As I mentioned, married Soldiers couldn't have their own houses, but did have
the privilege of renting rooms from civilians, usually for about the same
rent that the civilians paid the government for the whole house. We lived in
about 3 places, one of which we had all to ourselves (plus a few cats, chickens,
etc) while a teacher friend went home for the summer. Much later on, after eve ryone was housed, including even the blacks (remember that this was 1944 in a
southern state), there were a few plywood "Victory Cottages" left over that
were rented to SED people for $14/month. The rent included the cooking/heating
kerosene delivered to a 50 gallon drum at the edge of the road (we also used it
as antifreeze for cars, and diluted our rationed gasoline with it), and
electricity. The buildings sat on the side of a hill, partially on stilts, on
Raccoon Avenue - They were about 25 feet on a side, and divided into 2 "apartments" - Each had a living room/kitchen with a large cast iron wood stove, converted to kerosene, which heated the area, cooked the food, and heated the hot water!

 
Thus, in summer, if you wanted hot water and food, you also got heat. There
was a bedroom, and a tiny bathroom with shower. We shared the building with the
Crosslands (Jean was working as a secretary in the K-25 process area, and
Doug was with me in the Lab Engineering Dept). The Cottages weren't furnished, so
we were given permission for a one time scrounge of furniture from a dorm
that was closing - Several of us borrowed an Army 6x6, which I drove, because I
was the only one with an Army License (allowing me to drive nothing larger than
a Jeep), filled it up with beds, chests, chairs, pillows, mattresses,
anything that was loose and we could move, and brought them back - I had never driven a vehicle with power brakes, and stopped abruptly at an intersection and saw
people and furniture drawers flying over my head. The mistake had been in
loading the chests of drawers facing forward, and letting the other members of the
scrounging crew ride on top. None of them slid any further than the hood,
fortunately. We made double beds by sewing single mattresses together (Reg & I
owned the only large curved needle, which was used by at least 10 couples). We
got sheets, towels, and blankets illegally from the Barracks area supply Sgt.
Other furniture was made from crates which Reg's school art supplies had come
in.

Doug and I made some of the kitchenware, like spun nickel pots, Pyrex
glasses, and scrounged some others - Reg and Jean did most of their cooking in Pyrex Laboratory glassware (retorts, flasks, etc.)! While making a set of stem
glasses in the glass lab one time, I got a little careless, and ended up with
severe burns in the palm of my right hand - My only war wound. I think that we have
one Pyrex stem glass left - a pretty crude thing made from tubing.

About the only sidewalks there were in town were those at "Jackson Square",
sometimes called "townsite", the town center, and they were of wood! - I always
had mud on my Army boots, and Reg almost always wore her boots. It was fun
for us, learning about rural living - For instance, when we splurged, and had
chicken for dinner, we had to buy LIVE ones, and kill, pluck, and clean them,
before cooking - You should have seen Reg gingerly carrying them home, holding
them by the feet! "Don't move chickens, please don't move".  We did a lot of
hitch hiking, both in town, and out, and of course used the pretty good bus
service most of the time.

The "permanent" housing came in all sizes, and were mostly made with wood
frames enclosing Transite panels. Heating was forced air from manually stoked
coal furnaces, with the coal supplied as part of the rent. The better homes, and
areas, were in the north of town, on a ridge overlooking the Cumberlands. This
is where Reg's school, Highland View, was located. The quality, and size, of
the houses, and their location, were directly related to the rank or job title
of the tenant.

More about chickens, and hitchhiking. One day, when we were living for the
summer in the borrowed house on Outer Drive, Reg got a hitch down to the market
with an old farmer. While wandering around looking for things, she noticed
that he was following her around. She was scared silly, but asked him what he
wanted. It turned out that he couldn't read, and wanted her to help him by
reading the labels on the packages. He was so grateful, that the next day he came to
our house with 3 live chickens. Reg put them into the coop with our
landlady's chickens, who immediately attacked the intruders, causing them to "fly the
coop". When I got home, she was in tears, because she had not been able to
find, or recapture them.