Carden, Bill

              ORAL HISTORY OF BILL CARDEN
Interviewed by Jim Kolb
August 5, 2003











 
[Side A]
Mr. Kolb: Okay Bill, let’s start out by talking about, first, how and when you came to Oak Ridge, okay?
Mr. Carden: All right. My father was a welder. He was employed at the Steam Plant at K-25 and we moved here December 15, 1945 from Sweetwater, Tennessee, where my father had worked on the completion of the Watts Bar Dam there. He worked for TVA for approximately twelve years, working on several dams at the time. So that’s the start, and I entered Oak Ridge High School in January of 1946 as a sophomore. 
Mr. Kolb: And you finished high school? 
Mr. Carden: I finished high school in 1948, correct. 
Mr. Kolb: So, you came here really as a student? 
Mr. Carden: That’s correct. 
Mr. Kolb: And how long did your father work on the project? 
Mr. Carden: He worked for seventeen years.
Mr. Kolb: Oh, okay, K-25?
Mr. Carden: K-25, at the Fire House. 
Mr. Kolb: At the Fire House. And what did you do after you finished high school, then, Bill? 
Mr. Carden: I was married after high school and went to work for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect engineers that were located here in Oak Ridge, as a rodman on the survey crew doing the topography studies of the land around, well, where the woods are today, Tusculum Woods, I guess it’s called. I worked for them and then I went to work for the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, ORINS, and worked in the Special Training Division which at the time was behind the Castle on the Hill in the yellow brick buildings that are still there today. And I worked in the storeroom there, kept it open. Lot of graduate school work was going on at that time so I had an unusual schedule: I worked 8:00 to 4:30 on Mondays and Wednesday, 2:00 to 10:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:00 to 12:00 noon on Friday and 8:00 to 12:00 noon on Saturday to keep the stock room open for the students, for the grad students.
Mr. Kolb: Whenever they had to have [to] have their labs going on, I guess.
Mr. Carden: Yes, oh yeah, the labs were operating. 
Mr. Kolb: I see, so you were married then, and where did you live? 
Mr. Carden: We lived in an apartment outside of Oak Ridge at the early days. I worked for a service station which was where the underpass is at Elza today. I worked there and we had an apartment in the back, and then later on we came back into Oak Ridge and worked for ORINS. 
Mr. Kolb: Where did you live then? 
Mr. Carden: I lived on West Outer Drive, 401 West Outer Drive –
Mr. Kolb: You rent?
Mr. Carden: – with our parents –
Mr. Kolb: Oh, you were with your parents.
Mr. Carden: Mhm, at the time. 
Mr. Kolb: Oh, I see, okay.
Mr. Carden: Okay.
Mr. Kolb: Moved up with your parents, okay. And they lived up there on West Outer Drive.
Mr. Carden: That’s correct.
Mr. Kolb: Okay, I see. So they lived there quite a while, I guess? 
Mr. Carden: They lived there many, many years at, on West Outer Drive in an “L” house. I went to work for Y-12 in 1951, and when I went to work for Y-12, we got an apartment, “L” apartment on Waddell Place and then changed over to a bigger apartment when our children come, William, our boy, and Leah Denise, our girl. And we moved just, really, across the yards onto Wade Lane into a house, another big “L” house on 118 Wade Lane. Lived in that house for twenty-six years. 
Mr. Kolb: You’re a West Outer person, aren’t you? 
Mr. Carden: Oh, yes. Yeah, when we originally came to Oak Ridge we lived on North Walker Lane, which is on the other side of the Highland View School. 
Mr. Kolb: Okay, well during the war years, when you were a student, and right after the war years, what were living conditions like? I mean, the muddy streets, and the transportation, and that kind of stuff. 
Mr. Carden: Yes, that’s right. Everything in the town at that time, of course, was in the federal government’s ownership and we got around in Oak Ridge with the bus service that was provided. Lots of things were still under rationing at the time, and so a lot of goods were, you know, in short supply because of the war effort at the time.
Mr. Kolb: Stood in line for –
Mr. Carden: We had lines for everything, yeah. In the earliest days of Oak Ridge, when I was still a teenager, I worked at the Midtown Enterprise store which was where the Civic Center is today, and it had three wings to it: produce, meat, drug store, and so forth. 
Mr. Kolb: Pretty good size store.
Mr. Carden: It was a very big store. There was a trailer camp at the time. All that around in there was just trailers, and then, of course, the army position was behind it also. 
Mr. Kolb: There was the hutments? 
Mr. Carden: Hutments, yes, hutments were on Raccoon Avenue up where Orange, or ORAU is today, was trailers and victory cottages, they were called. 
Mr. Kolb: Turning a good thing out of something pretty grim. 
Mr. Carden: That’s true. 
Mr. Kolb: Did it help you to be working in that store at all or not? 
Mr. Carden: Well, yeah.
Mr. Kolb: Maybe you knew what was going on a little bit.
Mr. Carden: Knew a little bit what was going on there, yeah. We worked back in what was called, like, a big warehouse because everything was delivered to the store on the trucks and so we, some other of the guys working there were used to unloading the supply trucks at the warehouse. I worked for a gentleman by the name of Edgar Popslaughter.
Mr. Kolb: Popslaughter.
