Natalie Mather

Natalie (Neill) Mather's first visit to Woods Hole was the most memorable part of a bicycling and camping trip with Edie (Taft) Grosch and four other friends in 1939. When they arrived at their final destination, Woods Hole, it was pouring rain and they had no tents or enough money left to rent a room for all six at the Railroad Haven on Little Harbor Road. They rented a first floor room for four; the others stayed at the depot until dark and then climbed in a window to get a dry night's sleep. The highlight of their visit was a tour of the Atlantis by the captain.

Natalie was born in New York City in 1920 to a Broadway actress and an illustrator. Because her father could do his illustrating anywhere, the family led a rather nomadic life. She attended five schools during her first two years of high school. When she was 17, they settled down on a farm in New Jersey. Her future husband, Dick Edwards, was the smartest boy in her class.

Natalie attended Barnard College where she studied government and math. Dick attended Columbia. She married Dick in 1943, in secret because he was in naval officer's training. He later worked at Lamont Observatory for Doc Ewing who brought him and his family to WHOI for several summers. When Dick was discharged from the Navy in 1953, the family moved to Woods Hole permanently--the place to which they had always wanted to return.

Natalie was very involved with The League of Women Voters and Woods Hole Child Center in its early years. She remembers well the potluck dinner dances, fundraisers for the cooperative nursery school. She assisted Martha Baylor with her virology research at the MBL, along with Vi Gifford and Pucky Roslansky. She loved the camaraderie of the women in Martha's lab. They enjoyed their favorite melted cheese and ham sandwiches cooked in the autoclave and scheduled the scientific use of the autoclave around their lunch. She would pick up her youngest child at the Child Center around noon and bring her back to the lab where her playpen was a big plastic tub. Three generations of her family have attended the Children's School of Science.

In 1970, she married Frank J. Mather III, who developed the first game fish-tagging program. They travelled and fished all over the world. The largest fish Natalie caught was an 840-pound black marlin off the Great Barrier Reef. She wanted to tag and release it, but the captain wouldn't let her. She was more than incensed. He wanted a photo for advertising!

While in her 70's, she received a paralegal degree so she could serve as a guardian ad litem while wintering in Florida. Natalie has enjoyed lapidary work, silversmithing, copper enameling. She is passionate about politics, an avid genealogist and a great storyteller. She has four children, nine grandchildren, and (so far) nine great grandchildren--all of whom love to gather at her home in Quissett.