Tuesday, December 20, 2011

December 7, 1941: We Enter the War

December 7, 1941: We Enter the War

Despite all of the destruction to lives and property that wars bring, the Second World War is unique in the history of the United States in that it captured the spirit of an entire country in an effort more united than at any other time. It is likely the economic hardships of the Great Depression that steeled the country’s resolve to get through the adversities of war. While perhaps that spirit of determination has been identified more clearly in retrospect, persons of any age who lived during that time will say that “people banded together” and the whole thrust of living focused on “the war effort,” from factories retooling to women joining the Armed Forces, and from the children’s contributions to composers creating the music of wartime. It was a very intense time, but one recalled as citizenry being instilled with a deep sense of service to others.

To support the war effort, six and a half million women went to work in factories, 350,000 joined the Armed Forces, and countless others assumed leadership roles in the community. Children went on a modern crusade, gathering everything from scrap metal to newspapers and silkweed; buying defense stamps once a week at school; and donating toiletry items, packing them in Junior Red Cross boxes to send overseas.

Everyone, young and old, realized that the way of life they had known was forever changed. With factories concentrating on the needs of war, the entire population of the country found they could “make do” without new products. Rationing became a way of life and coupon books determined wearing apparel and menus. We hadn’t realized at the time that our favorite dessert was really a way to not waste any milk by using it to make Junket.  

More inspiring than what the factories produced, however, was the dedication of an entire generation. Those young enough to have had their nurturing years embedded in this era saw this spirit of national cooperation as being normal, and in a strange way, the World War II era is viewed as one of the most secure times in which to grow up in small town America. Most important, this generation of children was, for the most part, happy.

We who were young children in 1941 were little aware of the war, not remembering the quiet Sunday afternoon when news of Pearl Harbor began to leak or that same evening when Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt took her husband’s place for his usual “Fireside Chat” because the President was in session with his advisors. What I do remember is the following day when the President spoke, concluding with these words, “I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”[i] While not understanding his words, I will never forget how my father explained with simplicity all of what we had heard, “We are going to war.”

I remember wondering if “going to war” was anything like what my mother referred to as “battling the roaches.” Living not far from Anderson Creek which spilled into the Susquehanna River close to our house, Mother evidently had to be on guard against these miserable insects. My memory is of my mother’s hand holding a piece of bread that had been spread with a poison paste called J-O, then sprinkled with sugar, and of being sternly warned not to touch this under any circumstance. She evidently was concerned we might think it a lard sandwich which a cousin of hers relished. There were many things for a child to fear in addition to the Germans.




[i] Evans, p. 309.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

I'll Be Home for Christmas 2011

A reminiscence of
Christmas and Class Reunions

Christmas and Class Reunions have much in common. Both are celebratory, sometimes deeply emotional, and always a remembrance of things past. Both can affect one far beyond the actual experience and both are still magical in many ways.

While I enjoy family at Christmas, it is more the remembering of being a child than of watching the grandchildren that is most vivid—and poignant—to me. As many of you have experienced, some of the moments that bring a smile are seeing ourselves in the little ones—perhaps a facial feature or expression, a turn of phrase, a shrug of a shoulder, or a shared interest. It is particularly flattering (or frightening?) when someone mentions, “She reminds me of you.”

Christmas Eve is my time for reflection, thinking about family Christmases and growing up in Curwensville. I think most of us realized years ago that we had had a safe and loving childhood and we didn’t miss what we didn’t have. We took everything for granted; whatever was, simply was. We anticipated Christmas Day for weeks in advance and thought the day would never arrive. Did anyone actually make a Christmas wish list? Or go to the five and ten to tell Santa what you wanted for Christmas?

In some ways class reunions are similar to the process of Christmas. We anticipate the day and we have expectations and uncertainties—even after all these years. And while we are now more comfortable with one another (aren’t we?), we still hope we are not being misunderstood. And later, on the way home, we review and reflect—just like on Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas.

This past summer following our now annual class reunion my thoughts kept going through the hours of each event, recalling specifically where we were and what we were doing or talking about, almost minute by minute. I particularly relished the addition special time some of us had together just laughing and saying things we should have said (but couldn’t) to each other in high school. It was just so comfortable and real to be with good friends with no barriers and no discernible awkward moments. Who needed stars, anyhow?

