Partners

Four or five decades ago when young women married exploration geophysicists, they traveled backward in time, practically giving up citizenship in the 20th Century and joining a subculture that in many ways resembled that of gypsies. They became nomads, rarely stopping for more than a few weeks or months in one place, and occasionally paying a social price -- being labeled "transient trash" -- they didn't deserve. They lived a colossal irony. While their husbands found materials which ameliorated the human condition almost worldwide, these women coped with circumstances approaching the settlement of America. Housing, by the standard of their contemporaries, ranged from barely adequate to barely primitive. In many rural locations, where geophysical crews traditionally work, finding any shelter was a challenge. New crew wives soon learned the technique -- tailing milkmen, meter-readers, and postmen for good prospects. Families frequently felt lucky to get a weatherproof room. Sometimes they had to resort to tents and converted chicken coops for the duration.