From the March 26, 1937 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

Thirty-one school children of Chilmark and two nerve-wrecked school teachers entered the remodelled town school building on Monday with deep signs of relief. Since last June, when the summer vacation began, the school has been in process of remodelling and re-equipping, and when the fall session opened last September, the school was opened in the town hall, which was poorly equipped for school purposes.

But now the school is usable once more, and the convenience and comfort are matters for which deep and profound thanks are given, for the Chilmark school is now about as well planned and furnished as many rural schools.

The single room, old fashioned building has been divided through the center from front to back, forming two class rooms in each of which four grades are located. Each room is now equipped to seat eighteen pupils and the seats and other furnishings are modern and comfortable. Ample storage room and closets are provided, there is a commodious coat room in the rear, and an efficient hot air heater in the new basement warms the building thoroughly. The water system and toilets have not yet been installed, but will be in place shortly, and the interior of the building has been postponed until the summer vacation.

On the exterior, the building resembles its old self but slightly, being newly shingled on the sides, with a new and larger chimney, and newly painted trimmings.

Misses Priscilla Coleman and Mildred Cushman are the teachers who are breathing fervent prayers of thanksgiving, now that they are able to separate their thirty-one charges into groups which may recite without drowning each other out as in the single room of yore.

The work on the building was done under the WPA, which accounts for the delay, as men employed on this work are not allowed to work more than a certain number of hours weekly.

Cap’n Zeb Tilton, on a rare visit to his home port of Tisbury this week, drew the customary crowd of listeners when he hove-to at the corner of Lane’s Block to reminisce. Cap’n Zeb is believed to be the only man now alive who has towed a schooner over the waters of the earth with a dory, pulling the dory with a pair of oars. Something is radically wrong with the system at Nantucket, he believes.

“There are houses there with as many as five fireplaces in them,” he says, “and they are building more fireplaces even now, yet there isn’t a bit of wood on the Island!”

Max Eastman, who summers in Chilmark, is concerned with other matters even more serious than The Enjoyment of Laughter, his latest book. Now to be seen in New York is the moving picture Tsar to Lenin, “a documentary photoplay,” compiled and edited with a running commentary by Mr. Eastman. The work is an absorbing and compelling document, the Herald Tribune reports, showing history in the making.

Max Eastman, who has fitted the jigsaw puzzle together after thirteen years spent in assembling material, is justified in his claim that the film itself is unbiased, says the newspaper. The accompanying narration Mr. Eastman has prepared for the presentation is, obviously, not unbiased. It is partial to the revolution and to Trotsky’s role in it. It is understandable that Trotsky should loom importantly through the period of intervention and civil war and there has been no attempt to minimize Lenin’s leadership, but it is strange to find one fleeting glimpse of so stalwart a revolutionary as Stalin, with whose ideology Mr. Eastman is at odds. On the whole, though, the running commentary is informative and concise. It may not please either extreme reactionaries or extreme Communists, but it forms an adequate factual explanation of this extraordinary visual record.

The equinox has come. Spring has officially arrived and all the watchers of the portents have had their say as to what the next two seasons have in store for a waiting word. “South to southwest winds, prevailing for the next six months,” is the first part of the prophecy, which is an encouragement to those who lay all their hopes in a good summer season, as most people do. “But,” add the prophets, “there will be some fog, and perhaps we may have a wet month or two.”

This wet month is something that all old time Vineyarders claim is an important factor in a season that is successful from any point of view.

A few years ago, as most of us can remember, there was no rain on the Vineyard from the 24th day of May until late September. As a resort season, nothing more favorable could be imagined, but it was hard on the dairymen, gardeners and others who tried to raise grass, vegetables and fruit. It was almost impossible to produce anything save in such localities as could be watered by artificial means.

But anyway, it will not be a cold summer. The watchers of the equinox are certain of this, and the prediction, as noted, may be hung up or laid away, to be produced if the prophets are false and thus to confuse them utterly.

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com