Zulliger, Clara

              
ORAL HISTORY OF CLARA ZULLIGER
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
October 9, 2012
 
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel and today is October 9, 1012.  And I am at the home of Clara Zulliger here in Oak Ridge.  Ms. Zulliger, thank you for taking time to talk with us.
MS. ZULLIGER: You're welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's start at the very beginning.
MS. ZULLIGER: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: Why don't you tell me where you were born and something about your family and where you went to school?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh, okay.  I was born in Whiteside, Tennessee; that's not far from Chattanooga.  But I lived most of my life in Chattanooga.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
MS. ZULLIGER: And I had a wonderful mother and daddy and a grandma living with me.  And I had six sisters and one brother.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  And my youngest sister was burned to death.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.  
MS. ZULLIGER: So that left me being the baby at the age of nine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: And we had a wonderful family.  We always had a good time.  We were poor as Job's turkey.
MR. MCDANIEL: What year were you born?
MS. ZULLIGER: 1918.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1918.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, December the 18th.  I'm a week older than Jesus.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness.
MS. ZULLIGER: But we always had a wonderful time.  It was hard times for everybody, really, really bad.  But we were always having something we could laugh about.  And my sisters especially; How I loved sitting around the dinner table at night and listening to my sisters talk about what happened to them during the daytime.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you a question.
MS. ZULLIGER: Okay.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Since you were born in 1918, I guess you were born - and you were born late 1918, you missed - you pretty - you missed the flu epidemic, didn't you?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, I think I did.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, it was I think early 1918 - 1917, early 1918.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: The reason I asked that is 'cause my father was born in 1918 in May, and he got the flu as an infant, and almost didn't make it, but he did.
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh my goodness.
MR. MCDANIEL: You know, nobody - the doctors - nobody expected him to make it, so.
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, I don't think anybody in our family got it.  I think - I'm sure I would've heard about it, but I don't think we got it.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure.  I'm sorry; I didn't mean to interrupt.  But that was a significant year.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  I know I heard about it, but I don't think any of us had it.  Well anyway, I enjoyed sitting around the dinner table, listening to all that happened to my sisters.  They all had jobs; I was the only one in school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how much younger were you than the rest of them?
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, my brother was four years older than I was.  And then he was four years older than my next sister.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: So I think the next sister, that would make her eight years older than I was, then it went on up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Went on up, yeah.
MS. ZULLIGER: My oldest sister was 18 years older than I was.  So I really was the baby in the family.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.  Exactly.  Exactly.
MS. ZULLIGER: But it was a tragic situation with my little sister and it made us all feel really bad that it happened.  In October.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, was that right?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.
MS. ZULLIGER: And I went to Chattanooga High School.  I went to a wonderful grammar school; it was about three blocks from my house and I could walk to school, so I walked to school.  And I'd run home at lunchtime for my lunch and then run back to the school.  And on rainy days I'd get $0.15 for my lunch.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  I always got a bowl of soup and a bottle of milk and a Hershey bar.
MR. MCDANIEL: For $0.15.
MS. ZULLIGER: I'll never forget that.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Now what did your dad do?
MS. ZULLIGER: My dad could do anything, but he mostly helped a carpenter friend of his.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: He mostly did that, but then when the Depression came they didn't have a job.  So my daddy was busy all the time helping some of the neighbors with something.  Of course, he didn't get paid for it, but nobody had any money in those days.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Exactly.
MS. ZULLIGER: But he always had a garden in the backyard, and he planted six rose bushes for his girls, for his daughters.  Did I say six girls and a boy?
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
MS. ZULLIGER: It was seven girls and a boy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: He planted, 'cause - he planted the seven rose bushes and that one - the one that he named Margaret, that was my little sister's name, we still have it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: It's moved from place to place, but it's still alive, and I don't know what's happened to the rest of them, but he did move that one rose bush.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Sure.  Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And, well, then I --
MR. MCDANIEL: So let me ask you, so you were a teenager during the Depression, I guess.  I guess you were in high school during the Depression, weren't you?  Or were you --
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh, yes, I was.  I was in Depression until I came to Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: We're sure.  But the Great Depression, the one that everybody  was in?
