The Finger Lakes region of New York is a great vacation spot, with scenery, wineries, and a relaxed vibe. The area also played a critical role in women’s history, specifically women’s suffrage, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. In July 1993, I traveled to Seneca Falls with my husband, Tom Shaffer, and my mom, Florence Thompson, to participate in the opening of the Women’s Rights National Historical Park Visitors Center.
On Tuesday, March 24, Tom Shaffer of Rutgers Avenue in Swarthmore started feeling sick. This is an account of his illness and subsequent recovery, edited from near daily Facebook posts by his wife, Virginia Thompson, while she was at home in Swarthmore with their two kids, both in their twenties. At first she called her posts “Update on Tom,” but after a while, she started titling them “The Tom Report.”
Forty years ago this spring, Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 cooling tower malfunctioned, resulting in the worst nuclear plant accident to this day in the U.S. It was on March 28, 1979, a beautiful spring day when many of us students at Franklin and Marshall College were outside enjoying the weather.
