Alexander, Mary Elizabeth

              
ORAL HISTORY OF MARY ELIZABETH ALEXANDER
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
December 19, 2012
 
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is December 19, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC, 170 Randolph Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history from Miss Mary Elizabeth Alexander, 15 Rivers Court, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Mary Elizabeth, please state your full name, place of birth and date, please.
MS. ALEXANDER: I don't mind part of that. The date of birth always gets me, okay. Here we go. I'm Mary Elizabeth Alexander. I was born in Madisonville, Tennessee. That's in Monroe County and going last century, March 3, 1935.
MR. HUNNICUTT:  Your father's name and place of birth and date.
MS. ALEXANDER: Alright. William Fred Alexander. He was born in Blount County and my mother was Laura Grace Dickey. Of course Alexander then and she was born in Roane County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the dates of each one of them?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yes. Dad was born in 1911, and Mother was, that would make her about 1913.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your father's school history? Tell me a little bit about that.
MS. ALEXANDER: Neither my mother or dad had graduated from high school. They both went through to about the ninth grade. Dad was in Madisonville. His family had moved there from Blount County and Mother, in fact, Mom went to Wheat School, back when Wheat was a school. And it was a boarding school. She went, I guess, the ninth grade there and I don't know, maybe financial and needs at home. She was not able to continue. Later on, when Dad came to work here, he also went to Wheat School to be trained. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall anything else about what she said about Wheat School?
MS. ALEXANDER: I know they had to work, that you had a job that paid for your board. Some was in the, you know, help clean or in the kitchen or whatever different jobs. And she liked it. I remember that, but she was the baby of ten and her parents were elderly by the time she reached that age, so I think that may have been one reason that she didn't continue with them. She went home to help with the house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did she ever tell you how she got to Wheat School? Why she went to Wheat School?
MS. ALEXANDER: I think it was because of the availability of the grade to the high school. Wheat School actually, I think at one time, was almost college level. And evidently if where she lived TVA later on took that, their home place. That was part of the, when TVA came in, took the Dickey farm and so evidently there were no schools close by and so she could stay over and go to school and go home on the weekends.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What kind of work did your father do?
MS. ALEXANDER: My dad was a chemical operator at K-25. Prior to that he, before coming to Oak Ridge he was at Alcoa and Dad was not a professional man, an hourly employee, blue collar worker and a terrific father.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have brothers and sisters?
MS. ALEXANDER: I have one sister, Barbara Alexander Chayhan now. She is nineteen months younger than I am. So, always together the two of us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was her place of birth?
MS. ALEXANDER: She, too, was born at Madisonville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother work any during your younger days?
MS. ALEXANDER: No, Mother was always a homemaker. She was always at home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about your schooling before you came to Oak Ridge?
MS. ALEXANDER: My sister and I both attended Madisonville Elementary School. I think it was called Grammar School then and we left when I was in fifth grade. She was in the fourth grade. A little different. It was a, of course Tennessee schools were not highly ranked, back then, I hope better now. We probably have raised that much. But, you know, one classroom per grade. Pretty much a typical school I think back at that time. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the dress that girls wore? What type of clothing did they wear when they went to school in those days?
MS. ALEXANDER: Dresses. No pants. I can remember really, well even when, I guess even after I came to Oak Ridge, I had a lot of trouble with pneumonia and so Mom would put a pair of low slacks under my dress and then I took them off when I got to school. Walking to school it was cold so, you know, just little sweaters and skirts and dresses.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the school rooms? How were the school rooms heated, do you recall?
MS. ALEXANDER: No, I don't recall. I'm only sure I never knew. I will suspect, I'm guessing, but I would suspect the same heat, the old radiators, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have many students in your classes?
MS. ALEXANDER: The best that I can recall, we probably had an average number of students. I'd say twenty-five, give or take some.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was some of the courses that you had to take?
MS. ALEXANDER: Just a typical elementary program. Of course, remember this was up through the fourth grade. Math, geography, English, spelling, some science. I don't remember a lot of science. We did not have any special classes as the kids have now or music, PE, those sorts of things. Just the general routine academics during the day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you like to go to school when you were younger?
MS. ALEXANDER: I did. I went to school very little. Nearly every year when I started school, I'd go maybe two, three months, have pneumonia. This was prior to penicillin and all those good things we have today. And then I'd get ready to go back, take it again. And so, I think I've gone to school maybe nine or ten months total when I came to Oak Ridge and I was in the fifth grade. But, the teachers would, my sister was going. She would bring home the homework. Take it back. And I loved to read and I read constantly. So probably that kept me going. I could read the geography and the social studies books. And I loved math so that was not hard. And Mom and Dad would help me even though they were limited in their education. They could still help me with mine.
 MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how your father knew about the job in Oak Ridge?
MS. ALEXANDER: I don't know the real details. He was working at Alcoa and, you know, the best I can recall that, you know, the word got out, “There's good jobs available in Oak Ridge.” He explored that. I know one thing, he had gone and he'd been called up for the draft. He had gone and came back and was classified 1-A and I can remember the horror that I felt my dad might go to war. And I've often wondered if maybe coming to Oak Ridge might have prevented that. You know, because they needed it for the war efforts. I don't know. That's my childlike mind thinking back then. But, I'm sure that he just heard about it, applied, and got on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he come out to Oak Ridge and establish a home or did he go back and forth.
MS. ALEXANDER: We lived in Madisonville at that time, there was a fifty mile radius. If you lived within that fifty mile radius you had to commute. So we did. I think it's forty.....I don't know exactly, forty-six, forty-seven miles to Madisonville. So he commuted. We didn't have a car so he drove a bus. This was back during the war days. Rode a bus, I mean. And then he would in the winter months, if it was going to be snowy or whatever, he would get a dormitory room, you know, for the shift. He worked shift work. And then come home. So, he commuted until well, even after we moved to Oak Ridge, when they changed the boundaries and said if you could move, there were no houses available. They were building houses so quickly. And we got a little flat top which went up overnight. Got a little flat top, moved in at Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And all the family came at that time?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, to move. He had been here for a year or so. A year, year and a half. And had gone back and forth. But when he got the house, when the little house on Regent Circle became available, then we moved as a family.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the number of the house?
MS. ALEXANDER: 104.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what a flat top is? Describe the house, the flat top.
MS. ALEXANDER: Ok, flat top is a prefabricated home. Real interesting to watch being put up. I can remember that. I lived on a circle, Regent Circle at East Regent, so we would, they would come through. We watched it because we were 104 and it went all the way around. So we watched these houses going up and it would come in, team would come in and set up the foundation. And most of the foundations were stilts. You know, because we lived on a little slope, but the foundation, then here would come another crew that would be the flooring. And then the plumbers would plumb. And the electricians would electric. And then the fellows would come in with the sides, then the roof. And so we watched all this. Stay after school, we would run to see what they were doing. One day, everything would be finished. So then we would run the next day to see how many kids were in the house when they moved. Because there was always a family waiting to move in, just as soon as you completed the house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you at this time?
MS. ALEXANDER: I was ten when we moved here. I was ten.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how the house was heated?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah. It was heated with coal. The big Warm Morning Heater that was probably about half more than what we needed, but it would get red hot and I've often thought about that because we didn't have a back door. One entrance and that Warm Morning Heater, I'm really amazed that they didn't have more fires than they did. We had one fire, house across the street from mine caught on fire. It was bad. Other than that, I don't know of any other. There may have been of course.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the coal stored?
MS. ALEXANDER: In our case, now the flat tops.... now cemestos were a different story. And as flat tops you had a coal box. Your house sat here and you had a little walkway out to the street, there sat the coal box. And then trucks would come through with their little conveyor belts and fill up the coal box and go on. Now the cemestos had it inside. They had their coal inside and their furnace was inside.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you ever recall in the flat top, an emergency exit way of getting out, a trap door or anything like that?
MS. ALEXANDER: We didn't have that. I don't know if they had in others. The only way we had was hopefully that we didn't have the little windows, a little series of windows, small windows as many of the flat tops do. We had the windows where they pulled out half of it. So your best bet was to get out half of that window, get it open and get out. And with the one door and we didn't have a trap door.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was this a two bedroom?
MS. ALEXANDER: Two bedroom flat top.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you and your sister shared a bedroom.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, that's all we were eligible for. Yeah, couldn't get any more than two bedroom. One for Mom and Dad and one for us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, what type work did your father do when he came to Oak Ridge?
