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Alberta Silvia, 80
Was Bookkeeper, Scalloper
Alberta Mabel (Bert) Silvia of Oak Bluffs died June 16 at her home on Brush Pond Road surrounded by her family. She was 80.
Mrs Silvia was born on Jan. 27, 1922 in New Bedford and was young when she moved to the Vineyard with her parents, Steven Rae and Edith Mae Pease. Alberta was graduated from the Oak Bluffs High School. She attended Bryant College in Providence and married
Raymond Silvia in 1942 before he enlisted to serve his country in World War II. During this time Alberta was doing her part to help her country by working as a welder in a Rhode Island shipyard.
During the D-Day invasion Ray was hurt badly on the shores of France; once recuperated well enough, he returned to the United States to Martha's Vineyard with Alberta to work at the pumping station at the Navy base (now the airport). Alberta, meantime, worked as a waitress for the Boston House Restaurant in Oak Bluffs (now Season's Pub).
Alberta became the bookkeeper at Island Technical Services, a television repair shop owned by her husband. She would go on to do bookkeeping for others, including the West Chop Club, the Twin Oaks Restaurant and for Edward (Pete) Vincent and his various businesses. Mrs. Silvia would winter in Port Orange, Fla., and she would help Larry Stockhause, CPA, to file taxes when the season came.
Mrs. Silvia kept herself busy by being a commercial scalloper and boat owner. When she wasn't to busy she loved a good game of poker, and with her poker face and a good bluff she only folded once in her days of playing. She also enjoyed occasional trips to the casino.
She was a member of the Trinity Methodist Church on the Camp Ground. She was the Past-Noble Grand of the Martha Rebecca Lodge, a member of the Eastern Star and member of the American Legion Women's Auxiliary.
Mrs. Silvia is survived by a daughter, Linda Taylor of Daytona Beach; two sons, Ray Silvia and his wife, Pam, of Oak Bluffs and Jack Silvia and his wife, Lynne, of Vineyard Haven; a sister, Dorothy J. Rylander of Bridgeman, Mich.; six grandchildren, Colette Kelly, Kelly O'Connell and Jared, Brant, Chase and Tony Silvia; two great-grandchildren, Tayla Kelly and Ryan O'Connell. She will be missed by many friends including her childhood friend, Helen Peacock of Oak Bluffs.
A graveside service will be held in the Oak Grove cemetery, Oak Bluffs at 2 p.m. on Friday, June 21, officiated by the Rev. Daniel Freitas. Donations may be made in her memory to Hospice of Martha's Vineyard, P.O. Box 2549, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557 or to the Trinity United Methodist Church, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557. Arrangements are by the Chapman, Cole and Gleason Funeral Home in Oak Bluffs.
Ann Quigley West
Was Former Antique Dealer
Ann West, an Edgartown resident for more than 75 of her 98 years, died on April 14 at the Southwest Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers, Fla.
She was born Anne Bridget Quigley in Fall River on May 2, 1904, the daughter of Andrew E. and Ada Quigley of Fayville. The youngest daughter in a family of five, three girls and two boys, she was raised by relatives in the Boston area and in Chicago, which was the normal way in those days, as her mother died before she was three.
Reunited with her sisters Caroline and Ada in the Boston area in the early 1920s, she attended a small college before being employed by the telephone company.
In 1923 she met her future husband, Richard West, a native of Edgartown who was employed in Boston at the time.
Married in Fayville on May 27, 1925, they honeymooned in Stamford, Vt., prior to setting up housekeeping in Edgartown. Richard made his living as a fisherman and boat captain until his death at 61 years of age in 1964.
Ann loved poetry and was well-known as an antique dealer. She opened her first shop in 1950 with her friend, Marion Roberts, on Dock street. It operated there until it moved to an addition on her home, then located where the post office is now. She was an avid collector and the story has been told that her husband once remarked, "You've got enough junk to open a store." So she did. It was an avocation that continued into her 80s.
The antique business was never run for profit, but it did provide this lady of endless energy and love for antiques with the opportunity to display the things she loved. She never bought anything that she didn't like for herself, and in fact many of the items bought for the shop spent a few years in her home before being replaced by some new treasure.
