Riley, Donald

              
ORAL HISTORY OF DONALD RILEY
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
January 15, 2014
 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History.  The date is January 15, 2014.  I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Don Riley, 709 Largo Vista Road, Knoxville, Tennessee, to take his oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  Don, please state your full name and where you were born.
MR. RILEY:	Donald Richard Riley.  I was born in Englewood, New Jersey. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall the date?
MR. RILEY:	The date was February 2, 1929.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Would you tell me your father’s name and place of birth, if you recall?
MR. RILEY:	My father’s name was Donald Henry Riley.  And he was born in New York.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember your mother’s maiden name?
MR. RILEY:	My mother’s maiden name was Oelhaf – Elizabeth Oelhaf.  And she lived in Leonia, New Jersey.  And she was born in New York.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	At this time, Don’s wife Betty is going to read the history of Don’s parents and grandparents.
MRS. RILEY: Donald Richard Riley’s great grandfather, William Riley, was born in Perth, Scotland, and immigrated to the United States in 1849.  He designed guns for Colt Firearms Company in Hartford, Connecticut.  Donald Richard Riley’s grandfather, Donald Horace Riley, was a tugboat pilot in the New York Harbor and became superintendent of New York Central Railroad – the company responsible for tugboat operation in the Harbor.  Donald Richard Riley’s father, Donald Henry Riley, was a 1922 graduate of the Webb School of Naval Architecture in New York.  Admission was by scholarship only to students who excelled in academics.  In 1943, Donald Henry Riley and his family were living in Matawan, New Jersey.  He was in charge of operating the South Amboy Power Plant for the New Jersey Power and Light Company.  He was recruited that year by Carbide – with offices in New York City – to operate the power plant Carbide was to build to support the Manhattan Project operation in Oak Ridge.  He worked out of the Carbide offices in New York City while the plant was being built and moved his family to Oak Ridge in February of 1944 – two months before the Power Plant went online.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Thank you, Betty.  Do you recall how your family got to Oak Ridge?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, in February of 1944, we traveled to Oak Ridge.  It turns out that my father had a broken collarbone from ice skating on the lake – close to our home.  And my mother had a broken ankle that she broke by slipping as she went to the garage to take my father to New York City.  The trip to Oak Ridge from Matawan, New Jersey, was over 700 miles.  And the speed limit during World War II, at that time, was 35 miles per hour.  Our aunt Dorothy drove us because Mother with a broken ankle and father with a broken collarbone couldn’t drive.  And she drove us all the way down with the speed limit at 35 miles per hour.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you got to Oak Ridge, how old were you?
MR. RILEY:	I was 15 years old.  In fact, I just turned 15 on February 2, 1944. 
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall where the first house was located?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, our house was – in fact, it was the only house we lived in.  It was located at 101 West Damascus Road, just off of Delaware.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And what type of house was that?
MR. RILEY:	It was a D house.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You want to show us a picture of the house.
MR. RILEY:	There’s a picture of the house from the front and also from the back porch area.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you have sisters and brothers?
MR. RILEY:	I have one younger sister.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What is her name?
MR. RILEY:	Betty Ann Riley.  We’ve got a lot of Betty’s.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall what your father’s job actually was?  Did he talk much about his job?
MR. RILEY:	No, he didn’t talk much about it.  But it’s obvious that he was the chief engineer for the Power Plant, which was the largest in the world at that time.  I think it was just over a thousand megawatts.  And they built it in less than a year.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Now we’re talking about the K-25 Power Plant, is that correct?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall how your father got back and forth to work from the home?
MR. RILEY:	Well, he got back and forth from work driving the family car.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me about the first school that you attended in Oak Ridge.
MR. RILEY:	Well, the first school was Oak Ridge High School up on the hill.  And it was very interesting.  There must’ve been over a hundred students.  None of them knew each other.  They were all from different places around the country.  And they hadn’t known each other before we started school in 1944.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Before you came to Oak Ridge and you were going to school where the family lived prior to Oak Ridge, what can you tell me about how school life was in those days?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t really remember too much about it.  
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you have to walk to school each day?
MR. RILEY:	Walked to school each day – it was only about two and a half blocks from the house.  And I would walk back after school.  The interesting thing is the first day I went to school in Oak Ridge, I decided to walk home.  I don’t know how many of you know, but the Oak Ridge High School is a long ways from 101 West Damascus Road.  And about halfway back – and I was going across country – it started raining.  I never tried to walk back from school again after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Damascus is off of Delaware, is that correct?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So back to your early days of school before coming to Oak Ridge, do you recall some of your teachers’ names?
