Oral History of Henry and Helen Mckown

ORAL HISTORY OF HENRY AND HELEN MCKOWN

Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt

Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.

March 17, 2015

34

MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is March 17, 2015. I’m Don Hunnicutt in the home of Henry McKown and Helen McKown, 102 Emory Lane, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take their oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

MR. HUNNICUTT: First, Helen, let’s start with you. Would you please state your name, place of birth, and date, please?

MRS. MCKOWN: My name is Helen McKown. I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 29, 1923.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your maiden name?

MRS. MCKOWN: My maiden name was Helen Louise Howes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your parents’ name?

MRS. MCKOWN: My father was Frank Trombley Howes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And your mother’s maiden name?

MRS. MCKOWN: Minnie Duensing.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What did your father do for a living?

MRS. MCKOWN: He was a civil engineer.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother work?

MRS. MCKOWN: Yes, she taught school.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have sisters and brothers?

MRS. MCKOWN: I did have a brother. He’s dead now.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was his name?

MRS. MCKOWN: His name was George Howes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember his birth date?

MRS. MCKOWN: The same day. He was born two hours after I was.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your grandparents’ names on your mother’s side?

MRS. MCKOWN: On my mother’s side, it was Wilhelmina Duensing. The father was Louis Duensing.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Where do they live?

MRS. MCKOWN: They grew up in Germany, came to the states I think right after the Civil War.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what your grandfather did for a living?

MRS. MCKOWN: He was a miller in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Henry, would you state your full name and place of birth and date, please?

MR. MCKOWN: My name is Henry Story McKown.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And the place of birth and date?

MR. MCKOWN: Rochester, New York.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your father and mother’s name?

MR. MCKOWN: My father was Samuel Campbell McKown. My mother was Louise Story.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of work did your father do?

MR. MCKOWN: He worked in a small pastry flour mill in Rochester, New York.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother work?

MR. MCKOWN: No.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have brothers and sisters?

MR. MCKOWN: I have one sister.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What is her name?

MR. MCKOWN: Mary McKown Cunningham.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me go back to you, Helen. Tell me about the school when you went to school, and where was it?

MRS. MCKOWN: I went to a school, elementary school, in St. Paul. I think it was Richard Gordon or something. I went there from kindergarten through half of seventh grade. My twin brother and I were not in the same classes at all after kindergarten. I didn’t have any rivalry with him. It was just the way we were growing up.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you think that was unusual that he wasn’t in class with you?

MRS. MCKOWN: No, I didn’t think it was unusual. He had a nearsightedness problem, and so that kept him from being as swift at reading as I was. We’ll put it that way.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what the dress was for a girl in those days.

MRS. MCKOWN: We always wore dresses. In the winter we could wear leggings, but we always wore dresses.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What were leggings made from?

MRS. MCKOWN: Woolish.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe if you can remember a typical setting of the classroom where you went to school.

MRS. MCKOWN: There were desks, and each person had a desk. We traveled – after the third grade, we traveled to different rooms around the school, to different teachers.

MR. HUNNICUTT: For different subjects?

MRS. MCKOWN: For different subjects.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What are some of the subjects you recall taking?

MRS. MCKOWN: I remember history particularly because the teacher was the kind of person who would make sure you remembered history. I remember going to singing classes, music classes. Other than that, I don’t remember. I guess we had a homeroom and then the special classes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you enjoy school?

MRS. MCKOWN: Yes. Yes, I enjoyed it.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That was through the seventh grade, did you say?

MRS. MCKOWN: Part of seventh grade.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And after the seventh grade, what school did you go to?

MRS. MCKOWN: I went to Marie Sanford Junior High School.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What were the grades in the junior high?

MRS. MCKOWN: It was the rest of seventh grade and up through ninth grade.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you notice different between the elementary grade school and when you moved to junior high? Do you recall?

MRS. MCKOWN: Yes, the students were different. We were mixed with children from other schools. That was more stimulating.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How far away was your home from the school?

MRS. MCKOWN: I walked to school both ways, half a mile maybe.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What were the winters like when you were growing up?

MRS. MCKOWN: It was cold. Snow was deep sometimes, not like we’re having now – or the length of it. But we walked to school. There was no closing of school mostly. I don’t remember closing. If I do… If we were not going to elementary, I don’t remember. I remember walking one time to Central High School, and it was only 20 below. I got there, and I had to walk home again because it was closed.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of clothing did you wear for 20 below temperatures?

MRS. MCKOWN: It wasn’t leggings. It was ski pants, snow pants.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you warm?

MRS. MCKOWN: Yes. I still wear wool clothing in the wintertime here.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Let’s go back to you, Henry. Tell me about your schooling. Do you recall your elementary days?

MR. MCKOWN: We just had two schools. They were kindergarten and up to… I’m not quite sure what it was. Seventh or eighth grade, something like that. And then I went to the Monroe High School, which is from there all the way on through 12th grade.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How far did you live from the school?

MR. MCKOWN: It was a half-mile to the grade school, and about a mile and a quarter to the high school.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk to school each day?

MR. MCKOWN: Most of the time. Usually we could get a parent to take us to school. We always walked home.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How were the winters where you grew up?

MR. MCKOWN: We had lots of snow. Rochester and Buffalo are on the Great Lakes, and they have a lot of snow.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the house that you grew up in, what it looked like?