I also found myself smiling laughing as I thought of the picnic Saturday afternoon in 100 degree heat. In particular there was Bob who always flirts with his complimentary, thinly veiled hints, but this year there was more a tinge of poignant regret or maybe it just made me realize how few years we all had left to gather together. Other special thoughts go to John E, regaling us with stories; John R, dressed in a gray shirt and pink tie (a classic in our class colors); Jim S., arriving in a restored 1956 Chevrolet; and dear Karen who brought our class flower in our class colors for the table.

There were very few awkward moments—just the usual “oops, I didn’t know you had remarried,” along with the self-righteous indignation of one who said she didn’t talk to people who used email…. Three of us there that afternoon were of four girls who had palled around together since forever, having met as toddlers at the same Sunday School—Ellen, Donna, and Judi, with Edie the only one missing, too many miles away. And all of this very similar to the personal emotions we encounter after the rest of the family goes home the day after Christmas. That is when I most miss the magic.

………………………………………….



 

Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Teen-Age Center

The Teen-Age Center

(The following is an excerpt from the chapter, “Rock Around the Clock,” in Growing Up Silent in the 1950s: Not All Tail Fins and Rock ’n’ Roll, Yesteryear Publishing (forthcoming in 2012) Class of 1955, Curwensville Joint High School, Curwensville, Pennsylvania)

Above all activities, however, was the magic of the Curwensville Teen-Age Center. Its very name was a draw and we viewed this place as our own, our birthright, our haven, and our social hub. At the time we were unaware that local civic groups had joined forces to make young people’s activities not only a matter of civic pride,[i] but also a method to address the emerging threat of and heightened concern over juvenile delinquency. In the early 1940s the government had begun to encourage communities to sponsor what it called “teen clubs” and, when expert witnesses began testifying at Congressional hearings, claiming that if teens had a place to gather, there would be less juvenile delinquency, many small communities responded with centers where teenagers could have an opportunity to learn how organizations worked and to participate in the governance of these centers.

In Curwensville the Teen-age Center (its official name was Youth Center) was established in 1944 (and officially opened in April 1945) at the large and handsome C. Seymour Russell house on State Street, a generous gift to the community from William and J. Hamer Tate. This lovely, family home took on a new life with dancing, Ping-Pong, pool, a small library, a piano, and resident chaperones, the first being Mr. and Mrs. Willard Bloom, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Ray Smith. Two years later the Arthur Wolf Family donated a jukebox and 200 records. This was followed by alternations in the building to accommodate the demands for its use, as nearly every phase of community life used it for a meeting place, social events, and other uses, even as a place for birthday parties.

Mr. Lewis Wetzel, retired caretaker with the longest tenure at the now razed mansion, recently recalled the
State Street
location as a “beautiful place.” “There was a fireplace in nearly every room and every room was finished with a different type of wood,” he explained.  While caretaker responsibilities included housekeeping and landscaping duties at the large home, the main function was to oversee the large contingent of teenagers who gathered there several evenings each week. “We enjoyed those kids. We wanted them at the Teen-Age Center rather than on the streets,” Mr. Wetzel said.[ii]  Mr. and Mrs. Wetzel (Althea Kelly, known as “Sis” to her 1942 classmates) were young and energetic, and genuinely enjoyed their teen-age charges.

I had the utmost respect and admiration for the Wetzels.  They were your friends, and your substitute parents.  They mingled with the whole crowd, dancing with us, playing pool, and Ping Pong, and just sitting in the parlor room talking, laughing and visiting. I believe that they were the people who made this Center such a success. It was their association with the youth and their parents, and their genuine friendliness that kept the young people returning.  However, if there was any sign of trouble, Lew was there to reason things out.  And, out of the respect we all had for him, there was never any problems obeying what he said. Our parents knew we were safe at the Teen- Age center, and had no problem giving us the dime to attend.  Some of the most memorable times of my life.  Everyone thinks their high school years were their best.....I know MINE WERE.......                                 Donna Jean Swanson Malloy

