In 1958, Edith Higgenbothum, a housewife in Richland, Washington, downwind of the massive Hanford nuclear weapons production site, discovers that the milk her young son Herbie drinks contains radioactive iodine from Hanford's secret fallout releases. Radioactive iodine can damage the thyroid, especially in children.
When Herbie is diagnosed with aggressive thyroid cancer, Edith allies with mothers of children with thyroid cancer and leukemia in communities blanketed by fallout from Nevada Test Site A-bomb tests on a true atomic age hero's journey to save the children.
The main characters in Then Came the Summer Snow, in order of importance to the story, are: Edith Higgenbothum, Herbert (Herb) Higgenbothum, Sr, Edith’s husband, and Herbie Higgenbothum, their young son.
Edith
As we enter the story, set in 1958, we meet Edith, a housewife in the Atomic City of Richland in eastern Washington State. Richland is the town closest to the massive, secretive Hanford atomic weapons production facility where the plutonium for the world’s first test of an atomic bomb, the Trinity Test (July 16, 1945) and for Fat Man, the plutonium bomb that decimated Nagasaki August 9, 1945, were produced.
Like many of the women in town, Edith suffers multiple miscarriages before she successfully brings a pregnancy to term, giving birth to healthy, perfect baby Herbie. Finally, she is a bona fide member of the maternal culture of Richland. No more looks of pity, no more whispers they don’t think she can hear.
One day, ten-year-old Herbie is tinkering with his father’s newly acquired uranium prospecting Geiger counter. Edith brings Herbie cookies and a glass of milk and sets them on the kitchen table next to him. Herbie flips the “on” switch and the counter erupts into clicking, revealing the presence of something radioactive. The loud clicking startles Herbie, and he knocks his glass of milk onto the floor. As the milk falls to the floor, the Geiger counter goes silent.
Edith is mystified. When she asks her husband Herb what could have caused the counter to register radioactivity in her kitchen, Herb tells her not to worry, that the counter is “clearly defective”. Herb, a Hanford engineer with security clearance, knows that the counter detected radioactive iodine in the milk. Radioactive iodine is one of the byproducts of plutonium production released to the air from the Hanford site.
Edith later discovers a carbon copy of a letter that Herb typed out to his boss just after the incident, alerting him that he had found radiation in local milk, and asking whether this might be a health concern for his young son.
After she discovers the letter and understands that Herb lied to her about the Geiger counter being defective, Edith begins to evolve. She no longer trusts her husband, and she has grave doubts over whether living near Hanford is safe. She is no longer the submissive housewife, contented to clean the house and care for her husband. As the story progresses, we watch Edith develop a strength she didn’t know she had- the strength of a ferocious feminist whose only concern is to protect her young son.
As Edith gains self-confidence, one of Edith’s friends tells her she is like the fifty-foot woman in the new atomic age movie, “Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman.” She says to Edith “This woman gets exposed to radiation, then grows huge and powerful and gets even with her cheating husband. She’s like you, Edith!”
“She is?” Edith asks.
Her friend says “Or, rather, you’re like her. You’re growing more and more powerful, and you don’t let Herb boss you around anymore. You’re in charge! Oh, and I guess you were exposed to radiation too!! I sure hope you don’t grow to be fifty feet tall!”
As the story progresses, Edith allies with mothers of children with thyroid cancer and leukemia from towns downwind of a-bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site. Together, they demand the Atomic Energy Commission protect their children from the effects of fallout.
Herbert Higgenbothum, Sr
Modeled on my own father, an atomic safety engineer at the Hanford site from 1947-1960, Herbert (Herb) is an loyal, unquestioning Hanford employee. Graduating from UC Berkeley after the war as a mechanical engineer, Herb trains on the job at Hanford to become an atomic engineer. He serves as a safety engineer, overseeing the operation of Hanford’s production reactors.
Herb is aware that Hanford releases the radioactive byproducts of plutonium production into the air and into the waters of the Columbia River. He has been told by his supervisors that the levels of radiation released are far too low to be dangerous. When Herbie flips on his Geiger counter and it detects radiation in the milk, Herb lies to Edith, then meets with his boss who reassures him that a little radiation won’t hurt anyone.
Edith allies with concerned farming families across the Columbia from Hanford who have wondered what was coming out of those tall exhaust stacks at massive secret federal facility across the river. Many of the farmers have had livestock die mysteriously, and one year, lambs were born severely deformed or dead, their ewes lying on the ground, uninterested in their newborns. Someone mentions that this is an awful lot like the sheep deaths and malformed lambs born in Utah after they were exposed to fallout in 1953 from a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
As Edith changes before Herb’s eyes, he becomes confused, not knowing what is happening to his wife. She doesn’t even make home-cooked meals for him anymore…
I don’t want to give away the end of the story here, so…
Herbie
Herbie is a typical ‘50s boy, focused on hanging out with his best friend Jimmy, watching Lassie on TV, and enamored of all things atomic. He’s collecting all the colors of plastic atomic subs contained in cereal boxes, and he loves going to the latest atomic movies (movies Edith calls “atomic mutant” movies) with his father.
When Herbie develops thyroid cancer, he doesn’t understand how serious it is. He figures it’s just like “tomsils,” since Jimmy had to have his out. When his thyroid, which has absorbed the I-131 from milk, ice cream, and other dairy products he has consumed, registers radiation as a doctor passes a Geiger counter over his neck, Herbie is thrilled. Wait until he tells Jimmy! Herbie is like Atomic Man in the comics, only he is Atomic Boy!
Does Herbie survive? Not giving that away either!
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
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