An Astronomer

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • January 14, 2013

I first remember her standing at the entry to Loines Observatory with a small metal clicker in her hand. It was summer and it was dark. Mosquitoes were swarming and we all smelled like bug spray. It was a Wednesday night and we had just made the long – or so it seemed in those days – journey from Tom Nevers for an Open Night – the event of the week for my family. She was sort of quiet and reserved but she reached out to my brother each Wednesday night when we arrived at the top of the stairs by saying, “Want to press the clicker?” Sounds like not much but to a nine year old budding astronomer, my brother was very excited to “click” his family members into the open night.

I got to know her a little more as I began to volunteer at the Mitchell House. I think she probably saw me as a pesky kid, but she seemed to warm up to me over time. Maybe I proved to her that I had some staying power – that I was not just a kid who got pushed into doing some summer volunteering. (Twenty-five plus years later I am still here and curator – really?! Time flies!) She was an interesting person, an incredibly intelligent woman who had a deep love and respect for Maria Mitchell, but she did not reveal too much about herself.

When I completed my masters’ degree in 2010, the MMA very nicely congratulated me via our monthly “eComet.” A week or so later, I went into my email and saw a sender with a familiar name, one I was completely shocked to see as I had never received an email from this person. The sender was “emiliab.” I was surprised, worried, and wondered what it was. I saved it. It reads:

“Congratulations on your degree. I am hoping you have a computer-readable copy of your thesis you can send me by email … I’ll do without the pictures if I can read {your} paper that way. Thanks! Lee (Emilia) Belserene.”

Wow! I practically burst my buttons – I was so proud and honored that she wanted to read my research.

I am so lucky to have worked for the MMA for all these years and to now serve as the Mitchell House curator. I have been fortunate to have such amazing people in my life – and so many of them tied to the MMA. What inspirations and mentors – what an incredible place and people to have grown up around and to be involved with today. Not many can be surrounded by such inspiring people – and such incredible women like Lee.

This is just one small memory of Lee Belserene. She served as the MMA’s astronomer and director of the Observatory from September 1978 through September 1991. She was a Life Member of the MMA. Emilia Pisano Belserene, Ph.D. passed away in Washington State on December 11, 2012 just one day shy of her 90th birthday. She leaves a daughter, Rita.

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Soups On!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 9, 2026
You know the cold has arrived when I make the first soup of the season. I did just that this weekend – perhaps a little later than normal because all of a sudden it got cold at night and we have had three frosts in a row – the first of the season on Friday night (October 23, 2026). My first: Portuguese Kale Soup from a recipe found long ago in Yankee Magazine . This is my husband’s favorite and I “Italian-ize” it (I am half Italian) by having grated parmesan to sprinkle on top which also helps add salt if it’s lacking. I know – horrors! But don’t we all bring some of our backgrounds to the table – so to speak – when it comes to augmenting recipes? Then, what’s even better is you can freeze most of the soups – and then you have a ready meal for another time. It makes you realize, yet again, how difficult things were 100 or more years – certainly more – ago. Imagine cooking for twelve people, as Maria Mitchell’s mother did, and not being able to preserve or set aside much of what you made as there were not storage techniques or technology that would allow for such a thing. Just the cooking alone – never mind putting things by like preserves or salt cod or something – for twelve people! Poor Lydia! I can barely cook for three! Good thing my husband cooks a lot. Though he HATES baking so that’s where I still have a place at the counter!  I am looking forward to more soups – not sure what is next. Perhaps Curried Lentil – another good one that freezes well. My Mother just dug one out of her freezer from last winter and it was still good! JNLF

Applesauce!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 2, 2026
Early October is a time to make something I love – applesauce. It’s one of my favorite things. Ironically, when I was a baby, I did not like it. But because I ate very little – and my Mother was worried because I was such a skinny baby (not anymore!) – my Other Nana (great grandmother) made a lot of applesauce because my Mother said I ate it. I did not – but my Mother could not tell her Nana (grandmother) that and disappoint her. So, I think my parents ate a lot of applesauce back in the early 1970s. I sort of dread making it though – which is silly because it’s very easy and I always forget that until I am making it. You only have to core and slice the apples – you leave on the peels. That is what gives the applesauce – which uses McIntosh apples (my fave!) – its pink color. And with some lemon and then some sugar – you’ve got the best tasting applesauce. And it smells so good while it’s cooking! It is also freezable so once cool – it goes into winter hibernation to be brought out for specific sorts of meals. Putting food by – as Lydia Coleman Mitchell once did for her family of 12! I was a bit late this year, but over the weekend of October 24, apples were cooking on my stove resulting in the first applesauce accompanied meal of the fall and winter season. JNLF

Bang, Clang, Hiss!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 26, 2026
I grew up, quite literally, with hot water radiators in a Colonial Revival from the 1920s.  There was a huge boiler in the basement that chugged and blew hot belching air. It took up one whole area of the basement and I avoided it. I could hang over on the stairs and stare at its flames at the bottom. It scared me. It not only kept the basement very warm but also very dry. While the house had been built in an area that began to slope at our property, between the furnace and the clever drainage system installed by the builders of the house in the 1920s, our basement was always dry. My mother, the queen of rebates (this is the 1970s and 1980s), had her “rebate and coupon table” right in front of this furnace. I remember it always glowed – and I would not doubt that it still had some asbestos around some of its pipes. Maybe another reason I stayed away – perhaps I was warned away at an early age not just because I could burn myself! One of my fondest memories of this house was the clang and hiss of the heaters in the winter. It made me feel instantly cozy, as if I was wrapped in a nice warm quilt. If I was in bed at night and it was snowing, all the more warmth and cozy feeling. It was comforting and a sound and feel I still associate with snow and winter. The street light and the snow falling, spiraling down in that pinkish gold of the light – and the hoped for snow day to come! Forced air systems just don’t do the same thing. And, they suck all the moisture out of the house to boot! They do keep a house quite warm though – but still not the same – and I miss that humidity as do my plants. I reflect back on the hot water radiators – those old cast iron loopy radiators with the valve and perhaps a radiator box to cover them – as it if they kept me super warm. They didn’t. We kept our house at 63F – a lesson I still follow – and it was a big old Colonial-style house so it could be drafty. One reason we had a Franklin stove in our family room and quilts for nighttime television watching! So many times over the course of a winter, I think of that house where I spent about twenty years of my life, and remember the, “Bang, Clang, Hiss!” of the radiators and the coziness they projected. And while, it wasn’t always warm, it was a lot warmer that the Mitchell House would have been in February! JNLF
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