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!