Talking to the Nineteenth Century

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 24, 2022

In my line of work, I meet many people from all over the country and all over the world. This is in large part because I provide – with the Mitchell House summer intern and summer volunteer tour guides – tours to the public. I also provide history walks and workshops as well and so I meet many interesting people and learn new things from them every day.


These visitors may provide new thoughts on something in history or about an artifact. A while ago, I gave a tour to a woman, a former kindergarten teacher. We had a lovely tour and chatted throughout our time together. We came to a place in the tour where something triggered a thought for her. She said to me that I was “too young” to have the experience she was going to relate. She told me she has spoken to people from the 1800s. She stated she has told this to people before and that the reaction she usually receives upon mentioning it is people backing away from her and asking her if she is seeing ghosts – with a look of skepticism among other looks. 


When she began to explain what she meant, I suddenly realized I had never thought about what she was saying in that way. I told her, “I’m not that young,” and then said I had never before considered what she was saying until she mentioned it. It seems pretty silly for me to have never really thought about it in this way. I too have spoken to people from the 1800s and touched  them – you have too if your parents or grandparents or other family or friends were born in the nineteenth century. I’m not sure how I never thought of this – I am a bit embarrassed – but I distinctly remember my great-grandmother (or, Other Nana as we called her) who died when I was three. She was born in the 1880s. I was a bit squirmy at that age and in order to have me sit with her, she would place the Montgomery Ward’s or Sears catalog on the table.  I would sit in her lap as she turned the pages for me to look at them – I adored those catalogs with all the pictures and colors, particularly the images of rooms all set up. I remember one such time, in particular, sitting on my family’s porch on her lap looking out over the backyard, catalog on the table in front of us. I have other memories too – playing with the laces on her shoes – leather shoes with a bit of a heel to them even though she walked with a walker. In addition, I remember my great-grandfather on my Dad’s side (Pop). Pop lived a long time – well into his 90s. He was a World War I veteran and had massive tattoos on the insides of his arms that he likely acquired while in Europe. He lived probably until I was in late elementary school or even the beginnings of junior high and he too was born in the nineteenth century – as were other of my relatives who I knew when I was young.


So, you see, I have spoken to people from the 1800s – and you have, too.  We are that last connection to the nineteenth century and the people of it.  It’s quite remarkable to sit with that.


JNLF

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A Swatch of Fabric

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 9, 2025
Another re-blog. I came across this recently while looking through my computer files. I want to re-blog it in memory of Jean Hughes, an incredibly gifted islander, who was directly influential in the lives of so many island children and those in need. She was the Coffin School Trustee’s President for many years and I had the honor to serve as a trustee under her. She passed away in the summer of 2025. Jeanie loaned me this from her family collections as she thought I would enjoy it. She knew me better than I thought she did. With love. 1830s Chinese silk to be exact. It literally floated into my lap as I sat reading a letter.  A letter from a young Nantucket girl to her grandparents. A young girl who just several years before had moved from tiny Nantucket Island to San Francisco with her mother to join her father. He had moved for better work and a better life. Nantucket was in an economic decline. Reading this treasure trove of letters – loaned to me by a friend who is a descendant of these people I mention – was like spying on them. Now, when I read Mitchell family letters and writing it is slightly different for me. Having worked in the Mitchell House for so long, I feel like they are a part of my family. This batch of letters was different however. I felt like they know I read their letters – as if they were looking over my shoulder or sitting on the other side of the room aghast. I felt like they thought no one ever would – or at the very least an outsider – read this correspondence. The worse letter one was the son writing to his mother upon receipt of her letter telling him of his father’s death. That was hard. Made harder because he thought his father was fine – he was as of the last letter a month or two before. Made harder as I lost my own Father a little over a year ago. I knew how he felt – but cannot imagine receiving a letter that is about a month old telling one of such horrible news. He had not seen his father in several years. I could speak to my Father, visited him monthly, and was there with him. That was not an easy letter to read. The silk fabric piece is quite beautiful – and still pristine – as if it was just folded into the letter yesterday. She wanted to share with her grandparents the dress that her cousin had brought to her directly from Hong Kong. A cousin, who was likely pregnant – or “sick” as was written but it was obvious what “sick” meant (yes, pregnancy was looked at as an illness in a way – and there were high rates of infant and mother mortality during and immediately following birth). The cousin had travelled back and forth to Hong Kong on the China Trade with her husband it seems but due to the pregnancy had to be put off with family or others until the baby was born. This was a common practice for the wives of whale captains who might go to sea with their husbands. They were put off with other whaling families or missionaries in far off ports so that they could have their baby where others could help. Sometimes they were put off months in advance. And, did you know that Nantucket whale wives were the FIRST to go to sea with their captains husbands? They set the trend – after all, we were the whaling capital of the world. At least, until we lost that title for multiple reasons. I digress. The other piece that leads one to realize that money was to be had – at least for the cousin – is that she didn’t bring fabric – she brought the dress already made in Hong Kong. Yes, it would have been less costly there than in the United States but it shows there was extra money for spending. And, there was enough excess fabric inside the dress for this young girl to cut off a piece of it and send it to her grandparents. Making them feel as if they were a part of her daily life – and making her feel that way too. So far from home. On the other side of the continent with Nantucket Sound in the midst, to boot. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: December 2025

December 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

A Child’s Donation

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 1, 2025
A past blog that I forgot I had written when I came across the letter written about below. Once I realized I had already written a blog about it, I decided it was worth re-blogging. Over Christmas, a neighbor of my Mother’s gave her a copy of something she came across while cleaning things up in her house. She thought my Mother would enjoy it and by the same token, my Mother thought that I would. Her note with it stated it proved she was as, “old as dirt.” She isn’t old as dirt. Believe me. The letter she had copied was from the War Production Board and dated December 16, 1942. It was, “written at the request of President Roosevelt,” who wanted to thank this young girl for her donation of a rubber tire. This was not any old rubber tire you see. It was a pure rubber tire – very much needed for the war effort – from one of her toy airplanes and measured not more than half an inch or so in diameter. This young girl was distressed that everyone else, including in her family, was assisting in the war effort and that she wasn’t. So when she discovered the tire was rubber, she asked her mother to send it to Washington, DC. Which, obviously, her mother did do. What does this have to do with Maria Mitchell you wonder? Well, it makes me think of collections and saving things. You have your own collections and archives at home – your family papers and photographs, your books (aka special collection books). These are valuable to your family and its history. They help you see what and who came before you and how your family became a family. What they endured. How they got to where they did and how where they came from helped, in part, to get you to where you are today. And then, these papers and books are important for the larger community. We learn from our past and our collective past – and these items help us do that. Scores of researchers use Maria Mitchell’s papers and those of her family every year. Not everyone is doing research on the family – they can be doing research on astronomy or some science-related matter, someone whom Maria or her family knew. The possibilities are endless. So, from this little letter, I know a young girl in Connecticut contributed to the war effort and what she gave. I know that rubber (not that I didn’t already but you get the idea) was important to the war effort in some way. I also know that many people contributed to the war effort and this was just one simple way to do it. I know she had a toy that had rubber components. And as a young girl in 1942, she was playing with toy airplanes. And I know that the war effort was all consuming to the point that a small child wanted to make sure she found a way to help too while seeing her family members helping. Your paper is important. Always find a venue for these items if you no longer want them. They will help us to better understand our world – past and present. JNLF P.S. Remember that every donation, every gift to someone in need, matters. No matter how small it is – or you think it is.
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