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ORAL HISTORY OF KATHY MCNEILLY

Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt

Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.

August 28, 2018

MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview's for the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is August the 28th, 2018. I'm Don Hunnicutt with Kathy McNeilly in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC., 130 Randolph Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take her oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Kathy, please state your maiden name as well as your married name and spell McNeilly for me.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay. Kathy with a K, Lynn Eden is my maiden name, E-D-E-N. McNeilly, M-C-N-E-I-L-L-Y.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Place of birth and date.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, October 24, 1948.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Your father's name, place of birth and date.

MRS. MCNEILLY: See? I have it on paper because I was worried I would not remember at the moment. My father, Edwin Winfield Eden, Junior, was born June 4, 1911, lived in Highland Park, New Jersey.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And your mother, his wife's ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay, my mom was Florence Sybil Brown Eden, born October 10, 1916, and was a professional artist. Do I need to say what they did? You’re going to ask it.

MR. HUNNICUTT: If you'd like.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay, she was an artist. He was a civil engineer. She painted pictures. My house is full of pictures and triptychs. Great big pictures, little pictures. It's amazing. She dabbled in a lot of other forms of art, but that was what she did. Daddy was a civil engineer and won a lot of prizes for what he did. He was eventually in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers Office in Jacksonville [Florida], and when he retired, he was the person in charge of the study to find a new version of the Panama Canal. When we were going through his effects at the house, we learned he had a Q clearance for their using nuclear explosives, maybe, proposed then to dig the canal. That was cool.

MR. HUNNICUTT: The program was called Plow Share, Plow Share.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay.

MR. HUNNICUTT: They were attempting to use a nuclear device to blow a channel for the new canal.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I thought that…

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Well, he did not talk to us. Donna, Sandi and I, the three daughters. Donna, 1940, Sandi, '41, and me in ’48, he did not say anything to us and we didn't know that. We knew where he was working. I had gone to Panama City one of the trips when he'd gone down, but did not know he was so connected to the nuclear industry.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you mention your mother's maiden name?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Maiden name, Brown. That was the line I followed for the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] genealogy. I know a little bit more about the Brown side than the Eden side.

MR. HUNNICUTT: On your father's side.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Which would be your grandmother on his side, what was her maiden name?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Her name is Elizabeth Malmros Eden. Malmros was the last name, maiden name, Eden. She married into it. She was from Sweden. M-A-L-M-R-O-S, that I know of.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay, now your grandfather on that side.

MRS. MCNEILLY: My grandfather was Edwin Winfield Eden, Senior. He was in insurance, a seller of insurance, worked at a bank, also dabbled in politics. For a while he was mayor of Highland Park [New Jersey]. Lots of things happening in the background that I was not aware of.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Now on your mother's side of the family, your grandfather?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Arthur Castle Brown was my grandfather and he was born, (looked at my paper,) September 3rd, 1883. He was a farmer and Grandma was Eva Marietta, M-A-R-I-E-T-T-A, Lowry, L-O-W-R-Y, Brown. She was a housewife. They had 10 kids, nine kids living, 10 kids total.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they live?

MRS. MCNEILLY: They lived in Vermont, in Jericho. The Brown family in the 1600s had a grant from the king, which would have been George the Third, to settle the frontier. They were called Hampshire Grants, and so the Brown family left with other families, left Waterford, Connecticut, and went west and up the river. The river's named for the family, the Brown River, the elementary school's named for the family. They were the settlers of the community that happened at Jericho, which is northeast of Burlington, Vermont.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Wow. I'm sure if we could interview them, they'd have quite a tale to tell us, wouldn’t they?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I guess so. In the American Revolution, the Native Americans were helping the British and some Indians, probably Mohawk, came in the window and kidnapped them and took them prisoner to Quebec City. When they were up there a little bit, they escaped and came back to the farm, were caught again, taken back, and that's the family lore that I had heard as a child. I had to prove it through getting documents, the generations back, and I was amazed that the genealogist at the Daughters of the American Revolution Office in Washington, DAR, has a book that, in the library that outlines the prisoners of war at the Quebec City Prison and my ancestors were listed in that. Amazing.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Does John Brown, there is something about John Brown, what does that ring a bell?

MRS. MCNEILLY: John Brown is the Civil War, he was ...

MR. HUNNICUTT: Civil War.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Harpers Ferry.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. I couldn't remember.

MRS. MCNEILLY: But lots of Browns. It's like the third or fourth most common name.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Smith and Brown's pretty common, isn't it?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Following the ancestor, Joseph, Joe Brown, is the height of idiocy.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about your father's school history.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Let me also say that Eden, in the background, distantly related I'm told and I have not proved it, I have not gone in that, but Anthony Eden was a prime minister of England in the '50s. He's not well liked. He wasn't in office very long. He was an assistant to Winston Churchill and, you know, there is that in the background. Daddy went to school in Highland Park, college at Rutgers [University], had a Masters. He's an engineer, had a Masters in Engineering. When I was in the ninth grade, he Mom and I, my sisters were married, went to Ann Arbor, Michigan. He got a second Masters in conservation from the University of Michigan, 1962, ‘63 probably. I think.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned your sisters, what's their names?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Donna Jean Eden Barker is the oldest, February 24, 1940, Sandra Elizabeth Eden Hall, April 22, see? It's crazy what your mind does, 1941. My two sisters.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you were in Florida, your father worked for the Corps of Engineers there. Did he have any connection with the Oak Ridge Manhattan Project that you know of?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Not that I know of. I think he was aware that Greg, my husband, and I had moved up to Oak Ridge, and I think if there were any connection, he would have said something. Not that I know of. Too bad.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about where you grew up, Kathy. How was it? Describe it.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay. Jacksonville, Florida, is where I grew up. We moved there when I was three. We were very near the Naval Air Station [NAS] in Jax. We were told I'm sure by somebody who would have been higher up the food chain than kids, that we were a target also during any strike on the United States. I'm sure it wasn't as important as Oak Ridge, but it would certainly have been something that would be important to us. So, we heard planes a lot. Dad flew out with hurricane hunters at one point from NAS, Jax Naval Air Station, NAS. So as an officer, we went to the NAS station quite a bit.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You live on base?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, we did not. We lived in town.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Would you ever go out and visit Jacksonville Beach?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh, yeah. A lot.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That's where I went as a kid every August in the summer from the time I can remember.

MRS. MCNEILLY: No kidding, no kidding. Do you know what part of Jacksonville Beach you went to?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Just the Jacksonville Beach is all I know. Where the boardwalk was and all the rides.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I understand many years later the hurricane came through and tore that up. I stopped there some time back, looked at it. The only thing I recognized was a lifeguard ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Station.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Station.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah. If you come out Beach Avenue, it takes you to the lifeguard station. The Red Cross maybe runs that building and there was a band shell right there. Do you remember the band shell?

MR. HUNNICUTT: It wasn't when I went, no.

MRS. MCNEILLY: And the boardwalk, of course, was on the ocean and lots of things. When you drove to the beach, you could approach it in many different directions. You could park and walk over the sand dunes to the beach or you could drive onto the beach. When I was little, one could drive on the beach with your car and park. So there were lots of people who would do that. Do you remember driving onto the beach?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh yes. A funny thing about that, we'd sit up on those benches on the boardwalk ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Those people had left their cars parked out there, you know, and the tide came in. They'd be getting wreckers to get them pulled out.

MRS. MCNEILLY: We have a friend who has that as a story and they're from Canada. They are just amazed that this is something that happened, because they thought that beach always was there.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it was until the tide came in. It was a comical thing to sit there and watch those people. I don't know where they were. I guess they were on the boardwalk some place and time got ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Not minding it.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Got up on them.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Of course, saltwater will ruin a car.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh yeah. When you get home from a vacation down there, it'd take weeks to get the salt, the sand out of your car.

