OTTAWA, Ill. -- They were members of the 'Society of the Living Dead,' small-town women who painted glow-in-the-dark dials on clocks, then suffered cancers that lawyers are trying to link to the chemicals they used to make their living.
Officials say about 40 of 'the girls,' as they are called by most everyone in town, died in a 50-year span from tumors and cancers.
Now the society's final vestiges are beginning to crumble.
The first phase of a $2 million state-financed cleanup began last week at the downtown Luminous Processes Inc. plant, closed by the government in 1978 because of excessive levels of radiation.
Workers hauled out more than 50 drums and containers of contaminated rubble from the one-half-square-block, beige brick building with the ominous invitation to 'Dial Illinois for Death' painted in funereal black on its facade.
The containers will be trucked to a dump site in Hanford, Wash.
The town of 20,000 people, about 80 miles west of Chicago at the confluence of the Illinois and Fox rivers, takes pride in the quality of life -- friendly people, a thriving economy and not much crime, with only one homicide in the past five years.
But civic leaders complain they have suffered unfairly from the publicity.
'I'm very grateful,' James Thomas, mayor for 17 years, said of the cleanup. 'I hate to have someone look at this as 'Death City.' It's great to see the light at the end of the tunnel.'
Thomas said the women died because of radium poisoning from exposure at the plant, or more likely at its forerunner -- the Radium Dial Co. -- that was located about four blocks away.
Douglas F. Stevenson, an attorney representing the defunct company, said he could not comment on the case because the statute of limitations on damages arising from possible radium poisoning is 20 years. He said old cases may be refiled and new cases filed until that limit runs out.
The company was known as Radium Dial when it was in an old school building between 1920 and 1937. The women there were instructed to dip fine-tipped paint brushes in water, twirl the brushes between their lips to make a point, and dip them into a luminous radium powder.
Numerous lawsuits have been filed by former workers. Twelve women suffering from a variety of alleged work-related illnesses filed workmen's compensation cases, which their attorney voluntarily dismissed to leave the door open for problems that may show up later.
Pearl Schott, 66, who worked at Luminous Processes for 32 years until 1977, recalls the stifling summer days when fans swirled the radium-filled dust through the plant. Others remember the girls dressed in their dusty smocks eating lunch in downtown cafes.
'We were often told to be careful with the material because it was very expensive but never to be careful because it was very dangerous,' said Mrs. Schott.
Mrs. Schott, who contracted breast cancer in 1964 and has had reproductive organs removed, earned about 40 cents an hour when she started work at the company.
Luminous Processes was warned several times to clean up the radiation. It was fined $3,200 in 1977 and closed the following year.
'I don't think the company went as far as it should have to advise the women of the potential of the danger,' said Peter Ferracuti, a lawyer representing the women. 'Based on what they (the women) told me, all company officials did is assure them that the situation was in hand.'
In attempts to prove cause and effect, Ferracuti monitored a survey of 100 former employees of Luminous Processes and Radium Dials who are now dead. Death certificates, he said, indicate more than half of them had cancer.
'The national average is something like 13 percent to 16 percent,' he said. 'You can see we have a disproportionate situation here.'
Ferracuti said he decided to put off the women's lawsuits despite having conditions 'right now.'
'Many conditions do not demonstrate themselves for many many years. I felt it was in our better judgment to wait,' he said.
If the women were to get a favorable ruling and compensation for their present conditions, he said, under law they would have only 30 months to file any further claims. After that, he said, they would be cut off from further compensation for medical problems arising from the same cause.
The boarded-up plant on the corner of Clinton and Jefferson streets is filled with radioactive rubble -- trays, vials, bottles and shelves - stacked and strewn in heaps throught the two-story structure. The walls are pale green.
'The level of radiation (overall in the plant) is three or four times what it is outside,' said Maury Neuweg, a radiation safety officer for the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety.
Many items are contaminated hundreds of times above acceptable levels, he said, pointing a flashlight at a dingy gray and red can that glowed in the shadows as he switched off the light.
'That sucker is screaming,' he said.
