Inside Box 1663

by Eleanor Jette, Cover Art and Design: Margaret Rice Jette (Illustrator)

As the author herself put it, this is "the lives of men and women who lived and worked in grimsecrecy to hasten the end of the war." It is the story of stressful lives, cryptic conversations between husbands and wives, leaky faucets and water shotrages, censored mail, and sharing a post office box with every other person in town—PO Box 1663, Santa Fe, NM. Life was filled with difficulties, but it was also filled with determination to overcome the hardships and reach a goal. Tying it all together was a sense of pride, of patriotism, and communal spirit that surpassed anything they knew before or after those days of the Manhattan Project.

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction, History

253 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 1977

Reviews

[Linda ~ they got the mustard out! ~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was another read that was inspired by my recent read of Box 1663 by Alex Sorel. There were so many details in Sorel's book that made it feel real to life, and I was curious how close it would come to someone who actually lived in Los Alamos during the Project years.

This book is a treasure for those seeking more info on what life was like during the Manhattan Project. It's a little on the dry side, but it's packed full of day-to-day details that really helped me to understand what these people had to endure, on top of the stress of their very secret mission. There were constant housing shortages, power outages, a serious lack of adequate laundry facilities (eight machines for the whole town!), constant demands to conserve water; the commissary wasn't adequately supplied, there was constant threat of fires to the overheated apartments and in the Tech Area where the final components of the bomb were being tested and assembled; there were rattlesnakes on the trails, bears in the mountains, and hair snakes coming out of the drains and clogging the shower heads!

What really drove home the isolation they felt while living in Los Alamos was the constant use of "Outer World" to describe everywhere outside the base. Their mail was censored, both going out and coming in, they were followed around town by G2 when they left base, and their news came from whatever they could get their hands on.

I don't know if I could have endured those conditions - especially those people unfortunate enough to live in the trailers and share one latrine with eighty other trailers. No thank you! Yet these people did endure, found ways to make life manageable and enjoyable. I have mixed feelings about what these men and women accomplished there, but there's no doubt that they overcame insurmountable obstacles (courtesy mainly of poor government planning; what else is new?) to achieve it.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, now I'm back to a computer. I picked up this book at the wonderful Los Alamos Historical Society museum. The museum actually is great, and I highly recommend it. Also: leave a donation.

I digress. Normally, I would not review this book well. The writer tended to skip from subject to subject without obvious connections and no seques. Quotes are included because she clearly thought they were funny, but often missing integral parts to the story that would make them funny to anyone else. She has a weird tendency to both name drop and then leave out important descriptors about who's who. I'm reasonably certain that one of the children in their neighborhood died in a boating accident, but this was never clear and never well described, and only referred to twice (which is why I'm not completely certain. And this incident could have borne more description, because it's important. The reaction of the town and the military is also important, and there's very little about their actions/reactions at all.) She refers to herself often (and without irony) as "La Jette", which I would normally view as a capital offense. Without the power of context, this appears to be a very strange fanfic of the 1940s.

However, she gets slack for all of those things because she's not a writer. She was a housewife in an unbelievable position in the 1940s, based at one of the strangest outposts in the history of military projects. That alone lends the novel an authenticity it wouldn't have had in the hands of a biographer or a fiction writer or even Jon Meacham. (And whenever he's ready to write that book, I'm ready to read it.) At times it's an annoying authenticity, but a true story nonetheless.

I thought her description of her son as kind of a pain was hilarious. She doesn't seem to have been Donna Reed or June Cleaver, and described obnoxious little boy behavior as obnoxious. I could have done with a lot more details about daily life, about who was who and why that was important, but I think I understand this book was written well after the events described, and who really wants (or has the ability) to publish their whole diary? I wish I had her husband Eric's diary as a comparison, because I think that would be hilarious. Overall, it's like reading your grandmother's account of a story she's never really told: You know she's not going to be the best story teller, but you still learn something.

I recommend this to any other WWII, Los Alamos, Feynman (he makes several brief appearances here) and New Mexico nerds. Just remember: she's not an author.

