Wertha Pendleton Cole (January 18, 1891 – January 1, 1959) was an American educational administrator and astronomer.''Leaders in Education'' p. 207

Biography

She was born on January 18, 1891, to William Frederic Pendleton. He was the founding bishop of the

General Church of the New Jerusalem A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED Online. Ma ...

. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1914. As part of her graduate work at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

, in 1917-1918, she did

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...

observations for Prof.

Samuel Alfred Mitchell Samuel Alfred Mitchell (April 29, 1874 – February 22, 1960) was a Canadian-American astronomer who studied solar eclipses and set up a program to use photographic techniques to determine the distance to stars at McCormick Observatory, where h ...

at the

McCormick Observatory The Leander McCormick Observatory is one of the astronomical observatories operated by the Department of Astronomy of the University of Virginia, and is situated just outside Charlottesville, Virginia (US) in Albemarle County on the summit of ...

. She was the Dean of Women at

Bryn Athyn College Bryn Athyn College is a private Christian college in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, United States. It is affiliated with the General Church of the New Jerusalem. History Bryn Athyn College started educating undergraduates after its incorporation ...

from 1943 to 1958 and also headed the astronomy department.. She organized the Bryn Athyn team for

Operation Moonwatch Operation Moonwatch (also known as ''Project Moonwatch'' and, more simply, as ''Moonwatch'') was an amateur science program formally initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 1956. The SAO organized Moonwatch as part of th ...

explaining: "I wanted to do something practical for the

International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War w ...

. I felt this was the best way to help."''The Sunday Bulletin'', Philadelphia, PA, May 18, 1958, Section 2, p. 1 She was a member of the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society from 1935 to 1959, serving as its secretary 1950-1951. She died on January 1, 1959.

Family

Her husband

Robert MacFarlan Cole III Robert MacFarlan Cole III (December 26, 1889 – January 18, 1986) was an American chemical engineer, inventor, and author. He helped develop many chemicals, including freon and its use as a refrigerant and an aerosol repellent, a substance t ...

was a chemist, and one of her sons, Dandridge M. Cole, was a space rocket designer...

Publications

*"Ancient Astronomy and Astrology," ''The Journal of Education,'' 1931, 27-35. *"Swedenborg's Work on the Longitude," ''The New Philosophy,'' 1933, 169-178.

Sources and references

1891 births 1959 deaths American women astronomers Columbia University alumni University of Virginia alumni {{US-astronomer-stub