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Fran to her Mom & Dad; Oct. 10, 1945  Oak Ridge, TN 

Fran to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. F. E. Carroll

                                                                                    Oct. 10, 1945. Monday

 Dear Mother & Dad

     Today finishes my first day of formal work—at the laboratories in Oak Ridge.  Couldn’t decide for a while which of two jobs to take—one in the main production plant or this one in the Central Laboratories.  The only reason I had an opportunity to choose is that the two men who head each place were originally SAM.

 At this very moment I’m heading toward Lenoir City in which there is a whole lil ole house which belongs to us temporarily.  It was a circuitous route to the house.  We had been staying at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville.  After a week and a half of that super-expensive spot, we moved to the Hotel St. James, practically as nice & ½ as expensive.  During the latter part of this time, we are continually following up leads on apartments & houses.  We turned down one 10 room house that we could have rented furnished for $60 a month in a forest-like section with lots of room around it.  We might have taken it if we had had a car, but it was so far out we would have had to arise at a most unusual hour & anyway the furniture wasn’t too good.  We’ve been to the outskirts of Knoxville—to the wrong side of the tracks.  Only one place in Knoxville that would have been fine, but at the last minute the occupants decided not to move & that was a very expensive one.

 Then thru the housing agency at Carbide—who is busily looking all this time also—directed us to $40/mo. furnished apartment in Louden(sp?) City.  We moved in the pouring rain Friday night.  Bill and a friend of ours came from the post with his stuff to Knoxville where we picked up the rest of our stuff & went 30 miles to Louden City.  We had arranged for the lights to be cut on that night, but we arrive about 11 and there are none.  But the place looks pretty good in the dark.  In the middle of the night Bill starts murmuring that something is biting him.  It develops that it is NOT mosquitoes, we discover in the morning.  I must be immunized after the Retreat & that hotel in New York.  Bill is in a frenzy to get out in the morning, but where?  Knoxville on a Sat. nite is not an easy time or place to find a bed.  Our aim had about boiled down to that—a bed for Tonight! 

 We went to the FHA who also handles Lenoir City.  Rented their last unfurnished house & bought a bed & visited the light/water/heat Co. before business closed down Sat. afternoon.  The house was new last year, but someone has lived in it for that year & it is quite dirty, but clean dirt.  Spent the weekend cleaning from the icebox, from the stove, & every inch of wall, floor, cupboards, etc. has to be washed—two bedrooms, living room, kitchen.  Dad, you remember that row of rooftops we went to see one day all alike as far as the eye can see practically?  Well, we’re right in the middle of the row—the one with the yellow blinds.  Even if we could have one at the end or sort of by itself—at the turn of a road, you know—I doubt if we’d have the ambition to move again. 

 You said once you’d like to see me stuck in Tennessee.  Well, I couldn’t be more so.  The only time you can travel from Oakridge to Lenoir City is via work buses at the beginning & ends of shifts.  & The only way you can get out of Lenoir City outside of walks in the country, lots of that, & we’re right on the Tennessee River, is to go 30 miles to Knoxville.   

 Did you get my last letter?  Send me a picture postcard of Hartford?  If you write, we have no mailbox so should be sent to me c/o Sgt. W. T. Allman, Jr. SED Barracks Area. Oak Ridge.  Love, Fran