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four years older and soon to be a scientist respected for hiswork with spectrometers. Beatrice, longing for what shecalled “that communion of hearts and minds”, found inhim someone, at last, with whom she could talk science.Although she was always the youngest in any of her classes,she was the first of her contemporaries to marry, andaccompanied Brian to his position at the Southwest Centrein Dallas, later to become the University of Texas in Dallas.A partial but certainly only partial account of whathappened then is found among her letters home selectedby her father, Edward Hill, and published with hisnarrative framework in 1986 in the US under the title MyDaughter Beatrice.It took me many years and many interviews with closefriends and colleagues, together with the study of Beatrice’sletters to them and to her sister Rowena in particular, beforea different and deeply frustrated Beatrice was revealed. Shewas still kind and generous, passionate in her search forscientific truth, and, like her father, wanting “to be a goodperson and contribute to mankind”. But even after herphenomenal PhD, that pioneering study of the evolutionof galaxies which she completed in about two years whilecommuting weekly some 400 miles to and from Austin, shewas far from fulfilled.Back in Dallas she found herself still locked in a hostileand barren environment with no prospect of scientific workat her level and with, as Milton wrote of himself, “...that onetalent which is death to hide/Lodged in me useless...”.In a sad parting of the ways she left her husband (andtheir two adopted children, at his insistence) and held asix-month position with Sandra Faber at Lick Observatoryat the University of California in Santa Cruz, before takingup an associate professorship in astronomy at Yale. AtLick, as at her two previous short-term positions at Caltechand the University of Maryland, she constantly amazedher colleagues by her all-round abilities, particularly herextraordinary flair for synthesising.James Gunn, later of Princeton, said of Beatrice thatshe would have been outstandingly successful in anyspecialisation she settled on, but that it would have beena real tragedy if she had specialised. “Breadth, not depth,was her forte. She could spot connections that nobody elsecould see, seeing that this tied up with that, and so on.” Toall of this she added her own ideas, transfixing her peers andlater her students by new insights and new horizons thatconstantly changed as more was discovered.Beatrice found in Yale the welcoming atmosphere she hadlong dreamed of. Here her production of scientific papers,some in collaboration with Richard Larson, increased toan extraordinary extent. Her projects continued to expandthe study of galactic evolution and its relationship withcosmology, everything to explain its past, present and future.As Larson said, “Most scientists are interested only insmall, defined areas; Beatrice put it all together.”Since her death from cancer in 1981 when she was only 40and a professor of astronomy at Yale, her ideas, her methodsand her discoveries have continued to fertilise the thinkingof the next generation of astronomers.Bright Star, Beatrice Hill Tinsley, Astronomer, by ChristineCole Catley, was published by Cape Catley in September 2006.Beatrice was an inspired and inspiring teacher.Beatrice on her graduation from UC in 1963.Note on author:Christine Cole Catley is a writer, publisher andlecturer who also conducts writers’ workshops. All beingwell, she says, she rather wants to continue doing all thosethings until she is 92, when she hopes to travel.To assist writers and to commemorate theirnamesakes, she established the Sargeson Trust and theMichael King Writers’ Trust. Now she hopes individualsor institutions will take the lead in setting up memorialsto Beatrice Hill Tinsley.Photos courtesy of Christine Cole Catley.Summer 2006 11