I’Ll Never Tell

By Helen Lavinia Underwood

I’ll Never Tell is a work of historical fiction set during the war years between 1941 and 1945 on the ridges and in the valleys of Eastern Tennessee. Five young people from diverse backgrounds come together to tackle the mystery of a secret city—a so-called “shining city on the hill”—59,000 acres encircled by a barbed-wire fence and guards with guns. The government forced more than 3,000 people in five communities to give up their land, so that a pre-fab city called Oak Ridge could be built. Why did 75,000 workers pledge to keep total silence about what they were doing, promising “I’ll Never Tell?” And why was all this foretold forty years earlier? The novel follows Callie, Saree, Irene, Billy and Jeff as they seek answers to these and other puzzling questions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984552198

Helen Lavinia Underwood

Helen Lavinia Underwood, a native of Huntsville, Alabama, has taught writing at both the secondary and college levels. For eighteen years, she served as Head of the English Department at Friends School, Baltimore, Maryland, and later taught English at Wesley College in Dover, Delaware. Earlier in her career, she taught at the American International School in Calcutta, India. Mrs. Underwood holds degrees from Martin Methodist College, Middle Tennessee State University, and Rutgers University. I’ll Never Tell is her fourth publishing venture. Mrs. Underwood’s first three novels, Under Cedar Shades, The House of Lakshmi Chattergee, and More Than the Eye Can See, continue to receive accolades. A published poet, she has also written numerous short stories. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband Joel. They delight in their three children and seven grandchildren.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Helen Lavinia Underwood.

Cover art by Angelica Underwood at age 10.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2018910629

ISBN:         Hardcover       978-1-9845-5183-2

                   Softcover          978-1-9845-5182-5

                   eBook               978-1-9845-5219-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/24/2018

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Contents

The Blue Moon Cafe

Home On The Ridge

Just Gittin’ Through

The Gift Of Knowing

A Tale Of Woe

This Is My Land

Trials And Tribulations

The Man

The Offer

Onward To Oak Ridge

Just Looking Around

Saree’s Place

A Surprise Visit

Too Much To Remember

Callie’s Dream

Rooming Together

Things Happen

Homecoming

Having Fun

Tired Of It All

The General Arrives

A Conundrum

Looking For A Ghost

Reconnoitering

Love’s Labor’s Lost

Words Matter

Keep Up The Good Work

Just Bitchin’

Yep, We’re Still Here!

Don’t Fence Me In

The Prison Camp

A Rain Of Ruin

What Happened To Billy?

The Man Returns

May I Sit Here Beside You?

A Good Plan

Don’t Do Y’self In

There Were No Words

Saying Goodbye

The Exodus

No More Secrets

Remembering Oak Ridge

Personal Thoughts

Acknowledgements

Resources

Online Resources

Libraries

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all of our lives.

Albert Einstein

Trees cry out with thirst, they panic and gamble and mourn. They talk, suckle and make mischief. Then one day it’s all over. The trunk snaps and the tree’s life is at an end. Finally, you can almost hear the young trees-in-waiting sigh.

The Hidden Life of Trees:

Peter Wohlleben

German Forester

The Blue Moon Cafe

August 1945

A slight breeze was blowing. Callie sat on the porch of the Blue Moon Cafe, listening to the black oak trees fan their leaves like the cardboard funeral fans churchwomen of Scarboro once used to cool themselves on hot August nights. The trees were whispering, No more secrets! No more secrets!

She could see the constant light of Oak Ridge struggling to penetrate the gray cloud hovering over the town. At times, the wind blew the cloud eight miles to Clinton and settled just over the Blue Moon Cafe. Callie looked up at the night sky. Once upon a time, when she was little and before Oak Ridge, Callie and her cousin Billy spent hours scanning the clear night skies for shooting stars.

Tonight she would sit here and try to make sense of the pain and confusion she felt. Callie wondered if she would ever be able to tell anyone. Even if she told them, they wouldn’t believe her.