MS. ZULLIGER: I'll tell you, it was.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was tough though, wasn't it?
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, then I worked - I finished high school, graduated from high school.  But when I graduated I was working.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Were you?
MS. ZULLIGER: I was working 3:00 till 11:00 at night and going to school in the day to finish, to get my diploma.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, where did you work?
MS. ZULLIGER: I worked at Davenport Hosiery Mill.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?
MS. ZULLIGER: And I was a topper, and I put the - they had a row of needles and I had to put the stocking on there and then I had to move it to the machine and try not to get a run in the hose.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: That wasn't a good thing to do.  But I enjoyed doing that.  And they had a lot of young people working there, and we'd go to someplace, go swimming in the morning or we'd go skating and we did all of our fun things in the morning.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And then they put me on a day job and I didn't like that, so then that's when I decided I'd join the WAACs.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how old were you when you joined the WAACs?
MS. ZULLIGER: Twenty-two.
MR. MCDANIEL: Twenty-two, okay.  There we go.  So you were 22, and that would've been in '40 - no, '31?
MS. ZULLIGER: It was '42.  1942.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Was it 1940?  Yeah, it would've been 1942.
MS. ZULLIGER: And I came here in 1942.  
MR. MCDANIEL: So you joined the WAACs.  And where did you go?  Did you have to go like to basic training and --
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yes, I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.  Tell me about that.
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, it was a lot of fun, but I was awfully tired when I got there.  And then they had just had put this barracks up; it was at Daytona Beach, Florida.  And they'd just put the barracks up and it was out in swampland practically.  And I was awfully tired, and I went to bed that night.  They had six bunks to a tent.  It was a tent city, and so I was on the top bunk.  And I thought, "Well, I'm tired.  I'm not" - I heard the bugle to get up, you know.  And somebody said, "Everybody better get up and get dressed and go to breakfast."  And I thought, I'm so tired, I'm not going to do that.  I'm just going to stay here."  And in a few minutes somebody stuck their head in the tent and says, "What are you doing up there?  Get the hell out of that bed."  It hurt my feelings; I'd never had anybody talk to me like that before.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess not.  
MS. ZULLIGER: But anyway, I did get up, and finally, I was late getting there, but anyway, I did have breakfast.  I was glad I did, 'cause I would've gotten awfully hungry before I got the next meal.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet.  So you went to basic training there.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  And then from there I was sent to New York City.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: And I lived in a hotel on Broadway, and I was just a couple blocks from where the bubble goes down.
MR. MCDANIEL: Times Square.
MS. ZULLIGER: Times Square; I could not think of that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And I had a wonderful job.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did you do?
MS. ZULLIGER: I was a switchboard operator, and there were two other girls working on the switchboard with me, and they were wonderful; they were civilians.  And they always asked me every day when I'd come in, they'd say, "What did you do last night?" and I'd have to tell them what I did, all the sightseeing.  And I met a lot of people.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Now who were you working for?
MS. ZULLIGER: I was working for the Army.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, for the Army?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  And they - oh, they - New York City treated us so well.  We were the first WAACs in New York.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?
MS. ZULLIGER: And I had people come up to me and ask me what I was and what I did, all of that.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.  I bet that was a big change from little old outside of Chattanooga, wasn't it?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah, it sure was.  But I'm so happy that I did go there, 'cause it was a wonderful experience and I got to see all of the things that, you know, you hear about but you never do get to see.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And I was in the - oh, they used to have a lot of parties.  On Wednesday night we had to go to the New Yorker Hotel for a light snack and for entertainment and for, just for fun.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: And then on - oh, I met the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  And I met them at this hotel; they had a big party for all the GIs.  So a lady came up to our table, and I was with about six other WAACs and a lady came to our table and said, "We're going to have a community sing.  Will anybody sing?"  Well, they all pointed to me, and I thought a community sing was for everybody.  She asked me if I would sing, and I said, "Oh, sure."  And then she came - she said, "Well, follow me."  And I followed her and I was supposed to sing by myself.  And they had an orchestra there and she said, "Tell everybody what your name is and what you're going to sing" in front of all those people.  I never would've done that if I'd have known I was going to have to do it myself.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm.
