What Does the MMA Have To Offer YOU During This Difficult Time?

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • March 30, 2020

While you may not think of the Maria Mitchell Association as a virtual place given the nature of what we do, we actually do have some things online to offer you.


The first ongoing activity is the Science Festival. An annual event that attracts over 400 children and families each year and co-sponsored with the Nantucket Community School, the Science Festival still ran with at-home activities. And while the prize period of it may be over, there are still a huge list if activities created by the MMA, NCS, and all of our island partners who work with us on the Science Festival so take a look! We will also be showcasing some “Pop-Up Science” demonstrations on Instagram as well.


Links to various astronomy-related livestreams, videos, and other interesting information can be found on our Facebook page. The MMA astronomer, Regina Jorgenson, is regularly interviewed by WCAI for its “Looking Skyward” piece and that can also be found as a link on the MMA’s Facebook page and on WCAI’s website.


A fan of birding and the natural sciences? Take a look at the listing of our extensive 100+ year old natural science collections, read up on some interesting information about our harbors and on information concerning Nantucket’s geologic development, mammals, trees and shrubs and more. Some of these publications are rare, out-of-print, and quite old- but they are still incredibly relevant and frankly, just plain interesting. Don’t know much about our island? This is the time to learn! And then, reinforce it by getting outside – while maintaining social distance – which is easy to do with our hundreds upon hundreds of acres of beaches and conservation land.


And of course, even the Mitchell House has a little something. We have a great “For Students” section of our website where you can find a Maria Mitchell timeline – that anyone can take a look at, not just students – a bibliography for further reading (and you can get many online), and several lesson plans with everything right online. The lesson plans are for various ages and can be used to help you and your child wrap up Women’s History Month or begin your celebration of women’s right to vote – the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment is this year!


I keep mentioning Facebook. Even if you are not a Facebook user/member, you can still open these links on the MMA’s Facebook page.


And while our doors may be physically closed, they are not virtually closed. Staff continues to work remotely. Astronomical research is still being completed, plans for our still hoped-for Maria Mitchell Women of Science Symposium in October still go forward, animals in the Hinchman House Natural Science Museum still await their meals every day and their water changes of their tanks, Clementine the Lobster still awaits some fish or mussels for her dinner, planning for summer events and classes still go on with the hope that maybe we will be back to normal sooner rather than later. And, we offer you a myriad of information and activities on our website and social media platforms.


And one further note, please remember that non-profits are also going to suffer in this. Consider what they provide to you and your family and remember that museums and other non-profits need your continued support – they are here for you now and will be once this is over. After all, Clementine and her friends still need to eat – crisis or not – telescope time for research still needs to be paid for, buildings still need a small level of heat to keep things from freezing and staff needs to be able to meet virtually. All of this still costs non-profits, including the MMA. Thank you.


JNLF

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Soups On!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 9, 2026
You know the cold has arrived when I make the first soup of the season. I did just that this weekend – perhaps a little later than normal because all of a sudden it got cold at night and we have had three frosts in a row – the first of the season on Friday night (October 23, 2026). My first: Portuguese Kale Soup from a recipe found long ago in Yankee Magazine . This is my husband’s favorite and I “Italian-ize” it (I am half Italian) by having grated parmesan to sprinkle on top which also helps add salt if it’s lacking. I know – horrors! But don’t we all bring some of our backgrounds to the table – so to speak – when it comes to augmenting recipes? Then, what’s even better is you can freeze most of the soups – and then you have a ready meal for another time. It makes you realize, yet again, how difficult things were 100 or more years – certainly more – ago. Imagine cooking for twelve people, as Maria Mitchell’s mother did, and not being able to preserve or set aside much of what you made as there were not storage techniques or technology that would allow for such a thing. Just the cooking alone – never mind putting things by like preserves or salt cod or something – for twelve people! Poor Lydia! I can barely cook for three! Good thing my husband cooks a lot. Though he HATES baking so that’s where I still have a place at the counter!  I am looking forward to more soups – not sure what is next. Perhaps Curried Lentil – another good one that freezes well. My Mother just dug one out of her freezer from last winter and it was still good! JNLF

Applesauce!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 2, 2026
Early October is a time to make something I love – applesauce. It’s one of my favorite things. Ironically, when I was a baby, I did not like it. But because I ate very little – and my Mother was worried because I was such a skinny baby (not anymore!) – my Other Nana (great grandmother) made a lot of applesauce because my Mother said I ate it. I did not – but my Mother could not tell her Nana (grandmother) that and disappoint her. So, I think my parents ate a lot of applesauce back in the early 1970s. I sort of dread making it though – which is silly because it’s very easy and I always forget that until I am making it. You only have to core and slice the apples – you leave on the peels. That is what gives the applesauce – which uses McIntosh apples (my fave!) – its pink color. And with some lemon and then some sugar – you’ve got the best tasting applesauce. And it smells so good while it’s cooking! It is also freezable so once cool – it goes into winter hibernation to be brought out for specific sorts of meals. Putting food by – as Lydia Coleman Mitchell once did for her family of 12! I was a bit late this year, but over the weekend of October 24, apples were cooking on my stove resulting in the first applesauce accompanied meal of the fall and winter season. JNLF

Bang, Clang, Hiss!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 26, 2026
I grew up, quite literally, with hot water radiators in a Colonial Revival from the 1920s.  There was a huge boiler in the basement that chugged and blew hot belching air. It took up one whole area of the basement and I avoided it. I could hang over on the stairs and stare at its flames at the bottom. It scared me. It not only kept the basement very warm but also very dry. While the house had been built in an area that began to slope at our property, between the furnace and the clever drainage system installed by the builders of the house in the 1920s, our basement was always dry. My mother, the queen of rebates (this is the 1970s and 1980s), had her “rebate and coupon table” right in front of this furnace. I remember it always glowed – and I would not doubt that it still had some asbestos around some of its pipes. Maybe another reason I stayed away – perhaps I was warned away at an early age not just because I could burn myself! One of my fondest memories of this house was the clang and hiss of the heaters in the winter. It made me feel instantly cozy, as if I was wrapped in a nice warm quilt. If I was in bed at night and it was snowing, all the more warmth and cozy feeling. It was comforting and a sound and feel I still associate with snow and winter. The street light and the snow falling, spiraling down in that pinkish gold of the light – and the hoped for snow day to come! Forced air systems just don’t do the same thing. And, they suck all the moisture out of the house to boot! They do keep a house quite warm though – but still not the same – and I miss that humidity as do my plants. I reflect back on the hot water radiators – those old cast iron loopy radiators with the valve and perhaps a radiator box to cover them – as it if they kept me super warm. They didn’t. We kept our house at 63F – a lesson I still follow – and it was a big old Colonial-style house so it could be drafty. One reason we had a Franklin stove in our family room and quilts for nighttime television watching! So many times over the course of a winter, I think of that house where I spent about twenty years of my life, and remember the, “Bang, Clang, Hiss!” of the radiators and the coziness they projected. And while, it wasn’t always warm, it was a lot warmer that the Mitchell House would have been in February! JNLF
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