Maybe, she thought, I could tell my story to the breeze, the grass, the trees, and the red geraniums in the pot on the edge of the porch. I could tell my story to them. She hesitated. They’ll never tell!

Home On The Ridge

1941

Rounding up the pigs that had rooted their way out of the pen was not something Callie liked to do. Every time it happened, she was ready to call it quits. In the middle of corralling the pigs, Callie found herself watching for the mail truck, hoping it would bring a letter. She had not heard from her husband, Tom, in more than six weeks. He was in France fighting in the war.

She and Tom had been sweethearts as far back as she could remember. Together, they mourned the death of both their parents. Tom’s mother died of a bad heart, and his father died in a lumber mill accident. Callie’s parents both died of pneumonia.

Callie and her sister, Viola, rented out the farm their parents left them, and Callie moved in with Viola and her family. She lived there until she graduated from high school in the spring of 1941. Soon after, Callie and Tom were married.

The two families, the Gallaghers and the O’Neils, had always expected Callie and Tom to marry. In the back of Callie’s mind, she wondered what it would be like to attend Wheat College. Her high school English teacher had encouraged her to do that, but she knew it was not generally something girls who lived on the ridges and hollers did. Besides, it took money to go to college!

Tom would work at the lumber mill, and she would stay home and raise a family. When Callie walked down the aisle of the Robertsville Baptist Church, she was almost nineteen. Tom was twenty. Tom was an only child and had inherited his parents’ 160-acre farm with a house, a barn, and a smokehouse. Callie moved into the house the same day as the wedding.

Callie loved the house. In the kitchen was an iron stove with a good-sized baking oven, a cabinet with a built-in flour sifter, and plenty of counter space for rolling out dough. Under the double windows stood a washstand with two oaken water buckets and two porcelain dippers. Just a few feet from the kitchen door was the well. Next to the washstand was a crock churn with a wooden butter dasher.

On one side of the dining room was a large woodstove. On the other side was an oak pie cabinet with tin doors. In the middle of the dining room, Callie had placed her mother’s round oak table with six chairs.

Your father used the finest black oak on the ridge to make the table. Callie’s mother had told her.

The dining room opened into a large living room with white lace-curtained windows.

The outhouse was a bit too far away, Callie thought, and she had to walk a distance to the cool spring, where she stored milk and butter. Callie would often stand at the kitchen window, admiring the tall black oak trees on the ridge and the peach orchard next to the barnyard. She felt lucky to have such a house.

Most every Sunday afternoon, when the peaches were ripe, she and Tom would invite her sister, Viola; her husband, Jim; their two children, Bonnie and Katie; and her cousin Billy over to make peach ice cream. Tom would pick up a block of ice at the icehouse in Clinton, and the men would turn the handle.

Callie loved the long front porch with the swing, where she and Tom often sat in the late afternoon after all the farm chores were done. Most of the time, Tom was too tired to talk, but sometimes he told her how things went at the lumber yard.

Callie didn’t tell him how she hated being alone in the house—cooking, washing clothes, and ironing. She didn’t even share with him she listened to the daytime serials Stella Dallas, Ma Perkins, and Portia Faces Life on the radio while she kept house. She didn’t think he would be interested.

Often in the late afternoon, when all the outside chores were done, they’d sit in the swing and watch the sun go down over the ridge. At twilight, they’d watch the guinea hens settle in the big oak tree. Sometimes in the distance, they could hear the rain crows. They listened to the gentle rain—the pitter-patter on the tin roof.

On Saturday nights, they’d often lie in bed, listening to the Grand Ole Opry. That’s what Tom liked to listen to most. What Callie loved most was the Ink Spots. She’d play My Echo, My Shadow, and Me over and over on the jukebox when she and Tom visited Viola and Jim and the girls at the Blue Moon Cafe.

