Edith Warner was facing ruin. Her pride and joy, her beloved tea room was going bankrupt.

It was all World War II's fault. It was hard enough getting people to visit a tea room way out

amid the tumbleweeds of New Mexico. Locals had actually laughed at her when she'd opened it.

What was this woman thinking? Then the war hit and gasoline

rationing killed travel. The trickle of tourists dried up like a summer creek in the desert.

And after years of getting by, Edith realized she had to shut down.

Until...

An unexpected guest arrived. A man named Robert. A thin guy, chain smoker. He was a scientist out in California, but he loved the desert highlands, and he came back year after year to see Edith and get a slice of her famous chocolate cake.

But she would have to break the news to him. This would be his last

visit. Except Robert had some news of his own. You're staying open, he told her.

How? she asked.

It's in the interest of national security, he explained.

In fact, you're about to be busier than ever.

National Security?

What on earth?

But if Robert promised to save her tea room, he also told Edith that her world was about to change, and not necessarily for the better.

You see, Robert was Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project's top secret weapons lab, had nearby Los Alamos.

And although he couldn't tell Edith, he was about to build the world's first atomic bomb, more or less, in her backyard. Hi, I'm Sam Keene, and you're listening to the disappearing spoon a topsy-Turvy

sciencey history podcast where footnotes become the real story. Edith Warner grew up as the daughter of a Baptist minister in Pennsylvania. She had hooded eyes and wore jangly bracelets and

favored red clothing. Someone once described her as being quote as thin as a reed by a

salt marsh. In Pennsylvania she taught school in a one-room school

house and absolutely hated it. It was too cloistered, too monotonous.

...