Put Your Jane Hancock Here! Or Marking Where We Have Been for the Future

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • February 28, 2017

In historic preservation, it’s good to let the future people who come along know that you have been there in some way. To leave a paper trail, document with drawings and photographs, even physically leaving a small mark – at least I believe that!


In the vein of leaving a mark and marking history and when something happened, I asked all the MMA employees last week to “sign” the new concrete ramp that the mason created between the two basements in the Research Center – you know that three-foot thick piece of concrete? Well now, it’s a perfect doorway with a great ramp for moving collections back and forth! It also allows us to maintain the two old basement staircases from the 1920s and 1930s.


So, everyone showed up at 1:30 and patiently tried to write their names in wet concrete that was made with a heavier mixture to offer a non-slip surface. Added to that, I wrote MMA and 2017.

The other influence in this “marking for the future people who come along” is the fact that I distinctly remember my Dad doing this when they poured the concrete floor of the garage addition at our house that also had a second floor apartment for my Nana. Bent over the wet concrete in his old Air Force khakis and white t-shirt – his working outside wear of my youth – he carved out all of our names – Jack, Melodee, Jascin, Jarrod, Sahsha, Gloria, Greta. Sahsha was our Siberian Husky and Great was my Nana’s (Gloria) Miniature Schnauzer. Our house is now owned by a woman who worked for my Dad for many years – I consider that still in the family – and our names are still there.


Everyone leaves a mark – we are all just the shepherds of the houses we live in and the buildings we work in. It’s our responsibility to take care of them properly and pass them along to the next owners. We are just stewards – it really is never ours.


JNLF

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I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF
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