Jane N. Slater
Welcome aboard we said when the mainlanders came offering big bucks for our family land, old houses, barns.
Sometime by the early 1900s, Islanders learned that they could rent the most primitive of dwellings to city folk for summer vacations.
It was 1945, the war was over and new people had bought the Home Port restaurant in Menemsha and planned to reopen it for the coming summer.
The late 1930s and early 1940s were a busy time in Chilmark as residents prepared for the privations that the impending world war would place on them.
JANE N. SLATER
508-645-3378
Chilmark has not been forgotten by the national news. ABC News carried an article by Genevieve Shaw Brown on Feb. 18 entitled Vacations of the Presidents. The lead picture was of Menemsha harbor; the article suggested the Clintons and Obamas were mainly interested in Martha’s Vineyard for the beaches, golf games and ice cream. Maybe she hasn’t been here. And what about President Grant? Oh, well, it is February and columnists here and beyond are hard-pressed for real news!