They are the perfect Valentine’s Day couple. Albert O. (Ozzie) Fischer Jr., 95, met his future bride, Rene S. McLaughlin, at the Chilmark Tavern in 1938. They danced.
And just a few weeks ago they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.
“When she first saw me, she was a little bit surprised. I either had a necktie or a piece of rope for a belt,” Mr. Fischer recalled while seated with his bride in the dining room of their house overlooking Beetlebung Corner.
They are a classic married couple. He begins a sentence, she finishes it. Throughout their seven decades of marriage, most of those years in Chilmark, they’ve rarely been out of earshot or walking distance from each other.
When the they first met, Mr. Fischer was a farmer and a 1936 graduate of the Massachusetts State Agricultural College in Stockbridge. He grew up in Vineyard Haven. Rene worked as a beautician at Marenne Beauty Shoppe on Main street in Edgartown, run by her sister Marie. She was originally from Maine, and graduated from the Rose Millicent Johnson School in Boston.
They were married in 1940, the same year Winston Churchill became prime minister and France surrendered to Germany. “When we got married, I was working in Cambridge at a shop that belonged to my sister. Things were tough,” Mrs. Fischer said.
After a wedding in Belmont, the Fischers settled in a home on Daggett avenue in Vineyard Haven for a year. “Terrible high rent. It cost $25 a month,” Mr. Fischer said.
In those days, a pint of fresh-picked currents earned Mr. Fischer three cents, he recalled. His work as a farmer included clearing land off Lambert’s Cove Road in the area that today is Pilot Hill Farm. Later he worked at Camp Devens as a carpenter and a roofer.
They moved to Edgartown in 1944, after buying a house in Ocean Heights. For several years Mr. Fischer worked for Columbus O’Donnell Iselin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on a 38-foot black hulled schooner called Reliance. The captain of the research vessel was Stanley Poole of Chilmark. Also working on the vessel was a cook and deckhand named Nelson Bryant. Mr. Bryant later would go on to become a New York Times outdoor columnist. The crew of the vessel studied the movement of sound underwater, using explosives.
Mr. Fischer said the job kept him out of the military draft and earned him a citation from the U.S. Navy.
The Vineyard crew on the Reliance commuted to work in Woods Hole on a launch.
“It was tough times, we tried to stay on a food budget of $4 a week. I didn’t quite make it, it was $5,” Mrs. Fischer said.
“We worked hard,” Mr. Fischer added.
In June of 1946, Mr. Fischer was hired as superintendent of the Chilmark farm owned by Elden B. Keith of Brockton. This brought the Fischers into Chilmark and that is where they stayed, raising four children and putting down permanent roots. “It was a wonderful place,” Mr. Fischer said.
And while Mr. Fischer worked on the farm, Rene opened a beauty shop up the road in 1955. In that same year the Chilmark public library moved from the town hall to its present location. Also that year, Mr. Fischer became fire chief. He stayed in that post until 1967, when he became a selectman until 1971. He also held the post of constable and dog officer from 1954 to 1967.
Mr. Fischer had six cows and was a member of the Martha’s Vineyard Cooperative Dairy which operated from 1940 to 1969. In those days milk was delivered to Island doorsteps. The Fischers raised pigs, chickens and beef. A small vegetable garden produced enough for two families on the property. They bought their present home in 1960 and called it Beetlebung Farm. Mr. Fischer retired from his work on the Keith Farm in 1980.
And now they have lived in Chilmark for 65 years, growing vegetables and flowers, often walking away from the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Fair in West Tisbury with armfuls of ribbons, especially for their flowers. Mr. Fischer also served as president of the agricultural society.
They have 15 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. “Six or eight aren’t married yet, so we got a lot of prospects,” Mr. Fischer said.
The Fischers celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on Jan. 25 with a family party at their Beetlebung Farm home.
And on Sunday they will be celebrating more than Valentine’s Day. Their son Albert (Bert) Fischer 3rd was born on Feb. 13, 1949, a short time before midnight.
This article appears in February 12, 2010.
Thank you Mr. Lovewell for this piece on my grandparents. They continue to amaze me those two. Still so full of life and many stories. Coming home for the holidays this year was great, getting so much snow forced me inside with Pops, just watching the birds everyday and hearing their stories. Having recently moved away from the Vineyard it was time that I treasured. You captured the history that still lives with those two and the sass they still have. I told Pops not to go get a divorce now that he reached the 70th anniversary. Thanks again for recognizing them.
Nathaniel
Congratulations to Ozzie and Rene on their 70th anniversary! Here are two people who probably influenced almost every child growing up in Chilmark beginning in the 1950’s. The farm provided a natural “Disney World” to the youngsters who played there. In winter Ozzie would pack the snow on “steer shed hill” with his tractor and rock sled and kids from all over town could sled to their heart’s content. In the summer it was riding the cows with Albert and haying where all of us youngsters would sit on the hay wagon as Ozzie traversed along the rows of hay bales. Once we stored the bales in the barn hay mow he provided us all with cold bottles of soda. It wasn’t a job, it was a right of passage! Rene’s “banana milk” was like nectar of the Gods to us kids. Too many wonderful memories to write down here. Ozzie and Rene continue to embody what a rural community is all about.
So happy to read about the Fischers. We used to live close to them in Florida. Ozzie and me used to fish together every morning. They were truly very remarkable people. Please let me know if they are still living.