From the April 22, 1960 Gazette:

Shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday morning, Miss Marjorie Manter of West Tisbury took her large portfolio filled with papers and newly sharpened pencils, a paper bag containing her lunch, a mason jar filled with water, an extra jacket and a pair of gloves, and an assortment of bananas and chocolate bars and put them all in a battered but sturdy Chevrolet truck. The chores in the barn had already been attended to, and now she was ready to head not, as one might suppose from all the preparations, for the great unknown, but for the hills of Chilmark. It was just another day in the life of a census taker.

But, in a way, Chilmark — in fact the whole of up-Island — has turned out to be a great unknown. The bigwigs of the census had no idea of the peculiar nature of this supposedly rural area when they assigned one enumerator to cover Gay Head, Chilmark, West Tisbury and part of Tisbury. Fortunately that one enumerator turned out to be Miss Manter, who is possessed of extraordinary energy and cheerfulness, without which she would certainly have despaired of the gigantic task before now.

At a house in the Middle Road neighborhood, all that was seen of the residents was a friendly cocker spaniel who was let out after waking up his master, and that same master’s hand as it emerged through the door for the form in response to Miss Manter’s cheerful greeting. The unseen gentleman explained sleepily that he was not presentable.

Before the morning had progressed much further, Miss Manter, with the aid of another household dog, was to wake up another gentleman, but this one couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed at the moment. Obligingly, the censuser said she would return a little later, and then she went on to the home of a spirited elderly lady dressed in blue jeans, who announced, “I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky to be counted in the census.”

No slug-a-bed she. Her house looked as if only a moment ago it has been polished from stem to stern, and she invited the guest into her parlor, where she solicitously asked her if she had much trouble from the people she called on. Miss Manter said that everyone had been just wonderful.

From then until two hours later when Miss Manter returned to the house of the gentleman who would not get out of bed, not another live human being was counted. Down the South Road the sturdy truck bounced, almost to Abel’s Hill, and every house visited was vacant, except one, and nobody was at home at that one.

But the fact that there were no people to count did not mean that the task ahead was easier for Miss Manter, for an important part of her job is to enumerate dwellings whether there are any people in them or not. She had to look at them all, and write down the number of rooms they had, and whether they have running water and toilets, and what sort of condition they are in.

It was regarding this particular phase of the census that Chilmark furnished the real surprise. Everybody knows that in the winter time the population of the town is far from being large, but to call it a primarily rural community would be stretching a point. It is thick with houses as many an urban area, but only a person familiar with all the back roads, which are normally closed off with either gates or no-trespassing signs or both, would be able to guess how thoroughly built up it really is.

The truck clambered up a South Road hill, passing by a gang of young boys with fish poles out for the first day of trout season, to a point on top where it seemed the whole world was hove into view. She had to check an ancient Island house set within a labyrinth of stone walls. The house was known to be empty in winter, but fortunately there was a workman on duty, who was able to point out not one but seven buildings other than the main house that could be called dwellings, which meant the enumerator had to go to each one and peek in windows to see how many rooms they had. She almost bypassed a small, low structure, with a door about four and a half feet high, almost certain that it was a chicken house. But she looked in the window just to be sure, and discovered two beds, qualifying the structure as a dwelling in the eyes of the census bureau.

Temporarily revived by an energy-producing chocolate bar, she turned the truck back to visit the man who had been sleeping, this time to find him dressed, brushed, wide awake and ready to cope with the census taker. After completing this, her last human census of the day, she investigated more empty houses. “I like to look in the windows,” she said, “but it worries me a little because I know one of these days I’m going to look in a window and find somebody looking out at me.”

Soon morning had turned into afternoon. Most of Abel’s Hill still awaited. Commenting that she had been glad to have had the company of a reporter while taking census of empty houses, she turned the truck around, and was last seen heading off, still cheerful, but bravely so, it seemed. Compiled by Cynthia Meisner

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