Warren Doty Memorial Celebrates a Beloved Islander

Warren Doty’s banjo stood center stage on Saturday afternoon at the Chilmark Community Center, where hundreds of Islanders joined the Doty family for a celebratory memorial that was filled with stories and songs.

Mr. Doty, who served on the Chilmark select board from 1999 to 2023, died March 3 after a long illness. He was 82.

His daughter, Laura Doty Indigo, opened Saturday’s gathering with a performance on flute of The Waltz of the Wind by Fred Rose. It was one of Mr. Doty’s favorite songs, said Nan Doty, his wife of 62 years, as she welcomed the memorial audience.

“Warren loved to accompany Laura’s flute with the banjo, and I loved to hear them and feel the synchronicity that music creates between musicians and others that are listening. It is an unspoken language all of its own,” she said.

It was his banjo playing that brought the couple together when they were teenagers at a Unitarian youth conference, Ms. Doty said.

“The banjo was playing, and I was somewhere else, and I was just like, drawn into it, and then to the person behind it,” she told the audience.

Music remained a constant theme for Mr. Doty, who in retirement formed a regular up-Island singing circle that became known as the Loon Lane Singers.

Members of the group joined other Island musicians, including singer and guitarist Ellen Biskis and bassist Tauras Biskis, for several of Mr. Doty’s favorite folk songs during the memorial celebration, encouraging the audience to sing along.

A procession of family members and friends took the stage in turn for personal tributes to Mr. Doty’s life.

Grandchildren Tavi Pollard, Max Schafroth Doty and Felix Schafroth Doty recalled strong coffee, early-morning trips to Menemsha and their grandfather’s devotion to his town.

“He was a quiet guy, but he had a lot to say,” Felix Schafroth-Doty said.

Ms. Doty Indigo looked back on her father’s unswerving support for her music education, which during high school required regular trips to Boston for lessons, orchestra rehearsals and recitals.

One stormy weekend when boats were being canceled, she said, she was due to play in a concert at New England Conservatory. The family were able to catch one remaining boat as walk-ons, but it would arrive in Woods Hole too late for a bus to get them to the city in time.

Mr. Doty worked his contacts as a fish wholesaler to save the day, Ms. Doty Indigo said.

“He was able to find a large, working refrigerated fish truck so he could drive us to Boston and deliver me to the concert at Jordan Hall just in the nick of time,” she said.

Ms. Doty Indigo and her parents rode in the truck’s cab, but the seafood odor was pervasive, she recalled.

“I remember swinging the door open of the fish truck just outside Jordan Hall and jumping out in my elegant, long, black velvet concert dress with the smell of fish as I walked into the building… thinking, no one is going to understand what I went through to get to this concert today,” Ms. Doty Indigo said.

Speakers Andy Goldman, Chris Murphy, Isaiah Scheffer and J.Y. Lipke each paid tribute to Mr. Doty’s friendship and his deep sense of community.

“Warren was all about people,” Mr. Murphy said. “Each of us here today was important to Warren, and he never stopped being interested in what each of us was doing and thinking and feeling.”

Ms. Doty Indigo also sang her father’s own Song to the Sunset, and took his banjo from the stage for the memorial’s finale: Roll On, Chilmark, Roll On, a Woody Guthrie tune with lyrics adjusted by Mr. Doty to honor his beloved town: “Your people are keeping our spirit so strong/Roll on, Chilmark, roll on.”

This article appears in March 27, 2026.