Our Neighbors' Stories; Interview with Thomas "Tommy" Moore on Hanford Site; Manhattan Project Tape #4

Okay, yeah, so the eyes are about a third, yeah, okay, let me know, okay, first of all I'd like you to say your name and spell it. Thomas Moore, T-H-O-M-A-S, E-M-O-R-E. Can I call you Tommy? Okay, fine. Okay, Tommy, where were you born? Texas. Do you remember what city? In the Alice. Alice, Texas, David County. And what year were you born? 1920, for how was the old? 910 and 20, I've said that a million times. That's gonna wow back. Yeah, 910 and 20, yeah. Well, when you think about growing up, what was it like there in Alice, Texas? Describe

that for me. When you were a little kid, what was it like? So different, must be so different from now. Well, I really, it's just kind of hard for me to remember when I was a little kid, but I went to work when I was about seven, eight years old. And I worked at a restaurant. That's why I got my experience for a restaurant work. And I owned a friend of mine that's got a, he owned a tavern. And I got a hamburger stand in there, a hamburger steel. And what I did, I would fix seven, eight. I just had to pat his foot for the buns. Yeah. Now, was that when you were a little, when you were a little young, young, real young

kid. So you, that was when you were pretty young and you were working there. Back in 1920, what did you use for transportation? Oh, I wasn't, 1920, I wasn't using no transportation. I know when you were, but what was, what was it like, do you think when you were, when you were born in those early years? Well, nothing but wagons, wagons and, and what have you, and mules or whatever. So did your house have electricity? Oh, no. Oil lamps. Yeah. And, and wood stoves, everything was either wood or oil. And so your parents had it a lot different than people do nowadays, of course. Oh, yes. But did they, did they work in some kind of farming? Oh, yes. They've worked in farms. What did they do? Well, whatever they

told them to do, you know, they chopped the cotton, they picked the cotton and everything else, you know. Did you ever go out and help them? Oh, yes, certainly. Yeah. Can you, can you remember back what that was like, describe the day out in the cotton field? Well, it was awful hot. And that was about all it was, you know, and you had to go out and then the morning's about four o'clock, because there's, you earlier, you could do more in the earlier parts and then you, when they got too hot, but then we could come in. So did you, you were your parents, what they called sharecroppers? Oh, yeah. My mother was, see, my father died when I was six

months old. And he, that was, you know, that was, I didn't, I don't even remember what he looked like, because I was too, truly young a kid when, when he passed. That must have been really hard for your mom. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She would, she would pick a little bit of cotton and the short rose is short and, and put me on a cotton sack. And she had to give that up because when they, when a worm crawled off on that, I'd take him, I would put him in my mouth, he'd know to eat him, you know what I mean? And they did a lot of worms

there, but then she had to give that up because she had, she couldn't work that, you know. I can't believe you would put worms here, Ralph. You must have been pretty little. Well, I was, I was a, six months old, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a, older than that, you know, maybe eight months or nine months, but it was, I was a baby. Yeah. So she gave that up. Oh, yeah. She had to give it up. She had to take me in because that, I wasn't afraid of him, I just. So then your, your mom, did she raise you by yourself? Mm-hmm. And when she got married again, she told my stepfather that that one is mine. I'll whoop him. You make what you're going to whoop. She followed me. Yeah. I'd never been whoop.

I'd never been spanked of what not by a man, rather than a fist fight. And I lost a few of them, you know, but I mean, I'd, I've never been spanked or ripped to. By a man, it just wasn't, wasn't a fair fight, you know. Well, so as you were growing up and you were living there in Alice, Texas, finally became a teenager. Oh, yeah. And about that time, I think you had a pretty spiffy car. It was, well, when I got, in 1935, I was 15 years old. I had a convertible Packard of 1935. In 1937, I bought it in 1937. And, and even with a friend of mine, paying some, some more, it was a Mr. Lot. And he, he was, he was just like

a father to me. And he paid more on it. And then I had to pay $12 a month. And I was behind on that payment here. But that's, that's five feet. And then when I, when I, when I left in just state of Washington, when I come to the state of Washington, I'd take it to a friend of mine's house and jacked it up and take all the wheels off of it. And there's Mr. Lot and, uh, put the wheels in the garage. And then I went back when, when, when I got drafted, I went back and, and, and, and then I, I used it. But, uh, I had to put another batter and everything in it, you know. Because by that time, the battery died. Oh, oh, certainly.