MR. RILEY:	I can’t remember off the top of my head any of the teachers’ names back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When your family got to Oak Ridge and you kind of got settled in a little bit, did you have a bicycle to get around?  Or did you walk a lot?
MR. RILEY:	Well, I had a bicycle.  But I walked a lot.  It was very hilly in that area.  And they had wooden paths through the woods.  So I just walked.  You couldn’t ride a bicycle very much at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Boardwalks –
MR. RILEY:	Right, boardwalks –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do remember some of the type of classes that you took when you went to the high school?
MR. RILEY:	I remember one senior in this class.  The high school had just been expanded the summer before.  And I looked up.  And there were footprints on the ceiling.  And I told some of my classmates.  And everybody was looking up.  And pretty soon, the teacher, Mrs. Lewis – I think her name was – was wondering what was happening.  She finally realized we were looking at the footprints on the ceiling.  Obviously, in construction, those boards were laying down.  And people walked over them.  Then they finally used them to put them up on the ceiling.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	That would’ve been quite a mystery to try to figure that out.
MR. RILEY:	It wasn’t hard to figure out back then because construction went pretty rapidly.  And boards like that were just laid down.  And people walk on them.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	At home, do you recall how family times were?  Did the family do anything outside the home for recreation purposes?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t remember that.  But I remember one night that I came home, and I assumed that everybody was in the house.  And I decided that I would climb through the window and get in bed and not wake anybody up.  Well, I did that.  And a little while later, I heard the family coming in through the front door.  They had not been there at all.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember how the house was heated in those days?
MR. RILEY:	It was heated by coal.  And there was a big bin in the back.  And trucks would come by occasionally and fill up the bin with coal.  And we’d keep the fire going with the coal.  Everybody’s house was heated the same way, I assume.  
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Were the streets paved in your neighborhood when you first got to Oak Ridge?
MR. RILEY:	When we first got to Oak Ridge, the streets were not paved.  They were muddy.  In fact, my mother was used to working in New York City.  And after we entered Elza Gate and saw all these muddy streets, she wouldn’t talk to my father for about a week.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I’ve heard those stories before.  Why did you bring me to this place?  And then they stay there the rest of their lives, don’t they.
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Oak Ridge is a unique place, for sure.  I guess she had a hard time keeping your clothes and shoes clean from all the mud that was involved.
MR. RILEY:	I never paid any attention about dirty clothes or dirty shoes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Let’s talk a little bit more about your father’s job.  I see here that you’ve written that ground was broken for the boiler house and turbine room foundation on June 2, 1943.  And the first unit needed to the Clinton Engineer Works in Tennessee went online April 15, 1944.  And it’s believed to be the largest national steam installation ever made and was built to meet a large demand for firm power that was necessary for the gaseous diffusion method of separating U-235 from U-238.  Later on, after 1945, when the bomb was dropped, and the world knew what Oak Ridge was doing, did your father ever talk to you?  Or did you ever ask your father anything about that construction or anything about the power plant?
MR. RILEY:	No, he never did talk about that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	It also says the paradox of this gigantic steam plant in the heart of the TVA region is explained by plant requirements for variable frequency current and necessary for minimizing the possibility of interruption of power.  That steam plant – if I recall correctly – was built down on the river side – on the west side of K-25.  After the steam plant was built, do you recall what work your father did?
MR. RILEY:	He was responsible for the plant after a while.  And then he was responsible for power in the whole area and left the plant and worked over in the Carbide offices.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall where you were in 1945 when they dropped the bomb – when you heard the news?
MR. RILEY:	I recall that all of our high school students gathered together.  I remember seeing the picture by Ed Westcott that I was in.  There was a bunch of high school students.  And the one in front had a newspaper.  And there was large letters that said war ends.  It was a picture by Westcott.  I was in the picture.  But I couldn’t see myself.  I was in the back with the high school students.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I’m familiar with that photograph.  Tell me how the atmosphere was leading up to that.  Why was everybody just gathered around down in the Jackson Square area?
MR. RILEY:	Well, I don’t think anybody knew that the plant was building materials for the atomic bomb.  So they were pretty enthusiastic learning what was happening that time that they’d been there.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	After the initial word was out and everybody was hooping and hollering and carrying on, do you recall what time of the evening that was?