MS. ALEXANDER: He was a chemical operator at K-25, worked there about twenty-five and a half years, died from heart disease. I know he worked at K-25 and I can't remember one of the other K-27 or K-31....one of the other areas, but primarily K-25. He started there and then they kind of moved him around some near the end.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you know what type of work he was doing?
MS. ALEXANDER: Absolutely not. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think your mother did?
MS. ALEXANDER: No, no.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he ever talk about his job?
MS. ALEXANDER: Not really. Not really. He talked more about some of the people, you know, that he worked with. We got to know some of those. He bowled with them and you know they had a good recreation program for the men but, no. And I'm not sure to be honest if Dad knew what he was doing either. I know he was responsible for some, at least keeping dowels whatever certain I know that because I know he had talked sometime. They had a little accident one time, I think they came in and he evidently had gotten, went in and pulled some fellow out and did not put a gas mask on because the fellow collapsed inside some area. I don't know what and Dad went in and brought him out, then suffered throat problems after, all the time. But so we don't know what happened, but I'm sure he inhaled something that he wasn't supposed to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did your mother think about moving to Oak Ridge? Do you recall?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, she cried. You know we left our three bedroom, not a big fine home, but a very comfortable home. And Mother said in all the flat tops they had venetian blinds. They were those wooded venetian blinds and Mother said, “I look out that just like looking out at bars.” Just a little bitty house, little bitty kitchen. And, so she cried and then she got over it, you know, as time went on and people were really good. You didn't have family here so you had each other. And you depended on each other and you related to each other. And so she got involved and she was involved in the school. It was Momma's stew at the PTAs and that kind of thing. And then she became Assistant Scout Leader. So she loved Oak Ridge eventually, but she didn't at first at all.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember in the flat top how she washed her clothes?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, we had a wringer type washer and we stored it in the little closet and we pulled it out into the little kitchen so we could put the water in and then empty it into the sink. Yeah. And we hung them up to dry.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You said the wringer type. It had wringers on the top to run the clothes through?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, to dry.
MR. HUNNICUTT: To get the water out of the clothes?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, to wring them out, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And did you hang the clothes on a clothes line outside?
MS. ALEXANDER: We did, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How was the neighborhood in that time? Was everybody friendly?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, as I said earlier you had to be. They became your family. It was extended family. On one side, we had a family from Missouri. And he was a chemist. And she had been a school teacher and they had two children. Then on the other side, we had a family from West Tennessee. And he too, had been a teacher and was some, I don't know what he did at the plant. So, you know, you just had a variety of people. Then of course all around the circle many, many, many kids. I grew up with many playmates. Mom said one time she was sitting out on the little stoop and said she counted and there were like thirty-five or thirty-six kids playing in the front yard. We had three yards. This house, our yard and this house. That made big long ball field you know. So then, she said she counted those and she looked and about eight or ten more were coming into the playground at our house. So, lots and lots of kids.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live in the flat top?
MS. ALEXANDER: We lived there until we were forced to move. They began to do away with the flat tops. Ours was one that they were going to sell. We had the option of buying, but you had to remove it. You didn't get the land. You got the building. And you could move it off the area, but of course, Dad didn't. We had no place to move it. So we lived there until oh, '54, so '45, nine years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What school did you attend when you lived on Regent Circle?
MS. ALEXANDER: Linden School that was on LaSalle, the original Linden School opened the same year we moved. So, we of course attended. It was within walking distance of Linden School. And my sister and I would walk up to the school and then of course, you know, when we were able to participate in a lot of things that were going on. And the same thing true of the playground. I was in the fifth grade. She was in the fourth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you recall as your first thought when you went to school there the first day?
MS. ALEXANDER: We were a little bit scared. Of course, Mom went with us, got us enrolled. And went into the class and of course, all the kids were new. It's not like when you grow up in a town, and then you just move from one grade with a group of kids that you know from the grade previously. But, it was not hard. I mean, it was easy to get adjusted to because they worked very hard at that. I was really amazed at the school. I remember that because I had not had art. I had not had music. I had not had PE and I walked in and thought I had died and gone to heaven when I saw the library. I hadn’t never seen so many books before because we didn't have a library, per se. Each room had a little shelf of library books in my previous school. So I was thrilled to death. I just thought it was wonderful. Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who your teacher was?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah. This great teacher, Miss Woods. Miss Wood from Arkansas. A sixth grade teacher was Miss Anderson from New York. So that was another. Another plus was that you had this variety of teachers that came in and you learned from them and you know, of course in the junior high, the same thing was true. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were these teachers young ladies?
MS. ALEXANDER: Miss Anderson was. I thought she was real young. I don't know what her age was, but I suspect that we were probably about her third or fourth year of teaching. Just guessing. And Miss Wood was not. She was an experienced teacher. Her husband had a sport shop down in Jefferson Circle and I suspect she had been teaching several years. Both of them were excellent teachers, you know. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summertime when you weren't in school, what did you do for fun?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, of course the playgrounds were open. That was a beautiful thing that they did in Oak Ridge. Every school there was. I tried to figure out later, and I think there was something like twelve or thirteen schools, elementary schools. Maybe more than that. Counting and scattered all over and they were all neighborhood schools. They did run school buses but most of us were close enough to walk and summertime every playground was open. And you went to Dad, usually a boy and a girl, probably I would guess, college kids now, that were the coaches that we call them and they conducted playground. We had all teams. We would play on other playgrounds. Linden would play Pine Valley or Glenwood or whatever in softball and maybe kick ball. So that was going on. The Library was open, at least twice a week so you could go in and get books and then bring them back and exchange them. They would have special programs, the Recreation Center would bring them in and at different activities, you know. Circus days. Then the end of the summer, up at Blankenship they had a big playground circus and every playground was responsible for some part of the circus, some act and you got to go out and perform. Got to see all the others. So it was a wonderful time.
 MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the games the neighborhood kids played?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, at home we used our three yards as a ball field and now kids would come in and we would play softball, primarily. And my dad bought a badminton set, but that took so long you would have to wait your turn, you know, with so many kids. They would play in the center of the circle with the houses inside. There was an open space and we played stick ball there. Somebody got the broom handle and we made a ball out of cord. And that way they couldn't break a window much inside. So we'd play there and Kick the Can, Red Rover, and Tag and Hide and Seek. At our house, our block sat right on a green belt and we played a lot out on the green belt. That was our jungle and all this imagination going on. And we found in our jungle a grapevine. And there was a little cliff that dropped down. It seemed really deep to me but I'm sure it wasn't as much as I thought it dropped down and the grapevine and so it was so much fun to swing out over that little [inaudible] and back again. And we had lots of fun until one day, shoot one of them fell and broke an arm. Here they came the medics and next day we knew the police were out here cutting our grapevine down and that ended that phase of fun anyway for us. 
 MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned Red Rover. Explain to me how that game is played.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, I know you played Red Rover, but to those who haven't you divide up into teams and you could be any place, any number...any number and so we line up on opposite sides of a...mark it off so far...distance in between and lock arms and say, “Red Rover, Red Rover send Don over,” and Don was to come and run as hard as he could and break one of those. Of course, you always look for the little girls because they didn't hold as tight as little boys. Some tried to rush through and so if you did, then if you broke it you got to take one of our team back to your team. And which pretty soon if you got down to just the two then one that ended up with the least number of team members, of course lost. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you didn't break the line, you had to stay on the other side?
MS. ALEXANDER: That's right. If you didn't break the line, you had to stay and become our team member.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Kick the Can? Explain how that is played.
MS. ALEXANDER: Kick the Can. Kick the Can is just what it says. You have it and you kick the can and everybody scatters and you don't want to be caught. You had to be it. If you get back and kick the can before... I can't even remember all of it. Then we used to throw the can over the building, but I don't remember what that game was. But, you could do that on a flat top. You could throw it clear across the house. But, it was.....I don't even remember all the details, but I do remember kicking the can and you had to get back and kick it before it caught us again. And take off again.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how you chose up sides or teams when you played? Played games?
MS. ALEXANDER: Usually, “One potato, two potato, three potato, four. And five potato, six potato, seven potato, more,” all in, then you go in and hit everybody's knuckles and find out that if you get caught in the end, then you had to…
MR. HUNNICUTT: So the odd person out was...
