SeaQuell at its home port - Carden Beach, St. Croix -January 26, 1998

Position: SeaQuell at its home port - Carden Beach, St. Croix -January 26, 1998

SeaQuell has been cruising the Caribbean and enjoying the sunshine, beaches and warm weather for the last two months before going to Fort Lauderdale for refitting in the yard at Director.

While cruising out of St. Croix, we enjoyed having as our cruising guest June's mother, Clara Smith. During this past year Clara celebrated her 90th birthday with family and friends in Iowa. She has enjoyed being part of our family crew each sailing day.

In October of 1997, Clara Smith (our Grandma Doc), was honored at the dedication of the replica of the first digital computer which was invented at Iowa State University between 1939 and 1942. John Atanasoff, a research physicist and mathematics professor at ISU, invented this computer and developed a working model. Clara started working at Iowa State in 1926. Clara was John's secretary and did much of his computing during the development. At this recognition ceremony, which was attended by 200 people, Clara was the only living member of the digital computer development team and was so recognized by the ISU President, Martin Jischke and the Governor of Iowa.

For many years Univac has claimed this as their invention. By reconstruction of the working model of the original digital computer, John Atanasoff from Iowa State is now recognized at the inventor and we are pleased to find that Clara, our Grandma Doc, was a significant part of this development. Nobody knew the value of the invention and what it would lead to in today's life. The original model was in a state of disarray and required a team of 12 to find parts to reconstruct it to its original form. The model did work, solved problems with 30 unknowns and gave the paper punch read out, while failing only once in 10,000 times.

We are all proud of you Grandma Doc!

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