Adler-Jasny, Martha

              ORAL HISTORY OF MARTHA ADLER-JASNY
Interviewed and filmed by Keith McDaniel
March 26, 2010
 
Mr. McDaniel: I’m talking with Martha Adler-Jasny. People call you “Marty.” 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: And today is March the 26th. And we’re at the Midtown Community Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Marty, tell me just a little bit about where you grew up and your upbringing.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, well, I’m the oldest of four children, and I was born in Omaha, Nebraska. When I was about 5, we moved outside Baltimore, Maryland, and so I learned to read with a southern accent. Then we moved to Washington, DC. We came to Philadelphia. During the war years, we came back to Washington, DC. My father was too old for the draft, but he was the personnel manager for the American Red Cross to do his bit. We moved back to Philadelphia. And then when I graduated from high school, we lived on the Maine Line, I went up to Cornell University.
Mr. McDaniel: Do me a favor, take your glasses and just lean them forward just a little. Maybe if you could raise them up off your ears just a little bit.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Sure, let’s see what I can – 
Mr. McDaniel: Just maybe a half-an-inch or so.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: How’s that?
Mr. McDaniel: That’s better, yeah.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: That’s better, okay.
Mr. McDaniel: That way, the reflection’s not nearly as bad.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, so you went to Cornell University and graduated from there.

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And then we stayed on. My husband had a fellowship, he was in microbiology, and we stayed on for another three years. And during that time, I had an opportunity to go to graduate school in the veterinary college in microbiology. So it was a win-win situation; it was great.
Mr. McDaniel: So you studied microbiology as well.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yes, we had every class together.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yes. And since I was a V and he was an A, we often were across from each other on lab benches.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: It went very well.
[laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: Well, good. So you got married while you were in college?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: No, we married right after we graduated and got our bachelor’s. And then we stayed on at Cornell for our graduate work.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay, all right.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And then we came down here.
Mr. McDaniel: What year was that that you moved here?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: We moved down here in 1956, and we moved down here for a rather interesting reason. We had really thought we’d go into academia after Howie got his Ph.D. But instead, he had had an opportunity to come down several times during undergraduate and graduate work to work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And each time, there was something peculiar about – this was for summer work. There was something peculiar about his clearance. And the Korean War was going on then, and we realized that if we didn’t clear up the clearance situation, we would never get anyplace. He couldn’t get a commission in the army; he couldn’t really do much. So we came down here and went through the whole clearance process. He was in the Biology Division. And it was very interesting because it turned out after, I think, about eight harrowing months that – what it was, he had been a scholarship student at a private school. And one of the teachers there, before he even came in as a student in seventh grade, the teacher had already left, had been apparently a member of the communist party, and that was what they held against Howie. It was the McCarthy era. And we were very glad – it was one of the happiest days of my life when he came home after finally going through a hearing and saying, “I can’t believe what they were holding against me. I was in seventh grade, and I never even met the man; he left before I came.”
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah. So that’s how we came to Oak Ridge. We came for a year and never left.
Mr. McDaniel: [laughter] Okay. So it was 1956, you ended up in Oak Ridge with your husband. Did you have any children then?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, we had a four-month old baby and a really dumb dog, a beagle. And we arrived in September, and it was raining. And we thought, “What has happened to us?” because the cemesto houses were all wet and the moss was on the sides and it was all dreary. And every place we went, we had been told we had to check in before we could look at apartments. And so every road we went down, where they told us to check in, said, "No Admittance, Official Use Only.” And being law abiding, we would turn around and go back. And we finally gave up, and they collected us from the Biology Division. We got a card and people came and helped us find an apartment. 
