CHAPTER 1:
COMET HALLEY
Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
“Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie”1

Comet Halley’s passage by Earth in 1910 frightened many people worldwide; however, the Sawyer family was excited to view the phenomenon. On a crisp spring evening, Edward Sawyer and his wife Carrie, their four-year-old daughter Helen, and Edward’s older daughter Fannie, 21, donned light jackets for an adventure.2

Fortunately, on this chilly night, the Sawyers didn’t have to walk far from their Lowell, Massachusetts home for an unobstructed view of the comet. The family headed to the top of a neighbourhood rise, where they soon settled into the soft spring grass, along with a few neighbours and friends, to await the celestial sight. When the comet came into view, Edward called quietly to his daughters and pointed toward the sky.3
 

Years later, Helen said, “I don’t remember much about the experience, but I can still visualize the thing with its lovely tail.”4 Yet, that evening, Helen had no idea that looking upward toward the sky to such celestial brilliance would inspire her life’s path. Nor could Helen have known that, 76 years later, she would view the comet again (one of few people to see it twice in their lifetime), but this time with her son David who, like his mother, had become an astronomer.5

It is no surprise that the Sawyer family made a point to observe the celestial phenomenon. Young Helen, bursting with curiosity, was reared in a family that appreciated and enjoyed science revealed in their immediate world: the sky above them and the flowers and rocks by a river’s edge. Helen’s mother collected minerals, her Aunt Leonora pressed wildflowers, and the entire family enjoyed viewing the stars, “especially the magnificent constellation of Orion with two first magnitude stars.”6 Thus, evening walks along the Lowell Waterways (part of the city’s canal system that supported textile plants) were frequent.7 Helen learned about the night sky through her father’s lessons in scientific observation and his descriptive and imaginative stories, often based on Greek mythology.8