Ann read every book and magazine she could find and would research most items she found for her shop. She was known to retire items from the store if someone looked like they were going to buy it.
She is survived by her three children, Richard E. West, formerly of West Tisbury and currently residing in Virginia, Joyce West Erdman of Edgartown and Carmichel, Calif., and Peter West of Edgartown and Fort Myers, Fla.; 14 grandchildren, and 15 grandchildren, with two more due this summer.
A graveside service will be held Saturday, July 13, at 11 a.m. at the Westside cemetery in Edgartown, followed by an open house and celebration of her life at the home of her son, Peter, at 3 Hillman Drive, Katama. All are welcome.
Alfred G. Parker, 90
Was Engineer and Researcher
Alfred Gaunt Parker died April 25 at the age of 90.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Jan. 3, 1912, he was graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J., and then from Worcester Institute of Technology with a degree in chemical engineering.
He married
Virginia Mandeville of Summit, N.J., in 1942. During World War II, he worked for the Tidewater Oil Company, where he contributed to research for the Manhattan Project. After the war he joined the engineering research division of Foster Wheeler Corporation, where he developed several patents related to oil refineries. He later served on the board of trustees of Overlook Hospital in Summit.
Mr. Parker's association with Chilmark began in the early 1950s, when he built a cottage on Squibnocket Pond. After the death of his first wife, he married
Elizabeth Beasley Van Buren. Upon retirement in 1977, he gave up his slide rule for an early IBM personal computer, and developed the first database for the Summit Red Cross. He moved to the Judson Retirement Community in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1993.
He is survived by a daughter, Virginia Parker Dawson of Shaker Heights, Ohio; two sons, Charles Franklin Parker of Concord and Stephen Winslow Parker of South Burlington, Vt. He also leaves a sister, Nancy Winslow Parker of New York city, and three stepsons.
Louise Tate King was Chef, Restaurateur;
She Lived Life with Flair and Good Humor
Louise Tate King, epicure, chef and restaurateur whose cuisine was an Island institution for nearly 40 years, died of cancer on Thursday, Dec. 14 at the Henrietta Brewer House in Vineyard Haven. Mrs. King was 87.
She was born in Canada and grew up in Tennessee and Pennsylvania. She first came to the Vineyard as a summer resident in 1941, and it was here, 10 years later, that her career began. She was the proprietor, in turn, of fashionable restaurants in Chilmark, North Tisbury and Edgartown, and finally of a North Tisbury catering business. She was the co-author, with Jean Stewart Wexler of North Tisbury, of The Martha's Vineyard Cookbook, which was published in 1971 and twice reissued in paperback.
To her cooking she brought the creativity and flair characteristic of the great chefs. She was trained at the Cordon Bleu School of Cuisine in Paris and said late in her life: "I'm a classicist. I say the French cuisine is the greatest in the world."
Mrs. King was born in Niagara Falls, Canada, on Oct. 28, 1913. Her parents, Allen and Pearl Sachs Tate, were from England. Her father was a salesman in a shoe store in Niagara Falls; it was he, Mrs. King always said, who taught her to cook. In 1920 the family moved to Nashville, Tenn., to Philadelphia in 1927 and to Reading, Pa., in 1930. Louise and her younger sister attended public schools, where Louise excelled in Latin. She was an outgoing and vivacious girl, popular among her schoolmates and teachers.
For all her culture and sophistication, Mrs. King never went to college. Her first job was in the accounting department of Luden's, the cough drop maker, in Reading. In 1932 she married
one Mitchell Atwater; the marriage lasted less than a year and Mr. Atwater left hardly a trace in the family memory. Mrs. King moved to New York city in 1934 and went to work as a secretary at the United States Leather Company. She was married
in 1939 to Lewis King of Forest Hills, N.Y., an executive with the Loft Candy company. Mr. King had been summering on Martha's Vineyard since he was a boy, and in 1941 he brought his bride to the Island. The Kings came back every summer through the 1940s, renting a place on the North Shore in Chilmark.
