MARGARET KNIGHT
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This is the traditional time of year for looking forward — New Year’s resolutions have been made (and probably broken) by now. It’s also a useful time of year for looking backwards. I didn’t make any resolutions, but I’ve been doing some cleaning out to start the new year. I’m throwing out things I’ve been saving during 30 or more years, like Christmas cards and postcards from family’s and friends’ travels. But it’s hard to know what to save, what might be of interest in the future.
People wrote letters back when I was growing up, and when you read them you can get a picture of a person’s life. When the kids that are growing up now try to look back at their lives, the e-mails and text messages will be gone and the Facebook walls erased. Maybe that won’t matter to some people, but I have a record of New Year’s resolutions I wrote when I was 11: “Don’t eat candy unless given to you and is one of your three favorite kinds.” The other resolutions had to do with cleaning my canary’s cage and writing in my diary every day. When my canary died soon after, I felt guilty about not cleaning his cage for years, probably because of my New Year’s resolution. As far as keeping my diary, I wrote daily until March 15; the rest of the book is blank.
Other people were better diary keepers, and it’s thanks to them that we can get a picture of ordinary life in past times. Some Chappy summer residents kept “a conscientious record of the life” on Chappaquiddick at the end of the 1800s in their Log Book of Shantycamp, a copy of which is in the community center library. Shantycamp belonged to the Childs, ancestors of the Tilghmans and Pinneys, and my family by marriage, and was the house on the bluff overlooking the outer harbor now belonging to Sally Nicholas. Here are some entries from 1898:
August 11, Miss Schermerhorn came with her guests, Miss Marian French and Miss Applegate, and spent the evening with us. We lighted the fire in the new fire place, toasted crackers were passed around by Miss Applegate, and we made merry with song and story. Miss French gave us some excellent solos, and Miss Applegate gave us a very pretty impromptu Spanish dance and we remember it as an extremely pleasant evening at the Camp.
August 18, We had the Handy’s pleasure wagon and made a trip around [Chappy], calling at Mrs. Lester Clark’s.
August 31, Wind S.W. Very warm today but cool and fine this evening. Moonlight in its greatest loveliness. Olive, Humphrey and Norwin went down to the pier this a.m. and spent some time in watching the crabs and other creatures, greatly interesting to Humphrey. Mary and Miss Sears brought their Kodaks and took pictures of the camp inside and out this p.m. Made them some lemonade and they treated us to sweet chocolate. Had a nice chat on the piazza. Letter from Linus in Dorchester.
Life sure seemed simpler then. A different kind of record of the past appeared when the buried fuel tanks at the Point were discovered recently. Some people remembered Tony Bettencourt selling gas and kerosene there in the 1940s. There used to be several buildings at the Point, which you can see in the Chappaquiddick recollections book (edited by Hatsy Potter). It’s thanks to Ruth Welch that we have so many great pictures of Chappy in the first half of the 1900s. One photo shows the Welch family ponies tied to the front porch of Tony’s ferry house just after the 1938 hurricane. On the door is written Home Club. That ferry house was later moved to the Bass property where it still sits right next to the road up the hill after Litchfield. Gerry Jeffers remembered the large steel building, across the road from the ferry house, that belonged to the Jeremiahs and was later moved, at least in part, to Foster Silva’s property across from the firehouse.
In talking to Gerry about the gas pump at the Point, we tried to establish the dates that he had sold gas at his service station where the Chappy Store is now. Gerry grew up on the island, left it as a young man, and returned with his family in 1969. He started his service station and sold gas there until about 1973 when the oil crisis caused a shortage of gas. I remembered because that was the year I bought my first car, a big old station wagon gas-guzzler.
January is amnesty month at the Edgartown library. If you bring an appropriate donation for the Island Food Pantry, the library will forgive the overdue fines on your card. The library’s fat-free film festival starts on Tuesday, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. with Big Night.
A new library design will be unveiled to the public on Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 6 p.m. in the school cafeteria.
The next potluck at the community center is postponed until Jan. 26. Claire Thacher and Roger Becker will host. Bring a main dish or dessert to share.
Susan Klein will be telling stories at 7 p.m. at Grace Church tonight, Jan. 14. Stories for a Starry Night will be appropriate for adolescent and adult audiences. Tickets are $15 at the door.
Next week’s column will be written by Hatsy Potter, former Chappy columnist, who began writing in the Chappy Chit Chat, as a child in the 1960s.
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