MS. ZULLIGER: Anyway, I did sing; I sang "For Me and My Gal".
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
MS. ZULLIGER: It was showing - there was a movie there on Broadway at that time and that was a popular song in that day.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And I won first place.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?  Oh my goodness.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  That was a big - that was a lot of fun.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how long were you in New York?
MS. ZULLIGER: Huh?
MR. MCDANIEL: How long were you in New York?  How long did you stay there?
MS. ZULLIGER: I was there for about seven months, seven or eight months.  And then my sister had written to me about a project that she - she was already here working.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: And she had read in the paper where they were changing the WAAC to the regular Army, and she wanted me to - and you could get out then if you wanted to, 'cause it was their different thing altogether.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MS. ZULLIGER: And she wanted me to come here and go to work, so that's what I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.  
MS. ZULLIGER: I left New York.  And oh, when I saw Oak Ridge.  Oh goodness, you can't believe what a mess Oak Ridge was in that --
MR. MCDANIEL: So when did you get here?  In '43?
MS. ZULLIGER: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: '43.  What month?
MS. ZULLIGER: I got here in December of '43.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.  So you got here in December of '43.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  And I lived with my sister up on Outer Drive.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MS. ZULLIGER: And I walked the boardwalk all the way from Outer Drive up to where I worked.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Now where did you work?
MS. ZULLIGER: I worked for USED. [U.S. Engineering Division]
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: And worked for - I worked with Ed Westcott.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?  Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah.  And he got - he became really famous and I didn't.  
MR. MCDANIEL: I don't think there are very many people that are as famous as Ed.  But what did you do for Ed?  What did you do for him?
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, I think - I'm not sure, but I think I kept records of all the blueprints that went in and out.  And Ed was in charge of the blueprints, and he was pretty famous at that time.  I remember all the engineers that would come in and ask for the blueprint and he knew exactly what number it was and everything.  And he was sort of a favorite right there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: And then I thought, well, after Ed left and went to Washington and they were going to close the office down, I thought, "Well, I'll just leave then and I'll get to go back home."
MR. MCDANIEL: Now so you stayed from December of '43 until the end of the war.  I mean you worked for Ed until the end of the war, is that right?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, no, no, no.
MR. MCDANIEL: No?  Okay.  
MS. ZULLIGER: No, 'cause then when Ed left and they closed my office down, and I thought, "Well, I'll take - I'll just go home."  So I went into Personnel and told them I wanted to go home and Mr. Donovan, he was in charge of Personnel then, he said, "Oh no," he said, "We can't let you go."  He said, "We're going to send you down in the barracks area with all the GIs."  So that's where I went, with - I worked for Captain Barger.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm.
MS. ZULLIGER: And that's when I met my husband.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now what year was this?  Do you remember?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh, it was a day that - let's see, the day - no, let's see.  I went to work in 19 - when was the bomb dropped?
MR. MCDANIEL: '45.  August of '45.
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, okay.  That's when I went to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.  
MS. ZULLIGER: I was working a few months before that, and then this young man came - I got a special order saying that seven GIs were going to be sent here from Texas A&M, and the last name was Zulliger.  There were seven names on there, and I said to my friend in the office, I said, "Listen to this name.  Zulliger.  I bet he's a bird."  I called him Zoo-liger.
MR. MCDANIEL: Zoo-liger.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And then it wasn't long after that till he came in the office and I thought, "Well, you don't look like a bird."  And I dated Al.  He was here for seven weeks, and we dated every night.  I met him at a tennis court dance.  It was the day the bomb was dropped; that's when he arrived here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And they had a big dance down at the tennis court, of course, and so that's where I met him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And then he had to leave and go to Greenland after seven weeks, but we were together for seven weeks every night.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And he stayed in Greenland for about a year, then he came back, and he had to go back to Ohio State and finish his education.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And then he came to Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you decided to stay here and wait on him.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, I did.  We wrote letters back and forth.  We had letters going back and forth, and I even visited him while he was going to school, and he visited me while he was going to school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: So we just stayed together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now after the war was over, did you continue to work for the government?