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, odd person out got it. Or sometimes you chose the ball teams, usually you chose, you know. You do the bat and one that gets to the top gets to choose first, then you get your teams.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you grab the bat around its handle.
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT:  And then you put your hand on the top and next and whoever got to the end got the first choice.
MS. ALEXANDER: Got the first choice. Yeah. You got the best players, see, that's who you go for.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a bookmobile coming around?
MS. ALEXANDER: I do. I do. Now the bookmobile, of course, with the libraries open at the school, you had a bigger choice of books and if you went to the ...and we lived on the playgrounds. And it was walking distance and it was so safe. But then the bookmobile was...we probably didn't have the bookmobile as often as the trailer park did. The bookmobiles traveled into the trailer park because they did not have a school in their midst so we were primarily using the Library.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you moved off Regent Circle where did you move to?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, we moved to Pennsylvania Avenue to [inaudible].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Remember the address?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah. 512.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what type of cemesto was it?
MS. ALEXANDER: A.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about an A cemesto, what's that look like?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, ours was still two bedrooms because we still just had two kids. Two girls, so we weren't eligible for a three bedroom and you know, I think is less than a thousand square feet, two bedrooms, living room, small kitchen. Later Mom and Dad were still living there, then when I came back to teach my dad died not too long after that. So I continued to live with mother and I added a room on to it, kind of enlarged it a little bit. But it was very efficient.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of heat was in this cemesto home?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, after the move there, they began to put the gas into Oak Ridge. Gas lines. My grandparents had had gas for a good period of time and so Dad was very familiar with it and made contact. And he put in the first floor furnace, gas floor furnace in Oak Ridge because we had people to come and want to look at it and talk to him about it. So we heated by gas almost from the beginning, didn't use the coal. We had the coal bin and we took out the old coal furnace and put in this gas furnace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the coal bin located in the A house?
MS. ALEXANDER: It was just adjacent to the kitchen. Of course houses are turned backwards for the benefit of the coal people and we eventually just cleaned out that hole. In fact the whole furnace area and turned it into a little storage unit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you say turn around so that the coal bin faces the street?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Convenience for delivering coal?
MS. ALEXANDER: If you go into cemestos, you go around to the back to go into the front door. And most of them now, unless they have done some changing, because the coal bin, the coal would come along with their conveyor belt and it would go inside the window and the coal would travel in and drop down into the bin and then you were there to feed it to the furnace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where your mother did her grocery shopping?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, when we were up on Regent Circle, she went down to Jefferson and then we did, she went up Pennsylvania, right up from Malfunction Junction. And she went to Grove Center. They had EAT, was a food market. It was there then. White Store came in later and became, had that food market. She traded with the White Store until they left. She liked the White Store because they didn't sell beer. (laughs) Bless her heart, she wouldn't be able to buy at a market place anyplace now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about movie theaters? Do you go to the theater very much?
MS. ALEXANDER: We went to Jefferson mostly because town....see when they moved to, in '54, I graduated in '53, so most of my movie going was when I was living on Regent Circle. Jefferson Theater, it was close enough, we walked. We could ride the bus, but most of the time we walked and go down on Saturday morning, went down ten or ten-thirty to the Little Atom's Club. And you sat through all the Little Atom's Club, which could be cartoons, which could be a stage show, which could be a talent show. Then you got to stay on and you got the movies. And the movie came on and you got the cowboy movie and you got the serial and you got the comedy and you got all the serials coming up and, I mean all the previews coming, then the serial. So you stayed all day practically for about nine cents. You could get into the movie for nine cents and I think popcorn was a nickel. So for fourteen cents you got all day entertainment.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you had a quarter you could buy popcorn, coke.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh my goodness, if you had a quarter you were wealthy, let me tell you, a dime and a nickel was about our extent.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get your money to go to the movie?
MS. ALEXANDER: I started babysitting when my neighbor lived on the left hand side, had a third child and needed a babysitter and I babysat for a quarter an hour. And the girls, I'd watch the girls too, but they were a little older so you know, they wasn't that much trouble, but mostly the baby. And my mother practically did it because she would check on me about every ten or fifteen minutes when I was down there. So I got that quarter now and I would have fifty cents, you know for a couple of hours and that would give me some money. That was plenty, that was plenty of money. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were the children you were babysitting?
MS. ALEXANDER: The little baby was oh, less than a year. And let's see Patty and Debbie were....Debbie was probably, I'm not sure she may have been four or five. And Patty was about six or seven.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you were what, about eleven?
MS. ALEXANDER: I was in junior high.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Junior high?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah. So that would make me twelve to fourteen, something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: But, your mother checked on you just to make sure.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, yeah, twelve year old down there watching those babies, those kids. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you nervous when you started that job?
MS. ALEXANDER: I don't think so. I knew the family so well and they knew me and it wasn't like I'm going …..then when I got in high school I baby sat different places, you know, but no I don't think I was nervous. Then I always had my mom next door I could call for help if I needed to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the skating rink?
MS. ALEXANDER: The skating rink, that was interesting. I didn't do as much with the skating as my sister did. But our church group would go down. We went to Robertsville Baptist and our church group, youth group would skate down at Jefferson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family attend Robertsville Baptist when they first came to Oak Ridge?
MS. ALEXANDER: When we first came to Oak Ridge we didn't have a car and that Fall that we came........when we came to Oak Ridge that Fall Trinity Methodist started their church at Linden school. See all the churches were in schools or theaters and they opened.....they started their church and this was in walking distance and we walked to Linden school so I almost became a Methodist. I went there two years. They made a little neighbor, Mr. Clinton, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. They lived around the circle from us and he was a teacher at the junior high. They had a car. It was an older bomb car and they found out that we had gone to a Baptist church at Madisonville so they invited us to go to Robertsville. We were meeting at, well, and then it was Jefferson Junior, but its Robertsville now. But it was Jefferson Junior. So we started going there. And continued to go to join the congregation and continued there. But they would come and pick us up each Sunday morning and take us. Now, Dad had to do shift work so he was not always, maybe mother and Bobbie and myself for sure. And sometimes he was on midnights and sometimes he was on days, you know, shift work they had to do. He only had one Sunday off a month.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you feel that your mother felt like she was safe while she was living at Oak Ridge?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah. We all felt safe. Yeah, that was one of the things everybody we talk with, of course that's the first thing they say, how very safe it was. And it was. And when you live in a city that is surrounded by fence that no salesmen can come in, that you don't have any strangers coming is. You don't even have relatives visiting you, unless you send them a pass to come. You know when they are coming and when they are going. So it was extremely, extremely safe. You know, as we talked earlier no cars were locked. Mom would tell us, “Now girls, I'm going to have to go and get groceries this afternoon by bus, get groceries, now if you get home before I get back, the door will be unlocked. Just go on in, change into your play clothes and go out,” you know. That was always, you don't wear your school clothes to play in. So, I don't remember anything happening in Oak Ridge. Of course, a lot of things probably happened they didn't put in the paper.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You referred to play clothes. What did that consist of?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, it wasn't your school clothes. That was nicer clothes. It could be old t-shirts and pants then that you played in and your old tennis shoes. Not your nice school shoes, you know, you had your school clothes and then these are play clothes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Church clothes, school clothes and play clothes.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, church clothes were even more than play clothes. You came down, church clothes, when they wore out they became school clothes and then they became play clothes. Got good wear out of everything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned tennis shoes; how did they look compared to today's tennis shoes?
MS. ALEXANDER: (laughs) Soles about that thick and canvas tops, very plain, very simple. Sometimes you could get the big tops and something I'd wear out because I turned my ankle so much, so I wore high tops to take gym in, but most of them were just tennis slipper, you know. That's what they really were.
 MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever collect lightening bugs for resell?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you do that?
MS. ALEXANDER: I don't ever remember reselling them. We collected them. You know, collected them and sometimes we would give ours to somebody else and they'd get a big bunch and they could take them and sell them. We didn't always have a way of getting to where you turned them in, so we'd give them to somebody else. But, you know, you'd get your little mayonnaise jar or fruit jar, chase those lightening bugs, capture them, you know, in the jar and put them in the refrigerator and freeze them so that they would lie dormant until they got ready to be utilized by the scientists.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Coke bottles? Did you ever collect Coke bottles?