MR. RILEY:	Well, it wasn’t quite dark.  But they were still there when it got dark that evening.  It must’ve been 6 or 7’clock.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How long did you stay down in the Square before you went back home?
MR. RILEY:	It must’ve been about 10 or 11 o’clock or so.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you parents have any strict rules about when you were supposed to be at home?
MR. RILEY:	I was home almost every night.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you and your sister were growing up, did you get along?  Or was it just typical brother/sister situations?
MR. RILEY:	It was probably typical brother/sister.  I don’t remember too much.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember Christmastime around the family and what took place?  Where did you get a Christmas tree or things of that nature?  Did you help during that time?
MR. RILEY:	Well, I helped.  But I don’t remember any of the details back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I want you to show me this.  This is your graduation diploma from Oak Ridge High School in 1946.  But it doesn’t say Oak Ridge High School.  This is kind of a unique diploma – show it around to the camera.  As you can see, it says County High School.
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I’ve never seen that before.  And that’s very interesting.  I’ll have to check into that to see whether that had something to do with the security in Oak Ridge at that time or why it was presented like that.  Where was the graduation ceremonies held when you graduated from high school?
MR. RILEY:	It was held in the high school auditorium.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you were out during the summer – not going to school – did you have jobs?  Did you work?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, I worked several times for the Recreation Association in Oak Ridge, working on cleaning up the softball and baseball fields and making sure all the lines were in place and so forth.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall how much money you made?
MR. RILEY:	It wasn’t much.  But I don’t recall.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you like sports?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, in fact, I participated in baseball and softball.  In high school, we had a football team – not the high school football team – just the non-high school football members that – we always had competition at Oak Ridge of baseball, softball, football.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Were you involved with the track team when you were in high school?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, that’s very interesting.  I had built a pole-vaulting pit in the backyard and cut a pole out that I used to pole vault with.  And I realized that I was pole vaulting in my backyard, higher than the high school pole-vaulter was doing.  So I decided to go out for track.  I was on the track team in Oak Ridge High School.  And I remember tieing for second in the – I think the first person I tied with was from Kingsport.  That was really interesting having built that pole vault pit in the backyard and deciding to go out for track.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Who was the track coach when you was in –
MR. RILEY:	Ben Martin.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you like Ben Martin?
MR. RILEY:	Yeah, he was a very amiable person.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Let’s back up a few years.  I want you to show our audience this photograph of you in the Scouts and tell me about that.
MR. RILEY:	Well, when I first got down to Oak Ridge, I became a member of the staff on the Pellissippi Boy Scout Camp.  That gave me an opportunity to expand the number of merit badges that I had.  I got enough merit badges to become the first Eagle Scout in Oak Ridge.  And this was the presentation of the Eagle Scout Award.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What troop number is that?  I can see partially seven –
MR. RILEY:	Seventy-three.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember who the scoutmaster was?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t remember.  But I can remember having talked to him.  He told me what they were doing at Oak Ridge.  That was before the bomb was dropped.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I’m going show our audience this memorabilia.  That is the Oak Ridge High School letter for track, I presume, that you have.  Would you like to tell about the rest of it then – what all this is?
MR. RILEY:	About the rest of this –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Yes.  You can see the wildcat symbol down in this corner and then the letter that he received in track.  Did you participate in the pole vault one year?  Or how many years did you participate?
MR. RILEY:	Just one year.  I went to the University of Tennessee and participated in track for four years in the pole vaulting/cross-country.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you go there on a scholarship?
MR. RILEY:	No.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did they have scholarships in those days?
MR. RILEY:	Well, they might’ve had them.  But I didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me about your New Jersey accent.
MR. RILEY:	Well, that’s very interesting.  Bruce Rossnagel and I were from New Jersey in Oak Ridge.  And every once in a while we’d meet in the hall and start talking to each other.  And a whole group of kids would gather around and listen to our New Jersey accent.  We obviously had an accent.  It was obvious to the students because they gathered around to listen to Bruce and I talk.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	But everyone was from so many different places.  So everybody was different, wasn’t they?
MR. RILEY:	Right, everybody was different.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	But everybody got along well with each other.
MR. RILEY:	They seemed to get along well with each other.  That was par for the course.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you date when you were in high school?