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, yes I did.  And I got married in 1949 and then I got pregnant.  And in those days if you got pregnant you didn't - you just resigned.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: And so that's what I did.  But I had a good job; I worked for Captain Barger, and then we had to dismiss all of the GIs and all of the Army and Navy officers.  And then they sent me to Security Division, and that was a good job; I liked that very much.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, so --
MS. ZULLIGER: I had to take a polygraph test though; I didn't like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that - now who was the head of security then?
MS. ZULLIGER: What?
MR. MCDANIEL: Who was the head of Security Division then?  It wasn't Bill Sargent, was it?
MS. ZULLIGER: No, he wasn't in - no, he wasn't head of my office.  I'm trying to think --
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: -- who was in charge.  Well, I can't think of him right now.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay.  So you just stayed here and you worked until your husband came back, and you all got married.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, and we got married.  I lived in a house with - I lived in two different dormitories before all of that.  And then I moved in a house with six - five other girls.  There was six of us in a D house, and we've been friends - and we still are.  There's only three of us living now, but we've stayed - we've been, had vacations together and had a wonderful time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Lifelong friends, huh?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh, yeah.  It was fun.  And we've been - we took a cruise.  We took a cruise together and all of that.  But there's only three of us left now.
MR. MCDANIEL: So your husband came back.  In '49 you got married.  And did he go to work here?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yes, he did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did he get a job?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah.  He came back - he put in his application and he was hired right away.  So we got married.  We lived in an apartment up on Outer Drive, and that's the one they're trying to get him to tear down now; that old man won't tear it down.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?  Oh, right.  Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Those were nice apartments back then, though, weren't they?  I mean they were nice then.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, well, they were furnished apartments.  They were --
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, yeah.  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And then we moved into a cement block house and lived there till my baby was born there.  Of course, he was born in the hospital, but he was born while we lived there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: And we lived there, and then we moved to the new house.  They had built some new homes on Bryn Mawr, in that area.  So we lived there while Chip was - when we left there Chip was about two years old.  And then we stayed there and we moved here in 1968, in this house.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?  Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And so that's my story.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you've been here ever since.  So what did your husband do when he came to work here?  Where did he work and what did he do?
MS. ZULLIGER: Al was a mechanical engineer.  No, I thought he was a mechanical engineer, but I was looking in the paper the other day and he was a design engineer, I think the paper said.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And I don't know where that article came from in the paper; that was more than I knew about him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?  My goodness.  Now which plant did he work at?
MS. ZULLIGER: Where did who?
MR. MCDANIEL: Which plant did he work at?  K-25 --
MS. ZULLIGER: He - at the Oak Ridge National Lab.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, at the Lab, okay.  
MS. ZULLIGER:  And I'd have thought two or three times I'd go back to work, 'cause I did like working, and every time I got pregnant, so then I didn't go back.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Exactly.  So what was life like in Oak Ridge in the --
MS. ZULLIGER: It was fun.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- '50s and '60s, I guess?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh, it was hard getting around, 'cause none of us had a car.  I didn't know anybody with a car.  I was used to that, though, 'cause we never had a car in my family.  But everything was just a lot of fun, a lot of young people; I think the average age was 27 years.  The only old people that were here came with their kids to babysit while they worked.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: But it took a little while to get to know each other, but once you could - if you'd been here about four or five weeks you could know a lot of people.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And it was lonesome at first.  I really didn't like it at first.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, you know, I imagine you moving here from New York and it being so different, you know.
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah.  It was different, I thought.
MR. MCDANIEL: And only really knowing your sister, you know, I'm sure that was kind of tough, wasn't it?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Yeah. 
MR. MCDANIEL: What was it like, though, being single during those first couple of years?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh you're not kidding; it was a lot of fun.  And the government did everything for us, 'cause they wanted to keep us here; didn't want to let us go.  And we used to bowl.  Al and I belonged to two dinner clubs and we took dancing lessons from Ethel Howell, and we did all the things that young people do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Exactly.
MS. ZULLIGER: It was a lot of fun.  But after you got used to it it was fun.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: But everybody was in the same boat, so you couldn't help where you lived; you had to take what the government gave you.  But I was happy to get here in this house.  And so that's the story of my life.
