About the book
As a child, Maria Holt learned of Hiroshima and cried. When she was a teenager she knew that nuclear radiation was a problem. Then in her career as a public health nurse she was frightened to learn that her fears as a child and youth became very real in Maine with the planned construction of a nuclear power plant near her. So began Maria’s activism and eventual service as a Maine State Representative noted for her environmental activism and knowledge.
On the other hand, Elisabeth (Betty) King, a farmer and stay-at-home mom, was activated when she found that the beautiful white snow that fell on her family’s farm set off a Geiger counter. Worried about her children, her farm animals and the world, Betty joined with others to learn about nuclear power and its emissions and waste.
These women came from different backgrounds, yet both joined together with others to monitor and protest the activity of Maine’s only nuclear power plant. Their work was necessary to force the Maine Yankee plant to provide public information about emissions and created state-level oversight. Their passion was instrumental in the eventual closing of the plant.
This is their story written at times by Betty and at others narrated by Maria. With science, charts and background this book provides the reader with valuable insight into the work that is necessary to have an Activist’s Adventure.
On the other hand, Elisabeth (Betty) King, a farmer and stay-at-home mom, was activated when she found that the beautiful white snow that fell on her family’s farm set off a Geiger counter. Worried about her children, her farm animals and the world, Betty joined with others to learn about nuclear power and its emissions and waste.
These women came from different backgrounds, yet both joined together with others to monitor and protest the activity of Maine’s only nuclear power plant. Their work was necessary to force the Maine Yankee plant to provide public information about emissions and created state-level oversight. Their passion was instrumental in the eventual closing of the plant.
This is their story written at times by Betty and at others narrated by Maria. With science, charts and background this book provides the reader with valuable insight into the work that is necessary to have an Activist’s Adventure.
Elisabeth "Betty" King
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Elisabeth King grew up in a suburb of Chicago, in the era when the Velde Commission was cracking down on the Chicago mafia and police chases up through the northern suburbs were commonplace. She came East to study architectural design at MIT in Cambridge (where even architects were expected to learn some physics), and there she met her husband, John King, a physicist. She lived and worked in the Boston area until their growing family began to need more space, when they became one of the back-to-the-land families and took up residence doing hardscrabble farming in Woolwich, just across the Kennebec River from Bath, and a few short miles, as the crow flies, from what would become the site of the Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. She and Maria became friends as Home Schoolers. After the Three Mile Island accident they both became intensely interested in issues surrounding the safety of nuclear power in general, and their local nuclear issues in particular.
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Betty King
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Maria Holt
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Maria Glen Holt
Maria Glen Holt grew up in Farmington, Maine, but she was visiting in Boston with her mother when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. As the crowds celebrated in the streets, she was looking at news photos posted inside a shop window, horrified at the devastation she saw. She later went to New York to study nursing at Cornell University Hospital, and served many years as a public health nurse. She moved with her family to Bath, Maine when her husband, Dr. Alfred Holt, transferred his practice. She also served in the Maine State Legislature for eight years. Maria was one of those who protested the building of the Maine Yankee plant when it was first proposed. Always an educator, she ran a lively Home School in her big stone house on the top of a hill overlooking the Kennebec River. When she wasn’t educating her fellow legislators about the hazards of the Peaceful Atom, she took every opportunity to speak to public school groups. Some of these talks to students are included in the narrative.
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