MS. ALEXANDER: To turn in and get money? Oh yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much you got per bottle?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, goodness, I don't know, I would say very little. I don't even think we got a much. Cokes weren't that expensive. They were probably a nickel, maybe a penny. I don't know. I don't even remember, but I know we collected them. Collect them so we could buy comic books.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of comic books did you like?
MS. ALEXANDER: Any kind. We were entrepreneurs, let me tell you. Big business, comic books. You got your comic books and you didn't let anybody read your comic books because you traded them. We would gather around our house and sit on the little board walkway. “I've got a brand new comic book. It's brand new,” we said, “So well, I'll give you two of my used comic books for your brand new book.” So big deals would be going on all the time. And, “Well, now your comic book the cover is torn off and mine is good. Well, I'll take three of yours then,” So you did all of this. Then after you traded, got everybody traded, then you sat down and read your comic books. You didn't share beforehand, you waited until you traded and then everybody sat and read.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, did you read your comic books before you traded them off?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, you knew exactly how good they were so you could do your sales pitch, so....
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember milk deliveries to the home? What do you remember about that?
MS. ALEXANDER: Ours were primary to Broad Acres. Butch was the milkman. What we would do, you would put your bottle, glass containers, and we would put them out by the coal bin, into the walkway, the coal bin and you would put out ever how much milk you wanted. Two quarts or whatever in the glass containers. Now, sometimes he would bring them around to the door. But most of the time he would either put the milk, the money in the milk jar and he would get the milk jar, a milk bottle and the money and then leave you whatever you asked for. But we just put our money in the little milk bottles and put it out there and people passing by. There would be all the money and he would get it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the milk bottles? Did they have a paper top that you pulled off? Do you remember how that was?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, that was the way it was covered, a little cap.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about salesmen throughout the neighborhood?
MS. ALEXANDER: No, no salesmen. I think I said earlier that was part of the safety factor. No, no salesmen could come in. We had a little fellow that drove a vegetable truck. I think he lived in Oak Ridge. I remember him coming around and he would stop, you know, every so many houses and if you could go out and buy fresh vegetables. And then we had the Ice Cream man, “Ding, ding, ding, here come the ice cream man,” you know. And those were the only two I can remember that were salesmen.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that little truck, would that be a rolling top store? Would you think?
MS. ALEXANDER: The ice cream?
MR. HUNNICUTT: No, the salesmen with the little truck.
MS. ALEXANDER: No, no, no, no, now, a rolling store I know, because there was a rolling store in Madisonville when I was growing up, but no this was just a little, actually it's kind of a small pick-up truck. He had his goodies in the back, fruits and the vegetables. And he drove and the people would just come out and buy whatever they, tomatoes or whatever he was selling.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have a garden?
MS. ALEXANDER: Not a large garden. We did down Regent Circle. I don't remember their ever having a garden up on Pennsylvania. Yeah, had a small garden.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That seemed to be a quite trendy in those days.
MS. ALEXANDER: Yes, gardens, they were trendy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What school did you attend when you moved up on Pennsylvania Avenue?
MS. ALEXANDER: I went to Linden, you know, when I first moved to Oak Ridge. And then when I finished the sixth grade there, we went to what was Jefferson Junior High School. Seventh through nine. Then I went to Oak Ridge High School, ten through twelve. And graduated and then went to East Tennessee State University, finished there and then did my graduate work at UTK.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was Jefferson Junior High School located when you attended?
MS. ALEXANDER: It's where Robertsville is now. And then when they renovated, that eventually became Robertsville. They moved; well, to back up a minute. They built the new high school, you know, over on, Providence and so then there was a need to renovate Jefferson, Jefferson then. So the moved the Jefferson Junior High School, the old high school building up on Blankenship Field. It had not been destroyed. And then renovated it where Jefferson once stood and renamed it Robertsville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, part of that structure that was down there was the old or original Robertsville School, was that correct?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, yeah, big building, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend school in that old Robertsville school building?
MS. ALEXANDER: That was primarily ninth grade. There was a ninth grade social living and this sort of thing in there and then the auditorium was in that building. The auditorium now is where the gym, there is a gym in the building. This is where we had church in the gym. But, they also had several wings. See there is a great huge wing that was there were at least 20 seventh grade home rooms. That didn't count ninth grade and eighth grade. So these wings, that was what they had to do. They were very temporary. They were part of that like the dormitories. Temporary structures.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Wooden structures.
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah. And so they were going to come in and renovate. And then out of that came what Robertsville is now. There has been some renovation since then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall an escape tube that you would slide down out of the school? Tell me a little bit about that.
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, fire escapes. This was the brick building. Was part of the brick building was the old Jefferson. I mean, excuse me, the old Robertsville School that was here originally. And it was two levels, two stories. There was only, the best I can remember, there was that one big entrance that you came in to it. So, with the schools you've got to be able to evacuate in so many seconds. And they were silos. We called them silos. They were like silos and they were circular and you just hoped and prayed that you'd have a fire drill while you were on the upper floor, you know, that was the neatest thing. So you sat down and you literally slid. It was a slide, a circular slide and you shooed out the door.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It was covered wasn't it?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, it was …..it was a silo, you know, it was.....it was like, you looked at it and it looked like two silos on either side of those buildings and that one building and one side serviced, you know, the one part of it. Then on the other. Yeah, it was covered.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was it spooky when you slide down through there?
MS. ALEXANDER: No, you just went. You know, now if you go over to Splash, Dolly's business, they got those circular killer slides. Well, you just put it inside of a silo and there were two, they had to be pretty quick to come down because you didn't have, it wasn't very high. It wasn't very wide so you go real fast down through it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had fire drills?
MS. ALEXANDER: Fire drills, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you were on the top floor?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, you got to go down. You got to go down the slide. Yeah, if you were down on the floor you had to walk out the door like everybody, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you had to get out of the way when you got to the bottom. Someone would fly out on top of you.
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, yeah. You used to scoot right away. And they came down pretty rapidly because you got your teacher up there. The teacher was the last one, of course to go and he or she was giving, you know, instructions, down you go. And then you always had somebody downstairs catching you as you come out. I mean, directing you as you came out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you notice a big difference when you attended junior high from elementary school? Or grammar school as they was called in those days?
MS. ALEXANDER: It was elementary, Linden Elementary. They were called elementary. They were grammar school in Madisonville. Madisonville Grammar School. Guess it was because it went to the eighth grade, but you know elementary. The bigness, I mean, I remember walking down to the seventh grade wing and you looked this way and you looked and the hall just went for eternity, seemed to me, you know. Many kids, of course we had twenty and said we were large classes thirty or thirty-five in a class. There's six, seven hundred kids right there, in just the seventh grade. And you had three grades. So I suspect there were eighteen hundred, two thousand kids at Jefferson Junior High. Of course, I got caught up in the intramural. I loved the sports and we had a fantastic intramural program. And they did later on in the high school too. You combined two. We would go to gym and two classes and for instance I was in this win's class and there was a Mr. King. So win King went to gym together. The girls met on one side and the boys were on the other side. Great big curtain in between us. So then when we played win King played two other home rooms. We had intramural in everything. And of course, the big thing then there was the buses that would bring you to school, but the buses were running all over Oak Ridge. And it was easy to go home. You would go out on Robertsville Road, get a bus, get a transfer, go to Jefferson Bus Terminal, get on number 12 and go home. And give them your transfer so you could go home. They take your bus ticket to get on a public bus, so intramural, lots of things like orchestra and the chorus and all of those. The band. Miss Lyman there with her band. Then when we got into the ninth grade, you actually had a science lab and a typing lab, you know. You had things that you just didn't have in the elementary school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, do you feel like you were behind or even or when you first came to Oak Ridge and started Oak Ridge School system from where you first went to school? Where do you think you fit in?
MS. ALEXANDER: As I said, I had not gone to school very much. I hadn't gone nine or ten months total. I was so excited about getting to go to school and I don't know whether it was atmosphere or whatever, but of course penicillin came in and the sulfa drugs came in and you could get over a sickness quickly. And I quit having all that pneumonia. Not that I go to school nine months. I didn't care what it was I was so excited about getting to go to school. Being there for Valentine's and being there for Christmas and all the things, the parties, whatever. I don't think I was behind. I think I had probably read much at home that probably kept me at least at the level that I should have been, maybe a little bit above in some cases. Because you know, I could move on ahead if I knew the assignments and that sort of thing. But, no, I loved school. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned riding the bus. How did you know which bus to get on?