MR. MCDANIEL: What - after - so you had - how many children did you have, just one?
MS. ZULLIGER: No, I have two, but they're 11 years apart.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?  Okay.  Yeah, you were just about ready to go back to work, weren't you?  And then you got pregnant again.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yep, I was.
MR. MCDANIEL: But so what was it like raising kids in Oak Ridge?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh, the kids loved it.  My kids loved the schools and, you know, it was just real fun for them.  And they got used to Oak Ridge; they didn't know what the rest of the world was like.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet.  I bet.  Were they involved in like, you know, I know there's a lot of cultural activities in Oak Ridge, a lot of recreation activities, things such as that?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah.  Just on the other side of those trees down there there's a schoolyard.  There was a school there, and so there was a --
MR. MCDANIEL: That used to be the old Linden School, wasn't it?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Yeah.  They tore down the school and the - my son, he was five years old when we moved here, the younger one, and he went down there every day and they had a boy and girl counselor on the school ground, and they had a bookmobile, the kids could check out books on Tuesday, and on Thursday they turned them back in and checked out some more books.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MS. ZULLIGER: And it was great.  But then finally they decided, I guess, that they couldn't afford to have the counselors anymore.  But the school I there, but remember when the Clinton High School was bombed?
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm.
MS. ZULLIGER: Okay.  The school that was there, seven of those Black kids from Clinton, we let Clinton use our school till they built that school back.  And just because there was seven Black ones is the reason it was bombed.  That makes - that's been on TV quite a bit, 'cause that was when they first started letting Black kids in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: But we were happy to let them use our school.  We're enemies now, though, in football.  Yeah.  Well, I had my two boys are football payers, and - well, Chip didn't play football, but he had a band - he had a band when he was in junior high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?
MS. ZULLIGER: They had - the band he was in, when he was in junior high school, the boys were already seniors in Oak Ridge High School.  They just recently, just last month had a reunion, and it was a class reunion for the seniors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: But the band came --
MR. MCDANIEL: What was the name of that band?
MS. ZULLIGER: It was the - oh, I'll think of it in a minute.
MR. MCDANIEL: I remember reading about it in the newspaper.  I think so.  It was kind of a famous local band, wasn't it, though?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, it was --
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean, you know, used to play a lot.
MS. ZULLIGER: -- it was a rock band.  Chip started with a guitar.  He never had a guitar lesson, but he started - I had a guitar that my sister had given me, and I had it up in the attic.  And he was in a steam tent when he was about 10 years old.  Dr. Hardy liked to put the kids with bronchitis in a steam tent.  And so he asked me if I'd get up there and get that guitar and then go get him a book, a guitar book, so he could learn to play the guitar.  And that's how he learned the guitar.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.
MS. ZULLIGER: I did that.  And every day he would come home from school, he had spent all of his money on buying those little bitty records, you know, and he'd play the records and then he'd play his guitar with those records.  And he had a big old floor fan that he had drums, and he would be the drums.  And it was a lot of fun. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: Of course, the boys all graduated and left Oak Ridge to go to college, but they made three trips down here so they could play for their reunion last month.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh really?  Oh wow.
MS. ZULLIGER: And one of them is, the drummer is a retired dental surgeon, and one is a heart surgeon, and one works in Oak Ridge, and I don't know what he does, but he lives someplace close around here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: But they got here; they were practicing down in my basement like they did in high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness.  My goodness.
MS. ZULLIGER: And of course Chip got a lot of fun out of that.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I bet.
MS. ZULLIGER: And then Bill, Marsha's husband, is - Bill Zulliger, he was on the team in 19 - Bill was on the team in 1979 and '80, when they won the --
MR. MCDANIEL: State Championship?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Back to back.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And Bill was on that team.  And then his kids have just graduated high school and they're both in college.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: Brad goes to UT in Chattanooga.  He was a quarterback, you know, last year.  Well, and from junior high school he was a quarterback.  And so when he graduated he went to University of Chattanooga.  And Zach was on the team too, and he's been at the University of Tennessee over in Knoxville for almost two years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.  Let's go back to when you all were just here kind of and you were young and things such as that.  Was there any - I know you talked about being in a couple of dinner groups and things such as that.