Mr. Carden: Had known that family in 1936 to 1940 when my father worked on Hiawassee Dam and we lived in Murphy, North Carolina. So we met back again in Oak Ridge. 
Mr. Kolb: They came back here to get a job during the war, too. 
Mr. Carden: Sure, yes. 
Mr. Kolb: Did you do much shopping in Clinton and Knoxville? Your family, that is?
Mr. Carden: Some shopping was done in Knoxville but not a whole lot. Most everything was sort of right here, you know. We still had department stores and things of that nature here in Jackson Square. It was quite self-sufficient and you didn’t really have to go.
Mr. Kolb: Didn’t have to if you didn’t want to. 
Mr. Carden: That’s right. My father and mother, especially my dad, we were one of the lucky ones: he had a 1938 Oldsmobile, which –
Mr. Kolb: Oh, pretty late model.
Mr. Carden: That’s correct, which, there wasn’t a whole lot of private automobiles in Oak Ridge in those days, interesting side point. 
Mr. Kolb: Do you have any comments on when you did go to Knoxville, did they treat you okay or, you know –
Mr. Carden: Not really, I don’t remember anything of that order taking place, of what I have read and heard since then.
Mr. Kolb: Right, just wondered if you’d had any experiences like that.
Mr. Carden: No, no experiences, Jim, like that. 
Mr. Kolb: Okay, I don’t know whether you are a wet or dry person but Anderson County was dry and a lot of Oak Ridge was “wet.” Did that affect you or family at all? Did you know anything about that going on? 
Mr. Carden: Well, we knew that it had gone on, you know, but it really didn’t affect us in that matter. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, directly, I see. Well, when the war ended, when did things start changing much for you, after the Army? Or did the Army keep control? 
Mr. Carden: The Army still had us under control here till the gates opened in March of 1949, you know, so you still had to have a badge and you still had to have a job to remain in Oak Ridge. That was one of the things, you know, if you had a job, you had housing in Oak Ridge; if you didn’t, you were out. 
Mr. Kolb: The job was the key, yeah, that’s right. And I guess MSI ran the town pretty much?
Mr. Carden: Correct, yeah. In the earliest days it was Roane & Anderson Company and then MSI took over. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, that was, when I came in ’54 it was MSI, yeah. Well how about recreation in Oak Ridge? I’m sure you were an active person. Of course, being in the schools you probably had a lot of kind of activities going on, but what was that like? 
Mr. Carden: Well I think that the recreation and welfare department that was operated then did a very, very good job of providing entertainment for the young people in the town. We had a place to congregate. Originally, it was called Central Recreation Hall and then it, of course, became Wildcat Den. 
Mr. Kolb: Is that where the first library was located? 
Mr. Carden: No, the Central Rec Hall is where the Arcade is today. Soup Kitchen is underneath and those little shops in there, the Epicurean, and on the top up there you will see the building, and that was the Central Rec Hall. Then we eventually went down and became a wing of the Ridge Rec Hall, and that is where the library was located at the time. And we also had a wing at the old Central Cafeteria that we had at one time, too. So we had lots of things to do. You know, you had movies in town, you had a skating rink, you had tennis courts, and there was tennis court dances and Friday night dances. 
Mr. Kolb: Bill Pollock.
Mr. Carden: Bill Pollock’s piped music from the Ridge Rec Hall, and then there was, of course, individual parties at different students’ houses, basketball games – 
Mr. Kolb: Bowling? 
Mr. Carden: Bowling, yeah, bowling was a big – we had a lot of bowling alleys. 
Mr. Kolb: I was told by Grady Whitman, he was in the Special Engineering Detachment, they had a football team, and played, you know, like a league of their own. Did you ever attend any of those?
Mr. Carden: I certainly did. They were called the Army Cardinals. Yeah, I can remember them playing a team from a medical hospital in Atlanta, Georgia one Sunday. They played on Sunday afternoons in football, and they also had a baseball team and basketball. But I remember the football game that they had was, I can’t remember the name of the hospital at the time, but they had some pretty good size men playing back in those days. 
Mr. Kolb: I bet, yeah. Course, our high school team played also. 
Mr. Carden: Yes, we did.  
Mr. Kolb: What was that like? Did you go to the outside towns? 
Mr. Carden: Well, of course, we had to take our badges with us when we came down the hill from Kentucky Avenue where our high school was at the time. We’d be dressed there and take a bus, and then, of course, some of the guys would forget their badges, so we’d have to stop at [what was] the Town Hall then, which is still here today, and the coach would have to get the names and go in and get badges for the guys. 
Mr. Kolb: Oh, my. Temporary badges? 
Mr. Carden: Temporary badge.
Mr. Kolb: So they could get back in, you mean? 
Mr. Carden: Yeah, that’s correct. So you could go out and play your game and then you could go into Knoxville or anywhere and then come back in. 
Mr. Kolb: Did you play on the team? 
Mr. Carden: I certainly did. I played in 1946 and 1947. I played guard and wing back. We ran the single wing in those days, and Coach Ben Martin was –  
Mr. Kolb: Coach.
Mr. Carden: That’s right. 
Mr. Kolb: Busy man, wasn’t he? 
Mr. Carden: Yes, very much so. 
Mr. Kolb: He did everything. 
Mr. Carden: He certainly did. He ran the track team and the basketball team. He was a pretty busy fellow. 
Mr. Kolb: Amazing. I’m glad we honored him by naming the track after him. 
Mr. Carden: Certainly. 
Mr. Kolb: Did your family or you pursue any other community activities, social clubs or church activities, that kind of thing? 
Mr. Carden: Yes, my mother and father were active in the First United Methodist Church at the time, and so a lot of the activities my mother participated in were through the Methodist Church there, and with the early PTAs they had at the High School. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah. Where was the Methodist Church then? 
Mr. Carden: Well we operated out [of] the Ridge Theater.
Mr. Kolb: Ridge Theater.
Mr. Carden: Yeah.
Mr. Kolb: Initially.
Mr. Carden: On Sundays, initially. You know, some of them, in those early stages which I wasn’t party to in 1944 and so forth, they met in, you know, like a private home and got started, some the Methodists did, and I understand, then, I think they were able to have worship services in the United Church at the time as some churches, you know, right there.
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, Chapel on the –
Mr. Carden: Chapel on the Hill, and then we met at the High School in some of the classrooms. But then we eventually got to operate the Ridge Recreation Hall on Sundays, and that was quite an experience going in the theater, with all the banners that they had around there in the theater.
Mr. Kolb: Seating was nice.
Mr. Carden: Seating was nice. 
Mr. Kolb: That’s right, you sort of make do with what you got in a situation like that. 
Mr. Carden: That’s right. 
Mr. Kolb: Well being a secret city of Oak Ridge, how did that affect you? I mean, did you think about it much? 
Mr. Carden: Really, Jim, we never thought much about that. We were so active as teenagers at the time, you know, and lots of us, lots of different people had brothers and sisters that were in the war effort, and, of course, we realized what was going on, but as far as being a secret city, the fence that we were in, behind the fence didn’t seem to bother us very much. We still had picnics off of what was called Key Springs Road today. It was called G Road back in those days. 
Mr. Kolb: Was that outside?
Mr. Carden: No, it was inside the reservation, yeah. The G Road still exists, and so there was places there, and then there was other places that we had, swimming pool was a great place to congregate around in the summertime.  But we never really thought of ourselves as being inside a fence there, for some reason or another, and I think, you know, that’s because the way the recreation and welfare people had set up everything that we might need in our programs for us to be entertained. I know there was baseball games on Sundays, and one of the first jobs I had was like official baseball scorer at the city baseball league in 1946 in the summer.
Mr. Kolb: As a kid.
Mr. Carden: As a kid. And I worked for a gentleman by the name of Red Simpson. And in those days, we had a gentleman by the name of Temple Gerelle. He was the head of the recreation, and Carl Yearwood.
Mr. Kolb: Oh, I remember him, yeah.
Mr. Carden: And, of course, lots of others. I think there was a lady by the name of Miss Kirkland who had things to do for the ladies, you know, in the sports. I assume she was running the sports program with the rest of them, there, too. 
Mr. Kolb: The population built up real fast during the war and then right after the war it started slacking off, or within a year or so. Y-12 had a big reduction. 
Mr. Carden: Oh, they got 22,000 people, I understand, left that plant in just one fell swoop. 
Mr. Kolb: So housing became more available, I guess. 
Mr. Carden: Yes. 
Mr. Kolb: Things were not as crowded as they were at one time, I guess. 
Mr. Carden: That’s true. And people were eager to go back to their homes and –
Mr. Kolb: The war was over. 
Mr. Carden: The war was over, and thank goodness we were successful, and they were ready to start a new life back in their hometown, wherever. But it did make a drop in the population immediately. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, a lot less pressure to own transportation and everything else that was going on. 
Mr. Carden: Correct. 
Mr. Kolb: Of course you weren’t a parent at that time, and you were working. Did it affect your outlook on what you thought about Oak Ridge as a city? Was it going to last, in other words?
Mr. Carden: I don’t remember talking very much or thinking very much about the fact that the city was going to last. I guess we just assumed that it was going to. As a kid, you know, I didn’t really think that it was just going to shut down completely. And hopefully, as we know today, it didn’t, and we’ve all been pretty happy to live here in this town. I think it’s a great place. Because of the people that’s here, people are so friendly. 
Mr. Kolb: Sure. But it was so new, you know, being a new city, that this came out of nothing. 
Mr. Carden: That’s true. 
Mr. Kolb: And there was no written obligation that anyone put down. In fact, I don’t guess the government really thought that far. 
Mr. Carden: That’s right. 
Mr. Kolb: When they started the whole project, you know, what are you going to do with these cities? And they all did survive, one way or the other. 
Mr. Carden: Well, in those days, some people even had like a contract, that were brought in from certain areas, and at the war’s end, they would pay them to go back to their house under their contract if they chose to do so; they would pay for their moving expenses. 
Mr. Kolb: So, get them back where they started. 
Mr. Carden: Get them back where they started from. Of course, all people didn’t have that, just some of the special ones, which I thought was an interesting note, you know. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, I never heard of that. 
Mr. Carden: Yeah, that’s true. 
Mr. Kolb: That’s the way it works when you’ve got the best jobs, I guess. Did you participate in any of the special war effort? This would be before, well, just after the war. I don’t know, victory gardens, collecting aluminum foil, that kind of thing, critical material? 
