Dorothy’s older children had mourned the loss of their small-town freedom and the space that had come with the big house in Farmville. As talented as Dorothy was as a mathematician, she might have missed her calling in the military: she ran the Newport News household with the authority of a general and the economy of a quartermaster, eventually sending the babysitter back to Farmville and offering room and board to a returning military man and his wife in exchange for keeping the children during the day.