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah.  Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: What other things were you all involved in?  There's all kinds of clubs, I understand.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Yeah.  We belonged to all of them, I think.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you really?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you were always busy. 
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, we --
MR. MCDANIEL: Always busy.
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah, we always had something to do.  
MR. MCDANIEL: You got any good, funny stories about any of that?
MS. ZULLIGER: A lot of good friends, best friends anybody could have.  Oh yeah, a lot of friends.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you have any good stories you could tell us?
MS. ZULLIGER: Not that I want to.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh well.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, we just had fun.  Went to dances and - oh, Al and I spent a lot of time on the lake.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?  
MS. ZULLIGER: We had a lot of friends, and we always had a boat of some kind.  Our first boat was an Army pontoon boat.  We had to blow it up every time before we went out on the lake.  But we always had a boat of some kind.  And the boat out there belongs to Bill and Marsha.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.  
MS. ZULLIGER: So that was it.  But we've enjoyed Oak Ridge.  I was sorry when I first saw it, 'cause I gave up New York to come here, but I've never been sorry since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, when you told me that you had gone to New York to work and you were in the WAACs, I thought you might've worked for the Manhattan Engineering District.
MS. ZULLIGER: No, no.  I hadn't even heard of it.  
MR. MCDANIEL: 'Cause that was about the time that they were there.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, I don't think anybody had heard of it then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.  
MS. ZULLIGER: But I liked my bosses and the - oh, I lived with the - they were asking everybody if they had a room to spare to share it, you know.  So the Red Cross field director, Mr. Brownback, he asked me and he asked another girl in the office to move in with him and his wife and two small boys.  So we did.  And today I'm still corresponding with the older boy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Mr. Brownback died.  He didn't get to come to any of our reunions, but he and his wife were wonderful to us.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And we lived with him for two years and they left Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: 'Cause there was a housing shortage, wasn't there?
MS. ZULLIGER: Huh?  
MR. MCDANIEL: There was a housing shortage?  They needed the housing.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Oh yes, there was.  They didn't know they were going to get so many young people here, so they had too many D-houses and they gave the D-houses to the young people.  Now the house I moved into, the girls that were in there before, there was 6 - 12 girls to the house.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MS. ZULLIGER: But then they took the bunks out and made it six girls to the house, and that's when I moved in, when they had six girls to the house.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now where was that D-house?  Where was it?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, East - well, Lord, I'll tell you in a minute.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.  That's fine.  
MS. ZULLIGER: But anyway, I never had to learn - I didn't know how to cook, and I had had home economics.  You know, I was in high school, but that's all the cooking I knew about, 'cause I had all these older sisters, you know, that were in the kitchen to help my mother, and I never got in there except at dishwashing time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Of course.  
MS. ZULLIGER: So anyway, they told me I was going to have to - the girls told me I was going to have to cook every - once every six weeks it would be my turn to cook.  They would let me stay there five weeks, you know, so I could learn what I could about cooking.
MR. MCDANIEL: Learn.  
MS. ZULLIGER: I took a week's vacation, my week to cook.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?  Oh goodness.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, I found an old cookbook there someplace and so I'd get that thing out after they'd leave for work, well I'd get that cookbook out and figure out what I needed.  I had to walk to the grocery store.  Later on we paid $3.00 a week for food, $3.00 a week apiece.  Then later on we changed it to $5.00.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Now so you ended up, you had to cook for a whole week, every six weeks?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  I had to have my meals all planned.  When they left for breakfast, after breakfast, well, then I'd sit down with that old cookbook and figure out what I was going to cook.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well what did they think of your cooking?
MS. ZULLIGER: They liked it.  Well, it was out of a cookbook, so how could I go wrong?
