National Museum of Nuclear Science & HistoryCindy Kelly: This is Wednesday, March 20.
Inge-Juliana Sackmann Christy: March 20.
Kelly: 2019. I’m Cindy Kelly, and I’m in Pasadena, California. And I’m with Inge-Juliana Sackmann Christy. So what I want you to do is say your full name and then spell it.
Sackmann Christy: Inge-Juliana Sackmann Christy. And should I spell it?
Kelly: Yes, please.
Inge-Juliana Sackmann Christy is a physicist and author. Sackmann Christy was born in 1942 in Germany. In the 1950s, she immigrated with her family to Canada. Later, she earned a B.A. in Physics, an M.A. in Astronomy, and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Toronto. Then from 1968 to 1970 she continued her education through a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council Canada. She competed research at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen and the Max-Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics.
Cynthia Kelly: Okay, why don’t we start by having you tell us your name and spelling it?
Collene Dunbar: My name is Collene Dunbar, C-O-L-L-E-N-E, and it’s pronounced Coll-ene.
Jeffrey Nalezny: And your last name is spelled?
Dunbar: D-U-N-B-A-R.
Nalezny: Thank you.
Kelly: Great! Thank you very much. Now we’re here to talk to about your life, your life in Richland. So can you tell us when you came here and why?
Cynthia Kelly: Start by telling us your name and spelling it.
Carol Roberts: Okay, my name is Carol B. Roberts. C-A-R-O-L, initial B, as in Bobby, R-O-B-E-R-T-S. I came here in June 1944 with my mother and my sisters because my dad had been sent by DuPont out here. That is how I came to be such a smart aleck.
Kelly: Where did you live before?
Virginia Ballard: I was born in Charleston, West Virginia. When I finished ninth grade, my dad, who worked for DuPont in Bell, West Virginia, was transferred to Morgantown, West Virginia. We moved to Morgantown in the summer of 1942.
Cindy Kelly: It is Wednesday, September 12, 2018. I’m in Seattle, Washington, and I have Jackie Peterson with me. My first question to her is to tell me her full name and spell it.
Jackie Peterson: My name is Jackie Peterson. It’s J-a-c-k-i-e Peterson, P-e-t-e-r-s-o-n.
Kelly: I’d love to know more about yourself and how you got involved in this. Maybe you could start by just giving a brief bio, where you were born and when.
Jackie Peterson is an independent curator and exhibit developer in Seattle, Washington. She curated an exhibition called “The Atomic Frontier: Black Life at Hanford” at the Northwest African American Museum from October 2015-March 2016. In this interview, Peterson describes the exhibition and what she learned about African American experiences at Hanford during the Manhattan Project. She explains how African Americans came to the Tri-Cities, the kinds of work they were able to obtain, and the (largely informal) segregation they faced.
Alexandra Levy: I’m Alexandra Levy with the Atomic Heritage Foundation. It is September 13, 2018, and I’m here in Chantilly, Virginia with Nancy Nelson. My first question is to please say your name and spell it.
Nancy Nelson: Nancy, N-a-n-c-y Nelson, N-e-l-s-o-n. I live in Riverside, California. My husband was Richard H. Nelson, the radio operator on the Enola Gay, August 6, 1945.
Gayleen: Oh, I’m Gayleen Meservey, M-e-s-e-r-v-e-y, first name Gayleen, G-a-y-l-e-e-n.
I started as a data processing clerk at the Site in 1964, following a short stint in San Francisco at a technical school to train me to operate data processing machinery. We were actually involved in measuring the reactions that the scientists produced in the reactors, giving them the data that would help them to predict the tests and to go on.
Gayleen Meservey grew up in Idaho Falls, and worked at Idaho National Laboratory. She describes the bus rides to and from the lab, which often involved card games and occasionally getting stuck in the snow. She discusses the positive relationship between the laboratory and the town, and how the influx of scientists transformed the town and the state. She also explains the incredible change in computers from the 1960s through the early 2000s, and what it was like to work on early computers.
