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| Building 9206 Shift Workers. Dad (Forrest Neil Case) is wearing a suit and is far left in the top row. Mom (Claudia F. Osborn), embraced by her co-workers, is second from left in the second row. |
One evening, near the end of his life, Dad and I talked about the EEOICPA claim he had recently submitted to the Department of Energy. I was surprised that he brought the subject up. Usually, he would start our little get-togethers by asking me how my law practice was faring, and after getting that out of the way, he would launch into the ups and downs of his Wall Street investments. Occasionally, he would bring up some current items from the evening news and ask for my thoughts. But this night was different. His tone was solemn, bordering on melancholy.
He told me that he had finally finished the paperwork for the EEOICPA claim he was submitting as the surviving spouse of my mother, Claudia F. Osborn. I asked about the claims process. Was it complicated? He replied that the process was simple, really. All he had to do was demonstrate three things. That the subject of the claim, in this case, my mother:
- worked at a work site covered by the Act (EEOICPA),
- during a period covered by the Act, and
- subsequently developed a qualifying health condition.
Mom's case satisfied all three requirements:
- She worked as a refining oxide operator for CEW/TEC in Y-12 Buildings 9203 and 9206,
- from August 3, 1944, to February 18, 1947.
- Thirty years later, she died from pancreatic cancer.
I knew Dad had labored putting the claim together for weeks, so I asked why it took so long if the process was as simple as he described. He told me that not only had he filled out the forms required by the Department of Energy, but he also went one step further by including a report on the conditions under which Mom and her co-workers performed their job assignments at Y-12. Dad was uniquely qualified to present such a report, as he had been their supervisor. I asked him if the Department of Energy had requested the information, and our subsequent conversation went like this:
"No. Not initially, but when they learned who I was, they became very interested."
"So why did you write the report in the first place?"
"Because the DOE people only had technical material on the chemical processes we conducted there. Flow charts, building floor plans, equipment descriptions, that kind of thing. I wanted to set the record straight."
"Set the record straight?"
"Yes. I wanted to explain what the workers' jobs entailed and what hazards they faced. None of that is in the technical stuff. Your mom was not alone in what happened to her. There are a lot of people who face the same thing. The DOE needs to know that."
Then, I remembered Dad's 1947 letter to Grandmother about "all the secrecy" and Mom's "exposure." For many years I suspected that there might have been some connection between Mom's work at Y-12 and her bouts with cancer, but I thought it was something I would never know for sure. Never that is, until that night. I had sensed that Dad knew things that I didn't. Now, he wanted to talk about it for the first time, to "get it off his chest." We sat in silence for a moment. Finally, Dad turned off the television playing in the background and turned, looking directly at me, almost pleadingly.
"OK, Dad. What's on your mind? What was in your report to the DOE?"
So he told me. He began by describing their workplace.
"Everybody knows about the 'Calutron girls' who spent their work shifts perched on stools in their street clothes and whose worst job-related risk was being bored to death as they twitched dials back and forth on control panels for hours on end. Your mother and her co-workers didn't do that. They worked for a living. They spent their shifts on their feet in coveralls, heavy rubber lab gloves, and protective eyeglasses. Their workplace was permeated by the smell of chemicals, the heat of calcining ovens, and the ever-present danger of being splashed by acids or overcome by noxious fumes. They labored hands-on with materials they had never seen before and would never see again. They were not told what the materials were, and they were not permitted to ask what they were. Doing so could, and would, get them fired. The same was true of the processes they had to perform. The rules were simple: Don't talk, don't ask, just do your job."
He went on to describe their daily routine. Upon arriving at Y-12, Mom and her co-workers would get off the bus, go through the security check at the gates and punch in at "Clock Alley." From there, they would enter the change room they were authorized to use, change into a clean set of coveralls, leave their street clothes in a locker, and proceed directly to their assigned workplace. They would return to the change room, shower, and change back into their street clothes at the end of their shift. The showers were not only for washing away sweat or chemical fumes. The showers were for washing off the ever-present "dust" that resulted from their hands-on work with the mysterious materials, some of which always ended up on their coveralls, shoes, gloves, skin, and hair. Not all the "dust" ended up on the workers' clothing, skin, or hair. Instead, some of it ended up in the workers' nostrils, airways, and lungs. Nothing could wash away that dust. The workers carried it away within their bodies, and much of it would remain there for the rest of their lives.
I was sure I knew what the dust was, but I asked anyway.
"The dust was uranium, right?" (See Note 1 below.)
"Right. There was so much of it the workers sneezed yellow mucus. We would wipe all the horizontal surfaces in the work areas weekly. We had to recover every speck of uranium. It was precious, you see."
"Weren't they given respirators?"
"No. Just coveralls, safety glasses, and gloves. Showers were available, but no respirators."
"You've got to be kidding!"
He responded, "about health physics then not being what it is today" and "radiation risks not being fully understood at the time..." I cut him off. He was lying, and I knew it.
"Dad, the risks associated with working with radioactive materials were well known since the time of Madame Curie, the radium girls, and so forth. Even I know that." (See Note 2 below.)
He turned his head from me and looked away as if into the past.
"Dave," he said, his voice quiet but strained. It was war. There was a constant sense of urgency. It was a twenty-four-hour a day, seven-day a week effort. People today can't imagine what it was like unless they lived through it."
As he said this, his eyes became moist. Only at his own mother's funeral had I seen him so filled with such pain and remorse. Then, referring to my mother and her co-workers, he added,
"You see, Dave, they were expendable. Just like soldiers on the battlefield."
"Come on, Dad," I said, exasperated, "Soldiers know their situation. Did the workers know theirs?"
When he did not reply, I knew the answer. It was late in the evening, and tomorrow was another workday. So I said goodbye and drove home to Sevierville.
~~~~~
Note 1:
The uranium dust Dad and I were talking about emits alpha radiation which does not penetrate human skin and typically poses no health risk. However, alpha-emitting particles taken into the human body are exceedingly dangerous.
"When alpha particle emitting isotopes are ingested, they asre far more dangerous than their half-life or decay rate would suggest, due to the high relative biological effectiveness of alpha radiation to cause biological damage. Alpha radiation is an average of about 20 times more dangerous, and in experiments with inhaled alpha emitters, up to 1000 times more dangerous than an equivalent activity of beta-emitting or gamma-emitting radioisotopes." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_particle#Biological_effects
~~~~~
Note 2:
In 1948 Dad wrote several articles for a feature in the Mansfield News-Journal entitled "Science Today." One of the articles mentioned the Curies and had this to say about alpha radiation:
"The alpha rays that appear to be positively charged particles do not travel far from their source. They are also the least penetrating rays given off by radioactive materials. The skin on a human will stop alpha rays. They are only dangerous when inside the human body."
04 Apr 1948, Sun News Journal (Mansfield, Ohio) Newspapers.com
