Choices

I typically start off my day reading the Boston Globe over a cup of coffee. It used to be that I spent most of that time going through the Sports section. That certainly hasn’t been the case this past summer. Since leaving work, I’ve been spending more time going through the Metro/Business section.  Within that section are the obituaries, and I feel compelled to spend at least a minute or two glancing at the pictures and wondering.  I am particularly drawn to articles on women in their 80’s or 90’s. If you notice, there are not many of those kind of articles. Here are snippets from three that caught my imagination.

Ann Wyman, 84 – The Globe’s first full-time travel writer [and] first woman appointed to be editor of the editorial pages. Editorials she wrote were part of the paper’s coverage of school desegregation in Boston that earned the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for public service. She held the Globe on course during very difficult times in the face of blistering opposition, most notably during school desegregation. [Her] brother is her only immediate survivor.

Charlotte Schell, 91 – As a computer programmer at Lincoln laboratory, [she] worked in an area of missile detection systems and aircraft collision avoidance that addressed how radar echoes from objects on the ground or in the air could create what’s known as clutter. [Prior to her 22 year career at Lincoln, she was] a full-time mother raising seven children, working as a teacher’s aid, and teaching kindergarten-aged children at church.

Anita Cerquetti, 83 – A gifted Italian soprano who rose to instant fame when she was called upon to substitute for Maria Callas in one of opera’s most dramatic episodes, and three years later surprised people again by ending her own career. “I received many offers to return. There were moments when I almost accepted. But then I thought, what’s the point? I’ve already found my peace, my serenity. To return under the gun? Basta! And so I closed the door.”

I wonder what choices they had to make, why they made them, and how difficult they were for them to make.