MBL Chair is Family's Link to Remembering a Remarkable Life Story | The Falmouth Enterprise
![inside of Clapp Auditorium. Credit: Emily Greenhalgh](/sites/default/files/styles/focal_point_1000x325/public/2024-08/2021_ClappReno3.jpg?h=d07dec50&itok=3iGVoBES)
The Marine Biological Laboratory’s auditorium in the Lillie Laboratory is filled with row upon row of wooden chairs, where students have sat and studied and learned for decades. Long after they leave their classrooms and even Woods Hole, memories made here last. Kate Montgomery and her family had traveled to the village all the way from California to reconnect with the memory of her grandmother, Priscilla B. Montgomery, to find a chair in the auditorium dedicated in her name.
“I know my grandmother was a remarkable woman,” Ms. Montgomery said, seated next to her grandmother’s chair in the auditorium last week. “She attended school here at a time when most women did not go to college.”
From 1914 to 1918 Priscilla Montgomery attended the Marine Biological Laboratory, where she studied zoology, embryology and physiology. She worked as a zoology researcher in 1916 and 1917 before becoming an assistant librarian at the MBL in 1919. According to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, where a photo of her can be found, Ms. Montgomery became the MBL’s first full-time librarian in 1925. Read the full story in The Falmouth Enterprise.
Source: MBL Chair Is Family's Link To Remembering A Remarkable Life Story | The Falmouth Enterprise
Interested in Naming a Chair in the Clapp Auditorium?
The Cornelia Clapp Auditorium recognizes Cornelia Clapp, the first female scientist to arrive in Woods Hole for the MBL’s inaugural summer in 1888. Since the 1930s, the auditorium has been the MBL’s epicenter of scientific dissemination and community engagement. Auditorium seats have been named after prominent members of the MBL community. We invite you to connect your legacy or recognize a colleague or loved one with a named seat in this historic and beloved venue.