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure, sure. So when you came, did you and your husband both work at the Biology Division?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: No, no. Few women worked at that point. They never considered offering me a job, and since I had a baby, I never considered applying for one. I went back to work later but not then.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. So your husband was a microbiologist in the Biology Division.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And you were a stay-at-home mom, sort of.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: More or less. We had a nice deal. My husband said – we lived in a “K” apartment up on West Outer Drive, had a lovely view of the mountains. And he said, “If I earn the money, will you do the community work?” And that worked out great for us. And so I immediately got active in the League of Women Voters, and I met my neighbors. And there was so much to do. I really feel that I helped build this town. I wasn’t here in the Manhattan years, but we were here when the land sales were just beginning, when the incorporation things were just beginning, when all of the legal liquor things were being held. It was a really interesting time to live in Oak Ridge.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, tell me about some of those early days and some of the things that you might have gotten involved in.

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Okay. Well, we lived in a small “K” apartment. A little bit about that, it had no bathtub. My poor kid didn’t have a bath, except when he went to visit his grandmother, until he was about three, when we moved out. It didn’t have any doors on – 
Mr. McDaniel: But it did have a shower [laughter].
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: We had a shower, yeah. We were relatively clean.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: We had no doors on the closets, which was a real pain in the kitchen. We didn’t have any money, so we had a really old refrigerator and this sort of thing, ’cause we had to furnish some of those. But the first thing I did was to get interested in the League of Women Voters. My mother had always been one, and I just knew growing up I would be in the League of Women Voters. They had a very active group that had started here as soon as the war was over and the city, they could have private organizations.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And one of the first things they studied, they were studying the security issues and clearances and the awful mess with McCarthy, so it was a natural fit. I also did Recording for the Blind; that was fascinating. I didn’t do that later when they switched to different technology, but, so that was the main thing I did when we first came. But as my husband was very generous and it worked out fine, he said, “Let’s have a maid one day a week and then you can go out and do the things you want to do.”

Mr. McDaniel: Well, good.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: So you joined the League of Women Voters, and you’re still very active. 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yes, I am. I’m finishing up my third year as co-president right now.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, from what you’ve told me, it sounds that you’re very community minded, very active in social issues and things such as that. Did you get that from growing up? Was that the way it was in your home?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: I think so, I really do. My mother went to the University of Nebraska. I remember her telling me that she was active in integration efforts, just making – they had very few blacks on the University of Nebraska campus, but she was involved in integrating them into the campus life, things of this sort. And certainly, I remember during the war years, the Girl Scouts, things of this sort, where I was always active.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, did you get involved – when you came here, did you get involved in some of the integration activities here?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, yeah. The late ’50s and ’60s were just a hotbed, and Howie and I had joined the Unitarian Church. He was from a Jewish background, I was from a Presbyterian background, neither of us were happy with where we were. And the Unitarian Church here was active and interesting, and many of my best friends are still there. But yeah, we did a lot with the integration things. Howie was pretty busy working, but one of the interesting things was the barber shop. In 1960 – well, I’ll back up. I just finished writing a “History of the ’60s” for the Unitarian Church history book. And it’s been fun, lots of fun. And in the 1960s, this town, no black could go to the movies. Two restaurants were integrated. Two churches had black members. Two or three more would have welcomed them, but no one applied. Many were whites only. As I say, two restaurants were open. The schools were supposedly integrated, but all the blacks lived in Scarboro. And so there was de facto segregation; they were integrated from the junior high level up. And it was in the ’60s that some very courageous women said, “We really need to,” and they began bussing the children. There were no barber shops. There were very few black technicians out at the Lab, and it was very difficult to get anyone to come in on a postdoctoral fellowship because they couldn’t live except in Scarboro. My husband was quite active at the Lab getting this sort of thing changed. We had one black postdoc. He was the only person, and he was living in the brick apartments. I don’t know what they’re called, over on Manhattan Avenue, but he was living in the white section of town. No black could get a haircut in a white barber shop. And so a wonderful group of creative people sold tickets for a year’s worth of haircuts, which were then – my husband bought ’em. I think every Unitarian bought a bunch of tickets. And then they brought in a barber who simply said he would do everybody’s hair, and Ken’s Barber Shop is still going strong – 
Mr. McDaniel: That was – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: – down through the family.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: It was great. 
Mr. McDaniel: I interviewed Elizabeth Peele –
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Peele, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: – a couple weeks ago. 

