Finding Martha's Vineyard

by Jill Nelson

  In the late 1980s we decided that we were going to buy, and we bought here at Tower Ridge. At the time this was an excellent buy, because the person was getting ready to go into foreclosure. Timing is everything, this was the right time, and we bought this house in 1992. In 1997 my husband retired, I quit my job, and we decided to leave New Jersey and move to the Vineyard.

  My friends said, I can see Roger there, but I can’t see you there. I’m very social. I have a lot of friends and like to go here and there. My girlfriend teased me, “Next time I see you, you’re going to have on a mackmaw and a piece of straw between your teeth.” But it has worked out really well. We don’t stay here the whole year. We do a lot of traveling in the winter, we bought another house in Pennsylvania, we go there, go into Manhattan, visit family in New Jersey.

  While I was teaching art I was always doing artwork and had had shows in the New York area. In 1989 I had done a picture called The Inkwell, inspired by batiks my sister brought back from Uganda with these elongated figures. I just loved them, so I started doing these people on the beach, stretched out, took it to an art show, and people loved it. One friend of mine said, You gotta do a T-shirt. I turned up my nose, but I said I’d do some prints. Another friend kept pushing me to do a T-shirt, so I did. I brought it up here, showed it to a few people, and everybody loved it. I gave one to a girlfriend and she wore it Memorial Day weekend. She called me and said, “You got to get up here with those T-shirts, people are trying to snatch mine off my back!”

  Myrna and Roger Morris

  I took them to Zita Cousens at her gallery, Cousen Rose. Maybe two or three days after I’d been here, I went down to the Inkwell and all these people on the beach had on my shirt. I just started crying. It was wonderful. Maria Blakely was producing Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls that summer, and she had the whole cast on the beach wearing my T-shirt. It was the first time we had something on a Vineyard shirt that represented us. But then I had the negative feedback as well, because a lot of older people saw it as something derogatory, the whole concept of Inkwell, which I was not aware of. I didn’t see it as political; it was basically just us on the beach. It’s about just being together, a representation of something positive.

  I paint in acrylic, pastels, oil, charcoal, and I also do stone sculpture. As a fine artist, the T-shirt really changed my way of looking at things. Because there’s fine art, and the T-shirt is almost like crafts. I had mixed emotions. Everyone cannot afford to buy an original piece, but people like to come away with some token of what an artist has created. Basically the T-shirt is wearable art. It offers everyone the possibility of having a piece of artwork.

  I get pleasure when I see someone walking down Circuit Avenue in a “Sisters on the Bluffs” T-shirt. I have a “Friendship” shirt that is very popular, and one that says “Sisters” as well. They also cross over, because sisterhood and friendship transcend race. I also have a line of tennis-inspired shirts.

  I try to pace myself so that here, in the summer, it’s just fun. From July through Labor Day, you can’t do anything, it’s too social. Somebody’s having a fish fry, somebody’s having a barbecue; we’re playing bid whist, going to the beach, going to Menemsha. I don’t do anything during that time.

  My sister, Vera, comes up every summer, and we spend a lot of time together, give parties, just hang out and relax. We were not always so close, but we’ve gotten

  very close over the last ten years or so. Roger’s family comes up. We go out and play cards, Roger goes clamming, we go to peoples houses. It’s constant entertainment. We go to galleries, book signings, parties, play tennis. It’s a lot of fun. I see people I haven’t seen since the previous year, and then every year I meet new people, often through people I met the year before. There’s always something going on. This is a very, very beautiful place. I love being here. It is a unique place, and the time that we’re here, we are happy.

  We’re here from April until November. Then we come back up for Thanksgiving and then we travel and visit friends until February, when we go to Spain for the month. That’s where I paint. Every morning we get fresh fruit and I put up my display of fruit and paint.

