Of more of a personal note, my husband’s father passed away last week.  My husband’s mother passed away in 1999.  They were collectors – collectors of pieces of history not their own and collectors of pieces of family history.  My mother-in-law was adopted as an infant and my father-in-law lost his mother at age two.  When his father remarried, another family became part of the family history so there are all sorts of roots and stories and grandmas and grandpas that may not be blood related but all are family. 

As we took in all of the things in the house, I realized we did not know the history behind each and every piece.  As a curator and a collector of historic items and family stories as well, I was overwhelmed.  Living so far away, we had to spend some time sorting at a very tough time.  When it comes right down to it, it is stuff – things – and we know things are not important.  But, when you feel the weight of family history and you know these items were important to someone, or were carried from a far distant land so that one could maintain a connection and have something familiar with them in a strange new place, it makes it harder. 

The stories however are the most important.  Stories are important to pass down through generations so that family members know where they came from and know those who had the strength and courage to make decisions to insure  that the next generations lived strong and well.  I certainly would not have the courage or emotional strength to come from where my family came from.  Imagine leaving family behind to arrive in a new world after a long voyage, not speak the language, and have no place to live?  And then, having to start from scratch.

At the lunch after the services, my husband’s aunt told us her memory of the mother she lost when she was only five – she is the full blood sister of my father-in-law.  She says she only remembers her as a ghost-like figure.  A kidney disease left her bedridden and she died two years before a treatment was found for what ailed her.  Aunt MJ remembers being brought into her bedroom once per day so that she could see her two children and they her.  That is the only memory MJ has of her mother but at least she has one.  I do not think my father-in-law remembered that daily visit with his mother.

That is a sad memory.  But other memories abound that are happy or funny.  Such as Great Grandma Behnke at age 100+ shooting squirrels on her roof (Horrors! She and I would indeed have a fight on that one.) – they were destroying her house.  My husband remembers her stalking through her home in Indiana as a tornado drew close – she ordered him to hide away but she was out to keep track of its movements to protect her family.  Feisty is not strong enough a word for her and I have always admired the photograph we have of her - her strong, steady gaze at the camera as she fishes from her canoe.  When we would visit my in-laws, we would sleep under her handmade quilt – squares individually stitched, stuffed with pantyhose, and then all stitched together.  Cold winters are no match for that quilt.  And now, it will rest in my home.

These stories are important to pass on in order to help us to understand where we have come from and who came before us.  I also firmly and most importantly believe that by telling these stories and talking about those in the past that they continue to live on.  So, I will keep telling the stories of the Mitchell family to visitors at the Mitchell House and recounting stories of my own family and my husband’s.  Because each time I speak the name of a person no longer with us, she or he lives on.

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Ah, to be in the third grade again!  And, I have.  In November and again this spring, I have been spending some time with the four Nantucket Elementary School (NES) third grade classes working in the fall on Wampanoag legends and again this spring helping the children to learn about Maria Mitchell and what life was like in her time.  We have read stories and discussed them, looked at artifacts from the Mitchell House trying to figure out what some of them might be – oh, the ideas of a third grader! – and created some fun crafts that reinforce what we learn as a group.  After a discussion of Maria Mitchell’s and her father’s role in whaling, we talk about how far the whalers travelled from Nantucket, how they navigated (William and Maria rated their chronometers), and their stops during the voyages that allowed them to bring back some really interesting souvenirs – including sailors’ valentines.  Children then make their own valentines for a loved one. 

When we delve deeper into life in the nineteenth century, we compare our time to that of Maria’s and sometimes it takes a bit of a discussion to get to the lack of electricity!  Our craft: we create tin lanterns with candles – something that Maria’s Uncle Peleg Mitchell Junior once did – he was a tinsmith.  We have a lot of fun punching the “tin” and sometimes I get my fingers whacked a bit as I hold the punch for them to hammer in the holes.  You should see their expressions and hear their apologies when this happens – they are so very sweet (and a bit mortified and worried!).  But it brings us together, and for the few for who English is their second language, we find some unique ways to talk about what we are doing – and for me to warn them to watch my fingers!