MS. ALEXANDER: We had numbers, you know, the school buses of course, but at Jefferson you could get on the school bus and then go to school. But the public buses, number 12 went Robertsville Road, stopped at Regent Circle, go and all those little streets, down Robertsville Road to Louisiana Avenue. Number 4 went to Jackson Square and there was, they said a number 4 about every five minutes it came into Jefferson Terminal because there were so many people, you were lucky to get a seat. I stood a lot riding those buses because there were so many people without cars and there was a large bus system. I heard one time one of the largest bus systems in the states. And then you know the number 8 that went to Grove Center, so, you know, you just knew your numbers.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you indicate to the bus driver you wanted to get off at a certain place?
MS. ALEXANDER: Ding dong. You had your cord that you pulled, usually get off at the next stop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were the stops in view where you knew there was a bus stop or how did you know where to go get the bus?
MS. ALEXANDER: You know, Jackson Square they had a shelter, because all the buses came in to Jackson Square at one time, but the rest of us just mostly [waited] at the street, you know, at the beginning of East Regent Circle, that's where you got on the bus. Coming or going, you know, across the street.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Just started out as a place where everybody mingled, and the bus driver knew that would be where to be.
MS. ALEXANDER: If you ding donged, you were going to get off at the next street. Actually, I guess they stopped just about every street the best I can remember. I know I always just told them we want off at the next one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a bicycle?
MS. ALEXANDER: We had a bicycle, a used bike. Dad got us a used bike, oh I guess when we were still at Linden School. He polished it up, did all these sorts of things. And so everybody, practically everybody had a bike and then you played Cops and Robbers and just chased each other and all sorts of things on that little circle. It was safe you know, nobody had cars so you didn't have to worry about the cars.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your sister had a bike too?
MS. ALEXANDER: No, we shared a bike. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Double each other?
MS. ALEXANDER: No, she really rode this bike more than I did. I don't know why that happened. I'll be honest with you, but she got home from school first. She must have got the bike. I was always involved in some other stuff.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the dress code when you went to Jefferson seem different than the elementary school?
MS. ALEXANDER: You know that was interesting because I remember at Jefferson that we wore blue jeans and the style was that you wore blue jeans and you had one leg cuffed higher than the other. And a great big thick Bobbi socks and saddle Oxfords. I mean, and then you didn't clean saddle Oxfords, you sat during the day and, you know, rubbed your foot over top of the other
MR. HUNNICUTT: Break them in.
MS. ALEXANDER: Get them good and dirty looking and then the real cool dress thing was you wore a white blouse and a plaid, little plaid shirt over top of it and we could wear blue jeans. And I was down there, what ‘40, ‘47, ‘48, ‘49, those three years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about penny loafers. Remember those?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, yeah. Penny loafers were next to saddle Oxfords.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did they get a name of penny loafers?
MS. ALEXANDER: I don't know where it came from? Except I know you put the penny in between, you know, the little top.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The little cut out.
MS. ALEXANDER: Top, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the boys wore in those days?
MS. ALEXANDER: They wore blue jeans.
MR. HUNNICUTT: T-shirts.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, wore t-shirts. I was trying to think, they wore mostly loafers; I can remember the shoes, loafers. I don't remember wearing, they might have worn some saddle Oxfords because you didn't wear too many tennis shoes. That was interesting. That was a real cheap shoe. You wore them in gym. We dressed out in gym. So you had your gym shoes and your gym clothes. But the t-shirts and the blue jeans. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: I would say they wore white socks too probably.
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, probably. You are right, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who your gym teacher was in junior high?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, I had Miss Hodge, who later became a counselor at Knox County Schools. And I had Miss Gottshall, who is still here in Oak Ridge. And the other lady was Miss Good who is living in Gatlinburg. I think I talked to her not too long ago. She visited in Oak Ridge. I got to see her.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Nick Orlando?
MS. ALEXANDER: Nick Orlando was the boys. Of course, I didn't have Nick Orlando and I didn't get acquainted with his paddle, but most of the boys did, you know. Nick Orlando and Coach Stuhmiller, and Coach, let's see, Nathan was there and Coach Francis, but I think they went to the high school. Yeah, Coach Orlando was, everybody knew Coach Orlando.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the radio? Did you or your sister or your family listen to the radio very much?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah, that was the entertainment at home because well, we played a lot of board games. Monopoly and then we played Canasta. We liked to do that as a family. But the radio was you know, was the TV of the time. It was the audio.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of radio programs do you remember?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh goodness, Open Door, Hee Hee, the Squeaking Door, you open up, the Lone Ranger, you know, all of those, they were coming on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Queen for a Day.
MS. ALEXANDER: I think Mom was a Queen for a Day and then soap operas. She had some soap operas she listened to. We weren't too interested in that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the mud in the early days?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, the mud. I don't remember as much as some people would because I was not out so much in it. But I can remember around our little flat top that was very muddy and they would come through and build wooden sidewalks so we did not have as much mud, I guess, as a lot of people did because they built that sidewalk immediately. Of course, it was wooden and then they would have to come through and spray this, whatever chemical they had to kill the rats that would gather under the sidewalks, but I can remember the roads being torn up before they had them paved. And the mud there and, of course, when they had all the time they were building. It was really muddy there. And the houses. I don't remember the people getting out and walking in and getting caught in the mud. Because I was out. I was too young for that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you lived in the flat top do you remember what the rent was?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, the best I can remember, it was twenty something dollars. It wasn't very much. But in that you got the house and you got your electricity and you got your water. They provided the refrigerator and a stove. Practically covered everything and then if something went wrong you just picked up the phone and called Roane Anderson. I know our stove went out. So they come in and put a whole new unit and put it in and no charge. So the only thing that I can remember we had to pay for was that once we were out playing ball and I can remember this because I was the one that did it. I hit the ball and it went through the big picture window at the flat top. Crash. And the reason I remember so well it was, you can date it. It was when they were doing the Bikini Test. Underwater bomb test over in the Pacific. And they had taken the animals and put them on the ship and they were going to explode the bomb and see what effects they had. Well, they had this big thing going along, we don't know if it's going to cause a nuclear reaction and then able to see what might destroy the world and [inaudible]. And I loved to hit that ball and it went right through that picture window and like to gave my mother a heart attack. Because they were gathered around the radio listening when they were doing it and so, we called Roane Anderson. Need a new picture window. And they came out and they said, “Now, if a limb had blown off and it broken a window, we would replace it. Since your daughter hit a ball and knocked it through the window, you are going to have to pay for it.” So Dad had to pay for a picture window. I don't know what it cost.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned to call for service. Your family had a telephone?
MS. ALEXANDER: We did. We didn't when we first moved there. And we had the telephone, I don't remember, most of the time we were there. And party line. Four on the phone. We got the neighbors ring and they got our ring. And then there were two other rings that went to two other people. So every time you used the phone, you pick it up, listen to be sure nobody is on it because you had no way to indicate that this phone is busy, but you listen. So sometimes people talked an awful long time on that phone.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how did you know it was your ring to answer the phone?
MS. ALEXANDER: Our ring was two shorts, ding, ding, and then the other ring that we received that happened to be our neighbors ring, ring, long ring. So two shorts was ours, one long was theirs. So don't answer the one long, only the two shorts.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember savings bonds and stuff? What were they all about?
MS. ALEXANDER: Of course, that was financing the war. I think I still have some savings stamps. My little book that you could buy, ten cents a stamp and you fill up a little book and they would come in and just sell and you knew what days they were coming and so your folks would give you the money to get the savings stamps and of course we had the rations. I can remember Mom, yeah we were rationing, Oak Ridge didn't have very many stores. They'd line up. Long lines for meats and things like that, you know, it could be gone in a hurry. If you weren't there, you didn't get any. Shoes and gas. Of course, we didn't have a car then. Worry about that. But we got our car in 1950, but no rationing at that point. But this went on during the war time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were cigarettes rationed also?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah. Everything was rationed. Anything rubber, you know, tires, anything that the soldiers would have needed was rationed. And of course, cigarettes would have been among that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a personal badge?
