JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

(slaterjn@comcast.net)

Chilmark has been a dark and dreary place this past week with lots of wind and rain. The fall foliage is pretty much gone for this year and the general aspect is gray. A sunny day, even a short one, will improve the mood! Hopefully, before you read this!

This week we thank our veterans out loud; hopefully, we have been thanking them everyday in some way. Just enjoying our rights and privileges should remind us of their cost. We give thanks to all who served, serve and will serve.

We were saddened this week to hear of the death of Ethel Whitman on Nov. 9. She had a long Chilmark history, and many of us remember when she came to teach at the Menemsha School. She was 93 when she died last week at her daughter’s home in Rhode Island. She leaves behind many friends who will miss her lively personality and gracious ways.

Facebook, my window on the world, has told me that Rene Fischer is home from the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and feeling much better. We are all happy to hear that and hope to see her out and about soon.

The first of the holiday fairs will be at the Trinity Parish House in Oak Bluffs on Nov. 13, tomorrow. Lunch will be served from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the sale hours are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Rich Riley and Vicki Bell of western Massachusetts, married on Oct. 9, came here for the perfect fall honeymoon weekend at the Rasmus Klimm house on Basin Road. The house is perfectly positioned for enjoying the sunsets and the peaceful visas of the fall season. The couple are friends of Tom Klimm, grandson of Rasmus.

The parent open house at the Chilmark Public library will be on Wednesday, Nov. 17, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. The children will give guided tours of the library and the librarian, Kristin Maloney, will give the parents a brief overview of the library programs for the students. Refreshments will be served.

Soup suppers begin at the Chilmark Church on Nov. 16. All are welcome.

Peter and Sally Cook, their daughter, Caitlin, and their granddaughter, Maeve Cook-Martin, traveled on Nov. 5 to Kingston, N.J., for a visit with Peter’s mother, Joan Cook, and others of the Cook family. En route they visited with Seth and Joanne Wakeman in Stonington, Conn. Daughter Annie Cook, of Arlington, Va., joined the family as they traveled to the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia for the opening of a show of paintings by New Hope painter John Folinsbee. He was great grandfather of Caitlin and Annie and great-great-grandfather of Maeve. He was Peter’s grandfather. There is a book in the Chilmark library on the work of John Folinsbee written by the late Peter G. Cook and edited by Peter B. Cook of Chilmark and Cambridge. The family returned to Chilmark in time to celebrate Calder Martin’s birthday at the family home on Nov. 7.

Chilmark’s stonewalls took a beating this week with two separate auto accidents that ended with stonewalls being damaged. Fortunately, no one suffered injuries.

I recently saw one of our Island publications offering instructions on how to kill chickens for food. I can tell you that growing up in that smaller Chilmark I often tell you about, I was a fast learner of that skill and you can be too! One day when I was about nine years old my mother announced that Ernest Campos, the Vineyard Haven SBS grocery deliveryman and friend to all, was not coming that Saturday. He had been helping out by killing two chickens for my mother every Saturday after my grandfather died. So I was handed an axe and assured that I must have seen how Ernest did it. Well, let me tell you, even a nine year old can do it. Survival skills during a war and in a small town surely included killing animals for the table and I understood that. So, as I say, it doesn’t take much instruction! I still eat chicken.