Davidson, Mary Ann

              
ORAL HISTORY OF MARY ANN DAVIDSON
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
November 8, 2012
 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November 8, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Mrs. Mary Ann Davidson, 117 Orange Lane, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take her oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Please state your full name and your place of birth and your date of birth.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 My name is Mary Ann Davidson. My date of birth is January 12, 1925. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. I lived there all my early life until I graduated from college.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What was your maiden last name?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Courtenay. It’s an unusual spelling.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What was your father’s name and place of birth and date of birth?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 My father was William H. Courtenay. He was born in 1890, on March 3. He was in World War I and lived his entire life in Louisville and Shelbyville, Kentucky. He worked for the Mengel Company. They imported mahogany and hardwood from Africa and Central America. He delivered those to customers. He didn’t consider himself a salesman, but he sold them to the furniture factory – furniture makers around Kentucky, mostly Indiana and Cincinnati and some in Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What was your mother’s maiden name?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 That’s confidential information. She was Mary Anderson.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Then recall her birthday?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 July 24, 1900. It was very convenient. She died in 2000. She was not quite 100.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall what your father school history was?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, he went to Louisville Schools.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 You were telling me about your father’s schooling. Did he complete the 12th grade?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 No, he did not. The Louisville Male High School was considered a fine school at that time. They said that graduates could enter Harvard in their second year. The principal had written textbooks that were apparently used all over. But my father was interested in raising ponies. His father had a farm in Shelbyville, Kentucky. If you’d didn’t make the grade, you are special. And Dr. Ruben Post-Halleck, the famous principal of the school, told him if he took an exam in math, he could be entered back in. He did that, and he aced the test. He was back in. Then he was a special in English, so they told him if he memorized the “Lady of the Lake” and said that he could get back in school. So he did that. I think he never did finish. He was a twin, and his twin was more of an engineering type and went to manual training high school. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What about your mother’s school history?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 She grew up in several small towns in western Kentucky. Her father worked for the L&N Railroad. She had her high school in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She had to stay home – or she went to junior college nearby. She had a scholarship to Randolph Macon Women’s College, but she couldn’t take it because her mother was ill and died at age 50. It was about the year I was born, I think.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you have any brothers and sisters?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I had two brothers. My older brother died in 2006, and he was an engineer and served in Guam during World War II.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What was his name?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 His name was William Howard Courtenay III. My father was named for his uncle, who was also William Howard. My older brother works for Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green in the physics department. He made instruments. My younger brother was a pediatrician in Louisville, and he is still living on a farm in Shelbyville. He’s interested in Kentucky antiques.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Mary Ann, tell me about your school history.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Do you want me to start from the very beginning?
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Yes. 
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I went to an unusual kindergarten and first grade. I was at what they called the Enterprise Branch of I.N. Bloom School. It was only kindergarten and first grade. It was in the older building, where we had a Pot Belly Stove. I think we had a maid to help us take our leggings off in the cold weather – galoshes. It was really a wonderful school. It was almost like a private one. It was public. We did things like making butter and we had an orchestra. I played the triangle. I had started a little bit earlier when my younger brother was born. Louisville had half semester, half-year grades. I would’ve been a half year, but I skipped the last half of kindergarten. I went to the school board and took a test and went on, so they put me in the regular school year. I went through the big school the I.N.  Bloom School and Highland Junior High School in Louisville. Then I went to Atherton High School for Girls. The Louisville public schools were segregated – boys and girls. There were about 900 girls at Atherton. My graduating class was about 200, and I was the valedictorian.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 You mentioned earlier about leggings. Tell me what leggings are.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 They are pants to keep your legs warm. They zipped up from the inside of the ankle bone up to about knee-high, I guess it was. They were a royal pain to take on and off, so the teacher had to have help to do that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What kind of dress code did you have when you went to school?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think it was just ordinary. I’m sure the girls wore dresses, and the little boys wore suits – not suits, but pants and shirts.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Is that the same dress when you are in high school?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 There was no code at all. I didn’t go about wearing slacks until after I graduated from college.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Why did you come to Oak Ridge?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I came to Oak Ridge after I graduated from college. I had two years of getting a master’s at Emory while I worked at my alma mater, Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. I was the chemistry lab instructor. So after those two years were up, I was interested in working in chemistry or biochemistry. My master’s was in biochemistry. In Louisville, there was nothing in that field, except liquor and paint – neither of which I was interested in. In Atlanta, I would like to stay in Atlanta, I heard that Oak Ridge was an interesting new place, and a lot was going on here. One of my dear college friends had recently married a physicist from the University of Kentucky, so I visited them here. I guess that must have been 1947. Her husband was working at NEPA. He said they were looking for people with a chemistry degree. I applied, and I was accepted. I didn’t know that until I had completed the clearance, so I took the opportunity to go to Europe at an American youth hostel bicycle tour of Western Europe in the summer of 1948. When I got home, I found that I had indeed gotten the job at Oak Ridge. So I came down here.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 How did you get to Oak Ridge?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I was wondering that. I think I came by train. When I interviewed earlier in the spring, my interview was at the Andrew Johnson Hotel. It was one of the private rooms. I had never seen the company here. I think I must have been met by a car and driver and brought to Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you came to visit your friend, do you recall how you had to – was the gate still up at that time?