Jeannette Piccard

[bronze_ribbons]

The May-June issue of my alumni magazine has a feature on Jeannette Piccard. Three excerpts that will resonate among you, for different reasons among you:

An interviewer read from [Piccard's] preflight checklist, which included the task "wipe windows." He smiled at her and said, “Everything changes but the eternally feminine.”

"Oh, there was nothing feminine about that," Piccard replied. "That's a safety engineer. You don't take off with dirty windows or windows that will frost up."

* * *

At age 11, her mother asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. "When I said I wanted to be a priest, poor darling, she burst into tears and ran out of the room," Piccard said. "That was the only time I saw my Victorian mother run."

* * *

In 1972 Piccard enrolled at Manhattan's General Theological Seminary, at age 77, intent on becoming a priest if the church ever permitted it.

As it turned out, she didn't wait for permission. In 1974 Piccard was the first woman ordained a priest, part of a group known as the "Philadelphia 11," in an "irregular" ceremony that defied church doctrine.

[What else is on my dining room table? See for details on the grumpy, the goofy, and the glad. Now to my third cup of coffee...]