This is our second year of the program.  It is a way for me to bring the Mitchell House to them because we cannot fit twenty-five third graders in the Mitchell House at     once – let alone the 100 who comprise this year’s third grade.  And this year, we were funded by the Community Foundation for Nantucket – and we owe them yet another big thank you!  I hope to continue this program with the NES for many years.  It is a great way for them to learn about Maria Mitchell and life in the nineteenth century, as well as the place of women in America and Nantucket for that matter, but also for them to get to know someone else in their community. 

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Shocking!  What does a nineteenth century historic house museum have to contribute to a twenty-first century Internet sensation like Pinterest?  Lots!  After careful thought, I think this is a great way for Mitchell House to showcase itself – and historic preservation, art, architecture, and more!  So, via Pinterest I will be posting images of the House and its activities, as well as interesting images from the MMA and other images I find that have to do with museums, historic preservation, architecture – things that fit with the mission of the Mitchell House.  It’s another great way for this dear old house to fit into the twenty-first century.  I will not stop this blog – it is too much fun sharing all the things we have in the Mitchell House, Archives and Special Collections!  But if you have the time, check out “MitchellHouse” on Pinterest.  I wonder if Maria would “pin” if she were here?  Kind of like the whole idea of “Would Maria Tweet” that I blogged about.  Maybe an image of the Transit of Venus?  A dome party image?

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Throwing on the First Coat of Lime Parge, Mitchell House Chimney, July 2010

Happy Preservation Month!  In honor of Preservation Month, the Mitchell House has planned a few activities in collaboration with Nantucket Preservation Trust and we hope you will join us!  While this may look like advertising, the programs are FREE – we just need you to make a reservation as space is very limited.  Please call 508.228.2896 to register.

On Saturday, May 19, from 1-2:30PM, we will host “Anatomy of a Fireplace.”  Mitchell House has conducted extensive conservation work on its 1790 chimney led by architectural conservator and mason Pen Austin.  Utilizing historic processes, which includes the use of lime mortar, Austin works on historic chimneys both on and off the island.  Come learn about the process of slaking mortar, the importance of using historically accurate methods that help to ensure the stability of your chimney and your home, and the evolution of the fireplace and hearth!  We will start at the Mitchell House and visit a few other historic fireplaces nearby.  If you cannot make it this time, we will offer it again in October.

Then, the following week on Saturday, May 26, from 1-3PM, Mitchell House will open its doors for a “Behind-the-Scenes at the Mitchell House.”  Join us for a special in-depth tour of the inside, outside, underside, and top of the Mitchell House.  NPT Executive Director Michael May  will join me (Mitchell House Curator Jascin Leonardo Finger) to talk about the architectural elements of the Mitchell House that have been so well preserved since the house was built in 1790 and the conservation work that has been ongoing since the late 1990s.  We will also discuss preservation easements, something which is held on the Mitchell House.  And, if you cannot make it for Preservation Month, we will offer this again in September.

Other island organizations are also celebrating so check www.nantucketpreservation.org – Nantucket preservation Trust’s website – for the calendar!

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May 20, 1882.  Vassar is getting pretty.  I gathered lilies of the valley this morning.  The young robins are out in a tree close by us, and the phoebe has built, as usual, under the front steps.  I am rushing dome poetry, but so far showing no alarming symptoms of brilliancy.

Maria, like her father and the rest of her family, was a keen observer of nature, taking daily walks wherever she might find herself.  Her father, William Mitchell, led almost daily nature walks for his students when he was teaching on Nantucket.  This journal entry is written about seventeen years after Maria began at Vassar College and the “dome poetry” she refers to is for her students.  At the end of each school year, Maria hosted “dome parties” at the observatory for her students where “celestial refreshments” were served along with wonderful poems Maria wrote about her students, and they about her.

