Valiant women
McCarthy, Abigail
Yevgeniy P. Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences; Alexander S. Pavlov, academician and director of the Moscow Scientific Institute on Roentgenology and Radiology; Vladimir...
...These groups believe that nuclear weaponry contains seeds of destruction out of all proportion to the classical notion of the purposes of warfare and do not share the conviction of the military planners who, paradoxically, see prevention as an exercise in strength which must be continually buttressed by additional arms and by improved military skills and technology extended to their ultimate limits...
...I cannot mention them all, and listing their accomplishments does not begin to hint of the savor with which they salted their worlds...
...Newman Center...
...and a single woman, twenty-five years a librarian in a boys' school -- a feminist and a peace activist -- who has "touched the lives of thousands of young people" and affected them with her "quiet and gentle talented...
...Now numbering more than twenty thousand members in the United States, it has become a crucial unit in an umbrella group, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War which includes PSR and PSR-like groups throughout the world, East and West...
...The base study was that of a scenario in which a 5,000megaton all-out nuclear attack on the United States would, through a combination of ground and air bursts, produce so much air-borne dirt from ground bursts and soot from fires, rural and especially urban, as to cause after a period of a couple of weeks, a reduction of ninety-five percent of sunlight throughout the Northern hemisphere...
...2. . . . " . . . . . - i - did, well, and that they had a strong sense of social responsibility...
...Most of the letters expressed approval or amazement -- many asked for permiswere disturbing...
...Betty Hodgins's life has been, perhaps, more difficult and even more widely effective...
...Each was to use her talent for communication in unforeseen ways...
...I think of the two from my own college generation...
...Catherine's, like other women's colleges, numbers among its graduates many who are successful in ordinary terms...
...The best answer, I decided, lay in the criteria established by the alumnae themselves for the awarding of alumnae honors...
...And there are thousands like them from the Catholic colleges all over the country...
...But the mother of eleven in the tiny North Dakota town is commended for the way in which her home was "a magnet for all those who needed help, comfort, food, and security" and for accepting positions of influence in the community...
...1' ~ ,. -i...
...The complications of such an event for food supply locally and also for countries other than the superpowers would be profound, for many of them are dependent for many of their staples on U.S...
...Vladimir V. Aleksandrov, head of the Laboratory of Climate Modeling at the Computer Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and Serguei Kapitza, professor of physics at the Moscow Physico-Technical Institute and senior research fellow at the Institute for Physical Problems, Soviet Academy of Sciences...
...Did she really want to know, I wondered...
...prepared tO do, and did whatever they Each was a superior student...
...Victor Weisskopf, a physicist who was involved in the development of the atomic bomb and who is now a member of the Papal Academy of Sciences, has commented on how difficult it has been for physicists to make the destructive power of the atom generally understood and has expressed appreciation of the effective role of physicians in publicizing the facts...
...The impact of Physicians for Social Responsibility who stand for a weapons freeze and bilateral nuclear disarmament, carefully monitored, has been impressive...
...Although the TTAPS projections, under the expressive label "nuclear winter," have gained a good amount of publicity, it is hard to know whether the public (or political leaders, for that matter) will recognize the scientific basis of these calculations _9 . . Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy _ _ _ I l VALIANT WOMEN WHAT ONE COLLEGE VALUED A LL THROUGH last summer and into the fall the mail brought reactions to my June column...
...Betty stayed in her native city and married there...
...Perhaps the one which disturbed me most was a two-line communication from an alumna of my own college...
...Nothing could be better proof of what President Eisenhower, a man not unfamiliar with the art of warfare, wrote in 1956 to a friend, that one day both sides would have to "meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended, and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die...
...They have also included ,and, when he died, became chairman of wives and mothers of extraordinary achievement -- a polio-stricken woman faced with a life of leg braces and crutches who nevertheless mothered two children and managed a career of fortyyears' duration while serving with her husband in various community organizations...
...Her work has reached the lives of thousands . . . she began when services were almost nonexistent" and did not stop until there were special education state laws...
...and Canadian production...
...When the second of her eight children was retarded by encephalitis, she became first a volunteer in the service of the mentally handicapped, then an organizer and lobbyist and finally professional director of the Association for Retarded Children...
...and a mother of three whose constructive work in government-related positions was recognized by her appointment as advisor to the U.S...
...Joseph who helped found a refuge for homeless women and children...
...But such achievement alone, so held the alumnae board, was not the full measure of success...
...Catherine's "tries to foster" in the women it educates -- a commitment to moral and spiritual growth and the desire to extend the whole person in service to others...
...The subzero temperature would freeze surface waters and sewage systems over wide areas...