In 1951 the couple purchased an abandoned and decaying farmhouse on a hill above the North Road in Chilmark. Renovations took a year, and in 1952 the Kings opened the Blueberry Hill Inn. Louise Tate King, 39, had found her calling.
The couple was divorced in 1961, and Mrs. King immediately struck out on her own. She bought the old Ed Lee Luce house at the bend in the State Road in North Tisbury, added a wing and opened a summer restaurant. Louise Tate King's "Food With A French Provincial Flavor" was the Vineyard's first French restaurant.
It quickly attracted an admiring clientele, including some of the Island's summer celebrities of the day, such as Leonard Bernstein and Thomas Hart Benton. Mrs. King, who lived in the house as well, was fond of greeting her patrons and engaging them in discussions of the menu and of food in general. She knew most of them by name.
In 1967 she moved her business to Edgartown, to the Captain Robert Jackson house on Main street. Louise Tate King's Cuisine Français was an instant success. Thornton Wilder came to dine there. So did Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. In 1970 Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine gave Louise Tate King's its Distinguished Dining Award for "distinguished achievement in the culinary arts, for high standards of gracious service and for inviting decor and atmosphere." Years later Mrs. King put her restaurant's virtues in a nutshell: "Just fine food exquisitely served."
The Martha's Vineyard Cookbook was published initially by Harper & Row and went to seven printings. "This is no ordinary cookbook," wrote a reviewer in The Christian Science Monitor. "It could easily pass for the story of one of the most beautiful and unspoiled spots along the Atlantic Coast. It could qualify as a book on New England foods. And it could also stand alone as a cookbook on seafood."
It was redolent of the Island. There were recipes for windfall applesauce and clam stifle, for Joseph Chase Allen's cornbread, Mary Alley's banana bread, Priscilla Hancock's fudge and John Pachico's herring roe bake. The book was republished in paperback in 1993 by the Globe Pequot Press. A third edition, with some 30 new recipes, was released by Globe Pequot last year.
Mrs. King sold her Edgartown restaurant in 1974 and opened a catering business, Island Epicure, working out of her home in North Tisbury. The business thrived for many years. Mrs. King retired by degrees and in 1989 moved to a gingerbread cottage on Central avenue in Oak Bluffs, where she continued to cook for the sheer pleasure it gave her.
Mrs. King's creativity extended beyond the kitchen. She was a self-taught and capable classical pianist and watercolorist and expert gardener. She loved jazz and the great Broadway musicals of the 1940s and 1950s, and in her younger days she loved to dance. Her daughter, Hillary King Flye, remembers her mother on the dance floor, a vibrant and stylish woman with an unmistakable zest for melody and movement and for life itself. Mrs. King traveled extensively in Europe and the Caribbean. She often wintered in Florida, and for several winters she ran a restaurant on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. She did volunteer work for the Martha's Vineyard Historical Commission and for the Community Solar Greenhouse in Oak Bluffs. She had a theatrical bent and worked on productions of Harvey and Blithe Spirit at the Martha's Vineyard Little Theater.
Mrs. King had a special admiration for the French chef Jacques Pepin, who cooked for Charles DeGaulle and wrote La Method and La Technique. Pepin's books, she said, would enable any neophyte to become an able professional chef. "It's an attitude," she said. "I always had the best, the freshest. And a limited menu allows you to concentrate."
Mrs. King is survived by her daughter; by her sister, Sylvia Tate Horan of Washington Grove, Md.; and by two granddaughters, Jennifer Trilby Marlin of Portland, Ore., and Anna-Louise Fischbach of Mill Valley, Calif. A funeral service will be held at Grace Church in Vineyard Haven at 10 a.m. on Dec. 30. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations in Mrs. King's name be made to the MSPCA in Edgartown.
Vincent Prada, 46
Was Attorney in Washington
On July 23, Vincent Prada died in a car accident in Montgomery County, Md. He was 46 years old.