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Conserving Mitchell Family Stone Monuments at Prospect Hill

Hot off the presses is a wonderful new Nantucket book by Paula Lundy Levy, the historian (who also wears the hats of database coordinator and photo archivist among others) for the Prospect Hill Cemetery (PHC) here on island.  This has been a labor of love.  A labor of many years.  A labor I know her family has taken part in as well.  And it has been no small undertaking (no pun intended!). 

The Prospect Hill Cemetery Association, which owns the cemetery and is a not-for-profit, has published this book with the help of donations and grants and it is a fantastic treasure that I am so glad we finally have!  And even better – all the proceeds of the sales of this book go towards the conservation and preservation of the beautiful rolling cemetery and the stone monuments that mark the final resting places of the people who shaped our beautiful, strong island nation. 

Tuck’t In: A Walking Tour of Historic Prospect Hill Cemetery is a compilation of entries from journals, photographs, cemetery records, and other bits of information gathered by Paula during her research over many years.  It is laid out by the sections of the cemetery but there is also an index by name and one by lot number. 

I already know that this book will be one of my “go to” first stops when conducting research.  And did I mention that the Mitchells are included?  If you are interested, the books can be purchased at the MMA’s Gift Shop at the Hinchman House Natural Science Museum, and also at island bookstores.

Paula and I will be conducting a stone monument cleaning workshop in June at the PHC.  For more details about the workshop, click on over to the MMA Summer Program Guide on our website. There you will also see how to pre-register as space is limited.  We hope you will join us!

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April 18. [1855 Nantucket]  A young sailor boy came to see me today.  It pleases me to have these lads seek me on their return from their first voyage and tell me how much they have learned about navigation.  They always say with pride “I can take a lunar, Miss Mitchell, and work it up!”  This boy I had known only as a boy but he has suddenly become a man and seems to be full of intelligence.  He will go once more as a sailor he says and then try for a second mate position.

Maria had a group of boy helpers at the Atheneum – her “Atheneum boys” as she referred to them.  Many of them, and others, came to Maria Mitchell for help with celestial navigation – something that Maria as well as many of her family members were more than adept at.

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William Forster Mitchell, daughter Anne Maria Mitchell, and Charlotte Coffin Mitchell; and the red rose from Whittier.

It used to be that in schools children were asked to memorize significant portions of famous speeches, poems, plays, or other well-known written pieces.  It seems that this is not as popular as it once was although I think it helped students on many levels – from memorization skills, to recitation, to public speaking, and more.  My great-grandmother, even in her later years, remembered many of the pieces she had memorized, reciting them aloud to my mother to help her fall asleep.  My mother remembers many of those herself, in part because of hearing them so often, but also because in high school and college, she also memorized many pieces.  An English teacher, my mother always has a poem or a quote at her lips to respond to a situation or a word or phrase someone may mention.  It is something of which I am envious – most of my teachers never had us memorize anything.  One piece my mother learned from her grandmother is “The Barefoot Boy” (1855) by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 – 1892) so imagine my surprise – on a multitude of levels – when I came across what you see above. 

In the MMA’s collection, we have John Greenleaf Whittier’s autograph, as well as letters he wrote to Maria Mitchell.  What a surprise then to find this single rose inserted into a book of pressed seaweed created by Charlotte Coffin Mitchell (1823 – 1901), the wife of Maria Mitchell’s younger brother, William Forster Mitchell (1825 – 1892)!  A treasure!  I was so stunned to see a rose inserted in a book of seaweed and more stunned to see that Whittier gave it to Forster (in August 1880 – Forster’s birth month).  Forster was named for the famed English Quaker who visited Nantucket around 1824.   Like the Mitchells, Whittier was a Quaker and an ardent slaves’ rights supporter.  Forster had for many years worked for the Freedman’s Aid Society, as had other Nantucketers including Anna Gardner (1816 - 1901) who went into the South to establish schools and teach the children of newly freed slaves.  Forster also was the superintendent of the Quaker college, Haverford, and once the war was over he helped to establish the Industrial Arts program at Howard College, teaching the craft of tinsmithing which he had learned as an apprentice to his Uncle Peleg Mitchell, Junior.  

