Getting Things Ready

My book comes out next month, so I’m gearing up!  

Below is a picture of a few of the scientists from the Lab:  Bill Davidson, Betty McMahan and Betty Humphrey, aka “the Bettys.”  I love this shot.  It’s so atmospheric. I was able to interview Betty McMahan, (called BettyMac to distinguish her from Betty Humphrey).

I came to love the Bettys.  There was over 700 boxes of archives at the Special Collections Library at Duke, and the ones dealing directly with the experiments often went over my head. So I focused on the correspondence instead, where the scientists wrote about what they were doing.  The Bettys were the best letter writers.  The guys were just so formal, and the Bettys were more fun and human, and long with descriptions of how their work was going they talked about what was going on with the people in the lab.  Thank you, Bettys!

2 thoughts on “Getting Things Ready

  1. I love the blurb, thank you! I tried to track down Betty Humphrey’s family, but I must admit I didn’t try too hard. At a certain point I had more information than I could possibly use in one book, and I had to stop gathering still more. I have regrets, and not having more of Betty Humphrey (and others) in the book is one of them.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *