The popular Cottagers Annual House Tour, which had taken a sabbatical due to the pandemic, is back and enchanting as ever. This year’s event takes place on Thursday, July 18 (rain or shine) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Cottagers, Inc. of Martha’s Vineyard kicked off a capital campaign last week to restore Cottagers’ Corner in Oak Bluffs with a Sundown Soiree at Featherstone Center for the Arts.

The Cottagers will hold a sale at Hartford Park in Oak Bluffs on Friday, Aug. 2 for the benefit of the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Their tables will include gifts, food, white elephants, grabs, hot dogs and tonic. Mrs. John J. Goldsberry is serving as general chairman, Miss Dorothy West, Mrs. Frederick White, Mrs. Wilmer Lucas, and E. W. Finley, who is president of the Cottagers.

There will also be tables in charge of the following: Mrs. David Rappaport, special benefit, a doll; miscellaneous, Mrs. Herbert G. Louis; aprons, Mrs. Anna M. Ryan.

Island women escaping homelessness have a powerful new ally in the Cottagers, Inc., the all-female philanthropic group based in Oak Bluffs.

The Cottagers Club ended its first active season, well pleased with its donations to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital auxiliary and the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital as its first charitable ventures.

The Cottagers Club came into tentative being last summer when a group of friends decided to direct some of their combined energies toward some unselfish enterprise beneficial to Island charities. This summer at the first official meeting the enthusiasm was contagious, and thirty-eight members now comprise the active list of the cottagers.

The 36th edition of the Cottagers’ annual house tour has something for everyone—something old, something new and something green.

From the Cottager’s Corner columns in the July 1972 editions of the Vineyard Gazette by Dorothy West:

The Cottagers are now in summer assembly. This diversified group of women, some older and maybe wiser than others, some younger and maybe more keen of heart, are again making an investment of their time and talents at Cottagers’ Corner on Pequot avenue in Oak Bluffs, the center of their commitments.