MRS. MCNEILLY: The sand.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah. There's lots of things that can go wrong after that.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you spend a lot of time at the beach?

MRS. MCNEILLY: We were in town and we would not have gone out every week, but certainly several trips in the summer to go out to the beach.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, the thing I vividly remember was, you know, when the wind blew, sand got into everything. So it wasn't fun to have a picnic on the beach by any means.

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, because you ate sand.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, but the boardwalk, I've got fond memories of that.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: It's something that was ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah, it lasted quite a bit through my childhood. There were events happening that I would not have thought they were unusual, but then like you say, the hurricane came through and took that boardwalk out. They did not put it back. They thought, the prevalent feeling was that it was a trashy look, and so they did not put the boardwalk back for that reason.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I had heard it got to be where there was a lot of people mingling around there that wasn't really good for the city.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Unsavory, yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: At all.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Or tourism.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Jax beach is it's own city.

MR. HUNNICUTT: One other thing about Jacksonville, do you ever remember there was a little old train that used to run. When you came in from the main road into where the beach was and then that Beach Road intersect, somewhere on the right there was a little train that you could ride. I used to ride that thing all the time. Do you ever remember that?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No.

MR. HUNNICUTT: In those days ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Too long ago.

MR. HUNNICUTT: When you stayed in the motels ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Sometimes they didn't have air conditioning.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Maybe a window fan.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I agree.

MR. HUNNICUTT: They would spray at night for bugs and you'd have to close all the windows up and everything, you know.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. Yeah, fogging. Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What's some of your memories about living there in Jacksonville and growing up?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I was about a block from the elementary school, so I walked. I remember going into school and coming home when I was little, and junior high was a bus ride. So you had to go out and catch the bus, go to a certain place and the bus would come by. If there were any kids sitting, waiting there, they would pick them up. The senior high was even farther away, and one could take a regular bus, a school bus, one could take a city bus, or one could drive. So there were several ways of getting to school and we did all those. The regular bus, I know you've asked about the buses here in Oak Ridge and transfers that happened, we also had transfers. When we rode the regular bus, we would have to walk farther to catch it, but we would get a transfer when we got on and then would get off in order to use the transfer to catch another bus to get home.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall anything in your time you were down there about Oak Ridge, hearing anything about Oak Ridge?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. Not a thing.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Still a secret.

MRS. MCNEILLY: As a child. See, I was a child.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah.

MRS. MCNEILLY: So no, I don't know that.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, was your home in Jacksonville the city?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That's quite a large city.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I can remember coming through there.

MRS. MCNEILLY: We were in a section of town called Ortega, O-R-T-E-G-A, and our house was one of the first houses that was built in the area. The idea was there was a streetcar line. I never saw a streetcar until I went to San Francisco. Streetcar line that came out and went around the park in front of our house to make a circuit so that they could go back on the same line to go back. There's a big park in front of our house and I could imagine there would be a streetcar there going all the way around this triangular park, but I never saw one. But the house is quite old. The house, I know, that in part of the time I was in high school, there was the Cold War concern about being a target, and in Jacksonville you cannot have a bomb shelter because the water line is just a foot or so down below the surface of the earth. I can remember Daddy digging something, making a hole, and it wasn't too far before you began to get into like quicksand. Sand would come in and fill the hole as fast as you could dig it. So, there is no bomb shelter option in Oak Ridge [Jacksonville]. We did have dog tags. I wanted to talk about that, given out by the elementary school when we were little. We had dog tags that they passed out when we had drills. The dog tags, I looked for mine, I still have mine, but I can't find them at the moment. But anyway, it had your parents’ name on it. So the idea would be if you were dead, they would know where to tell someone you had passed on. The last line of the dog tag, Daddy's name, address, Jacksonville. In my case, it was a P for Protestant. So it said on there what type of service you had or what kind of remains and you would bury according to this.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Hmm, interesting. I'd have to look for mine, I don't think we had that kind of information here.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Also, we realized later, of course, that if we were a target of a bomb, we are gone, we're toast. It wouldn't matter.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well back in those days, civil defense was an important thing to practice but practicality, it didn’t work.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah, and going under your desk and holding your head's not going to help.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the typical dress for you to go to school?

MRS. MCNEILLY: When we were ... I think in all schools until I got to FSU, Florida State University, girls had to wear dresses, had to wear skirts down to the knees. There was no length involved, but I can remember that they were long. It was not an idea that they would be short. When I got to FSU, I lived in Jenny Murphree, which is a very old school, was an old school-type dorm for girls. If we were going to wear shorts, we had to wear a ... Like to play tennis, one had to wear a raincoat, full length rain coat, over it until you got to the courts.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Hmm.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Uh-huh.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Really?

MRS. MCNEILLY: We had to check out at the office, check in. The office was closed by 10, 10:30, you had to meet curfew. You had to be in. You couldn't leave without adults, your parents signing permission that you could go away. This school was in Tallahassee and it was five/six hours from Jacksonville. So my parents didn't do that too often.

MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were in elementary school, do you remember some of your teacher’s names?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh yeah. I remember them all. Miss Ivy and when I went to school kindergarten was not a part of Florida schools. So I went to a separate kindergarten. Her name was Miss Bagley. I can remember the kindergarten. I remember holding hands walking around the block in the kindergarten. I can remember learning some of the early patriotic songs that we all sing now, I don't need to think about it, but Miss Ivy in first grade at school got married at the end of the first year. I don't know if she stayed with teaching or not but I loved her. She was great. Second grade was Mrs. Sewell. We went to a field trip to a dairy and saw cows, ate our lunch out there. Third grade, Miss Heflin, no, Miss Orsham, fourth grade was Miss Heflin, fifth grade was Miss Funderburke, and sixth grade was Mr. Elder. It was an interesting time. You talk in some of the interviews, you talk about selling stamps for war bonds. I sold stamps. I don't recall, I think I filled it up and gave it to my parents. I never saw the result of that stamp drive. Safety patrol was only for boys. There were no girls in safety patrol. They did wear that diagonal white strapping and go out with the very important duty of putting the stop sign on a large stick to hold cars back and let people cross roads around the school. That was very important and those people were selected because they were able to do this responsibility. Also, they had a dance. The safety patrol had a dance, had a cotillion-like thing. We wore long formals for that, when we were asked to go to this in the Armory in central Jacksonville. We had to wear long dresses, they took pictures of us, whatever. It was just like the big kids.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your age then?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh, 10? 12?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Wow.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Fourth, fifth grade. Sixth grade.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Bet that was a treat, wasn't it?

