Bryn Athyn College Alumni Magazine Fall/Winter 2017-18 | Page 13

Wertha
Pendleton
Cole
OUR HISTORY
Lyris Hyatt
Morna
Hyatt
(BA '40)
Kurt Simons
(AA '60)
Wertha Pendleton Cole
Wertha Pendleton Cole, a noted
teacher and astronomer, was
born on January 18, 1891 as the
youngest daughter to Lawson
(Mary) Pendleton and William F.
Pendleton, the founding bishop
of the General Church. Wertha
received her Bachelor of Science
from Columbia University in 1914.
As part of her graduate work
at the University of Virginia, in
1917-1918, she did parallax ob-
servations at the McCormick
Observatory during World War I,
during which she actually found
a new star. She was a member
of the Rittenhouse Astronomical
Society from 1935 to 1959, serv-
ing as its secretary 1950-1951.
Alfred Sandstrom (AA '60)
(right) plots data, while
Kurt Simons (left) mans
the two-way radio.
The First Sighting
All this practice proved crucial on October 4, 1957, when Russia surprised
the world by launching Sputnik I, the world’s first satellite. National ob-
servatories across the U.S. were caught off guard by the sudden launch,
and urgently relied on citizen-scientists to help gather information. Wer-
tha received notice about the launch from Moonwatch headquarters in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Quickly alerting her team, they took their
places on Benade Hall’s roof.
Kenneth explained, “Peering into the wide lens was not unfamiliar to
anyone by now, but the real challenge of something to see added a new ex-
cite ment. Team members began to appreciate that Mrs. Cole had felt that
same challenge a whole year earlier.” He added, “Mrs. Cole’s keen interest
in science in general and astronomy in particular … led us to readiness
that few teams enjoyed at that time.”
They didn’t see anything that first night, or the next, but finally on
October 15, before dawn, they saw something: the rocket that put Sput-
nik I into orbit. The following day, on October 16, the team recorded evi-
dence of Sputnik I itself.
Records of that night report that Wertha called out, “I see something
overhead!” The team was already at work with careful tracking. As Ken-
neth noted, “Mrs. Cole checked its positions as it passed through the
constellations overhead and plotted its course on star charts for measure-
She served as the dean of women
at Bryn Athyn College from
1946 to 1956 and also headed
the astronomy department and
organized the Bryn Athyn team
for Operation Moonwatch. At
the time she died, she had four
children and 14 grandchildren.
Her nephew, Lawson Pend-
leton, taught at the College
during the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Wertha saw a strong connection
between spiritual insight and
stargazing. In a lecture she gave
in 1935 she said, “Looking at the
stars is an inspiration in itself, and
it lifts the imagination beyond the
material things of everyday life
toward a philosophy of creation.”
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