 Los Alamos Historical Society Executive Director Elizabeth Martineau in the Victory Garden behind the Hans Bethe House on Bathtub Row. Enterprise Bank’s support helped create this garden open daily to the public. Photo by Gordon McDonough By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos Historical Society The Los Alamos Historical Society is planting a victory garden for the second year in a row, an effort that connects us to the Manhattan Project years and the World War II era. It is a living connection not only to Los Alamos history but also to our national history. The term victory garden dates back to World War I, when Americans were asked to grow “War Gardens”, but after the war, when the government encouraged the continuation of producing food in home gardens, the name changed to “Victory Gardens”. With the advent of a second world war, the idea was resurrected. The planning of personal gardens to help with the production of food was in full swing again by 1943, with approximately 20 million victory gardens planted. The national promotion of the gardens was handled by the Department of Agriculture, and despite the fact that most of the citizen gardeners were unskilled, they managed to raise approximately 8 million tons of food. The following year, they produced 40 percent of the vegetables grown in the United States, accounting for more than a million tons of food.
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 Master Cottage #1 shown in 2018, now known as the Hans Bethe House and Harold Agnew Cold War Gallery. Photo by Todd Nickols By SHARON SNYDER
The Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS) was in its seventh year when Director A.J. Connell had a small wooden building constructed to the west of the Big House to use as director’s quarters, giving him some privacy and freeing up space in the main building. However, there was a slight miscalculation, and long foul balls from the nearby baseball field had the potential to land on his roof. When Fuller Lodge was under construction in 1928, Connell moved to the third floor and turned over the small plank house to two young masters—Lawrence Hitchcock and Art Chase. In 1931, during a cold winter, the wooden cottage caught fire. With nearby Ashley Pond frozen over, there was little water to fight the flames, and the structure burned to the ground. There was, however, something odd about the fire. May Connell, A.J.’s sister, noted that one corner of the house burned much longer than the rest of the building. The explanation revealed that a 30-gallon keg of corn whiskey was stored in that corner! (Prohibition was still in force but winding down, and the young men said they were aging the keg in case prices increased when prohibition ended.) By SHARON SNYDER
In this very different Christmas season, I find comfort in the words of Edith Warner, the woman who lived at Otowi Bridge. Life hands us challenges in many different ways. The challenges we are facing now are different from the ones she faced during World War II, but the way she faced them with strength and hope can be a comforting inspiration. Edith wrote Christmas letters to her friends each year. In sharing this one with you, I’ve had to delete some parts to stay within the publishing space available, but the flow of her thoughts and the message are still there. On Facebook this month we're going #InsideTheArchives to explore Manhattan Project secrecy.  A military examiner, identified only as #2034, used these two censor form slips to return a letter to Edward Wilder. Wilder Collection, Los Alamos Historical Society Archives and Collections.  WAC and chemist Helen Gowen feeds Timoshenko and friend. Courtesy/Reid Cameron family and Los Alamos Historical Society Archive By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos Historical Society Many famous names emerged from the Manhattan Project years on the Pajarito Plateau, but not all were scientists. Haskell Sheinberg, who came to Los Alamos as a member of the Special Engineer Detachment and stayed at the lab after the war years, remembered one such name. When Sheinberg was interviewed by the Atomic Heritage Foundation for the Manhattan Project Voices, he commented that dogs “were just allowed to roam” and remembered one such dog named Timoshenko, “the only dog allowed into the Tech Area, the main Tech Area.”  In this photo, María and Marcos Gomez are revisiting the site of their homestead on Two-Mile Mesa. Behind them is what was left of a corral. (Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives.) By Aimee Slaughter
Los Alamos Historical Society How did people in the Pajarito Plateau’s past get their water? How did they live in a dry environment like ours? Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here hundreds of years ago used ingenious dryland farming techniques, and homesteading farmers at the turn of the twentieth century also conserved water for their farms and families. The Los Alamos Ranch School had to provide water for students, staff, and animals at the school. When the Manhattan Project took over the area, a rapidly growing population strained infrastructure, and providing enough water to homes was a constant concern. For hundreds of years, people have solved the challenges of finding water in a dry environment and have created diverse and vibrant communities here on the Pajarito Plateau.  Barbara Bohr connects with thoughts of her great-grandfather Niels Bohr as she stands on Sawyer’s Hill where he once skied during the Manhattan Project. (Photo by Liz Martineau) By Sharon Snyder
Los Alamos Historical Society In mid August, the historical society was contacted by a young woman who wanted to visit Los Alamos to see where her ancestors had been during the Manhattan Project. She would be flying from Denmark and wanted to learn what might still be here from that era. While there aren’t many buildings in existence on the community side of the fence, there is still an aura of that time, those years in the mid-1940s when scientists came together from many parts of the world to focus on a singular goal. Flash forward to this past Thursday. The woman stood inside the Hans Bethe House, looking at the panels that show the names of Nobel Prize winners connected with Los Alamos. It must have been a moment of pride for her because Barbara Bohr has two family members shown on those panels—her great grandfather Niels Bohr and her grandfather Aage Bohr. By Heather McClenahan
Los Alamos Historical Society This week marks the 73rd anniversaries of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the end of World War II, the bloodiest conflict in human history. Reaction to the end of the war in Los Alamos, according to those who lived it, was mixed. Eleanor Jette described events in her classic book, Inside Box 1663: “About two o’clock, bedlam broke loose; word of the surrender request had reached the [army] barracks. GIs in trucks, jeeps, and on foot assembled in front of Theater Two, and a good part of the civilian population joined them. An impromptu parade started. Willy Higinbotham, playing his accordion, balanced precariously on the radiator of the leading jeep, and lids snatched from garbage cans clashed merrily. By Heather McClenahan
Los Alamos Historical Society A wrought iron gate, a smudged letter, and an old drum might rarely have intrinsic value. Rather, at least in the case of a museum, their value is in the stories behind them—what they represent—that gives them meaning. Such is the case at the Los Alamos History Museum. By HEATHER MCCLENAHAN
Los Alamos Historical Society Do you remember the last time you received an important letter—a real letter written in ink on real paper? In today’s world of texts, instant messages, and e-mails, it’s rare to get a genuine letter anymore. Yet historians are privileged to make discoveries with historic letters anddocuments on a regular basis, and sometimes, something really special comes along. A few months ago, one of the volunteers at the Los Alamos Historical Society Archives and Collections was going through a box donated over a decade ago by Los Alamos resident Bill Bernard when she discovered a letter marked “SECRET.” |
AboutThese articles are written by the Los Alamos Historical Society Staff. Many of these articles were originally published by the Categories
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