Tide of tragedy, waves of grief

Updated Jan. 12

The rising moon between Christmas and New Year brought with it what felt like a king tide of three separate tragedies, ushering waves of grief across four prominent families who have all given so much to the Island.

These families — the Scheffers, the Bergerons, the Bramhalls and the Kennedys — are all different, and they are all struggling with their individual losses in different ways, but there was a collective spirit of community that came together around them, offering love and support from some very different corners of the Island. 

The expressions of love were there in the makeshift shrine of flowers, rubber fishing boots, and scallop and oyster shells placed on one of the finger docks in Edgartown, where the legendary boat captain and fisherman Roy Scheffer could often be seen heading out to harvest bay scallops. That is what he was doing on New Year’s Day with his partner, Patricia Bergeron, when his skiff capsized in frigid waters just off Cow Bay amid a sudden squall that kicked up dangerous gusts of wind and four- to six-foot swells. After a distress call, the Coast Guard located the couple in the water. They were rushed to the hospital, where hours later, they were pronounced dead. Scheffer was 77. Bergeron was 69.

Scheffer, who was a pioneer in the Island’s fishing industry as a swordfish boat captain, and a key innovator in the aquaculture industry, was a patriarch of three generations who earned their living in the fishing industry. For all who knew him in the industry, he was a giving soul who was always ready to help others. His partner of the past 15 years, “Tricia” Bergeron was also a giver. She was head nurse in the emergency room at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital who led a life of service to others, and who was proud to be a past president of the Portuguese-American Club. The club was packed Tuesday night with at least 700 people, according to police estimates, who came together with a bounty of potluck dishes. There was a mural of photographs and memorabilia that told the story of Bergeron’s great passion for the Cribbage Club, and her role as a scribe who wrote a much-loved column about cribbage for The Times for many years. It was a passion she shared with Roy, and based on the scorecards that were featured in the mural, they were fierce competitors. Looking across a packed room, there were many families who had intersected with Bergeron through the love of their Portuguese heritage and the game of cribbage, but also across the worst moments of life, when they were in the emergency room and desperately afraid. For many families attending the event, they were remembering that she was always there to offer a comforting and practical hand on what needed to be done.

In that crowd Tuesday night were Bob and Gayle Mone. They were dear friends of Bergeron, and they became closer than ever when they lost their 17-year-old son Ryan in a car accident on New Year’s Day in 1998. It was a tragic bond that was forged even more deeply when Bergeron also lost her 18-year-old son, Eric, in a car accident in 2001. 

“We were very close. We will miss her forever,” said Bob, who runs Mone Insurance, but who worked for years in the wholesale side of the fishing industry. He also worked closely through the years with Roy Scheffer. He was looking out across the packed P.A. Club, where he is a member, saying, “This kind of gathering can only happen here at the P.A. Club, an affordable place for families to come together to celebrate weddings and graduations and tragedies.” 

“This place was founded in the 1930s by many families, including Tricia’s extended family … out of Oak Bluffs. So gathered there on Tuesday was a cross-section of everybody on the Island. A way for all of us to show respect and compassion for the horrible tragedy that occurred on New Year’s Day,” said Bob. “This is all very close to home for a close-knit community.” 

Folding tables at the P.A. Club were straining under the mountains of scalloped potatoes, fried chicken, and fish fillets that attendees brought. There in line for food were Islanders who went to high school with Nathaniel (“Natty”) Schneider, 31. They formed small knots of grief discussing his tragic death in a skiing accident in Wyoming, and how sorely he will be missed. They talked about his mother, Nina Bramhall, who led the girls tennis team to state championships, and the legendary status of his grandfather, Kib Bramhall, as a world-class fly-fisherman and painter of aquatic life. The Bramhalls have always been stalwarts of the Island, and are well-known for their support for and work in conservation. Natty’s grandparents, Kib and Tess, will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary this week, an event that will bring the close-knit family together here on the Island. 

Joined by a deep love for fishing, tennis and skiing, the Bramhalls are on hand to support Nina and Natty’s father, Paul Schneider, who was the longtime editor of the Martha’s Vineyard Magazine. Paul also gave back to the Island as a mentor to many talented young writers, and is very close to Natty’s friends on the Island, and had recently taken up bow-hunting with him. He was out in Wyoming with that close circle who loved backcountry skiing, and was traveling back to the Island with Nina yesterday, where a heartbroken community is poised and waiting to help them navigate a long road of their own grief that lies ahead.

Among those family friends who are closely connected to the Island is Caroline Kennedy and the extended Kennedy family, who recently donated a vast stretch of beautiful shoreline to the Island in Aquinnah. They suffered their own, most recent tragedy in the death of Tatiana Schlossberg, who was the daughter of Edwin Schlossberg and Caroline Kennedy, and the granddaughter of the late President John F. Kennedy. A journalist who began her career as an intern at the Vineyard Gazette, Schlossberg wrote powerfully and eloquently about her battle with cancer. She died at the age of 35. While Paul and Nina were traveling to the Island, the Kennedy family was gathering in New York City for the funeral for Tatiana at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church on Park Avenue, which has always been a centerpiece of faith for countless milestones of the Kennedys’ lives, from baptisms to funerals. 

Alexandra (“Al”) Styron, the daughter of William and Rose Styron, is close with Caroline Kennedy and came of age in a circle of friends on Martha’s Vineyard that included the Kennedys as well as Paul Schneider and Nina Bramhall. Both Natty and Tatiana served as attendants in Al’s wedding. And Styron, along with her husband Ed Beeson, attended the funeral for Tatiana in New York City.

In connecting all four of these tragedies and lives cut short, Al Styron put it well, saying, “The through line in these deaths is that they are all within families that have made enormous contributions to the Island as a whole. These families, who in their own ways and in very different ways, have just given so much.” 

Styron added, “There are lots of different kinds of Vineyarders, and people like to qualify them: natives and washashores and summer people. But these losses kind of cut through all that. All these families have an important place in our community. And we grieve for them all.”

This essay was a part of special coverage in the MV Times titled “Tide of tragedy, waves of grief,” which included the following articles: 

Patricia Bergeron and Roy Scheffer remembered at the Portuguese-American Club

Islanders mourn loss of the beloved couple in a scalloping accident.

Obituary for Natty Schneider

Obituary for Tatiana Schlossberg