By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Henrietta Brater remembers the sores that first appeared on her husband's hands.

Donald Wilson's hands were eaten raw by chemicals used to cool metal after grinding it to the right size. Lumps on his thighs, buttocks, feet and shoulders came next. Then, he became weak.

Wilson's doctor told Brater her husband was suffering from a rare form of cancer most likely caused by working at Fernald.

The plant's doctors said working at Fernald was safe.

"We were so shocked that we didn't believe our doctor," she says. "We were so trusting, and so young. It never entered our minds that they were doing anything wrong."

Wilson, 27, died in 1962. Brater lost her home and struggled to feed the couple's daughters, then ages 5 and 8.

She filed a workers' compensation claim on behalf of her husband. It was delayed again and again. Fernald officials told her she would get her medical insurance coverage back if she would just drop the claim.

"All we had left was pieces of furniture and an old car," Brater says. "The workers really saved us. They'd take up a collection of $400 or $500 at a time. I don't know what we would have done without that."

She put herself through beauty school and eventually remarried. She has never received compensation for Wilson's illness or the medical treatments he needed.

She did receive about $10,000 from a 1989 settlement of a lawsuit filed by residents against the plant.

"I would just like to ask these people, instead of hiring all these attorneys and doctors, and paying them big money, why couldn't they just give it to the workers?"