Elsie Barber Trask, a summer Vineyarder since 1911, died peacefully in Stamford, Conn. on April 11.

She was l00 years old, having celebrated her centennial Feb. 13 with a four-generational dinner at the Rowayton, Conn. home of her daughter, Elsie Trask Wheeler and husband Link Wheeler.

Elsie Barber Trask often told stories of her wonderful days summering on the Vineyard with her Aunt Enid, a sculptor.

Mrs. Wheeler elicited the following memories from her mother during her 95th birthday reunion on the Vineyard. This Gazette article is reprinted from that time:

Mother came up from New York on the Fall River Line, which she recalls as being very elegant, with red velvet upholstery and staterooms and a band that played in the evening. "By morning we would be all excited to hop down from our upper bunks and step onto the Vineyard for another summer," she said.

Except for the war years, Mother has come to the Vineyard almost every year since 1911. She stayed at the home of her aunt, sculptor Enid Yandell. The home in Edgartown is the old Thatcher Academy on the corner of School street and Davis Lane, which was then a dirt road. Mother eventually inherited the house and studio from Miss Yandell.

Once she was settled, she and her two older sisters and a companion headed for the beach. There's a picture of her in a bubble-like cap and period swimming costume when she was five or six. The background landscape is basically unchanged.

"Sometimes we went skinny-dipping at South Beach," she remembered. "There weren't many people then. Now there seems to me to be lots of people!"

"As a teenager," she said, "I remember going up-Island to visit U.S. Senator and Mrs. Butler, who were friends of Aunt Enid and lived on the water. I told Mrs. Butler I had forgotten my bathing suit. She replied, ‘The President was here and left his behind.'" (Men and women then both wore black wool, scratchy things that had half legs and straps over each shoulder.) Mrs. Butler kindly handed me the suit. I was very surprised that it was full of moth holes. President Coolidge, I thought, left it for good reason.

"Another place we loved to go was Gay Head, which was not cordoned off then. We would scramble down the cliff and collect different colored sands to put in layers in our clear bottles. We tried not to dump them over in the car on the way home.

"When it rained, we'd be taken to Oak Bluffs to spend the afternoon at the Flying Horses," she said. "It was one of the first merry-go-rounds in the country. If you caught the brass ring, you got a free ticket for the next ride. My older sisters had longer arms than I did. But I could lean further out off my flying horse. After the rides, we ate lots of cotton candy and felt sick.

"There are other memories, such as Lenny, the man who thought he was a stand-up horse. He trotted as he delivered his wagon loads of groceries to people. And I'll never forget following my cousin, Charlie, around until we figured out where the steep stairs to the bell tower were. Then we could stop the bell in the belfry of the Old Whaling Church."

Mother came of age in Edgartown through the phone operators. When she arrived in town, she went to the switchboard, where brass-tipped cords got plugged into holes to make the connections. "I would ask where the cocktail party was that night," she said.

Edgartown harbor had many catboats when Mother was a young lady, and each had a captain for the requisite afternoon sail. The harbor also had huge yawls like the 110-foot Manxman and Flying Cloud, the Post family's square-rigged schooner, which was still private then.

"I remember boarding a catboat next to the Edgartown Yacht Club, near the coal dock," Mother said. "I'm sure my mother and aunt, who went with us, paid for our excursion. We were served tea and dainty little sandwiches, while the captain sailed around, the women wearing their big hats."

In 1930, Mother married Jake Trask, who loved the Vineyard. (After he became commodore of the Edgartown Yacht Club, he called her the commodorable.) She inherited the Yandell property: the big house and the studio. She usually rented one out and lived in the other with her family. The children and grandchildren never knew which of the two houses they would stay in until they arrived. When Ted Kennedy's disaster struck, NBC newsmen stayed in one of the houses. And later, when Jaws was filmed, one of the houses was filled with cameramen.

"I haven't been to the Vineyard in the last three years," she said. "My family planned this for me, and it's a joy to be back."

Mrs. Trask was an alumna of the Chapin School in New York city, class of 1925. Later she was president of the alumnae association and a member of the board of trustees. She was an interior designer for 60 years, a principal in the firm of Trask and Clark Interiors.

She was a tireless worker for charity and historic preservation. Mrs. Trask was president general of the Colonial Dames of America. She had been a member of the Cosmopolitan Club, the Decorators Club, the Edgartown Yacht Club. She was president of the Edgartown Boys' Club.

She was the daughter of the late Donn and Elsie Yandell Barber.

Survivors include a daughter, Elsie Yandell Trask and her husband Halsted (Link) Wheeler of Rowayton, Conn.; two sons, John J. Trask and his wife Jill of Pennington, N.J., and Richard T.B. Trask and his wife Cindy of Old Greenwich, Conn.; seven grandchildren, Ethan, Emma, Lucy, Jake and Will Trask, Chelsie Wheeler Olney and Blue Wheeler; two great-grandchildren, Myles Trask Olney and Hadley Trask Wheeler; and many nieces and a nephew.

Mrs. Trask was predeceased by her husband of 47 years, John J. Trask.

A service of celebration for the life of Elsie Barber Trask is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, June 23 at St. Luke's Church, 1864 Post Road, Darien, Conn., with a reception to follow in the parish hall.