Ruhling: The Woman who takes History to Heart
As a historian, Heather Nicole Lonks Minty is used to telling stories.
Other people’s.
So that’s where we start.
We’re in England, where in 1909 two suffragettes, identified as a Miss Solomon and Miss McLellan, find a novel way to draw attention to the cause.
They mail themselves to the prime minister at No. 10 Downing St. so they can advocate, in person, for the right to vote. (The postal charge is 3 pence, and the “human letters” are unceremoniously returned when the recipient refuses to sign for them.)
Heather starts a new job next month.
“A delivery boy had to actually walk them there,” Heather says, smiling at their audacity and cleverness. “During the mailbox bombing and arson campaign of 1912 through 1914, one woman used to hide explosive devices in her wheelchair.”
In the United States, the women were not so militant. In 1917, they merely chained themselves to the fence around the White House to get President Woodrow Wilson’s attention.
Heather, a tall woman with glamorous gold-rimmed spectacles, tells these and other stories about everyday people to make history come alive.
Whether you’re talking about women picketing to get the right to vote or young men protesting the draft, the stories resonate because “it could be you or someone in your family,” she says.
That’s why she finds walking tours so thrilling: You get to stand in a space where history took place.
As far as Heather’s own history, it starts in Flushing, where she was born 32 years ago and where she spent most of her childhood and young adulthood.
At LIU Post, she earned a bachelor’s degree in TV and radio (she loves watching historical documentaries, and her thesis was a video walking tour of the Civil War draft riots) then proceeded to earn a master’s in public history at Royal Holloway, University of London.
“Public history is all about getting history to the public,” she says. “These days, there are many engaging ways to tell stories that are not just exhibitions in museums.”
After returning to New York, she landed a job at the New-York Historical Society, a move that would change her own history in ways she never imagined.
It was there that she met Chris Minty, a “cute” Scotsman fascinated with U.S. history who had a fellowship with the museum.
“We actually were in London at the same time, both frequenting the same research libraries when I was in college, and I did take some day trips to Scotland, but our paths never crossed,” she says.
They were introduced at a staff meeting, but Heather wasn’t impressed enough to pay much attention to him.
It was Tinder that kindled their romance.
“I swiped right, but I still didn’t recognize him,” she says, adding that the people on fellowships like Chris had separate work areas so she never saw him. “He sent me a message saying he thought we worked in the same building.”
Heather thought it was a pickup line until she verified the information.
On Nov. 4, 2014 – Heather, ever the historian, remembers the exact date – they met for coffee.
“Our love of history connected us,” she says. “We spent five hours talking – it’s probably the longest coffee date known to man.”
Their relationship deepened their appreciation not only for each other but also for their respective areas of study.
“He opened my eyes to parts of American history I had never seen before,” Heather says.
Although they had been dating only a couple of weeks, Chris traveled all the way from Morningside Heights to Flushing to have Thanksgiving dinner with Heather and her parents.
“The holiday, of course, is not celebrated in Scotland, so he really didn’t know what he was getting into,” she says. “My mother sent him home with so much food – and he discovered corn bread.”
Heather makes history come alive.
They married and moved themselves and their voluminous collection of history books to Boston, where Chris had been offered a job.
Heather took a position with the Boston Athenaeum and later worked for the Boston Arts Academy Foundation then Respond, whose mission is to end domestic violence.
At the end of 2020, during the pandemic, they returned to New York to be closer to Heather’s family.
Heather was working for Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit that focuses on New York City’s and state’s finances and services, when their daughter, Isla, was born.
(For the record, the only reason Isla, who is 6 months old, has not visited a museum yet is because of covid restrictions.)
Next month, after taking a short break in her career, Heather’s starting a new job as the development director of an institute in New Jersey whose mission is gender equality, which syncs with her keen interest in women’s rights.
“Having a daughter makes this even more exciting because instead of fighting only for myself now, I’m fighting for her and her generation,” she says. “That makes it easier for me to leave her and go back to work.”
Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com; @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com, astoriacharacters.com.
Lisa, model tall with long black hair that she tames by tying it back in a ponytail, was born and raised in Wallingford, Connecticut, which she calls a “lovely little suburban town that I always wanted to get out of when I was young but that I now am nostalgic about.”
She started selling online and about eight years ago began setting up at the Brooklyn Flea in Dumbo and Chelsea.
“My biggest goal was to be an art director for a major magazine,” she says, adding that she stayed in Des Moines to take a job with the media conglomerate Meredith Corp.
There are shiny silver scoops and funnels for the dry goods.
The lights are low, the music is soft, and the sweet scent of flickering candles is oh so soothing.
“I was so broke that I ate cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she says. “And I walked to work to save the subway fare – it was five to six miles each way.”
“Yoga changed my life,” she says. “The first thing I learned was that I wasn’t breathing – I was holding my breath. Yoga reconnected me to my breath.”
This is week No. 5 of the wholesale/discount store’s existence, and he’s really pumped.
And that might have been the end of the story had his aunt not decided to retire and sell the store, which, he adds, may or may not happen any time soon.
His focused shifted to America, however, when he took a survey course in U.S. history at the University of Stirling, where he earned his bachelor’s degree with first-class honors as well as his doctorate.
Before she started making cakes to sell, Crystal, who was born and raised in Astoria, had a career in her family’s now-shuttered Times Square restaurant, Theatre Row Diner.
“I love how the ingredients come together and how this involves me in people’s lives,” she says. “Whatever the occasion – a child’s first birthday or a wedding – the cake is the centerpiece of the party.”