MS. ALEXANDER: I did when I got 12 years old, I have it. And I still have it. A little residence badge. And my sister was 19 months younger didn't get one because they opened the gates before she turned 12. So she missed her badge, but that was, you know, a big deal to flash that badge when you went out the gates, you know and the guards came up. Dad had his work badge. Mom had a residential badge. And I got one too. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about going in and out of the gates. What you remember about that?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, I remember a lot on the bus. We would go to my mother's people that lived down in Roane County. We would ride the bus. So then we had to ride the bus to Knoxville to shop because, you know, as I said we didn't have the car. But you would get on the bus and a guard would, well, we'd leave from Townsite, from the bus terminal at Townsite. Guard would get on and then he would ride with us all the way to the gate. If we went out [inaudible] going to Knoxville or we went to Oliver Springs going to Harriman. If you got off the bus between Townsite and the gate you had to have a badge or a pass to get off. Then he got off at the gate. If you were coming in he could get on, ride to the bus terminal and then when he got off, everybody had to show their badge. Now, if you rode the car, the same thing. You went up to the car, the guards came in and they had the option they could search your car. Cameras and whatever, arms and if you had a badge it was not too much. I remember one time, my church was going on, I think we were going to Big Ridge, going on a youth outing. And we all got on the bus and this was probably when I was in junior high. And we got to the gate and the fellow, we were coming in. I guess we were coming in because you could either way, one of the guys on the bus didn't have his badge. And they wouldn't let us leave. The rest of us had badges. So they let him get off, called his folks, and his parents rushed down and brought his badge, then we got to go on our outing. So they were pretty rigid about their requirements.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was Christmas time like in your family?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, pretty typical, I think. You know, we didn't buy a tree. Dad always went out and cut down a tree. Usually a little cedar tree. And we had some homemade decorations and some bought, you know, we'd buy icicles and usually some little balls. I still have a box that we had when I was young. And Santa, of course, came at night. We didn't probably compared to some of the Christmases now we might have looked kind of stark because we just didn't have all that everybody gets today. You make a list and you get everything on it. We didn't even make a list. We just wanted whatever we got. And usually, you know if you just had one nice, like a doll or one year we got wagons and one year we got little red rockers. I remember, you know, you got one big and then you got some little things. But it wasn't overly done. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the town during Christmastime? Do you remember hearing Christmas music at shopping centers? 
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, of course there were the little local ones like Grove Center and Elm Grove and Pine Valley. And you had a big shopping center at Jackson Square. I don't remember, you know, things like parades and things like that. Now, I know schools really did Christmas up. You did lots of things in school. And always had the choral concert and the orchestra and these sorts of things. But, I don't even know if they had them, a parade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Later on, Oak Ridge did. Knoxville had parades. And that's probably where a lot of Oak Ridgers [went].
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, yeah, it was mostly, you know, decorations in the stores as you said. Music, that was, I guess that was it. The churches and the schools kind of picked up on Christmas celebrations.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember in 1945 when they announced about dropping the bomb on Japan? Do you remember that event?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yes and no. We moved right after that to Oak Ridge. I was still living in Madisonville. I had friends whose parents went to the war and we had a neighbor boy that was killed. We had another one that lost both legs. So I was well aware of the war. And that's the reason I think my dad got 1-A. I was scared. I was really frightened. So when we got the word all we knew was Dad worked and of course, you had nothing to get visually that showed you what devastation was there. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you just knew that bomb was over there and the war was over. When the war was over, I remember our street just celebrated. The kids ran up and down the street and said, “The war is over, the war is over!” I remember that very well. But I don't know that I really realized the impact that Oak Ridge had on the war. Because you just didn't have all that information. Now, as time went on, you begin to know and be aware of what contribution Oak Ridge had. I think things when I began to appreciate that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was another big event in Oak Ridge in March of 1949, the opening the gates. What do you remember about that?
MS. ALEXANDER: I remember I didn't get to go to the big one because I can't remember why. I can't remember because I was going to catch the bus and go up to Jackson Square, but I remember the excitement at schools. The bands, the little Jefferson Junior High band. It played and of course Oak Ridge High School and all the movie stars that came in. A lot of cameras. Marie McDonald. Queen for a Day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Jack Bailey.
MS. ALEXANDER: Jack Bailey. And I remember that time and I do remember people coming in at the time. They had not been able to come to the town. And we even had relatives to come up from Roane County. They wanted to see what Oak Ridge was all about. You know, what's it like in there? And I guess that's the biggest thing I remember in my mind.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Another special event that opened was the American Museum of Atomic Energy. Did you ever visit the museum at the Jefferson?
MS. ALEXANDER: You know I don't remember the opening of it. I do not remember that. I do remember visiting after it once opened. I don't remember the occasion of the opening. And I don't know, when did it open?
MR. HUNNICUTT: The same weekend the gates opened.
MS. ALEXANDER: Ok. Alright. I don't remember. Maybe the gates opening overshadowed the opening of the museum in my mind, at that time. I certainly remember going to the museum and that's where they gave the radiated dimes, you know. They don't do that anymore. But going through it, it was the old building down at Jefferson is where I first went to the museum.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, you are in high school and the high school is where it is located today. Is that correct? 
MS. ALEXANDER: One year I went up on Blankenship Field, up above Blankenship Field and the other two years, I was down on Providence Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, what did you see different there than junior high, for example.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh my goodness. All, you know, the course offerings, I think that they let the students become more responsible. I felt like we had a say so and we could some decisions that we could take. Oak Ridge was good for that. The course offerings were amazing. You know, the possibilities that you could have. Now, it's unbelievable when you go over there what the kids can take. The size of courses. It was large. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: After graduation, where did you go for your further education?
MS. ALEXANDER: I went to East Tennessee State for four years there. And studied math and science. And then came back. Taught after that. Then went back and started working on my Masters at UT. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: You came back to Oak Ridge?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, yeah, came back to Oak Ridge. Didn't plan on it at all. Absolutely did not plan on coming back and teaching in my own town. Interviewed with California. They offered me a job on the condition that I'd work on my Masters. See California, at that time was really the epitome of education. Now, they are just gone downhill. But at that time, they said, “We want to offer you a job teaching math, but you have to commit yourself to work on a Masters.” Well, I was going to do that anyway. So, I said, “Sure.” So, that month here I am in East Tennessee. Not a car. Not any money. Going to California? I interviewed just kind of on the side with Oak Ridge. And they offered me a job. And I thought, “Well, I'll just teach a couple three years, get me a car. Get me a little bit in the bank. California, here I come.” Thirty-eight years later, I got here and got to teaching. Then we started working on our new accelerated program in math. I got involved in that. Got involved in too many things and I just never did leave. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: California was history by then.
MS. ALEXANDER: That's right. Good-bye California.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the first grade that you taught, where was it?
MS. ALEXANDER: It was at Robertsville Junior High. First year I taught, I had a little bit of everything. And I thought I taught everything but music and woodworking. I had a homeroom and that was English and Social Studies and spelling and those sorts of things. And taught some math. I had four science classes, but I wanted to teach math. That was what I wanted to do. I was prepared to do, so next year when it came time for contracts, I asked Mr. Bond, “Mr. Bond, will I be able to teach math next year?” And he said, he didn't like to be pushed into a corner, and he said, “Let me just say this to you. If there is an opening in the math department, I will consider you.” Well, I knew that teacher was pregnant. She was not coming back next year. So I went in and signed it. He did. So, I taught strictly math from there on out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Mr. Bond, was he the principal?
MS. ALEXANDER: The principal, George Bond, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Robertsville.
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall who the school administration, head of school was at that time?
MS. ALEXANDER: Superintendent, gosh, I just lost it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was Dr. Blankenship already out of the school system?
MS. ALEXANDER: He was already out. He was the first one. Oh gosh, this was the guy that went to Florida and was superintendent of the Dade County Schools. Why can't I think of his name? 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, maybe it'll come to you as we talk. So how many years did you teach at Robertsville?