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I came in through the Vermont Gateway, which is where the gas station is now on the corner of what I call Vermont. They call it North Rutgers now.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 While you were visiting your friend, is that when you filled out the application for employment?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 No, I think it must’ve been after that. That would’ve been at Christmas time. When I applied, I imagine it was early spring.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you accepted the job, tell me again the name of the company you are going to work for.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 We called the company NEPA, for Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft. It was managed by the Fairchild Corporation the way Union Carbide or one of the other contractors managed the lab. I did not know until the first day I went to work just what the company was doing. They handed me a volume of information that said, “We are looking for – we are trying to make an airplane powered by nuclear energy that could fly to Russia and back without refueling.” That was a great shock to me.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What was the date of that first employment?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I came here on Labor Day of 1948, so it would’ve been the day after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you arrived at Oak Ridge to go to work, where did you first live?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I lived in Columbia Hall Dormitory. I was very surprised to find that the rent was $15 a month until I realized it was one very small room. That was my living quarters. I took the opportunity to stay out of it as much as possible. I did that by babysitting in some of the B and D houses in the evening. Grandmothers were not here since it was a closed community. Babysitters were in short supply, and even though I didn’t need the money, it was good to get out of the dormitory.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Can you describe what the dormitory room look like?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 The dormitory was like Cheyenne Hall. It was the same type of building. It had wooden stairways from the second-floor hall down on each end. I lived on the second floor. Our dormitory was mostly nurses, since it was up on the hill next to the hospital – I think where the west parking lot is now. There was a kitchen on each end where we could have our own breakfast. Of course we were at the plant at lunchtime, and then we usually went out to supper. I opened the refrigerator door one morning and somebody’s milk came spilling out down my front. Everybody just stuffed things into the refrigerator.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you have a one bed, or did you share a room with someone else?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I had a single room with a twin bed and enough room to walk to the window by the bed. There was a little table that served as a desk with a chair. There was a much coveted dormitory dresser – a tall one with a number of drawers. They were very popular.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Were there bathrooms in the dormitory?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 There must’ve been. I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you have to go down the hall to take a shower or something?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I don’t remember. I think I must have. I don’t remember that as being a problem.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 How did you get around town when you first came to Oak Ridge – back and forth to work?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 They had a wonderful bus service here. Travel wasn’t really a problem. We walked, of course, from the dormitory to Jackson Square and ate supper usually at the Mayflower, which is where I first saw my husband-to-be.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Where was the Mayflower located?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was on the corner of Tennessee, right across from the Soup Kitchen and the Texaco gas station there on the northeast corner. It was a very popular place. In fact, there were several places you could eat. It was the Central Cafeteria, and the T & C Cafeteria in Jackson Square, which is about where the Epicurean is now toward the garden.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you recall where the Central Cafeteria was located?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was on Central Avenue on the west side. It serviced to the people from the hill – the Castle on the Hill.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall having to wait in line a lot to be served?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think the lines were always the case, especially at the T & C Cafeteria. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 How was the food?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think the food was better at the Mayflower. For special occasions, later on – Grove Center had a restaurant.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	The Oak Terrace Restaurant?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Oak Terrace.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 The Mayflower Restaurant – was that cafeteria style, or did you go in and sit down?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I believe the tables were waited on.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What else did you – when you lived in the dorm, where did you do your grocery shopping?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It must’ve been the A & P on Jackson Square. Jackson Square was really the center of activity as far as I was concerned at that time. I still love it. I hope it keeps going.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Can you describe the stores – what type of stores?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 The department stores – the big department store was Taylor’s at the time. They had a wonderful book department headed by Mrs. Keyes, whose daughter I knew at work. They had really fine art books and other books that they would have a great sale on once or twice a year. We were very happy with that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you know where that store was located in Jackson Square?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was in the middle of the block between where Big Ed’s is in the corner. I guess it’s mostly used by the engineering company now.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did you attend any of the indoor theaters that were in the Jackson Square area?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, not frequently, but I went and saw – there was a theater down at Big Ed’s in Jackson Square and where the Playhouse is now. That was the main one.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do remember their names?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 That’s okay. Do you recall any other stores in the area?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, the jewelry store was on the corner that was Henebree’s, I think. No, that was Heneger’s. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Henebree?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	Henebree. McCrory’s 5 & 10 was there. There was a drugstore – a Service Drugstore. I guess that was where Big Ed’s is now, on the very corner. There was Jackson Square Pharmacy, and on the other side the Hamilton Bank was there next to the movie theater. And Samuel’s Men’s Store was a very nice store. The Jackson Square Pharmacy was there, but in between, which the Pharmacy later took over was a Kay’s Ice Cream Store. We used to go there and – my husband and I would when we were dating. I liked to get coffee with ice cream in it, so we went there.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 I believe that was Taff Moody Ice Cream – they served Kay’s Ice Cream. 
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Was it? I didn’t remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall standing in line to buy groceries and other items?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I can’t say that I do. It was just a given, I suppose. It didn’t make a big dent in my memory. After six months of the dormitory, I moved to a D house on Norman Lane. That was another era. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What is a D house? 
