Showing posts with label elizabeth sandy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elizabeth sandy. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

My Grandmother Helped Build Telescopes, a Woman Ahead of Her Time

Warren O. Tribune Chronicle, May 3, 1951
I've often remarked on how my grandmother was one of the most influential people in my life. I owe her a debt gratitude for the encouragement she gave me and the example she set as an inquisitive, lifelong learner. 

Last night I found a manila envelope in my garage with a newspaper story from 1951 featuring my grandmother polishing a mirror for a Newtonian telescope that she and the telescope society she belonged to were building. The title of the article is Astronomer Here Counts Herself Among Few Women To Make Telescope Mirror

The journalist did not receive a byline, leaving the spotlight squarely on my grandmother, Elizabeth Sandy. What's immediately striking is that in those days they evidently did not identify women by their names but rather in association with the husband. Here are the first paragraphs:

A lot of women make cookies, some make jam, and a few make quilts, but the number of women who have made mirrors for telescopes is very, very few.

My grandmother Elizabeth Sandy
One of the very few to ever make such a mirror is Mrs. Grant F. Sandy, 1426 Sunset NE, one of approximately 30 members of the Mahoning Valley Astronomical Society.

Mrs. Sandy intends to use the mirror in a Newtonian reflecting telescope, the mounting of which she and her husband plan to construct in the near future. The mirror is the first one ever made by Mrs. Sandy altho she has had an interest in astronomy ever since she was a high school student in Cairo, W. Va near Parkersburg.

"I’ve been fascinated by astronomy and history ever since I was a teenager," she said. "And the fact that I was also interested in mathematics helped considerably to foster my interest in astronomy."

“Starting astronomy is like reading the history of the universe," she added. “Once you become interested you can’t quit your search for the truth about the marvels discovered by the telescope. We learn about our own earth by our observations of the other planets and universes.

"Mirror making for telescopes is a fascinating hobby which takes dogged persistence and hard work. But the end product, the telescope, makes it all very much worthwhile when it takes a deep into the most romantic branch of modern science, astronomy and astrophysics."

In the rest of the article the author shares a little about the Sandy family history, when they moved to Warren, how their children's interest in astronomy was fostered and where they went to college. Also mentioned is a planned trip out West which will include visits to the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles and possibly the Mount Palomar Observatory near San Diego, which is home to the largest telescope in the world.

* * * 

"Against the Wind" -- Elizabeth Sandy
One of the reasons I chose Ohio University was that it was only an hour away from Parkersburg, where my grandparents returned to after Grandpa retired. One of the rooms in her house had bookshelves from floor to ceiling on all four walls. Grandma did the architectural design for the house which instead of wainscoting in the living room she had bookshelves on the lower portion of each wall. 

She was a lifelong journal-keeper and greatly enjoyed reading and writing poetry, influenced directly by her great uncle John S. Hall, the blind poet of Ritchie County. She also did a little painting and was supportive of my own creative pursuits.

Much more could be said, but maybe that will have to wait for another time. Here's a poem she wrote after a stroke in the early sixties. During a surgery she had an out of body experience in which she watched the doctors and nurses fighting to keep her alive. This experience led to our later discussions regarding the relationship of the soul, mind and body, and the nature of life.

Aftermath Of A Stroke
by Elizabeth Sandy

Here I lie, tight packed as in my Mother's womb
I laid with restlessness a full lifetime ago.
But still entirely I, altho I have no room
To move about and at my will to come and go.
But now -- I wander, freely in my mind
The long road thru the crowding mists of time,
And pause in my journeying now and then
To live the happy times again
Made bright indeed by sunset's glow!

* * * 

Related Link: A Dedication 

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Two Poems About Life

ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS
When life is hard we sometimes need a lift. Sometimes it can me a psalm or a song, and sometimes a poem. And sometimes it's a poem that itself is something of a psalm like this one by Longfellow.

A lot of people don't care much for poetry. It may be that some haven't learned what a pleasure it can be because the only time they read poetry growing up was in school where they had to write a paper on it. Poetry wasn't read for enjoyment but for the purpose of getting a grade.

Here's a tip. The only real way to enjoy a poem is to read it slowly. And even better, to read it twice. Enjoy.

A Psalm of Life 
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

* * * *
The following poem, written by my grandmother Elizabeth Sandy, appeared in a small volume of poems titled Helping the Sun Grow.

