Correction, Addendum Tom Thatcher, potter and former owner and manager of the Youth Hostel in West Tisbury, was surprised in last Friday’s obituary of Lulu Kaye to find himself mistakenly described as a carpenter. After his first visit to the Vineyard as a Youth Hosteler in 1948, he returned to the Island in 1950 after studying ceramics at Ohio Sate University, and established Martha’s Vineyard Pottery in West Tisbury. Throughout the 1950s, it was a popular spot for buying the distinctive bowls and plates and candlesticks and mugs decorated with fish and shells and flowers that he and his co-workers, the late Mary Grabill and Uli Knodt and B. Jean Silva designed. He also taught pottery-making both on the Island and at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, and today Martha’s Vineyard Pottery is a collector’s item.

In 1969, after having given up his pot shop following an injury, he purchased the Youth Hostel that the West Tisbury Grange had established and the late Lillian Manter had managed. He retained it until 1984 when he sold it to the American Youth Hostel. On and off since then, he has lived in Viet Nam. But carpentry? Wistfully Tom Thatcher says he wishes he knew more about it, for it might have come in handy over the years, but it really isn’t his métier.

The Gazette regrets the error.