The readers of the Gazette will please bear with us this week for the lack of extended news of local affairs.
Amy Bannon is determined to get it right this Illumination Night. Wednesday night marks the 134th year for lighting up the Camp Ground, but for the Bannons, this is just their second try.
And the pressure is on.
"We made some mistakes last year," said Mrs. Bannon. "We were the dimmest cottage in the entire circle."
This time they plan on using real candles.
The spirit and the first candle of the Grand Illumination was
carried by a 32-year-old sufferer of Huntington's Disease. With
her father, Walter, and her niece, Kyla McCartney, nearby, Tammy Frye
lit the first candle Wednesday night on the stage of the Tabernacle;
within seconds lanterns throughout the Camp Ground were aglow.
It was the 133rd annual Grand Illumination, and thousands of
well-wishers cheered the power and reach of a glowing candle.
For Robert C. Cleasby, program director at the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association, there's no better time for singing and celebrating than tomorrow evening, minutes before the start of Illumination Night.
Illumination Night coincides with the culmination of many wonderful aspects of summer on the Vineyard. "This is the major Camp Ground festival as far as summer goes," Mr. Cleasby said. "It's the really fun one."
The rain will stop. The clouds will clear. And the historic circle of gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs will become a fairyland of lights. The Night of the Grand Illumination is here.
The 132nd Illumination Night will be held tomorrow night.
The readers of the Gazette will please bear with us this week for the lack of extended news of local affairs. We are publishing the Camp Meeting Herald, daily and it occupies so much of time and labor that we are unable to pay that degree of attention to the Gazette as is our custom. We reproduce a number of articles from the Herald, which are well worth reading.