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 A D house was a large three bedroom house. They were very much desired. They were really nice houses – still a lot of them are. The house was – there were five other girls who lived there – two of whom had been college friends.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Was that a cemesto type house?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was very much a cemesto, yes, on the corner of New York Avenue and Norman Lane.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do remember the house number? 
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I guess it was 101.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you lived in the dorm, do you remember the dorm room number you had?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 No, it would’ve been upstairs. It was the second one to the end. A radiation technologist lived on the corner, and I lived there with school teachers and nurses who made up most of the dorm.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Let’s talk a little bit about the dorm again. If I had a message for you or someone left a message for you, how did you retrieve your messages? Was there a desk when you went in?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 There was a desk downstairs. I remember the Valentine’s Day – I guess it must’ve been 1949. The message was that I had some flowers, some red roses. I had just met my husband-to-be at that time. I got all excited, and when I got to the desk, it was from somebody else. I enjoyed the red roses, but not as much as I might have. The thing was that there were ladies – a lot of the women who lived in the dorm worked on the night shift. They would sit around a large kind of living room, I guess they called it. They were all staring when I got flowers. I had to walk around, and it was embarrassing.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Were the dorms warm in the wintertime?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I guess they were.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 You didn’t live there that long?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I was there in the winter of 1948. I’m very cold natured, but I don’t remember being cold. We had those heavy navy blanket – navy blue blankets. This brings up a story if I jump to it later on. We were moved from the D house after another six months into the brand-new Garden Apartments on Villanova Road. They needed our D house for families. The people who moved in were the Andersons of the Anderson Hilltop Grocery. Of course, the furniture all belonged to the government there. So the Garden Apartments were not furnished, so we had dwindled down from 6 to 4 people who needed furniture. I took a day off and went to an auction the government set up down at the warehouses. I got seven beds and three or four dressers – much more than I could have used. But the beds were in great demand at work because all the young men who worked there were having children and needed beds. So we took the four. Also I got two sofas, and we could use but one; so I sold one. They were really shabby awful sofas. Since it was all going to surplus anyway, we switched and took the nice sofa from the D house and left them the bad one. It was all taken away anyhow, so I didn’t feel too bad about that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What you did with the long distance? Did they have a telephone available in the dorm?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I don’t really remember about the telephone. We didn’t use the telephone much. We never used it for long-distance except for emergencies and calls home. I don’t remember that as being a problem particularly.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 You talked about going to the auction at the warehouses  to get furniture. How did you get there?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I suppose I went on the bus. I did not have a car. One of the housemates from Norman Lane had gotten the car, but she would’ve been at work at K-25. I don’t know. I may have gotten a ride.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So you bought all this furniture. How did you get the furniture to where you were going to live?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I guess I paid somebody to deliver it. I don’t know. Maybe some of the fellows at work picked up their beds that they wanted.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you recall where the warehouse was?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was one of those warehouses down at the [Oak Ridge] Turnpike on Warehouse Road. I don’t know exactly where it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How did you hear about the auction?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I guess it was on the bulletin boards at work, or there was a newspaper at the Lab. I guess I heard about it that way.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 So a lot of information was posted on bulletin boards at work and around town?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think probably so – in the newsletters they came around, also at the recreation building – the rec hall – at Jackson Square that was the library upstairs and the rec hall downstairs. Word-of-mouth – I don’t remember. We had a need and found the answer to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Besides going to work every day, what were your work shift hours?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I had to punch a clock at eight in the morning when I first started. I guess we got out at 4:30 or 5 o’clock. We had bus service that went from the bus terminal – the Central one – that’s now by Bus Terminal Road. Later on after we were married, we lived on Waddell Circle and went from there to the Jefferson bus terminal. I went – I rode on the K-25 bus, and they went out past K-25 to the road that the powerhouse was on and NEPA was beyond that out by the river.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did you have to pay to ride the bus?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think we had tokens. They were very inexpensive, at least by today’s standards.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall where you had to get the tokens?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 There was some kind of management services office. I’m not sure what it was called – the Roane Anderson Corporation at that time, I guess. I think that’s where I rented the dormitory room. I probably got bus tokens – I guess I got the tokens of the bus terminal.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 When you were renting the dormitory room and the other houses that we talked about, school or where did you pay your rent?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think I must’ve done it by mail. I don’t remember going anyplace.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	In those days, did you put money in an envelope? I don’t think they had checks, did they?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think I had a checking account probably at Hamilton Bank in Jackson Square. I don’t recall otherwise. I know I did later. One thing I wanted to say about the buses – if you wanted to go to Clinton to do any shopping, more than what you could have in Oak Ridge or to meet somebody or something, there was a bus that ran frequently back and forth between the bus terminal and Clinton. There was a young man on the bus who had a sing-songy sales pitch for “peanuts, popcorn, Cracker Jacks, candy, and chewing gum.” He wouldn’t drive, but he would sell his wares all the way to Clinton and back. I always wondered who that was because he obviously had some talent.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did you have to have a personal ID badge in those days?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I’m sure I did. I don’t know what became of it. I guess I had to turn it back in.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall – riding the bus to Clinton?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I did. I had to check through the checkpoint.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 How did that go? What happened there?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think somebody just got – one of the guards got on the bus and checked everybody’s badges. It was not a big thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So coming back, the same routine?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Probably. I don’t remember. What I do remember about that was my mother was coming down one time for my birthday – it must’ve been in January 1949. She rode the train. I told her that I would get a ride to meet her. Of course, the train didn’t stop at Oak Ridge. It went on to Knoxville, so I bummed a ride with one of the men in our group. He was actually the technical assistant to the director. His car was a broken down old thing with no floorboards in the back seat, which was pretty bad when my mother saw it. But she didn’t see it because when we got to Knoxville, she was not there. When we were coming back from the gateway entrance, she was not there. There was a message that she was waiting for us at the Elza Gate Station. She had told the conductor she had to get off at Oak Ridge. That’s where she was going, and I was going to meet her. So she slid down the Elza bank over there. She had my birthday cake – a large chocolate cake. She slid downhill with that, and somehow they stopped her at the guard gate at Elza. She waited there for us.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 So she stopped – the train stopped at Elza Gate?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Just for her – let her off like a milk train. They ordinarily didn’t stop there, but she wouldn’t have it otherwise.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What did you do for recreation?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 At which period? Is this when I was in the dorm?
