Up on the mesa...

"The valley of the Rio Grande River north of Santa Fe is a wide basin that was a lake in some remote past. It is closed by the softly jagged range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east and the green domes of the Jemez hills to the west and northwest. The bottom of the basin is hot and barren: sand, cacti, a few pinon trees hardly rising above the ground, and space, immense, transparent, with no fog or moisture." This was 1944. 

These are the words of Laura Fermi in her captivating book "Atom in the family" describing Site Y where with her husband Enrico and the two children she moved to, and where Enrico Fermi was to continue working on the atomic bomb. Later she adds "There the ancient Indian pueblos and Spanish villages rest under the shade of long-lived trees, seek the gifts that the river bestows upon the land, and accept the sterility of the desert, the inexorability of the New Mexican sun." (Italic is mine)

I ran through the book to get to read these chapters about New Mexico seen through the eyes of fellow citizens who lived here an experience unique in the world. Maybe not a happy story, as we now know. But at the time nobody, not even Fermi, knew how fatal for humanity  the final outcome was going to be.

The book is a kind of "family story" that starts in Italy at the beginning of fascism and of the love between Laura and Enrico. It is full of funny remarks from this woman that couldn't imagine what her husband would have taken her through. Enrico was an extraordinary physicist from his early age, Laura was able to grow a family in the middle of wars, horrors and changes of countries leading a normal -if possible- life with her two children and putting up with her rather unusual husband's personality. 

Laura and Enrico Fermi in Rome

Her accounts of Enrico receiving the Nobel Prize just before migrating to America is so down to earth and hilarious!  It is a fascinating book!

Writing about the beginning of the Manhattan Project, Laura says "General Groves and Oppie went to see the school...." Oppie??!! Guess who this was: none other than Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the other father- with Enrico Fermi- of the atomic bomb! Oppie owned a ranch, Perro Caliente, near Pecos, New Mexico. He knew the area well and was therefore able to suggest Los Alamos as the perfect place to hide the laboratories.

Enrico Fermi

Enrico was Italian, Oppenheimer American of German origins. Scientists came from many different countries creating a truly scientific melting pot. Initially the count of scientists required to carry on the difficult urgent task was just over 100. They ended up being 6,000! Yes, family included.

Julius Robert Oppenheimer

     Everybody moving to Los Alamos to work on the bomb had to ride on a train that would stop in Lamy, the tiny station still in use today, some 20' from Santa Fe. By car they would reach the capital where at 109 East Palace avenue (a plaque is on the wall of that office), just a few steps from the over 400 years old Plaza, they would leave their identity, receive an ID number, and continue on for 35 miles to their new home. This short stretch could take hours since the roads were often in very bad conditions.

I highly recommend visiting Los Alamos. 


The drive is fantastic with views spanning far into the horizon and over the Pajarito Plateau. 

View from Los Alamos with the Rio Grande

You cannot imagine that up there on that mesa in the 1940' the world was being changed. Forever. 

Here you can see some of the historic buildings, including the Ranch School founded in 1917 as a (wealthy) boy summer school. The writers Gore Vidal (now living in Rome...ahh, the Italian connections!) and William S.Burroughs were here! How did they think of coming to this literally out-of-the-world place, I wonder? 

The Ranch School, the beginning of Los Alamos

My friend Georgia, who owns Buffalo Tours, can guide you through the amazing history of those times pointing out who worked here and who lived there. You'll be amazed!

And then there is Edith Warner, The Woman at the Otowi Crossing. This is the title of Frank Water's book. A different view of those same years. From the perspective of the people living in the area. Another must-read book! It can be found in any bookstore whilst for the other one you have to browse the Internet for online bookstores selling used books. I found it!

Otowi Bridge

Fewer people were going to her Helen's Tea Room for lunch since everything was changing and  traffic on the road "kept increasing. Creaking buses. Shiny black government cars. Military jeeps and half-tracks......Mysterious cars; one did not know what they were about. One morning a Government car stopped. An Army officer got out and pretended to inspect......Something about him was vaguely familiar......They had sat in the kitchen, talking of a small ranch he owned near Pecos...Oppenheimer. Yes, that was his name."