Chilmark is alive and well and having a good time! We had a huge weekend with summer pleasures being experienced all around us. I hope the beach folk took advantage of the beach bus shuttle. I heard a boat brought in a large haul of yellowfin tuna to Menemsha on the weekend.

Ray and Lillian Kellman, popular Chilmark residents, celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary on Friday, July 17. The pair were married in Brooklyn when Ray was serving as a B-24 pilot. Their daughter, Christine Kellman, is here from Sea Cliff, N.J., son Peter Kellman and his wife Kimberly and sons Michael and Matthew are here from Bethesda, Md. and their daughter Lisa and husband Dino Lucas are in from San Francisco. The family reunion and celebration will take place at the Kellman home in Chilmark. We all send cheers and best wishes to Ray and Lillian on their special day!

Craig and Donna Lowe, along with children Abby and Zach, enjoyed a long weekend with Craig’s sister, Chris Lowe Slater and her family in Menemsha last week. They have returned to Pennsylvania.

Jackie Mendez-Diez is enjoying a visit from her daughter, Alexandra, who is vacationing from her home in Brooklyn.

Jonathan Neumann and his son, Elijah, are in Chilmark for a week visiting Jon’s parents, Conrad and Jane Neumann.

Chilmark has a new homeowner. Harriet Bernstein of West Tisbury has recently purchased the Kaufman house on Trail’s End. She grew up spending her summers at Menemsha Inn with her family and is now happy to be a homeowner here.

Jake Meegan is in from Boulder, Colo. for a brief summer visit with his family and friends to celebrate his 21st birthday. Jake is the son of Bill and Emily Meegan of Middle Road. Cheers from us all!

Please note that Chilmark artist Wendy Weldon will be showing a collection of new works for 2015 at the Field Gallery. The show, called Color, will open on July 19 and run through August 1. The opening reception will be Sunday, July 19 from 5 to 7 p.m.

The Chilmark library invites us to their Wednesday 5 p.m. program on July 22. Ali Berlow will discuss her new book, The Food Activist Handbook: Big and Small Things You Can Do to Provide Fresh, Healthy Food for Your Community. Ali is the founder of Island Grown Initiative and editor of the popular magazine Edible Vineyard. Admission is free and the program is sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Library.

Carol Brown Goldberg sends word that she is included in a show called One-on-One at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., running now through Sept. 6. The show pairs works of modern artists with those of past successful artists and Carol is happy to be paired with Henri Matisse. If you are in the neighborhood, it might be a fun show to see.

Please remember that the evening of tribute to the late Chilmark poet, Peggy Freydberg, will be at the Hebrew Center in Vineyard Haven on July 27 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. with wine, cheese and poetry readings by many accomplished women in the arts.

Please join me in wishing my granddaughter, Celia Slater, a happy 17th birthday. She is currently a Galley Girl and enjoying her first summer as a fulltime resident of Menemsha.

There has been a disturbing amount of talk about race and racism this summer and I feel compelled to tell you about an event that caused Chilmark to face that issue in the late 1940s. It seems impossible to me that Jessie Benton has had to defend her father from racist accusations. Thomas Hart Benton was in Chilmark that summer in the late ‘40s, as he had been for many summers before, and he was living in his first home here. It was located in what we called a field and the field held four small cottages that we called camps. These camps were within sight of each other and the tenants were people who had grown to know each other and share the space, the beach, and the summer.

My mother rented the four camps each summer, often to folks that were referred to her by others who also rented from her. The summer I was 14 or so, in 1946, she was asked to rent to the daughter of a well-known industrialist who was asking for some privacy and said she would have a guest. My mother had a camp that had a separate guesthouse and arranged to rent it to the lady. A few days after she had settled in it became common knowledge that her guest was a black man.

Now also in Chilmark that summer was the son of a wealthy landowner who had inherited several homes and was interested in renting them. He became angry and began talking to folks in town about how the rental of a Chilmark camp to a black man was sure to adversely effect rentals in town. There was a definite sense of tension for a few days. After that, the irate gentleman called for a public meeting to discuss the subject. Word spread, and the town hall was opened one evening for the public meeting. The room was full. The tenants from the camps in the field were all present.

Tom and Rita Benton were well acquainted with my mother and her tenants and may well have made the referral of one of Tom’s collectors, and I remember that they supported my mother. Everyone sat there while the angry gentleman sat in the middle of the small stage and began a tirade against such rentals and the presence of blacks in Chilmark. The crowd was quiet; no one heckled him, and he continued with his bigoted remarks. When he began to tell us a story about his childhood in Washington D.C. and used a racist term, everyone in the room rose silently and exited. To my recollection, there was never another problem about to whom you rented in Chilmark.

Now, back to Tom Benton and his race issue. He certainly shared the positive intent of that night and in many of his paintings that showed much more love and respect than most artists who worked in the 40s. It is too bad that so many memories fade and those born later miss the emotion of experiences of that time.

Send Chilmark news to slaterjn@comcast.net.