MS. ALEXANDER: I taught about seven years at Robertsville. In fact, my whole professional, I said that my seven year itch every seven years, I've changed jobs. So I stopped seven years at Robertsville. Did my Masters in between that time. I taught five, got my Masters, then taught two more. And then we had a civil rights project. Civil rights active and past. So they came to me and ask me would I temporarily leave the classroom to work in a special project? Two, three years max, maybe not even that long. So I really hesitated about it because I loved to teach math. I loved my math classes. I loved the kids. But I thought this was, you know, this was kind of a new idea. So I did. I said I would do that and they said you can come back. The position will be held for you. You will not lose that position if you, you know when you decide to come back. So there's a fellow, Dr. Watson, Gene Watson came in, wrote a grant proposal and submitted to the Office of Civil Rights and it was funded. And the whole goal was to close Scarboro School. And what was happening, [during] the Brown vs Education was back in '54, '55, something like that. So we knew that Equal but Separate was no longer constitutional. So Oak Ridge, even though we were, you know, the gates were open we were still pretty much under the thumb of the government. So the superintendent, now that was Dr. Davison. I remember that. Dr. Davison knew that they had the right to come in and say you cannot have an all-black school which we did. We had integrated Robertsville, Robertsville and the high school. And the reason they were integrated was because they were the closest to Scarboro. Scarboro had its own neighborhood elementary school. So, we wrote the grant to say they, Dr. Watson wrote the grant to say that we will take two to three years to prepare to integrate those children into Oak Ridge Schools. Close the school down. So that's what we did. 
Went in and we brought in, tried to do everything we could to prepare those children for that move. We started the preschool program. Four year old program started at Scarboro. We had a morning session and an afternoon session. We brought in a full time reading specialist. Just housed at Scarboro. Brought in a counselor, just housed at Scarboro. Speech clinician. All those special services were made full time with the idea of bringing that school up to speed so they could integrate in a good way. And not wanting failures. So, took the kids. Kids didn't ride a school bus. Those elementary kids had not ridden school buses. They all walked to school. So we took them on field trips. We went to the Playhouse. We went to different places. Everything to give them experiences. And we were ...we had asked to be funded for three years. We got the one year funding. Second year, they didn't renew it. And so Dr. Watson left and we continued with the programs for one more year. I was what they called Home School Coordinator. I was kind of a liaison between the home and Scarboro. And the school system, I would work with primarily with the parents and trying to answer their questions and try to deal with their concerns. So we continued. So the next year we knew we were going to close the school and we did a lot of things like, we had pen pals at the other schools. Well, let me back up a minute. We had to decide how we wanted to do this. There had been recommendations that we send all the children to Woodland. We sent all the children to Woodland and Willow Brook. They were the closest schools, or maybe we do Woodland, Willow Brook and Linden. We had eight elementary schools, nine counting Scarboro, at that time. So I remember very well, we sat down and there was a group of us. We sat down in the superintendent's office, Miss Ketron [inaudible] pupil services, the Mr. Ripley who was the attendance counselor, the business director, Dr., Mr. Younce, assistant superintendent. Dr. Davison and we said, “How are we going to do this?”
Well, the final decision was that we would close the school and integrate all of the schools. I feel very strongly ….I felt very strongly then that junior high is not the place to integrate for the first time. Teenagers have enough problems, you know, emotional, growing, all the things that go on. They are not sure of themselves. So if you are going to have integration it needs to be with those little fellows. They are color blind. They don't notice. They just notice they got friends. And anyway, that's what we decided to do. We would...this is unbelievable. It was a horrible thing to lay on those little children. Ah, the burden of that. 
We divided Scarboro community into eight school districts. Can you imagine? And some restrictions. You could not put one black child in a class by him or herself. You had to have at least two. At least two which meant some classes would not have children because we didn't have that many children, about two hundred. And so we did that. And that was the decision. That's what the plan was going to be. 
My feeling is that if you just move into junior high children have too much to deal with. But if you start when they are age five and they are in kindergarten and they move together. They can deal with that. Children are so resilient. So flexible. So accepting. And then when you get to the crazy ages of teenager and high school, that's not a new thing to deal with. But they had some really, they went through some really tough times at the high school. They would play the games, teams. I was here. Teams wouldn't play our Robertsville boys because we had some black boys on the team. They wouldn't play the high school and finally...finally another coach screamed in and said, “If you don't play my whole team, I don't play you at all.” He stood up. That was terrific. And finally began to say we'll let you play your black team, if we even had one of the black boys was the captain. Willie Golden was the captain. He played for Robertsville. 
But, that last year we knew the kids were going to go and the staff knew where they were going to go. We started working. We had pen pals, you know like if you were going to Pine Valley school and somebody at Pine Valley would be your pen pal and you got to know somebody that way. And we had visitation. And visitation day was just a terrific day. They went and visited your school. And I went with a group to Linden. We all adults went to different schools with them and they got on a bus, came to school. Looked like Easter Sunday. All dressed up. The little children. The little kindergarteners. The sixth grade and got on the bus. Quiet as a mouse. I never been on a quiet school bus in my life. Nobody was saying a word. And got out there and kids had signs up, welcome and they had their own signs, their little ones they were going to meet, you know, their pen pals. So, took them in. All day. I did everything the classroom did. And got back on the bus to go home. “Lalalalal,” you couldn't hear yourself think. You know, they held that all the things they have done. I thought it's going to work. It's going to work because they were so excited about going to school. And so we did. So next fall, Scarboro closed and all the children went to Oak Ridge Schools. 
And then we had eight schools. Then of course, we just have four elementary so it's not as rigidly divided, but the Equal Housing Act came into being and people began to move out. Where were they moving? Where their child's school was. That's you know, that's the best thing in the world that could have happened. Time to become part of that neighborhood.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did the Scarboro kids go to high school?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, the ...for a long time they were bused to Austin High School. Just Austin then. That was an all black high school in Knoxville which was unbelievable. This is the thing. You know, government built us. They established Oak Ridge. And had a terrific opportunity to make a town that could have been a model because it's.....U.S. Constitution wasn't enforced and this was U.S. government, totally. But, it didn't. 
They followed the mores of the local community which at that time was segregated. That's supposedly equal. We had several people in Oak Ridge that volunteered to teach them, those kids in high school.
And of course we had Ph.D.’s and well educated people that could do that and do that in a good way. So they established the Scarboro High School. But they had a ball team. Even the girls played. We didn't even have a girl’s basketball team at Oak Ridge High School. But, so that allowed them and then when in '55 I believe, '54, '55 when they came to Oak Ridge High School, that was, they were prepared for that. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your next teaching assignment after this project?
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, seven years later, I didn't go back to the classroom. I loved the classroom. I probably had the most fun in there teaching, but I finished up closing Scarboro and I had gone back to school and became a counselor. Certified as a counselor. So I was approached if I would serve as a counselor for a period of time since I sort of had been doing a little of that anyway. And I did. I was at Cedar Hill. I was working part time out of Central Office. Still working with Scarboro community and part time at Cedar Hill as a counselor. And our principal Jim Putin became ill. So I guess I did that about seven years. Anyway, he asked to have a leave through Christmas vacation. You know, come back in January so, Dr. Smallridge said would I just fill in. He said we need somebody to sign the payroll cards. This kind of gets subs and he said, “You already know the kids and you know a lot of parents, so would you do that?” No, I won't do that. I didn't plan on being a principal. And my mother was terminally ill and I just didn't feel like I could do it. And he said, “Alright.” So he said, “I understand about your mother. She comes first. If you need to be home with her or be at the hospital with her, you go, but would you do it?” I said, “Just until Christmas.” 
Well, just at Christmas. So I did. Well Christmas came and Jeffery came and asked for an extension for February. Well, guess what February, I resigned and I thought goodness me, I never planned on being a principal. And I had to do a budget that year. I didn't know which end was up. What we had, what we didn't have. 
So, he said, “Now would you consider going back?” I had to get classes to be a principal. He said check [inaudible] you lack. Well, I went over to UT and so I started working on that and so I was a principal for seven years. Seven years teacher. Seven years this other. Seven years teacher, but it was a good experience. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what your paycheck was when you first started teaching [inaudible]?
