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Interview with Helen Marguerite (Troester) Draper, June 24, 2004

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2004-06-24

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Narrator affiliation: Paymaster, Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company (REECo)

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Draper, Helen Marguerite. Interview, 2004 June 24. MS-00818. [Transcript]. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d15m62j8r

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Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Helen Draper June 24, 2004 Las Vegas, Nevada Interview Conducted By Joan Leavitt © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Helen Draper June 24, 2004 Conducted by Joan Leavitt Table of Contents Introduction: Mrs. Draper reviews her family history and memories of growing up in rural Utah and Nevada. 1 Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company [ REECo] hired Mr. Draper to work at the Nevada Test Site, so Mr. and Mrs. Draper moved to Indian Springs, Nevada. 5 Mrs. Draper discusses her education and family history. 7 Mrs. Draper shares her memories of ethnic and religious tension in Utah and Nevada during the Great Depression and the Second World War. 9 The presence of Communist groups in western mining towns often led to tension and violence in the 1950s. 13 Mrs. Draper describes the living conditions, secrecy concerns, and social aspects of live at the Nevada Test Site in the early 1950s. 16 As a REECo employee, Mrs. Draper worked in the payroll department. She discusses the working environment for women employed at the Nevada Test Site. 17 Mrs. Draper describes the social life and community activities organized for test site workers. 22 Mrs. Draper shares her reactions to witnessing atmospheric nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. She stresses the important role that nuclear testing played in winning the Cold War and suggests that the benefits of testing far outweighed the social and environmental costs. 25 The Joint Verification Experiment ( JVE) brought Soviet scientists to the Nevada Test Site. 30 Mrs. Draper discusses Area 51, the secret facility at Groom Lake, and the role of espionage during the Cold War. 32 Mrs. Draper describes the management and organizational structure of REECo, focusing on several individual managers. 35 The evolution of office technology affected the working environment at the test site. 37 Mrs. Draper recalls the living conditions and dining facilities for workers at the Nevada Test Site. 39 Mrs. Draper reflects on her life, family, and accomplishments. 41 In the early 1990s, Bechtel replaced REECo as the primary test site contractor. 43 Mrs. Draper discusses the slow inclusion of minorities in the test site’s workforce. 45 Conclusion: Mrs. Draper again reflects on her life, work ethic, and family history. 46 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Helen Draper June 24, 2004 in Las Vegas, NV Conducted by Joan Leavitt [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disk 1. Joan Leavitt: We wanted to start with some of your background. You said that you were born in Midvale, Utah. Helen Draper: Yes. How far back do you want to go? We can start with your young growing up, your mother, your father. I’d like to know about your mother and your father, your background— Let me tell you about my grandfather. He came to this country from Germany when he was ten years old, and he made his way from New York to Utah. Over time he became the superintendent of the Eureka Standard Mining Company in Eureka, Utah. He married my grandmother there, who was also of German descent. What were their names? His name was Paul Troester, and my grandmother’s name was Sophia Moedl. They met and married and he was, as I said, a mining superintendent and an assayer. He had nine children. Most of the male children went into the mining business. My father was the oldest one, Paul Junior, and he became a mining engineer. They traveled from Eureka, Utah into Nevada. They were in the area around— it was White Pine County, although then it was still part of Utah Territory. They went to a place called Cherry Creek, where Dad and Grandpa had a mine. Then they journeyed as far south as Tonopah, and they had a mine in Tonopah, the Brougher Divide Mining Company. Then he went to Battle Mountain, Nevada, where he also was in the mining business. That’s mostly what I remember, is coming to Battle Mountain— well, first coming to UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 White Pine County, and to Ely, Nevada when I was a child, and then Battle Mountain, Nevada. Eventually I went to work at the Copper Canyon Mining Company. How old were you when you first started working with the mining? Oh, it was after I graduated from high school and had a couple of years’ college [ from] LDS [ Latter- day Saints] Business College. OK, you had a business background then. Yes. I went to school in Utah, and I came back to Nevada after the war [ World War II] and went to work, as I said, in a mining company. Met my husband [ Floyd