Carleen Hutchins, who I’d never heard of until today, died this past Friday at 98. What an interesting woman! After receiving a BA in biology from Cornell in 1933, she followed the then-common career path for college-educated women: teaching degree and marriage. But her life took a thrilling turn in 1947 when — unhappy with the viola she was playing — she decided to build herself a violin and became an innovator in the field. But my favorite story about her is when she stole a shelf from a phone booth at Columbia U with her friend Dr. Virginia Apgar (creator of the Apgar score), who thought it would make the perfect back for a violin. It did.
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