Callie chuckled to herself remembering the time they all crowded into the old blue truck and went twenty or so miles over to Bristol to hear Mother Maybelle and the Carter family. She hummed their song Wildwood Flower as she did her daily chores.

Sometimes when Callie sat alone in the swing daydreaming, she wondered what it would be like living in the city or some faraway place—what would it be like to go out yonder, as her grandma would say. Wherever out yonder was, it couldn’t be as peaceful as here in Scarboro.

She thought of the times when her neighbor Thelma Jones would come over in the heat of the afternoon and sit with her in the swing. Sitting with Thelma was not very peaceful. Thelma spent her time talking about how many babies had died at birth and were buried in the family cemeteries. The last time Thelma came, Callie felt a chill. Should she tell Tom she might be expecting? Callie decided she’d better wait until she was sure. Besides, he might not want a baby. They’d never talked about it.

One afternoon, just seven months after they were married and two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tom came home from work and said he needed to tell her something. Ordinarily, she’d ask him how his day went; but recently, he had little to say. He just sat next to her in the swing, staring off in the distance.

All my friends are joinin’ up, he said.

She waited for him to say more, but he just sat there. Callie knew there was a terrible war over in Germany or France. She’d read the headlines in the Knoxville paper at Kee’s store, and she’d heard it on the radio. And she’d seen the big posters of Uncle Sam pointing his finger: Your country needs you! Callie could understand the guilt Tom must feel from staying behind when most of his friends had joined up.

I need to do my part. I have to go!

That’s what Uncle Woodard told his sister, Callie’s grandma, when he went off to the First World War at the age of fifteen. He’d come home with brain damage and was living on the streets of Knoxville. Callie remembered when she was little, going with her grandma and her mother to Knoxville to look for him. They found Uncle Woodard pushing a small two-wheel cart down the street, picking through garbage.

I’ve come to take you home with me, she told him. I’ll take care of you.

Go on back, he told her. It ain’t none of your business.

Grandma cried all the way home.

A terrible thought came to Callie: what if Tom comes back like Uncle Woodard?

Callie couldn’t stand Tom’s silence any longer.

What am I to do while you’re gone? she asked.

You can go live with your sister.

And that was it. His matter-of-fact attitude didn’t surprise her. It was understood that on the ridge, the man of the house made all the decisions. Tom obviously felt guilty that he’d not signed up. Callie understood that, but what would happen to the farm?

What about our horses, cows, pigs, and chickens? Who’s gonna plant and hoe the garden?

I’ve asked Billy to take care of the animals, and the garden will just have to wait until I get back, Tom said.

Callie pleaded with him not to volunteer. Obviously, he’d decided, and there would be no discussion. She wanted to tell him, If you’d told me you planned to leave right after we were married, I would’ve said we need to wait.

But Callie didn’t say that. She knew it wouldn’t make any difference.

Just Gittin’ Through

1942

Tom’s last letter was short, with not much information. It just stated he missed her and the farm. When Callie didn’t hear from him for long stretches, she would become despondent and sit in the swing, wondering how it would all end. She decided not to tell him in her last letter she’d lost a baby around her third month. And she wouldn’t tell him she’d gone back to the farm.

You need to move in with us, Viola said, until Tom comes back.

But Callie was determined to stay on the farm. She told Billy she didn’t want him to quit his job at the lumber mill, but she could use his help.

In May after Billy plowed the ground, Callie planted and hoed a small garden of tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, okra, and corn. She shared some with Viola, but the rest she canned in fruit jars for winter. In June, she picked blackberries and made jam. At the end of July, when the peaches were ripe, she quartered some and dried them on the tin roof for fried peach pies.

In September, Callie set up a small stand on Route 61 between Knoxville and Clinton and sold turnips, peach jelly, and blackberry jam. One way to get through it all, she thought, was to keep busy—and she needed the money. She wanted to keep everything in good order so when Tom returned, he would be proud of her. They’d sit together in the swing, and he would tell her all about it.