MR. MCDANIEL: That's true.  That's true.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  So I did worry about it, though.  It reminded me of my cooking at home when I was taking home ec.  Well, my teacher wanted me to - all of us each to cook a meal and then have our parents - our mothers to sign it, a letter of what we were going to have, and she had to sign it.  So I had fried chicken.  I had my mother to help me, of course.  Fried chicken and gravy and biscuits and green beans and I forget what else.  But anyway, we were still sitting around the table after eating that meal, my brother and my sisters, and I said, "Well, okay, now let's - we have to write this about what everybody liked it."  And it came to my brother and he said, "Well, everything was good except the biscuit" - he said, "Everything was good, even the biscuits, but they looked like they were squatted to rise and baked on the squat."  
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did you end up being a pretty good cook?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Huh?
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you end up being a good cook later?
MS. ZULLIGER: I think so.  Don't you, Marsha?
MR. MCDANIEL: You just needed some practice, didn't you?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, I did.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good.  Good.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, that was fun.  But I was happy that I'd had that little bit of training to be - at least how to read a cookbook.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.  I understand.  I understand.  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  I've never been sorry I came to Oak Ridge.  I've lost so many friends, though.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now did your sister - did she leave after the war, or did she stay?
MS. ZULLIGER: No, she left - I lived with her for about two years and then she left and she went to Aiken, South Carolina.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: And then I went to West Village Dorm and then that's when Mr. Brownback asked me to come live with them, and lived with them.  And then I moved to Batavia Hall.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  I had fun in Batavia Hall.  It was a dormitory.  We had to check in and check out, and one of the girls came here, she was only 19.  She came here, she was my roommate.  They asked me if I wanted a roommate or if I wanted to pay more money and have a private room, and I said, "I want a roommate 'cause I want somebody to come home to."  
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: So this young girl, 19 years old, from Brooklyn - not from Brooklyn; from Buffalo, New York, she had been working in Buffalo and they'd asked her if she wanted to come down here.  Well, matter of fact, they sent her here.  And she was - we've been good buddies.  She's one of them that's still living --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: -- and we're still good buddies.  Yeah.  Yeah, I talked to her just last week on the phone.  So then that's the only places I lived, you know, till I got married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.  Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: But it's funny that I get e-mails from this older boy every week, you know, all the time.  They've come - they've been to see me, the boys have.
MR. MCDANIEL: Have they?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well my goodness.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well all right.  Anything else you want to talk about?
MS. ZULLIGER: Wasn't that exciting?  
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yes, absolutely.
MS. ZULLIGER: I enjoyed talking about it.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Anything else?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Especially that.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's right; there's your picture when you were a WAAC.  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, that was an experience.  I had a good time there too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  I'm sure.  I'm sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: I did get a little tired at times, but mostly it was good.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.
MS. ZULLIGER: It was a good experience.  I saw things I never would have seen if I hadn't gone there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Exactly.
MS. ZULLIGER: Met some people - oh, one boy that I met in New York, and I had dated the whole time I was there, after I got home and was married and had two children, well I was putting my makeup on one morning, fixing my hair, and I heard this voice on the TV and I thought, "That sounds like Oscar."  And I went in and looked, sitting on Dave Garaway's desk was Oscar Brand.  At that time - I hope he hears this - at that time, when I was in the WAAC - no, not - yeah, when I was in the WAAC he was - you know, folk music was real popular at the time, and he was sort of head of all the folk music.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: And after I visited New York after that, I saw a big sign on one of the buildings says, "Oscar Brand got his start here."  
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you dated him?
MS. ZULLIGER: All the time while I was in New York.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: I sure did.  But that was exciting, to see him sitting on Dave Garaway's desk and he was playing a guitar.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And I saw him two or three times after that and it was really fun.  If I'd stayed in New York I might've become famous.  
MR. MCDANIEL: I tell you, you're pretty famous here.  Aren't you?
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, when I was asked - I had been living in the house for a little while before Al came to Oak Ridge, and then his boss was getting married and he asked Al if he'd like to move into that house.  And Al said of course he would.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  
MS. ZULLIGER: And they were swell guys, just --
MR. MCDANIEL: So there were like six fellows living in a house?
MS. ZULLIGER: Six guys lived in the house, and it was just about two boardwalks from where we live.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: And we kept the boardwalks pretty hot.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet.
MS. ZULLIGER: Going back and forth.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet.
