For pictures of Stuart and Winnie and their family please look here. There is also information about their two children, four grandchildren and great grandchildren’s families on that page.
Stuart also wrote three volumes about his life which span from growing up in Lenawee Co, MI to testing weapons during WWII at the Aberdeen Proving Ground and designing nuclear reactors for energy. You can read these volumes by downloading the PDFs, below. There is a fair amount of repetition between the different volumes and they are unedited, but we’ve presented them here ‘warts and all’ if someone wants to read them.
Stuart wrote a set of memoirs in 1978 and more in 1983. The first 3 volumes are from the 1978 version and the Chapters are from the 1983 stuff.
Volume 1 (1978) contains Stuart’s experiences working at the Aberdeen Proving Ground and for the Atomic Energy Commision.
Volume 2 (1978) contains Stuart’s consultancy work and his businesses (mostly focused around nuclear energy).
Volume 3 (1978) is ‘for family only’ (according to Stuart, but we don’t think so) and contains a history of the McLain family and farm (similar to what is on these pages) and his own memories of the family.
1983 chapters:
This chapter is a poem called Lom (not written by Stuart but by a guy named Charles Wendy in 1944. It’s about building the atomic bomb) – apparently they already knew the target (they were at the Aberdeen proving grounds) or the date is incorrect. Keep in mind it was written during the war …
Brief history of Stuart’s Life
Stuart McLain is really Henry Stuart McLain but the Henry got dropped because everyone kept confusing him with his dad. Stuart was the youngest of Henry and Mary Helena’s sons born in 1905. Stuart got married to Winifred Roberta Denman (b. 1901) in 1930.
Stuart, conveniently for us, spent a lot of time writing about his life so he is the McLain son we know the most about.
Stuart in School
Stuart started off in a one-room schoolhouse, like his other brothers. Weirdly, the school was actually built by Stuart’s grandfather in 1874 or 5 on Fulton McLain’s property. It’s not clear which grandfather, but most likely it was Fulton McLain II. Stuart became a Chemical Engineer. He went to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, when he was 20 years old. Stuart, ultimately received an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering in 1929 and a PhD in the same subject in 1933.
Marriage to Winifred Denman
By his own account, Stuart had a lot of girlfriends before he got together with Winnie. Or as he put it ” Madeline Boyce, who was the reason that Alice (Barber) and I drifted apart… and Winifred, who was the reason that Madeline and I drifted apart …”
Winnie had actually been Stuart’s high school Latin teacher (a fact she apparently didn’t want any one much to know), which sounds strange than it is. Stuart didn’t graduate high school until he was 20, he left off for a few years to work and Winnie and he didn’t date while he was in high school. The talked about the Aneid and their philosophy of life though. Stuart ran into Winnie again on a bus when he went to the University of Michigan and the rest was history.
Winifred Denman McLain was from Helmer, Indiana and was born in 1901. She was the daughter of Dr. Robert Daily Denman and Bertha Mae Copeland. Winifred and her brother, Dean Copeland Denman, were born in Indianapolis when their father was in medical school.
After graduation, Dr. Denman moved to a small town in northeastern Indiana, Helmer, to set up a medical practice. Winifred went to school in nearby Corona and college at Indiana University in Bloomington. After graduation, she taught Latin and Drama in Tecumseh MI where Stuart McLain was one of her students. After teaching several years, Winifred entered Nursing School at the University of Michigan where she re-met Stuart and they were married a few years later in 1930.
Stuart in the Military
Stuart undertook military training during his undergraduate degree at University of Michigan. When he finished his degree, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in Armany Ordnance. After he finished his PhD and was working in Detroit in the 1930’s he completed enough classes to be promoted to 1st Lieutenant. He rotated through Aberdeen, Savannah River and Picatinny aresenal throughout the 1930s and eventually in 1940 was ordered to the Aberdeen Proving Ground and then to the Main Front, the central site of munitions testing, where he was in command and remained throughout WW II. Stuart reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was due to be promoted to full Colonel but resigned his post immediately after VJ day (15th of August 1945).
Stuart as an Engineering professor
Before the war, Stuart worked as an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Detroit and the University of Arkansas after his first job at the US Rubber industry. He had originally wanted to work in the Fuel/Gas industry but he had to look for a job in the middle of the Great Depression (1933) and US Rubber was what he could find. After the end of the War, he moved to Wayne State University in Detroit, where he was the Department Head, before transitioning to work in the newly created US National Laboratory system.
Henry's boys 