Transcription
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POST SCRIPT
After graduation in June, 1939, I didn't find a job teaching. I had a BA in History with a broad license to teach Social Studies, French (which I never wanted to teach) and a limited license in Math.
I stayed out again in 1939-40, World War II had started in Europe in Sept., 1939.
In 1940-41, I went back to I.U. Grad School working on a Master's degree in History. It was a great year. All grades had to be B or better. At the same time [sentence crossed out]
It was an interesting year as I was asked by a Prof. to help him prepare some manuscripts for publishing. He was working on a 5 Vol Bibliography and I helped him on the last two volumes. His wife was also helping and we had a secretary part time. I worked so many hours I had the secretary typing my note cards for the footnotes of my thesis. I didn't get to finish my thesis beyond the first chapter. My thesis advisor told me later that he knew from the beginning I wouldn't finish if I worked for that Prof. But I learned so much about printing. (I'm sure I have been a printer in some previous lifetime)
The school years of 1942-43 and 1943-44 I taugh[crossed out] taught Social Studies in a high school in Southern Indiana. I became a part of the community. I was a class sponsor, joined a service club, helped revive a Boy Scout Troup (It is still going today). Even after all of these years, I am invited annually to class reunions and several former
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students keep in touch.
The summer of 1944 I finished enough math classes to receive a license to teach Math ad[crossed out] and extra classes in history.
Because of my chronic ear trouble and hearing loss my draft status for the armed forces was rereviewed several times but never changed.
While at the University I was asked if I would interview with a Supt. of Schools who was re-cruting on campus. I did. As a result I was invited to teach at Oak Ridge High School at Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Dr. Blankenship had set up the school system for the Territory of Alaska. He was asked to do the same for Oak Ridge. Eventually there were 10 grade schools, a juniors High (7, 8 & 9) and senior high (10, 11 & 12.) The last year I taught at ORHS we had between 1100 & 1200 in grades 10-11-12. Our auditorium held only 600 so we needed two convocations for nearly 1200 students.
I knew nothing of Oak Ridge. No one did. When I asked the Supt how to get there he said to go to the bus station in Knoxville, Tenn. and catch as bus there.
After an over-night trip by train (Indianapolis, Ind., Louisville, Ky., and Knoxville, Tenn.,[)] I went into a cafeteria for breakfast. I ordered. When my meal came there was something on my plate that I hadn't ordered. I asked the waitress. She said "That is grits - it just comes with your meal." "Welcome to the South."
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I went to the bust[crossed out] bus station, bought a ticket to OR and naively asked for a bus schedule. I was told there were none, just go out to gate 13 and a bus would be there then or soon. It happened that way. A bus would fill and leave and soon another. Jokingly we said it was years before we even knew there were seats on the bus.
After the first few days I liked being at OR. It was a military post and we wore identity badges at all times. We could not leave or enter without showing our badges to the Military Police. The badges were early color photography and looked worse that[than] today's drivers' license photos.
Everything was new in OR. Many acl[crossed out] acres that had included five small towns now had a chain-link fence around it. Before the fence the perimeter was guarded by the last "horse cavalry patrol" of the U.S. Army.
I lived in an "H" style army barracks except we had single rooms about 10 x 12 feet, a single best, desk , desk chair, chest of drawers and an arm chair, a single window with wooden slatted venetian blinds and a place for[crossed out] to hang clothes behind a curtain. I first lived in Ashville Hall (The dorms were named after Southern cities). Later I lived uptown in Charlotte. ($15.00 a month)
The "dorms" were for the unmarried. They were two storied with stairs to the second floor. Each floor had four wings. The heating plant, toilets basins and showers were in rooms of brick
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and cement to lessen the fear of fire. The winds had hard floors for easy maintenance. Keys were kept at the desk as in a hotel. Mail was pigeone holed with the keys. There was One [underlined twice] telephone at the desk for the whole building and a buzzer system to call you to the desk to receive a visitor or answer a call. We had maid service. Black women came daily from Knoxville by bus. But they needed a white woman to supervise because everyone wanted "to boss".
