In 1996 I assembled a “collective memoir” of my mother, requesting input from people who had known her at various points during her life. Here are a few passages about my father, about Shark River Hills, and about Project Diana.”
About my father’s large circle of friends:
[Y]our father was better than anyone else I have ever known at keeping in touch with his host of friends.... I've always felt that King was very good for Elsa. He was so gregarious, and kept his friendships in such good repair, and he sort of pulled her along with him.
Grace Ameden (lifelong friend of my mother, dating from childhood)
About life in Shark River Hills:
[W]e were all “strangers in a strange land” so to speak. Our husbands had been assembled from all over to nurse the infant Radar labs and then the electronics labs. None of us had family nearby; shortly after we met, the attack on Pearl Harbor; we each had 4 gallons of gas a week for the family car and meat and sugar rationing. And we lived in a summer development in homes not equipped for year-round living, and about 3 macadamed roads which the Army had done to get to their own properties in the Hills [Shark River Hills] and to allow the personnel to get to work.
Mary Jane Evers (friend from the Shark River Hills days; her husband Jim Evers was part of the Evans Lab group, though I believe in a different unit from my father)
About Project Diana:
[One] evening King came home beaming and hugged Elsa, saying, “We did it!” He wouldn’t tell me what but they were both ecstatic. Your mother’s comment was a matter-of-fact “I knew you would.”….It was, I later learned, that they had…bounced [radar] off the moon.
Tricia Lewis (my mother's niece)
About my father and his interactions with my mother:
She muttered about your father’s telephone bills, which must have come close to equaling the national debt. She gave up, after a valiant struggle, trying to persuade your father that he needn’t carry every clipping in the world in his always bulging pockets. She wished, audibly, that he wouldn’t always fuss with the car while wearing his good clothes. She chuckled when he insisted on proving to me that you could put your tongue on a battery to see if it still had a charge, something I was reluctant to do. “You might as well,” she said to me, “and get it over with.” I did, it was proved, your father beamed and your mother went off to the kitchen to make dinner. I remember only good things because I never saw anything else. If there were unpleasant events someone else will have to supply the narrative.
Tricia Lewis (my mother's niece)
About my father’s large circle of friends:
[Y]our father was better than anyone else I have ever known at keeping in touch with his host of friends.... I've always felt that King was very good for Elsa. He was so gregarious, and kept his friendships in such good repair, and he sort of pulled her along with him.
Grace Ameden (lifelong friend of my mother, dating from childhood)
About life in Shark River Hills:
[W]e were all “strangers in a strange land” so to speak. Our husbands had been assembled from all over to nurse the infant Radar labs and then the electronics labs. None of us had family nearby; shortly after we met, the attack on Pearl Harbor; we each had 4 gallons of gas a week for the family car and meat and sugar rationing. And we lived in a summer development in homes not equipped for year-round living, and about 3 macadamed roads which the Army had done to get to their own properties in the Hills [Shark River Hills] and to allow the personnel to get to work.
Mary Jane Evers (friend from the Shark River Hills days; her husband Jim Evers was part of the Evans Lab group, though I believe in a different unit from my father)
About Project Diana:
[One] evening King came home beaming and hugged Elsa, saying, “We did it!” He wouldn’t tell me what but they were both ecstatic. Your mother’s comment was a matter-of-fact “I knew you would.”….It was, I later learned, that they had…bounced [radar] off the moon.
Tricia Lewis (my mother's niece)
About my father and his interactions with my mother:
She muttered about your father’s telephone bills, which must have come close to equaling the national debt. She gave up, after a valiant struggle, trying to persuade your father that he needn’t carry every clipping in the world in his always bulging pockets. She wished, audibly, that he wouldn’t always fuss with the car while wearing his good clothes. She chuckled when he insisted on proving to me that you could put your tongue on a battery to see if it still had a charge, something I was reluctant to do. “You might as well,” she said to me, “and get it over with.” I did, it was proved, your father beamed and your mother went off to the kitchen to make dinner. I remember only good things because I never saw anything else. If there were unpleasant events someone else will have to supply the narrative.
Tricia Lewis (my mother's niece)