Life

If you, in your way of life
Have ever been a stranger
To the dread scarred face,
And frightening ways of danger,
Then the safety you possess
Is hard to realize.
Until some danger threatens you
You blindly close your eyes.

If failure never came to you
Success can have no savor.
Your love must know some hate
Or it can have no flavor!
If sorrow never choked our throats
Or teardrops dimmed our eye
The dizzying heights of happiness
Are lost and gone awry!

He who reads diligently
And after truth has sought
And has truly never doubted
Has as truly never thought!
So use your doubts and sorrows
Like a springboard from the sky,
The lower down they take you
The higher up you fly!

* * * *
Do you enjoy reading or writing poetry? Here's a link to a page on my original website where I've assembled a handful of my own early poems.

Check out some of my other writing at Eds-Books.com, eight books from Free to $15.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

How To Read A Poem

 If you're a regular follower of this blog you will know that I like poetry. As one who appreciates a good poem, and strives to write one now and then, I am well aware that in the grand scheme of things I am a member of a minority.

This doesn't bother me. We all have different interests and I doubt we want someone else to tell us what we should all like or dislike. Especially when it comes to what we read.

Why is it that poetry is not more widely read and shared? Some people blame the way we've be schooled. They might say we've been forced into studying it and having it thrust on us in a manner that requires we answer the right questions instead of simply appreciating it. And guess what? They may have a case, but I don't think that's anywhere near the whole of it.

Part of it is due to the fast pace of life today. To enjoy a poem, to really engage it, requires patience, a slowed down pace. Poetry isn't a skim job. You don't pick up a book of poems and see how fast you can slam through it.

Even I, who relish my poetry experiences, make the mistake of picking up a book of poems and trying to breeze through a few poems. It just doesn't work that way. A poem comes into existence through the distillation process and has to be received in the same manner.

All this to say I'd like to share one of my grandmother's poems titled Aftermath of a Stroke. Elizabeth Sandy was a remarkable woman in many respects, an avid reader and a lifelong dabbler in poetic verse.

Before digging in you may want to skip over to this web article on How to Read a Poem. A poem is not an op-ed editorial or a baggy novel full of digressions. Don't speed-read. Know that a good poem will reward you tenfold for the time you invest digesting it.

And that's the kernel of it.

Aftermath Of A Stroke
Here I lie, tight packed as in my Mother's womb
I laid with restlessness a full lifetime ago.
But still entirely I, altho I have no room
To move about and at my will to come and go.
But now -- I wander, freely in my mind
The long road thru the crowding mists of time,
And pause in my journeying now and then
To live the happy times again
Made bright indeed by sunset's glow!

Elizabeth Sandy

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Romance

It's Valentine's Day weekend again, one of the most important "holidays" of the year for the greeting card industry. In fact, Hallmark has over 1300 variations of Valentine-themed cards.

I shared the following poem last night at a Sweetheart Banquet where I was MC. It was written by my grandmother Elizabeth Sandy, one of the creative influences in my life, who fostered in me a greater appreciation of art, literature and poetry.

Romance

When I was young and beautiful
I thought I was in love --
The moon was made for such as I
And all the stars above!

The days swam by in ecstasy --
I never paused to sigh --
Of all the mortals on this earth
The happiest was I!

Oh, who could dream it was a trap
That nature set for me?
That propagation might not cease
And mortals still should be?

When I was young and beautiful
I had a great romance --
But now -- I'm darning little socks
And mending little pants!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Formative Experiences

Life, in its fundamental essence, is a series of experiences. Fingertips pushing keys on a keyboard. Driving a car to work in the morning. Organizing photos on one's laptop. Talking to a friend on the telephone. Paying bills. Walking out to the mailbox to get the morning paper. Our days are filled with such ordinary things most of the time.

Then, there are the extraordinary moments, those unforgettable experiences outside the norm.

I was talking with my brother Don about my grandparents this morning. We were sharing memories, and it somehow came up how I used to talk with my grandmother for hours about mystical things like whether the Egyptians had been in contact with alien life (as evidenced by their remarkable understanding in the design of the Great pyramid) or whether psychokinesis is really possible. That is, can people bend metal simply by the power of their minds? Or levitate objects? The Russians were purportedly researching these things during the Cold War.

Don was a bit surprised by this side of my grandmother, and it became apparent that much of what I knew about my grandmother was not common knowledge. My grandmother had always been a highly intuitive person and read extensively along a wide range of interests that far exceeded what you might expect from a rural West Virginia housewife. This was all before the formative experience that gave birth to the following poem.