 Admission to this Center was 10 cents unless there was a band when admission was 25 cents. If we didn't want to dance (or weren’t asked to dance) there were board games, Ping-Pong, pool tables, and a large library to absorb our feigned interest.[iii] Soft drinks and candy were available for purchase with proceeds used to buy new records. There was also a piano in one of the rooms which provided another way of socializing.  Not many of us played piano because there were not many piano teachers and most had had to forego piano lessons until the arrival of Mrs. Eileen Brown in the summer of ’54.  Because I had maintained my own interest in singing and accompanying, I often would be asked to play for those who wished to sing.

I went to the dance at the Center tonight.  I played for Jo Ellen to sing “Trying” with piano interlude and we sang a duet “Keep It a Secret.”   I also played a few numbers for Frankie Errigo, then I was asked to play for Donna Dale.                                                                                                    Diary, January 3, 1953

By the time we reached ninth grade, the Teen-Age Center was the place to be. Life would have been rather dull without this special location where we could practice our first, stumbling attempts at both shooting pool and dancing. Most of my classmates agree that the Teen-Age Center served as a social clearinghouse and was where we discovered that while we were flattered when older boys asked us to dance, this also meant that boys in our own class would forsake us for girls in the classes following ours. Having a sister one year younger made this pattern very clear in my own eyes, an observation shared by friends who also had younger sisters.

I went to the Center tonight with Edie and Shirley.  We played cards awhile with Bob and John.  Then I started to play ping-pong with Bob, but the kids kept turning the lights on and off, so we quit.  We went home, but Bob didn’t walk me home. I wish Edie would find someone to like, like Shirley and I do.  It would be lots of fun with three girls and three boys.                                         Diary, April 11, 1951

Tonight at the Center Ellen and I decided to turn over a new leaf.  Footloose and fancy free.  Out for a good time and get in on all the fun.  Hope we succeed. (We didn’t, but then no one else did either.) 
Diary, October 12, 1952

We frequented the Center during the week but flocked there most Saturday nights and following every home football game when the place was packed. We lined up inside the door, the cheerleaders first in line by privilege of their position, the rest of us—many of us band members—hanging back in the shadows, some not wanting to be seen dressed in our unbecoming band uniforms.

The recent interview with Lew Wetzel about the Curwensville Teen-Age Center also quotes the late John K. Reilly, Jr., Clearfield County's senior judge, recalling many hours at the Center during the early 1950s. Judge Reilly said he “has fond memories of the good times at the youth center. It was a great place for kids. There were never any problems there and it didn't matter whether you were Curwensville or Clearfield kids. It was the place to go on Friday and Saturday nights.”[iv]

Parents knew we were safe with the Wetzels watching out for us and we, of course, took all of this for granted, never realizing that we were privileged in having a Teen-Age Center and assuming—if we thought about it at all—that it had always been there.

Had a most wonderful time tonight!  I didn’t have to work, so I went up to the Center about 9:00. About 9:30, as usual, “Clearfield” arrived.  After awhile Clark came over and we sat and talked.  When he brought me home, he said that Reilly and he might be up tomorrow night, around 8.                                                                                                                                                  Diary, February 7, 1953

After work I started for the Center.  On the way I met John Reilly, Pat McElroy, and Clark in John’s car with the top down.  I got in and we went to the Center.  Clark asked me to dance but in the middle of the song he had to go over and talk to the boys.  Then they left.  He said good-bye, he’d see me tomorrow night at quarter to eight.  There’ll be 4 couples.  Bucky & Nancy, Max & Nancy, Lane and John Reilly, and Clark and I.  I wish John and Lane wouldn’t go with us, ‘cause Reilly always has to be home so darn early.                                                                                                    Diary, February 18, 1953

Went to the Mardi Gras, as planned.  I had a swell time.  Of all times, tonight Clark let John Reilly drive; we went straight home.  Clark said they’d be up to the Center on Saturday night, as usual.                                                                                                                            Diary, February 19, 1953

Of course, not all of us spent time at the Center. Some chose not to go for religious reasons, others lived beyond walking distance, some were working, others may have lacked social confidence,  some may not have seen any value in spending time there, and some were not permitted to go. The longing of these teens whose parents did not approve of the youth center was poignantly expressed during a recent conversation at a class reunion.

