by Gudrun Hutchins

The recent announcement by Senator Leahy that he would not seek another term in the Senate reminded me of the photo below.. Fortunately, I could still find it. The four Vermont AAUW members in the photo had discussed upcoming legislation with Senator Leahy in his office for about an hour during the 1999 AAUW convention in Washington, D.C. At the end of the discussion he asked us all to come into the outer office where a staff member quickly took our photo. During the following week my copy of the photo arrived by mail with a hand-written note from the Senator.

Kathy Balutansky (Burlington Branch), Gudrun Hutchins (Bennington Branch), Senator Leahy, Mariafranca Morselli (Burlington Branch), Dorothy Rand (Middlebury Branch)

How did all of this happen? Through the efforts of Mariafranca Morselli. She was a botany professor at the University of Vermont and Director of the Maple Research Laboratory. Born in 1922 in Milan, Italy, Mariafranca grew up during the time of the Fascists and Mussolini. Mariafranca immigrated to the United States as a young professor of Plant Sciences with her husband Mario and their two daughters. She had a life-long interest in keeping the Vermont and US governments on their toes because of her early experience with Fascist governments. As Senator Leahy said about her on the Senate floor, “She never slows down. I applaud her tireless efforts to improve the world in which we live.”

For the lobbying visits that took place on that specific day of the convention, the AAUW staff and the AAUW Lobby Corps offered to make appointments for AAUW members. But Mariafranca made our appointments herself because she wanted to make sure that we could meet with our two Senators (Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords) and our Representative (Bernie Sanders) in person and not with members of their staff.

In the second photo, Mariafranca is giving a lecture to Senator Jeffords while I am sitting on the sofa watching the whole fascinating exchange. He is smiling because he already suspects what she is going to say next. This photo was taken by a roving AAUW photographer and published in AAUW Outlook. (The quarterly AAUW magazine was initially mailed to members in paper. At a later time,  we received it electronically. About a decade ago it was unfortunately discontinued totally.)

Senator Jeffords, Mariafranca Morselli, Gudrun Hutchins. The other two AAUW members were sitting on the other side of the Senator when this photo was taken.

After meeting with our two Senators, the four of us met with Representative Bernie Sanders for a serious discussion of what the federal government should and should not control. Mariafranca knew Sanders from his time as mayor of Burlington and had supported his election to the House of Representatives. As a result of this serious discussion we missed part of the AAUW dinner celebrating the AAUW-supported scholars for that year, but none of us regretted this missed opportunity.

Mariafranca also accompanied me to the Vermont Legislature, explaining both its operation and introducing me to the committee chairs she considered most important. Since her home in South Burlington was a lot closer to Montpelier than mine in Pownal, she invited me to stay overnight on several occasions. Mariafranca and I attended a briefing on the Civil Union Law and were present in the gallery when the Civil Union Law passed in the House in 2000. It was the only time that I have seen state police security in the Vermont Statehouse and some legislators lost their next election during a “Take Back Vermont” campaign because of their vote for Civil Unions.

We shared some special adventures when we travelled to Estonia and Russia in 1989 after attending a conference of the International Federation of University Women in Helsinki. We travelled for two weeks with a group of nineteen AAUW members from New England accompanied at all times by an Intourist guide. The guide scolded both of us severely for occasionally escaping from the group and visiting different venues of our own choosing. We managed to get back into her good graces with gifts of stockings and toiletries from the foreign currency stores to which Russians had no access. For example, in Moscow’s Red Square, we escaped from the long line to file by Lenin’s tomb to visit the many chapels of St. Basil’s which were not on the agenda. Fortunately, I remembered enough Russian from college to figure out how to buy tickets for visiting this museum. All churches were open as museums at the time, but not for worship. I would not have dared to do this without Mariafranca’s encouragement.

Mariafranca died in 2002 of leukemia, two days after her 80^th birthday. I still miss her friendship and spirit. At the memorial service in the overflowing University of Vermont chapel, Senator Leahy spoke of their friendship and of the “Morselli Amendment” he had to add to the Federal Budget each year to make sure she had enough money for the Maple Research Center. Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz praised the immigrant who had become such a dedicated Vermonter and sang a song in her honor. There were also tributes from others including two Burlington AAUW members who had seen her in action. A large sugar maple tree was planted on the University of Vermont campus in her honor.