MR. RILEY:	I think so.  I guess I did.  In fact, we used to dance at the Recreation Hall.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Which Recreation Hall do you recall?
MR. RILEY:	Well, it was right down from the high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Oh, the Ridge Recreation Hall.
MR. RILEY:	Ridge Recreation –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Above the library there –
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember the steps going from Jackson Square up to the high school?  Were they made out of wood at that time?
MR. RILEY:	At first, they were made out of mud.  Then they were made out of wood.  Then I think they probably put the concrete steps in.  I don’t know what it’s like now.  At the beginning of the first year, it was mud.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	They had a bus service in Oak Ridge in those days.  Did you ride the buses very much?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, in fact, we went to school on the bus.  It initially didn’t cost anything to ride the bus.  I don’t remember what year it was they started charging.  It was like 15-20 cents a ride.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember in your neighborhoods when your kids gathered in the neighborhoods playing games?  Do you remember what type of games you played and what you did?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t remember doing much of that.  The games that were in the community were baseball or football – touch football.  But there wasn’t much gathering in the community except for the athletic events that the Athletic Department that Oak Ridge was sponsoring.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You mentioned earlier about your mother when you arrived at Elza Gate and she saw all the mud and construction going on.  As the years went by, did she get to where she accepted all that and got to love Oak Ridge?
MR. RILEY:	She seemed to.  Of course, Oak Ridge got a lot better.  And the roads got paved.  And there was wooden walks all over.  She seemed to like it at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you ever go down to the American Museum of Atomic Energy in Jefferson Circle?
MR. RILEY:	Probably after the war.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	In March of 1949, they opened the gates to the city of Oak Ridge.  Do you remember that event?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you go to the parade they had or any of the other events?
MR. RILEY:	I just watched the parade.  I didn’t participate in any of the events.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Where were you standing when you were watching the parade?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t remember – just alongside the road.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Was there a lot of people there for the parade?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember some of the celebrities that came from Hollywood?
MR. RILEY:	Don’t remember any.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You graduated from Oak Ridge High School.  And you went to UT.  What was your major in UT?
MR. RILEY:	Well, that was very interesting.  I went to Oak Ridge High School.  And when I graduated, I decided to go to the University of Tennessee.  I went over there to enter.  And they had a math entrance exam, which I had to take.  Guess what?  I got tied for the highest grade in the math entrance exam.  But there was a reason for that.  My teacher for several years, Margaret Mars, in math, had done a great job in teaching us mathematics.  And that was the reason I was able to score so high on the math entrance exam on entering the University.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Looking back at your schooling in Oak Ridge, would you say that Oak Ridge Schools were maybe above the average schools around the country – we had the best teachers in Oak Ridge?  How would you rate that?  Would you rate that high?
MR. RILEY:	I would rate the Oak Ridge Schools as above average.  And they were much higher than the other schools – certainly higher than the school that I came from.  And the teachers were outstanding.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Back during the high school days, did you belong to any high schools clubs?  Or were there clubs in those days?
MR. RILEY:	There wasn’t much of that going on at that time.  I vaguely remember some club.  But I don’t know what its name was.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me about this picture right here in the upper right of the car and the kids.
MR. RILEY:	I had a Model A 1932 Ford Roadster.  It had a top that didn’t work and wooden floors.  It’s very interesting.  I’d taken the floor out.  And one day I took this girl for a ride after I’d taken that floor out.  And her dress flew up over her head.  And she blamed it on me.  And I had forgotten about the floorboard being out.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Where was this scene located?  Do you recall where this was?  And point out to me you in this car picture.  Where are you in the photograph?
MR. RILEY:	I’m with my hand on the wheel just getting out.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	That would be right here.
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	The name on the side of the door says “Atom Smasher”.  What’d you remember about that?
MR. RILEY:	I remember that wasn’t the original name.  Ed Westcott wanted to take a picture.  He said, “We gotta put a name on it.”  So we decided on the Atom Smasher, which is what we put on there.  But that hadn’t been on the car for a number of years.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	This scene is on Central Avenue where Central cafeteria was located.  Wasn’t the Wildcat Den in that building as well?
MR. RILEY:	Right at the end of that building.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me what you remember about the Wildcat Den.  What was that?
