"As Freshmen first..."

It began with a friend telling me about this picture. Bob Bennett is a wonderful raconteur, historian, and teacher - not a bad combo. As often happens in the Pasadena Museum of History archives Bob was looking for something else and came across this image in a scrapbook.

Bob knows of my interest in the Elliott/Bandini family and told me about the image.

This, in turn, led to some additional exploration of the Elliot/Bandini family online and a bit of a discovery.

Dolores Bandini Hawthorne, granddaughter to Arturo Bandini and Helen Elliott Bandini, followed family tradition and attended Stanford. She went to Columbia, then returned to Stanford for her doctorate in physics. She chose to not be a part of the Manhattan Project and instead was a post-doctorate fellow of Edward Teller. She attended the University of Chicago where she earned her doctorate, then she married, and raised a family. She was a supporter of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

It was great to begin to learn about Dolores and her astounding life. All of this exploration started thanks to Mr. Bennett and this image that was discovered in the archives.

Oh, Elliott Bandini, Dolores' father, is in the second row, third from the left. This image is from the Pasadena Museum of History.