Manhattan Project

Dorothy S. Childs, a former office manager and longtime Towson homemaker, died of pneumonia Sunday at St. Joseph Medical Center. She was 88. Dorothy Sands was born in Baltimore and raised in Cedarcroft. She was a 1936 graduate of Western High School and attended the University of Maryland in College Park. During the late 1930s, she worked in the payroll department of the old Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River and then took a job in 1940 working with a team of scientists on the Manhattan Project, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

Louis August Scholz, a self-employed patent attorney and inventor who had worked in photography on the Manhattan Project during World War II, died April 20 of complications from a fall at his Sykesville home. He was 92 and died at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Born in Baltimore and raised in Rockdale near Randallstown, he was a 1935 Catonsville High School graduate and earned a degree in mathematics and physics at what is now Loyola University Maryland. As a young man, he exhibited an invention, a fluorometer, at the Central Enoch Pratt Free Library . Mr. Scholz worked at the Social Security Administration and the old Monitor Controller Co. on South Gay Street.

Gerhard Dessauer, 85, a German-born physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bomb, died Feb. 11 in Savannah, Ga. He was in charge of radiation monitoring for the first postwar bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946.

LOUIS ROSEN, 91 Scientist worked on Manhattan Project Louis Rosen, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later created an influential neutron center at the facility, died Thursday in New Mexico. The Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at LANSCE credits Dr. Rosen with leading the way in developing the world's most powerful linear accelerator, culminating in construction of the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, known today as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, or LANSCE.

Alexander Langsdorf Jr., 83, a physicist who worked on the team that developed the atom bomb and later spoke in opposition to the weapon, died Friday in Chicago from complications from hip surgery. He worked with Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago on the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the development of the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Mr. Langsdorf's contribution to the bomb was a speck of plutonium that he produced from a cyclotron, an atomic-particle splitter developed at Washington University in St. Louis.

LOUIS ROSEN, 91 Scientist worked on Manhattan Project Louis Rosen, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later created an influential neutron center at the facility, died Thursday in New Mexico. The Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at LANSCE credits Dr. Rosen with leading the way in developing the world's most powerful linear accelerator, culminating in construction of the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, known today as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, or LANSCE.

Brig. Gen. Kenneth E. Fields,87, whose military career took him from the pinnacle of his class at West Point to the battle for the bridge at Remagen, Germany, and on to the Manhattan Project and then to civilian eminence at the Atomic Energy Commission, died July 1 at a nursing home in Stamford, Conn.After he left government service in 1958, he became executive vice president of the International Standard Electric Corp., a subsidiary of International Telephone and Telegraph, and the president of another of its subsidiaries, ITT Europe.

Carter L. Burgess, 85, assistant secretary of defense for President Dwight D. Eisenhower and a one-time aide who was entrusted to deliver news to France of the planned Normandy invasion, died Sunday in Roanoke, Va. Mr. Burgess rose from second lieutenant to colonel during World War II. He worked under General Eisenhower as secretary of the general staff of Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces. While stationed in England, Mr. Burgess delivered a message from General Eisenhower to Gen. Charles de Gaulle, then in North Africa, informing him of the plans to invade Normandy.

* John D. Paulus Jr.,an architect who worked on th Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bomb, died Friday at age 83 in Jefferson City, Mo. Mr. Paulus joined the Raytheon Co. in Concord, Mass., in 1942 and wound up overseeing a group of engineers, drafters and designers working on an electrical guidance system. He also worked on the conceptual design for what was to be the first radar tracking system.* John Stender, 76, appointed by President Nixon as the firsdirector of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, died Saturday after a six-month battle with bone cancer in Seattle.

Ernesta Drinker Ballard, 85, a founding member of the National Organization for Women and a horticulturist who helped build the Philadelphia Flower Show into a world-renowned event, has died in Philadelphia. Ms. Ballard died of complications after a stroke on Aug. 11, her family said. Heavily involved in feminist and civic causes, Ms. Ballard marched on Washington, lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment, and raised money for female candidates. She also was a founding member of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, and was chairwoman of NARAL from 1989 to 1991.