Mr. Carden: Not here in Oak Ridge, but when we lived in Sweetwater, which was basically during the war, we lived there from 1940-1945, yes, I collected, as a boy scout, we collected newspapers and took the foil that was off of – back in those days, cigarette packages, they had a foil between that, and got that up to a point and turned it in, like with aluminum pots and pans that were contributed by the ladies mostly in the city there, town. The paper was collected and we pressed it, we had a press, and then a truck come by and would pick up the bundles, every so often, of the paper.
Mr. Kolb: Bailed together. 
Mr. Carden: Sort of bailed together, and I don’t know exactly where they did take it for the recycle part, but somewhere close by. And people back in those days, too, saved, what they had, their bacon grease.
Mr. Kolb: They did?
Mr. Carden: Yes.
Mr. Kolb: And what did they do with it? 
Mr. Carden: Some of it was sent to Oak Ridge. 
Mr. Kolb: What did they do with it here? Was there a market for –
Mr. Carden: Well, somebody could use for a lubricant maybe or something of that order, but, yeah, they said that they had somebody that collected it. But that was in Sweetwater; I don’t remember anything like that taking place in Oak Ridge. 
Mr. Kolb: I remember some used to like bacon grease on their, used like butter, you know, put it on toast, early in the morning. 
Mr. Carden: That’s right, correct.
Mr. Kolb: Tasty, you know.
Mr. Carden: Yeah, I don’t know how it was ever used in the effort, you know, but –
Mr. Kolb: It was just one of those things, yeah. 
Mr. Carden: It was something that was collected. 
Mr. Kolb: Did you or your parents have much contact with Afro-Americans back then, during work or in your class? 
Mr. Carden: No, not really; very little contact.
Mr. Kolb: I guess the little school, you know, the special school, they weren’t integrated back then. 
Mr. Carden: That’s correct, they were not. 
Mr. Kolb: So they were not in the high school? 
Mr. Carden: I think they were bused into Knoxville, maybe. There was a school that was in there. Now, later, you know, the section of Oak Ridge became Gamble Valley, and they did have a grammar school there at Gamble Valley, but we didn’t hardly see many of them, period. And they had their own recreation area over there. No, integration was not in at the time. 
Mr. Kolb: No, that’s right. Did your father have any contact, you think, much at the plant, when he was there? 
Mr. Carden: I wouldn’t think so. 
Mr. Kolb: Did he talk about it? Probably not much. 
Mr. Carden: No he never did talk about – my father was a very – he was a gentleman, what I call a true gentleman. He believed in treating everybody the way that you should be treated, and that included those Afro-American people. So he just never, I don’t recall him ever saying much about anything at work, where they might be at the time.
Mr. Kolb: Or any incidents or whatever –
Mr. Carden: That’s true, no incidents whatsoever. 
Mr. Kolb: Well, even though you weren’t in Oak Ridge, what were you doing when you heard about the A-bomb being dropped? Let me back up. Did you know much about Oak Ridge before you moved here? 
Mr. Carden: Very little. 
Mr. Kolb: But you knew there was a town? 
Mr. Carden: Yes, we knew there was a town. 
Mr. Kolb: And it was called Oak Ridge? 
Mr. Carden: That’s correct. I can recall that, when I was living at Sweetwater and playing ball on the football team there, which, by the way, we played Oak Ridge that year.
Mr. Kolb: Is that right?
Mr. Carden: That’s right, in 1945. 
Mr. Kolb: You were a freshman? 
Mr. Carden: I was a sophomore.
Mr. Kolb: Sophomore.
Mr. Carden: Yeah, and we took a good whipping from those Oak Ridge boys at the time, and so we knew that there was an Oak Ridge, you know. In fact, you know, they got us passes to come, for us to come into the town to play the football game that night, and then –
Mr. Kolb: On Blankenship Field? 
Mr. Carden: On Blankenship Field, that’s correct. I think the score was something like fifty-five to nothing. I clearly remember the announcer saying, “Well, regardless of the outcome of the game tonight, the Wildcats will win.” 
Mr. Kolb: They were pretty cocky. 
Mr. Carden: Well, we were both called Wildcats. 
Mr. Kolb: Oh, that was the key, you were both Wildcats.
Mr. Carden: Yeah, our nickname was Sweetwater Wildcats, and, of course, Oak Ridge was the Wildcats, and they said, “Tonight the Wildcats are going to win.” That was a pretty good comment he made. 
Mr. Kolb: So when you heard about the A-bomb being dropped and Oak Ridge being involved in it, what did –  
Mr. Carden: It was hard to imagine that that’s what was being made, ’cause our area was a farming community and it had a few mills that were geared for war production: Textile Mill and Hosiery Mills were there, Cheese Factory, a dry goods place that I’m sure probably had some kind of contract with the army at the time. So we had just a few little manufacturing places there in Sweetwater. But when we found out what they had dropped, it was just amazing. And then when we did get to see some of the pictures through, back in those days, it would be like Movietone News in the theaters or Path A News, it was hard to believe the power that that one bomb had. Yeah. But I’m sure that we were certainly glad when we heard that the war was over shortly thereafter, because we knew, my brother was in the Navy and had joined in 1943 and had served overseas two-and-a-half years, and of course we were thinking of him as others in the town were thinking of their sons and so forth, fathers, that they were going to be able to come home now. 
Mr. Kolb: That’s right, no invasion of Japan –
Mr. Carden: Correct. 