Draper], who was in an entirely different field. He was in the road construction business and their headquarters was in Fallon, Nevada. I met him in Battle Mountain and we married and we started traveling in the road construction business. We lived in all these little towns in Nevada, from Wells, Nevada; Lovelock, Nevada; Reno; Fallon; down into the south. What the company would generally do is try to find work for the men in the southern part in the winter, and then go back up north in the fall. So what highways did he work on then? Was it the major interstates or—? Yes, we came down here one winter and we built the Maryland Parkway. We came down here one winter and we built the highway to Boulder City. We built strips at Nellis Airport. But in 1950 we built the access road into the test site. OK, so most of the highways that he built then were between 1947 and the 1950s, are those the highways that we’re talking about? That’s right. That’s right. Yes. And we came down here in 1950 and built the access road, as I said. Then we went back up north and we lived in Lovelock for a while, Wells, Winnemucca. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 But we would come down here every winter and they’d build something more at the test site, or an airstrip at Nellis. That way they kept the men busy all year. [ 00: 05: 00] But you traveled with him instead of him going off and pretty much leaving you. Well, was that unusual for a construction wife or—? No, no, there were several of us. Mainly the people that had the, I don’t want to say “ better jobs”, but the jobs that were year- round. My husband was the master mechanic and there was the grade foreman, and people like that had trailers and their wives went with them. That’s what we did. When we came into Indian Springs in 1950, there was no place to park our trailer. So the men who had the lease on Indian Springs gas station let us use the land between the gas station and the air base, and the company put up a trailer court. They put a pump down a well so they could have water, and they laid lines for water. They laid lines for electricity, and we lived right there on the verge of the airstrip at Indian Springs. Now were there others who also were in that same—? Yes, there were eight or ten trailers. I don’t remember how many. They put up a wash room and everything, so we had all of the amenities. Did you often follow each other? The same little group went up north and—? Oh yes. Yes. And so it was a mobile community for you then. Yes. Yes, it was. Dodge Construction had some trailers that they put bunks in for their men. They had trailers that were parts houses. The rest of us had our own trailers and of course they had their own equipment that my husband worked on. Yes. Now you grew up then— if this is the 1950s, you said, and you were born, let’s see— Nineteen twenty- six. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 Nineteen twenty- six. So you were a little youngster during the Depression. Yes. Yes. My family wasn’t really involved in the Depression because the mining business went on. You were doing well? You slipped from one type of mine to another type. For instance, they went to gold and silver mostly. So as a child did you do a lot of traveling [ with] that same kind of mobile life that you and your husband experienced? Well no, not really. My father kept us in school in Salt Lake. So he moved and you stayed— We went to school in Salt Lake and came out to Nevada, whatever community they were mining in, in the summer. Oh OK, so the mining took place in the summer. I was wondering— Well, the mining was all year round. No. My dad was at the mine— and sometimes my mother— but we were in school in Salt Lake, and then we came out in the summer while school was out and stayed with them. We lived in Ely one summer and we lived in Battle Mountain most of the time. Then when I married Floyd it was just a continuum of that, living in one Nevada town after another. Sometimes I can’t keep them straight, I lived in so many. Yes. Well, you weren’t very old then, probably a teenager then, when World War II broke out. Oh yes. Do you have any particular memories of how you experienced that? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 Well, I remember my cousins going to war. I eventually worked at Fort Douglas for a while, and I worked at Hill Field, which was an air base; it’s Hill Air Force Base now, but it used to be Hill Field. I worked there. So you were part of the home front work force then. Yes. My mother was a telephone operator at Fort Douglas. My aunt worked at Fort Douglas. We were all involved in, I guess, the war effort, you know, working. We had top secret clearances. Oh, all of you did? Yes. Oh, so you were very used to this idea of security and clearances and things from way back, then. Oh yes. Yes. Well, did you have any siblings that—? I have a sister; that’s all, a sister that is four years younger than me. She never worked out there but her husband worked in the same industry as my husband, so we were together most of the time. OK. So in the 1950s then you moved to Las Vegas. And when was it that you started at the test site? [ 00: 10: 00] Well, we worked and lived at the test site— or Indian Springs I should say— off- and- on until 1954. And now was that part of his work or did you also work too? Yes. His. No, I didn’t work at the test site then. At that time. OK. