To the Editor:
An especially grateful trio of elderly recipients of free Christmas meals sponsored by our M.V. Community Services and volunteers led to amazing unexpected connections and coincidences.
The MV Times advert offering such dinners to us living-alone oldsters prompted me to inquire re: my own eligibility and that of my aide. The woman at the Tisbury Senior Center assented and inquired my address for delivery of the Christmas dinners. When I replied I lived on Main Street adjacent to the Montessori School, she revealed that she and her aged friend, Carol, intended to request similar dinners and planned to dine together. She added that she knew precisely where my home was located as her deceased husband had been the teen miscreant who had burned that beautiful Victorian Tashmoo Inn next door to the ground in the 1950s!
I suggested, sight unseen, and impulsively in my initial phone inquiry, that she and her friend join us for our prepared meals in my home. We spent three amazing hours together sharing our long-lived life experiences. Next to his summer hotel, Capt. Ralph Packer Sr. later sold the Tashmoo Inn property to Tommy Rabbit, another well-known local resident, who created a short lived Sandpiper Restaurant on that site in the 70s, in a one story structure. It is currently the Montessori School property.
More fascinating details followed as we three elderly women revealed how we each came to this Island and our past lives.
Ginger’s friend, Carol, mentioned that she was Canadian, as was I, she from Nova Scotia. I mentioned that my youngest daughter and her husband had just built a house there in a small Cape Breton community. She revealed that she was born and grew up in that very same small location, returning yearly to visit family.
In conclusion, thanks to the generosity of our Community Services, and the MV Times advert, we three aged ladies discovered previously unknown connections and coincidences which hopefully will lead to our continuing Island friendship.
Doreen Kinsman
Vineyard Haven