MR. RILEY:	Well, it was just a large, open room at the end of the cafeteria.  And it was always crowded with high school students.  And Bill Pollock used to put the records on.  And that music came out over the speakers in the building.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Bill Pollock was also responsible for putting sound all through the rec halls so that there was dance music and also dances on the tennis courts, I believe.
MR. RILEY:	Yes, and that was his music.  I didn’t know that they had put the speakers up on all those places.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	From what I’ve been told, without Bill Pollock’s music spread out all over town, it would’ve been a pretty quiet place to have fun.
MR. RILEY:	Yeah, right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	This photograph at the bottom here is the three coaches at the high school, with Ben Martin being in the middle – who you mentioned as the track coach.
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I believe he was a football coach, basketball.  Whatever they wanted him to do he did.
MR. RILEY:	Football, basketball, baseball –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me about your time at the University of Tennessee.  This is your graduation, 1950.  You graduated in engineering, is that correct?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, that’s correct.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What did you do after you graduated from the University of Tennessee?
MR. RILEY:	Well, I went to work with Combusting Engineering in New York City.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What was your job title there?
MR. RILEY:	I think it was just mechanical engineer.  In the first year, I worked on helping the design of conventional power plants.  After a year, I got tired of New York City.  In fact, when I’d come to work, there’d just be all sorts of people lined up to go upstairs.  I decided to leave New York City.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And where did you go from New York City?
MR. RILEY:	I guess I went to Cincinnati.  I went to work for General Electric.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Were you an engineer for that company as well?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you like Cincinnati?
MR. RILEY:	Yeah, Cincinnati was better than New York City.  It wasn’t quite as crowded.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How long do you recall staying in Cincinnati?
MR. RILEY:	Quite a while.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	After your job in Cincinnati, where did you relocate to?
MR. RILEY:	Where’d I go from Cincinnati?
MRS. RILEY: San Jose, California.
MR. RILEY:	Yeah, we went to San Jose, California.
MRS. RILEY: With GE.
MR. RILEY:	With General Electric.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	As an engineer –
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Was that your position there?
MR. RILEY:	Nuclear Power Plant Design.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you like California?
MR. RILEY:	Well, it was nice.  We enjoyed California.  The weather was better than it had been in New Jersey.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I see here in your bio that you were promoted to Assistant Director of Engineering, Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project in Oak Ridge.  Is that when you came back to Oak Ridge?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	In ’68, it says Atomic Energy Commission in Germantown to head up the famous Corps design section – The Reactor Development and Technology Division.  And then you were promoted to branch chief responsible for the design, development, and fabrication of the FFTF Reactor Corps in 1971 and 1974.
 MR. RILEY:	That’s Fast Flux Test Facility.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me about that.  What kind of reactor is that?  I’m not familiar enough to know.
MR. RILEY:	Well, I can make an interesting comment.  A fast flux reactor – in fact, FFTF demonstrated this – shuts down by itself automatically without any special controls.  And it just has faster neutrons in it.  We don’t have any of those reactors working today.  But if Chernobyl had been a fast reactor, it would’ve shut itself down and wouldn’t have destroyed itself.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you came to Oak Ridge and you worked on the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project, tell me what you remember about that.
MR. RILEY:	Well, I remember that everybody that was working for me took their specific responsibility.  And anything that I accomplished was accomplished by those people working for me.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Your bio says that you had some sixty customer professionals and forty-four hundred personnel at the Project.  So you were the head kingpin of the Breeder Reactor.  In your opinion, why did the Breeder Reactor – not to go online – why did they stop the project?
MR. RILEY:	Well, I think mainly because nuclear power had a negative view in this country.  And everybody thought that anything connected with nuclear power could end up like Chernobyl and destroy itself.  What they didn’t understand is the physics and engineering of a fast reactor, which automatically shut itself down if it got overheated.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I see also here that the costs were within 10 percent of initial estimates at the time that you left the Project.  So you really did a bang-up job on the cost.
MR. RILEY:	But the people working for me did the job.  Everybody had a specific responsibility in cost.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And when was the Breeder Reactor Project shut down?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I’m sorry.  It’s right here.  It ran from 1975 through 1981.  I remember as an early Oak Ridger, that was the big news in Oak Ridge.  I’ve seen photographs where they had quite a gouge in the ground.  You may or may not be familiar with this.  Is this the same location that TVA is talking about building some small reactors?
MR. RILEY:	Exactly the same location.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And what would be TVA’s purpose by doing this?  Do you know?
