards outside all of the staff housing. Martha often spoke of disliking the need to hurry past the guards just to go to the library or the post office or even to the grocery store.

One day Martha slipped out to spend the afternoon visiting with a friend, but did so without realizing the guards stationed at the door when she returned were not the ones who’d been there when she left. She’d made a social visit and the poor woman had completely forgotten to take a pass with her. When she headed back home at the end of her social call, the guard wouldn’t let her back into her home! Martha had to ask her friend, Bernice Brode, to vouch for her. But it still took a lot of fast talking from the women to convince the guard to let Martha return to her own home!

22 Gun Salute!

It has often been said that the best party in Los Alamos happened not long after the Japanese surrender. As one might imagine, the night turned into a sea of drinks. Alcohol and explosives experts very rarely mix well, and the grand finale of the night happened after a dare was made to explosives expert George Kistiakowsky to arrange a 21 gun salute.

According to Craig Martin and Heather McClenahan, Kistiakowsky promptly retrieved twenty-one 50lb boxes of Composition B from the high explosives magazine. Kistiakowsky laid the boxes out in the field and used his electronic detonation skills to fire them off! “It was a very impressive performance,” Kistiakowsky stated later. “But when I got back to the party the bastards told me I fired 22 shots.”

So many things have changed here in Los Alamos over the last two decades. But I think a lot of us who grew up here remember situations just like that. Of using leftover equipment or materials for quirky and sometimes bizarre projects or celebrations or just for the heck of it! And if there was anywhere in the world where a 21 (or 22!) gun salute would’ve been appropriate that night, it was here in Los Alamos!

I hope you’ve enjoyed some of these strange and often silly short stories of early life on the Hill. Whether you want to found your own Culture Club or you feel like the Hill Biddies are more your style, I’d love to talk life in Los Alamos with you! And when you’re ready to find your own place to live and work here in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’m a local girl who loves Los Alamos and has a lifelong curiosity about our often unique housing options. So enjoy your Thanksgiving and let’s hope for a beautiful winter of fun here in Los Alamos County!

Snow days in Los Alamos always seem to create a need to reminisce about the past. Of course, my thoughts first turned to epic snow days of the past, which you can read about HERE. And then I started thinking about what life must’ve been like a long time ago here in Los Alamos when it snowed like crazy. The one population here in Los Alamos that was absolutely out this past snow day, driving around like crazy people on a snow/work from home/no school/sleep in day were the Los Alamos Stable Owners. No matter how much snow falls, they’ve been known to cross country ski out there to get the horses fed and watered on time.

That got me thinking about Los Alamos in the early days. How on earth did they plow their way out of there when the snowfall was even heavier on a regular basis?

Jim Womelsduff was one of a handful of Los Alamos Ranch School employees who were critical to the success and sustainability of the community on the Pajarito Plateau. You can read a bit more about Jim in a previous post about the Chief Mechanic’s House. Jim’s nephew, Richard E. Womelsduff, wrote about his uncle in his manuscript, “It Was a Good Time and Place to Be a Boy”, the entirety of which can be read in the Wirth and Aldrich book, Los Alamos: The Ranch School Years. Jim Womelsduff was mechanically inclined in all of the best ways.

It seems consistent with most descriptions of early winters at the ranch school, that snowfall was considerable. As we all know, there aren’t that many ways in and out of Los Alamos. But Jim Womelsduff was responsible for clearing the access roads in and out and also from building to building since many of them were pretty far flung. (Would YOU want too shovel your way from the intersection at Trinity and 20th Streets to Fuller Lodge?) For this purpose, Jim actually designed and built enormous snowplows which could be attached to the Caterpillar tractors, which Jim also kept running. And THAT is how the school kept itself alive in the winter!

Science Class at the Local Ruins

Richard Womelsduff goes on to tell another tale of life in early Los Alamos regarding the native ruins located near the Romero Cabin on 19th St where the road dead ends into a parking lot connected to Central Park Square.

“There were Indian ruins on Los Alamos mesa as well as most places on the Pajarito Plateau. A small ruin mound of about five hundred square feet was located just a few yards to the west of the Big House. It showed a dozen or so small rooms and was worked on from time to time by a science class of schoolboys.”

Can you imagine getting an anthropology or archeology or even a geology lesson where you actually got to dig into a mound and uncover ruins for yourself? Evidently there were several more nearby ruins that were utilized in history seeking expeditions during the boys’ free time. Womelsduff’s account goes on to say, “These ruins were so prevalent all over the area that they were accepted as a normal part of our environment, with little thought given to the people who had once lived and died there.” Oddly enough, this rather reminds me of the general level of appreciation most of us felt about a trip to Bandelier during elementary school. Just another part of life in Los Alamos. As an adult, I’ve come to realize what an incredible opportunity this is!

Six Gun School Play

Richard Womelsduff tells another laughable story about the introduction of a formal elementary school for the local children of ranch school employees. This occurred when AJ Connell hired Fred Rousseau as the LARS business manager. Fred and his wife, Edna, promptly moved into Master Cottage #1. Edna took up a position as the elementary school teacher.

Richard does remember the bonus of a new grade school was that the old grade school building became the home of a horse wrangler named Ted Mather. Ted must’ve been like a character from a book or a tall tale to the young boys of the ranch school. The man came complete with a bow legged walk, a huge moustache, and a six gun that he actually wore strapped to his waist when out and about.