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 In 1954 we came down here, and Floyd was working at the test site. They talked him into quitting the company he had worked for, for all these many years after the war, and going to work for REECo [ Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company]. I got a little bored sitting home in the trailer doing nothing, so I went to work at the store at Indian Springs as a cashier. I had only worked there a couple of months when the paymaster, a gentleman named Jack Moe, came through the line there. And he said, I understand you worked in payroll. And I said, Yes, I did. And he says, Well, how about talking to me about coming to work at the test site in the payroll office? I said, Well, you know, it just never dawned on me to work out there. And he said, Well, we’re really looking for help, people who have knowledge. So I took a day off work and went out to the test site and interviewed with him and lo and behold, I was hired. Now were you doing payroll at this store that you were working at? No, no. I was working as a cashier. It was a little— it was part of the house actually that they converted into a store. They had a few grocery items. It didn’t have any meat or anything. They had a post office in there. They needed a cashier, so I went to work as a cashier. Well, that’s interesting that it was a small enough community that he knew of prior work experience, even before— Yes, Indian Springs was like a little town. You knew the postmaster, Greta Skank [ husband Schyler Shank] I think was her name. And there were people that lived up at the ranch in houses that had been actually converted from garages and chicken coops and almost anything, because UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 they were desperate for help out there. It was hard to get people to drive out there, and hard to find people who would live out there. The living wasn’t the greatest in the world. They had Quonset huts. They had a cafeteria out there where you paid a dollar and went through the turnstile for each meal. It was like a cafeteria. So that’s interesting that it was difficult to get people to work out there. So where typically did some of these people come from that began to work out there? Were they just from the smaller towns or—? Well, they came from Las Vegas to go out there, but it was so hard to get certain help that they went off into California for iron workers and for electricians and for plumbers. They called them “ travelers.” They came up and the union here would accept them and send them out to the job, because all of the union people had to be referred to the job out there. Then they were given an intensive form to fill out with all their background and everything, and then they went to work out there. We had a payroll office, a personnel office, out at the site. Most of the other offices, the top offices, were downtown here [ in Las Vegas]. In fact they were on North Main Street there. AEC [ Atomic Energy Commission] had an office on North Main Street there. They had a light on the top of the building that went red when they were having a shot. The rest of the time it was blue, but it went red when a shot was imminent. Well, had you liked business classes? Did you get some of your business training in high school or was this all in the LDS Business College? Some of it was in high school and the rest was in LDS Business College. When I went to work at Hill Field, I was doing clerical work there, and I went from there to Fort Douglas. What year did you go to LDS Business College? Oh gee, in 1944, I guess it was, 1943 and 1944, 1944 and 1945. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 OK. My father was there around 1940, so— It was a little before me. Yes. I was just wondering how close that timing might’ve been. Just a passing thought of mine. [ 00: 15: 00] Yes, I graduated from East High School. OK. Did they have business classes or math or things that made you realize that you liked that kind of a thing? I had always done sort of statistical work. My father of course had drafting tables and things because he was an engineer. I just always made books and did statistical- type work. I enjoyed that sort of thing. My grandfather had a big library. He was one of the first graduates of the International Correspondence School, which went by another name then. It was Colliery Engineering- or something - school, and he graduated in 1901 from there. Oh, a long time— Yes. But he had a lot of books and a lot of things from when he was learning. Now it sounds like your grandfather, was self- taught by correspondence. Is that what he was then? Yes. Yes. Because I know in those early years, it was very, very difficult to get extensive training— Yes, he came over to the States when he was ten years old, and he picked up his education. He learned to be an assayer and [ learned] his mining. I don’t know what brought him out to the West, but there he was. My grandmother, on the other hand, her family had been brought over as Mormon converts. Same place. Utah naturally. She was working in Eureka when she met my grandfather. And what was her name and her family’s name? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 Her family’s name was Moedl. Some of them settled on the banks of the Jordan River there. One of them had a flour mill and one of them had a tanning factory. I remember that we used to go over to the tannery there. But when she met my grandfather, he was Catholic, and she converted back to the Catholic faith. Oh, she did? Yes. That must’ve been an unusual experience, to be in the middle of primarily Mormons there at that time. Yes, it was, although I think a lot of the miners were Catholic. They came from Ireland, Wales, Germany, places like that. But she converted back when she met my grandfather. So was your upbringing then as a Catholic? No. Oh, OK. My mother was a Mormon and so I had a somewhat unique experience. I had Catholics on one side and Mormons on the other side. So I was raised as a Mormon, went to school— because I was baptized as a Mormon— went to Sunday School. And my husband is Mormon. Oh, he is. Yes. But my father’s people were all Catholic. Catholic. Oh, OK. So— Never heard an argument. Strangest thing, never heard an argument until my dad died. Oh, OK. Well, I had been kind of curious about that because Utah does have a lot of migrations and that kind of culture and— UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 Yes, they sort of kept to themselves. Catholics kept to themselves and, you know, and the Mormons kept to themselves. Well, the Mormons often, I understood, were more in the farming communities, and I find it interesting to find a segment that became miners. Yes. On my mother’s side, her father was a military man, but her grandfather was a miner. She was born in Park City [ Utah]. Oh. Yes, they were miners from England. A lot of English miners. I’d really like your perspective on coming into the 1950s. Dina Titus has called it a simpler time. I was wondering what your perspective might be of coming out of World War II and the 1950s and of your experience in the 1950s. Gee. I don’t quite know how to answer that. I know in our particular group we lived in trailers. They were nice trailers. They were modern trailers. And we traveled around. And nowadays I’m offended when I hear people refer to it as trailer trash, because we weren’t trash. That was a respectable way of— Yes, we were well- paid and it was better than going into these little towns where there was little if any homes. We stayed in Tonopah, and my babysitter lived on the second floor of a home that was just, you know, just nailed together lumber. We had such a lovely trailer but we lived there and she took care of my babies for a while. But your choice to work was not necessarily out of necessity but just— Oh no. Boredom. Boredom. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 OK. Because you could. You had the opportunity and opportunities were opening with the work force broadening and the need for it. But if you had wanted to be a stay- at- home mother, you could’ve done that. You had that option. I could’ve stayed at home. I did for the first seven, eight years that we were married. Now tell me how people in the 1950s viewed the Soviet Union [ USSR]. You remember that far back? I think we viewed them as competitive but we didn’t really know all the issues. We didn’t know the people. My family— my father’s family for instance— were German, and there were a lot of spats during the war between people of German ethnicity and those people who were of let’s say English persuasion. They would have fist fights. Did you feel that? I didn’t feel it but my family did. My uncle, he got in a big fist fight, I remember, in Battle Mountain with an English fellow. Because he associated him with the Nazis, then? That’s right. Yes. Germans were bad. And I can remember, my dad was in World War I [ served in Pine Tree Division US Army; enlisted from Utah; served in Germany] and he would speak German to my grandfather. Grandfather didn’t want to speak German. He was American. He’d come over here and learned the language. Unlike immigrants today, the first thing they did was learn the language. And he was American. My grandmother was American. They didn’t speak German in the house. They spoke English. Well, we also had a lot of immigrants who were highly educated scientists that were coming over at that time. Did that have any impact on you and your family? