Ruby Hooker: Happy Homemaker, Defeater of Tyranny

Ruby Hooker's caramel cake is the bomb. “I'm a good cook-at least that's what people tell me,” she offers. “I bake all the time.”Inside the comfortable home near Oakman, Alabama where she has lived all her life, one of those caramel cakes is already baked and sitting on the counter in a foil pan. The checkerboard cover of a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, wriggled in between some other recipe books, stands out on a kitchen shelf. Books by James Patterson and Ken Follett, as well as a few FBI studies, stock her living room bookcases. There is nothing that might suggest that Ruby had anything to do with assembling the atomic bombs dumped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. A happy homemaker? Yes. Defeater of Axis powers? No. But-yes-it's true! Ruby knows a thing or two about bombs.Today, the spry 89-year-old sits down at a sunlit breakfast table, fussing with a grey newspaper bag-the drone of a space heater echoing throughout the room-as she reviews her fascinating life.She begins in the Depression: “I went to Tubbs School. It was a little country school. I had one teacher through the sixth grade. We walked two miles to school,” Ruby reflects. “My dad worked a mill making sorghum syrup. He made syrup for people and took it all over the county. That was during the Depression. We had plenty of food and clothes, but not a lot of money.”After graduating from Oakman High School, Ruby worked “odd jobs” as she says-JCPenney was one-before moving to her aunt's home in Tarrant, Alabama. Ruby worked during the day and rode the bus to Birmingham-Southern to take night classes two nights a week.In 1943, a government recruiter promising good pay lured Ruby to Oak Ridge, Tennessee for a mission that was hush-hush, but vital to the war and advertised as patriotic. Thousands of workers descended on the newly-formed, military-built east Tennessee town of Oak Ridge. They were coal miners and farmers, some were dregs of society, some skilled, others unskilled, some from the North, some from the South. And then there were women like Ruby. All were housed in Spartan dormitories and told to keep quiet.“There were several buildings, they were huge. We rode around in shuttle buses. It was terrible when we first got there. The roads were mud. But it got better over the three years I was there,” Ruby says. “They called us 'Panel Board Operators.' There were these big panel boards, and I had three to read. We sat on stools. We had to make sure the needle was on a certain number all day.”The government assured the workers that the mission had great implications on the war, but refused to divulge much more. Ruby recalls: “I had a few friends in the service, and they would want to know what I was doin'. I couldn't tell them, because I didn't know.”In all actuality, the labor that workers like Ruby were called to perform was the separation of uranium isotope U-235 from U-238, which synthesized the explosiveness of the atomic bomb. Uranium extracted from the Belgian Congo and Canada was shipped to processing factories, like that at Oak Ridge. (For further detail, see At Work in Atomic City: A Labor and Social History of Oak Ridge, Tennessee by Russell B. Orwell).Oak Ridge was one of three main sites selected by the government for the building of the bomb. The other two were in Los Alamos, New Mexico and Chicago, Illinois. The government chose Oak Ridge strategically-it was in the interior of the country with little threat of outside sabotage, it was close to rail lines, and was surrounded by hills that subdued the explosions. The facilities at Oak Ridge were an important cog to bomb-building, an effort that became known as the Manhattan Project.The facility operated much like a military base. Going in and coming out was accomplished with guards. Letters were censored. “They would film the letters being sent and mark out anything that was secret. They would black it out with black ink,” says Ruby.Eventually, frills such as sports and other outdoor activities made the cage of government work seem almost homey. “It was just like a job to us. We didn't know any better,” says Ruby. “In our spare time, we played softball and basketball. I was the forward on the basketball team. I was 5'5”. I was a little ole shorty. But I loved to play sports. I played all the time. There was a park. We'd ride on horseback and swim. The girls would get out and about. It was a joyful experience.”As Olwell points out, the government did a fine job convincing the laborers that they were “surrogate soldiers” central to the war effort, while perhaps turning a blind eye to safety and hazard concerns, inadequate housing, and undelivered recruitment promises to the workers upon arrival. And, aside from sports and other activities, the effort gave some an opportunity to seek an education. While working at the plant, Ruby took extension courses at the University of Knoxville. “I took history, economics, and English,” she recalls.At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the “superfortress” American bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, exacting a blow of unparalleled magnitude. Japanese casualties extended over 140,000. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, and Japan tendered its official surrender on September 2.“We didn't know what we were doing until they dropped the atomic bomb that morning,” Ruby says.After the war was over, the government wanted Ruby to stay, and offered her a similar job in Texas. But Ruby was ready to come home, and that she did in 1945.Ruby's daughter, Linda Crowell, lends some insight into Ruby's postwar years: “After the war was over, she married a man named Jack Snow, who was my father. Her life was never sedentary. She worked and paid her way through Walker College. During this time, she raised a garden, canning and freezing everything she could to feed her family. She made almost all the clothes we wore to school. She also quilted, crocheted, and sewed for other people. She made cheerleading uniforms for the Oakman High cheerleaders and wedding dresses for new brides.”Because Jack's work as a boilermaker frequently called him away, Ruby had to tend to all aspects of the farm. “All this back here,” Ruby says as she points to the field in the back of the property. “I used to Bush hog it. My husband like to died! But somebody had to do it.”Ruby's first day job was working at Gene Wilson Insurance and Real Estate. She worked there for three years before signing on at First National Bank, a position she held for the next 38 years. After Jack died suddenly at only 58, Ruby met and married Paul Hooker, chief electrician at Gorgas Steam Plant, three years later.“Mom and Paul retired after a few years and started traveling. After 13 years with Paul, she lost him to a heart attack,” says Linda. “Then Mom was diagnosed with cancer and had 3 rounds of chemo that took nearly six months to complete.”Soon, Ruby was cancer-free, but this would not be the end of her travails. Ruby's house burned down, she lost her only son, and both of her sisters. Hers is a modern-day Job-like tale; indeed she has kept the faith as an avid churchgoer all of her life and a lover of Gospel music.A few years ago, Ruby returned to Oak Ridge. Although she did not go to the part of the town where she worked, she could tell much had changed. “The dormitories aren't there anymore. I couldn't even tell it was Oak Ridge. There wasn't much still standing. It was all different.”These days, she continues to stay busy. She still mows her own grass, tills and plants two gardens every year by herself. “I'm bad to work outside when the weather's favorable,” she says.If you ask Ruby Hooker if she has any regrets about what happened in Japan in 1945, she'll tell you she doesn't. “It was either them or us. I have no regrets,” she'll say.No regrets. How many can say that their lives have no regrets? How many may slog the dark valleys and difficult hills and be content with the life they've lived?Ruby has.“There's no need to look back; your future is ahead. That's the way I've looked at everything,” she says. “I want to live life to the utmost while I'm here.” 78