[Karen Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suppose everyone who reads this book has been to Los Alamos and buys some books at the Historical Center. I was there in August 2017. It was a very interesting place to visit and well worth the drive there from Santa Fe, New Mexico. For those of you who don't know, Los Alamos was part of the Manhattan Project which was the umbrella term for the three sites in the U.S. that were responsible for developing the atom and hydrogen bombs.
This is a memoir about two years in the life of the Jett family, written by Eleanor Jett, the mother. Her husband was a scientist recruited to work at Los Alamos. It was written in retrospect, since the families at Los Alamos were under tight security and censorship. They weren't even allowed to visit family on the outside until close to the end of the war. All outgoing and incoming mail was censored. This was a secret project. Eleanor wrote with a sense of humor and was a tough woman, not easily discouraged. She, and her peers, were resourceful women. Conditions ranged from rustic to deplorable.
My main, nagging question/concern is how many residents of Los Alamos got cancer from the exposure to radiation and other toxic substances. Viewing the environment from our standards is shocking. The people drank and used the water; the animals ate the plants, i.e. the cows used for the milk. The children roamed freely in the countryside. Everyone hiked and rode horses. I had asked about this at the science museum in town, before I read the book; but, I did not receive an answer. The museum and town are run by the Atomic Energy Commission, but still it has been so many years. I guess this remains a sensitive issue.
My concerns heightened as I read the book. For example, animals started changing in appearance and Eleanor died at a young age, both concerning facts. I can't seem to find any information on the life spans or health of these particular residents, as of writing this review. The residents were military, civilians, dependents, and Native Americans from surrounding pueblos.
One reason I am interested is because a friend of mine, who died of cancer last May, was the daughter of a scientist at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. (One of the aforementioned three sites for development of the bombs.) Just about everyone in this family has had or has died from cancer. I know this isn't tight scientific research, but still I wonder....

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First-hand reminiscences of living in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. She was married to one of the big players in the materials science section who were working with plutonium in preparation for the bombs. They lived isolated from their families outside Los Alamos, with minimal comforts and crowded inadequate housing, surrounded by secrecy. They learned to love the outdoors and hiking, and horseback riding in the off hours. Short book, very interesting.

[Wayne Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvelous, yet disorganized, account of daily life in Los Alamos during the Manhattan project. With all the daily SNAFU's that went on in Los Alamos it is amazing anything was accomplished but, then, that has been the history of our military all the way back to George Washington. We are a fortunate country in that our opponent's military has always been more screwed up than our own, at least up until Viet Nam.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting behind the scenes at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, told by a well-educated wife of an engineer on the project. She is funny, and gives attention to the domestic details that kept the science running.

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading The Wives of Los Alamos, I was interested to read more. I had never considered what life was like there at that time and I was fascinated by the descriptions. While I appreciated the additional knowledge gained from this first-person account, it was too scattered for my taste.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A unique glimpse of what life was like for the scientists, engineers, craftsmen and their families, etc. who worked on developing the atomic bomb at Los Alamos.

[Vickie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because of my interest in Los Alamos & the Manhattan project, I found this book interesting. It was not riveting & was sometimes hard to keep reading.

[Amy Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

first person perspective on living as a housewife in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. A gritty time in history. A type of strength and humor I never see today.

[Joe Hauglie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part memoir, part autobiography, part narrative. Very engaging read!

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A insightful read into the history or Los Alamos and the community that was built to support the Manhattan Project. I loved the perspective and stories shared.

[Rebekah Tate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read about what civilian life was like in Los Alamos during WW2 - spoiler alert… it was rough! Different perspective from things I’ve read before!

[Arryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages, I wanted to know more about the birth of Los Alamos and the history of The Manhattan Project. This book, lent to me by a friend who raised her family in Los Alamos, is the very personal true story of one family's experiences on The Hill from 1943 to 1945. Eric Jette was a metallurgist who was invited to Los Alamos to work on the development of the bomb. His wife Eleanor was a well-bred, educated Easterner who found the spare living conditions on The Hill quite horrifying (and for good reason!). This book is thick with details and while the narrative is interesting for the most part, I did get bogged down with all the names of people and places. The events of this book are a piece of World War II history that often gets overlooked, but such an interesting and crucial part of the story. I would recommend it only to those who want to know more about life on The Hill.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books is fascinating & rated 4 stars for me, but I have a particular interest in the subject. The quality of the writing is only about 2 stars, so I only recommend it to those who have a high level of interest in the town of Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.

[Barbara Ahlquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project

[Judy Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much detail about her friends & connections; not enough about how she solved problems of the families