...The American representatives were Sagan, Ehrlich, Lewis Thomas, and Jack Geiger...
...They were, and are, women who matter to others...
...Kate has gone as far as anyone i know in realizing Cardinal Newman's ideal of an intelligent Catholic lay person actively involved in the life and work of \ ~ " ~ L ~ f...
...The biological effects would be devastating, as set out by Ehrlich...
...a Sister of St...
...She led others as president of university women, diocesan officer, and head of the American Field Service program...
...Perhaps, Yet they seemed to have little trouble in finding women who embodied these ideals and who represented hundreds of others...
...In addition, after her husband's death she carried both full responsibility for her family and a full-time job, and lost none of her zest for life and enjoyment...
...The pall, it is anticipated, would prevail for six months or longer...
...and as cleating occurred, the earth would be subjected to excess amounts of ultra-violet light...
...No, I concluded sadly, it was not pride in our achievers which had motivated that now-distant letter but, I felt, something else -- a critical assumption that ours and Other Catholic women's colleges value the wrong kind of achievement...
...Is that true...
...There are doctors, lawyers, artists, and teachers among them, executive directors of organizations, women who have reached the vice-presidential and board level of large corporations, and women who head and own smaller ones...
...Catherine's...
...Each welcomed others into a circle of The common thread running through warmth, laughter, and friendliness which the lives of the honorees is that they were seemed to exist because she was there...
...A bit fulsome...
...That column (June 17, 1983) dealt with the surprising number of women in public service who were graduates of Catholic women's colleges...
...We in colthe university," wrote the director of the lege called each other "girls" then...
...I I _9 sion to reproduce the column -- but a few the highest number of women achievers seem to come from the women's colleges and that an unusual number of those elected to high office seemed to come from the Catholic women's colleges...
...Betty Hodgins, exuberant and perceptive, wrote elegant sonnets...
...The obstruction of sunlight would result in a drop in surface temperatures to -30~ Wind currents aloft would extend the pall over the entire northern half of the globe and eventually, to a lesser degree, over the Southern Hemisphere...
...I noted that research indicates that - - or whether "nuclear winter" will be lumped with a long line of end-of-the-world predictions and elicit little more than a helpless shrug...
...Or did i detect a sour note in that brief letter...
...As students they were generously made and beautiful in the way Mid-western girls often are...
...Like so many wives she helped her husband build his business guidance...
...Nor did the career woman, a professor at the university, rest on her professional laurels...
...There was agreement among all the panelists that the conference's conclusions were sound...
...At first glance over the awards of recent years, the first two honorees I lit upon seemed pat and predictable -- that classic Catholic dyad -- the career woman on the one hand, the mother of a large family and homemaker on the other...
...Civil Rights Commission and her election to chair the Council on Human Relations...
...In the words of her citation Alice represents the many alumnae who have influenced small communities...
...You begged the question in your column -- who are these women achievers from St...
...Photosynthesis would be slowed and marine ecosystems would suffer seriously...
...They have included a doctor who has devoted he...
...Perhaps s h e thought I had been unduly modest about our college...
...JOSEPH P. EVANS (Joseph P. Evans, M.D., a widely honored neurological surgeon, is Washington, D.C., area representative for International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War...
...each was its board...
...The enthusiasm of her student days bocame the fuel for the drive to fill a need...
...She was a volunteer teacher of English in the parochial school, a parish worker in liturgy and ecumenism among other things...
...These, unknown letter-writer, are the like of our achievers...
...ABIGAIL McCARTHY 20 April 1984:233...
...She enriched the community by founding a Great Books program, sparking a college night for prospective students, administering scholarships, planning a performing arts center and showing "a genius for friendship with the poor, the handicapped, the lonely, the foreigner, the elderly, and the uncertain young...
...Like the scriptural valiant women they laid their hands to strong things and we can call them bless6d...
...If the "nuclear winter" scenario is as likely as the current scientific discussion suggests, then much of what these planners support is in fact a suicide machine that, if used, would rebound on us -- and the rest of the worltl -- quite regardless of what our adversaries did...
...But although I am inordinately proud of my alma mater -- one of the largest women' s colleges in the country and the first Catholic institution of any kind to be awarded a Phi Beta Kappa chapter - - we do not yet have a Commonweal: 232 member of the House of Representatives among our alumnae...
...Alice Shea, quiet and droll, wrote witty sketches and essays...
...life to the poor in Selma, Alabama...
...They wanted to name women who represented the qualities St...
...Alice went to teach in a small town, as so many of us did, and met and married her husband there...
...Or a big city mayor...
...The thirty-seven affiliated groups include over seventy-five thousand individuals...
Vol. 111 • April 1984 • No. 8
