L.A. We had about seven smaller satellite plants as well, in other parts of Southern California.”
“When did she come to Las Piernas?” I asked.
He moved a little closer to the screen. “Transferred to the Las Piernas plant on November 6, 1944. Worked in plating.”
We outlined Josephine Blaylock’s work history, then asked him to look up Bertha Thayer.
“Born June 3, 1918. Hired August 17, 1942.” She was a little younger than Josephine, but as he read on we learned she was, as Hobson had remembered, a war widow. Thelma was her only child. “Started in the L.A. plant,” he went on, “transferred to the Las Piernas plant on November 6, 1944. Worked in several areas, mainly in de-icer assembly, though.”
“Hold it,” Frank said, looking up from his notes. “She transferred on the same day as Josephine Blaylock?”
“Why, yes,” Hobson said.
“Let’s take a look at Gertrude Havens’ records,” I said.
Devoe was working up some speed now, and it took less time to pull up her file.
“Transferred November 6, 1944. Worked in wiring.” His snow white brows drew together. “I don’t know what to make of that November 6 business. Sometimes we would transfer groups of workers as projects ended in one plant and new ones began in the other. Let me take a closer look at their records.”
He typed a command and, indeed, peered closer at the screen. “Mr. Devoe,” I warned, “that’s probably not safe.” He was close enough to leave smudges on the monitor. That close to the screen, even if radiation wasn’t a problem, he’d get static electricity in his nose hairs.
“O-L-Y,” he said to me, then leaned back. “O-L-Y…”
“Beg pardon?”
“O-L-Y. That’s what’s listed as the reason for the transfer.”
“What does it mean?”
“I have no idea,” he said unhappily, clearly outraged that a personnel record could contain something he didn’t understand. “On Leave of… no, I can’t imagine what the Y stands for.”
“Could you tell us the names of any other workers who transferred on that same day?” Frank asked.
He scratched his head, and then tapped in another set of commands. It took the computer just a little longer to come up with matching records.
Thirty-eight names. A short list, but longer than our fifteen.
“Oh my,” he said, frowning, “I forgot to specify females. There are some men on this list. Here’s one from our San Diego plant. I’ll redo that search.”
“Could you also narrow it to those who came from the L.A. plant and who have ‘O-L-Y’ as the reason for leaving?”
He began typing in the search specifications, saying each aloud as he entered them. “And Oly,” he said as he put in the last, then pressed the command to start the search.
Oly. He said it as a word that time, reminding me of other words in my treasure trove of mythological terms.
“Olympic? Olympiad? Olympus?”
Devoe looked at me as if I had conjured a ghost.
“Olympus!” he whispered. “By God, it’s Olympus.”
He stared silently at the screen for a moment, as Frank and I exchanged glances.
“Mount Olympus, home of the gods. Was that the name of a special project?” I asked.
“Perhaps it was,” he said absently, his thoughts obviously drifting for a time. He looked up at me. “Olympus was the name of our child care center.”
The computer beeped and he looked back to the screen. “A list of twenty-five names,” he said, printing them out.
“Why would the child care center be listed as the reason for a transfer?” Frank asked.
He sighed. “That, I’m afraid, is a very sad tale. I had quite forgotten it until Miss Kelly mentioned its name.” He looked between us. “You’re both too young, I suppose. Born in the 1950s?”
We nodded.
“Yes, well, many people your age don’t realize it, but in the years just before and during the war, there were a great many federally funded child care centers.”
“They built them for war workers?”
“Yes, but we had some even before that, as a part of the WPA. After the U.S. entered the war, of course, the number of them grew by leaps and bounds, especially in places like Las Piernas and Los Angeles, where there were so many war-related industries.”
“So this Olympus was one of the federally funded centers?”
“No, it was our own.”
