Hot Off the Presses!!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 28, 2013

It's been many decades in the making but it is finally here! I am speaking of Edith Andrews’ new book – Excerpts from a Nantucket Journal.


Edith is an island ornithologist who worked for the Maria Mitchell Association for many, many years starting about 1940 as a nature teacher. She would also serve for many more years as the MMA’s ornithologist, as well as in the Mitchell House as an assistant to the curator and the curator as well. She taught at Nantucket High School and also taught at Miami University and that is just the beginning.


This book is a compilation of some of her journal entries concerning her observations on various island birds with lots of island tidbits and stories as well. Whether you are a birder or not, this is a MUST read! It is incredibly interesting and full of all sorts of wonderful information. I will disclose that I helped Edith to put it together – typing up journal entries and taking dictation, working on getting the photographs in, and putting it together − but I learned so much in the process! I have known Edith since I was maybe ten or younger – first going on a bird walk with her. I am sure the adults rolled their eyes as my brother and I arrived with our parents. But my brother made a big hit with some of his natural specimen finds along the way so I think they wound up being okay with us coming along, we were after all very quiet children. I of course got to know her better as I began to volunteer and then work at the Mitchell House starting when I was 12 (yes, believe it or not, age 12) and even better sitting with her at Ice Pond working on helping her to put the book together. I consider myself a novice in the bird world – my parents bird – but I learned so much with Edith over the last two or so years that we were working on this – and not just about birds. And you will too, when you read this – it is a not to be missed book for birders, ornithologists, locals, visitors, and even people from very far “away.”


You can find the book on the shelves of the MMA’s gift shop (and local stores). You need to learn about and observe the world around you – as Maria Mitchell once said, “We see most when we are most determined to see.” Edith’s book will help you learn, see, and appreciate (and even laugh).


P.S. Tuesday, October 29th is Edith’s 98th birthday!!!!


JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 29, 2026
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Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 22, 2026
1875, June 20. A meeting of the Officers of Congress was called at the house of Mrs. Hanaford, 5 Summit Ave., Jersey City. The weather was intensely cold. I went to New York on the 19 th and stopped with my friend Mrs. Clapp, 100 W. 54 St . . . .It was a question who should preside. Mrs. Hanaford thought the Chairman of the Executive Committee should and I had been told that I should, etc. The question was decided by the non-arrival of the Chairman of Ex.Com. I called them to order at an hour after the time appointed. Of course I made many blunders, as I have never presided before, but I continued for 4 hours. We did a few good things . . . The thing most weighing on Maria’s mind at this meeting was the looseness of membership for the Congress. She felt people were not being vetted properly in some areas of the country and thus they may allow in “undesirables.” I would take this to mean women who were not entirely behind the cause of the Congress and the Association for the Advancement of Women. I am not surprised by her suspicions and likely she was correct – one could see naysayers gaining access to this group and trying to destroy it from the inside. The women’s rights movement would have many schisms within it as people disagreed and broke into smaller factions.  Another important thing to point out is that Mrs. Hanaford is Nantucket-born Phebe Coffin Hanaford. Raised a Quaker, like Maria, Coffin Hanaford would become the first woman Universalist minister in New England – among many other firsts. She grew up with Maria, attended and taught at the Coffin School here on Nantucket, and was a founding member of another women’s organization, Sorosis, which Maria was also a founding member of. It’s nice to see two sister Nantucketers continuing to work together as adults – far from home! JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 15, 2026
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