learn, always something that had applications to what was going on in the real world, today. She switched to chemistry and never looked back.
A recruiter came to speak to Virginia shortly before graduation. Virginia listened as the woman described a 90-square-mile area, with plants operating for the war effort and free buses running all night and day. There Virginia could put her science background to use. This magical place was in Tennessee, and Virginia was invited to come out for an interview over Christmas break.
It had been Virginia’s first train trip. She left home in Louisburg, North Carolina, where she had been spending Christmas with her family, and caught the bus to Greensboro. She spent the night with some friends at Greensboro College and caught a cab to the station the next morning. The train headed west and the flat Piedmont terrain exploded upward as they got closer to Asheville in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She had driven through Asheville before with her family. The Blue Ridge scenery was so different from her usual sea-level surroundings. Wisps of cloud clung to the rugged slopes of the Smokies, seeming to dance alongside the car just beyond the window. “Roll your windows down,” her father used to say, “and wash your hands in the clouds.”
Virginia’s friend Johnny, who had already begun work at CEW, met her at the Knoxville station, flower in hand. It was late, and she went straight to a boardinghouse in downtown Knoxville where the recruiter had arranged for her to stay. Virginia’s friend Virginia Kelly, also from Chapel Hill, had made the trip down from her hometown of Rochester, New York. The city appeared booming, jam-packed. Virginia was glad to have someone she knew to share the experience with.
Breakfast couldn’t have come soon enough. Not knowing how much a meal would cost in the dining car, Virginia had ignored the porter’s call to dinner and gone to bed hungry. Afterward, a car whisked the girls away to a Knoxville office where they were given physicals. Then the driver took the two Virginias down the highway through guarded Edgemoor Gate, onto the Reservation and straight to the Y-12 plant. Virginia enjoyed the view on the way in, passing along the frosted Clinch. Once through the gates the palette shifted. Slushy construction trails sprouted where wide tires had cut into the frozen earth.
The interview at Y-12 was mercifully brief and offered little more information than the recruiter who had visited campus. Virginia was offered a job and had accepted it. She was going to be a lab assistant on a very important war project. She would start after graduation.
Now after arriving at CEW no one could find Virginia’s paperwork. Officials instructed Virginia that the other workers in the bull pen with her needed to be trained. For what, specifically? The officials couldn’t say.
Virginia racked her brain to come up with interesting and impromptu lessons. The individuals were as varied as the jobs they were going to fill and they had arrived from farms across the state, and states across the country. Southern. Northern. Educated. Dropouts. City. Country. Male. Female. Virginia thought some looked bored to death no matter what she had planned for the day. Others were surprisingly interested. Virginia made the best of the uninspiring surroundings. She even performed small chemical experiments, designed to help explain, for example, how reactions took place and what “gases” were. She trotted out the old chemistry class standby of baking soda and vinegar. The hydrogen in the vinegar slammed into the bicarbonate of the baking soda, the resulting acid transformed into carbon dioxide and water, releasing a bubbling over of foaming energy, a visual show of new expanding forces resulting from the collision of two quiet and inert ones.
Virginia taught everyone how to read water and electric meters. Some had never used or even seen a yardstick or meterstick before, and
A recruiter came to speak to Virginia shortly before graduation. Virginia listened as the woman described a 90-square-mile area, with plants operating for the war effort and free buses running all night and day. There Virginia could put her science background to use. This magical place was in Tennessee, and Virginia was invited to come out for an interview over Christmas break.
It had been Virginia’s first train trip. She left home in Louisburg, North Carolina, where she had been spending Christmas with her family, and caught the bus to Greensboro. She spent the night with some friends at Greensboro College and caught a cab to the station the next morning. The train headed west and the flat Piedmont terrain exploded upward as they got closer to Asheville in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She had driven through Asheville before with her family. The Blue Ridge scenery was so different from her usual sea-level surroundings. Wisps of cloud clung to the rugged slopes of the Smokies, seeming to dance alongside the car just beyond the window. “Roll your windows down,” her father used to say, “and wash your hands in the clouds.”
Virginia’s friend Johnny, who had already begun work at CEW, met her at the Knoxville station, flower in hand. It was late, and she went straight to a boardinghouse in downtown Knoxville where the recruiter had arranged for her to stay. Virginia’s friend Virginia Kelly, also from Chapel Hill, had made the trip down from her hometown of Rochester, New York. The city appeared booming, jam-packed. Virginia was glad to have someone she knew to share the experience with.
Breakfast couldn’t have come soon enough. Not knowing how much a meal would cost in the dining car, Virginia had ignored the porter’s call to dinner and gone to bed hungry. Afterward, a car whisked the girls away to a Knoxville office where they were given physicals. Then the driver took the two Virginias down the highway through guarded Edgemoor Gate, onto the Reservation and straight to the Y-12 plant. Virginia enjoyed the view on the way in, passing along the frosted Clinch. Once through the gates the palette shifted. Slushy construction trails sprouted where wide tires had cut into the frozen earth.
The interview at Y-12 was mercifully brief and offered little more information than the recruiter who had visited campus. Virginia was offered a job and had accepted it. She was going to be a lab assistant on a very important war project. She would start after graduation.
Now after arriving at CEW no one could find Virginia’s paperwork. Officials instructed Virginia that the other workers in the bull pen with her needed to be trained. For what, specifically? The officials couldn’t say.
Virginia racked her brain to come up with interesting and impromptu lessons. The individuals were as varied as the jobs they were going to fill and they had arrived from farms across the state, and states across the country. Southern. Northern. Educated. Dropouts. City. Country. Male. Female. Virginia thought some looked bored to death no matter what she had planned for the day. Others were surprisingly interested. Virginia made the best of the uninspiring surroundings. She even performed small chemical experiments, designed to help explain, for example, how reactions took place and what “gases” were. She trotted out the old chemistry class standby of baking soda and vinegar. The hydrogen in the vinegar slammed into the bicarbonate of the baking soda, the resulting acid transformed into carbon dioxide and water, releasing a bubbling over of foaming energy, a visual show of new expanding forces resulting from the collision of two quiet and inert ones.
Virginia taught everyone how to read water and electric meters. Some had never used or even seen a yardstick or meterstick before, and
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