While more research needs to be completed to understand the Whittier-William Forster connection, I think the rose itself illustrates a close connection.  There was a great deal of overlap in whom Whittier knew and worked with and whom Forster and the Mitchell family knew and worked with.  The Quaker connection is a step but also the anti-slavery connection.  Nantucket also serves as a connection since Whittier, a descendant of Nantucket Coffins, wrote at least one poem about the island – “The Exiles” in 1841.  Another research project to add to the list!

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 Mitchell House is pleased to announce that it has won the Nantucket Preservation Trust’s 2012 Architectural Preservation Award!

Since 1999, the Mitchell House has been hard at work on numerous conservation projects to preserve the House and its contents.  Through numerous grants, many from the Nantucket Community Preservation Act Committee, the Mitchell House curator has been able to work with conservators and other specialists to: clean and stabilize the 1850s grain painting; contract with a structural engineer for a survey of the House; work with a leading environmental engineering group to study the climate changes within the unheated House; conserve the 1790 chimney with original materials, specifically lime mortar.  The individuals who have worked on the House include Sanford Kendall of Sanford Kendall Old House Restoration, Nantucket; mason Pen Austin, Nantucket; Rich Sileo and Ernie Conrad of Landmark Facilities Group Inc., Norwalk, Connecticut; Shelly Sass of Sass Conservation Inc., Charlottesville, Virginia; John Kraus of Magic Brush, Inc., Greensboro, North Carolina; Frank Welsh of Welsh Color and Conservation, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; Richard Irons of Richard Irons Restoration Masons, Limerick, Maine; James Tyler of James Tyler Painting, Nantucket; and John Wathne of Structures-North, Salem, Massachusetts.  A most special thank you to all of them for making the process so easy and for a job more than well-done.  I have learned a tremendous amount from each of them – and still do – whether it’s monitoring environmental loggers or assisting in the resistance drilling of the House to inspect for signs of rot.  A thank you also to the cheerleaders and supporters of the Mitchell House, especially past members of the Mitchell House Committee, and to the MMA and its founders for its foresight in the preservation of the House going all the way back to the MMA’s founding in 1902 by Maria Mitchell’s family, students, and friends. 

According to Nantucket Preservation Trust, it works each year to recognize “individuals and organizations that advance the cause of historic preservation on Nantucket.  Awards are provided for preservation work on historic buildings and landscapes, and for the protection and stewardship of island resources.  NPT’s awards emphasize proper preservation, showcase the island’s craftspeople, and reveal the foresight of owners who care about our historic structures and landscapes.”  For more information concerning the awards and NPT’s work, you can visit their website at: www.nantucketpreservation.org. 

This is exciting news for the Mitchell House and for the conservators and professionals who have worked so hard to help the House maintain its original fabric.  Mitchell House is very much in its original early nineteenth century condition – an unusual thing for a historic house museum built in 1790.  If you have not visited the House or not visited in some time, please plan to do so this summer.  The work will always be ongoing – and it is as we speak as I work on more grants for work to be completed and the root cellar is getting another coat of lime mortar – for a historic house is a lot of work to keep in its original condition!    

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I came across this fantastic short clip that advertises the use of the New York Public Library for genealogical research through its Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy.  A lot of effort went into this one – and it shows how relevant such archives still are – and will always be.  Research is fun and exciting – it’s a mystery and a process of digging and uncovering all sorts of interesting tidbits.  And when you find what you are looking for or make a connection that no one else has or uncover some new and exciting information – it is like you are Indiana Jones or Sam Spade – just without the whip or the rod!  Your weapons to slosh through the materials are instead a pencil, your brain, and paper.  Other libraries within the system have made films – quite clever – but this one is my favorite.  History is fun – and the people who are there to help you along the way are knowledgeable, friendly, and very willing to help – not cranky people who have never seen the light of day!  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEIO4mWgS2E&feature=colike

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