MRS. MCNEILLY: It was a treat and I think we didn't realize how important it was at the time, but it was.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall in between school years in the summer time, what did you do for fun, or did you work any and make any extra money?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah, I babysat for the kids across the street, but I didn't have a job. My girlfriend and I always thought we would go work at the library, but we didn't. Hurricanes came through. I can remember a hurricane and I'm sure you've had people experience hurricanes that have talked also about this, but we had one that came through, I think it was Betsy, and I can remember there was no electricity. We had lanterns. We sat in the living room, Mom, Dad and I sat in the living room, and played, you know, Scrabble, Monopoly, whatever board games because we had no electricity, no TV, nothing. The trees, our house was in a wooded lot, lots of live oaks around us, great big trees. The trees were groaning in the wind. Betsy came in between Saint Augustine which is, I don't know, 30 miles south of us and Jacksonville and was probably, I think I have the right name of the hurricane, but it was probably as close as any hurricane ever came. It was dramatic at our house anyway. Dad tried to drive ... We had a big porch, concrete porch, out front. Dad was going to drive our car up on it, a big Cadillac, it was too heavy. The ground, at the time he figured it out, it had rained too much and it couldn't do that. We had a cat named Toby. I was afraid to let the cat out because it was so windy and scary, and stuff going on that he would get spooked and maybe not come back. So I was afraid to let him out. It was terrible.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you dad put boarding over the windows?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Or did you have hurricane shutters?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. Not that I remember.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think people of that time just really didn't pay much attention to hurricanes?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, I think we paid attention to hurricanes, but there wasn't anything we could do. I can remember going with Dad to get groceries as a hurricane was threatened. The sky was yellow. We got to a Winn Dixie that we went to normally and it was full of people and the bread shelf was empty. We got some cans of Sterno and I don't know, tuna fish, deviled ham, whatever we could in cans, but there would be no electricity. The refrigerator was not to be opened up very often. So, the cold of the refrigerator stayed in it for as long as it could.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how long that was before you had electricity back?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Six days on that hurricane. No school.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what year that might have been?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I think in '62.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember one time we were there and we left early because there was a hurricane due to maybe hit Jacksonville Beach area but I don't know whether it ever did or not.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Two things, power coming down. The wires on the ground sparking in the front yard, close to the street. I can remember the wires being down and sparking, and information was that don't go near them, don't touch them, leave them alone, go someplace else. Don't even go near them because they might jump.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, at your age, were you frightened or did you ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: I think hearing the trees groan in the dark was scary and I was frightened for Toby, the cat. So not usually. Very early, in a very common experience, the family gathers in the living room during a hurricane. Family gathers and somebody wants something from the kitchen. So you send the littlest one to get an errand of getting something and I had to go through a dark part of the house to get to the kitchen where the light was on, and I said, "I don't get scared of things unless Daddy does."

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your sisters living with you all at that time?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Lived with me until I was eight or nine, depending on which year. Donna went to the University of Florida and graduated in aeronautical engineering. Sandi went several years at Florida and stopped. Mom and Dad used to go down and watch the football games, tailgate, and I'm the renegade that went to Florida State.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they forgive you?

MRS. MCNEILLY: They did, but not my sisters. For a long time, there was a running joke of whenever we went to visit, my brother-in-law, my ex-brother-in-law, was a real Florida guy and was going to rub it in. So he would always have glasses that we'd have to drink out of that said University of Florida. Whatever, it was a joke. We were teased I guess. It was good. The other thing I was going to say though, one of the hurricanes that came in, we went to the beach and there was foam. The water had churned such that the foam was as high as your knees. It was kind of yellow and it blew like soap suds. That was amazing and the sun was out and I remember crowds of people came to see how bad the beach looked. It was covered with this foam. So that may be the hurricane that you remember.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You remember the pier that used to go out from the boardwalk? That was always destroyed, generally, when they had a storm that came through.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned babysitting, how much did you make babysitting?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh, I'm scared to say, it was so low compared to these other people. I think I got a quarter an hour. It was ...

MR. HUNNICUTT: That seemed to be the rate in those days.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Well, it was no way to get rich.

MR. HUNNICUTT: My grandchildren babysit and they make more money than I did when I had a job in the summertime.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Times change. So moving on up into junior high, how far was the school away from where you lived in junior high?

MRS. MCNEILLY: A couple miles. Lake Shore.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk as well?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, I used the bus. Let me tell you about the milk. We had milk delivery to the house. You talked about milk delivery in Oak Ridge, it's similar, but in Jacksonville, at first they didn't have a containment for putting the jugs in to keep them cold, but apparently somebody had left their jugs out too long and they spoiled. So the dairy supplied everyone with these aluminum insulated boxes and the jugs of milk would come from the dairy delivery into the aluminum box.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You know, I had someone ask me a question about milk delivery in Oak Ridge, and one of the things came to mind is how did people sign up for milk delivery? In the early days, you had to go to the grocery store to get milk. There was no home delivery. The roads wasn't finished, blah, blah, blah. But how did the people sign up for milk delivery unless the milk companies came through town ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Or sent a letter.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And started, yeah, and started the process of asking people do you want to take our milk, blah, blah, blah. Apparently that must have been what happened, I don't know.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Hmm.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That's something I'll have to investigate into. I'm sure living in the city like you did, somebody told you how to get in touch with the milk or common sense told you how to get in touch with it.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah, again, it would have been my mom.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Maybe that's the way it worked here.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: But, you know, those companies that came to Oak Ridge, it was an organization that controlled that and let them come in.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You know, you had to have a clearance for the milkman and all that stuff.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall whether the milkman delivered inside the house?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Never.

MR. HUNNICUTT: See here, that happened. That was such a different atmosphere and I think a lot of that had to do was the fact that we were gated and controlled about who was in here.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Controlled, yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: When the families became friendly with the milkman.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Sure.

MR. HUNNICUTT: He just came in, put the milk in the refrigerator.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Sure. I can see that happening but it didn't in Jacksonville. So many people could be wandering through and ...

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Jacksonville's a big city.

MRS. MCNEILLY: You didn't allow people to come into the house.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So we're talking about junior high, what difference did you see between elementary school and junior high?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Junior high, you had to shift classes and in seventh grade and eighth grade, we had so many kids that we went in morning shift or afternoon shift. So you didn't go all day. I can remember some of the teachers. I remember the situations, I remember how it looked but ...

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a personal locker?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Had a locker every year assigned. So we had a place to put things. Yep.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That seems to be the trend just about everywhere, I guess, that when you get to that age. I don't remember in elementary school having lockers.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I don't remember.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You had somewhere in your classroom to put things.

MRS. MCNEILLY: A cloakroom. We called them cloakrooms.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Where you had a wall and a place behind it to put your coat down or whatever and your lunchbox.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I believe the first and maybe second grade, behind the cloakrooms was also the boy’s and girl’s bathroom.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You didn't have to go out in the hall to use the main restroom. That might have been just first grade. I can't remember exactly. That was at Woodland. That's the only school I attended, so I couldn't vouch for any of the other elementary schools, but I think it was similar. But you're right. There was a place at the back of the classroom.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Our cloakrooms were not associated with the bathrooms. First and second grades were in a wing of an old school, but these wings were both new and there were two first grades that were attached in the middle by a common area, bathroom, sink, water fountain. Within each room, there was a cloakroom area where when you're real little, you take a nap on a rug and a place to put those rugs as it were. So, it's evolving but it's sort of the same.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Your house in Jacksonville, do you recall how it was heated?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. When I was really little, we had a furnace and we had oil in a big tank. It was either under the house, our house was raised up 12 inches maybe, and I don't know if the tank was in the ground because I told you about the problem with the ground was water or under the house. But anyway there was a furnace in the middle of downstairs, right where the stairwell went up, and if the furnace ever caught fire and burned this wood house, Mom and Dad had said the three of us daughters that were upstairs, three of us should go out the windows with a pillow and jump because we would not be able to get down the stairs past the furnace. When I was about in sixth grade, I would say, my dad put in central heat and air and a new fireplace and took out, you know, lots of renovation in the house and made the air conditioning for the house.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that house still standing today?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. Yes, it is. I would say it's about 80 years old, maybe more. It's historic.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was it fairly new when you guys moved in?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I couldn't tell you, I was three. I couldn't tell you. We moved from Saint Louis, where I was born, to Jacksonville and I was really little.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was it a hardwood floor house?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Pretty much constructed like normal houses, nothing special for being in Florida?

MRS. MCNEILLY: We had what in Florida would be known as a sleeping porch, and in our case, it was the second floor. The house is what I would call Italianate. It had brackets over big eaves and then the sleeping porch that was smaller in the center and it had two bedrooms, a stairwell coming up, two bedrooms and it had windows all around that you could open up. The idea would be that you would catch the evening breeze from whichever direction. Mom and Dad, there was a bedroom downstairs, and Mom and Dad were down there.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you came to Tennessee, you took your first drink of water here. Do you remember how that tasted versus the water you had in Florida?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. I know what water in Florida tastes like. No, every year we went up to see grandparents in New Jersey and Vermont, and came home. So I probably was adapted to whatever water there was. I don't remember, but Oak Ridge at that time, I didn't know it as a young ... What was it? We were married in 1968. I was maybe 20. It was newer than I thought, but for me, again, it was something I accepted.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That was always a problem when we traveled down through Georgia to Florida, you know.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Water.

