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Anna Belle Close |
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The Atlanta Astronomy Club’s senior member, Anna Belle Close, passed away on October 18, of Alzheimer’s disease. Anna Belle was present at the 1947 formative meeting of the Club in Agnes Scott’s Science Hall. (Bradley Observatory had yet to be built.) She remained a member for the ensuing 55 years. There are other founding members still living, but only Anna Belle and her husband, Bill, remained members until their deaths. Born in Guatemala,
the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, Anna Belle was named after both
her maternal and paternal grandmothers (but everyone called her
“Annabelle”). She was living with her parents in Washington, DC when
she met Bill, who was attending art school at the Corcoran Gallery. Along
with our founder, Bill Calder, this dynamic family team was largely
responsible for the successful early development and survival of the Club. Bill was handy with
tools, and while attending the Club’s mirror grinding classes he built a
6” reflector. About 1950, a small batch of war surplus 16” Pyrex disks
came on the market. Such large mirror blanks were almost unheard of at
that time, and Bill Calder was successful in obtaining three of them. One
of these went to Bill Close. Four years later, Bill completed his 16”
f/4 reflector, and mounted it in their back yard. It was the largest
amateur telescope in the south, and people came from all over the region
to see it. This gave the Close family a unique identity – they had a
16” telescope. The Club soon began
to publish a monthly bulletin – The Atlanta Astronomers’ Report
– and it was outstanding among astronomy club bulletins. Its fame was
such that it appeared on the shelves of major observatory libraries. For a
number of years Anna Belle was the editor; and she was always the typist
(the Report was mimeographed – no computers in those days!). Anna
Belle was an amazing typist. She could surpass 100 words per minute; and
on a mechanical typewriter this was a great accomplishment! Bill was
equally skilled in his artistic renderings for the covers. Anna Belle served as
AAC president for three terms, and she presided over many important
decisions which gave our club its present character. Anna Belle loved the
stars; she also loved the beauty of nature here on Earth. She reveled in
hiking, canoeing and the study and photography of animals and plants. The
AAC was not her only club affiliation. She was a past president of the
Georgia Canoe Association. She was also a member of the Alpine Camera
Club, the Appalachian Trail Club the Audubon Society and the Georgia
Botanical Society. After their retirement, Anna Belle and Bill traveled to
Canada to observe a total eclipse of the Sun, to South America for a
really good view of Halley’s comet (we only got a watered-down view in
this country) and finally they went on a photo safari in East Africa where
she saw and photographed just about every exotic animal she had ever heard
of. She was especially thrilled by the beauty of Mount Kilimanjaro. My
own relationship with Anna Belle and her family had a profound influence
on my life. I joined the Club in 1951 at
the age of 12. As a young stripling I was, of course, intimidated by many
of the talks which were far over my head. Anna Belle took me under her
wing, eased my entrance into the Club, and helped to stoke my enthusiasm
for it. After one meeting (I was still a stripling), she came up to me and
said “Some people are coming over to our house after the meeting. Would
you like to come?” Wow! Would I! When I arrived (I
don’t remember how I got there) I found a living room full of everybody
who was somebody. It was like the meeting had transferred from Bradley
Observatory to the Close’s house. I felt very important. She always made
me feel important, and she always treated me as an adult. I thought,
“This must be the high point of my life.” But guess what? I discovered
that these late-night meetings were a permanent feature of life in the
Atlanta Astronomy Club. We observed, we talked, we listened, and we
learned. Famous astronomers and scientists of other persuasions made
regular appearances. Even a theologian was occasionally seen. Anna Belle
presided over it all. It was a salon reminiscent of those of
seventeenth-century France. My mundane family
life was nothing like the life at the Close’s. It soon developed that I
had a standing invitation to their house every Friday and Saturday
evening, even if no one else was invited. So while other kids my age were
dating, drinking and wrecking their cars, I was observing with a 16”
telescope, going to art galleries and attending lectures at Atlanta’s
great universities with Anna Belle and Bill. I think I got the best part
of that deal! The final rite of my induction into the Close family took
place on the night they gave me my own water glass, with my name on it.
Each member of the family had such a glass, and to see mine sitting on the
shelf alongside those of Anna Belle, Bill, and their four children made me
very proud. Bill died in 1994,
and the last time I had an opportunity to sit down and visit with Anna
Belle was when she was selling her house in preparation for moving in with
her son. She was holding an indoor yard sale to get rid of excess
furniture. She was also offering for sale about a hundred of her mounted
photographs of birds, elephants, interesting people and scenes of
grandeur. She was puzzled because nobody was buying furniture, but instead
they were fighting over the pictures! Both her father and Bill had been
talented photographers – really artists with a lens. A lot of this
talent rubbed off on Anna Belle, and every time she snapped the shutter an
image of great beauty came forth. I had prided myself on my photographic
ability, but I just wasn’t in her league. After her
Alzheimer’s diagnosis, she moved to Columbus where she was cared for by
her daughter, Dixie Turman. I did not see her after that. But every time I
think of Anna Belle, Bill and the “good old days” tears come to my
eyes, and I am filled with both elation and sadness at the contemplation
of the universe of learning to which I was so wonderfully introduced. - Lenny Abbey |
