50 Facts About Dorothy McKibbin

Dorothy McKibbin worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Dorothy McKibbin ran the project's office at 109 East Palace in Santa Fe, through which staff moving to the Los Alamos Laboratory passed.

Dorothy McKibbin was known as the "first lady of Los Alamos", and was often the first point of contact for new arrivals.

Dorothy McKibbin retired when the Santa Fe office closed in 1963.

Dorothy McKibbin had two older brothers, William Hendrix and Arthur Davis, and an older sister, Frances.

Dorothy McKibbin was known as Dink to her family and close friends.

Dorothy McKibbin's father was active in political and social life in Kansas City, serving as its police commissioner from 1896 to 1897, and president of the Board of Park Commissioners in 1922.

Dorothy McKibbin graduated in 1915, and later that year entered Smith College, a liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Dorothy McKibbin considered majoring in English and history, ultimately settling on the latter.

Dorothy McKibbin was elected class president in her first year.

Dorothy McKibbin participated in the Smith College Association for Christian Work, and the Sociology and Current Events Clubs, and helped raise $25,000 for refugees from World War I Dorothy McKibbin enjoyed tennis, swimming, hiking and mountain climbing, and played on a class basketball team, and for the All-Smith baseball team.

In September 1923, she met Joseph Chambers Dorothy McKibbin while visiting a Smith College friend in Dellwood, Minnesota.

Dorothy McKibbin toured Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the Thousand Islands in 1924, and in 1925 went with her father to Cuba, Panama, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

Scarritt and Joseph Dorothy McKibbin became engaged, but after she returned from South America in 1925 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease from which her sister Frances had died in 1919, and she broke off their engagement.

Dorothy McKibbin fell in love with both the landscape and the culture of New Mexico.

Now a single mother, Dorothy McKibbin chose to return to Santa Fe.

Dorothy McKibbin loaded her possessions into a Ford Model A, and accompanied by Kevin and Joseph's sister Maggie, drove there.

Between the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, jobs were hard to find, but Dorothy McKibbin found employment as a bookkeeper for the Spanish and Indian Trading Company, a small firm that sold handicrafts and artworks.

Dorothy McKibbin gave up her job in May 1935 to spend more time with Kevin.

Dorothy McKibbin's father lost most of his money in the Great Depression, but he still had enough to help her buy a house.

Dorothy McKibbin designed her house with Katherine Stinson, an aviator that she had met as a fellow patient at Sunmount.

Dorothy McKibbin's father was a frequent visitor, overseeing various stages of construction.

Dorothy McKibbin's father died from bronchial pneumonia on February 16,1938.

When he started school again, Dorothy McKibbin returned to her old job at the Spanish and Indian Trading Company.

Dorothy McKibbin became the first permanent employee of the Manhattan Project's Santa Fe office, which opened at 109 East Palace Avenue on March 27,1943.

Dorothy McKibbin subsequently was made an employee of the University of California.

At first, Dorothy McKibbin was unsure what they wanted her to do.

Dorothy McKibbin became Oppenheimer's deputy in Santa Fe, and ran the housing office, which was nothing more than a front for the top secret laboratory under construction 35 miles away.

Dorothy McKibbin was acquainted with Los Alamos, being friends with the poet and author Peggy Pond Church, the daughter of Ashley Pond, the founder of the Los Alamos Ranch School there.

Dorothy McKibbin would meet new arrivals, and issue them with passes without which they would not get past the guards.

Dorothy McKibbin came to be known as "the gatekeeper to Los Alamos", and the "first lady of Los Alamos", Before she left work each night, she had to burn every scrap of paper produced during the day.

Dorothy McKibbin was on call 24 hours a day, and Oppenheimer would often phone her in the middle of the night.

Dorothy McKibbin offered McKibbin a position at Los Alamos but she declined, and remained in Santa Fe, running the office at 109 East Palace.

Dorothy McKibbin looked after children and pets, guarded briefcases and secret papers.

Dorothy McKibbin was the one the residents of Los Alamos turned to when they needed a puppy, a goose for Oppenheimer's Christmas dinner, or a doctor who performed abortions.

Dorothy McKibbin stayed calm and unruffled surrounded by large boxes and crates to be hauled by truck to the mesa and by the piles of small parcels that shopping women dumped on the floor to make room for further purchases in their bags.

Dorothy McKibbin endorsed the latter so they could be cashed at the bank, and smoothed out the first: Yes, she knew of a boys' camp; Yes, she could recommend a good eating place; Yes, she could arrange for a ride to the mesa later in the evening; Yes, she would try to get reservations for a good hotel in Albuquerque; Yes, she could give them the key to the ladies' room.

Dorothy McKibbin had a local judge conduct the ceremony, but due to the project's security, he was not allowed to know the surnames of the couple.

The Army had taken over the Frijoles Canyon Lodge in the Bandelier National Monument and Dorothy McKibbin was asked to prepare it to receive them.

Dorothy McKibbin had no experience running a hotel but left the Santa Fe office in the hands of an assistant for six weeks and took up residence at the Lodge in June 1944.

On July 15,1945, two couples arrived at 109 East Palace and asked Dorothy McKibbin to join them for an evening picnic on Sandia Peak near Albuquerque.

Dorothy McKibbin kept the laboratory open, and retained the Santa Fe office, with McKibbin as its head.

On June 7,1949, Dorothy McKibbin was in Washington, DC, for a Smith College reunion, and went to watch Oppenheimer appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, sitting beside Anne Wilson Marks, who had succeeded Priscilla Greene as Oppenheimer's secretary at the Los Alamos Laboratory.

Dorothy McKibbin conducted a meticulous investigation that produced a detailed paper trail demonstrating that Oppenheimer was in Santa Fe at the time.

When Edward Teller, who had testified against Oppenheimer, next appeared at Los Alamos, Dorothy McKibbin gave him an icy reception.

When Oppenheimer was awarded the Atomic Energy Commission's Enrico Fermi Award in 1963, he invited Dorothy McKibbin to join him at the White House reception.

Dorothy McKibbin intended to do so, but the assassination of President John F Kennedy, whom she had met when he toured Los Alamos on December 7,1962, cast a pall over the event, and she decided not to attend.

Dorothy McKibbin had cataract operations in 1952, and thereafter needed to wear thick glasses.

Dorothy McKibbin died at her home in Santa Fe on December 17,1985.

Dorothy McKibbin was buried in the Santa Fe Memorial Gardens.