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

Recent Posts

A Swatch of Fabric

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 9, 2025
Another re-blog. I came across this recently while looking through my computer files. I want to re-blog it in memory of Jean Hughes, an incredibly gifted islander, who was directly influential in the lives of so many island children and those in need. She was the Coffin School Trustee’s President for many years and I had the honor to serve as a trustee under her. She passed away in the summer of 2025. Jeanie loaned me this from her family collections as she thought I would enjoy it. She knew me better than I thought she did. With love. 1830s Chinese silk to be exact. It literally floated into my lap as I sat reading a letter.  A letter from a young Nantucket girl to her grandparents. A young girl who just several years before had moved from tiny Nantucket Island to San Francisco with her mother to join her father. He had moved for better work and a better life. Nantucket was in an economic decline. Reading this treasure trove of letters – loaned to me by a friend who is a descendant of these people I mention – was like spying on them. Now, when I read Mitchell family letters and writing it is slightly different for me. Having worked in the Mitchell House for so long, I feel like they are a part of my family. This batch of letters was different however. I felt like they know I read their letters – as if they were looking over my shoulder or sitting on the other side of the room aghast. I felt like they thought no one ever would – or at the very least an outsider – read this correspondence. The worse letter one was the son writing to his mother upon receipt of her letter telling him of his father’s death. That was hard. Made harder because he thought his father was fine – he was as of the last letter a month or two before. Made harder as I lost my own Father a little over a year ago. I knew how he felt – but cannot imagine receiving a letter that is about a month old telling one of such horrible news. He had not seen his father in several years. I could speak to my Father, visited him monthly, and was there with him. That was not an easy letter to read. The silk fabric piece is quite beautiful – and still pristine – as if it was just folded into the letter yesterday. She wanted to share with her grandparents the dress that her cousin had brought to her directly from Hong Kong. A cousin, who was likely pregnant – or “sick” as was written but it was obvious what “sick” meant (yes, pregnancy was looked at as an illness in a way – and there were high rates of infant and mother mortality during and immediately following birth). The cousin had travelled back and forth to Hong Kong on the China Trade with her husband it seems but due to the pregnancy had to be put off with family or others until the baby was born. This was a common practice for the wives of whale captains who might go to sea with their husbands. They were put off with other whaling families or missionaries in far off ports so that they could have their baby where others could help. Sometimes they were put off months in advance. And, did you know that Nantucket whale wives were the FIRST to go to sea with their captains husbands? They set the trend – after all, we were the whaling capital of the world. At least, until we lost that title for multiple reasons. I digress. The other piece that leads one to realize that money was to be had – at least for the cousin – is that she didn’t bring fabric – she brought the dress already made in Hong Kong. Yes, it would have been less costly there than in the United States but it shows there was extra money for spending. And, there was enough excess fabric inside the dress for this young girl to cut off a piece of it and send it to her grandparents. Making them feel as if they were a part of her daily life – and making her feel that way too. So far from home. On the other side of the continent with Nantucket Sound in the midst, to boot. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: December 2025

December 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

A Child’s Donation

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 1, 2025
A past blog that I forgot I had written when I came across the letter written about below. Once I realized I had already written a blog about it, I decided it was worth re-blogging. Over Christmas, a neighbor of my Mother’s gave her a copy of something she came across while cleaning things up in her house. She thought my Mother would enjoy it and by the same token, my Mother thought that I would. Her note with it stated it proved she was as, “old as dirt.” She isn’t old as dirt. Believe me. The letter she had copied was from the War Production Board and dated December 16, 1942. It was, “written at the request of President Roosevelt,” who wanted to thank this young girl for her donation of a rubber tire. This was not any old rubber tire you see. It was a pure rubber tire – very much needed for the war effort – from one of her toy airplanes and measured not more than half an inch or so in diameter. This young girl was distressed that everyone else, including in her family, was assisting in the war effort and that she wasn’t. So when she discovered the tire was rubber, she asked her mother to send it to Washington, DC. Which, obviously, her mother did do. What does this have to do with Maria Mitchell you wonder? Well, it makes me think of collections and saving things. You have your own collections and archives at home – your family papers and photographs, your books (aka special collection books). These are valuable to your family and its history. They help you see what and who came before you and how your family became a family. What they endured. How they got to where they did and how where they came from helped, in part, to get you to where you are today. And then, these papers and books are important for the larger community. We learn from our past and our collective past – and these items help us do that. Scores of researchers use Maria Mitchell’s papers and those of her family every year. Not everyone is doing research on the family – they can be doing research on astronomy or some science-related matter, someone whom Maria or her family knew. The possibilities are endless. So, from this little letter, I know a young girl in Connecticut contributed to the war effort and what she gave. I know that rubber (not that I didn’t already but you get the idea) was important to the war effort in some way. I also know that many people contributed to the war effort and this was just one simple way to do it. I know she had a toy that had rubber components. And as a young girl in 1942, she was playing with toy airplanes. And I know that the war effort was all consuming to the point that a small child wanted to make sure she found a way to help too while seeing her family members helping. Your paper is important. Always find a venue for these items if you no longer want them. They will help us to better understand our world – past and present. JNLF P.S. Remember that every donation, every gift to someone in need, matters. No matter how small it is – or you think it is.
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