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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Celia Szapka Klemski was working as a secretary for the State Department in Washington, DC when she was transferred to Manhattan to work on the Manhattan Project in 1942. Klemski worked as a secretary at the first headquarters of the Manhattan Engineer District in Madison Square on Fifth Avenue. After only nine months, she was transferred to Oak Ridge, where she settled down and married another Manhattan Project worker. Klemski worked with General Leslie Groves, who told her to call him “GG.”

Klemski was featured in Denise Kiernan’s The Girls of Atomic City.

Celia Szapka Klemski’s Timeline
1919 May 17th Born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania.

1938 Moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as a secretary for the State Department.

1942 Arrived in Manhattan, New York to work for the Manhattan Project as a secretary at Project headquarters on Fifth Avenue.

1943 Transferred to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

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