The Power of Memory

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 7, 2015

Little things are at play in my mind. I do not have a photographic memory but I have perhaps something similar with voice and smell and experience that holds onto the littlest things. I remember conversations with exact detail, sounds, smells, and what someone was wearing during some event or other. Unfortunately, such a memory can be a little frustrating and overwhelming, especially when someone says, “I never said that,” because I remember with clear detail what a person said or did. My niece also has such a memory. She brings things up from when she was very little or reminds someone that they actually said this, not that. To top it off, she is only eight years old! Such a memory can also be a painful because people who are no longer with us and activities you participated in with them are so fresh in your mind.


I was probably only 3 or so but I remember visiting my great-grandmother (Mama Minnie) with my father. I remember her opening the garage door – they had an automatic opener very avant-garde in the 1970s – and seeing her standing on the stoop inside. I remember the long bench in her kitchen and the gentle swooshing noise as she moved with her walker slightly dragging one of her braced legs – she had Paget’s Disease. I remember her dark living room with sofas encrusted in plastic – protection from wear and tear! I remember my other great grandmother – Other Nana – and sitting at her feet playing with the laces on her shoes as my parents and Nana worked in the basement. I was not allowed down there so I sat with Other Nana, eating gum drops out of the cow candy dish and watching “The Osmond Show.” I was less than three years old, maybe two at the most – my brother had not yet been born.


Sometimes a smell will overpower me, as if a person from my past is right there. My Nana’s perfume for instance. Or a place. At 12, I remember sitting under the Mitchell House grape arbor listening to Elizabeth Yager speak of the Mitchell family. She knew so much detail that I always thought of her being related to them. She wasn’t – but she did know cousins of Maria’s. She was probably in her 80s as she sat there on the bench talking to me. I sat on the flagstone. I remember her visor and her neat housedress in light blue and her Ked sneakers with tennis socks.


The more I remember these people the more they continue to live. I am a firm believer in that. That is why at the Mitchell House, when someone is on a tour with us, it’s more like storytelling in a way. Recounting events in the lives of the Mitchells, their own stories or words about their daily life. Bringing it to life so that we not only learn about the past, but also the people who shaped our present. Retelling the stories of Maria’s cousins and nieces and nephews – stories I learned from those who knew them (like Elizabeth) – it’s not a direct connection but it’s closer than you find in most museums. It’s unique and makes their stories my own and their stories yours as well.


JNLF

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Miss Herschel

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 10, 2025
A re-blog from years past. The item you see here is a small piece of what once was. Upon her visit to Europe as a young woman’s chaperone in 1857 –1858, Maria Mitchell visited many of the major observatories of Europe and met many of the movers and shakers in the scientific, art, and literary worlds of the continent. While Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) and her brother, Sir William (1738 – 1822), were long dead, Maria was able to meet Caroline’s nephew (William’s son), Sir John Herschel (1792 – 1871). All three were astronomers, though Caroline found herself having to give credit – or have her brother accept credit – for much of her work because she was a woman. She has often been credited with the being the first woman to discover a comet. She was likely not – and the other woman who was the first lost credit through history as she had to “give” her comet discovery to her husband. See a pattern? Caroline was just one of many women in a long line of, “She couldn’t possibly do that – she is a woman!” As Maria once said, “But a woman, what more could you ask to be?” But back to this small item. It was a page from one of Caroline Herschel’s notebook’s, torn from its home by John Herschel to serve a s a memento for Maria of her visit to the family’s home. Maria was a bit shocked but . . . she took it! Over the years, the paper tore and ripped and just crumbled away until Maria finally decided that to save it, she needed to past it into one of her own journals. And thus, we have what we have. I assume Caroline’s notations refer to her brother William – “Wol” and Woll.” It could be an “I” but it really looks like an “O.” She is considered the world’s first professional woman astronomer – she would be compensated for her work after some time – and she warrants a greater look at – too much for a blog. So I encourage you to go take a look at her. Maria would want you to! JNLF

From The Rear

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 3, 2025
I am not so sure our founders would love that title but the image is of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO) “from the rear.” I love this image as it is really the only one we have – unless you count the one that is taken from farther away and from further into the backyard of the Mitchell House. That one allows you to see the natural slope of the Mitchell House back lawn which would be altered when they added the Curator’s Cottage. Both of the images were taken before the Curator’s Cottage was added at the back of the Mitchell House in the early 1930s – and this one you see here was taken before 1922 when they added the Astronomical Study onto the MMO. It also shows the original dome – which was copper – before it was replaced in 1951 – which is the current dome. The copper did not hold up to our climate here – salt spray, damp, fog. But the new one, shipped over from England, has held up well. The current dome was donated by Margaret Underwood Davis (MMA board president at the time), in memory of her son, Cushing Davis who was an amateur astronomer. Margaret Davis served as president from 1930-1946 and again from 1949-1953. The image tells you some other things too. For instance, the grape arbor behind the Mitchell House is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell’s (Maria’s uncle) grape vine – I have blogged about it several times before – and you can see it in this image. You can also see how the Milk Room connects to the 1850s kitchen. The 1850s kitchen was added by Peleg Mitchell Jr and it’s the first little wart you see with the white pipe attached. The next wart is the Milk Room – also added by Peleg – it’s the one with the shutters on the window. Both still exist it’s just the Curator’s Cottage was attached in the 1930s. You will see another chimney too. It appears alongside the white pipe. That is likely the original chimney to what is now the Astronomer’s Cottage at the MMA. We acquired the Cottage in the 1920s but I believe all of the additions, and the removal of the chimney, were done before we were given it.  Fun! JNLF

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