MR. HUNNICUTT: There was an interstates to find water.

MRS. MCNEILLY: To find it.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You know those places on the side of the road that sold oranges.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And all the orange juice you can drink when you stopped. You could only drink one glass and they said that's all you drink.

MRS. MCNEILLY: All you can drink.

MR. HUNNICUTT: But the water was terrible.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah. I don't think in Jacksonville, they allowed the water to get that bad. So it probably was treated and some of the flavors that you remember were gone.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Well when you traveled from Florida to Vermont, how long did it take you to go?

MRS. MCNEILLY: To get to New Jersey, it took two long days. We went up, usually in the car, I can remember the windows being down because was there no air conditioning. Donna, Sandi and I were in the backseat and Donna was on one window and Sandi was on the other. They will dispute this. I was in the middle and they would say, “Don't touch me.” So we would get Coke, when we stopped, and after you drink it, you save the bottle because you might roll on your lap for a while and absorb any cool out of it. We put up maps in the windows and rolled the window up so that the map stayed as a sun screen. We got to Grandma Eden's late in the day of the second day. We would stay there whatever we stayed, three or four days. Then we drove up to Grandma and Grandpa Brown, and it was a day to get to Vermont.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Which grandparents’ house did you like to stay at the best?

MRS. MCNEILLY: They were different. Grandma and Grandpa Eden’s was in town and so you did zoos, and picnics, and the parks, and things that: city things, saw lots of cousins and family, and when you went all the way up to Vermont it was a farm. So there were lots of farm things to do, hay mows, and cows, and cats, and horses to be shod. I watched a blacksmith put on horseshoes one time. Blackberries to pick and we found out later there was a bear where we were. So, there were lots of things that were sort of special experiences that happened that are different than New Jersey, but not better or worse.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, you had quite a variety from one place to the other.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, very learning experience out of all that.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Good to have exposure to all this. Good opportunity.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So during your junior high, did you do any other type of work for earning money?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, did not.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have an allowance when you were growing up?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes, I don't remember exactly when that kicked in, but I would say more towards late junior high or regular high school, senior high. I think that my allowance, at that time, was like a dollar and a quarter a week. Whatever was supposed to be paid for lunches plus some money extra for paper for whatever.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you take a lunch to school? A bag lunch?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. I did not, I bought lunch at elementary. I bought lunch at junior. I bought lunch at senior.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you think the food in each one of those schools were good?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. No but that's what there was.

MR. HUNNICUTT: It wasn't home cooking, was it?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, it wasn't home, it made you appreciate what you got at home.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much a lunch cost?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I would say it was about a quarter.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And that entailed what?

MRS. MCNEILLY: A plated main entrée, and veggies, and desert, and milk.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I can remember going through the line, it seemed like you were required to take certain things whether you ate them or not. I was always thought that was kind of foolish because if you didn't eat it, it would be thrown away.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: We always had milk.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever experience a food fight in the cafeteria by any means?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. Not a food fight, but I can remember the first thing you said was you had to eat everything, and people would go by and make sure that whatever was consumed and I can remember one of the girls in my class put the beans under the plate and the plate to the edge of the tray, so it kind of hid what she had not eaten yet.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think they were doing that to see if it was worth continuing with that type of a food or they just ... What do you think their reason for that person coming by and looking?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I think more critical motivations here. I think that they were making sure that the kids were getting their meals. So I don't know that there was any conscious decision on their part of what they should serve or not, whether it was something we liked or not. I think it was mass produced, and I think they were given a budget and they had to create the food that we had.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Everything that was written down was done with a pencil, wasn't it? Or did you have pens? Could you use pens?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, I don't remember pens, but yes, pencils.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I'm not real sure I can remember pens either.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Did you have, let's see, we're comparing what we experienced when we grew up. Did you have a pencil box so that you put things in?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh yes.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh yeah, crayons and whatever, erasers.

MR. HUNNICUTT: There was different lead types in the pencil, your number two, number three.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes, yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Number two I believe was darker.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: The erasers, I wore the erasers out real quick.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I can remember in fourth grade, the guy in front of me and I thought it was great fun that we spent time wearing down eraser and making the shavings out of it. We would sweep them away into the box and then keep going. Pretty soon we did the whole eraser into the box. I can remember showing it to my mom and it not be exciting for her.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I'd say she didn't appreciate that too well.

MRS. MCNEILLY: No, she didn't appreciate that I had done that.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you ever punished and had to go to the blackboard and write, "I will not ... " Whatever the punishment was.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I didn't have to write on the board, but one time, there was indeed a word on a spelling test that I should have spelled right with a bunch of other kids, there were five of us maybe. We had to write the word 100 times in a book or on paper to give it, to turn it in the next day that, “I will spell thermometer correctly.” Whatever. It was sixth grade. So yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Mine was, “I will not talk in class.”

MRS. MCNEILLY: Ah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I wasn't the only one, but it was ... You know…

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: …after a while it gets difficult to write 100 times on lined notebook paper. You try something different. You might write all the I's down through there.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Bart Simpson.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, and all that kind of stuff, yeah.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yep. Yep. I can remember doing that.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever clean the erasers for the teachers?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. Took them outside and hit them together. Yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Now that seemed to be a choice thing to do. It got you out of class and you got to go out there and mess with those erasers. I never did do that.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yep.

MR. HUNNICUTT: But I saw people do it.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I think it was done at the end of the day, so one had to stay. It was not done instead of being in class.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Another way boys used to drag around in class would go to the pencil sharpener and stand there and grind on that pencil.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh, yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Finally the teacher would say, "Go sit down."

MRS. MCNEILLY: Or have hiccups and have to get water, and yeah. That's another way to get out.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your classrooms have an intercom system?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh yes. When I was in 10th grade, I'm jumping ahead here. When I was in 10th grade, the squawk box we called them, intercom speakers on the wall as each class would be equipped to have notes from the office, but for the [John F.] Kennedy Assassination. I was in geometry. It was Friday. Robert E. Lee High School. I went to classand it was a stormy day anyway. There was threatening rain, storm clouds. It was bad looking outside. We had a good football team and played every week and expecting at any time this squawk box would tell us that the game had been called. We would expect it because of bad weather. It came on and told us about the Kennedy Assassination. That was shocking. I think we weren't expecting those words. This was the afternoon, I don't remember what period it was. I had two or three classes left to go, maybe another one, maybe one beyond that, but anyway. School was called and they said we should go to the bleachers outside. We had a practice field that we met at, a rally would happen for each football game. Indeed, when we were there, they talked about the Kennedy Assassination. Sent us home.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the climate any ... Did you remember whether the climate was any different when you were growing up in Florida than it is today?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. It snowed a couple times. Snow in Jacksonville is not exactly what we have here. In sixth grade we had snow, my mom drove me ... Ortega has a little bridge to get to the main part of Jacksonville and she drove over there, a little distance, to have me gather up the ice that was on the ground with pine needles in it to make snowballs so that we would have seen snow. Actually, when we moved to Oak Ridge, one of the things that ... I thought it was heaven. It was cool. When we came up to interview, I had to wear a sweater. It was amazing. Surely everyone in the world would want to have lived here. Anyway, Christmas, we had eight inches that year of snow in Oak Ridge and Mom and Dad called to say Merry Christmas and I was outside making snow angels.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What year was that?

MRS. MCNEILLY: '69.

MR. HUNNICUTT: When you graduated from high school, what did you do?

