INTRODUCING CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AND BRANCH (OF TREE)

Editor's Note: Ed De Persio (my second cousin will always have space on my websites

but not between my 'e' and 'P' - Richard DePersio). This isn't a historical articles or

a science articles( his comments on healthcare will appear soon). but a casual letter to his second cousin. I dare say that he and my casual letters are better written then today's college senior's formal reports and term papers. Hence forth, Ed will be a Contributing Editor).

-----Original Message-----

To: rrdd3939@aol.com
Sent: Mon, Feb 22, 2010 10:12 pm
Subjec

Rick,

My brother, Richard (the ENT facial plastics surgeon in Knoxville,TN and currently president of the State Medical Society of TN) spells it DeP   and I think my dad (also a John) was very casual in spelling it DeP.

I will have to look to the tree to see who uses the space and who doesn't.  I think it is not very important.  I just started using the space as it seemed more natural  re the meaning: from Persia.  As we found

out later Persia is a town in Italy not the country Persia.  

  

Re the Manhattan  project.  First, my dad John was inducted into the Army in Boston, I think and his first duty station was in Oak Ridge, TN (you will remember it was the original "Atomic City" where the U-235

was successfully separated from U-238 and thus where the material for the first bomb was obtained).  He was sent there specifically to be Chief of Staff of the Hospital.  He knew all of the main important operatives

there including General Leslie Groves who was ahead of the project in Oak Ridge.  Dad was sent briefly to Los Alamos to treat the first lethal case of radiation poisoning.  This occurred when the neutralizing 

cadmium rods in a reactor were removed to deliberatively increase the reaction in the reactor for some experiment I think.  It was a bad mistake and the reactor almost went critical. The individual broke up

the fission reaction with his hands (as the story was told to me) and he thus received  significantly over the lethal dose.  The lethal dose is about 500 Rem (midline dose). 

Next, my step-father Alvin Weinberg (married my mother Genevieve Kellerman De Persio) was a member of the inner circle (with Oppenheimer)who worked on the bomb and who went to Chicago Stadium to 

see the real test of the fission reaction.  Space was limited in the reaction experiment area and I think only eleven scientist were under the stadium.  Alvin was no. twelve as he told the story so he was above the 

stadium. Alvin was later then the Chief of Oak Ridge National Lab for twenty years. He holds the patent on the design of the worlds first graphite nuclear reactor. He won the very prestigious Fermi award.

I did become a follower of Buzz on facebook!  Would be happy to work on the "Save our NASA Project".

We have a number of De Persio's, who are on my and my daughter-Danielle's facebook page, who reside in Italy.  I should bring up the subject of ancestry with them.

All for now.

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