What’s In a Name?

When people ask me how I ended up living on the Vineyard, I generally give the short answer: that my parents were Island summer kids who met and married here, and that I’ve been coming here my whole life. And by here I mean Oak Bluffs — formerly named Cottage City, before that a part of Edgartown, historically home to the Wampanoag peoples.

I mention these past identities, the old names, because they remind me that as a child on summer vacations I had to decipher my parents’ peculiar Oak Bluffs language.

What was then The Boston House (later Seasons, now Seabags and an empty storefront), my parents called Munro’s. Our Market was Brad Church’s. Mr. C’s (now Fat Ronnie’s) was called the Frosty Cottage, where my mother worked in the 1950s while dating my dad.

At my parents’ wedding reception at Anthony’s (once Lola’s, now Nomans) by the Island Country Club (now Farm Neck Golf Club), Tubby Rebello (Anthony) almost succeeded in tossing my mother, wedding dress and all, into the pool.

The Reliable Market was simply called Pacheco’s. When I moved to the Island after college I asked Mrs. Pacheco if I could write a check for my groceries. She looked at my name on the blank check and asked, “Are you related to Mary Dolan?”

“She was my grandmother,” I said. I was good to go.

In the 1930s my quiet grandfather, Henry Dolan — the man who magically pulled nickels from behind my ears — was one of the legendary FBI G-men who tracked the money trails of old gangsters like Al Capone.

When the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped and there was a rumor that he might be on the Vineyard, my grandfather was sent here to investigate. He didn’t find the baby but was charmed by the Island. He later bought a summer cottage on Samoset avenue, just off Ocean Park, across from Naumkeag avenue from what is now the Corbin-Norton house. That house was at one point the Balla house, home to Loretta Balla, eccentric matriarch of the Sea View Hotel — and bar. I used to sneak into that bar before the once grand hotel became the nondescript Sea View condominiums.

My mother’s family owned a rambling cottage on Tuckernuck avenue. Family included grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. This was back when a family of modest means could pool their money and buy a summer home.

On Sundays we went to mass at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church. Sometimes teenaged girls from the Girl Scout Sailing Camp (now the town-owned Sailing Camp Park) rode their bikes to the church with guitars strapped to their backs and played folk masses.

After mass we walked to the Wigwam Paper Store (now Anchor Realty, formerly The Secret Garden) to pick up the Sunday edition of The New York Times. The Wigwam was dark and cramped and smelled like newsprint.

We stayed with my grandparents in the Samoset avenue house and spent our days at Joseph Sylvia State Beach, which of course we just called State Beach. During the Sunday evening band concerts in Ocean Park, my sister and I ran ’round and ’round the bandstand with a pack of other carefree, hyperactive kids. We always called it the bandstand, which by definition it is, and not a gazebo, which it is not.

After trips to the Flying Horses (Carousel) my parents treated us to chocolate lollipops at Hilliard’s (Hilliard’s Kitch-In-View Candy, now Martha’s Vineyard Island Life Studio), popcorn at Darling’s (now Murdick’s Fudge) or penny candy at the little candy store next to the Flying Horses (once Seguista’s, now The Good Shoppe).

One day after the beach I was finishing my bath when the town fire alarm went off. My grandfather was standing in front of the pantry door, counting the siren calls and studying the chart that matched the number of sirens to the fire location. He suddenly turned around in shock, looked toward the window and said, “It’s the boat wharf.” (Not the ferry dock or the Steamship Authority terminal, simply the boat wharf.)

We joined the crowd squeezed against the metal railing above the beach as the sky over the boat wharf turned a deep, billowing black and flames tore away at the structure. A cigarette discarded onto the old wooden planks caused the fire. I think of it every time I see the current “No Smoking” sign at the entrance to the ferry walkway. (The black smoke, in part, arose from creosote-soaked timbers and pilings.)

I was eight years old in 1969 when my parents rented their own place for the July vacation. We stayed at the Red Colonial Apartments (now a private home) on Wayland avenue by the Ocean View Restaurant (soon to be a hotel, as it once was).

One night a report came on the radio about an accident involving Ted Kennedy and the Dyke Bridge on Chappaquiddick. The next night we watched men walk on the moon. In my mind those two summer events will forever be linked, one deadly, the other triumphant.

The Red Colonial was a short walk from the Old Stone Building (now the Martha’s Vineyard Commission office) on New York avenue. Back then it housed a burger joint called Flintstone’s. My father loved the French fries.

One summer I took swimming lessons at the beach between the Oak Bluffs Harbor and the boat wharf. If that beach had a name back then I don’t remember it, and it doesn’t seem to have an official name now. My future husband also took swimming lessons there as a child and I like to think we met each other then.

Many years later Steve Durkee proposed to me on what is now known as Inkwell Beach. Steve passed away recently, far too soon, at age 64.

Now I have a new identity — a widow. My friends are looking after me. One morning over coffee I mentioned to Susie Middleton (editor of this publication) that I was interested in writing a piece for The Vine. I chose to write about the words of my childhood, I think, because right now I’m engulfed in a new language, one of sorrow. Yet as I look back, I realize that the thread running through all the old names and identities was love — love of people, of place, of laughter, of community and connection. Words can evoke beloved memories, and memories help sustain us.

 

Liz Dolan Durkee lives in Oak Bluffs. She was the long-time conservation agent for Oak Bluffs and then climate change planner at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

This article appears in July 2026.