Lately, Callie was having more trouble with the hogs. Over the summer, she’d fattened them up, and now they were digging holes under the barbed-wire fence. That had been Tom’s job—keeping the fences in good shape.

Billy said he would come over and help mend the fences. He’d tried to sign up for the army, but they’d turned him down. He had never talked about why, but Callie knew. It was because he’d been born with one leg shorter than the other. She wanted to tell him to be glad he didn’t have to go to that awful war, but she didn’t.

Billy would be right there to help her in mid-November when Jim, Viola, and the neighbors would come over to slaughter the hogs. They would salt down hams and hang them in the smokehouse. Callie and the other women would make sausage and souse meat and pickled pig’s feet, like her mother used to do. They would dry the skins and make cracklings to bake in corn bread.

It had been a long hard December in 1942. Billy helped her stack wood on the porch. The heavy snow made it difficult to care for the animals, but with Billy’s help, they all survived.

Christmas that year was the saddest Callie could remember. They all tried to make it a happy one for five-year-old Bonnie and three-year-old Katie. Each was given a doll and cutout Betty Grable and Betty Hutton paper dolls; and their stockings were stuffed with balls and jacks, spin tops and yo-yos. Callie made tea cakes for Bonnie and Katie and wrapped them in colorful flour-sack cloth. For Viola, she made an apron and a handkerchief. She gave Jim and Billy small pocketknives and warm socks she had knitted.

By February, Callie was worried. There had been no letter from Tom in more than six weeks. Most of the day, she found herself watching for the mailman.

In the afternoon, she noticed the hogs had escaped once again, and she needed to corral them back inside. Callie had just finished mending the hole in the barbed wire fence when she heard a banging sound. Too heavy to be a woodpecker.

As Callie rounded the house from the back, she could see a man hammering something to the big oak tree in the front yard. She knew it wasn’t the mailman. Callie hurried to catch up with whoever it was, but by the time she reached the tree, he was gone. Carefully, she retrieved the paper.

The war department intends to take possession of your farm March 1, 1943. It will be necessary for you to move not later than that date. In order to pay you quickly, your money for your property will be placed into the United States Court at Knoxville, Tennessee. Your fullest co-operation will be a material aid to the war effort. The court will permit you to withdraw a substantial amount or part of this money without waiting. This may be done without impairing your right to contest the value on your property by the War Department.

Callie had heard about some of her neighbors getting notices. She didn’t think it would happen to her. But here it was!

It’s not right! It’s not right! Callie screamed. Tom, where are you? I need you here! This is our land! She paced back and forth on the porch.

Our families have owned this land for over a hundred years! They can’t take our land!

Tom had told her about his great-grandparents Thomas and Mary O’Neil leaving Ireland during the potato famine in the mid-1840s and settling in the wilderness area of Black Oak Ridge. Callie’s mother had told her their family, the Gallaghers, were Scots-Irish who migrated from Scotland to Ulster in northern Ireland and then to the mountains of Virginia. Sometime after Tennessee became a state, the Gallaghers settled in Black Oak Ridge. They’d been looking for a place nobody else would want, where they could make a living and feed their family. They found it on the sharp ridges and deep valleys of Black Oak Ridge.

Why would anyone want this land, this rugged mountainous land?

The Gift Of Knowing

It came to her in a flash—the story her grandma told her when she was little. She’d tell it over and over. Are you listenin’, Callie? She’d heard the story while she and Viola played under the quilting frame. Grandma told the story so often that by the time Callie was in high school, she knew it almost by heart. Grandma’s story always began.

"Sometimes around the year 1900, John Hendrix went on a quest in the bitter-cold foothills of the Smoky Mountains to seek understanding of his terrible loss. He had become distraught after his two-year-old child died of diphtheria. John’s wife claimed he’d caused her death when he’d spanked the child. And Lordy me, she took the other three children and ran off to Arkansas and never came back.