Ten days ago in Houston, the Ravens were fresh off a big win and the team's media relations staff had corralled Joe Flacco for the post-game news conference. But the rookie quarterback had to stand off to the side and wait his turn. While coach John Harbaugh was answering questions, eight-year veteran Todd Heap came into the room. Kevin Byrne, the Ravens' public relations whiz, flashed a look that told Flacco that Heap would be cutting ahead and speaking with reporters first. "I know," Flacco said.

Dorothy S. Childs, a former office manager and longtime Towson homemaker, died of pneumonia Sunday at St. Joseph Medical Center. She was 88. Dorothy Sands was born in Baltimore and raised in Cedarcroft. She was a 1936 graduate of Western High School and attended the University of Maryland in College Park. During the late 1930s, she worked in the payroll department of the old Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River and then took a job in 1940 working with a team of scientists on the Manhattan Project, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

For an hour, visiting author Carolyn Reeder explained how she had crafted her latest work of young-adult historical fiction, The Secret Project Notebook. As seventh-graders at Folly Quarter Middle School listened attentively, she explained how she moved from original idea to finished product -- a book centering on the children of scientists working on the Manhattan Project. Her discussion was both a history lesson and a discussion of the yearlong process of creating her book. Using a slide show and peppering her talk with plenty of anecdotes, she told how she did her research and explained about oral histories.

ONE NIGHT IN 1990, Ann Finkbeiner, a Baltimore science writer, attended a dinner at Johns Hopkins University in honor of an eccentric physicist. The others in attendance, her husband included, regarded Freeman Dyson as a genius, much the way a star athlete might look upon an actual Hall of Famer. What struck Finkbeiner, though, were Dyson's stories. In one, the elderly, birdlike man described himself wandering the Mexican border late one night, helping police officers look for drugs. Why, Finkbeiner wondered, would a physicist -- a man normally interested in the properties of matter, space and time -- be looking for narcotics along a border?

I always fall for streets that arrive with history attached. Balmar's is cast in iron. Not so far from the new metal lettering proclaiming Clipper Mill is this newly created thoroughfare called Balmar. Therein lies a tale of what's being built on the western flank of the Jones Falls Valley. Located in Woodberry, Clipper Mill is the name attached to a 17-acre sprawling industrial campus that sits in a little recess between Druid Hill Park and Television Hill. This is a chunk of prime new-old Baltimore, for many years off-limits because of the dangers posed by heavy industry located here.

Ernesta Drinker Ballard, 85, a founding member of the National Organization for Women and a horticulturist who helped build the Philadelphia Flower Show into a world-renowned event, has died in Philadelphia. Ms. Ballard died of complications after a stroke on Aug. 11, her family said. Heavily involved in feminist and civic causes, Ms. Ballard marched on Washington, lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment, and raised money for female candidates. She also was a founding member of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, and was chairwoman of NARAL from 1989 to 1991.

Richard G. Broden, a retired Westinghouse Electric Corp. electrical engineer whose 42-year career extended from the Manhattan Project to AWACS surveillance aircraft, died of cancer Thursday at his Ellicott City home. He was 83. Mr. Broden was born and raised in Edgewood, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1942 from Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University. He had been working for three months at Pittsburgh Research Laboratories after graduation when he was recruited by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif.

Hey, New Jersey, you want a piece of us? Huh? You lookin' to get your face rearranged or something? 'Cause it said in the newspaper yesterday that you're all bent out of shape about this Defense Department plan to transfer thousands of military jobs from your Fort Monmouth to Aberdeen Proving Ground here in the Free State. In fact, you're so ticked that some of your state officials have been questioning whether we have enough scientific talent down here to fill all those jobs. Oh, that's low, New Jersey.