Ruhling: The Woman who takes History to Heart
As a historian, Heather Nicole Lonks Minty is used to telling stories.
Other peopleâs.
So thatâs where we start.
Weâre 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 âhuman lettersâ are unceremoniously returned when the recipient refuses to sign for them.)
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Heather starts a new job next month.
âA delivery boy had to actually walk them there,â Heather says, smiling at their audacity and cleverness. âDuring the mailbox bombing and arson campaign of 1912 through 1914, one woman used to hide explosive devices in her wheelchair.â
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 Wilsonâs attention.
Heather, a tall woman with glamorous gold-rimmed spectacles, tells these and other stories about everyday people to make history come alive.
Whether youâre talking about women picketing to get the right to vote or young men protesting the draft, the stories resonate because âit could be you or someone in your family,â she says.
Thatâs why she finds walking tours so thrilling: You get to stand in a space where history took place.
As far as Heatherâs 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 bachelorâs 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 masterâs in public history at Royal Holloway, University of London.
âPublic history is all about getting history to the public,â she says. âThese days, there are many engaging ways to tell stories that are not just exhibitions in museums.â
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 âcuteâ Scotsman fascinated with U.S. history who had a fellowship with the museum.
âWe 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,â she says.
They were introduced at a staff meeting, but Heather wasnât impressed enough to pay much attention to him.
It was Tinder that kindled their romance.
âI swiped right, but I still didnât recognize him,â she says, adding that the people on fellowships like Chris had separate work areas so she never saw him. âHe sent me a message saying he thought we worked in the same building.â
Heather thought it was a pickup line until she verified the information.
On Nov. 4, 2014 â Heather, ever the historian, remembers the exact date â they met for coffee.
âOur love of history connected us,â she says. âWe spent five hours talking â itâs probably the longest coffee date known to man.â
Their relationship deepened their appreciation not only for each other but also for their respective areas of study.
âHe opened my eyes to parts of American history I had never seen before,â 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.
âThe holiday, of course, is not celebrated in Scotland, so he really didnât know what he was getting into,â she says. âMy mother sent him home with so much food â and he discovered corn bread.â
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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 Heatherâs family.
Heather was working for Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit that focuses on New York Cityâs and stateâs 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, Heatherâs 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 womenâs rights.
âHaving a daughter makes this even more exciting because instead of fighting only for myself now, Iâm fighting for her and her generation,â she says. âThat makes it easier for me to leave her and go back to work.â
Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com;  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com, astoriacharacters.com.