February - April  2000 Newsletter

Volume I - Issue 1 & 2

This newsletter is sponsored by the Society for the Historical Preservation of the Manhattan Project (http://www.manhattanprojectmemorial.org and the Children of the Manhattan Project (http://home.att.net/~cotmp)

Topics covered in this issue:

This is our first newsletter. Each month we will e-mail a similar newsletter informing you of "happenings" at our web-site. I stress the word "our" because I sincerely hope that we, working together, can make a positive impact on preserving the memory of all those who gave so much to secure the peace and freedom that we enjoy today.

So far we have had quite a few "lookers" at what we are doing. Many are sitting on the sidelines trying to determine if this is something they want to get involved with. I've had a range of responses from "very excited" to "we don't want to rake up the past".

My goal with this web site never was to "open old wounds" but, more importantly, to prevent the "blood, sweat and tears" of so many people from fading into oblivion. If there are people that you know who might not want to actively participate but would be interested in receiving our newsletter, please let me know.

As always, I do need some suggestions on ways that we can improve the web site or ways that we can reach more people. I've had a suggestion from two different sources that we make a page on the web site dedicated to the memories of participants of the Manhattan Project who are no longer with us. My father is a good example. Please let me know what you think.

Each month, I will list 6 or 7 topics for inclusion in the newsletter. If you have a topic that you would like me to include, please let me know. Below are the 7 topics for the March newsletter.

1)  Publicizing Our Site

2)  New Web Address Registered

3)  Memorabilia Received From Monroe & Esther Messinger

4)  Manhattan Project Alumni Settle in the Aiken, SC/Augusta, GA Area

5)  Women Scientists at Los Alamos

6)  Edith Warner’s Tearoom

• Publicizing Our Site –

During the past 7 or 8 weeks that our web site has been up and running, we have spent an inordinate amount of time in the design and implementation phase of the web site itself. This has left very little time to address our main objective: namely locating people who participated in the Manhattan Project. Beginning in March, we will begin phase II…and, we need your help.

We now have approximately 500 to 600 names of individuals who we know for certain were at Los Alamos during the war years. I will be adding these names to the web site as time permits. If any of you have names of individuals that you would like to add, please let me know.

As we enter phase II of our web site development, the publicizing of the site becomes all-important…and, it is not easy. During the past few weeks, I have succeeded in exchanging “links” with the following sites. The number following each link is the number of referred visitors to our site for the month of February 2000.

· New Mexico State University – Tom Lynch             35

· The Enola Gay Site of Gen. Paul Tibbets                 28

· The Trinity Site                                                        13

· Gofci                                                                       07

In addition, I have recently purchased software to help publicize the web site to the many search engines available. This should greatly enhance our exposure. In the 7 weeks that we have been up and running, we have received close to 600 visitors to our site. Amazingly enough, for the month of February 2000, we had the following countries represented amongst our visitors:

Canada (2), Netherlands (2), Australia (2), Japan (2), Mexico (1), Sweden (1), Switzerland (1), and the United Kingdom (1)

One feather in our cap comes to us from http://Yep.com . Yep.com is a search engine that also rates sites. They have given us 4 and 1/2 "stars" out of 5 for Quality and 1/2 "star" for popularity.

• New Web Address Registered:

We have recently registered a new web site address that should become operational during the next few weeks. Our new address will be: themanhattanproject.net. This should help people locate us. I will let you know when the change becomes official.

• Memorabilia Received From Monroe & Esther Messinger:

Monroe Messinger was in charge of the first SED group to arrive at Los Alamos. He and his wife, Esther, have provided us with many original documents that we have uploaded to our web site. We have also included “Monroe’s Story” which adds insight to the U.S. Army’s recruitment of young professionals into the ranks of the SED.

• Manhattan Project Alumni Settle in the Aiken, SC/Augusta, GA Area:

In early March I was contacted by a woman who’s father was associated with the Manhattan Project, first at Columbia University and then at Oak Ridge, TN. She mentioned a story that ran in The Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, GA) in early 1999 as part of a “Celebrate 2000” series. In that article they talk about two dozen veterans of the Manhattan Project who live in the Augusta, GA area. For those of you who do not know, the Augusta area (actually Aiken, SC) is home to the vast complex known as The Savannah River Site or SRS. In the 1950’s, it was known as the Savannah River Plant and was administered by DuPont. This plant designed and built the reactors that were needed to produce the plutonium and tritium to fuel the more devastating hydrogen bomb.

The people mentioned in the article are Don and Jean Ebenhack, Don and Becky Webster, Gilbert McMillan, Nat and Helen Stetson, Bill Bebbington, J.W. Morris, and Raymond and Phyllis Hale. If you recognize any of these names, please let me know. I am in the process of contacting these individuals as we speak.

To view this article in its entirety, “click” on the URL below:

http://celebrate2000.morriscomm.com/stories/020899/his_manhattan.shtml

• Women Scientists at Los Alamos:

I had a request from Grace Pickering, who is studying the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University in England. She is doing a dissertation on the lives of the women at Los Alamos, NM during WWII. If anyone has any knowledge of the women scientists at Los Alamos, please e-mail me. Grace refers to two such scientists: Mary Argo and Clare Balke.

• Edith Warner’s Tearoom:

I also received a request from an author, Pat Burns, for information from anyone who ate at Edith Warner’s Tearoom and has any memories of her and Tilano. Edith Warner ran a Tearoom at the Rio Grande below Los Alamos long before the school on the mesa above her was taken over by the government for the Manhattan Project. She was a friend of Oppenheimer before he moved to the "Hill." When the Manhattan Project began up on the Hill, Oppenheimer arranged for Edith to serve dinners at her tearoom to an elite few--and she was able to continue her little business by the river.

Edith is the subject of two books already; a memoir by Peggy Church called The House at Otowi Bridge and a novel by Frank Waters called The Woman at Otowi Crossing. Both books paint the picture of an extraordinary woman, yet neither really tells her story. The book I'm working on is her story--50 years later. It's an exciting project for me because she was a truly an exceptional person and gifted writer. Thank you for your help in locating people who may have known her and her companion Tilano, pueblo elder and former governor of San Ildefonoso.

Thank you very much for your continued interest...

Joseph Calabrese e-mail: j_calabrese@angelfire.com