View from My Desk
Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 13, 2015
The other day when the sun finally decided it was done napping over the past week and would make a few peeks out from under its blanket of clouds, I had a visitor outside my window. He was a little surprised to see me through the window but he remained awhile – even curling up. I suspect he was prowling for the poor birds who (I know, animals should be “that” but to me they are who) are now even more prevalent in the backyard as Peleg Mitchell’s grapes have ripened. But the cat finally left bird-less thank goodness.
He reminded me of Maria mentioning a cat who came to the Vassar Observatory and stayed. She named her Sarah Bernhardt and made her a collar of a purple ribbon.
JNLF
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I have posted this during Women’s History Month before but because it is March and Women’s History Month, I think it’s worth repeating. It’s clever and helps to tell an important story in women’s history while giving it a bit of a 21 st century twist. It comes via the National Women’s History Project . JNLF
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
Lynn, Ap. 25 1869 My dear President, I am not sure I told you how long I must be away from the College. If I took only the Sunday’s rest, it would be possible for me to reach the Obs. By Tuesday, but I feel the need of more than one day of quiet, before I enter upon the new and incomprehensible life before me . . . William Mitchell died on April 19, 1869 and for the first time, Maria Mitchell was alone. Save for her trip to the southern United States and Europe in 1857 and 1858, her father was always by her side. She did not know much of a day in her life without him nearby and she knows that. It was difficult for her – and her siblings worried about her and this new world she was now in. She had been – expect for that trip – the caregiver for both of her parents. Her mother, Lydia Coleman Mitchell, died in 1861 on Nantucket and Maria had cared for her as well. She was the child who became the caregiver of the family – both in her youth as her siblings sought her out for care, humor, love, and adventures while their mother was busy with younger children and household duties – and then her parents as the only child who did not marry and remained by their sides. JNLF