I was not allowed to go. I worked at Kantar's Friday and Saturday nights anyway. I would go to the football games and then go home. I was never inside the Center.                    A Classmate, 2010



[i] Kent, pp. 232 – 246,
[ii] Byers, 2007.
[iii] It was through the efforts of the Woman’s Club that a branch of the Shaw Memorial Library was set up in the Center.  Initially there were 97 books with no fee for borrowing.
[iv] Byers, 2007.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Porches and Playhouses


It was heaven lying about us in our infancy.

Porches and playhouses are reminiscent of a gentler time when families sat on porches and little girls created playhouse wherever they could find a quiet spot to call their own. Such was my own childhood, establishing my lifelong interest in creating living spaces, playhouse by playhouse.


Prelude: Jessie, Katherine, and Margaret Jean

It Began in the Summer of 1913:
W
hile the Pifer family lived only a half block from
State Street
(the primary thoroughfare of the town and its two-block main shopping district) the young daughters were not permitted to go “downtown,” not even to the corner. Their boundary was the back porch for play and the front porch for company and for sitting quietly on a Sunday afternoon or summer evenings. While Katherine and Margaret Jean were content to play on the back porch, Jessie, the oldest of the three younger sisters and very confident, often would find a reason to deliver something to a friend in the next block or even farther away if her story were plausible enough. The younger girls liked to play “house” under the back porch which was large enough for the little ones to stand in. They used cardboard boxes for pretend furniture and a few old pans contributed by Mama. Occasionally when their father was out of town for several weeks, they would set up a play house in the shed, which had been rebuilt and was now referred to as the garage. They preferred under the back porch to the garage, however, as the ground floor of the garage was oily (even though Mama placed cardboard on the ground to make a clean floor to play on). On rare occasions or when it rained, Mama allowed them to use the adult furniture on the porch to shape a playhouse there. The Pifer girls, however, were not allowed ever to go barefoot, on the porch, in the yard, or anywhere else, and held to the rules of the ever-sought-after mark of gentility.

Judith and Jo Ellen
Act I:
Schofield Street
Scene 1: The Summer of ’42
T
he favorite pastime the summer of 1942 for Jo Ellen and me was “playing house” under the “back porch.” (The house actually had two side porches and we identified the one that opened into an interior anteroom as the front porch and the one that gave entrance to the kitchen as the back porch.) We would drag out dolls and the one doll bed we shared, doll clothes, and anything else we could use for furniture. We would make pretend food by adding water to sand or mud, taking an egg from the Frigidaire (which we thought was the term for any refrigerator) to try to bind the mixture so it would not split when it dried. Irises, both purple and the old-fashioned yellow, white, and brown variegated variety, grew in clumps in various areas in the yard and provided other ingredients and spots of color to our “cooking.”

Even at ages four and five we could barely stand up under the back porch and we coveted the area under the much higher front porch.  That space, however, was used for storage of the porch swing and odd sizes and shapes of lumber scraps, thus limiting the room for play. Hollyhocks and climbing flowers covered the trellis on this higher porch, making the space even more appealing even if off limits.  Regardless of the restriction on the choice of play area, we spent many hours, safe and secure, surrounded by family and neighbors, Milligans on one side and Bresslers on the other. 

Indoors when it rained or in the winter, we claimed underneath the dining room table as our playhouse where we could pretend that sofa pillows were doll beds that I then topped with a satin quilted doll-size coverlet Evelyn Milligan had made for me. The dining table was large, and its placement allowed for us to play for hours and days on end, secluded in a corner of the room, without disturbing the household routine.