MRS. MCNEILLY: In the sense of what? Tell me what you mean.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Education wise.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Went to Florida State in the fall and met Greg in the latter part of that year, and went through the next summer, and got engaged in the fall of the next year, which would have been '70, no, '67, and we got married in '68.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you get married?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Back in Jacksonville, at my Methodist church, and short notice. We were supposed to get married in August, which would have been August 24th that year, and at the fall period, Greg said, "We can't do this. You're distracting me too much. I'm supposed to study for the comprehensive exam for the PhD. I want to get married right away and get it done. If your Mom can't do anything, we're going to be eloping." So my mom went into high gear. By the way, people probably thought I was pregnant and I wasn't. We just celebrated 50 years. But anyway, Mom went into high gear and so we had a wedding in January of that year which is, you know, seven months ahead of when we were supposed to be there.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of work did he pursue?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Greg?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Greg.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Greg got his PhD in physics. He has a Bachelor's in physics. He went to Illinois for his Master's in physics, came back to FSU, got a PhD. Experimental physics which means you work with targets and atoms. He worked on the accelerator at FSU, came up here in '69, and he had done the classwork, had done the thesis, but he hadn't typed it up yet, and hadn't defended it, and went back for that at the end of that summer of would have been '69 [‘70].

MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get involved in library?

MRS. MCNEILLY: When I met Greg, at first it was a practical choice. We looked at the options of what FSU offered. I went as a music major, that is not what I am. Music majors had to be very competitive. You all the time perform against your peers and, you know, you can see where you are. I could see I was not there. So I got out of music and when we looked at the catalog, what kind of degrees are there? If I'm going to eventually marry Greg, and we're going to be in a scientific community, will they have such a thing to support me to make money? To have a salary? So I had always had an affinity for library science, and at that point, we decided maybe we ought to go that way. So I have a Bachelors in library science. I worked for the former dean of the library school in library science and that was before we moved up here. So up here, a little bit of time in between FSU and here, and then I sent my application into the public library and they had just moved to this building that they are currently occupying on the Turnpike, and they had worked their employees around. If you remember the old library, where we also had a card, we started at the old library, one could supervise the children's part from the main desk, and there was no need for a children's librarian at the old library. But obviously in this library, one can't see what's going on, and the safety of people using the library would be at risk. So they had put a reference assistant, which is a part-time reference person over to the children's room librarian and that left the reference assistant position open, and that was mine. When I applied, I was asked to come in and I had at that time a Bachelor's and some Masters, a quarter before we moved up here.

MR. HUNNICUTT: The library you're referring to was in the old recreation hall.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Kentucky and Broadway.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: But it originally was down underneath that building.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what that library looked like inside?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. The one that's near the Alexander? The upper one.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, the upper.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. I remember coming in off the street and there would be a long hall that would open into several of the other buildings [rooms]. The library was to the right and you go in and there was a big long main room with checkout desk right there on the left. The children's area was behind it to the farthest left. There was, what we know as a work room, an office area, that was at the back of this main room and there was a smaller room off to the end that would be the fiction collection. The main room had an upper floor. I never went up there but magazines were up there, bound volumes and what not were in the upper part of the loft area of the main room.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I vaguely remember it.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Is that how you remember it?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Sort of, yeah. I would have never thought about the loft until you mentioned it. It seemed like I vaguely I remember that. I wasn't in the library that much. Do you recall what the penalty was for late books?

MRS. MCNEILLY: For a long time, it was four cents a day. It may have been four cents a day at the old library, I don't know. I know more about what happened here at this library.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you intrigued with the library when you were going to school?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. It was always a part of my existence. We had a library when I was in elementary school. We didn't have a librarian but we had a library. We went once a week. The public library that we went to was what I would call a Carnegie library, had big stone steps, you come up to the main floor, the children's room is downstairs. You go down underneath to get to the children's room. So we always went to the Willow Brook Branch Public Library. There was, for a while, a bookmobile that came out to the playground associated with the school, about a block away. I would go to the bookmobile. Also, Weekly Readers, do you remember Weekly Readers?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

MRS. MCNEILLY: When you were in school, probably the early grades, your teacher would have signed everybody in her class up to receive a newspaper that came to you once a month, two or three issues during the summertime to kind of combat what is known as the summer slump. It kind of kept you going. I remember Weekly Readers. They had news stories like Ranger Rick's, you know, what raccoons are in your neighborhood, how to do this, how to put out fire? It was, you know, fun news. I was so glad to get a Weekly Readers, read them over and over and over again. I wish I had them to show an example.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, all the schools in Oak Ridge had librarians no matter what grade you were in. It was always a fun time to go because especially when they read stories to you.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: If you were younger.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah. That then happened in my schools and in junior and senior, I did not have time to spend much time in school libraries but there were librarians.

MR. HUNNICUTT: It seems to me that in junior high was when I first caught on how the library system actually worked, how you go to the card catalog and look up for a particular book. I don't recall that in elementary school.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I don't remember having the need to have a specific book. I can remember that there would be a wish from your teacher that every student read all types of books. So they gave us a piece of paper to indicate travel books, science books, whatever, fiction books, whatever you liked to read would be on this as a picture of the total of books. You could go then to the library and you needed a fiction book, you would go to fiction and pick out a book.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned when you first came up here with your husband for a job interview, the weather was cool, what time of the year was that?

MRS. MCNEILLY: It was August. We flew up. We were given a taxi ride from or we had a taxi for us from the airport to Oak Ridge and I can remember we came up Alcoa Highway, the interstate was there. We must have gotten off at Lovell Road and Pellissippi had not been finished. So what is basically the path, we were on one side of what we know as Pellissippi and then cross over to the other side as it were so that we came up eventually to Guinn Road which is coming around into Solway. Came over the bridge to Oak Ridge and we stayed at the Diplomat. Do you remember the Diplomat?

MR. HUNNICUTT: I do. Where do you remember it being located?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Sort of near where Shoney's is. I don't know what's gotten in it's place. It was a motel.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember the name but I can't recall the location.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Dick and Maryjacque [Mary Jacqueline] McCullough were the ones who ... Dick was in charge of the group and was interviewing other people. He took us around to see Oak Ridge and pointing out things we can look at and see. We looked at a number of different apartments. I can remember one on Goucher Circle that was ... I thought it was a great apartment. Heated floor, whatever, it was a great apartment, especially because in the front closet a cat had given birth to kittens and the former resident didn't want to move them because they were so little and I thought that was great. The apartment came with cats. But Greg didn't like that. We also saw one on Tacoma which is off Tennessee up near Elm Grove. We eventually chose to live, our first house was a B, off Michigan, on Maiden, West Maiden, 106. I thought it was great. Didn't know that that was any different than any place else.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I used to live on West Maiden.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yep.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, at the end in the flattop. I have yet to determine what the number of that house was. I'm still researching it. So what was your first impression about Oak Ridge when you were toured?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Well, when we first came, lots of trees. I remember the whole corner there by Illinois and the Turnpike where ParkMed is today had not been developed, the Nissan dealer. That whole area had not been developed and there were trees. So I can remember areas of town that were much more grown up. I can remember Greg's uncle in town, Rob Ferguson, was the first one to go to college in his family. He grew up in Paducah, Kentucky, Mayfield, on the west end of Kentucky and went to Washington University in Saint Louis. Rob was 11 years older than Greg and he was already here. Greg had come up to visit him. So Rob and Joyce, his wife, and kids, Ellen and Lise drove us around a little to see Oak Ridge. I can remember their coming by the hospital, and I said, "Is that the only hospital in town?", because, you know, Jacksonville would have had a bunch. Yes, she said that was the only hospital. I can remember the early days. Joyce had said that Oak Ridge had just had a vote to pass liquor in the stores. So there were package stores on every corner. Competition would thin them out. But at first, everyone opened their own package store. I can remember that was new. I can remember Cedar Hill School was here, had not been torn down yet. I don't know what year, do you know what year it was torn down?