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 When you first came.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I used the library and rec hall. On Sunday afternoons, they played music; and you could sit and write letters home, which is what I think I did a good bit. Later on in the better weather, there were tennis courts and a swimming pool. I don’t remember going to movies much. We went to church groups. There were so many young people; it was just like a party all the time. Nothing in particular stands out. It was just fun.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Were there more women than men?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 In the company I was, that was not true. There were a lot of women of course – of course, the dormitory was full of school teachers and nurses. But NEPA was mostly men. There were two parts to the Fairchild – the science and engineering part, which was bigger. I happen to be in the research part. My boss was a chemist – Vince Calkins. It was my job to – this was a real shocker to me – to find a chemical that would protect the human body against radiation for the reactor that was supposed to be in the airplane to Russia. I had no background for that kind of thing. I was just fresh out of college really. I realized I was out of my depth, but they decided – he was a pharmacist, I believe, and he wanted to do experiments with rats. They brought in the rat colony. By that time we had a couple of assistants, and I was supposed to be the group leader. One of the men, Ray Waldrop – you may have talked to him. I asked him if he minded working for a woman because he was really more experienced than I, although I had the degree. It was fine with him. There was also another worker, Saul Segal, who was quite a character in his own right. I took the rats in the cages over to the reactor, the “Old Lady” at X-10, and put them through what they called “rabbits” and radiated them for certain amount of time. We couldn’t kill the darn things. Then we used the older ones that had already been radiated, they were just tough as anything. I think the experiment was really a failure, although they may have found that to be the case in some later work with older people – that the cells are not dividing as fast and they’re not as subject to radiation. But we didn’t get into that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 You mentioned “the Old Lady”. What are you referring to?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 That’s the original reactor. That’s what it was called by the people who worked out there.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Where was the operation located at K-25?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was actually not K-25. It was beyond there. As I said, the bus took us – the bus dumped people off at K-25, and they went on west to just before you get to the Gallaher Bridge. You turn right there and go right past the power station there. It was used for a long time –the power house, and then NEPA was beyond that. The native rats came in – was it domestic experimental rats? That was not good. I had a janitor who helped me, even though he could’ve lost his job for doing it. He helped me clean cages. I always appreciated that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What else were your job duties working at NEPA?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 When they got rid of the rats, which was a blessing, my group leader then became Bill Browning, who was a fine scientist. He worked on the Van de Graaff generator. We had an interesting argument. Saul Segal thought he should be the one to do it since he was a man and I was a woman who would be leaving soon; and it turned out that he left for California before I had left to have my baby. His argument didn’t hold with me anyway, but we argued about that some. We did run the Van de Graaff, and we also did some experiments on metallic sodium. It was nasty stuff to work with. It caught on fire if it was exposed to air. You had to work with that under oil in the glove box. I think that work all had to be repeated after NEPA left for Cincinnati with G.E.. When they moved part of NEPA to X-10, they called it the ANP, or something about aircraft and nuclear power. I was not connected with that because my first baby was born in August 1951. I left in July.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall what kind of progress was made on the project?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I heard somebody say that they had to repeat it all. My boss, the Division Director of Chemistry was interested in vitamin E, and thought it had a lot of protective influence. We worked with that. That was some of the work I did in chemistry – the lab part of it in the early days. It was not good work, I think. I’m not blaming myself, but some of the other men who were doing chemical work – I think altogether we didn’t come up with anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Was this research to protect the pilots that were to fly the aircraft from the radiation?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	Mm-hm.  