Scene 2: The Summer of ’44
At ages six and seven, indoor and “on the porch” activities included cutting out paper dolls and coloring in coloring books, scarce at that time.  Our older sister had a large collection of paper dolls, all packed neatly in a suit box, each set carefully stored separately with sheets of tissue paper between each layer. How we younger sisters were thrilled when invited to join her in playing with that coveted collection. A remembered favorite was Gone With the Wind paper dolls. Jo Ellen and I shared a coloring book, negotiating which double page to color, as rarely were both sides of the page equally appealing. Jo Ellen sat on the right and I (preferring to color left-handed) on the left.  We recall in particular a Snow White coloring book. Occasionally Aunt Jessie would give us unused, “left over” third grade papers from her classroom to color.

With wages and prices frozen because of the war, many youngsters pitched in to help the family coffers or to provide their own spending money. Our older sister was resourceful and that summer set up a comic book stand on the front porch steps, which provided four display levels. She charged 3¢ for comics that were a bit shopworn and 5¢ for those in prime condition. No one in town had the vast collection that she did, and word soon spread that good comic books could be purchased from her at half-price. Several weeks and several dollars later, Mr. Forest Bornhoft, a barber on South Side who had a vast stock of new comic books which he sold retail, telephoned our father, expressing his displeasure that his daughter was “stealing business from me.” Our dad thought this amusing and said to Mr. Bornhoft, “Surely, the few nickels she earns can’t make that much difference in your business.” In a small town this had other dynamics as well, for Mr. Bornhoft was a fellow Drill Team Member and Mrs. Bornhoft served as the home nurse who took care of many of the community’s newborns.

Later, I also set up a comic book stand (on the less desirable two-stepped “back” porch), but was quickly put out of business by my older sister who not only claimed exclusivity, but also told me it would be illegal to have a second comic book business in the same location. Soundly dejected, I gathered up my few comics and stacked them back on the bookshelf in the dining room.

Scene 3: The Summer of ‘45
      The summer of 1945 was exciting to us not because of the impending victory in WWII, but because of a large chicken coop, all of brand new, scent-filled wood.. The lumber order our father had placed a year earlier at Sandri’s Lumber Yard was delivered in early May. The 8 by 12 foot chicken coop looked to us very much like a playhouse and that is just what our dad allowed us to use it for the entire summer. No more playing under the porches. Mother said all four of us could share the space, but with the youngest not yet three and the oldest an adolescent, the playhouse was completely owned by Jo Ellen and me. Bliss it was.



Judith and Jo Ellen
Act II:
Thompson Street
Scene 1: The Summer of ‘46
      Our family moved on March 9 (my birthday when I couldn’t stop thinking, in a typical nine-year-old self-centered way, that it wasn’t fair to move when I would “only once ever be nine on the ninth”), shedding tears because we did not want to leave the Milligans and the Bresslers. Amid promises to return to visit (the distance was less than a mile), we said our good-byes, feeling somewhat mollified by leaving the lawn swing for the Bresslers’ use. There it was to remain for a quarter century, enjoyed by both Laura and John, although it became John’s “station,” a replacement for the single lawn chair he had sat in under the horse chestnut tree, the tree whose barren fruit we futilely had tried to peddle three years earlier.

The house we move to on the euphoniously named
Thompson Street
had been a stunning property and still retained many of its original amenities at $6,000, almost twice as much as my parents had paid for the
Schofield Street
property. It was large, with an immense kitchen (Mother always added, “with seven doors”) and a sizable walk-in pantry, a dining room with full-length glass French doors to the generous foyer, a formal living room, and a sitting room on the first floor. We children loved the double staircase, the one in the main hallway being open on one side with very ornate woodwork. The “back stairway” was enclosed and could be entered from the kitchen or the sitting room. The two stairways met on a shared landing where they took separate turns leading to the four bedrooms and a bathroom. Jo Ellen and I originally shared the largest bedroom, with the baby in the smallest room. This changed after a couple of years to give me more privacy, Mother realizing how important it was to me have a room of my own.

My mother and father each had a bedroom, and our sixteen-year-old sister was given the private suite on the third floor complete with its own small bathroom. She decorated the sloped ceiling of the room with a border of Vargas and Petty girls, which we younger children found scandalous, although we didn’t have the vocabulary or full understanding to voice the source of our discomfort.