Mr. Kolb: – was gonna happen. Thank goodness, yeah. Well, it was a surprise to most people because it was all secret and –
Mr. Carden: Well that’s right, you know, we didn’t really know what they were doing here in Oak Ridge, we just had heard of it. 
Mr. Kolb: Right, right. Were there any rumors? Had you heard anything down there, what might be going on? 
Mr. Carden: Here in the town? No, not any particular rumors, but I do remember my father, when he was coming to work, got up early in the morning and caught a bus, as others did in Sweetwater and the surrounding communities, which had a direct line, all army type buses that picked the men up and women and brought them to Oak Ridge and then brought them back home later that night. And back up early again the next morning, right back out, they’d go again.  Some were going at the time to Alcoa which had the big aluminum plants, so some of the buses were taking the workers to Alcoa and then later on they were building Fontana Dam, which, you know –
Mr. Kolb: TVA. 
Mr. Carden: TVA. But no, I don’t recall too much about –
Mr. Kolb: Well, I’ve heard the joke of: “What are you making in Oak Ridge?” “Oh, about $1.75,” you know. 
Mr. Carden: Oh, I see. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Mr. Kolb: Crazy stuff like that. But they didn’t know. And if you did say something, you were out. If you used the word ‘uranium,’ you were out. 
Mr. Carden: Oh, absolutely. I would imagine so. 
Mr. Kolb: Pretty intense. Well, do you remember when the gates were opened in ’49, a big celebration? 
Mr. Carden: Yes, yes, I do.
Mr. Kolb: Did you participate in that at all? 
Mr. Carden: I did. There was four or five of us teenagers at the time, that we had some guest stars that were in town, and they had asked some of us guys if we would drive some of the cars for some of the guests, and that’s what we thought at the time. And I had a famous guest: her name was Marie “The Body” McDonald.
Mr. Kolb: Oh, you aren’t kidding.
Mr. Carden: Yeah, and of course Rod Cameron was here and Mischa Auer and I think Adolphe Menjou maybe, I can’t remember, Alexis Smith, I think she was here. But anyway, here we are, we thought that’s what we were going to be doing, and as it turned out, what we were doing was taking the wardrobes of these different people. They’d call in, you know, they were meeting at different places in the town, and say, “Take the wardrobe to Grove Center,” for instance, or “Take the wardrobe to the High School auditorium,” for instance, or some place, and what a letdown that was.
Mr. Kolb: You didn’t get to really see the “The Body,” then, like you hoped to. 
Mr. Carden: That’s exactly right, not at all. 
Mr. Kolb: It was indirect involvement. 
Mr. Carden: Eventually we got the point, you know; we were missing everything as far as the celebration was concerned, so we parked those cars and the clothes and went into where the Soup Kitchen is today and, of course, the people were lined up on both sides of the road watching the parade, and so we jumped up on the wall that was there, and on the book that I have you can see one little old mark right there, and that is me leaning out trying to look over the heads of the people to see who’s coming down the parade line. But by this time, whoever was in charge of us had released us, and I don’t really remember now where we parked those cars, but they were, all five of them, right there together. And they sort of thanked us.
Mr. Kolb: They didn’t pay you. 
Mr. Carden: Oh, no, it was strictly what we thought was going to be a great honor. Of course, Cameron came down. He had a horse. They brought a horse in. He was riding the horse down in the parade. 
Mr. Kolb: Okay, he was the cowboy. 
Mr. Carden: He was the cowboy. 
Mr. Kolb: Hollywood cowboy. 
Mr. Carden: But it was quite an affair. 
Mr. Kolb: How many days did that go on? Was it just one day? 
Mr. Carden: The parade was just the one major day. Now, see, it could have gone on before, which we wouldn’t have known much about at the time. You know, whoever the officials were in the town at the time. 
Mr. Kolb: I understand there was a vote taken, kind of a referendum on whether the city gates should be opened or not? 
Mr. Carden: That’s correct. 
Mr. Kolb: Do you remember much about that? Did you and your parents get involved in that? 
Mr. Carden: Well, at the time, things were so nice in Oak Ridge, you didn’t have to worry about locking your doors and so forth, and I think that’s one of the things that came to mind, that some of the people said, “Hey this isn’t bad, you know, we’re under security here and so let’s keep it this way.” 
Mr. Kolb: Why change?
Mr. Carden: Why change, yeah. And so there was some that chose that way and some that chose let’s open the gates up completely. And then it was no more “Secret City.”
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, guards went away and no more badges. 
Mr. Carden: No, I turned my badge into the pass office, which was in Grove Center, where there was a fire hall. I passed where the bowling alley or the Grove Center Recreation Hall is today and the Nursery School, and right on the other side, the building is still there today, and there was a guard pass office in there and we turned our badges in there. 
Mr. Kolb: I’ll be darned. That was just to get into town, now, as far as –
Mr. Carden: That’s correct. Yeah, of course the factory workers and –
Mr. Kolb: Your father. 
Mr. Carden: Father and them still had their badges. Oh, this was just Oak Ridge residents. 
Mr. Kolb: So, then there had to be a town council being created, I guess, and all the political –
Mr. Carden: There was a Town Council that was created. I can remember Mr. Bissell, Al Bissell was on the Town Council. 
Mr. Kolb: The first one? 
Mr. Carden: I think so. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, he started out pretty early. And this new school board, I guess, got going too. 