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Uh-huhn, she told me.
Mr. McDaniel: She talked a little bit about that.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah. It was a really creative way to solve the problem. And so people are still going to [laughter] Ken’s Barber Shop for that very same reason.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. Now, in the League of Women Voters, what were some of the issues or things that you got involved with in the early years of Oak Ridge there?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: I’m trying to remember. We did more with the county. Oak Ridge and the county were never really buddies. And things like voting machines were one of our early projects. Central accounting in the county was a major project. Lately, we’ve been doing more in Oak Ridge. But we helped a lot with the war on poverty under Johnson, a lot of going out into the county and helping with literacy and this sort of thing. So there are quite a few projects.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: I’ll tell you one interesting – the skating rink was very, very segregated in roller skating, and all the kids wanted to skate. And it was just down the hill from us. So there were lots of tests and picketing and so forth, but the Adler boys and their mother went down to see – they made it into a private club, and we went down to see if we could get in. I swore the boys, you know, they had to behave impeccably. There was no telling what we were doing, anything else. But we were immediately made members of the private club for a very, very small fee, gotten our membership cards and then the boys skated, came back. We gave a deposition as to what had happened. And then, of course, when an integrated group went, they were not allowed to do it. So we were building up a case.
Mr. McDaniel: And where was that skating rink?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: It was on the corner of Illinois and – it’s where Heritage Church now is. 
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, yeah. Yeah, right in there. 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, right in there.
Mr. McDaniel: So the reason that they turned it into a private club was to keep the blacks out.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Exactly, yeah. So we had a city councilman who was turned away from the movie theater. He was black, from Scarboro, and he couldn’t go to the movies here; that made the front page paper. So ’60s were a really interesting time between integration and Vietnam. 
Mr. McDaniel: I suppose, you know, a lot of people think, “Well, Oak Ridge was this,” and a lot of people talk about Oak Ridge was this very cosmopolitan area, but fundamentally, it was not as cosmopolitan and as advanced forward thinking as a lot of people would make out.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Well, we had – it was an interesting community because we had a lot of engineers and scientists. We also had a lot of skilled crafts people and then we had a lot of service people. The lower economic service people were black. The crafts people came, were local or came in from surrounding areas and so forth, and they reflected the mores of the South. The scientists and engineers were working frantically on their research and their projects, and many of them left it to their wives to fight the battles.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: So it was an interesting group. But I would say that many people were concerned and worked hard, but there are many people who were very uncomfortable. They had grown up in the South, and they were very uncomfortable shaking a black person’s hand if they were their minister. In fact, they would go out the other door.
Mr. McDaniel: Hm, is that right?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: My neighbor told me. Yes, his wife was just – I don’t know whether she thought it was going to rub off or not. But they had a visiting black minister, and she went out the other door. She just wasn’t comfortable enough to do this. So it was not a unanimous opinion that we should integrate. 
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And, of course, the town was built reflecting the mores of the South.
Mr. McDaniel: Yes, yes, because that was the – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: It was expedient. 
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah. And that was kind of the typical way the government worked at that time. When they went into an area, they kind of accepted the local culture.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Mhm, yeah. We had a war to win, couldn’t be fighting all the battles. 
Mr. McDaniel: Well, let’s talk just a little bit about incorporation of the city. So you got here in ’56, and there was a big battle, I guess, in – it wasn’t incorporated until ’59. I guess the battle had already really begun in ’56.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Mhm. A lot of people felt very comfortable. The gates were open, but we still didn’t lock our doors. They felt very comfortable having the government pay for things. We had, oh gosh, all sorts of perks. And when they did start buying their houses when we came, they bought them for a song, very little. And we bought a priority from someone, and so we bought an old flattop lot. 
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, that’s what we did. And we bought that lot because it was five minutes from the Biology Division, so we could go in on nights and weekends. [laughter] Yes, very important.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: But the incorporation, not everybody wanted to incorporate. Once you start being taken care of by someone, it’s kind of hard to give it up. The finances for the future were uncertain. We were going to have to pay taxes, for heaven sake, and it was an interesting time. They finally did incorporate, but it was a huge education effort.
