From One of Maria Mitchell’s Younger Fans

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • February 1, 2021

 I think that I have mentioned before that in addition to “grown-up” professional research and archive requests, I also receive them from children and teenagers who are doing projects on Maria Mitchell.  I am always happy to help and have been asked all sorts of questions.


What’s even more fun is when I see the results of their fantastic projects and when I receive letters like the one you see here.  I received this a few weeks ago and its one of the more detailed letters I have received – and quite impressive.  Typically, I don’t share them but this one has been altered in order to share.


 

I am hoping to meet with her class virtually in the spring so that I can meet with them inside the Mitchell House when it’s all set up for the season – and frankly, a bit warmer!

 

JNLF

Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 5, 2025
I have posted this during Women’s History Month before but because it is March and Women’s History Month, I think it’s worth repeating. It’s clever and helps to tell an important story in women’s history while giving it a bit of a 21 st century twist. It comes via the National Women’s History Project .  JNLF
May 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger April 28, 2025
Lynn, Ap. 25 1869  My dear President, I am not sure I told you how long I must be away from the College. If I took only the Sunday’s rest, it would be possible for me to reach the Obs. By Tuesday, but I feel the need of more than one day of quiet, before I enter upon the new and incomprehensible life before me . . . William Mitchell died on April 19, 1869 and for the first time, Maria Mitchell was alone. Save for her trip to the southern United States and Europe in 1857 and 1858, her father was always by her side. She did not know much of a day in her life without him nearby and she knows that. It was difficult for her – and her siblings worried about her and this new world she was now in. She had been – expect for that trip – the caregiver for both of her parents. Her mother, Lydia Coleman Mitchell, died in 1861 on Nantucket and Maria had cared for her as well. She was the child who became the caregiver of the family – both in her youth as her siblings sought her out for care, humor, love, and adventures while their mother was busy with younger children and household duties – and then her parents as the only child who did not marry and remained by their sides. JNLF
Show More