Domestic Life
Family and Children
Between 1943 and 1945 157 babies were born at Los Alamos. Each of these babies had PO Box 1663 on their birth certificate: the mailing address for the whole town of Los Alamos. This high birthrate transformed Los Alamos, leading to the construction of a school and a bigger hospital wing.
Part of the reason for the high birthrate was the appeal of Los Alamos as a safe environment to raise children. “Los Alamos had no crime. There was no kidnapping. It was an ideal situation to have children—to be able to have this kind of freedom, to grow up in this environment,” said Dolores Heaton, who was a child at Los Alamos. Many children attended a school set up by scientists’ and workers’ wives.
For the most, part keeping track of children was fairly easy. Once a child turned 6, he or she received the standard ID pass to go in and out of Los Alamos.
“If parents didn't want their children going off of the Hill, all they had to do is take their ID card away from them and they weren’t going anywhere,” Heaton remembered. “Because at that time to get in and out of Los Alamos you had to have your badge and your ID card. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about that.”
Shopping in Los Alamos
Technical Library Staff Party 1945
Parties
Having families on the Hill helped combat some of the isolation felt by the scientists and workers of the Manhattan Project, but it did not entirely solve their stress.
“We were tired. We were deathly tired,” remembered Elsie McMillan, the wife of scientist and future Nobel Prize winner Edwin McMillan. “We had parties, yes, once in a while, and I’ve never had so many drinks as there on the few parties. Because you had to let off steam, you had to let off this feeling of your soul, your ‘God, am I doing right?’ You had to.”
At these parties, the scientists and their wives dined, drank, danced, and discussed everything but their work. “Instead of being like most scientific evenings that you get used to – the men go off in a corner, and get to talking about what they are interested in – they could not do this,” said Jean Bacher, who was married to scientist Robert Bacher. “You would have some fascinating conversation. You would have a chance to talk about something besides science. You see, they couldn’t mention anything that they were working on.”
Women's Army Corps (WAC)
While significant numbers of civilian women served at all of the project sites, most of the women serving the Manhattan Project were soldiers and officers of the U.S. Army. During World War II, more than 150,000 American women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC), and WACs assigned to the Corps of Engineers participated in the Manhattan Project.
As early as 1943, women soldiers were brought into MED to undertake clerical, technical, and other administrative work. The need for additional personnel led to the establishment of a Manhattan District WAC Detachment on June 3, 1944. By the end of the war more than 400 WACs served in the Manhattan District.
WAC Member at work