The Martha’s Vineyard Times has been featuring stories about Island merchants for almost as long as we’ve been in business ourselves. The reasoning has always been that most of us year-rounders have been merchants at some point in our lives here, and we might as well learn from one another’s joys, pains, mortifying mistakes, and eternal wisdom.
Recently, we looked through several folders of black and white photos from the 1990s. They were filled with shots of shop owners and landscapers, fishermen and designers, standing proudly (or maybe it was bravely) in front of their businesses. Now, 25 or 30 years later, there were many people we recognized (under a lot of big hairdos) as still in business, at the same job, in the same place. What might have started as a summer landscaping job or a pie-in-the-sky idea for a little jewelry store has become for some a life’s work. Others had moved on.
At the end of 2015, we salute those who have dreamed up their own business, hung out a shingle, worked endless 90-hour weeks, and stuck it out. Or, closed up shop, or moved away.
We thought it would be fun to ask: Do you know the people in these photographs? Do you recognize where they are standing, and what year it was, and what else was going on?
We’d love to hear your stories about these photos. Send them to onisland@mvtimes.com.