I should say this for five years. Well, when you decided to, um, go to Washington state, um, how did you happen to hear about the job? Oh, we, we, we, the friend of mine come to me and told me that they paid a dollar an hour for cooks in the state of Washington. And I was working, said 72 hours for $17. So that, and then I looked in the, in the magazine and I saw a, uh, yellow polymer with a black top and it was $695 in that neighborhood or $600 in some odd dollars. I don't remember exactly. So with the packet, I, I thought I would, that was a, in 1939, a 39 brand new car for $600 in some odd dollars. Yeah. So

when, so cars were a lot cheaper than, oh, yes, I should say. Yeah. But she didn't make as much money, but it looked like it was going to be a really great salary if you decided to come to Washington state. Oh, yeah. But with the time that I was working, it was the heck of a lot better for, for me to come here, you know, and then I could make that plumage pretty fast, you know. Yeah. So how did you get to Washington state? Oh, we rolled a free. Yeah. For my, my family and all in San Antonio. I went, we went to San Antonio and I had some family there and they, uh, give me, uh, going away party and when to just settle that next day, uh, we were, we were broke about $8 between the two of us.

So we had to, and I never know, no, I've never seen in the state of Washington, uh, nothing but a geography. And so I, I said it was North. So I was hitting anything that hit North. Yeah. So you ended up catching a freight? Uh-huh. My understanding was that the government would pay for you. Oh, yeah. But that, I was before, that was before the, the government started that program. So you rode the rail out here and then you got here and how old were you when you first arrived? It wasn't that, it was 19 years old. 19 years old. And then that would have been, we came out and you came to Washington state. Did you go to Hanford, right then? Oh, no, no, no. They wasn't. I went to Seattle. I went, I got off the

freight in Pasco and then I went to Seattle and that's where I got a job. Then I went back to, I went back to Texas to when the draft started, you know, and signed up and then when they called me, I had to go back for my examination at Fort Sam Houston. And then, the, uh, when I got examined, I got deferred because I was a melt man on an electric furnace and I got to work at Isaacson on works in Seattle as a melt man. And I worked, I'd go to work on a Sunday night and then I would work Monday, Monday in the daytime. I'd work graveyard of Sunday night and then I'd work Monday and then I would work, I'd come home and rest

a little while and then I'd go back and do another double day because it was such a shortage of the work that I was doing. Then, when I, uh, I got a, I got a letter from the Uncle Sam that told me to, to report to my job study, a report to the draft board. So I, I went and volunteered for the ATS, Army Transfer Service. That's when I went, I made around 20 some of my trips to Japan and, and, uh, career and, uh, and, uh, in Illusion Islands, up through A-DAC, Shemia, in San Bay and all through there. But because we, we would travel the route that, uh, up through the barren seas. So, at, at what point did you, did you leave the Army and then go out, come here to Pasco? Well, that I don't remember too well, but

when, when, when, when, see, the ATS Army Transfer Service, you didn't have to, you signed out, out of the, out of the war every time you went out on the ship. And then when you got in ship, you was automatically discharged. That was the Army Transfer Service, you know. And then I, I don't remember, it's just about what year I was in there. But, but you came to Hanford and, um, and you came out here to Pasco. And I believe that was in 1942. I don't, I don't remember exactly what year it was, but that, but similar, that's when they said they started it. I was there, you know, when, like, when I told, when I was describing my job there, I would go out when they, with saviors, there was no railroad or nothing

there, Holly. And, and saviors would save, saviors of railroad. And I would come in a jeep and dig a little sand out and put a, some concrete in there so the steak would blow down. But then it wouldn't, wouldn't, with concrete there, it would settle down, you know, it wouldn't blow away just because it would blow down and blow away when it was, when it was, was high there. So, was your job when you were at Hanford with that working in concrete, pouring concrete? Oh, no, no, no, no, I just, what I was trying to say is I just put a little, dig a little hole there and take the steak out and put concrete down in the hole so that the steak wouldn't blow away. I've heard there were some pretty bad winds.