Mr. McDaniel: What position did the League of Women Voters take?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, we were very much for it.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, I can remember the night we were sitting – we had moved to West Village, to a small house at that point, and we were waiting for the returns. And we were just jubilant, but we worked very, very hard for incorporation. We thought it was time to grow up.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure, sure, I understand. And then you got involved in the Planning Commission, when was that?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: I went on the Planning Commission in 1964, I guess.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay.

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: No, 1968, I’m sorry.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And we’d had a – the Planning Commission was set up as a Regional Planning Commission because it was carryover from the time when we were not incorporated, but we were having to do things. And that was a really interesting time. There had been one woman on the Planning Commission before, a good friend of mine and an ardent League of Women Voters, Marge Ketelle. And then when she went off, I got elected. And we were doing a lot with the new subdivisions. We were building – groups of people had bought land from the government out on the West Ridge and Emory Valley and so forth. And then these engineers, primarily, were laying out lots and so forth, and we were still developing codes, zoning laws. A lot of them were in place, but a lot of them were built on what had been already platted because the government had built – Skidmore, Owings and Merrill did a great job of laying out a temporary town. For long-term, maybe it wasn’t – it had a few shortcomings. But when I was there, we did the Planned Unit Development, which made a lot of interesting things possible. And it was a good group to work with. We worked hard, got to know both developers and citizens, and it was – 
Mr. McDaniel: So there was a lot of growth in Oak Ridge in –
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Lots of growth, lots of new housing.
Mr. McDaniel: – the ’60s and ’70s, I suppose.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, tremendous amount.
Mr. McDaniel: Is there anything in particular that you remember about serving on the Planning Commission that might’ve been a real challenge or something like – 

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, it was all a challenge, but the thing I regret most, we’re pretty ardent about open space, but we did not require sidewalks. We got talked by – since many of the developers were local people and it was expensive to put in sidewalks, we didn’t demand it. And I think that was a major mistake. We should have sidewalks along West Outer. We should have sidewalks along Emory Valley Road. Going back and putting them in later is very, very expensive. And it would’ve made us a – we are not a pedestrian-friendly town anyway, but we made it worse.
Mr. McDaniel: [laughter] Oh, my goodness. Well, talk about a little bit about the Grove Development Corporation, what was that and what was that about?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Okay. We were not only trying to build houses and get people, you know, people were – we had lots and lots of children at that time. But we also were trying to expand our economic base. We realized that we couldn’t rely on the Federal Government forever. We could not tax federal lands. We can – there is now, finally, some public-private partnerships going out on X-10 and Y-12, and they’re wonderful, things like the New Hope Center. But we didn’t have any of that, and we were working very hard on economic development. And the chance of big companies coming in was pretty small; you get dwarfed by the Federal Government. However, there were a lot of small guys already here who had an idea, either from the Laboratory or something they wanted to do themselves, and we had some small industrial parks; they just didn’t have the capital to put up a building. And at that time, the Small Business Administration had a neat program called the 502 program. And in it, a bank would take the first mortgage, fifty percent, the SBA would take a second mortgage, and it was somewhere between thirty and forty percent. And by the way, Wayne Clark was the major mover; he and Ed Fairstein were major movers, Dick Rush, in this operation. And then what was called a local development corporation, and that was Grove, took the third mortgage. Now, we didn��t have any money, really, so what we did, we incorporated, everybody – we sold stock to some of the people who were willing to invest in town. We didn’t sell very much stock, but we sold enough to start. And then any company that came to us with a good business plan, they wanted to put up something in, say, the Industrial Development Park near Emory Valley, we would sell them enough stock so that we could pay our part of the third mortgage [laughter].