  I read a lot when I’m up here in the off-season. I collect postcards from pre-1920s, and I also collect movie posters from the 1970s and ‘80s, so I spend a lot of time doing that. I have friends who live here, and we get together, go off-island, do some shopping. You can get bored, your day is not totally filled, you cannot get in the car and drive to the Neiman Marcus mall, that doesn’t happen. If you have children in the school system, that kind of gives you a connection, or if you’re working or volunteering, that can fill up your days as well. I couldn’t see staying here all year, even with me being an artist and liking that kind of isolation; it gets to the point where I’ve had enough. I find sometimes I work better when I’ve got lots and lots of stuff to do.

  When people come here, they find and connect with their own little group, just like they do at home. It’s a comfort zone. It’s almost like the Cheers song; you want to go where everybody knows your name. In fact, you know before you get here who’s going to be here, and you connect with the people you know. For a stranger coming here, if you went to the Inkwell and felt somebody was going to invite you to a party, it’s not going to happen; everybody stays within their own little circle. Sometimes they’re not very nice, they’re not willing to let you in, and that’s the way it is here.

  I know a lot of people because of my art, and as a result I think I might be invited to things that I ordinarily would not be invited to if I were just Myrna Morris the teacher. Because of being an artist I can cross-pollinate, and that’s a kind of nice position to be in. Socially, we still have this elitist kind of thing, separate groups. We used to go to Sag Harbor and it was the same thing. People want to find that sameness, likeness, some stamp of validation that says you’re okay to other people. It’s hard for a person to come here for the first time by themselves. I think that’s just human nature; we don’t reach out. We do speak, say hi and all that. But I don’t think we go past that unless you have your AKA hat on or something like that.

  Helene Wareham

  Helene Spencer Wareham, eighty-two, a former schoolteacher in New York City, has spent summers on Martha s Vineyard since 1949 with her dentist husband, Alton, and their two children, Roger and Lynn. It was on the Vineyard as her children got older that she pursued her interest in visual art. She also joined the Cottagers, an organization of black homeowners on the island founded in 1956. Each summer the Cottagers hold several fundraising events, donating the proceeds to Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, Island Community Services, Bradley Memorial Church, the NAACP, Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard, AIDS Alliance of Martha’s Vineyard, and many other island institutions.

  Helene: I started paintingin1968, taking lessons with Teixeira Nash. Tex used to say, “Everybody’s creative; the way you dress, the way you set your table—just think of the things you do that are creative.” We had classes in her house and then we started going to the Cottagers Corner, the building the organization bought in 1967 on Pequot Avenue in Oak Bluffs, and having lessons there.

  I probably wouldn’t have started painting if I hadn’t come to the Vineyard. I never felt that I had any talent. I think it was the fact that Tex said, Everyone has talent.

  I came back to the city and went to the Art Students League. I did that for about six years and then I went up to City College of New York and took classes. I did that for a while and enjoyed it immensely. I still paint, though not in New York. There are too many interruptions and other things to do. Most years I take a workshop up here and I go to the Senior Center to paint as well. I’ve taken classes at the Old Sculpin Gallery in Edgartown. The teacher was excellent and I got to meet a new crowd of people and to see homes I hadn’t seen before when we visited each other.

  I joined the Firehouse Gallery, not far from my house, in the Arts District. I didn’t think I was good enough to exhibit my work, but m
y husband, Alton, said, “Show, show,” and then he wasn’t even here when I showed. But it was very successful, all of my Cottager members came, and I sold seven out of ten of my paintings. The other three were not for sale.

  We first came here because friends told us about the Vineyard. We came for a weekend with Tommy and Angie Jones in 1949, the year my oldest child, Roger, was born. Someone told us you could make it in four hours, so we left New York driving at about two o’clock p.m. to make an eight o’clock p.m. boat, which we never made. When we got to Woods Hole, everything was closed down. So we stopped at a motel, and the fellas went in to see about getting a place for the night. It was $15 per person per night. We said, “Look, we’ll go back to the ferry dock and sleep in the car.” That’s what we did and went to Oak Bluffs the next morning.