I'm not sure of the year but it was sometime in the early Sixties, an out of body experience. Without hallucinogenics. Rather, she'd had a stroke and while undergoing surgery left her body. For what she believes was a period of twenty minutes she hovered over the operating table, watching as doctors and nurses labored over her semi-lifeless body.

The Greek-Armenian mystic Gurdjieff once stated that our life experiences are like food. Some foods take more time than others to digest. My grandmother's long talks with me were an effort to process this experience she'd undergone.

So it is that some powerful experiences move us in deep places. The loss of a loved one. The unexpected death of a friend. A profound mountaintop experience. It is not only grief that takes many moons to process. Sometimes other kinds of experiences make such impact that people spend years seeking to better understand what happened to them.

The following is a poem which originally appeared in my grandmother's chapbook of poems titled Helping The Sun Grow. No mention here of the mystical, but a remarkably luminous and upbeat snapshot of that moment in time...

Aftermath Of A Stroke

Here I lie, tight packed as in my Mother's womb
I laid with restlessness a full lifetime ago.
But still entirely I, altho I have no room
To move about and at my will to come and go.
But now -- I wander, freely in my mind
The long road thru the crowding mists of time,
And pause in my journeying now and then
To live the happy times again
Made bright indeed by sunset's glow!

by Elizabeth Sandy

Saturday, January 19, 2008

The Importance of Family

"There is transcendant power in a strong intergeneration family. An effectively interdependent family of children, parents, grandparents aunts, uncles, and cousins can be a powerful force in helping people have a sense of who they are and where they come from and what they stand for." ~ Stephen Covey


The letter leaning against the photo is from my grandmother, a significant person in my life growing up. It was a letter of encouragement when I was a young man. The little girl in this 1956 photo is my cousin Lois, age four. My granparents helped build this telescope as part of the Sky & Telescope Society.

It is a sad thing when families get splintered. The strength I received from my grandmother is immeasurable. Perhaps I shared her temperament, for she likewise was an artist and poet, somewhat of a brooder, avid reader and lifelong learner. Perhaps it was just a grandmother's love.

The following is a poem which originally appeared in her chapbook of poems titled "Helping The Sun Grow".

Aftermath Of A Stroke
Here I lie, tight packed as in my Mother's womb
I laid with restlessness a full lifetime ago.
But still entirely I, altho I have no room
To move about and at my will to come and go.
But now -- I wander, freely in my mind
The long road thru the crowding mists of time,
And pause in my journeying now and then
To live the happy times again
Made bright indeed by sunset's glow!
~ Elizabeth Sandy

She often talked about another relative of our, a poet named John Hall, who had been editor of two West Virginia newspapers, and author of three books of poetry. The youngest of five boys, he ran away from home at age fifteen to serve the North in the Civil War. Down in Tennessee he took fever and after five months in recovery was left blind. Thus did he become, after accepting this difficult fate, the blind poet of Ritchie County. As it turns out, John Hall used to babysit my grandmother. He would take the children out onto the hillside and recite poetry to them. Grndma says the first ten years of her life he had babysat her and the other children. Thus did he birth in her a love of the creative use of language and image, of poetry and wonder.

In the same manner my own creative self was nourished by my Grandmother, Elizabeth Sandy.

Discover more of her poems here.
http://www.enewman.biz/p-poems.html

Friday, August 17, 2007

Passionate Purposefulness

Excellent meeting of M5 last night. Shared my theory of Passionate Purposefulness... and was shown that it needed further development. The third dimension is self --> others. A potentially profound life model is developing. Excellent insights by group.

Also had opportunity to share about influence, and the impact my grandmother had on my life. Read 3 of her poems, including 'Life', which they all wanted a copy of after.
December 2, 1997

Here is the poem Life which I shared that evening ten years ago, followed by a link to the dedication page I created in my grandmother's memory.

Life
If you, in your way of life
Have ever been a stranger
To the dread scarred face,
And frightening ways of danger,
Then the safety you possess
Is hard to realize.
Until some danger threatens you
You blindly close your eyes.

If failure never came to you
Success can have no savor.
Your love must know some hate
Or it can have no flavor!
If sorrow never choked our throats
Or teardrops dimmed our eye
The dizzying heights of happiness
Are lost and gone awry!

He who reads diligently
And after truth has sought
And has truly never doubted
Has as truly never thought!
So use your doubts and sorrows
Like a springboard from the sky,
The lower down they take you
The higher up you fly!

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