Atomic Pioneers Part III: Eleanor's Story
A continuation of a adventurous woman's experience, in her own words
This is Part III in a series of posts reproducing Eleanor Ewing Erlich’s personal journal (courtesy of her daughter, Joan Kerby). In part I, Eleanor recounted a bit of her background, a postwar visit by the FBI (investigating Klaus Fuchs) and what led her to be recruited by her friend “come to New Mexico to help her,” for an unspecified purpose and concluded with her strange cross-country trip to New Mexico, where she was picked up at the Lamy train station. In Part II we read about Eleanor settling into her new situation in Los Alamos and beginning her work at “The Lab.”
I met others who worked in E Building: Hans Bethe, Theoretical Division leader; Joe Hirschfelder; Bill Rarita; Robert Christy; Robert Serber; Richard Feynman; Ed Lennox; Julius Ashkin and Richard Ehrlich.
Joe Hirschfelder asked me to go horseback riding. He called for me in his elegant Packard at the West End Dorm. We went to the stables and mounted our horses. Joe whipped his horse to a gallop and disappeared in a cloud of dust. I was used to walking a horse, trotting, and then galloping; my father raised Shetland show ponies. When my horse leaped forward after Joe’s, my feet lost the stirrups. Then I began to black out. I screamed for Joe. Eventually he looked around to see my desperate plight and came back to rescue me. We walked the horses back to the stables. I climbed wearily into his car. He opened a bar in the right front dashboard and offered me a liquor. I had never drunk one. I did not know what it was. Joe made the choice. At dinner in Fuller Lodge, Joe’s mother seemed rather cool. [Joe’s mother lived with him and came and went as she pleased – which was quite unusual. https://ohms.library.wisc.edu/viewer.php?cachefile=Hirschfelder.E.465.xml ]
Joe’s next invitation was to accompany him and Joe Rotblat to the airport where Joe would take me for a ride in his airplane. In case we were killed, Joe Rotblat was going to drive back to inform Mama Hirschfelder. What Joe had failed to tell me was what the airplane ride consisted of: take-offs and landings. The landings were very bumpy. I became airsick. Joe returned with me in a state of collapse. That was the last of our activities.
Then the three young British arrived. Tony French, Mike Poole and Jim Hughes and I became acquainted at the Fuller Lodge meals. They were desperate for a teapot. We were allowed one shopping day per month in either Santa Fe or Albuquerque. Tony, Mike, Jim and I had a shopping day. We decided to take the Army bus to Albuquerque.
We went to an Old Town trading post with all sorts of beautiful silver and turquoise jewelry, Navajo rugs, baskets, Mexican blue glass, etc. Someone slammed a door in the back of the store. My three friends flattened themselves on the floor behind the counter. They had been through the German bombings and were still jittery. The owner called the Border Patrol. The next thing we knew they had us surrounded. The young men looked at me; after all, I was the American.
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