JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

slaterjn@comcast.net

Chilmark is a busy place this week. Hopefully, we will all get to attend the events that interest us.

Chilmark hosted a public meeting on Tuesday evening so that the townsfolk could learn more details about the proposed US Coast Guard boathouse in Menemsha. The presentation was made by the architects on the project and many members of the Coast Guard were also in attendance. There was an open discussion of the needs of the Coast Guard and the appearance of the building. The architects will return in one month with a revised plan. We look forward to seeing their refined plan.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we join Ozzie Fischer’s extended family in a celebration of his life at the West Tisbury Agricultural Hall from 1 to 4 p.m. with a potluck contribution. Folks are encouraged to share their stories with all. Ozzie was a beloved Chilmark resident who is missed every day by his many friends here. He died on July 26 at age 96.

Saturday is also the open house at the Middle Line Road Community Housing Project. The project is now complete and the selectmen have invited Chilmark residents to come and see the buildings and take part in a dedication. There is no parking at Middle Line so there will be a shuttle bus from the landfill to the project. The hours of the open house will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the dedication, taking place at 10:30 a.m.

Bob Taylor reminds us that his Halloween book, Jerome and the Spooky Woods, will be available again this season. The story takes place in Chilmark and is appropriate for children seven years old or more. The book is at the up-Island libraries and at the following stores: Allen Farm, Alley’s, Morning Glory Farm, Bunch of Grapes and Edgartown Books.

The Martha’s Vineyard Museum will have an interesting lecture on Nov. 3 at the museum library. Mark Wilkins will discuss his new book Cape Cod’s Oldest Shipwreck: The Desperate Crossing of the Sparrow-Hawk. The program begins at 5:30 p.m. The museum library is at 59 School street, Edgartown.

The Chilmark Library invites all to enjoy the Off Season Library Café in the meeting room during regular library hours. Coffee, tea, cocoa and cookies are offered thanks to the Friends of the Library and table games can be enjoyed. It makes a cozy place to meet friends, read the newspapers and enjoy the library experience.

The residents and library patrons of Aquinnah, Chilmark and West Tisbury are all invited to the Chilmark library on Nov. 9 at 5 p.m. for an informational meeting about CLAMS, the library network. Representatives of CLAMS and a consortium of 32 libraries on the Cape and Islands will be here to answer our questions and supply information.

I read something called Mass. Moments that comes to me daily on my computer. It is full of odd facts about our state. Recently, it told of an auction in Malden in 1786 of an indigent person to the lowest bidder for care. It was common then to keep the poor in their towns and to find others in the community to take them in. This was a practice that the earliest settlers brought with them from England. In fact, it was law that all towns in our state were responsible for the care and feeding of the poor in their population. The state assumed the costs in the early 1900’s. I went back to the earliest town report I have, 1887, and found nine Chilmarkers listed under Support of Poor in the report. Most of them lived with other families (by name). The cost to the town was itemized and added up to $1,056.70. The state aid collected that year was $48. The itemized list of charges showed doctor’s visits, medicine, mending and board, and, remarkably, burial and a tombstone. By the report of 1911 there was only one citizen listed as poor and the cost of care was $182. There was no indication of state aid. It is a different world we live in today in Chilmark and beyond but it is heartening to know Chilmarkers were doing the decent thing back in those days.