MR. MCKOWN: It was a two-story house – kitchen, dining room, living room, and front hall, and three bedrooms upstairs.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have your own bedroom?

MR. MCKOWN: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you required to do chores when you were growing up?

MR. MCKOWN: I think all I remember is doing the dishes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s a chore.

MR. MCKOWN: My father did the washing, and my sister and I and Mother did the drying and putting things away.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the things you did for enjoyment or fun during your schooldays?

MR. MCKOWN: We lived about between a quarter and a half-mile from the city park. In the wintertime, it had ice-skating there. Then there was a baseball field and things like that.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you very athletic?

MR. MCKOWN: Not really, no. I worked at it, but I was not. I was never good enough to be on a school team.

MR. HUNNICUTT: But you liked to play sports with the other kids?

MR. MCKOWN: Yes. We could go out in this field and this park and set up your own baseball thing.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Were your parents strict on you?

MR. MCKOWN: They were very nice.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me ask you the same question, Helen. Were your parents strict with you and your brother?

MRS. MCKOWN: I guess Mother was a little bit more strict. I know my father was not.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do for fun and enjoyment, other than going to school?

MRS. MCKOWN: Playing with the kids on the block. We did all kinds of things. Boys would get out and have a baseball game or football game, and we would watch. In the evenings in the summer we played games in our neighbors’ yards and so forth. Hide and Seek type things.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the neighborhood pretty friendly with each other, everybody was cordial and blended together in those days?

MRS. MCKOWN: Yes, I think so.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you play in the street a lot?

MRS. MCKOWN: Yes, we could play in the street. We didn’t have any problems with that. Cars weren’t that prolific then.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a job growing up?

MRS. MCKOWN: My brother sold – delivered the newspapers and had a magazine route that he delivered to people. I inherited part of his magazine route when I was a kid.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much you made off of that?

MRS. MCKOWN: Not very much.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How about you, Henry? Did you have a job you were growing up?

MR. MCKOWN: Not really. I did work in my father’s flour mill.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what some of your job duties were?

MR. MCKOWN: They had these machines where you fill the five pounds of flour in the bag or 12 pounds or 24 pounds and that sort of thing. I used to ride in their delivery trucks. See, they had to deliver the stuff to the stores, and the places where cakes and things were made.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Helen, describe what your house looked like when you are growing up.

MRS. MCKOWN: It was as Hank’s was – a two floor house with a basement and an attic. I think it had an attic.

MR. HUNNICUTT: When you graduated from high school, what did you do to further your education?

MRS. MCKOWN: I went to a junior college for two years.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the name of the junior college?

MRS. MCKOWN: Stephens College. It was in Columbia, Missouri.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you study?

MRS. MCKOWN: Just the liberal arts-type study with the field of going into education, but just the basic things you have for freshman and sophomore classes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: When you left home, can you remember how it was not living at home anymore?

MRS. MCKOWN: Yes. It was very different. It was an all-girl school, and it was dormitory-style. I had never lived with any girls before. It was interesting to get used to all these girls from the South and the West.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you a good student?

MRS. MCKOWN: Average.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Hank, what did you do after you graduated? Do you recall the high school that you graduated from?

MR. MCKOWN: Monroe High School.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do to further your education?

MR. MCKOWN: I went to Williams College in Massachusetts.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you major in?

MR. MCKOWN: Chemistry, minor in physics and mathematics.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me how you got involved with the Manhattan Project.

MR. MCKOWN: 1939, World War II started in Europe. We were in Ontario, Canada, on vacation, and the Nazis invaded Paris. There was some concern about whether I would be able to get back into the United States because my parents were worried. Was I escaping, trying to escape from the war? No, I wasn’t. I lived in Rochester, New York.

MR. HUNNICUTT: But were you recruited for the Manhattan Project? Did someone…?

MR. MCKOWN: The United States became involved in the world war when I was a sophomore in college. In my junior year, I came through just a regular schedule. Then the war was on. The Army was looking for people to be soldiers. I wasn’t anxious to be a soldier. The Fall semester we put it into the summer. We had no Summer vacation. The the second half of senior year, was 1 October to the first of the year. While I was in college, a month before the end – or two months before – somebody from Columbia University was looking for people to come to the project, and they said “Do you want to come?” I said “Yes. Is there a way to get out of the Army?” They said “Yes. No problem.” I had a father who was in World War I. He was not in the fighting because he was a little bit older. He came right at the end of World War I.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what year it was you came to Oak Ridge?

MR. MCKOWN: I started at the Manhattan Project in December 1942.

Insert at the McKown’s request: In December 1942, some Williams students went to work for the Manhattan Project. I was sent to Columbia University in New York and worked in the chemistry research section on heavy water. Three of the Williams students came to Oak Ridge into uranium research.

After about six months of that, they said, “Do you want to go to Canada?” I said, “Sure.” I was asked to go to Trail, British Columbia, to work on the Heavy Water Project there under the Manhattan Project. When I got to Trail, my job was more engineering. “Do you know how to run a mass spectrometer?” I stepped back and said, “I don’t even know what a mass spectrometer is.” I learned to use it. I stayed in British Columbia about 14 months and just loved the place.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know why that particular area was chosen for that project?