Mr. Carden: Yes, they did have an early school board. I can remember some of the people. Dr. Bigelow served on one of the school boards there in the early times, and Dr. Charpie, Bob Charpie. And I don’t remember, I can see the gentleman but I can’t remember the name. 
Mr. Kolb: I’m sure there were a lot of them, yeah. 
Mr. Carden:  I think Dr. Rogers had served on one of them, maybe. 
Mr. Kolb: Oh Ted Rogers, the dentist? 
Mr. Carden: I think so. 
Mr. Kolb:  Yeah, I remember that name. I came in ’54, but I was single. I wasn’t really paying much attention to politics at that time. But I did meet Dr. Bigelow, yeah, good friend of mine. So things got, settling in, I guess you might say, to the current –
Mr. Carden: Yeah, the town started becoming a Small Town USA so to speak. 
Mr. Kolb: Of course, funding was still coming off of the government. 
Mr. Carden: Correct. 
Mr. Kolb: To the Atomic Energy Commission, I guess, one way or the other. And didn’t you get involved in being a city councilman at some point? 
Mr. Carden: I ran for the City Council in 1975 and served on the Council for four years, from the Highland View precinct. 
Mr. Kolb: That’s when we had precinct representation. 
Mr. Carden: Actually that was the first group that was elected at large. We had, what I considered, I called it the Highland View seat, because you still lived in your precinct area to run for that particular seat, but we were elected on by everybody in Oak Ridge. So that was the first time, and there was six of us were elected by the total number of the votes that we’d received, were elected for a four year term and the next six were elected for a two year term, so we could have an alternate. 
Mr. Kolb: There were twelve councilmen, though? 
Mr. Carden: That’s correct. There were twelve at the time. 
Mr. Kolb: That’s a ways back. 
Mr. Carden: Yes, since 1975-1979, and I’d been in quite a few different [organizations], like the Jaycees, young men’s organization, and later on Sertoma Club and different things like that, very active in being around Oak Ridge High sports through the years.
Mr. Kolb: Right, had a lot of friends to lean back on, I guess you might say, yeah. What do you think are some of the unique experiences you remember in the early days of Oak Ridge, Bill? I mean a lot of crazy things going on and a lot of unique things, does anything come to mind that was unusual to you or important, in a sense, that makes Oak Ridge different and memorable, I guess you might say? 
Mr. Carden: Not in the sense of an experience, you might say, but the fact that comes to my mind is that here’s a town that has a cosmopolitan atmosphere about it and a tradition, if you want to look at it in that way. Here’s a town that has a symphony orchestra, a playhouse, schools for dance, and now we have a small group called, they just changed their names, I understand, but called like, the Showkids, but to have a art center, you know, the things that you would think of – 
Mr. Kolb: Things that big cities have.
Mr. Carden: Big city.
Mr. Kolb: Right. 
Mr. Carden: Correct. And that’s always been sort of interesting to me to tell people about Oak Ridge, which I really enjoy doing, is talking to people outside about being in Oak Ridge. I enjoy it very much, talking to different people. 
Mr. Kolb: I forgot to ask you, I should have asked you sooner, but there are so many different people from all over the country and all over the world here that it wasn’t Tennessee anymore, you could be talking to a Montana, New York or Texas, you know, anywhere and then –
Mr. Carden: They came from all over.
Mr. Kolb: They came from all over. 
Mr. Carden: They certainly did. 
Mr. Kolb: And you had contact with, like in your high school class, did you have those kind of classmates from all over? 
Mr. Carden: Yes we did. We had classmates, but you remember, at the time, we were still behind gates, so a lot of discussions didn’t center around things about your parents, where they were from and the names and so forth and so on. And this got to be sort of second nature with you in your discussion you’d be discussing something else and it didn’t even come to your mind to ask what did your dad do. 
Mr. Kolb: Or where is he from. 
Mr. Carden: Or where is he from, yeah. But sometimes then we did find out. In fact, I have a little book that was put out by the student council at Oak Ridge High. It’s a little red book full of addresses and what they’d ask in there was like, who would you list as a, like a permanent address, and so the person would put their name in, and where they were from. You know, like I would think of a relative over here at a certain little small community and put that in as a permanent address. 
Mr. Kolb: Okay, where they came from, where they might go back to if they –
Mr. Carden: Correct. 
Mr. Kolb: – whenever they got back to, yeah. Well, how about people’s accents? Do you ever get a New York accent, or a Bostonian accent, you know, that you could really identify with? 
Mr. Carden: You know, of course, some of the young students that we had at the time, that’s where they were from. A lot of them were from New York and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan, and then there’s, like I said, a few from California. 
Mr. Kolb: That’s a long way away. 
Mr. Carden: Oh, yes. 
Mr. Kolb: Boy oh boy. So it gave you a real good –
Mr. Carden: You got a good background in where the people were from all over the United States. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, you just assumed they were not local. What do they think of you all, you were more a local person, being from Sweetwater, North Carolina and that sort of thing, and did they –
Mr. Carden: Yeah, I was born in Lake City, Tennessee, yes, but you know we never thought any – we never fought the Civil War over again, you might say. That was all gone by the wayside, but I guess it might have surprised some of them to really find somebody that was born around in this area of Anderson County and being here in Oak Ridge, you know. 
Mr. Kolb: Were there many others in your class that were local, kind of? 
