My Way To Work

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • Oct 29, 2018

While I do have to drive in to work every day, I typically park a short distance from the Mitchell House so that I can walk a bit to and from work.  It’s a short walk but an inviting break to think and reflect and to take in the day’s sights.


This is one such sight at the end of May and beginning of June.  Lilacs in bloom.  One of my favorites.  This large and old bush is located in the yard of Joseph Starbucks’s house.  Whale merchant with the requisite candle manufactory in his backyard (that’s what happened here early on), Starbuck has become more famous in today’s world for the three bricks he built his sons on Main Street and the infamous legend that he then told his daughters that their husbands would take care of them.  They did.  His daughters were Eunice Starbuck Hadwen and Eliza Starbuck Barney – women’s and slaves’ rights advocates.


I like to think that the lilac dates to Joseph’s time.  Typically, when they first came from Europe, lilacs were planted by front doors – or so they say – for people to enjoy their scent.  Over the years, I have noticed lilacs growing in the median space of highways and in the middle of what seems to be nowhere – but knowing of their “closeness” to houses, I always assume that a house must have once stood where this lilac continues to grow as cars sadly speed by along the highway.


In any case, I am pretty sure I have noted this before but I grew up with lilacs around my childhood home – I remember my Mom leaning out the second floor bathroom window to cut them from the top of one of the bushes.  It’s one of my favorite flowers – one of my favorite scents.  It reminds me of being little.


And so, perhaps, if they did plant it, I should say, “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Starbuck for making my walk a little sweeter.”


JNLF

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Vestal Street Updates

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • 08 Apr, 2024
Vestal Street has seen a bevy of activity of late. In January, we began the renovation of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory’s (MMO) Seminar Room addition – as it has been referred to since it was built in 1987. When it was created, the point was for it to serve as meeting, lecture, work space on three floors for the Astronomy Department – in particular the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduate (NSF REU) interns we have each summer, visiting astronomers, and the astronomy staff. Believe it or not, it was the first time the Observatory had a bathroom! And, it connected to what we refer to as the Astronomer’s Cottage (ca. 1830 and purchased for the MMA in 1922) so that staff could move between the house and the Observatory without going outside – convenient! With a gift from board member and Mitchell family descendant, Richard Wolfe, we have been able to renovate this space, bringing it up to date and adding HVAC, an accessible bathroom and kitchenette, three office spaces, a seminar/meeting area, and space for intern workspaces. Lighting and interiors are being improved as this is written and we hope to have the space ready by June 1, 2024. A special thank you goes to John Wise, another Board member, who has been working with the MMA to make sure this renovation happens in a short timeframe. The work here dovetails nicely with the conservation of the historic observatory to which the Seminar Room is connected. The historic MMO, built in 1908 with a 1922 addition, has seen exterior conservation work over the last several years with support from the Community Preservation Act and the M. S. Worthington Foundation. This fall, we will move inside with more grant funding which will allow us to conserve the historic interiors and install a proper HVAC system to protect the historic fabric and historic astronomical equipment and papers. We will restore the floor in the Astronomical Study from 1922 – it’s hidden under wall-to-wall carpet and 1950s tile but it’s still there – and allow us to conserved the historic plaster and all of the original varnished woodwork. Stay tuned on this project. JNLF

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Tumbledown Fence

01 Apr, 2024
To me, Nantucket was always tumbledown fences. Covered in lichens, worn with wind and salt spray – grooved even – and a deep grey. Pieces broken, swinging in the wind as this broken one was with the 50mph gusts. Held together by vines – ivy or rambling climber vines, or honeysuckle. You do not see as many nowadays. This one is in town along a lane – possibly older than the house it wraps around as there was once a much older house there in the 1950s/1960s. Taken down to make room for this one – in a not so kosher manner – but that’s a story for another day. The lichens and mosses that grow on them, the vines that cover them, provide food and shade and coverage for a myriad of life – from the tiniest insects to small birds hiding from red-tailed hawks or even people and cats. Architecturally they speak of our past. While this one is very simple and not as old as others, it hearkens to a time in which cars were fewer, the island was quieter, and life was simpler. A fix was one picket not a whole fence. And some of the much. much older fences make me think of Maria Mitchell and her day when there were a lot of fences too – but not to keep people out or to create a “privacy screen.” They were there to keep animals in the yard – and more often to keep wandering animals OUT of the yard. JNLF
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