MR. RILEY:	Well, it’s just using the property that they had.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you talk about small reactors, what is that related to like the breeder reactor is?  I’m not familiar enough to ask.
MR. RILEY:	It’s conventional power plant reactors.  And they’re very small and produce a small level of power – probably 20-30 megawatt power.  
MR. HUNNICUTT:	In your opinion, in today’s world, would that be a useful thing for TVA to do this?
MR. RILEY:	No.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And why not?
MR. RILEY:	Well, they ought to be building greater reactors, which are more efficient and you don’t have to have special shutdown characteristics if they overheat.  They shut down by themselves.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you think that’s a political situation?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, it’s a political situation.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Are you familiar with – and I may have this name wrong – the molten-salt reactor that never was online out at ORNL?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me about that.
MR. RILEY:	Well, that was built in Oak Ridge.  I can’t remember the name of the fella that was responsible for it.  But I knew him.  Things just got put off about the time they were ready to start building those molten-salt reactors.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you were back in Oak Ridge, were you married at that time?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When did you meet your wife?
MR. RILEY:	Well, one of my fraternity brothers brought her over to the fraternity house on a date and introduced me.  That was his big mistake.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And what was her name?
MR. RILEY:	There she is – Betty.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Another Betty in the family – and where did Betty live?
MR. RILEY:	She lived in Karns – Byington –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Is Byington right at the red light we know of and Karns?  Is that where Byington is?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, between Oak Ridge and Knoxville.  I used to drive through there every day to go to University.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When you came back to Oak Ridge, where were you living?
MR. RILEY:	Same place.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So you stayed at your parents’ house.
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MRS. RILEY: No, here – when we came back to Clinch River, this is the house:  709 Largo Vista Road.  This is where we lived.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So we got a correction there on that.  That’s okay.  Do you all have children?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, three children – four children – three girls and one boy.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Are you sure?
MR. RILEY:	I’m positive.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What are their names?
MR. RILEY:	Carol, Kathy, Lisa, and Donald – we didn’t name any of the girls Betty.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	But you got a Donald in there.  Where are they today?
MR. RILEY:	California, Dallas, Texas, Connecticut –
MRS. RILEY: Can I correct this?  Carol Jean is in California.  Lisa is in Dallas, Texas.  Kathy is in Hartford, Connecticut.  And Donald is in Denver, Colorado.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	When did you retire?
MR. RILEY:	I retired –
MRS. RILEY: Nineteen ninety-five.
MR. RILEY:	Ninety-five, I guess, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	After you left the Breeder Project, what did you do after that?
MR. RILEY:	I went out to Denver and worked with the Atomic Energy Commission on various activities.  I don’t remember exactly.
MRS. RILEY: You were at Rocky Flats.
MR. RILEY:	Rocky Flats, Colorado.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall what you did there?
MR. RILEY:	Well, John Shanahan and I looked at several potential plant uses.  But that wasn’t too specific.
MRS. RILEY: Plutonium recovery – that what it says –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I’m looking at the bio to see where we are.  Was Rocky Flats out in the middle of nowhere?
MR. RILEY:	No, it’s just outside of Denver, Colorado.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you live in Denver and then drive to Rocky Flats?
MR. RILEY:	No, we lived in Broomfield, which is halfway to Denver, I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	She’s going to point out to me the information about Rocky Flats.  I’m interested to know about Rocky Flats.  It was part of the Manhattan Project in the early days.
MRS. RILEY: Nineteen eighty-nine.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And it still continued to be part of a –
MR. RILEY:	At that time, they decided to close down Rocky Flats and eliminate all the facilities that existed there.  That was about the time I was leaving.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And then in ’94, you became engineering consultant for the Giesel, G-I-E-S-E-L Engine Project, working for Jack Hope.  He was a long-time friend and associate of yourself.  Where was that located?
MRS. RILEY: Hillsboro, Ohio, is where Jack operated from.  You were living here.
MR. RILEY:	I was living here and just used to go up there and work part-time.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	So you were a consultant with that company at that time.
MR. RILEY:	Yes, I didn’t get paid anything, I don’t think.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Let’s go back a little bit now to your time that you met your wife Betty, and a friend of yours brought her to the sorority.
MR. RILEY:	Fraternity –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Can you remember what transpired after that?  How long did you date or know her before you proposed?
