Sometimes during the course of an individual’s life, her personal history, the saving graces met along the way, nostalgia, and regret all come together, and add up to a fierce desire to commemorate. Think of the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome, celebrating the bloody victory over the Parthians. Or the statue of Paul Revere on the Boston Freedom Trail.
Doris Ward of Edgartown, originally of eastern Tennessee and Tampa, Fla., is on a quest to help us remember the old Edgartown School, demolished two years ago to make way for the new library. Doris taught language arts at the original school for 14 years. But it was more than a job, it was a lifesaver, and when she retired in 1996, she cherished the memories and the children in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades whom she’d helped: “My job was to keep them safe, learning, and happy. I loved the kids so much.”
Thus, when she happened past the school in 2013 to behold a dinosaur-size demolition rig tearing down the building — with her own classroom at the heart of it — she felt moved to launch an Indiana Jones–style raid to recover some of the bricks; enough bricks to create an homage to the old school, which people would walk across between the library and the new school.
Septimius Severus would have been proud.
Doris, born in 1940, is a gatekeeper to the past, tied inextricably to her own roots. “I’m descended on my mother’s [Orene Edna Galyon] side from a Tennessee family with a 300-acre farm, lost to drought. We’re English, Scottish, Irish, with a little Cherokee thrown in, but who we are is this: We’re that farm.” After the farm went bust, Doris’s mother and assorted family members moved to the nearby town of Sweetwater: “Sweetwater is like Edgartown, with its charming houses and roses.”
Doris’s dad, William Harrison Dyche, was a pilot in the military, trained in reconnaissance. He also won awards for his photography, and worked as a master landscaper at universities. Fast-forward to Doris in 1980, with two teen daughters in tow, the heartbreak of a divorce in the past, and a new husband, Doug Ward, who flew for Air Florida. When she and Doug amicably parted ways, Doris was suddenly overcome with a desire to transplant herself to New England, specifically Martha’s Vineyard (she had fallen in love with the scenery from “Jaws”; this happens).
She craved a life with seasons, replete with snow and chickadees. On her first visit, she knew Edgartown was the place for her, and almost immediately found a guest apartment at Fuller and Cottage Streets. Like so many inlanders before and after her, she worked at any number of jobs to make this exquisite rock home for her and hers: “I was a waitress at the Wharf, I worked at the Vermont Shop and Fligors. I cooked for rich people in their homes.”
When the girls were ready for college, she threw herself into double shifts. And then the job of language arts teacher at the Edgartown School came up. Doris applied, but so did 80 other people. One day, at work at the Wharf, she received a call from Principal Ed Jerome, asking her to meet him at her house. “He sat at the top of the outdoor stairs with a bottle of champagne in his hands, and that’s how we celebrated my new job.”
At last she had that elusive prize that so many Islanders seek: Stability. Her apartment over a lawyer’s office and set behind the Whaling Church is arguably the most charming habitat on the Island — or anywhere — with nooks and crannies and a soaring loft accessible by a narrow ladder meant for the feet of kids. Doris decorates the way she does everything else — throwing her passion for living into it. Walls are painted in Indian Wells Taupe in light and dark shades. Antique tables blend with sofas one can sink into, with piles of gorgeous throw pillows following you into that comfy abyss. Art on the walls includes Ray Ellis’ portrait of Doris’s beloved horse, the late Danny Boy; her father’s photography; and Kentucky Derby prints.
And the most predominant part of the home’s absolute straight-to-the-heart kitsch is the trio of Irish Jack Russells — the Irish part gives them shorter legs, like those of corgis — Paddy, William (who’s actually a girl; she was named before her gender was apparent), and Nosey. The dogs are always agreeably underfoot, or perhaps they push themselves on a visitor to remind said visitor to write about them.
“This is my sanctuary,” she says, and indeed, her apartment defies anyone’s silly and misplaced need for a trophy house: Why would anyone want to live anywhere but here?
Back to 2013 and the old Edgartown School under the wrecking ball: Doris was determined to create a memorial. She pleaded her case to the Preservation Trust. They sympathized but shook their heads: The loss of a school was outside their domain. Doris went into full battle gear, and soon everyone heard about this retired language arts teacher gunning for bricks. One night she received an anonymous tip: The bricks had been dumped, temporarily, in a nearby field.
Stonemason, landscaper, and former student of Doris Alex Morrison was on board, along with a jolly Irish crew from the window-washing company Sparkle. Under cover of darkness, they piled into Alex’s truck. Doris had received word she could purloin up to 100 bricks, no more. Did she confine herself to 100? If you ask her, she smiles like the Cheshire cat.
Alex, Doris, and engraver Alan Gowell sat around Doris’s dining table and drew a design of a compass rose set in a circle, a proposed five feet in diameter, with bricks, bluestone, and two shades of granite to be used as materials. North will point to a plaque that reads “Edgartown Public Library 2015”; South to “Edgartown School 1923 – 2003”; East to “Of the Heart, Mind, and Soul”, and West to “Knowledge Directs the Compass.”
Doris explains that the compass denotes “direction, and the sea in our blood, as we are sailors living on an Island.” She adds, “Now I’ve got to raise $10,000.” Some of it is already in the kitty, but she needs more, much more.
Send this woman money! You may mail donations, large and small, to the Town of Edgartown — on the memo line, please jot “Edgartown School Memorial” — P.O. Box 5180, Edgartown MA 02539.
