News and Events for Nantucket Island
Coming to terms with and adjusting to the reality of now has not been easy for anybody. Life is slowly returning to normal, though slower still here on Nantucket than usual, and with good reason. With weather warming and the population growing, many are wondering what to do, where to go, and how to do it safely.
I graduated from Barrington Consolidated High School in the spring of 1970. Five friends and I decided we would all meet on Nantucket that June for a reunion. None of us had ever been there. I was inspired by a high school English teacher named Charles White who got me interested in literature. I loved Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and wanted to see the island. I hitchhiked from Barrington, located about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, to Pittsburgh, then to New York and on to Concord, MA, where I camped out at Walden Pond for a few days.
Ahh, 1970… seems so long ago with so many adventures and three children between then and now… the story really begins in 1968, a ‘Sconset Girl working as hostess at the Mad Hatter meets Missouri bouy bartending a the Harbor House. Who would expect this summer romance to lead to an “I do” at the Siasconset Chapel in July 1970?
Nantucket has always been home to Richard Montfort Cary. He grew up summering here in his family’s Hinckley Lane farmhouse, and his island roots go back to the 1800s. It was in 1970 that Cary moved himself, his wife Mara, and his son Donick back here to escape the theatre. He lived and worked on-island until 2004, with just a few intermissions. Many here remember Richard as the founder of Actors Theatre of Nantucket and as vibrant contributor to our community with his talent in music, writing, and all aspects of theatre.
Growing up on Nantucket in the 1970s – where to start? Let’s do it the way most great stories began…
Once upon a time, the whole of Dionis Beach was open, I swear. And that’s where all of us islanders would go. Every nice weekend in the summer, hundreds of Nantucket families would congregate out there. Cars filled the beach. Tires would be deflated in the adjacent parking lots – a process that seemed to take forever when I was a kid.
This season marks the 50th year that Yesterday’s Island has been published. To celebrate that anniversary, we are indulging in some nostalgia, remembering 1970 on Nantucket through interviews with island residents who were living and working here half a century ago. At that time, the island was beginning to draw […]
Harvey Young is one happy guy. You have all seen him along Broad Street, always with a big beaming smile. He explains that he wakes up every day with a smile on his face… he adds almost apologetically “I’ve always been that way. I was born that way. I came into the world with a smile on my face.” Not surprisingly he has wonderful happy memories of growing up on Nantucket in the 1960s and 70s. In 1970 Harvey was 13, in the 8th grade at the old Cyrus Pierce School, and enjoying a very, very big year.
The Call of Duty is louder for some than others. Though we all rise in the morning with tasks to complete, hurdles to jump, and goals to meet, some of us face greater challenges. Nantucket resident Rich Leone heard his call in 1979, and he has never stopped stepping up to the challenge…
by Catherine Macallister What first caught my eye when I began to learn about the Harvey Foundation was an ad: A woman running on a foggy day, her race number pinned to the front of her shirt, making the sign of a heart as she ran by the camera. In […]