MR. RILEY:	Well, I guess I was moved out of town on work after that.  I dated her off and on.  I don’t remember when I proposed.
MRS. RILEY: Would you like for me to –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Yes, go ahead, Betty.
MRS. RILEY: We met – I was a freshman at the university.  And he graduated in December.  And I started in September.  So we met just as he graduated.  He wrote me a letter every day until we got engaged, about a year later.  And after then, no more letters.  But I was a sophomore when we got married.  And he was living in New York City.  On our sixtieth wedding anniversary, the children were asking us why I picked him.  And they all got a big laugh when I said he had a job.  Anyway, we’ve had a wonderful 62 years now.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Let’s bounce back a little bit to early days in Oak Ridge.  Do you remember a place called the Snow White Drive-In?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, I remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And the Skyway Drive-In – this is two different places.  The Skyway Drive-In is an outdoor theater.
MR. RILEY:	I remember it.  It’s not there anymore, is it?
MR. HUNNICUTT:	No.  And the Snow White Drive-In is an eating drive-in that was a very popular place for kids to gather.
MR. RILEY:	The interesting thing about the drive-in theater – I used to go and park outside of that and walk and watch the movie and listen to it without paying anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You told me a story one time about you and a few of your friends up in Jackson Square, climbing up on top of the building where the Center Theater was.  Tell me that story.
MR. RILEY:	Well, there was a whole group of us in the Recreation Hall in Jackson Square.  And there was a door.  Inside the door was a ladder that went up to the ceiling.  And I went up there.  And three or four other people went up with me.  And we were walking all around the ceiling in Jackson Square – the roof.  One of the guys reached over and wanted to spell his name from the marquee.  And the cop said, “Hey, stop that.”  Well, I started running.  Back in New Jersey, any time the cops came up – if you ran, everybody’d go in different directions.  This time, everybody followed me and went down the steps and opened the door.  And there’s a cop right there.  Everybody was running.  We all ended up in the police headquarters.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What happened then?
MR. RILEY:	Well, my father said put me on the bus and tell him to come home.  One of the fellas gave the wrong name.  And he got caught up with a day or two later.  Bruce Rossnagle’s parents said, “Let him stay overnight.”  So he stayed overnight.  And most of us left.  I caught the bus and got home.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Were you punished by your father?
MR. RILEY:	No.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did your mother do any punishment?
MR. RILEY:	No, nobody punished me.  I told them what had happened.  They thought that was comical.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you remember the family having a radio when you were growing up?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you listen to the radio very much?
MR. RILEY:	No.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall your mom listening to the radio?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did the family have a telephone in the early days?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, 56560.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	That’s amazing you remember that number.  Were you on a party line?
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Tell me what a party line is.
MR. RILEY:	Well, that means several people are on the same phone.  They can pick up and listen to your conversation.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	How did you know when to pick the phone up if it rang?  Did it have a certain ring or something like that?
MR. RILEY:	Well, no.  If I heard somebody, I’d put it back down.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	But if I would call your house, how would you know to answer the telephone?
MR. RILEY:	Well, it would ring and so we’d answer.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	In those days, the party line – if you dialed your number, it would only ring your house.  And it wouldn’t ring somebody else’s.
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	But you could still pick the phone up and listen to other conversations.
MR. RILEY:	Yeah, other people on the same party line.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Is this something you want to confess to?  Did you do that, Don?
MR. RILEY:	No, I never did that.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I’ve got another article here about some of the planning committee for the May 2000 reunion.  And it’s showing some of the people that were on this.  You was presented a – you’re holding a plaque.  Betty, maybe you could explain a little bit more about this for our audience.
MRS. RILEY: The committee selected some teachers that were their favorite teachers.  And they presented this plaque.  I assume it’s hanging at the high school today.  And that’s a list of the favorite teachers.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Does your class have get-togethers, Don, where your classmates that are still around the area go and gather for lunches or various things like that?
MR. RILEY:	Well, we did for a while have general class get-togethers every year or so.  But after a few years, that ended.  We do get together with some of the Oak Ridge classmates for lunch, that Francis Harris organized.  We haven’t met lately.  We usually get together with some of our old classmates.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I have some other information I want our audience to see.  This is Donald Henry Riley – Don’s father.  And this is the power plant he was responsible that they built at the K-25 site.  The project S-50 was connected to that power plant.  Do you recall that?
MR. RILEY:	Yes, and it didn’t last very long.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What was wrong with that program?
