From Gazette editions of December 1961:

Mrs. Mary Guerin, proprietor of the Mary Guerin Inn on the Beach Road at Eastville, has sold the inn property to Henry Cronig of Vineyard Haven, who is acting for Leo J. and Irene P. Convery of Edgartown, owners of the Harborside Inn and the Carol Apartment motel group. The inn property adjoins the point of land at the Lagoon opening which the Converys recently acquired. Mrs. Guerin established the inn in 1928 and has expanded considerably through the years, winning a loyal following. Her personality has been a strong factor in fixing the character and identity of the establishment in its unique location between road and beach.

Asked about her future plans, Mrs. Guerin said she will probably continue building houses. She said she might have been an architect but would have preferred to be a farmer. Since she was born in 1880, she added, the work is so heavy she cannot now do as she would like.

 

Christmas spirit manifests itself in many ways on Martha’s Vineyard and Fred Gaskill of the Vineyard Laundry in Oak Bluffs carries on a tradition he himself established — the laundry of his customers is done free of charge at Christmas time. The custom is as unobtrusive as it is generous. Many a patron has been pleasantly astonished when he called for a bundle of laundry, found it wrapped in Christmas paper — and no charge.

 

“I never dreamed that boy would be President,” Mrs. Norah Fuller said. And probably he didn’t either. She was recalling the time when “President Kennedy slept here” in her Main street, Edgartown, home.

“He looked thin and tired,” she remembered of the summer regatta weekend — what year she can’t pin down — when he showed up looking for a room, “and he was sort of bent.” This apparently refers to the famous back trouble, aggravated by Lieutenant Kennedy’s war-time experiences in the South Pacific when he was in command of the ill-fated PT-109. Mrs. Fuller considers his present appearance as “strong and robust” in comparison. Mrs. Fuller remembers the then comparatively unknown young man because at the time two of his brothers and two of his sisters, with a chaperone, had the upstairs part of her house for five or six days. Young Jack didn’t have a reservation but came along at regatta time with a friend and asked Mrs. Fuller if she could put them up.

“All I had,” Mrs. Fuller said, “was the back bedroom off the kitchen. After the Saturday race,” she continued, “I came down from my little cottage in the back, and he was sitting on the back steps in the sun. He told me he had won a race, and then asked if he could have a cup of coffee.” Hospitably Mrs. Fuller more than gratified this request; she made a pot of coffee, some toast and squeezed orange juice. And young Mr. Kennedy was delighted. The next morning Mr. Kennedy and the others of his family went to church, the same one, St. Elizabeth’s, Mrs. Fuller herself attends.

“I take people in to see this room, and I say, ‘You’d never guess who slept here.’” They make all kinds of wild guesses, she said, but never the right one. “ When I tell them, ‘President Kennedy,’ she laughed, “some of them look as if I’d told a big fib!”

 

Nobody likes increases in freight rates, but there have been a number in the years since the Steamship Authority came into being, and we can recall no instance in which a protest or appeal was made by Islanders — until now. It seems a pity that, with the Authority at last controlled by the two Islands, and with a great deal at stake for all of us, an end run should have been made to the Department of Public Utilities.

The Authority had announced that an analysis of the proposed tariffs and their effect would be made public. The reasonable thing would have been to wait for this analysis and for an opportunity to discuss any items that seemed burdensome. Instead, a petition to the DPU held up the new rates before most of us even knew what might be involved.

This is more true because what may be saved at the bung through fighting about rates may be more than offset by losses at the spigot of assessed deficits. The way to get somewhere with Island transportation is to work in cooperation with the Steamship Authority, not at odds with it. Rate-making is a difficult and technical process, and when an issue like this arises it is important to know how the rates have been arrived at and why.

 

Regarding tame crows, previously reported in the Gazette as being entitled to more than the ordinary courtesies, one of them appeared in the yard of Mrs. Raul B. Medeiros in Vineyard Haven on a recent morning and startled that lady when it picked clothespins from her basket and handed them to her as she hung out the laundry. Deeply impressed by the polished manners of the bird, Mrs. Medeiros was nevertheless concerned for its well-being, feeling that it had escaped from an owner and might suffer from lack of food and proper care. She was assured a crow does not require much attention, being a very self-sufficient creature.

Compiled by Cynthia Meisner

library@mvgazette.com