I had known Stan Hart’s father before I knew him. His father had bought from real estate baron Mary Guerin in 1936 what my father had not bought from her in 1931, from the Middle Road to the sea, in Chilmark. Also Mary had sold the back of our property twice, to Stan’s father as well. This accounts for the many stone or concrete boundary markers there. Stan’s father’s final house on Abel’s Hill was our closest neighbor to the south.

Stan as noted by others, was at times a bon vivant, tennis player with aplomb, yachtsman, raconteur, writer, journalist, bookseller, restaurateur, maitre d’ and real estate broker. As such he was the Island’s own incarnation of George Plimpton.

Stan was often helpful to the novice, younger writers and was always willing to share his experience of the publishing process regarding publishing houses, editors and book critics. A rare lecture on this topic at the Vineyard Haven Public Library was standing room only as Stan held forth. He was quite literally a who’s who of serious, significant Americans.

Unlike his darker peer at nearby Provincetown, Norman Mailer, Stan’s writings suggest that he learned from his women. They both had their demons.

The Island writing community identified with Stan as with no other, as he was ours. When a new column or article of his appeared in the Vineyard Gazette, sales would jump, as we all bought extra copies. It is too bad that neither of the local papers honored him and us with a mourning editorial surrounded by heavy black borders, or rules.

Finis.

Peter Colt Josephs

Chilmark