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay, I see.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: It worked very well. They would invest in Grove; we would have that money to spend. And then we were their landlords, as we would own the building. And if they sold the building, they got our approval, and we built Acraloc, Tennelec, PickAir. At one point, we were landlords for seven buildings in the industrial park and along the turnpike. In fact, for a number of years, after Tennelec was sold to the Oak Ridger, we were the Oak Ridger’s landlords, which was kind of interesting. And then they bought – 
Mr. McDaniel: That’s right, Tennelec was where the Oak Ridger is.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Right, right. And that was a building that the Grove Development built and then we held the lease on it and they would pay us. And it was professionally run all by volunteers. We didn’t have any paid staff. Jesse Noritake helped us a lot, Wayne was a major player – I’ve forgotten the name of our accountant – but it was a very interesting operation. And then when the Small Business Administration backed off of that program, we didn’t find any others that were sufficiently interesting to do it. So all of the stockholders actually got money back with a little more.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right. But it helped develop – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, it helped develop those areas. 
Mr. McDaniel: – industry. 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, very much. And we helped with planning the buildings. We had access to engineers from Y-12, who provided their services for us and all sorts of things to help. It was a very interesting program.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, that is interesting.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And we were all working with the Chamber of Commerce at the same time, so that all of us were active in small business activities with the Chamber of Commerce then, too.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, I suppose, going back to what you said at the beginning of this, that the Federal Government was the main employer, was the big boy in town, but – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: The giant.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, the giant. And many, many people worked for them. However, they didn’t – you couldn’t tax land that they had, and it was difficult to bring in other folks from outside to come in, so I guess a lot of those businesses were homegrown. I guess that was also about the time that the plants started their technology sharing program, where they started licensing technology in the private companies.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah. We had an incubator space here for a while and this sort of thing. So we were involved in some of that. But mainly we were landlords, but we helped with all – we helped with the building inspections because we were responsible for making sure those buildings were appropriate, well built.
Mr. McDaniel: But the trickle-down effect of the development corporation was jobs and revenue – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Exactly.
Mr. McDaniel: – and growth. 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Mhm. And those buildings are still out there in the industrial park. Some of them have different owners, but – 
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And I’m not the Oak Ridger’s landlord.
[laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: Well, talk a little bit about – you also had been involved in the United Way.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, after I retired from the Laboratory – that was a very interesting process. I have a lot of respect for the United Way, but it’s fun to work for the United Way on the fund distribution panels. Because what they do is they take very seriously their effort to make sure that they are good stewards of the contributions that the people make and that they go to organizations that are well run and providing, doing what they say they will do in an efficient manner. But what’s been really interesting – well, what you do is you go out and you’re assigned to a panel and there are may be five people, and then you are signed between four and six agencies, which are all in a similar category. To interview, you see their financial statements, you go visit them. I had the pleasure of going and seeing the Anderson County Rescue Squad this time, as well as others, and it’s just very interesting to meet these people who volunteer their time and do good for others. But the really interesting thing about this is the way the United Way has shifted over the years from simply being a hander out of money to an agency that makes sure that they provide technical assistance to groups that are, if not floundering, at least need help. And so these groups can come and get help with planning, they can get help with how they keep their books, and with board structure, this sort of thing. And we have a very good United Way in Anderson County, I think, and I’m very pleased with it. It’s been a huge learning experience for me to get up close to the various agencies. 
Mr. McDaniel: Before we – I want to move on to a little more of your personal life, are there any other organizations or any other activities that you’d like to talk about that you’ve been involved in through the years?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh gosh, I’ve been involved – [laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: You’ve been involved in a lot of things, I’m sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: A lot of – 
Mr. McDaniel: The arts, I mean, I’m sure you’ve – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh yeah, I give money.
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
[laughter]
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: I go. I’m a serious attender. The Playhouse, my daughter’s been active in that. Music, my son played the drums. You really don’t enjoy symphony concerts if your kid, high school kid is playing the drums and wandering on and off, and you always are afraid he’s not going to come in at the right time, you know, things like this [laughter]. But it was a wonderful opportunity for the children, and it’s been great. You don’t have to go out of town. And especially as I age, it’s great not to have to go to Knoxville for good music, good chamber series, the band concerts, the Playhouse is terrific. So the arts are very important, the Art Center. 
