An Astronomer

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • January 14, 2013

I first remember her standing at the entry to Loines Observatory with a small metal clicker in her hand. It was summer and it was dark. Mosquitoes were swarming and we all smelled like bug spray. It was a Wednesday night and we had just made the long – or so it seemed in those days – journey from Tom Nevers for an Open Night – the event of the week for my family. She was sort of quiet and reserved but she reached out to my brother each Wednesday night when we arrived at the top of the stairs by saying, “Want to press the clicker?” Sounds like not much but to a nine year old budding astronomer, my brother was very excited to “click” his family members into the open night.

I got to know her a little more as I began to volunteer at the Mitchell House. I think she probably saw me as a pesky kid, but she seemed to warm up to me over time. Maybe I proved to her that I had some staying power – that I was not just a kid who got pushed into doing some summer volunteering. (Twenty-five plus years later I am still here and curator – really?! Time flies!) She was an interesting person, an incredibly intelligent woman who had a deep love and respect for Maria Mitchell, but she did not reveal too much about herself.

When I completed my masters’ degree in 2010, the MMA very nicely congratulated me via our monthly “eComet.” A week or so later, I went into my email and saw a sender with a familiar name, one I was completely shocked to see as I had never received an email from this person. The sender was “emiliab.” I was surprised, worried, and wondered what it was. I saved it. It reads:

“Congratulations on your degree. I am hoping you have a computer-readable copy of your thesis you can send me by email … I’ll do without the pictures if I can read {your} paper that way. Thanks! Lee (Emilia) Belserene.”

Wow! I practically burst my buttons – I was so proud and honored that she wanted to read my research.

I am so lucky to have worked for the MMA for all these years and to now serve as the Mitchell House curator. I have been fortunate to have such amazing people in my life – and so many of them tied to the MMA. What inspirations and mentors – what an incredible place and people to have grown up around and to be involved with today. Not many can be surrounded by such inspiring people – and such incredible women like Lee.

This is just one small memory of Lee Belserene. She served as the MMA’s astronomer and director of the Observatory from September 1978 through September 1991. She was a Life Member of the MMA. Emilia Pisano Belserene, Ph.D. passed away in Washington State on December 11, 2012 just one day shy of her 90th birthday. She leaves a daughter, Rita.

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Putting Things By

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 23, 2025
An older term, that we seem to not use that much anymore but maybe that’s in part because not many people “put things by” anymore. It is having a bit of a resurgence as people try to return to the garden and focus on local produce. My in-laws used to spend a lot of time – before I knew them – canning and preserving many different things – from jellies to string beans that became “dilly beans.” I, on the other hand, do not can produce. Frankly, I fear messing up the process and making my family sick. So, for now, I stick to making refrigerator jams and pickles. I have made some chive vinegar – that is frankly, amazing, and a brilliant shade of pink! But in any case, Bartlett’s Farm opened for pick-your-own strawberries on June 7 and I made my way over on June 8. My son has been asking for strawberry jam since about February – I told him I wait for fresh and local but he wanted some so badly he was begging for store bought. I almost caved but then I told him – out of season and they taste like cardboard – and also made a LONG journey to get to us. Once people ate with the seasons – now we do not have to with trains, planes, and ships crossing all over. It is also, why, oftentimes, fruit has no flavor. Produce is picked often before it ripens and “ripens” as it ships – or with sprays – and since many varieties have been crossed with others or engineered, we have lost the taste. I remember tasting a peach a few years back from North Carolina – fresh off the tree. After rubbing it to get all the “fur” off, I bit into an exquisite peach that tasted like a peach of my youth. So, Maria was not eating a strawberry in January but she was eating them in June – local and full of flavor. And likely, putting some by as well. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 16, 2025
June 1851 My Dear Sister . . . . Mrs. Dassel has painted me kneeling at my telescope. It looks like Adeline Coffin and is of course not handsome. If thee was here thee would have Mitchell’s {William Mitchell Barney, son of Sally and Matthew Barney} painted at once. She has a head of a child N. P. Willis that is very lovely. She has taken a room at the Atheneum and put up about a dozen pictures – very beautiful – Isabel is lovely. She has not tried to make a portrait, but a very pretty picture . . . . She is now engaged on Abra’m Quary – he is much flattered by it and it will be a fine portrait. I think we shall buy it or a copy for the Atheneum . . . . She will paint father also for herself – having made a pencil sketch . . . .We like her very much . . . . The above is from a letter sent by Maria Mitchell to her eldest sister, Sally Mitchell Barney. In it, Maria details what everyone in the Mitchell family is up to. She includes some details about Herminia B. Dassel, an artist who came to Nantucket to paint the last Native Americans and also took an interest in the famous Mitchell family. This was of course four years after Maria’s discovery of the comet. At the time of this letter, Maria was still the librarian for the Atheneum and the portrait of Quary that she mentions possibly buying for the Atheneum, she did buy as it hangs in the Atheneum by the front door today. Another Dassel portrait of Quary is in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association and the portrait of Isabel Draper is currently on display at the NHA’s Whaling Museum – on loan from a museum in Rhode Island. The portrait Maria states she posed for at the start of the letter is in the collection of the MMA. It was given to us in the early 1990s by Sally’s great granddaughter – the granddaughter of Mitchell whom she mentions above as well. Maria and Dassel would become good friends – Maria was named the godmother of Dassel’s daughter. And the sketch of William made by Dassel that Maria states would become a portrait? It likely did come to fruition. It made its way down a side of the family but was unfortunately lost, likely sold as part of a family estate though we do have a photograph of it and one can tell it is the brush work of Dassel. JNLF

At Long Last!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 9, 2025
After several yes’s and then several no’s, not going to have time, we have indeed received the final layer of asphalt on Vestal Street. This goes back to last March and April when we finally had our sewer and waterlines replaced. While I am all about preservation, 1903 piping is a bit old and tired and filled with tree roots to make the passage of sewer sludge quick and easy. While we still await some fixes to curbing – we have our original concrete curbs from 1946/1947 when Vestal Street was first paved – it was dirt until then! – some of them have been buried by time and just need some suavity to pull them up and get them back where they go. Thank you to the Town, N&M, and Victor Braden for completing the work thus far. But, with the paving completed, we may possible begin the replacement of some of our picket fencing and we have permission to restore our fences to what originally existed along the street in the 1920s and earlier – the rail was a rolled, thick top – and we are excited to use some grant funding to make that happen. Stay tuned! JNLF
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