MR. HUNNICUTT: No.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I can remember the Turnpike was one lane east, one line west and a turn lane and they have repaved it or widened it to be two lanes on each side and a turn lane. That's a little different. Downtown was here. There was an open area between the J.C. Penney side and the back side. There was an open area that later became King’s, and later became Proffit’s, Miller’s, whatever. That I remember.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So the atmosphere from a big town like Jacksonville versus a little town like Oak Ridge was quite different obviously. Of course when you lived in Jacksonville, you were growing up but do you remember how far your mother had to go to the grocery store to get groceries?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yeah, a couple miles. A mile. It was not a terrible distance to the A&P. A&P was the closest grocery store and I can remember taking things in, deposit Coke bottles and stuff like that that happened when we were pretty young. I never played the game to see which one, Coke bottle, came from furthest away that you have talked about. When we moved out there was something in the news about an alligator that had gotten so big that he was taking dogs and cats as food and disappearing again. That alarmed people. When they investigated, they found out that the housewives were giving him chicken scraps. So he'd gotten tame and used to getting food. The location was called Fishweir, F-I-S-H-W-E-I-R, Fishweir Creek. This was when we had first come to Jacksonville. So Mom didn't know where Fishweir Creek was. Come to find out it's the one we crossed just going to the A&P. Eventually, they did catch that alligator and did away with him. But nonetheless, there were things.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your parents on either side come to Oak Ridge to visit?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Eden family, my Grandpa Eden died when I was pretty young. He died not too much more than us moving to Jacksonville. I have very vague recollections of him. My Grandma Eden came and stayed and taught me how to ride a bike. I remember seeing that she came to Jacksonville.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So what do you remember the first day was like when you two moved into town?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Again, when we moved to Oak Ridge?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Very friendly. I remember the Boy Scouts came by the house and made sure that, you know, we had a housewarming party, I knew I was welcomed in the community. There was a Welcome Wagon that dropped off stuff, coupons and advertisements for businesses in town. I don't remember much more than that. We were busy getting probably set up and moved in and taking care of things. Like I said, I thought it was heaven.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So you got a job working for the Oak Ridge Public Library?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yep.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did ... You started at the Jackson Square office.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I used the Jackson Square Library, but I was not employed there.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay, but you ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: I was not involved with the move and I wish I had been. But when this building opened in Thanksgiving of '70, I was interviewed in December close to the holiday. I didn't start until the first open day of January 4. January 1 we would have been closed and two and three must have been the weekend. So it was all closed. So the first work day of January was when I started. I was a library assistant. My work was part-time. I worked reference desk, various other tasks. I had so many through the years, I can't think. Making bibliographies if people wanted to have a list. If someone was going to give us a book or wanted to give us some money to buy some books, what did we have on the subject? The director would want to know that so I would give it to her. I worked on desk a lot.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was the director? Who hired you?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Mrs. Postell, Patricia Postell. A lot of people would remember her and the family of the Postells. They lived on Michigan about halfway up on the right as you go up the hill.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the library open on Sunday in those days.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes, the hours that we have are the same that we had back to the beginning. We've always had summertime Sunday off. Only Saturday hours. No, summertime off and in the regular school year, Saturday and Sunday hours. Say it right.

MR. HUNNICUTT: As you worked for the Oak Ridge library, how did you get from one job to the other? Was that a bid process or how does that work?

MRS. MCNEILLY: When you work in the city, for the city, openings in all departments come to be posted on a communal corkboard and therefore I assume other departments are like us. We would have on our board, firefighters, or ...

MR. HUNNICUTT: Policemen or ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Policemen, animal shelter, you know, recreational department. We have a number of different openings that maybe were not what you wanted to do. I assume that our openings were also posted. So if anybody in the city wanted to move in to a job, you would be interviewed, it would not be advertised in the public yet. So you would be interviewed and if you were selected, you would move into that job.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Would the library director be the person to do the interview?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes. The library director has the ability to fulfill all the functions short of hiring and firing. So if a position were open, the director would be on a panel of people, supervisor of that person, the director and somebody else to make three, make an uneven number so that we could interview this person and make sure that they understand the duties of their job and what hours they can work, whatever.

MR. HUNNICUTT: When did the Oak Ridge Room become existent?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oak Ridge Room started as a project for the city in Homecoming '86, Tennessee Homecoming '86. 1986. It was at that time set up as a repository for historical materials. It's very like the rings on a pond if you dropped a stone in. It really is interested in the Oak Ridge history. To a lesser extent, we're interested in Knoxville. To a lesser East Tennessee, Tennessee, it widens. So the material that we're saving generally is Oak Ridge material.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the library have a lot of that in the beginning?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. Not any, a fifth, a tenth, of what we have now. It's grown immensely. When it was begun, there were books in that alcove, we call it. It did not have that glass door across the front to keep people from accessing all parts. It is a set up to have a central door and it's locked when no one is there so that we don't lose things. The John Hendrix, prophet of Oak Ridge folder was cleaned out. Someone came in and helped themselves, took it all. So no one could get it’s information, we have built it up again, but no one had access to that for a while.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know where that came from originally?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oak Ridge?

MR. HUNNICUTT: No, the John Hendrix story. That someone took.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Some of it was paper articles. Everyone not here raise your hand. I don't know exactly what it was because I didn't know I had to provide information to restore exactly what we had. Probably Oak Ridge articles, probably brochures about him, that type of thing. It wasn't a full folder of material. It was just, you know, several articles. People in the high school at that level usually would come in to seek historical information and background about a figure or a person in Oak Ridge history.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your next job at the library?

MRS. MCNEILLY: In '76, 1976, Mrs. Postell retired. Connie Battle moved up from assistant director to director and shifting of spaces and so forth, I moved back to technical services librarian. So I was in charge of ordering books, processing books, all of the acquisition ordering and making them ready for the shelf and also serving on desk but I didn't have to work nights and weekends.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you know what type of book to order?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Generally we go by what is reviewed well. If it is a book and not a good review, it is not purchased unless people want to see it. If someone big like a John Grisham wrote a book that was a real stinker, you'd still buy it because people will check it out because they want to see it for themselves what he wrote. Generally, we buy things by review. We buy some things like the non-fiction, SAT [Scholastic Assessment Test] books, the ones that were requested, but we know they're going to be needed, travel to Spain. People are going to, again, they're not requested but we need to buy them. So some things we buy automatically with the authority or reputation of the publisher behind it. We know that material that was put out by X publisher will be good, put out by Y publisher might be not the material we necessarily would choose.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a learning process for you to figure out ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was good and who was bad.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes, and I didn't do the selection. The assistant director did adult selection, children's room librarian did children's room selection. The AV [audio/video], probably the assistant director. All these recommendations, materials, come in and the director makes the final choice.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Does the library today have carryover books from when it first opened?

MRS. MCNEILLY: If they are circulating. I think the fact that the library today is physically landlocked means some real tough decisions had to be made. So, there are some books that one will need whether they had the circulation numbers to match or not, like the [Charles] Dickens. Like [Ernest] Hemingway, like [William] Thackeray. You need to have those on the shelf. (I'm pulling things out of the hat here.) So it doesn't matter if they are being checked out or not. They’ve got to stay. If the author is prolific, meaning they write a lot of material really, again to Grisham. If it doesn't really matter if the earlier books are gone or not, because they keep writing and keep coming out with stuff. In the Grisham case, they are circulating. But nonetheless, the point is if the author is continuing to write it doesn't really matter if the early works are not circulating. Danielle Steele, early works are not circulating too well, and really we can't have them on the shelf, because we need to have space for the new books to come in.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So what did you do with the books you no longer wanted?