MR. RILEY:	I really don’t know.  Technically, they just cut it off for some reason.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	It probably wasn’t producing at a pace they wanted.
MR. RILEY:	Right.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	This bottom photograph shows the demolition of the power plant.
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Did you witness this by any means?
MR. RILEY:	No.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Your father and mother lived in Oak Ridge until the time of their deaths, is that correct?
MR. RILEY:	No, they moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
MRS. RILEY: About 1953.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall why they left Oak Ridge?
MRS. RILEY: He was no longer employed there.  And he took another job.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Donald, you mentioned earlier about a rifle that you had.  Tell me that story.
MR. RILEY:	Well, guns were banned in every place in Oak Ridge.  It turned out that the moving van brought down my single-shot 22 rifle.  Well, I found it in the house.  At the Boy Scout camp, I was on the rifle range.  And I got a box of 22 short shells and brought them home.  We decided to take the rifle out and climb over West Oak Ridge Drive –
MR. HUNNICUTT:	At Outer Drive –
MR. RILEY:	Outer Drive and go through the security fence.  I went out there with the rifle and fired several times and then came back through the same hole in the fence.  I did that a couple times.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You never got caught.
MR. RILEY:	Never got caught.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I know Oak Ridge was just a wooded, hilly terrain and very few houses until they built Oak Ridge.  So anywhere you went would be a new adventure, wouldn’t it.
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Just be like all virgin territory where no one probably had been very much – is that kind of the way the situation was?
MR. RILEY:	Well, we went out of Oak Ridge – over the Ridge – there wasn’t anybody out there.  There weren’t any houses or anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	We interviewed another gentleman that talked about going through a hole in a fence up off of Outer Drive.  Maybe that was the same hole in the fence.
MR. RILEY:	It might’ve been the same guy.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	There’s also a couple of interesting things on your bio that you were an instrument-rated pilot.
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	For what type of aircraft?
MR. RILEY:	A private airplane.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Small aircraft –
MR. RILEY:	Yeah.
MRS. RILEY: You had a Cessna.  And then you had a Bonanza-A36
MR. RILEY:	I don’t remember what it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You also liked the ham radio.  You were a member of the ham radio club as well.  Do you recall what your call letters were?
MR. RILEY:	N4CZL.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	You also were an elder in the Presbyterian church.  And you taught Sunday school.  What was the name of the church that you did that?
MR. RILEY:	That was –
MRS. RILEY: Sycamore Presbyterian Church in Loveland, Ohio.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	And out of your children, you’ve got eight grandchildren.
MR. RILEY:	Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you have more boys than girls?
MRS. RILEY: Seven boys, one girl.  And two of the boys have become nuclear engineers – in their grandfather’s footsteps.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	I see here also that you’ve got more than several – matter of fact, about 25 publications of various papers that you’ve written.  What is that related to?
MR. RILEY:	Engineering publications.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	What do you remember as the greatest thing you’ve ever seen in your lifetime or even heard about?
MR. RILEY:	One of the greatest things in my past was spending time in Japan.  That was really interesting.  
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Can you recall what you’re referring to?  Why did you like Japan?
MR. RILEY:	Well, the people – the students would try to talk to us in English.  I had studied Japanese.  But when I tried to talk Japanese, they’d all correct me.  And they all wanted to speak English.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Is Japanese a hard language to understand?
MR. RILEY:	I don’t think so.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Do you recall anything else you’d like to talk about at this time that we haven’t covered about Oak Ridge or your career or anything?  Does anything else come to mind that you did as a mischief boy – if that be the case?
MR. RILEY:	I think the real interesting thing is when I climbed through that window and got in bed.  And the family came through the front door.  I thought they were in bed.
MR. HUNNICUTT:	Well, Don, it’s been my pleasure to interview you.  I appreciate you letting us come into your home and take this oral interview about Oak Ridge history, your working success as an engineer, and all your accomplishments that you’ve done throughout your career.  This will be part of Oak Ridge history.  Somewhere down the road, maybe some young man or woman might pull up your interview and get inspired to become an engineer or take whatever’s been said about Oak Ridge’s early history and use it in whatever ways that they’d like to.  Thank you very much.
MR. RILEY:	I appreciate the opportunity.

[End of Interview]

[Editor’s Note: Portions of this interview have been edited at Mr. Riley’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]