MS. ALEXANDER: I do. It was three seventy-five a year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about when you became a principal? How much did you make then?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, see I wasn't even a principal then until after they gave me an interim for a year, and it wasn't much more than that. It was probably, I don't remember exactly but it wasn't much, I mean it was more than thirty-three seventy-five. That was in '57 when I started teaching. Probably I'd say I was probably making somewhere late twenties. Maybe thirties. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about discipline in your classroom when you were teaching? How did you handle that?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, you aren't going to think about discipline. I think....I think kids need to know that you care about them. I think every kid that needs to have a significant adult in his or her life. And that could be a teacher. It could be a parent. It could be a Boy Scout or Girl Scout leader. It's got to be somebody that touches that kid's life as an adult. And I felt very strongly that if I could and I had some discipline problems back then. I didn't really have that many, I just felt if you if the kid could come to trust you and you know, I think, you know, I'm going to do her math because I think she likes me or she cares about me, you know. And I won't do her old math because she doesn't like me. It’s that kind of thing. And I worked real hard at that. 
I tried to find out about the children. They didn't know this of course. You know what's happening in their world? And you would find out that things were going on in their home. Maybe the parents had split us. Daddy had already taken off and that affects a child. You just have to take the whole thing in. When class would start in the fall, I'd say, “Now, I just have two rules for this class.” Got this whole bunch of new kids. “Just two rules. What do you think my two rules are? Do your homework. That's a good rule. That's not one of mine. That's good one, I'm going to think about that. Be good in class, don't talk. That's a good one too. That's not one of mine, but that's a good one. I'm going to consider that.” Finally, “What are your two rules Miss Alexander?” One, I couldn't enforce it today. I said, “No vulgar language.” I said, “I don't know what you talk like on the street corners or whatever, but in here we are going to use good language.” “The second one is you got to be kind to each other.” Now, I legislated kindness, can you imagine that? But I just felt like if they respect each other and saw each other’s worthwhile then you got a good going for you. And sometimes I had to remind some of the kids of that. A couple of times I remember very well that, you know, now wait a minute. How would you feel and you know so, I had some discipline and problems. Everybody is going to have some discipline problems. But I just felt like you had to deal with it as an individuals.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Looking back over the time you went through the Oak Ridge School System and the time you taught through the school system, how do you see it change from the time you went through to when you were teaching? 
MS. ALEXANDER: When I was teaching which was '57...'57 to '62. '63 I believe, well I came out in '63. I probably not a whole bunch of difference then. Not a wide gap and the kids were much more informed. You now, but as far as after that point I went on I got to close another school. I think I became the expert in closing schools. I closed Cedar Hill and then I went to Central Office. And part of my responsibility at Central Office was I was sort of the last resort before you had to go before the superintendent in terms of discipline. 
 	And so I worked with another extreme end and there I saw changes taking place then. I see not as much respect. That especially respect for rules or for persons in authority, or of positions. And I think that's generally pretty true about maybe our society as a whole at this point. It's kind of sad that I saw some changes take place that I felt sometimes we make demands on kids that someone could not meet. They feel that they have to be dressed just a certain way and a have a certain lifestyle. And not all can do that. And we don't have the respect that's ok, you know. And not so much, maybe not so much the teachers, but even the other kids. Other kids could be cruel to kids that don't think or act or look like they do. 
And there again I think that's society and that's what worries me because I think the schools try to take on solving problems like that and I think it's a good place and they should. We as a society are going to have to say what are we going to do for our kids. I appreciated the Obama's speech the other day when he said our kids deserve better than this and they do. And they can't change things. Only we can change things. That's what always, I think that with a little kid. You can't really change a little kid very easily but you can sometimes change his environment. If you can his environment, then that child is able then to bring about changes in himself. So I think I see more of a society change than I do even change in the schools. I think the schools are reflecting that. Have to deal with that. But I'm not real sure that they are the cause of all that was said today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It has to start at the home first. 
MS. ALEXANDER: And community. You know the old African community. It takes a village to raise a child. And the village should be willing and worthy of that responsibility.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you see the opening school system at a high level like it has been in the past?
MS. ALEXANDER: Academically?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MS. ALEXANDER: I think so. I think academically, in fact, I think more kids probably have an opportunity to achieve maybe than they did because they got, I mean you go to that high school now and you see all of the equipment that the teaching aides that are there. It is just unbelievable. And take a child that could not have a computer in his home. Their access to see all of that and to know what's there. So...I don't think academically we have fallen at all. I think that we are measuring things probably much better than we once did. Much more aware, it worries me in some way that they depend so much on the testing because I think that you do a lot more than just the test. But I think that we are better at testing than we once were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of activities do you or have you done outside the home other than teaching kids?
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh, too much, you mean since I retired or during the whole time? Well, I did a lot when I was teaching I did especially when I was at Central Office, I did a lot of work working with youth. I did the county and city, I did, you know, community action and various things like that. We were involved in child abuse, [inaudible] and things of this nature where you are really involved with the young people and things are happening in their life. Since I retired some of that has continued. Do a good bit of volunteer work with my church. I help with the youth, but not as much as I once did. Got a Sunday School class. A Deacon in the church. And that keeps me pretty busy. I work with the retired teachers. I can't think now.
 MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you still attend Robertsville Baptist?
MS. ALEXANDER: Yeah, still attend Robertsville Baptist. Been there for ages. 
MR. HUNNICUTT: What's the most amazing thing that you have seen, I guess, maybe in Oak Ridge or anywhere in your lifetime.
MS. ALEXANDER: Oh my goodness me. Oh, I have to really think on that one. Well, I think communication it's just an amazing thing these days, you know, either the way of computers or even telephones that this communication progress didn't, communications has really brought the world together. We are much smaller, now then we once were, simply because of all of these things. I don't know why, pick out one thing, of course, and in space. Space exploration. I'm still just amazed at that. And I'd love to be twenty years old and go fly up into space. I'd think that be just fantastic, but all of those things, see you know, is just unbelievable. Science fiction type things.
MR. HUNNICUTT: If you had it to do all over again, would you become a teacher?
MS. ALEXANDER: Probably, probably.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What drove you to go on and become a teacher?
MS. ALEXANDER: I don't know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Somebody influenced you?
MS. ALEXANDER: You know, I really don't know. I just remember even as a young child, wanting to be a teacher. You know, I wanted to be a teacher and of course you do the play things you know, where you have your little brothers and sisters whatever, you know, Bobby was much younger than I was ...yeah we played school and I played school. I think there is just something that I wanted to do and I planned for it. And I did it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything you would like to talk about that we haven't talked about?
MS. ALEXANDER: You have covered it all. You covered things I didn't even plan to talk about. I don't think so. I think not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You think Oak Ridge has progressed over the years since you have been here? What's your opinion about Oak Ridge, it's progression?
MS. ALEXANDER: I think it worries me a little bit about Oak Ridge. I think that we seem to have lost that vision, you know, we get so caught up in the details of today. You know, and we have lost a little bit of that vision that you had out there when see, you know, where I'd like to be not where I am necessarily. And that kind of worries me because I think sometimes even some of our representative groups are not.....are not looking ahead and of course I worry about Oak Ridge economically. I think we all do. And what's going to happen because so much, so much is involved. Depends on the economy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it could be that Oak Ridge has become an retirement city and we have some new blood you might say that has a little different viewpoint than we did in the beginning, plus Oak Ridge is not that old and the city either.
MS. ALEXANDER: Got a lot of old people in it. You are right. That certainly would have an impact because that would be kind of the loss of the vision. Because you have had a vision when you were back here and maybe you achieved it in a way, you know instead of looking on beyond where the young people are looking. Yeah, I think that maybe, I don't know. Sometimes maybe we haven't a mission or a ministry that we are to do. Maybe we are to be it. Kind of a retirement town. I don't know, maybe that's the people we can serve the best. I would hope that we could keep some of those young people around because they, you know, that makes you young, but I don't know. There is some really neat people that live here and some people that have made a big difference in this town. I would hate to write them off.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, I think you can consider yourself as one of them...those people.
MS. ALEXANDER: Well, I don't know about that but I know, when you look and see, I just think that the story of Oak Ridge to start with a feel of nothing and to grow into what happened and the impact that it's had. Not only the area, but rural wide. It is an amazing story. And I would hope it would be told.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, I thank you very much for your time and your oral history will be part of Oak Ridge history. One day, some student that maybe you taught or some student of a child you taught… 
MS. ALEXANDER: Most likely that. Great-grandchild.
MR. HUNNICUTT:  Maybe your history will contribute to their success in writing in a paper about living in Oak Ridge.
MS. ALEXANDER: I would hope so. I want to thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity for remembering lots of things that I totally forgotten, so thank you for that. That's a joy to go back and relive some of those memories, thank you.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It's my pleasure. Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]