  We stayed for the weekend, had a lovely time, and decided we’d like to come back. Strangely enough, when I asked my husband, Alton, the next year if he wanted to go to Martha’s Vineyard, he said, “Nah, let’s go someplace else.” We came to Martha’s Vineyard.

  Now Alton doesn’t want to go anyplace else. He says forget Florida, because he doesn’t play golf and he doesn’t play bridge. I could go to Florida and paint, play bridge, and be happy there, but not Alton. We go to St. Martin for two weeks, but that’s about it.

  There was something about the Vineyard we liked, the whole atmosphere, the ambience. After both my children were born, Alton would come up for three weeks and I’d stay with the kids all summer. It gave him time to himself and it gave me time to myself, which is very important.

  The main thing here is that we can swim; the whole family loves that. And the fact that you can be mobile, you’re not tied in; you can get in your car and be almost anyplace on the island you want to be within twenty minutes. But in the past five years it has almost become that you can’t move here when you want to. You have to plan ahead where you’re going most of the summer. You have to check when the ferry’s coming in because of all the traffic.

  After 1950 we came every year and rented houses. One year, we had the Anderson house on Circuit Avenue—that was a lovely house—and when we got there she had sandwiches and iced tea ready for us. She was just so nice. We stayed there for two weeks, and then we went up to a house on Pacific Avenue, the Hunt house, beautiful house. We stayed there two years. I think that’s the nicest house we ever stayed in. That was the house of the Madison. Every time we had the record player on and we were doing the Madison, someone would drive by, come in the house, do the Madison, and go off on their way. It was really great. We tried to rent it the third year, but the realtor rented it to Eddie Heywood, the pianist, instead. That was the year we came to this house, the house we eventually bought, Bali Hai.

  In the late 1950s we started looking at houses to buy, but they were all too big with too little land around them and cost too much money. Alton had a figure in his head, and he was not going to spend more than that. This house was available in the late 1950s, but we weren’t ready. The second time it was offered to us, we bought it. That was 1962. We got it for four figures, and then we realized how much land we had here. I had just started teaching; Alton had just gotten a new car. We came up here once school was out and started tearing wallpaper off the walls, getting the place together.

  People ask me, What do you do there? I say, Nothing. Then they ask, What do you mean, nothing? I tell them, Well, we meet at each other’s houses, we play cards, and we entertain one another. There’s not too much in the way of entertainment, and when we first started coming there was even less. We’d invite our friends up, which was fun. I know anyplace else we went we’d spend more money, and I don’t think I would have enjoyed myself. It has worked out very nicely.

  Fannie Patrick, Mel Patrick’s wife—he used to sponsor the Oak Bluffs tennis tournament—said to me, “You’ll never get in the Cottagers; you’re too dark.” I said, “Well, that’s okay; if I don’t get in, I don’t get in.” It happens that Connie Coveney was in the Cottagers, she sponsored me, and I got in. She was amazing. She would never take an office, but she was like the deus ex machina; she could get things just by suggesting them. I used to watch her in amazement, how she would work these people, and be so soft-spoken. I used to say, I wish I could do that, but you know me, I’m loud.

  I don’t think the Cottagers were really discriminating. It’s just that their method of choosing people was based on who you were—I don’t want to put blame on them that’s not there, but I think some of it is there—and who you knew. It’s not like that anymore. We take just about anyone, because we want people who are going to work. We are making contributions to the Vineyard; we give donations to many places. It’s an organization of homeowners, African-American or married to an African American, because there was one white woman there whose husband was black. I joined in 1964 and was president in 1968.

  I wanted to be here because it was good for the children. I don’t remember really thinking about the whites and how they would accept me. It’s funny, but very seldom do I even consider that, because I figure everybody should accept me. I come with a positive attitude. If I find that people don’t accept me or don’t like me, that’s their problem. I’ve been very fortunate because when we first moved in, the Roses, across the street, one of the sons threw a brick and broke my stained-glass window. So Alton said, “Well, I guess we better go make friends with the neighbors,” and everything has been fine since then. I go with a positive attitude and expect you to accept me.