Mr. McDaniel: And it’s all – I guess that really not only gave you an opportunity as just a citizen, but it also gave you an opportunity as a parent to encourage – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, yes, very much.
Mr. McDaniel: And you had easy access compared to what some others would have.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, yeah. I’m five minutes from Pollard for a concert, I’m lucky, but all of this. And it makes a huge difference to the way I think, and it’s very inexpensive. It���s not like going – in New York, I would never get to see what I do. And it’s fun to see things live. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be of record quality to enjoy. In fact, it’s kind of fun to see – you realize how stupendous some of these great orchestras are. But we do very, very well here.
Mr. McDaniel: But it’s also an opportunity for you to see your friends and neighbors and these real people.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Well, that’s the best part – yeah. And it’s a social time. You go out to dinner, you go there, you come home at a reasonable hour, you haven’t had to worry about parking or trains. It’s great. 
[laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: Now, let’s go back. You said when you came here, you had a son, a small child, and so you didn’t work right away. Did you go back to work?

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah. I think after I had put in a long stent with the Planning Commission, Growth Development, the Chamber of Commerce, and the League of Women Voters, and we had three – we had four children by that time. And putting in these applications for Grove Development were particularly demanding. And my husband said one night, “Have you ever considered being paid?” [laughter] And I was from an era where you stayed home and – I think it was one night of pizza too many probably. And I said, “Well, I hadn’t, but I certainly could consider it.” And he said, “I think that you might enjoy it because you are working on a professional level.” So at that point, my friend, Miriam Guthrie-Kertesz, was one of the personnel managers out at the Lab, and she helped me convert my volunteer record into a resume that looked pretty good. And I put it in at the Laboratory. I had worked closely with Frank Bruce – I don’t think he pulled any strings for me – who is associate director out at the Laboratory, because he was the vice-president, and we’d work in Economic Development for the Chamber of Commerce. But I put in an application at the Lab, and it had to be – the criteria were very important. It had to be part-time. I had to be able to be home. It had to be very flexible, so if the kids needed me, I could be home. It had to pay enough so I could afford any extra help, any extra sitters, and any appropriate clothes. And it had to be really, really interesting. My husband said that it was – Howie said it just was not worthwhile; I was not the records clerk type. 
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: So I went out and I got offered three different – I had the choice of three places to go in the Energy Division, and I had a great time. It was flexible. I ended up doing a little more traveling than we had originally planned for, but it was the best preparation for future life that I know of. It came at just the right time. My kids were kind of surprised, I went into emergency management. And there are two of us at the Laboratory who were the staff for DOE headquarters. It was right after Three Mile Island accident, and they were developing an overall plan for the federal response to major radiological accidents, and so we were the two people from DOE. And we had seventeen federal agencies to work with, which was really interesting. I think we were the only two women who were doing it. And I was one of the oldest at that time, and everyone was very nice. People from Nuclear Regulatory Commission brought bagels; that’s what they were known for. They could get away with a lot if they kept the bagels. 
Mr. McDaniel: [laughter] Sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: But we did lots of field exercises. It was Cecil B. DeMille stuff as far as field exercises, and it was very, very interesting. And then after we got radiological accidents squared away pretty well, we went on into chemical weapons accidents. And I think that one of the best lines that my husband ever had was – we were at a dinner party and his dinner partner said, “And what does your wife do?” And he said, “She’s into disaster.” And that was it. [laughter] But it’s very interesting, and I keep in touch with the people. And emergency management is dear to my heart, and it’s come a long way.
Mr. McDaniel: So it was a little more advanced for Oak Ridge than during World War II when the pamphlet that was published said that the children would follow their teacher and walk towards Jellico.