Oh, yeah. Can you describe what that was like when those winds had come up? Oh, it was pretty rough. Did you see where you were going? Oh, sometime. Yeah. When you lived there, you were living in some tents. Oh, yeah. Right. Tell me about the times that you lived in those tents. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you lived, when you lived in the tents, did you live, did you have a roommate? Oh, no. Yes. Yes. I want to talk to a tent, you know. Mm-hmm. And then later, you lived in the barracks, and my understanding is that the men and the women couldn't live together.

Oh, no. You had to, even if it was married or what not, you'd have to, the women's living, the women's dormitory, and the men living, the men's dormitory, and that was it, period. So then did you ever experience segregation at that time? Oh, certainly. Yeah, we went, as it was only if blacks was in the, in the, in the, one barracks, and then the whites was in the another barracks, you know. We didn't live together, that's, but they're unsure. What about when you were working as a crew? Oh, we worked together some time, but I don't remember too much about that, you know, that was a long time ago. Well, I think you're doing really great. Certainly. So I have in my notes that you didn't do some work for DuPont. Oh, yeah, I worked for E.I. DuPont, yeah, certainly.

That's when we went to, that's, that's was the main employee for, for the building that fell out there for E.I. DuPont, and we didn't know anything about the atomic bomb, but we did know that E.I. DuPont built shotgun shells because we could bomb and text, and so it was, we had to do with something explosive, but we didn't know what, we just, we went to work, and we come home, and you didn't say disc, disc, disc, cross it at whatsoever, you know. So you didn't have any idea that what, the work you were doing was related to the bomb? No, no, not a word, not a thing. The facts have been to say, but when we would go to a certain job, they would, a man hauler would haul us there, and it would drop the curtains down, and we wouldn't even

see why we was going, you know, in the restricted areas, you know. So are you saying that when you were, when you were traveling to the, to the spot? When to the job, to the job, you, they would put you with curtains down, down why you couldn't see where you was going, you know. So you just, you just rode. So when you got there, what exactly did you do? When, the, once the van or the truck took you out there to this spot, what were you doing as a, as a worker? Oh, it, it's sometime that they was, just whatever they told me to do, you know. Can you remember something that you did to the job?

No, no, that can't, that's for the long time, or could. Can you want to pause it for a second? Well, well, what I'd like you to do is tell me a little bit about what it was like to lay those railroad, uh, railroad ties, because there wasn't even a railroad out there when you were right. No, no. The first job I had was doing the little concrete deal so the stakes wouldn't blow away when the wind got up high. And then after that they, they would, we would haul out a load of, they would lay the rail as we went. And what we would do is, uh, is the box cost what, the rail went up, they would drop the ties off, and then lay them, and then build a railroad.

Do you remember what railroad it was, it was kind of- No, no. It was just a private deal. It was just for E.I. DuPont, yeah. That was the, the trains would come in and bring the, the products, but the railroad belonged to the, to the original, to the atomic deal out there. Well, while you were working out there, you, um, you felt like you were making good money. Did you encourage other people to come? Can you remember? No, I, I just, just, just, was satisfied with me. Okay. Now after the war ended, I understand you opened a restaurant. Oh, yes. I hear about that. I opened a restaurant in Seattle first, and then I went to Bremerton and opened a restaurant over there in Bremerton, E.I. Bremerton, and Bremerton, and Bremerton is, was, he was named

from the town, you know, for Bremerton, you know. I owned a restaurant over there, too. So then you came back to Pasco, though? It's, and December of 49, and, and I stayed at, uh, I bought a place here in Pasco, and December 49, when, when the phone numbers, they had four numbers, they didn't have, they didn't have a, no, five, four, seven, it was just four numbers, period. There were a lot of people around here, were there? No, not too many. Mm-hmm. There was a few left, few was, uh, stayed in from, from E.I. DuPont, you know, but E.I. DuPont, he shipped all, 75%, there was only, maybe two, three families in Pasco, of Blacks, and E.I. DuPont, he, he made it to, the whole town, you

know. Yeah. From, from the east side, everything it, it, it, it come in from the east side, was from E.I. DuPont. So you ended up buying a house here in Pasco, did you think about buying a home in rich in Kennewick? Oh, no. No, you couldn't buy, and you, you, you, Kennewick was so segregated that you couldn't buy anything, oh, and Kennewick, they would, they had a definitely law that you couldn't buy nothing in Kennewick. Yeah. And so you knew that you needed to buy here, what about Richland? Oh, oh, you, I don't know about Richland so much, but I, I know that for Kennewick, they would, they would even see a Blackwood coming through Kennewick, he, they would be stopped and asking what, what he was doing over there, you know.

