2 
The Perennial Adventure 
earned a living with the needle, never had time to think of 
clothes. So some friends helped her in assembling a wardrobe for 
the trip to Sweden. One, a fashionable milliner, planted grey silk 
mushrooms (complete with lamellae ) on a grey sailor hat. This 
seemed apropos, since even the Health Officer customarily con¬ 
sulted Miss Eastwood about the edibility of wild mushrooms. 
With the new hat tilted on her snowy hair, a harmonizing coat 
and dress 5 with Irish eyes still twinkling, it is no wonder that she 
once again was voted “Sweetheart of the Year” by the San Fran¬ 
cisco Business Men’s Garden Club—a perennial honor which she 
received in a city faithful to its favorites. 
For a serious scientist to have frivolous moments and quantities 
of friends—this is a phenomenon. Contrast the Curie salon as the 
extreme of austerity, containing a straight chair each for Pierre 
and Marie, to Alice Eastwood’s home wherever she made it. Her 
living-room always became a gathering place for congenial spir¬ 
its, even when it was her only room—in days of poverty or illness. 
Always there was good talk and, often, good food prepared by 
the hostess. A colleague once intimated that her contribution to 
science might be lessened by an unfailing interest in fellow human 
beings, by the love and time she lavished on her friends and their 
concerns. She answered, expressing a lifelong philosophy, “My 
desire is to help, not to shine.” 
Alice Eastwood was born on January 19, 1859, * n Toronto, 
Canada, of an Irish mother and an English father. Her relatives 
on both sides lacked worldly goods, in most instances, but were 
endowed through the generations with integrity and education. 
