Literary Hub
Minnie was my grandmother. I grew up with the story that she was killed by nuclear radiation poisoning. The summer before she became sick, red dust allegedly blanketed the prairie in the valley where she lived. For three days, people wiped this dust off their windshields and removed their linens from clotheslines. Soon afterward, the diagnoses began. Two people from neighboring farms died of quickly progressing cancers shortly after Minnie died. A nine-year-old girl developed a brain tumor. In addition to being Minnie’s granddaughter, I am an anthropologist who studies how people make sense of science.