 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Robert S. Sturgis, 1922-2008August 05, 2008 My father died last Friday, August 1, just after noon. He'd been fading fast so the end was not unexpected. The Lobdells are away, so I'm looking after the barn; I'm the evening person, and I get stuff ready for the morning and midday people. So my three siblings are handling arrangements in Weston, and I wrote and circulated Dad's obituary. The whole thing appears in today's Vineyard Gazette and should show up in Thursday's Martha's Vineyard Times as well, but here's the Vineyard-related part. Trav and I are going up for the memorial service on Thursday. * * * Robert Shaw Sturgis of Weston and West Tisbury, Mass., died at his home in Weston on Friday, Aug. 1. He was 86. A lifelong Weston resident, he was born on July 8, 1922, the eldest child of George Sturgis and Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis [Little]. His paternal grandfather was the half-brother of the philosopher George Santayana, whom Sturgis knew personally and in whose work he took an active interest. In 1965, he and his family spent the summer on Tisbury Great Pond, on Martha's Vineyard. It was love at first sight, a love that only deepened over the following four decades. After several years of renting, in the early 1970s he bought land, and designed and built a contemporary camp on Thumb Point. As beach walker, bird watcher, swimmer, and shellfisherman, he took full advantage of the pond's beauty and bounty, but his most joyful hours were spent sailing his Sunfish, exploring the coves, visiting South Beach, and participating in the Sunfish races that were held off Big Sandy on summer Sundays for many years. Each racing season culminated in the Demerara Cup race, held around Labor Day, with as many as two dozen boats competing for a bottle of Demerara rum and the challenge trophy: a painting of the races by Willie Huntington. Numerous empty bottles still adorn the shelves of the family camp, testimony to his sailing skill and his knowledge of the pond's shifting shallows. In 1988 he circumnavigated the Vineyard in a Sunfish, a journey of 24 hours. Most winters he managed to spend at least a few days on the pond, roughing it in the uninsulated camp and drawing water from the pump. . . .
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||
