Letters

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 10, 2013

I am often worried about the fact that we are now, for the most part, no longer letter writers or journal keepers. This is even more pronounced for me as I work with Maria Mitchell’s papers and letters or I work with those of other people as I conduct research. What will people know about us? What will they have to read to learn about us? E-mails are deleted, text messages or Tweets are a few words long and deleted as well and with changes in the Internet and computers, what will happen to blogs? None of this is stored in a more stable and permanent way – yes, paper can have its issues with time but still.

I glean so much from a letter, a journal, or even a newspaper clipping. It’s kind of like gardening. I can simply read through a letter or journal page enjoying what I read and not taking notes but just absorbing the “surroundings” much as I might enjoy walking around my garden to see what is blooming at the moment. Or I can take a few notes about things that I might be looking for or something else that is interesting and I was not aware I would find – sort of like picking a bouquet and finding other flowers I did not realize were blooming and adding them into the bouquet or making a new small one. And then there is gleaning or maybe full on harvesting. Where I find exactly what I was looking for and loads of information which will assist me in my research.

But what about now? In the twenty-first century? I sometimes feel like I am one of the last letter writers. I have a few friends who I correspond with by writing real, put them in the mailbox with a stamp, letters. One of those is a friend I have had since I was fourteen years old. Her name is Sonja. She is from Germany and we have been pen pals since we were in junior high school. Now, how many children have pen pals today and how many will continue to write them letters well into adulthood? (It’s about twenty-six years for us.) This experience – writing to one another regularly, sharing information about oneself and one’s family and country and school, and what life is like in that country is an important one.

Someday, if we should be so lucky, maybe our letters will wind up in an archive, and someone will use them to learn about us, our daily life as teenagers (and now adults), our families, and our everyday life and surroundings. I think our correspondence has certainly made an impression on Sonia’s nine year old daughter who travelled with her. You see, Sonja and I have never met face-to-face and we did so just last week for the first time. We already knew one another so well it seemed from twenty-six years of letter writing (and now a little email thrown in – though we still write our letters!), it was almost natural to have her come and stay with us for a few days.

It sounds mundane but you learn a lot from letters or journals. So please, keep a journal, write some letters – you will make the post office happy! – and try sharing more than just a fleeting Tweet. Your descendants and others will thank you for it!

JNLF

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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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