MS. ZULLIGER: And we had an awful lot of parties and a lot of good fun.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: Good, clean fun.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.  Exactly.
MS. ZULLIGER: It really was.  And then we had fun going to the lake, and everybody that came to Oak Ridge was impressed with our lakes, you know.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah.  So when you were living in the house with the girls how old were you, about?
MS. ZULLIGER: I guess I was about 24.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, so that's what I was thinking, mid-20s, something like that.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  
MR. MCDANIEL: You were in the prime of life, weren't you?
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was great, I'm sure.
MS. ZULLIGER: Oh yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Still young enough to have good fun and enjoy it.
MS. ZULLIGER: It was a lot of fun.  Yeah.  Yeah.  
MR. MCDANIEL: So.
MS. ZULLIGER: So that's when we got - we didn't have a car till we, just a little bit before we got married.  And then that's when we got our pontoon boat.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now how did you get that pontoon boat?  
MS. ZULLIGER: We put it on top of the car.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, but where did he get it?  Where did you get it?
MS. ZULLIGER: I have no idea.  Somebody told Al about it and so he bought it.  I don't know where he got it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.  Sure.  Exactly.
MS. ZULLIGER: But it was a boat.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Exactly.
MS. ZULLIGER: And it held a lot of people.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh yeah.  Yeah.  My goodness.
MS. ZULLIGER: It was fun.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now you were telling me you have two sons.  And do you have grandchildren?
MS. ZULLIGER: I have a granddaughter and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.  You mentioned your other two, your two grandsons.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Yeah.  And that's the best I could do.
MR. MCDANIEL: But your granddaughter, now what's her name and --?
MS. ZULLIGER: Her name is Laura, and she lives - Chip lives on Tybee Island in Georgia.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: He has a home on Tybee Island, Georgia.  But he always - he was working with - he still works with GE there.  And he met this beautiful girl and they got married and then they had Laura, and then they got a divorce.  And Laura, but he's the - Laura spends a lot of time with her dad, and still does; they're very close.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And that was the only child he had, and I never had any more.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: That was it.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was it.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  I love kids.  I'd love to have a whole lot more.  
MR. MCDANIEL: As you look at your daughter-in-law over there.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh man.  Well, all right.  Well, I guess that'll do.
MS. ZULLIGER: You think that' s it?
MR. MCDANIEL: I think that's it this time.  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  Well I think that's all I can tell you; I can't tell you anything else.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well there's other stories you could tell me; you just won't tell me.  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Isn't that what it is?  You have a reputation to uphold, don't you?  
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah.  
MR. MCDANIEL: But I can tell by that smile on your face you all had a good time in Oak Ridge.
MS. ZULLIGER: Well, we did.  I always had a good time.  And I'm so proud of all my friends.  You know, I've made so many wonderful friends and I loved them all so much, but they're all - they're fading away.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.  Right.  
MS. ZULLIGER: I have very few left.  But I've been living here alone ever since Al died.  He died while he was working in the yard, had a heart attack.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?  How long ago was that?
MS. ZULLIGER: That was in 1990.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: He died in 1990.  
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MS. ZULLIGER: Yeah, we had been to church.  He went to St. Mary's and I was not Catholic, but I always went to church with him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: And then after we got home he said, "Well, I'm going out in the yard to work," and that was the last thing he said to me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.
MS. ZULLIGER: Next thing I knew, he was dead, lying out in the yard.
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness.
MS. ZULLIGER: And I've been living here alone ever since then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Ever since.  So that's been 20 --
MS. ZULLIGER: But I couldn't live by myself if Marsha and Bill hadn't moved here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MS. ZULLIGER: Bill got a job; he's working at Y-12.  So Marsha is my legs and my driver and my, gets the groceries for me and she takes good care of me.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's good.  Well, good.  Well, good.  Well, you know, you stay here in this house as long as you can.  Isn't that right?
MS. ZULLIGER: Yep.  I plan to.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well good.  All right, well thank you so much.  We'll wrap it up this time.
MS. ZULLIGER: Okay.  All right, thank you.  
MR. MCDANIEL: All right.  Thank you.
[END OF INTERVIEW]