Yeah. So you did experience some discrimination in Kennewick. Oh, godly, yes, yeah. You told me about a hotel, when I, race, oh, it, I stayed at the Pasco hotel because they didn't know what nationality I was, and otherwise they had to go, you know, it's sleeping in my car at the Pasco Moreno, something in that order. But I don't know, it's a, it's a, it's a building now in Louis Street tip. And there was a fellow that, there was a black fellow that would work in there, and he, he knew, he knew me. And so I just went, it was, it was such a bad winner that we had to go, you know, in the, they said to have cops out in the, in the hallway to stay there, you know, yeah.

But if they had known that you were Black, you couldn't say, that's for sure. So how did you feel when, when there was that kind of discrimination, how did you feel about that? Well, I'm from Texas, so I knew, I knew it didn't, but no problem to me, you know. And, and Seattle, you, you, you didn't, you wasn't too much segregation there, but, and the bigger places, but you, if you were just a smaller place, that some settlers that come in and bought, that you would have a problem, you know. But the big places, Olympic hotel and all in places, you didn't care what, they didn't, they didn't bother you at all, you know. So actually it was worse over here.

Oh, I should say, from here, from, even I went in to, to raise tavern to buy a pack of cigarettes, and, and of course, there's no, I had to own, own the cocktail lounge next door to raise tavern, and they told me that, he asked me, he said, what nationalities you are, said, hey, I didn't come here to discuss races and creeds, I just want to pack cigarettes, because I knew, I knew how to do it. And he said, you can't buy nothing in here, I see you running around with them black hair boys, yeah, so that was raised, that was his, that was his place there, right, right next door to me. If you wouldn't let you buy cigarettes, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't sell me a pack of cigarettes even, even, even when I walked in and stood up and didn't, I didn't go in and sit down

and go, they was one tavern here, Apex tavern that would serve blacks in there, and it was pretty well full, that was in 49 and 50, 51, so, mm-hmm, well Tommy, when did you see that thing started to change, that there wasn't the discriminate, when the top hat, the top hat restaurant was the only place that he told the girl in there, there was a black couple come in there, and they, the waiters went over and asked him what there was, and then he, he, they got up and left, see, and the bus station even wouldn't serve you, Hazel Scott

was the one that broke the segregation down at the bus station, and they wouldn't even serve you at the bus station, yeah, and then he told her, said if they pay you, if they pay you with a black dollar, you don't serve them, but you've got to serve them, you know, if they pay with a regular dollar bill, then you got to serve them, yeah, so as long as the money was good, that was Jordan at the top hat, that's what his motto says, if they don't play you with a black dollar, you're serving, so then that was early on, but, what time, where did you, well we're almost out of time, anything else you want to talk about,

tell me anything that you want your grandkids to know, no, no, that's all, they know about everything, they went on with their granddad, I don't have too many, and now you're on your own business, about that, 35 years of Tommy Steele and Salad, and then I've worked for myself practically all of my life, I've worked construction for a few years, but even in Texas, I own, some of my own business, I own a barbecue pit and what have you and those deals that, you know, and, oh yeah, and certainly, yeah, mm-hmm, you had it to

do over again, would you go out and work at Hanford? Well, not that I know for no now, but I would have, I would have went there years, mm-hmm, okay, great, well we got something, try it one more time, okay, so just want you to tell me again, so things have changed, things have changed quite a bit, yes, mm-hmm, and what made that come about? Martha Luther King, I think, whatever, whatever it was, but it's, it's changed, you can, you can go any place that you want to now, you know, so, yep, it's a lot better, isn't it? It's a lot better, yeah.