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What part did the generator play?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think that was basic research. I don’t really remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you think the project was a flop? Or did it prove good?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It may have been ahead of it’s time for nuclear submarines. I don’t know whether the engineering people thought that or not. In our group which was the chemistry and the physics, my friend who got me the job was Jim Trice. A fellow named Art Miller and somebody named Coneybearwere in the Physics Division. And then there were some others – Fred Maienschein. I did some work for him one time. It was work on beryllium for one thing. I didn’t work with any of the active beryllium. I didn’t do any lab work then, but I did some journal research.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you see any drawings of the aircraft?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I don’t think they were that far along. I’m not sure what happened to that part of it. As I said, in July of 1951 they moved to Cincinnati, Evensville, above Cincinnati. I don’t know how many people actually went up there. Most of my friends moved elsewhere.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 You mentioned the location of the operation was past the steam plant that was on the Clinch River. Was that the same location where the S-50 project was located?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think that was the name of our plot of land. I think those – I never was quite sure how they got the designations, but that was the Fairchild domain, I think.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You mentioned earlier that you met your husband-to-be at the Mayflower Grill. Tell me about that.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Really, it was just when our eyes met. It was very romantic. He followed our group home to the Columbia Hall to see where I lived. But at the time I thought he was too young, and I didn’t think he was following me. I was with a group of other girls. Later on, one of the women in the dormitory, who was a gym teacher in the Oak Ridge schools, told me I really ought to meet Jack Davidson that he loved to ride bicycles; I was just back from my bicycle trip in Europe. I didn’t know who he was, and then I went to a church group meeting at my Presbyterian Church for young people one Sunday evening. A friend of mine had brought Jack Davidson, and he was the one whose eyes I had met and he had met mine. Sure enough, he loved to ride bicycles. That was the start of a good thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did you do a lot of bicycle riding together in the early days?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 We did a little bit. On our dates, that’s really what we did mostly at first. We rode out to West Outer Drive and had those wonderful big hills, not too much traffic at that time. We went out to the water tower at the top of Louisiana and had a picnic, and then rode back. When we got really good, we rode our bicycles over to Concord Park one day. I had gotten some chicken breasts at the grocery. I guess it was the A & P at Jackson Square. I was going to fry them for a picnic to take along over to Concord Park. When I went to the refrigerator to get them, they had turned into wings. Somebody had eaten my chicken breast. Jack was a good sport about that. He didn’t care. We had a nice ride. It was before they had improved Lovell Road. It was a pretty rough ride over there, but we were able to enjoy it.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What type of bicycles did you have?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 He had his bicycle. It was probably a Grey Stone. For me, he rented a bicycle from his work friend. I had forgotten what his name was. We went over to one of the D Streets, I think, and rode them. I didn’t have my English 3-speed here. I guess I brought it later, but at that time I didn’t have it.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What other places did you go to for dating?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 That was a problem. I complained to my friend Jim Trice’s wife, Dot, who happened to live around the corner on Outer Drive at that time. She said the boardwalk was used a lot for dating, and of course the theaters. I guess we were outdoors people. I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you do any of the dancing on the tennis courts?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 No, I didn’t do any of that. I don’t know whether Jack did or not. He may have.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What was your husband – why was he here in Oak Ridge?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 He was a graduate of Georgia Tech. At the time he graduated, he was very young. He came up to see about a job, and he was drafted. No, he was in danger of being drafted right away, but they didn’t hire him. He did go to work for NASA, which was at that time NACA, in Virginia; and worked over there a short time before he was taken into the Army. He had gone through Georgia Tech on a “War Manpower” loan. He was sent to some place to be an MP, I think. He wrote a night letter, which is a 50-word telegram that was cheaper at night. He wrote a night letter to Stimson, the Secretary of War, telling them they had paid for his college education; and here he was sitting in a camp doing nothing down in Alabama. He was transferred to the SED, he would never say that was the reason he was transferred. It may or may not have been. He arrived with the SED – he arrived in Oak Ridge the day Roosevelt died, which was in April 1945, he was here with his group for maybe six weeks before they went out to Los Alamos. So he spent the rest of the war out there. Then he used his G.I. Bill – he stayed on at Los Alamos. They told them they would let him out of the Army if he would agree to stay on as a civilian. So he took that. Then when he did leave, he went to Annapolis and took a liberal arts course because he felt that he had missed out on it at Georgia Tech. He had a year at St. John’s College of Annapolis; and then all along I guess he thought he would like to come back here. He came back – he arrived on Armistice Day, now Veterans Day, of 1948. I was here a couple of months before he came, but we met shortly after Christmas in 1949.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How long did you wait before you got married?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Too long. We were married in May 1950. He wanted to pay off his loan before we could get married, so I helped him along with that. I fed him some. He was very welcome at the D House of girls. I was going to tell you that during the war, there were nine girls in the house, and they slept on shifts on the bunk beds. There were only six of us when I was there. There were a couple of the boyfriends around, and one of them cut the grass. I think Jack did the – empty the clinkers from the furnace, the coal furnace. They made themselves useful. They got their dinner. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Tell me about the coal furnace briefly. 
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Most of the houses were a very good design really, and a whole lot better built than we gave them credit for. But each one that I knew of had a corner set off or closed off as a coal storage place that could be filled through a window from the outside, and then you could use the – there was an opening on the inside that you could use to put coal into the furnace. That was awful of course, but that’s what all the houses were doing in that time, too. We had a yard full of clinkers over there.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What are you referring to as clinkers?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was part of the coal that wouldn’t burn. It was made up of rock mostly and some minerals I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 So you just threw them out in the yard?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Just threw them on the yard.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you have to order the coal, or was it delivered regularly?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 We were taken care of by a Big Brother – the government. They brought the coal around, and you didn’t do a thing. That was part of the rent. When we got our house here on Orange Lane, that’s another story. Are you ready for that yet?