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 At the test site? I never met any scientists. I really didn’t. I was in an office that was doing strictly clerical work, and I never met any— Had you heard of Edward Teller? Oh yes. Yes. Did you have, I mean, with his Hungarian background and— Never gave it— Never gave it a second thought? — a thought. As I say, my dad was in World War I. My husband was in World War II. You know, I just never gave it a thought. I was used to foreigners. You live in a little mining town and you’ve got all kinds. You’ve got German, you’ve got English, you’ve got Jewish people, Greek, [ 00: 25: 00] you’ve got— I’m trying to think— you know, there were Slovakians and people from over there, and they were all a little different. There were a lot of Italian miners. So in your experience, then, immigrants from all around were a normal part of your life. Yes. Oh yes. And it wasn’t that these people are Americans and these people are foreigners or different. No, they were all Americans. They all spoke English. They may’ve had another language they spoke at home but they learned English and spoke English. OK, so they had a common desire then. The English [ language] brought them together. Yes. OK. Now how did they feel about the government at that time? Or how did you, you know, what did you think about—? Well, we were all intensely patriotic, but there were a number of people that I understand joined the Communist Party. They banded together for a common need. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 Now are these miners? These are— yes, miners. Was it connected with the unions in some way? No. No. They just— somebody would come in to town and organize these people and sell them insurance or give them money for various things. They sort of sucked them into joining . The United Mine Workers, I think was a Communist group, and there were a lot of people that joined that, not because they were really Communists or disliked the government, but it was a place where they could get together and drink and socialize. So it began as a social kind of a connection? Yes, it was like a social connection. Were there— I want to say— a lot of people who did that? Was it common for you to be aware of people who did that? Yes. And at that time was there suspicion? Was there ostracism? Was there anything like that at all, or was it just, We don’t really know what this is all about so it must be somewhat harmless? There were, oh— Because Communists were on our side with World War II, you know, they were our allies, so there wouldn’t have been a reason to— Yes. Yes. The United Mine Workers have a long, bad [ laughter] history. They were one of the first organizations to come into the mining communities and organize people. Well, why do you think it appealed to the mining unions? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 Well, because they were so lowly paid and these people were going to get them more money from the mine owners. And see, I was unfortunately on the other side because my father was a mine owner, you know. Oh, I see. So he was more of an entrepreneur Yes. Yes. And so you wouldn’t be too sympathetic with someone who would want more wages. No. In some little communities, they were really— they were a force, you know, the United Mine Workers. Were they aggressive or violent or—? Yes. They could be, yes. Well, what kind of— strikes— is that what you’re talking about? Strikes. Got in fights with the police. Not only here, but their other branches were back in the Appalachian district, in coal mines there. And some of the miners that we had here had come from the coal mining to escape that. They had come out here. They were going to make their fortunes out here. Was there a lot of pressure to join? I don’t know if it was that they had any pressure to join. I had a friend here in town, a beauty [ shop] operator, who told me about her mother joining this group when they came over from the old country. She didn’t find out until much later that it was really the Communist Party, and [ she] was afraid the rest of her life that someone was going to come after her because she was a Communist. [ 00: 30: 00] So it sounds like associating with Communists became more of a shameful thing as public opinion began to come— UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 Yes, after the war, during the McCarthy period— you know, Joseph McCarthy— Communism became a bad name. OK. Now wasn’t that in the 1950s? Yes. OK, McCarthyism was in the 1950s. But before that time, during the war, it was Well, we don’t know if these guys are bad or not. Yes. Now what about once the Soviets did the hydrogen bomb? Did that turn public opinion more decidedly against the Communists? I don’t know that I ever thought of it. Working in the nuclear industry, we all thought we were being just terribly patriotic, you know, and that anybody that didn’t like us was unpatriotic. Yes. Are you talking about citizens, American citizens, as well as—? Yes, or countries. I think for the most part, people that stayed out there [ at the test site] like me were convinced we were in the right and anybody else was wrong. Yes. Well, it is kind of an extension of a civilian- type work force. I mean in a military, as warriors, in order to— you almost have to be enemy- oriented, you know, that We are the good guys and they are the bad guys, and in many ways the test site had elements of a military way of thinking. Well, you know, we had our clearances and they were updated every five years, so that kept us thinking that we were exposed to things that were highly secretive whether or not. I never heard a secret all the time I was out there, but you get into that feeling because every five years they come around and review your clearance. Well, what was the kind of security pressure that was on you? Did they warn you about talking with anybody? I mean it doesn’t sound like you had secrets to reveal. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 16 Well, we were given warnings not to talk. And with the advent of Area 51 and with the advent of the hydrogen testing done out in Area 400, for example, they just cautioned you not to say anything to anybody. And we didn’t. We all sort of stayed together. Now you formed quite a little community out there, didn’t you? Yes, they formed a community which came into town. For example, the El Cortez Hotel there, a lot of the people, men and women, would stay there on Saturday or Sunday night. They would work out at the test site and live in the dorms out there, which at that time were barely habitable. Then they would come in and go to the El Cortez and have a room, and eat there, and play there, and drink there, and then go back out to the test site. So you lived in Indian Springs in your little trailer then. As a Mormon, did you find the culture compatible or was it—? I don’t know that anybody cared whether you were a Mormon or what. There was no church out there. You didn’t go to church, whether you were Catholic, Mormon. Oh, because they had a church out there. Well, they had a church at the test site. Yes, that’s what I meant, yes. Yes. But there was nothing at Indian Springs, so you never went to church. So it didn’t really make much difference what you were. The church at the test site came on much later. There was no church out there for a long time. Yes. OK. Well, that answers that question. Let’s see. Oh, you had said that as a female, you began working out there— what year was it you began working out there? Nineteen fifty- four. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 17 OK, 1954. You briefly described the dress code, that there was a dress code out there. Will you , for the record, tell about that? [ 00: 35: 00] OK. I was an employee of REECo. And Mr. [ L. J.] Reynolds was from the old country. He had certain ideas about dress and women and so forth. He lived in Albuquerque, but he had the contract from 1952 on out at the test site, and he thought that women should wear dresses— not pants; dresses. And women should not have bare shoulders. And women should not smoke. And so these became a dress code for us. We wore dresses. We wore heels, for the most part, and silk hose. I’ve seen women sent home because they came to work with a sundress on, with spaghetti straps. Told to go home and put a sweater on or a jacket or whatever. A lot of the women did smoke, but when Mr. Reynolds was coming out from town, his secretary downtown called out and told the test site, Mr. Reynolds is on his way. Put out the cigarettes. I’ll tell you, not only were the cigarettes put out, but the custodians came around and cleaned off the switch plates, and ashtrays— that the men were using— went into drawers. We got a heads- up on Mr. Reynolds and we cleaned up our act. Well, it sounds like you worked together on that one, didn’t you? I don’t think anybody ever thought of being contrary to that code. Now, when so many agency people came out there, the[ ir] women did wear pants. We used to sit there and say, How can she dare to wear pants out here? We have to wear dresses. Who are you talking about when you say agency people? People who were directly employed by Livermore labs or Sandia. OK, the labs. Yes. OK. OK, so it sounds like there was a little bit looser dress code for women— UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 18 I don’t think they had any. I mean they weren’t bound by Mr. Reynolds. Well, was Reynolds the only one who had a dress code like that or did some of the other ones—? Oh yes. Yes. He was the biggest employer out there. His company was based down in New Mexico, and he and Robert E. McKee had a friend who went to Washington and got this contract for them. So Reynolds was the founder of it, then? Well, there were various companies that came in there and worked until 1952. Reynolds got a maintenance and operations contract out there. Before that, there was the Nevada Company and the Olympic Commissary and Haddock Engineers. It doesn’t come to mind. But they had various things like the fire department. They had a doctor out there. They had a barber. They had the feeding. That was the Olympic Commissary, which was a railroad feeding outfit. And in 1952, some of those were combined under REECo. In 1955, the rest of them came under REECo: the fire department, the feeding, all of that came under REECo. OK, so REECo did much more than just drilling and construction? Oh yes, they were the maintenance and operations, and in 1955 they got all of these people. They took people that were truck drivers and trained them to be RADSAFE [ radiological safety] monitors. Most of our RADSAFE monitors were former truck drivers. What is that, monitors, what did you—? RADSAFE monitors. RADSAFE. Radiation safe. OK. They were truck drivers. Yes, they were mostly truck drivers and they were trained out there. S