Page 15 of The Women of Oak Ridge
She nodded but didn’t elaborate.
I removed the second badge. A pretty blonde woman looked into the camera, her lips lifted in a slight smile. “Who is this?” I handed it to her.
Aunt Mae squinted at the badge, then gasped. “I’d forgotten this was inside that box.” She stared at the photograph, clearly distressed by the image.
My question went unanswered. Without knowing who the woman was, I couldn’t begin to guess why seeing her pleasant face upset my aunt. It seemed best to end this trip down memory lane.
I gently took the badge out of her grasp. “We can put these things away now, Aunt Mae.”
She let me take it from her, but her face had drained of color. “I knew it was a mistake to revisit the past,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Laurel. This is all a big mistake.”
Without waiting for a reply, she stood and hurried down the hall. Peggy trotted after her. The door to her bedroom clicked shut a moment later. Muffled sobs followed.
I huffed out a breath, loaded with frustration and regret. Even though it had been her idea to look through the contents of the box, I felt guilty. Curious, I studied the picture of the blonde woman, then turned the badge over and found printed information.
Bearer: Sylvia Jean Galloway.
I’d never heard the name before. It listed her height, weight, hair and eye color. It also bore her signature and that of an Identification Officer.
Her hair was styled in the fashion many young women wore in the 1940s, with a large roll of hair in the center of her head and bouncy waves of golden locks to her shoulders. Her rounded cheeks and bright eyes gave the appearance of innocence.
“Who are you?” I wondered aloud. “And why did seeing your picture hurt Aunt Mae?”
The answers to those questions may never come.
I picked up Aunt Mae’s badge. “Maebelle Ann Willett.” It too gave her physical description. When I turned it over again, twenty-something-year-old Aunt Mae looked at me. She was young, pretty, full of dreams, I suspected.
I thought back to the day before I left for Tennessee. I’d gone to my parents’ house for dinner, hoping for some inside information on Aunt Mae. Dad said his sister was beyond excited to leave Kentucky on what she’d called a grand adventure.
“Mae was always curious about the world,” he’d said. “Always had her head in a book she’d borrowed from her teachers. She’d wanted to go to college and do something with her life, but she was different after the war.”
“How so?” I’d asked.
“It was as though the light in her had been snuffed out. She’d lost her zest for life. Whether that was due to the war or the atomic bomb, I couldn’t say. She stayed in Oak Ridge and worked at K-25 until it shut down in 1964. Funny thing, though. Mae never wanted to talk about her job or anything to do with Oak Ridge’s big secret.”
I repacked the box, put the lid on it, and carried it to my room. Reading through the newspapers tonight, however, no longer appealed. Clearly Aunt Mae’s memories of life in Oak Ridge during the war held an unpleasantness she had no desire to revisit. Research for my dissertation wasn’t important enough to cause distress to my aging aunt.
As I readied for bed, I came to a conclusion.
I’d simply need to find other Oak Ridge residents like Georgeanne willing to share their stories and leave dear Aunt Mae’s in the past.