Mr. Carden: Not that I can recall. 
Mr. Kolb: My goodness, you were representing the whole – you were –
Mr. Carden: I mean I’m sure there were some that were there, some I’m sure were from Knox County, but I hadn’t thought much about the ones that might have been from Anderson County. I’m sure there are some. I know there was some. 
Mr. Kolb: So you just grew up in this atmosphere of cosmopolitan, as we call it.
Mr. Carden: Yes, but yet, you know that you still had other things too, other than just the things that are considered of a cosmopolitan area, and so they sort of cemented one another. It was there if you wanted to go and participate in their activities, and if you chose not to, there was also the other areas you could participate in. 
Mr. Kolb: There was a lot more choice. 
Mr. Carden: Lot more choice. But it just really amazed me that they could have a symphony orchestra in this town in the earliest days, you know, and they gave concerts. I remember one time we had a radio program that came into Oak Ridge and it’s called – Gulf Oil Corporation at the time put this program on, We the People Speak, and it was given at the high school auditorium and the auditorium was full, and our high school choir participated and a couple of our students participated in that particular program as well as town leaders, and then we sang some songs on the stage of the Oak Ridge High, and –
Mr. Kolb: Was it broadcast live? 
Mr. Carden: It was broadcast live, yeah.
Mr. Kolb: Was it interviewing people, kind of? 
Mr. Carden: That’s correct, yeah, and asking questions like you’re asking today about the young boy and the young girl at the time that were participating, student council presidents probably and class presidents at the time. But it was quite interesting to see how a national program –
Mr. Kolb: Why would they come to Oak Ridge?
Mr. Carden: That’s correct. 
Mr. Kolb: Because it was so different, yeah. 
Mr. Carden: It was so different. But to see how they actually put a program on. And I can’t remember the chief announcer at the time, but I have the script though. 
Mr. Kolb: Oh you do? 
Mr. Carden: I do. 
Mr. Kolb: Wow. How did you get that? 
Mr. Carden: It was there. I asked her if I could have it, and they said, “Yeah, here, I’ll sign it.” One of the original scripts, anyway. So they signed it for me, the different people. 
Mr. Kolb: Did you know these people? Had you heard the program? 
Mr. Carden: I had heard the program many times on the radio, sponsored by the Gulf Oil Corporation at the time. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, I’m trying to think if I’ve heard it. I know the name, but I don’t know if I ever listened to it or not. So that was kind of a highlight experience.
Mr. Carden: That was a very good night. 
Mr. Kolb: I’ve been told that during the war, the recreation department, or whoever was in charge of that sort of thing, brought in named bands at certain, or just a few times, just to entertain the population. 
Mr. Carden: Yeah. 
Mr. Kolb: Give them something else to think about than what was going on every day. 
Mr. Carden: I don’t remember the year but I do remember Gene Krupa brought his band into Oak Ridge, and they performed at the Grove Center Recreation Hall, had a big dance.
Mr. Kolb: Okay.
[Side B]
Mr. Kolb: When you came here, did you go down and hear it? Was it like a dance?
Mr. Carden: It was a dance, and, yes, I did go down and hear it. Grove Center had an area there like a screened in porch that faced out toward the Grove Center area, so that was wide open, and the place was full of people, so we just congregated out there, some of us, and listened to Krupa’s orchestra.
Mr. Kolb: Through the screen.
Mr. Carden: Yeah, right.
Mr. Kolb: You had a parking lot dance.
Mr. Carden: In the parking lot, yeah, that’s correct. It was really great.
Mr. Kolb: I bet. Well, speaking of that, the Bill Pollock dances in the tennis courts, I guess it was both tennis courts, on the west end and east end? Were there two tennis courts then, one in Jackson Square and one in –
Mr. Carden: Jefferson.
Mr. Kolb: What about Jefferson?
Mr. Carden: Yeah, Jefferson had a lot of tennis courts, if you remember.
Mr. Kolb: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Mr. Carden: And Jackson Square had probably, what, six tennis courts or so? Yeah we used to enjoy those tennis court dances.
Mr. Kolb: It was on weekends, maybe?
Mr. Carden: Usually like on Friday nights or something like that. 
Mr. Kolb: Did you have to pay for those, or was that free? 
Mr. Carden: No, I don’t think so.
Mr. Kolb: Just go.
Mr. Carden: Just go. Yeah, I think it was part of the recreation and welfare programs. Yeah, a lot of people remember the dances at the tennis courts, ’cause they were really very good. 
Mr. Kolb: That was the swing era. 
Mr. Carden: It was the swing.
Mr. Kolb: Jitterbug and swing and then, good, good music to dance to, that’s for sure. I remember those, too, myself. Well anything else unique about your – and, I mean, I agree with you about the symphony and all those organizations that were unusual to a town of our size to grow up and have them right here. Some people I’ve heard say that they thought that was one of the reasons there was a little bit of jealously, like with Knoxville. The people of Knoxville say “Well we’ve got a symphony over there, why do they have to have their own symphony? Why not just come to our symphony? You know, they have to have their own thing.” And that was kind of an irritation, you know, possible reason for irritation. Or “We think we’re better. Oak Ridgers think they’re better than we are” kind of attitude, you know. That’s just one of those things. 
