Ethereal
This caught my eye recently. I had taken the day off since there was no school and my son and I spent the day together. He had a piano lesson in the late afternoon and after walking our dog through Town as I waited, we came back and I saw the clouds and the light behind the Congregational Church.
It made me think of the Reverend Louise Southard Baker (1846-1896). Baker served as the first female minister here from 1880 to 1888. A plaque is located inside honoring her service to the Church and its parishioners and, I believe, to this day, they still have a summer lecture series in which a speaker is brought from off-island – the series is in Baker’s name.
Reverend Baker was also an author of fiction and a poet. At least one of her books, Eunice Hussey, was set on Nantucket and a book of her poems is aptly entitled, By the Sea. Baker had also served as a teacher at the Coffin School when she was younger – a place quite a few famous island women attended or served as teachers.
JNLF
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