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Reuben's obituary "Reuben L. "Bob" Cribbs of Saxonburg told his son that on the morning the United States detonated the first atomic bomb in a test, the sky lit up 10 times brighter than noon. "He said it had every color in the spectrum and some he'd never seen before, " said his son, Douglas Cribbs of Angelus Oaks, Calif. His daughter, Diane Mann of Haverford, Montgomery County, said that for years her father kept a small paperweight containing a chunk of molten sand, a reminder of the day the desert sand melted to green glass from the heat of the explosion. Mr. Cribbs was a tool and die maker who worked on the Manhattan Project, which produced the atomic bomb. He was at the first test in 1945 in White Sands, N.M. He died Aug. 6 in Butler Memorial Hospital of pulmonary disease. He was 83. Mr. Cribbs was a technical sergeant with the Army Corps of Engineers and was trained in demolition work. He helped construct the casings, detonators and wiring for the atom bomb. He also was responsible for placing bunkers with cameras anywhere from 100 feet to six miles from the site to photograph the explosion. He told his family he and other soldiers, wearing polarized goggles, witnessed the detonation from a ditch miles away. "He said first there was light, then heat, then wind, " his son recalled. Though Mr. Cribbs worried throughout his life about the possible effects of radiation exposure, his family said he always supported the government's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. "I always remember him saying, `Harry Truman did the right thing, ' " Mann said. "He thought it brought the war in the Pacific to a swift end. I don't think he really had any regrets. It was a very different time and a very vicious war, " his son said. Mr. Cribbs was born in South Bethlehem, Armstrong County, the youngest of seven children. A brother nicknamed him Bob, declaring Reuben too old-fashioned for a child. He attended college briefly but did not finish. His engineering skills were largely self-taught. "He was just always tinkering around with things. He and his brother Bill used to build steam engines when they were kids, " his son said. After the war, Mr. Cribbs worked as a machinist and engineer in various places in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He settled his family in Saxonburg in the early 1970s and worked as a manufacturing engineer for Ametek in Blawnox. His wife, Anna M. Johnson, died in 1994. In his retirement, Mr. Cribbs designed and built miniature furniture based on museum pieces. "He went into it in a big way, measuring museum pieces down to one-twelfth scale, " his daughter said. Mr. Cribbs exhibited and sold the miniatures at shows for the Associated Artists of Butler, at the Saxonburg Arts Festival and at the Greensburg Doll and Miniature Show. Among his works was a miniature replica of Cooper Cabin in Cabot, a log homestead dating to 1810. In addition to his son and daughter, he is survived by a brother, William Cribbs of Hartford, Conn.; and a granddaughter. A funeral was held Monday in Fox Funeral Home in Saxonburg. Interment followed in Lakelawn Memorial Park, Reynoldsville, Jefferson County. Memorial donations may be made to St. Paul's Lutheran Church, attn.: Emery Barnett, P.O. Box 128, Sarver 16055 or to Shriners' Hospital for Children, 1645 W. 8th Street, Erie 16505." |
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