Richard was very pleased that Ted allowed him to borrow the gun, without bullets of course, for his part in the school play. Certainly any kiddo who grew up playing mountain man running about the wilds of early Los Alamos would love a chance to wave a six gun around as he acted in a school play. And perhaps nothing draws a more glaring line between the “good old days” and the here and now. Though I am reminded that our Los Alamos High School has a talented group of young trap and sporting clay shooters who participate in the “Young Guns” Club. It’s even a co-ed group that competes all over the state!

As we gear up for another winter here in Los Alamos and wonder what on Earth happened to autumn, let’s be happy we have things like teleworking, snow plows, central heat and modern wood, gas, and pellet stoves. At least when our fireplace is crackling merrily and we’re curled up in front of our favorite binge watching television, we aren’t usually worried about choking on smoke or having to run out to the forest to chop more wood!

There are so many more funny little tidbit tales about early life in Los Alamos. We’ll have to take a trip through the “Culture Club” era soon. And when you’re ready to find your perfect hearth in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’d love to talk Los Alamos Housing and comfy living spaces in Los Alamos with you!

With all of the recent winter weather and unusually cold temperatures, I got to thinking about life in the Chief Mechanic’s House without central heating. There was a warm wood stove to gather around, but can you imagine dragging your mattress into the living room to curl up around the wood stove like a pack of dogs?

Although… if you were one of the households affected by the power outages here in New Mexico in the last few days, that probably sounds like a great idea!

In the beginning of the Manhattan Project’s occupation of the cabin built by Floyd Womelsduff, six of the Junior scientists were packed into the front bedroom. They used bunk beds and shared the bathroom facilities with Bob Christy and his wife, who were billeted in the structure’s back bedroom. This meant poor Mrs. Christy had the dubious pleasure of tiptoeing through the crowded front bedroom to use the bathroom facilities! Can you imagine what that was like on a day to day basis? Sometimes I think modern folks have become downright divas regarding our living space requirements.

This continuing saga of musical billeting continued at T-128 until mid-1943 when General Groves reluctantly allowed “foreigners” to begin collaborating on the project. Sir James Chadwick of the British Mission had been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 for his discovery of the neutron. He and his wife and their twin seventeen year old daughters moved to Los Alamos and suddenly things at the old Womelsduffs’ house got even more interesting.

According to Eleanor Jette’s book, Inside Box 1663, “The Chadwick’s arrived: Sir James and his lady lost their titles on the Hill.” This became a rather fascinating part of life in Los Alamos in the mid to late 1940s. The Chief Mechanic’s House was renovated prior to the Chadwick family’s occupation. The first thing that was added was central heating and the cabin was made more comfortable, but remained very rustic.

Lady Chadwick became quite the character here in Los Alamos. She’d never visited the US before, which I find is frequently still true of foreign nationals who find their way to Los Alamos even today. Fortunately, now we have far more information about a country to base our opinions on before arrival. But there are still plenty of people who make assumptions that the Rockies are just like the Ozarks, which are just like the Great Smoky Mountains. We know that those mountain ranges are enormously different in terrain, vegetation, and elevation, but if you were coming to Los Alamos before the Internet and you’d never experienced another American community…

Needless to say, Lady Chadwick began having social events to host and welcome the vast array of foreign science staff coming to Los Alamos. T-128 soon played host to Niels Bohr, Otto Frisch, Rudolph Peierls, George Placzek, and even Klaus Fuchs who would later be identified as a rather infamous spy.

Soon enough, she became a fairly loud voice in the Women’s Club. Both the American and British wives offered polite tolerance for Lady Chadwick’s attempts to “refine” them through the use of high teas and social events. The American wives got a bit snippy however when Lady Chadwick’s diatribes on “primitive” American culture took a nasty turn and she began publicly declaring she was unable to believe the Americans could have possibly been all that helpful on “D Day” due to their complete lack of social graces and culture.

Fortunately for Lady Chadwick, (and Los Alamos), Sir James began spending most of his time in Washington and soon moved his family to the city where Lady Chadwick and her daughters found the social scene and amenities more to their liking. I suppose her opinion of Los Alamos would’ve been much worse had she started on the East Coast and moved West…

Robert and Jean Bacher were thrilled to move into T-128 when the Chadwicks left town. Jean was fond of saying the bathtub was an irresistible incentive to babysitters and she had no trouble getting volunteers to watch her children. The Bachers were frequent entertainers and dozens of parties were held at T-128 over their stay, (more about that in a future post!).

By 1946, T-128 became designated as the Army post commander’s billet. In 1947, the AEC officially took over operation of Los Alamos. The first Los Alamos area manager was Carrol Tyler. While occupying the Chief Mechanic’s House, she suddenly found herself in charge of reams worth of top-secret documents left over from the project years. To help with storage, Zia Company installed a safe in the dining room of the Chief Mechanic’s House. Entirely hidden by wood panels, the safe was said to house the “crown jewels” of the atomic energy program during the late 1940s. The safe is still in the house and the Historical Society actually got a peek at the safe on a visit to the current owner.

By 1957, the housing points system was in place and T-128 was put into the draw with many of the other Bathtub Row cottages. Richard Baker moved into the Chief Mechanic’s House. He was a well-known chemist and head of CM-B Division at LASL. The Bakers later purchased the house in 1969 and owned it until 1995. The Chief Mechanic’s House is still most commonly known as “The Baker House”. The Bakers loved the novelty of living on Bathtub Row and the history of Los Alamos. The Baker House is still occupied today, with the record of being the longest continually occupied dwelling in Los Alamos.

When you’re ready to look for a dwelling to occupy here in Los Alamos, OR if you’re looking to sell your dwelling, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl at heart and I love chatting about real estate in Los Alamos! It’s always a pleasure and a privilege to get a peek inside the unique and often historic homes here in Los Alamos!