Transcending Cultures

I FOUND "unexpected resonances" in the book review of "Lilavati's Daughters: The Women Scientists of India"—the deep influence of my father in the choice of my professional career in science(C&EN, Jan. 19, page 68). But the fathers described in the book were highly educated professionals, which my father was not. He was a self-educated man who had emigrated from Hungary to America in 1914. I chose chemistry in the 1930s, influenced by his mantra that "every woman should have a profession." His business was the manufacture of celluloid buttons. The odors in his small factory intrigued me, and I was eager to find out what the world was made of so I chose chemistry. He was delighted.

Esther Braun Sparberg
Great Neck, N.Y.