MRS. MCNEILLY: The books we no longer have, at that time it was not my choice. The director would do that, but they would go to the Friends of Library book sale and if people wanted to have their own copy of a Grisham, they have a choice, they have a chance. Books that are, rental books, go back to the rental house according to the numbers. Again, for every five books that you return, you can keep one. You, again, look at the circulation and if we need it and it's something that we don't have other copies of, you know, maybe that's a reason we keep it. There are always exceptions. You keep an open mind. There are no hard and fast rules to have guidance. But you make sure you know what you're doing. Let me say that, again, the power or the authority of choosing what is added to the collection and what is withdrawn is the director. So if someone's unhappy about what's going on, they need to speak to the director about it. So the choices all come in one direction. So there's one person that is responsible and so if a book is something that should not have been withdrawn, who do you go to? Instead of, you know, lots of people, go to her, and say that.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What percent ... You mentioned rental books that you rented, what percent of the library's total books were rented?

MRS. MCNEILLY: We add hundreds, 300, 400, 500 books a month, things, all formats. Maybe 25 books come in as rentals. The idea of rental books is a way to, for a time period, offer additional copies of materials that are under demand.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So how many copies of the same book would you have?

MRS. MCNEILLY: We might go up to as many as four or five copies depending on the demand. When they are no longer needed, they go back. So we make sure that we ... The reserve drawer is how people can tell us the books that they're waiting for and if we have as many as three reserves on a book or more, we will buy an extra copy or lease an extra copy, rent.

MR. HUNNICUTT: In your experience that you've had, what type of book has been the most popular would you say?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Recreational reading. Oak Ridge Public Library, when it started, we started in '43. There was a library committee, and in '44, they decided to pool their resources and start the public library. The idea of a public library is that the plants arounds us and a lot of organizations have their own collection of materials and they do not rely on us. So the public library's real mission is to provide recreational reading. So it is incumbent on us to have the things that people want to read, not ... Back up. The high school, for example, they have their own library. For a while, we did back them up for books on their reading list, the English class, but they had multiple of copies of things for them. Catcher in the Rye and Faulkner, Clan of the Cave Bear, whatever's on their list at that moment. We had a copy of the list and we had extra copies brought in. But they have taken over that role so we no longer supply the high school with those titles.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Was some of the books that you would discard go to the school system? Go in the school system?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. We are bound by, I guess city council set the recommendation that the books that are withdraw from the public library go to the sale. So after they offer to the public, it is possible that organizations can take away books. Generally, we find that the things that we are withdrawing are more than five years old. Some of them are older. The condition may be poor, it may be brittle. I think about the books that we had for the high school were paperbacks with hard covers called pam-bindings and they yellowed and nobody wants to read that. They were gone quite a while ago. Books like that go to the book sale and people can purchase. People, for a nominal cost, that gives the Friends some money. Organizations can also come in and get their pick of what is on the FOL [Friends of the Library] shelf, but generally because of the age of the materials that we withdraw, it doesn't make any sense for us to pay money to buy a, we have done it, to buy a brand new book and withdraw it immediately. That's not a good use of your money. We don't do that.

MR. HUNNICUTT: If someone wanted to donate a book to the library, a historical book, what would be the procedure for that?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Brand new historical book about Oak Ridge, come to the office, and are given to the secretary. She'll have ... Generally, people sign them on the title page, the author and the date. That used to be what we did. If it's an Oak Ridge author, a person that lives in Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge author, that copy would go to the Oak Ridge Room and it's like forever it will be there. In order to have it circulate, we would have to buy or they could give us a second copy and we would put it in the collection and have people look at the book and perhaps check it out.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Other than books, what other historical Oak Ridge information does the library like to get?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh, we don't deal with artifacts very well but we have some artifacts. Generally, films about Oak Ridge, material about Oak Ridge, and the history pamphlets, papery-type things.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you do have a way of preserving or making them available for the public to come in the Oak Ridge Room and look at these particular documents, no matter what the content is.

MRS. MCNEILLY: That's right.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Are maps the same way?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Maps are the same way.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So basically anything that relates to Oak Ridge history, you guys are willing to take it?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Sure, sure.

MR. HUNNICUTT: The beauty about that is it's available to anyone that comes in the library.

MRS. MCNEILLY: That's right.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Whereas if you give it to a museum or something like that, they're only illustrated a short period of time, then it's put in the archives. You may not see it again.

MRS. MCNEILLY: That's right.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So that's the beauty of the Oak Ridge Room.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Some of the larger things like maps that you mentioned, they're on the wall. So even if the Oak Ridge Room was closed, you can wander up and see those early dorms off the streets, how Oak Ridge was set up and whatever. You can see, look at many of the materials and it not be potentially the chance to talk to somebody. If you want to talk to somebody, there is a reservation of a ... People don't necessarily want to come up and talk to the reference librarian. They think “my needs are so utilitarian or whatever, insignificant that I don't want to bother her.” That's untrue. But we understand that. But there are things that are out also, that are there for people to admire. If they wish to ask, please ask, and she'll help you find them if she can.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How knowledgeable is that person about the material that's in the Oak Ridge Room?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Pretty knowledgeable. The person who deals with it all the time, all the things that are given to us, is more knowledgeable than others. But generally, they should know what they're doing. They've had some lessons and familiarity and getting used to what's there.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I mentioned maps and pieces of paper with information. What else is in the Oak Ridge Room that's related to the Oak Ridge history?

MRS. MCNEILLY: All books written about Oak Ridge. If they're talking about Oak Ridge at all, if they are looking at anything to do with Oak Ridge, we make sure that we have the information. There are books there, there are books by Oak Ridgers. Do you remember George Scarborough? He was the poet laureate for Tennessee from Oak Ridge, I think, or nominated to be the poet laureate for Tennessee.

MR. HUNNICUTT: No, I'm not familiar with him.

MRS. MCNEILLY: This was in the '80s. We had a number of the books that he had written of poetry on the shelf and then someone came in and they were gone. They were gone. They walked away with somebody. So at that point, we began to save the books in the Oak Ridge Room for people who were Oak Ridgers and the first copy stays with us to make sure. So you'll see poetry and cookbooks and flower arranging as well as books about Oak Ridge. It's, you know, an eclectic group, but they are Oak Ridge authors.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Are they available for people from the library at all?

MRS. MCNEILLY: If there is an interest, we buy a second copy, have a second copy available. If the books are old, there is no way to get another copy. It may be the only copy we have.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So if you had more than one copy and I came in to check that particular book out, what would be the protocol to do that?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Okay. If the book was a book you could check out, then they look in the catalog or they'll tell you the number or the reference librarian will help you get the book and it's not a problem to check it out right then. If it's a book that is not available, if it's with somebody, we'll have to wait until it comes back. If it's the Oak Ridge Room copy, you can look at it but you can't check it out.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I guess the angle I was getting to was if someone was to check out one of those books, I'm sure they have to have a library card for one. So the information about that particular individual's related to their library card so you have some way to contact.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Right.

MR. HUNNICUTT: But do you ask for a particular phone number or where you live at that particular point when they take the book out?

MRS. MCNEILLY: No. We assume they have their card. As you say, they have to have a library card with Oak Ridge Public Library. When they initially fill out the form, they have on it the address and phone number and a second phone number that they can be reached.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So if I gave you my library card, do you just look at it or is it ran through a reader or how is it done today?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh, once a year it comes up for renewal, everybody. One year from when you were last renewed it comes up again. Let's say the card is in good order and you come up with some books. They go through the barcode reader, zip, give it back, give your card back and then the books that you're checking out get zipped on your account and you're ready to go.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, you know, when somebody's going to do something illegal, they'll come up with different ways, but I guess what I'm trying to get across maybe is if I was going to ... I had a library card but yet my address and contact information had changed and I hadn't updated with the library ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: They get one year and then the next year when it comes up for renewal, the staff will say we have the address showing, or can you tell us what your address is? What your phone number is? So we'll get that information. We used to have for people who were new to town and didn't have their proof of address… You have to show a picture driver’s license as well, passport, whatever. But if people didn't have documentation to prove who they were, they could fill out a card, green card as it were, and it could be, a post card, and it could be mailed to their address and they bring it in and say, "Here it is. This is my proof and I can get a card." Well, they found ways around that. People who lived outside of town would have their friend intercept that card, their Oak Ridge address, and give it to this person who would come in and say they got a free card. If you live outside town, you pay the charge that all residents pay, its $45 a year set by council. The cost of a non-resident card is that in lieu-of-tax cost, $45 a year.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Is the Oak Ridge Room open the same hours that the library itself is?