  I couldn’t afford this house if I was buying it today, and I think that’s true for many people who bought a house here before the 1980s. The prices here are no longer for middle-class people.

  They’re developing too much—they’re overdeveloping—and I think they’re going to learn the hard way. All they see is the dollar sign. They don’t realize that the thing that made the island so unique was the fact that this was the one place on earth that you could come and find a place to be by yourself. There are still lots of places like that on the island, but if the development continues, they’ll disappear. We’ll lose the flavor of the Vineyard.

  Alton would bring me and the kids up to the island, stay for two weeks, and leave. That’s what many of the Daddies did, and then they came at the end of the summer before we closed up and went home. There were men coming and going back then. Now, for my group, it’s man less, because so many of the men are dead. Back when we first started coming to the island, you had the kids to worry about, you didn’t have to worry about the damn meals because the men weren’t here and the kids would eat anything you gave them. We went to the beach, played cards, hung out with each other. There was always something going on. I wasn’t pining away. I thought it was marvelous. I didn’t miss Alton. In fact, when he retired, I said, Oh Lord, there goes my vacation.

  HELENE’S HEAVENLY PECAN PIE

  Serves 8

  3 egg whites

  1 cup chopped pecans

  1 cup sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  22 Ritz crackers, crumbled, no more or less

  1. Preheat the oven to 300° F.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold in the sugar, and then add the rest of the ingredients. Pour into a buttered pie plate and bake 25 minutes.

  Bebe Moore Campbell holding her granddaughter, Elisha, with mother, Doris Moore

  Bebe Moore Campbell, fifty-five, was introduced to Martha’s Vineyard during childhood visits to the home of her godmother, Agnes Louard. Married for twenty years to Ellis Gordon, Jr., a financial adviser and owner of a pharmaceutical company, she has one daughter, a stepson, and two granddaughters. The author of ten books and numerous articles, her latest novel is 12 Hour Hold (July 2005). A native of Philadelphia who lives in Los Angeles, she and her husband bought a home on the Vineyard in 1995.

  Bebe: I don’t like to write on the island. I resent it when I have to write here. I want to be free, hang out, visit my friends, and have a ball. I have an office here. I have a very
antique little computer that takes forever. I’m very happy this trip that the new book went out two weeks before I got here.

  Writing here is me getting up and probably working from noon to four. I go to the beach, but not a lot, so that time is when everybody else is at the beach, so that’s okay. I’d rather be free in the nighttime. I bring the same kind of angst that I have in LA; I’ve got to get these three pages done; I’ve got to do this. It’s not so bad if it’s not due this year. If it’s due imminently, then there’s more angst, and I feel as though nobody has as much fun, because my husband’s kind of waiting for me to finish with my quota for the day. And then I feel put upon. I feel I’m in this beautiful place and I’m working and I don’t want to.

  My work is so urban and LA drenched. I’ve never written about the Vineyard, I’ve never even thought of writing about the Vineyard, so it doesn’t enter into the work itself. Does it enter into my creative process? Only as a reward. If I do the work, I can get to the Vineyard; I can pay for the house. I don’t write stories about the Vineyard, or figure out new ways to do things in my work on the beach. When

  Vacationers at the dock at Menemsha, 1950

  I’m on the beach, I’m on the beach. If some inspiration comes I don’t pay any attention to it. If it comes again and I’m near a pencil and pad, maybe then I’ll write it down. But I’m not carrying a little book to the beach. When I’m on the Vineyard, I’m trying to be off as much as I possibly can.

  The one thing being here does is it makes me want to be off more. It makes me want to not write. It makes me want to retire. It makes me want to figure out ways that I can work less. How can I recycle the old books? What can I do so I don’t have to turn it on and on and on? I’ve written ten books. I’m not trying to write until I drop. This is a good part of life for me, and being here makes me yearn for more. I’m trying to figure out right now how I won’t have to go back home tomorrow.