Week 11 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is about Achievements in the family. I know many family members past and present have done pretty impressive things so I’m going to focus of just a few of them.
Back in March during the topic of Professions, I told you how my maternal grandfather held a patent for a straw hat cleaning solution which is still in effect and pretty neat, but I don’t think he made any money off of it.
In more recent times, my cousin Bob who was a lieutenant in the Civil Engineer Corp of the US Navy has a “bight” in Antarctica named after him! He was part of Operation Deep Freeze in 1977 and 1978. A bight is “a curve on the shoreline with a less curvature than that of a usual bay”. They are shallow so they are clearly marked on nautical charts for navigation.
The bight is located on Brown Peninsula which is a nearly ice-free peninsula 10 nautical miles long on the north side of Antarctica. The Bellafronto Bight extends for six nautical miles and was named for him in 1999. I don’t know the nature of the naming but I think it’s pretty cool!
An even more recent achievement is my niece Charlene’s PhD in Food Science from Penn State University in 2017. She is now an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University as well as a Researcher at CSU’s Food Structure and Function Laboratory. She is focusing on phytochemicals as potential therapies for chronic inflammatory diseases of the gut. She is also working on a USDA-funded research into the relationships between sourdough microbial ecology and bread quality. She has been published in a variety of magazines and has been on the Today Show to discuss Sourdough bread. I think we’re going to be hearing and reading about her achievements for a long time!
It's All About Family 