[laughter]
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yes, yes. I still get a kick of going down Key Springs Road every time, every time, and I go down there often. I think of all those cars having to go down. But I still try to keep my gas tank fairly full. And all my work with emergency management out there and all this stuff, I check for all the exits, you know, this sort of thing. You don’t – 
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure. Well, it was like the other morning last week, last Wednesday morning, when the alarms went off at 8:30 in the morning, 8:38 in the morning instead of noon.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Noon, yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And it was a, you know, everybody got on the Internet, finding out what was going on the Facebook and found out that it was a drill of some sort.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, it was. They had a major drill out there. But we used to lie in bed – because my husband was director of the Biology Division, and it was when they still had the whistles at Y-12 and that’s where the Biology Division was. And anytime they had any sort of an accident out there, there was a code for the whistles and he knew the Biology code. And so if we heard that code, out of bed and out you went.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And then the children, I think if there had – even now probably, if the sirens ring, they are going to say, “Time to go home,” because they rang at 5:00 every day to test them. And all summer long, they would simply – at 5:00, the swimming pool would empty because every mother said, “When the 5:00 whistle goes, come home.” 
Mr. McDaniel: [laughter] So they rang it every day at 5:00.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Every day, yeah. It was a very important – we didn’t have the Internet. We didn’t have television for ages. And it was a very important tool for getting emergency information out, and so they had to test it.
Mr. McDaniel: So you worked until you retired.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, I worked till ’94. 
Mr. McDaniel: ’94.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: They had a great buyout at the Lab. And then I just picked up the unfinished projects and went over to PAI for two years and finished them up.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right. So you quit working about ’96 or so, I mean as far as work goes, job goes.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, okay.
Mr. McDaniel: So what have you been doing since then?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: What did I do – okay. Well, I left work just in time because my husband became very ill. 
[break in recording]
Mr. McDaniel: So we were talking – what were we talking about?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Oh, well, we were – 
Mr. McDaniel: Your husband.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: He was ill and he died in ’98. And it’s wonderful having all three children here in the area. They all work here in town. Dave works for the Department of Energy. And Tim works for O-R-I or ORISE, but he lives in Kingston. And Beth is a teacher at the high school and science. So all the grandchildren are close.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, did you mention earlier that you had four children?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Our oldest son was killed when he was sixteen; he was struck by a car.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, my goodness.

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: So that’s a toughie. But the family, it either makes you or – I mean, you come through it stronger. 
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, sure. So your husband passed away.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Uh-huhn. And then I met – well I had known George Jasny, and he was very active in town. I think we knew each other more by reputation, and we met and married. He had just lost his wife. And then he died in ’91.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: But we had many mutual friends. And I’ve enjoyed ORICL. Howie was always active in the beginning of ORICL. I really met George partly through ORICL, and so that’s a great – Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning. 
Mr. McDaniel: Right.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And that’s marvelous.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, tell me a little bit about that. How long have you been involved, – 
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Since the beginning.
Mr. McDaniel: – I guess since you retired?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Well, yeah, since the beginning. Because even before I retired, before Howie died, Mary Rosenthal had broached the idea and gathered a number of people, and Howie and George were among that group. And I’ve been on the board, done publicity and other things, done some program planning. So after the League, the last few years that I haven’t – I go to ORICL, all the – I do all the fun things. 
Mr. McDaniel: Right, right, you don’t have to worry about –

Mrs. Adler-Jasny: And I don’t – I let somebody else do the work. It’ll be my turn again.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, of course, of course. You take your turn and then you –
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, you take your turn and you –
Mr. McDaniel: – can enjoy it.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Yeah, right. But it’s a great organization and they have wonderful field trips. And two weeks ago, I was up at Walters State Culinary Art School, lovely lunch, cute kids, and they’re so proud of their school. They can place about one-hundred percent with all the hospitality industry in that area. And then we went to an alpaca farm. 
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: You have to – eclectic, so. [laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay, there you go.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: But Oak Ridge is a really good place to live for both young people and older people. Good schools, lots of interesting things to do, and very affordable housing. So I like it.
Mr. McDaniel: Anything else you want to add?
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: No. Thank you. I think this is a great project.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to kind of share your life with us a little bit.
Mrs. Adler-Jasny: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Thank you. 
[end of recording]