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Let’s talk about where you got married.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 We went back to my home in Louisville, Kentucky, to be married. We had planned to fly to Nashville, but it turned out the Delta Queen was coming through Louisville the next morning. My mother had told us we could not get married the week before because it was too busy with Derby Day. So we delayed until May 13. Then we spent the night in Louisville at the Brown Hotel, where she pulled some strings to get us a room because it was still very full of visitors from the Derby. We got on the Delta Queen, and our friends were all on the dock to see us off. They had us almost convinced that we were on Daylight Saving Time, and the Delta Queen was not, and we had missed it. But we rode down just as far as Paducah. We were anxious to start in life you know. We lived on Wadell Circle in a K apartment. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall the number?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 225 Wadell Circle.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Tell me what a K apartment is.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was a two-story thing. I guess it was a two-bedroom up above, and we had K-1. It was sort of underground at the front and open at the back. We had a nice back porch. There was a closet under the stairway and a very small kitchen. It had a table that folded down. It was not as compact as a flattop, but the furnishings that they had did double duty. You could fold it up and have more room.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What type of heat was in the K apartments?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 The K apartment was heated with the coal furnace, but there was a janitor who came around and took care of it for us. We were taken care of by Roane Anderson. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you remember what the rent was?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I don’t remember what that was. I remember what it was here.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How long did you live in the K apartments?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 We lived in the K from May 1950, until we got this house in July 1952. It was said – the word around town was that you couldn’t get a two-bedroom house unless you had three children, all of different sex. We had been on the list for this house ever since we knew our daughter was coming along. That was a long time to wait. We had been offered two houses– Florida Avenue, where the parking was across the street and the backyard just dropped off. We thought that was totally unsuitable for a new child. We turned both of those down. If we had turned this one down, we would’ve gone to the bottom of the long list. But we loved this place of the trees and the dead end lane neighborhood. So we sat outside in front all weekend because we were not top on the list. The reason the other people didn’t take it was that the previous owner, Jim Cox and Charlotte, had put in an oil furnace; and nobody wanted to pay $200 for the oil furnace. Since I had been working, we had saved my salary from work, and we had $200 to pay. Also, they didn’t want to be in the high rent district. This house rented for something like $45 instead of $43 in the lower rent districts.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 You are talking about the rent of $45 for your Orange Lane. Was this a B house?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Explained to me what a B house is.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 The Oak Ridge cemesto houses that were built – I think this house was built in the fall of 1944 or 1943. Maybe it was ‘43. The B house has two bedrooms and of course a bath and a kitchen with a dinette into a long narrow living room. It was about 24 feet by 40 something feet. It was small and convenient. It didn’t have much storage space, but it’s been a wonderful house for us because of the trees. We are on a greenbelt, and I enjoy that very much. It’s a nice private neighborhood just above Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did the cemestos you lived in have fireplaces?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Our cemesto has a fireplace, and it had a complete brick wall. Some of the B houses had a brick wall just beyond the fireplace.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What type of flooring was in the house?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 There are hardwood floors in all the cemestos, I believe. Our house has maple flooring, and a lot of them had oak. Wood was hard to come by in the wartime. We love the color – the reddish color of the maple.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Were you still working when your first child was born?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 No, I stopped, I think, July 1 of 1951. That was when the company was moving to Cincinnati.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You retired from working in 1951?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Have you worked any since then?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I was fortunate, I didn’t have to work while the children were growing up.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Your first child was born in August 1951. Was that a boy or girl?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 That was Anne, our daughter. She went through Cedar Hill and Jefferson and Oak Ridge High, as did all our children.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What are the names of your other children?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Adele is our second daughter, and she was two years younger. Our son is Bill Davidson or William. He was born in November of 1954. He’s just now turning 58. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So your first daughter went to Cedar Hill?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 All three of our children went to Cedar Hill. They had split grades there, so I think the classes were one half size. They would take the kids a half from one grade, and half from the next grade, and that worked out just fine.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you recall what type of education they got when they went to Cedar Hill?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Cedar Hill was wonderful. It was very special. Mr. Dodd was the principal, and he saw to it – he had the best teachers or at least as good as any. Actually in those days all the teachers and Oak Ridge were special because many of them had been recruited from Columbia Teachers College, along with the superintendent. Others were specially recruited for the job. They were a group a part, I think, from a lot of teachers.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did your children seem to like going to Cedar Hill?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think so. I think they loved it mostly.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Where did they attend junior high?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 The girls both went to Jefferson when it was on the hill at Jackson Square, and Bill was in the first year at the new Jefferson that was over on Fairbanks Road. His was the first class there. They all went through Oak Ridge High. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall some of the classes your daughters took while they were in junior high? Was there Home Ec. or things related to girls?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 No, they were on the college prep track. They took eighth grade algebra and that kind of thing. Of course English and math and social studies and science – our older girl I think took biology; and I’m not sure if Adele had a more general science course. It just depended on the teacher that they had. They had an excellent education, and the girls were both Merit semifinalists.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Were you as a parent involved in any of the school projects or programs?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Of course. I was in the PTA. I’m not sure if I was ever a room mother, but I of course helped with parties and things.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What is a room mother?