Importantly, a capacious porch graced the front of the house with large, comfortable wicker furniture left by the Wall family, our father’s cousins from whom the property had been purchased. This became Mother’s favorite place during the hot summers as, with its broad awnings, the porch was relatively cooler than the interior of the house and we all gathered there, with the children more likely to be sitting on the wide steps. No one had air-conditioning.

There was also a small back porch at the rear of the house with a second story porch above it, accessible from the small hallway between the back bedrooms. In addition, the full-height basement area boasted a concrete floor, with plenty of space to play around a large round oak table the Walls had left behind. This heavy table was ideal for such activities as working with clay (“real” potter’s clay Aunt Jessie had ordered from the teacher’s catalog of “authentic artist’s supplies”).

Best of all, the area under the back porch also was concreted halfway back and made a perfect playhouse, although why we didn’t establish our playhouse area in the basement I don’t recall. Perhaps under the porch just felt more personal.  What I really had my eye on was the brick two-car garage with its side door accessed from the yard, an interior sink with running water as well as wonderful paned windows and cupboards. It was a perfect playhouse on days the car wasn’t housed there which, unfortunately, was seldom.

Scene 2: The Summer of ‘47
        The summer of 1947 was near to a last hurrah of childhood. There were the playhouses to furnish and excitement generated by an old army cot to be assembled—with the idea in mind of sleeping under the back porch.  This was also the year Jo Ellen and I became fluent in pig Latin and, as a result, Jessie and Mother had to devise a short cut version by which to communicate information when we children happened in on a conversation. Sometimes our mother and her sisters spelled out words in their conversations they didn’t want us children to understand, but, as we became adept spellers, that method also had to be dropped. 

Many of the family conversations were held on the large front porch as it was cool and held the large wicker furniture with its thick cushions. Although the wicker was a bit “old-fashioned,” it was of perfect proportion for the age and size of the house. The porch itself was commodious and had decorative banisters and spindles on its three open sides.  These had to be scrubbed with a brush, a most tedious job, and one we girls performed reluctantly. An easier task was the bi-weekly (in season) porch floor scrubbing handled by two people, one to carry the hot water and one to scrub with a broom, the method my mother had learned from her own mother and sisters years earlier. 

Until we girls were older and had the strength and ability to balance a bucket without spilling its contents, Mother carried bucket after bucket of hot soapy water from the kitchen sink, through the front hall and to the doorway of the porch where she would carefully pour the water over the ledge of the threshold.  The young “scrubber” would swish the broom back and forth on the surface of the wooden porch.  Working from the center out to both sides, the scrubber herself would have to carry (less full) buckets of water once leaving the center of the porch.  The buckets of hot water were followed by buckets of cooler water to rinse off the soapy water, and finished with cold water from a hose attached to an outside spigot.  We were permitted to be barefoot for this job, one of the rare times this was allowed.  A sense of satisfaction at the completed job was the only reward, along with being part of family gatherings that evening on a “nice, clean porch.”

Scene 3: The Summer of ‘48
That carefree summer of ’48 saw the formation of The Pigtail Club, established under the back porch, its headquarters replacing for most of the season the “living room” area of the playhouse. Based on a concept made popular by a comic book series, Jo Ellen and I obtained orange crates which we planned to transform into chairs, following the directions we had read in the comic book. Having no saw or hammer, or any idea how to use either, we dragged the crates a block up
Thompson Street
where we sought assistance from our Grandfather Pifer, returning triumphantly with our orange crate chairs to the clubhouse-under-the-porch, not realizing that by the following summer we would be too tall to use the clubhouse and would seek wider pastures.

Jo Ellen soon was invited to be part of a four-member club, “The Hiking Spooks,” and I blithely ensconced my four best friends, “The Five Follies,” into the “clubhouse” space above Edie Wright’s garage where we, even when the temperature neared 100 degrees, religiously held our scheduled meetings, planned our lemonade stand for the town’s “Sesquicentennial” the following summer, and plotted how to get the boys interested in us as we prepared to enter junior high school following that Summer 1949 event. As we focused on new territories, porches and playhouses, bastions for a decade, were now abandoned.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Three Mile Island

While TMI doesn't have anything to do with the 1950s, it is a glimpse at how schools reacted to this event, from a first hand account of one who was there.

