The moments that we are trying to convey with our kaleidoscope are from when Madelyn lived in Israel. She was there during the 1990 Gulf War, which was an important war. She described that living there during the Gulf War was very chaotic as she would often hear loud noises like alarms. Her family was concerned about Madelyn's safety and due to lack of technology at the time, she could barely communicate with her family who was back in America. She could make telephone calls to her sons, but that was sometimes difficult and inconvenient.
Israel, at the time, was still sometimes wrongly thought of as a war zone, but as Madelyn described Israel, it was a very peaceful country. However, there was still conflict while she was in Israel. There were robberies, murders, bombings, and more, which must have contributed to Madelyn's family being concerned when she left America for Israel. In 1990 when Madelyn was in her 50's, jobs were much better than jobs from 30 years prior in 1960 when Madelyn was a secretary at Harvard Business School and job opportunities for women were very minimal at the time. Madelyn was able to get good jobs and work hard in a time where that was very impressive for a women to do that. Based on historical context, Madelyn was ahead of her time.