In 1957, 10 years married and with three children, struggling to make a living in the oyster business on Tisbury Great Pond, my husband and I built our house off Music street. With four bedrooms and two bathrooms, it cost us $16,500. We had to borrow $12,000 of that and the mortgage rate was five per cent. We struggled to pay $85 a month, and for nine years we rented it out in the summer time and moved into a small camp, often with no electricity or plumbing. The most total summer rent we ever got for our house was $1,900, but we only paid $400 for a camp, so that covered our mortgage payments.

In 1958 our property was assessed at $5,350 and our taxes were $192.60. Five years later, it was still assessed at $5,350 and the tax was still $192.60.

By 1981 the value of our property had risen to $8,200 and the tax rate was $69, bringing our payment up to $282.90.

And so it went, the value of our house and land going up every year, but not enough to alarm us — at least not until the turn of the millennium. One day we woke up, years into our retirement, to realize that we had become millionaires without ever doing anything to deserve this title. Our modest home was presently assessed at $1,922,200 — and rising. In 50 years our taxes have risen from $192.60 to over $10,000 per year. And our income was greatly reduced when we both retired in 1986.

Now, it’s too late for us, as we have given our house to our children to get it out of our estate. But I have a suggestion as I imagine there are many other Islanders in the same boat, although we are dying off at an alarming rate. For those elderly homeowners who have reached the status of Senior Citizen and have lived in their homes most of their adult life, with every intention of dying in them unless they can no longer afford the taxes and have to move to Northern Maine, why not allow them to freeze their real estate taxes when they reach the age of 65. Their incomes have, no doubt, already been frozen, or perhaps diminished, while the prices of food, gas, propane, homeowner’s insurance, real estate taxes and ferry rides have continued to rise. This practice has actually been tried in some states.

The great fear of many of us elders is that we will have to leave the home we have lived in and loved for so many years because we can no longer afford to pay the rising taxes as well as the rising homeowner’s insurance, let alone the maintenance of our house and property.

I have survived many of the Island friends of my generation, but our children are now of the “Boomer” generation. Elder housing will be a huge problem in a few years, as well as increased spending and decreased income.

This is not a problem that can not be solved quickly. It requires a lot of thought and a lot of planning for the future, but it will benefit our greatest asset — our year-round population.

Shirley W. Mayhew lives in West Tisbury.