JANE N. SLATER
508-645-3378
Chilmark is enjoying a very warm early spring-summer. This week has been hot and humid, like August. What will August be like? It is a very different spring so far! Folks are arriving this weekend for their first visits of the season to their seasonal homes and finding many plants and flowers at a different place in the blooming calendar than other years. I, on the other hand, have been impatiently waiting this week for some little brown bird to hatch her eggs. She unwisely, to my thinking, chose to build her nest over our garage door so we have refrained from opening it except when necessary and have been parking down the driveway but she is taking forever to get this hatching done! She is very small, small beak and long tail just a bird, but who can resist catering to a nesting bird?
This Saturday, tomorrow, the Chilmark Church will hold a yard and plant sale at the church on Menemsha Crossroad. They will offer seedlings from Nancy Cabot, Ethel Sherman’s jams, Bob Conway’s restored chairs, household treasures and more. The hours are 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Forrest and Anne Verret Speck of Amesbury are at one of the Morgan cottages in Menemsha for their annual four-week vacation.
Nancy Nitchie of Chilmark and Vineyard Haven, has returned from an exciting vacation with friends in Oslo, Norway.
The summer library hours will be in effect as of June 1. The changes are Tuesday; now to be open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Friday; to be open from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Congratulations to Abigail Larsen, daughter of John and Susan Larsen of North Road. She has won the coveted Lillian and Arthur Dunn Scholarship given by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. It is a $2,000 award given each year for the next four years. The Martha’s Vineyard chapter of the NSDAR sponsored her. It is the first time the Martha’s Vineyard chapter has had a winner of this very competitive award. Cheers from us all!
The Yard at Beetlebung Corner has announced their summer schedule and they have some exciting programs planned. Among other things, they will offer kids’ creative theatre classes, which are six one-week sessions with music and movement, from July 5 through August 14. For more information about all the summer plans, please go to dancetheyard.org.
Chuck and Marjorie Phillips have arrived at their Larsen Lane home for the coming season. They winter in Lexington, Va. Their daughter, Susan Weber, with husband, Ed, and children Owen and Anna will arrive from Union, Me. for a week’s visit this weekend. They will be accompanied by Annie Brady of Camden, Me.
The Home Port Restaurant will be open when you read this as will the Menemsha Market. Now all the seasonal businesses in town are ready for your visits.
Marie Fischer Scott has opened her organic vegetable and flower stand for another year. She has been offering us organic veggies and flowers for about thirty years now and we are happy she is back at it. The stand is at Beetlebung Corner and sports a new sign so you will find her easily across the road from the town hall entrance on Middle Road.
I think it is time for my annual tutorial about Dutcher Dock. Rodney Dutcher, who died in 1938, was a distinguished journalist, a friend of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and well respected in Washington. He was a yachtsman who enjoyed coming to Menemsha. When the 1938 hurricane devastated the Menemsha harbor, he started a private fund to help the fishermen. The extension of the bulkhead dock, from the gas station to the jetty, was dedicated as Dutcher Dock in 1941. The dock from the charter boats to the gas station is called the Bulkhead Dock. The dock space called Dutcher Dock is used by yachtsmen to this day and the Bulkhead Dock is reserved for the commercial fishermen. Menemsha is grateful for the kindness of Rodney Dutcher. His grave is at Abel’s Hill cemetery and a bronze plaque tells of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s regard for him.
Many flowers and shrubs are in bloom at Abel’s Hill cemetery and the grounds are mowed and raked and trimmed and looking good for your Memorial Day visits.
Cheers to all for a happy holiday . . . the first long weekend of the season is always much anticipated by those here and those soon to be here.
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