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 The teachers recruited them from each class to help with parties mostly. They helped with any activities that they didn’t really have time to do.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 And PTA stood for what?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Parent-Teacher Association, a time honored group. It got extra things for the school. I got involved with raincoats for the school patrol.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me a little bit about that.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I guess maybe I was a treasurer of the Cedar Hill PTA, and this goal was to get those yellow slicker raincoat so kids could be visible to the drivers. I found out how much the things cost, and then I estimated postage. At the PTA meeting, Alvin Weinberg was president. He had a son or two in school at the time. He took me to task for estimating the postage, so I had to ask for just the money for the coats themselves since I didn’t really know what the postage is going to be. I thought that was interesting that he wanted to keep it to the exact penny.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you recall the dress code that your children or the type of dress that they wore when the school?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think they just wore what the other kids wore. One day we had a deep snow and Bill was in kindergarten, and the snow was up over their boots. I think he had some corduroys. The teacher was making the kids take their pants off and dry them on the radiator, and he wouldn’t do it. I had to go up to the school and take him some fresh pants, some dry clothes. He was very young – just four when he started.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Let’s go back a few years. Do you remember 1945 when they dropped the bomb on Japan? You remember where you were? And what was your reaction?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I do remember that very clearly because it was the summer after my junior year in college, and I was a camp counselor up in Door County, Wisconsin. There was no electricity at the camp, so we counselors – after we got the kids to bed, went to the state park nearby. This was at Fish Creek, Wisconsin. We would listen to people’s car radios. We knew for about a week that something was happening, but we didn’t know just what. It was very deeply moving when the bomb was dropped, and we thought it would bring an end to the war. Of course, I had friends and a brother on Guam and a cousin was in Europe and others. So that was very deeply moving. I had a book of poetry- my favorite poems at the camp with me. One of my 12-year-olds picked out a poem – “Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide” – she read that, and I thought that was very astute of her, a youngster to be able to do that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What did you think when you came to Oak Ridge, which developed to the bomb?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 My husband thought they should have dropped a sample first, but I didn’t feel that way since the first bomb didn’t phase the Japanese. I didn’t think the test one would have either. I was just so glad that the war was over. People could settle down and get into real life again.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	In March 1949, the city opened its gates to the outside world. What do you remember about that event?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think I was in transition from the dormitory to the house, and my husband’s brothers came up from Georgia to witness the opening. So we drove in their car around, and we watched the parade from, I believe, down on the eastern end of the Turnpike down near the warehouses to get out of the traffic. We never could figure out why they invited Marie “The Body” McDonald and [inaudible] to ride in the open car for the parade. We couldn’t figure out what they had to do with it, but we did see the burning of the magnesium ribbon. That was exciting.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Were there a lot of people at Elza Gate for that ceremony?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think it was only toward town from Elza Gate. I know the central part of town, the Jackson Square area, was very crowded.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall in the early days that area we call Jackson Square being called Townsite?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes. It was interchangeable when I was here. I guess it was called Townsite most of the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did you ever hear anyone say where the name Jackson Square came from?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think they name the streets for famous cities in the country, and of course the alphabetical designations were very helpful. But Jackson Square, I assume, was named for New Orleans. That’s all I know about it.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you and your husband were in your first house or even the second house, did you have a telephone?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, I’m sure we did.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Were you on a party line?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I guess so. We were on a party line here for a while.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me about a party line. What does that really mean?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Sometimes you would pick up the telephone, and the other party was talking. I believe they had different rings. I think maybe the other party had one ring, and we had two. There were four-party lines, but if we were on a four-party line, only the other one was active. I think maybe we were. The other two lines were not being used.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 When you are raising your family, did you hang your clothes outside on the clothesline? Did you have a dryer? What did you use?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I hung them outside on the clothesline. As I said, when we moved here, Anne was a year old. Not much more than three years after that, we had three babies. I was able to talk my husband into getting a dryer that time. Before that, he had built a pulley out of my kitchen window. There was a drop off in the back, and he was able to string it to a tree in the woods. I was able to reel those cloth diapers and reel them in and out. The only problem was that the birds like the trees, too. Sometimes I had to do some re-washing.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So in those days you use cloth diapers? Today we use disposable diapers. How do you think you would’ve done if you had disposable diapers?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think I like the cloth ones.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 How were the neighbors in the neighborhood where you lived?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 At one point, when our children were out playing Kick the Can, there were over 40 children on the lane. There were about 20 or 21 houses. There were almost as many dogs. It was just a glorious place for them to grow up. They seem to get along remarkably well most of the time, especially in the early days.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you feel safe living in Oak Ridge?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, we never did lock the car doors or the house doors. Maybe when we went out of town, we might have.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did you ever attend the American Museum of Atomic Energy?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes. We went down there on the opening, and got the radioactive dimes on that occasion. The museum at that time was down at Jefferson Circle. I don’t think any of us ever had our hair stand out on the Van De Graff generator or whatever it was, but we took the children. We went out ourselves. Of course my husband was interested in that kind of thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did your children walk to school? I’m sure they did at Cedar Hill. So close.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 They did walk to Cedar Hill.