Kathie Case>

508-627-5349

kcase1@verizon.net

December begins tomorrow and we only have 24 days to get everything done. Even though snow has not been a big event in recent years, I am still one who associates snow with Christmas — trees all decorated, lights shining through and a sled beneath the tree. I think I just dated myself, but these are memories you do not want to forget.

Margaret Knight>

508 627-8894

(margaret02539@yahoo.com)

With all the wind and rain we’ve been having lately, Chappaquiddick is looking almost wintry, most of the leaves gone from the trees. Certain plants, though, seem to like this time of year: the moss in the woods is a brilliant green and the lawns are still looking happy.

NANCY GARDELLA

508-693-3308

(vhavenvgazette@yahoo.com)

Sabev — de Geofroy

Mr. Ivan Nikolov Sabev and Mrs. Margarita Doncheva Sabeva of Sofia, Republic of Bulgaria, are happy to announce the engagement of their beloved daughter Ivona Ivanova Sabeva, of Sofia and Edgartown, to Andrew Jason de Geofroy of Edgartown, son of Ms. Wendy Jones de Geofroy of Edgartown and Mr. Charles Antoine de Geofroy of Chilmark.

Ivona and Andrew will be married on Martha’s Vineyard in the spring.

JOHN S. ALLEY

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net)

Last Thursday afternoon the temperature was 60 degrees; it was very pleasant and warm. However by Sunday morning it was downright cold. That was in Taunton where we had gone to spend a long Thanksgiving weekend. All the stores were decorated and playing Christmas music — Bing Crosby and Brenda Lee seemed to be the most popular. Well before Thanksgiving many homes also had trees in the windows and lawn decorations in place.

Louise Sweet Featured

Louise Sweet of Flowers On The Vineyard will featured for her work on the Style Network this month. It can be seen on cable channel 119 Tuesday nights at 9 p.m., or go to stylenetwork.com and click on weddings away, then destination weddings, then Martha’s Vineyard.

JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

(slaterjn@comcast.net)

We send condolences to the Vincent family on the recent death of Priscilla Vincent, wife of Bill Vincent and mother of Katie, all of Schenectady and Chilmark. The family is gathered this week at the family home on South Road for the internment at Abel’s Hill Cemetery at 2 p.m. today, Friday, Nov. 30.

Condolences to the family and friends of Orlie Alwardt. Services were held on Wednesday at the Methodist Church in the Camp Ground. It was a wonderful tribute to Orlie who had spent his adult life working for the town of Oak Bluffs in the highway department and as an Oak Bluffs firefighter.

Restoring Great Salt Pond

The draft Massachusetts Estuaries Project report on the Edgartown Great Pond obtained by the Gazette last week is required reading for all who live on the Vineyard. The conclusions of the report may be obvious, but no less startling on an Island with a long history of strictly protecting its pristine environment, and they extend well beyond the sandy perimeters of the Edgartown Great Pond: encroaching development and nitrogen escaping from septic systems are polluting Island ponds.

A Linotype Man to the End

Jonathan Sawyer, whose unexpected death Nov. 21 was reported in last Friday’s Gazette, was for twenty years a mainstay of this paper’s back shop printing staff.

Jon joined the Gazette staff part-time while he was still in school, following his frequent encounters on Pease’s Point Way with Elizabeth Bowie Hough, the paper’s late copublisher and editor with her husband the late Henry Beetle Hough. She would often give young Jon a ride, warning him that it was much too cold for walking.