Remembering T M I

As the eighth decade of the 20th Century grew to a close in 1979, the final assault of the nationally tumultuous nineteen-seventies was delivered on Wednesday, March 28, when the worst fears held by the critics of nuclear power were realized. On that day at Three Mile Island, less than ten miles from Hummelstown, a series of events began by which the core of a nuclear reactor came very close to meltdown. Area residents were alerted that morning by an announcement that broke into the regular radio programming that there had been an “incident” at Three Mile Island. No details were available, but listeners were told there was no immediate danger. Residents were, however, advised, as a precaution, to “stand by, close their windows, and stay indoors.”

Some citizens wondered if perhaps this was a cruel hoax related to the movie The China Syndrome which had opened only twelve days earlier. Such thoughts were shared by several high school faculty members who had seen the movie the previous evening in local theatres and had shared comments on the film on their way into school that morning. The possibility of such an event was particularly acute when on this very morning they were visited by a guidance counselor who rapped on the door of each classroom, motioned the teacher to come to the door, and advised that all windows be closed because of a problem about which he was not at liberty to elaborate. While the teachers waited to hear more information, they were again reminded just how isolated their classrooms were without radios, televisions, or telephones, and how they themselves were without recourse, not able to leave because of their responsibility for the students.

Later in the morning, it was announced by radio and television stations that while no schools were officially closing because of the incident at nearby Middletown, any parents who wanted to pick up their children at local schools could do so. It was, however, strongly suggested that the children remain in school and that parents not interrupt classes but report quietly to the school offices if they “insisted” on taking their children from their classrooms. At Lower Dauphin High School teachers were told to release any students whose names would be called over the public address system. At this point the faculty realized something serious was occurring and rumors began to float. School was not dismissed early nor was the school closed at that time, so faculty and students remained in their classes.

Unknown to me because I was with my own high school students, my son was the only child whose parents had not come to his elementary school classroom before the end of the school day. Years later he told me how frightened he had been watching his classmates, one by one, leave his room while he was left there alone with a terrible, unspoken fear that “something had happened to the world.”

The next six days were anxiety-laden for everyone in the country, but especially so in the area around the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island. Emergency evacuation centers were being identified at destinations fifty miles from the reactor and routes to these centers were hastily being planned, even as to which towns in this area should evacuate in what order. Most of the citizenry didn’t know what to do and did not know whose advice to follow. Some were reluctant to leave their homes for fear of looting and some packed up their valuables and left town as soon as they could, hoping for the best. Others, my own family included, remained, believing the assurances of the media and government sources and dismissing the warnings from relatives outside the area who voiced far more dire concerns for what the local media insisted on calling an “incident.” Further, in my own case, my husband would not leave because of the responsibility he felt to be on call for the school district of which he was a high school principal.

Only later was it fully known that the rest of the country was getting news information far more frightening than what was being broadcast to central Pennsylvanians. The local tactic was to keep the population calm and, while no one would ever admit to withholding information, the residents were not being told how potentially dangerous the situation was. Official announcements from the government and, in particular, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, were delivered with composure, providing assurances that everything was under control. In reality, Middletown, the town closest to TMI, was fast emptied of its citizenry as people fled in fear.

By the weekend President Carter was flown in from Washington not only to assess the situation, but more so to instill confidence in the residents and the workers at the power plant. The public was being told that a series of mechanical breakdowns and human blunders had caused a crucial water pump to fail.  Backup systems were useless because workers had neglected to reopen valves they had closed for maintenance. That mistake was compounded by other system errors until the rapidly overheating uranium core approached meltdown status. In addition, wisps of radioactive gas leaked into the atmosphere and a huge hydrogen bubble began accumulating inside the damaged reactor, threatening to explode.

An eerie calmness prevailed among those who remained in the area, and the entire situation was later viewed as being surreal. Most of us were unaware of how close to a nuclear disaster we were living through in the shadow of the giant cooling towers. And no one really wanted to know because the possibility of a nuclear holocaust was simply beyond comprehension.