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 And Jefferson as well?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Sometimes they walked to Jefferson, but by that time they were carrying pretty heavy books. One of the neighbors on Outer Drive wanted to have a carpool, so we joined that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What did your family do for fun when your children were growing up?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 When Anne was in the fifth grade, they had to write what they did on Friday nights. The teacher would call me and say, “Is it true that you gave your children ice water and watched TV on Friday nights?” That was how generous we were with them. We didn’t get a TV until they were probably five or six years old.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you remember what the picture quality was of the TV in that day?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Of course it was black and white. The reason we got it – I guess finally it was that the children were always going to the neighbors’ house to watch TV. We decided that we should get our own. They watched things like “Pinky Lee” and I’ve forgotten what else.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me what you remember about these places of interest that I’m going to mention. The Oak Terrace Ballroom?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I remember that fondly because my first real date with my husband was going to dinner there with him. He invited me to go to a concert in Knoxville, and his excuse was that we should get to know each other better before he took me to the city with him. That was one thing. I remember there were parties there, and our company had a party at the Oak Terrace Ballroom. One of the NEPA fellows wore a Tarzan costume, which was mostly nothing. It turned out that he lived in the neighborhood. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What was the Oak Terrace ballroom – where was it located?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was at Grove Center.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What about the Snow White Drive-in?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 That was just below the dormitory where I lived in Columbia Hall. Jack went there looking for me, he thought I would eat breakfast there and then he could have breakfast with me; but I ate in the dormitory. He didn’t find me there. When we came back from our bicycle ride to Concord Park, I remember we stopped by there, and he drank two or three Mountain Dew drinks. That surprised me, but we had worked off a lot of sweat.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did you ever eat in the Snow White Drive-In?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I’m sure we did.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall what their specialty was? 
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I guess it was hamburgers.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 What about the Skyway Drive-in Theater?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, we took our children out there and saw “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The 10 Commandment” and those things. It was quite nice. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Where was it located?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 It was about where Kroger’s – where that is now, on the southeast part of Illinois Avenue. It was a nice thing. That was a special treat for the children to go out there.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Did they get out and sit in the front of the car on a blanket and watch the movie?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I don’t think so. I think they were mostly in the car. They had a drawing one time, Jack won something. It was actually nothing, but he did win.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How about the hospital in Oak Ridge? Did you have an occasion to visit the hospital?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	I sure did. My three children were born there. It was a green structure, like so many of the buildings in Oak Ridge. I guess the present building is built on that place. It was okay. I didn’t have any problems with it, except after my second child. I had a staph infection from the hospital. Even an Army wife with a private room got an infection there.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you think the medical staff was above average for a hospital?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, I think they also had been recruited; and a lot of them were from Tulane University. The time I was sick with my infection, they were having a reunion at Tulane, and my doctor and another one were gone for the reunion. I didn’t like the one who took care of me. He didn’t do a good job.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What about dental service? How was that?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think it was okay. I don’t remember having any problems with it. We knew Dr. Rogers from our church, and we went to him. He was called away to the service, I believe. Maybe it was the Korean War, but then he came back.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think you had good health care while being in Oak Ridge?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I do. I am very grateful for that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Which church did you attend when you first came?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I’ve always been a member of the First Presbyterian since I’ve been here.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you recall where they first met?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 We met at Pine Valley School. The choir sat on the bleachers, and the minister sat under the halo of the basketball net. My husband was a Methodist, and he went to the First Methodist Church. They had a big youth group there. When we were first married, we tried to take them both in. We went to Sunday school one place, and church another until we finally settled on the Presbyterian. It was smaller, and we knew more people. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Thinking back, what do you like best about Oak Ridge?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Of course the people. I love my trees and my house. I love all the activities. Both my husband and I have always loved music and enjoy the concerts a lot. The symphony concerts with Waldo Cohn conducting were held at Jefferson Junior High on the Kentucky Avenue hill.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Do you think back about all the people that you knew in the early days? Do you think it was unusual for everybody to get along – the many people that were here?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Yes, I guess so. I didn’t think about it because we just did. It was just fun. Everybody was away from home, and we had to be family for each other. That was particularly true in this close neighborhood.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How do you think the city has progressed since day one?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I’m pleased for the most part. I think we’ve made good progress. We’ve kept up with the outside world.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 Is there anything that you would like to talk about that we haven’t discussed?
MRS. DAVIDSON:	I don’t know. I’ll probably think of things after you leave. Nothing particular comes to mind. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I would like to thank you for your time, and I think this interview will be very helpful for someone in the future to see how you lived in Oak Ridge in the early days.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 I think we came through at the very best of times. It was not the pressure of war, but we were growing community. I think things were happening at the Lab. Both of my husband and I loved the Lab because there were so many good things going on out there. It gives us hope for the future. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	 I thank you very much for your time.
MRS. DAVIDSON:	 Thank you. 

[End of Interview]

[Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mrs. Davidson’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]