Opinion
Stand here and there, old Vineyard homes,
All wrapped in deep content.
— Emma Mayhew Whiting
They’re painting all the houses white in Edgartown,
capping flat pickets to fences around resplendent lawns,
cut on a diagonal. The parade is just around the corner.
Sit at the spinning wheel in the keeping room, scrimshaw
on the mantel. The crane swings in the high fireplace
and the streets are filled with shouts for
MONUMENTAL MOVE
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Our selectmen have voted to move the little-known war memorial from its somewhat obscure site at the triangle across from Whiting’s Pond to the town hall. I feel this is such a great idea I have volunteered my time and equipment to make the move.
Birds of a Feather
From Gazette editions of July, 1936:
We went to the Farmers’ Cooperative Market last Friday. It’s held in the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury every Tuesday and Friday of the summer. Most of the individual stalls were run by women who could get away from their household duties during the day to sell their own goods. They had on sale substantial, home-made products, just the kind of thing you would expect a New England good wife to produce.
By SHIRLEY MAYHEW
I have lived in West Tisbury for almost 64 years — what is there not to love? I have lived in the house we built on the north side of Look’s Pond for 54 years, and although I can no longer enjoy the activities in and around the water, I can still see it, and my memories are vivid.
EGREGIOUS ERROR
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
Stunned! Heartbroken! Furious! These are but three of the emotions I was feeling after reading about the rejection of the Island’s application to the state for federal funds to assist members of our community because of a clerical error. That is $2 million lost.
From a 1952 Gazette edition:
Since Thursday, when the Coast Guard building, three stories high, came towing into Menemsha Creek on a scow after crosssing Vineyard Sound from Cuttyhunk, people have exclaimed: “How unusual!”
But here on the Vineyard the moving of buildings by water is an old story. Not too many men are now living who have engaged in such undertakings, but there are many familiar with the history of similar movings who can point out houses and other structures that floated alongshore to their present destinations.