I usually don't mess up a bed. Most maids would come into my room, yank up the covers, smooth the spread and call my bed made. I complained (especially when I was short-sheeted). I became known as the awful Mr. Hatchett. Then Helen came on my floor. She was a slender, light skinned - Cafe ou Lait. She had come South after having lived in Chicago. The other maids teased and picked on her because of her skin tone and for returning to the South. She came to me one day and asked if she could hide her linens (sheets and towels) on an upper shelf above my hanging clothes (behind the curtain). The other maids would steal her linens and she was held responsible for the loss. She took good good[crossed out] care of my room and I left her little gifts I picked up when I was away from the Post. At tax time she asked me to help her do her income tax forms. Soon other maids began to come around "making nice." They needed
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help and I soon became "nice Mr. Hatchett." One - an older woman - told me she was learning to read and write. She had a son in the U.S. Army and twins - a boy and a girl - in High School. She was learning because she was tired of having to have someone write her letters to her son and to read his in return.
I was once called to the U.S. Post Office in OR to explain my writing to an old friend in the U.S.A. Air Force. His bomber (he was a tail gunner) had been shot down in Poland after a bombing raid on the oil fields there. He parachuted to earth and was captured behind German lines and was imprisoned. Our letters were censored. But then these letters were between a prison and a secret military base.
With nearly 12000 students our school hours had to be staggered. Some came at 8 o'clock some at nine and some at Ten. They left at 2, 3 or 4. That was a large school for the time, There were many smart kids with brains and talents all thrown together knowing no one. They were the children on PhDs, MDs, Scientists Engineers and Military personel. Many of the Mothers were as well educated as the fathers. Most of the kids were a delight to teach and work with. We had a well trained facility of 50 with advanced degrees. Some left OR and taught in higher education afterward.
Football is the game in the South. It was not
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unusual for us to have 2000 or more at a football game - at night played on a lighted field. Unusual for the time.
Oak Ridge had a population of 80,000, the third largest city in Tenn. (no one knew that at the time) The city hummed 24-7, year round. Some businesses never closed.
At O.R. I taught AM History and Math.
After the war was over with Japan our students were sought after for speaking about the A. bomb and O.R. Every one was curious about everything.
A newspaper and civic club in Erie, Penn. wanted some students to come there on a speaking tour. I was asked to chaparone a group of two girls and two boys on this week-long trek. We left Knoxville on Friday morning arriving early Sat. morning in Erie. We returned the following Sat. arriving in O.R. on Sunday.
We had a full week of convocations with one or more speakers at each school. Transportation was provided and went like clockwork. I was housed with Cherry and Richard. A little problem - Cherry (her real name) had beautiful red hair hanging down to her waist. Her mother braided it in two braids and coiled it upon the top of her head. It had to be undone, combed, and redone. Some of the women helped her. She was petite. When she and I were at an all boy's Catholic H.S. to speak (the only female among 400 boys) you could hear nothing for wolf-calls when she came out
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on the platform. But then they quieted and listened respectfully.
Our HS had a lot of talent. We had our own symphony orchestra and for all-school plays we staged such works as "The Student Prince" and what today is called "Oklahoma." I was usually the stage manager and my crews could change scenes in their sleep and quickly.
For recreation there were many places and many activities. When we could some of us went climbing in the Smokey Mountains. I have climbed Mt. Le Conte five times. Sometimes we come down the same day we went up. Or we stayed on top overnight. (usually cold as H---). Some times we took the Applachian [misspelled] Trial to New Found Gap and then down the mountains by bus to Gatlinburg. A fellow physic teacher whose father had been a Prof at the U. of Tenn and whose family had a summer home at Elkmont (now in the Great Smokey Mt. Park) first took me to Elkmont and on a trip on Mt. Le Conte. Afterward I took several groups up the mountain.
When I first came to O.R, it was the beginning of the second year. There was a short school year the year before. Carpenters were still hammering and we competed teaching above the noise.
We joked that we walked in mud with dust in our eyes. Then we had board walks and then a stairway down the hill from the HS to the town square 200 or 300 feet below.
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We were all in the same boat and we pulled together and made do.
I was in OR three years. I kept in touch with several and have returned three times for reunions. The latest was in 2000. I have received an invitation to return in 2005. It is interesting to see what had become of these former students.
Now they are aging and growing fewer.
The old HS on the hill is gone. A memorial stands on the site. A brick walk around the memorial bears the names of early faculty and students. (My name is one of those bricks) At a balloting at the 2000 reunion, 20 former faculty "who made a difference in my life" were chosen by the many attendees. I was one of the 20 chosen. Our names are on a memorial plaque which hangs in the new High School. I am bout[crossed out] both proud and humbled.
At times a thought comes to my mind. As one of my college profs used to say "sometimes things don't go as you plan. Sometimes you just fall into things and then your life is changed - forever.Transcriber
Teagan Russell