MRS. MCNEILLY: It may be locked, but it can be accessed at all times if the library is open.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Over the years, now you've progressed up to library director.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Head of reference, assistant director and director, yep.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How have you seen the library progress?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I think there's a lot more material, a lot of different formats. We're seeing formats that were, new to us, and the standards are gone. The first one that was gone was records. Do you remember phonograph records? There's a group coming back of that one. Cassettes are gone and recently there was an announcement that CDs, compact discs, were also no longer to be made and I don't know how long our collection will last. Generally, collections are reviewed as to what kind of circulation will sustain it. If people at home no longer have the equipment to play a format, then they don't check it out. We see it in the fact that the format has a dwindling number of circulations.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Where do you see the library's future in digitizing a lot of the material that's there?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I think right now, we do digitize. But I think ... It takes money and it's the way of the future, but it is not without its problems. When things are digitized, what we were taught and they are turned into a CD. What we were taught is the impressions on a commercial CD are more lasting than the CDs that are made for personal use. Music, pictures, whatever. The CDs made for personal use, if you're talking about archiving materials, have to be remade in a 10 year span. So that means that the COROH [Center for Oak Ridge Oral History] videos, CDs are about to be ... Start the process of redoing. The reference librarian was in charge of digitizing. We are digitizing at the library according to fragility, most commonly used or third one, there are three points, uniqueness. So they have made a list of how they started the process and we will remake, we should be, remaking as we have started the process, 10 year review.

MR. HUNNICUTT: In your opinion, do you think that all the information in the Oak Ridge Room, as long as there is a library in this town, will remain?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh yes. Oh yes. That is my opinion. If I can make a pitch here, I wasn't intending to, but if it is privatized, what we have heard is not necessarily what will happen, but if it is privatized, the material that is unique to any collection will be gone. We have seen other libraries that were privatized and that happened.

MR. HUNNICUTT: What do they do with it? Sell it?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Maybe or throw it away.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Wow. So I guess what I'm hearing is that if anyone in the city hears anything about privatizing libraries, somebody better perk up and start paying attention.

MRS. MCNEILLY: We've already had one look at it, two years ago there was a chance to save money. The city is interested in saving people money and using the money for something else. They were looking at the idea of privatizing the library. The company that will privatize, Library Systems and Services, Inc, LSSI, is generally interested in reducing the cost of the library. The first thing they do is let all the staff go that is making any money over minimum wage I guess, and have just a skeleton crew all the time. So the library that we know, that you can go in and ask questions, the homework line, the Oak Ridge Room, all of this, may not be there.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I hope that never happens. Oak Ridge is a high tech city.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes, it is.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I hope that they remain that attitude towards the library as well.

MRS. MCNEILLY: It is. Generally, when I talk to people that every community has a unique history, Oak Ridge’s history is uniquer than most. So I hope it doesn't happen either but who can see into the future?

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have children?

MRS. MCNEILLY: One daughter.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Her name is ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: Megan Scott McNeilly Drake.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is she now?

MRS. MCNEILLY: She's here in Oak Ridge on Connors Bay. She works in Environmental Sciences. She worked at the Mouse House when she was in grad school and now works in Environmental Sciences. She is a project manager of a software that was developed at X-10.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Are you and your husband involved in any social activities in the city?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oak Ridge Nursery School which is just around the corner from here, board, PTOs [Parent Teacher Organizations], I'm sure people, listeners, have all done these things, belong to the First Methodist [Church], Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary. Give a shout out to them, I was up to a vice president of that one. DAR, interested in all history, was a regent for three years. Friends of the Library, and East Tennessee Library Association.

MR. HUNNICUTT: You retired a few months back, what have you been doing with yourself since then?

MRS. MCNEILLY: I'm still associating with the COROH activities and reading the interviews that come through and cataloging and indexing them. So it's keeping me busy. I also garden and crochet and read, all librarians read. Go to the gym.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you like to live in Oak Ridge?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh yes. I know that almost 100% of the oral histories, which are probably more than 800 in the collection now, have said that Oak Ridge was just the best place to live. But climate-wise, size-wise, quality-wise, you cannot pick a better place. It's a great place. We're all here on the shoulders of giants who have come before us.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Our past is our future.

MRS. MCNEILLY: That's right.

MR. HUNNICUTT: If you use it right.

MRS. MCNEILLY: That's right. Great place.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything we haven't talked about you'd like to talk about?

MRS. MCNEILLY: Oh, I'm thinking about back to milk delivery, my dad in early times, milk in New Jersey would freeze and it would start to expand and have to come up through the hole in the glass jug. So with cream at the top, this would be a cream popsicle, and so he and his five brothers would break them off and take them and his mom would have a fit.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That's unique. I never heard that before.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yep.

MR. HUNNICUTT: I will have to remember to ask people about that. I never thought about milk freezing sitting on the porch.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Well, yeah.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Now that's a different climate too.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes, indeed.

MR. HUNNICUTT: It's pretty harsh more months than it is here.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Indeed.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, very good. I'm glad you brought that up. Well, you are now part of Oak Ridge Oral History.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I am so glad. I am so excited to be here and honored to be a part of this. It's been great and I appreciate everybody who has come before me and the history that they have brought to our attention and saved it for the future. We are so lucky to have it. We appreciate everything that happens.

MR. HUNNICUTT: There's more people out there to come. We just got to get the word to them.

MRS. MCNEILLY: They got to hurry. This is the beginning of the eighth year of 10 years and DOE [Department of Energy] was told to save the history of their community, every place the DOE had an installation in the United States. So this Oak Ridge connection, public library connection, Steve Stow started it at the Site Specific Advisory Board, SSAB, that's here in town. It's, to DOE's credit, that they're paying for this to be done. It's great.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Oak Ridge has got the biggest oral history library compared to the other sites.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Yes, if you are looking at oral history collections of any topic, we are right up there with the biggies. If you're looking at the Manhattan Project, we are among the few at the top.

MR. HUNNICUTT: How many do you estimate that's been ...

MRS. MCNEILLY: We have about 100 a year, so I would say, I haven't asked personally but I would say it's about 825 maybe at this time, maybe more, maybe less, but somewhere in that area.

MR. HUNNICUTT: That's amazing.

MRS. MCNEILLY: It is amazing.

MR. HUNNICUTT: And it's unfortunate it wasn't captured with some of our pioneers that's no longer with us.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I know. The library was aware that we should be doing this, we just didn't have any money and so it's, again, it's to DOE's credit that we're doing it. They're online, people can see them anytime, access . Oak Ridge Public . Go to our front page, or they can put in their Google browser, COROH, C-O-R-O-H, Center for Oak Ridge Oral History and get there.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Kathy, I want to thank you for coming and spending your time. It's been a pleasure interviewing you.

MRS. MCNEILLY: It's been great. I appreciate it.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Like I said, you're now part of Oak Ridge Oral History.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Thank you.

MR. HUNNICUTT: So hopefully your daughter will read your transcript and learn something that she never knew before.

MRS. MCNEILLY: I hope that I said things correctly, that they don't look at things ...

MR. HUNNICUTT: Anything you say is correct, it is your story.

MRS. MCNEILLY: There you are.

MR. HUNNICUTT: Thank you again.

MRS. MCNEILLY: Thank you.

[End of Interview]

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