The weather has reverted to chilly days and nights that are more typical of our Vineyard springs than the 60-plus-degree days we had the week before. Still, lawns are greening up, leaves are appearing, and daffodils and flowering trees are a welcome sight after our snowy winter.
I hope it will be sunny, and warm up a bit for this weekend. Friday is May 1, May Day. I am so excited to be going to the Chilmark School for this year’s May Day celebration. Iyla is in fourth grade this year, so she is participating for the first time, along with her classmates, and the fifth graders, as is Chilmark School tradition.
On Saturday, May 2, we will have our own celebration here in town. The Friends of the West Tisbury Village invite everyone to gather around the Maypole that will be set up on the Field Gallery’s lawn. Festivities begin at 11 am. Then the party moves to the library’s porch for snacks and crafts. I love that the Friends group is making occasions to bring us together in our historic town center.
The Field Gallery is opening on May 1, so we will be able to see its opening exhibition as part of our day.
Besides the May Day celebration, the library is hosting several other programs over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon from 1 to 3 pm, Lynn Christoffers will be in the library’s Children’s Room to take free early Mother’s Day portraits of mothers, grandmothers, families, and special loved ones. Lynn began this lovely tradition years ago, and she continues it this year.
Author Tom Dresser has a new book out, “Historic Storms of Martha’s Vineyard: From the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 to the Present.” Looking forward to hearing him discuss it at our library, as he usually does.
Simon Athearn and his 12-year-old son, Ignatius, spent the April vacation on a historic hiking pilgrimage through the county of Kent in southeastern England. Kent was the birthplace of their first Island ancestor, also named Simon Athearn, who settled on the Island in 1662. They hiked about 100 miles across Kent, from Merstham to Canterbury on the North Down Way, then to Dover, with its famous White Cliffs. The trail passes through a spectacular expanse of diverse farmland, documented by the travelers’ photographs sent to the family at home. What an amazing way for Ignatius to learn about his family history by walking it with his dad.
The Athearns live at Crow Hollow Farm in West Tisbury, near the Tisbury Great Pond, long the home of the Look and Athearn families. Previously, it had been farmed by Leonard Athearn, Simon’s great-uncle. Now, Simon and Robyn live there with their three children, Rose, Ignatius, and Alden, who are the 12th generation of Athearns on the Island. Simon is still a farmer, part of his parents’ Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown, and with assorted Athearn farmland in West Tisbury and Chilmark.