In the early years of the 21st century, I was delving into the archives of the Grand Rapids Public Museum researching a book to celebrate their 150th anniversary in 2004. Among the lists of men involved in the lyceums and institutes that shaped the beginnings of the western Michigan museum in the 1850s, there finally appears, at the very end of the 19th century, the name of Emma J. Cole, emerging like the first blossom of hepatica on a spring afternoon.
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