Mr. Carden: Yeah, that’s sort of, I didn’t have that experience with them, you know, on such a thing as that. I just thought it was very outstanding that we had a symphony orchestra, because before, living in the towns that we lived in, that was sort of a big city thing and –
Mr. Kolb: Did Chattanooga have a symphony then? I don’t know if they did or not.
Mr. Carden: I’m not sure. I think Nashville had one but I’m not certain about Chattanooga. And I understand that even some of the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra people participated like, maybe not in this era of time we are talking about, you know, but later on, that some of the musicians have participated with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. 
Mr. Kolb: Or Knoxville. 
Mr. Carden: Or Knoxville, oh yes, or Knoxville, correct. 
Mr. Kolb: Right, it’s all different now, of course, but back then it had to be separate because of the fence being around the town. Well, anything else you want to talk about? You worked at ORINS then for quite a while? 
Mr. Carden: Yes, I worked for about two-and-a-half years for them and then went to work at the Y-12 plant in ’51 and then I retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1992. 
Mr. Kolb: That was a long stretch. 
Mr. Carden: Long stretch. 
Mr. Kolb: Which department did you work in? 
Mr. Carden: I was with the Health Physics.
Mr. Kolb: Health Physics.
Mr. Carden: Correct.
Mr. Kolb: That’s right, I remember you from Health Physics; I worked at the lab too.
Mr. Carden: Long, long tenure in the employment with the corporations. 
Mr. Kolb: Right, with Carbide, and then Martin Marietta and then on and on.
Mr. Carden: Yeah, and Lockheed Martin. I think during the war, you know, it was interesting to note that the different corporations that operated our plants here, you know, Carbide and Carbon Chemical Corporation operated K-25, Monsanto Chemical operated ORNL and X-10 and Tennessee Eastman at Y-12. And when the war was over there, Eastman left and I suppose went back to either Rochester or Kingsport, Tennessee, where some of their people came. 
Mr. Kolb: And Carbide took over Y-12? 
Mr. Carden: I think so. So, you know, it was sort of an interesting time to be here.
Mr. Kolb: Things moved fast, I guess. Yeah, there’s a lot of changes going on and yet people decided to stick it out. 
Mr. Carden: That’s right. Yeah, my mother and dad, you know, they stayed here right till they passed away in 1987 and my mother and dad both really enjoyed being in Oak Ridge and being active in, mostly in the church, of course, United Methodist Church, and, of course, I think so much of this town, it’s just, I cannot describe it. 
Mr. Kolb: Yep, you’re not alone there. 
Mr. Carden: No. You know, and then we’ve gone and done some volunteer work, and I’ve enjoyed doing that in years past with the Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau, and especially with the American Museum of Science and Energy as you are aware of, but that did give me an opportunity, being there, of discussing my town, Oak Ridge, with people that came in because they were interested just like our energy’s being conducted here today. They were interested in hearing about Oak Ridge from that point of time and some other people come in and say, “I lived here in 1944 but I can’t remember where exactly,” you know, and I’d say, “Well, give me something and maybe I can help you with it,” you know. So, I’ve always enjoyed talking to new people about my city. My family has really enjoyed being part of it. 
Mr. Kolb: Well that’s great Bill, I think that’ll do it. 
Mr. Carden: Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity.
Mr. Kolb: Okay.
[break in recording]
Mr. Kolb: Okay Bill, what about your wife? Do you want to tell us a little bit about her?  
Mr. Carden: Well, of course, I met Tillie – her name was Tillie Grey Weber – I met her in high school at Oak Ridge. 
Mr. Kolb: Classmate? 
Mr. Carden: Classmate, yes, and then we got married later on and she’s Tillie Grey Weber Carden today and we have two children. Our son is William Eugene Carden and our daughter is Leah Denise Carden Cress, who lives in Houston, Texas, by the way. We have six grandsons and one granddaughter, and we have two great-grandchildren and expecting the third. Tillie, when I was active in Oak Ridge in the football team, she was Oak Ridge’s High School Football Queen in 1947. So I picked a good one. And we have been happily married for many, many years, now, over fifty. 
Mr. Kolb: Over fifty. You’re right, that’s great, that’s a real accomplishment. 
Mr. Carden: Yes. And she came here with her mother and dad and sisters and brother in January of 1945, so she’s been here longer than I have, and she came from Nashville, Tennessee. And her father was in the guard force at K-25; her mother was a homemaker. 
Mr. Kolb: Did they stay on, too, after the war? 
Mr. Carden: Yes they have, they stayed on, yes they did. You know, that’s another one that lived fairly close by but chose to remain in Oak Ridge, which I think says a lot for Oak Ridge. 
Mr. Kolb: You know Colleen Black, she and her family came from Nashville also.
Mr. Carden: I didn’t remember that. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, they were Nashvillians, but they stayed on, boy, they really stayed on and contributed a lot. 
Mr. Carden: Yeah, Colleen and I, we have talked several times about those early days of Oak Ridge and so forth. Quite a lady. 
Mr. Kolb: Oh yeah, well there’s quite a few like that. 
Mr. Carden: Very interesting. 
Mr. Kolb: Yeah, yeah. Okay, very good. 
Mr. Carden: Well, Jim I’ve enjoyed this. 
Mr. Kolb: Very good. 
Mr. Carden: Thank you very much. 
Mr. Kolb: Thank you. 
Mr. Carden: I appreciate your time. 
Mr. Kolb: Very good. 
[end of recording]