Vincent Prada was the son of Richard Prada and the late Maurita Prada of Edgartown. He was born in 1956 with his twin sister, Barbara. Growing up, one of his hobbies was fishing, once winning the junior division of the Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. As a teenager, he worked many jobs about town, most memorably as a sales clerk and jack-of-all-trades at Avery's, which then became Robin Hood's Barn. He was graduated as the valedictorian from the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School in 1974.
Mr. Prada attended Williams College in Williamstown and was graduated magna cum laude in 1978 with a degree in political economy. Subsequently, he was accepted to the University of Chicago Law School. He was graduated with honors from law school in 1981 and became a member of the Order of the Coif.
Following graduation, he clerked in Chicago for the Hon. Richard Cudahy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Vincent's clerkship was for a year, during which time he met his future wife, Jana Singer, who was also serving a clerkship for Judge Cudahy. After his clerkship, he accepted a position with the law firm of Sidley & Austin in Chicago. In 1983, he moved to the Washington, D.C., office of the firm.
Mr. Prada became a partner of Sidley & Austin in 1989. He represented the nation's largest railroad companies in mergers, rate proceedings and the restructuring of the rail industry. He was a columnist for the newsletter of the Association for Transportation Law, Logistics and Policy.
After converting to Judaism, he married
Jana Singer in 1985. They subsequently had two children, Michael and Joshua. He coached youth basketball and was an avid runner. He and his family were active members of the congregation Beth El in Bethesda, Md.
Mr. Prada is survived by his wife, Jana Singer, and their sons, Michael (age 15) and Joshua (age 12); his father, Richard Prada of Edgartown; his sisters, Barbara and Ursula Prada of Edgartown; his sister, Christine Eissenstat of Frederick, Md., and his sister, Mary Dombrowski of Allentown, Pa., and six nephews and one niece.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Edgartown Public Library, or the charity of one's choice.
Cecilia Osborne, 92
Was Known for Musical Gifts
Cecilia Osborne of Mariner's Way in Edgartown died Friday, June 14, at Windemere Nursing Home. She was 92.
Mrs. Osborne was born on Oct. 26, 1909 in Baltimore, Md., one of 10 children of Mathias Wloch and Bernice Bardzikowska. Her father served as a desk sergeant on the Chicago police force and as a detective for the B&O Railroad, while teaching English to German and Polish immigrants in the evenings. He later worked for Ocean Spray in Massachusetts.
Mrs. Osborne grew up in Mansfield and worked as a jewelry solderer and as a seamstress in the Boston and Worcester areas. Her hobby was creating music by singing and playing the piano. In 1934, she married
Everett Osborne, an employee of the Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission. After the death of her husband in 1982, she lived with her daughter in Rockville, Md., and then accompanied her to Edgartown in 1994.
Mrs. Osborne's Island legacy extends further with her husband's great-grandfathers. One was Edgar Marchant, founder of the Vineyard Gazette, and the other was Abraham Osborn Sr., an Edgartown whaling captain and owner of whaling ships.
She leaves as survivors her daughter, C. Marie Thompson and her son in law, Dr. Donald Thompson and a grandson, Perry Thompson, all of Edgartown and Rockville, Md.; a brother, Louis Wloch of Spencer, and a sister, Irene Serwa of Baltimore, Md. She also leaves many nieces and nephews.
Her funeral mass was held in St. Elizabeth's Church, Edgartown on Monday, June 17, 2002. The gifts to the altar were presented by Dr. and Mrs. Paul Lock. Interment in the New Westside cemetery, Edgartown, was followed by a luncheon at the Farm Neck Golf Club. Arrangements were by the Chapman, Cole and Gleason Funeral Home in Oak Bluffs.
Stephen F. Brooke
Was Carpenter and Horseman
Stephen F. Brooke of Cave Creek, Ariz., formerly of Framingham and Martha's Vineyard, died Oct. 1 after a valiant battle with cancer. He was 54 years old.
Mr. Brooke was a veteran of the United States Coast Guard and a member of the Arizona Carpenters Union. He was an active member of the Fountain Hills and the Western Saddle Clubs and a devoted horseman. He was a loving father and friend, and is missed by those whose lives he touched.
He is survived by his wife, Sheryl (Lawrence); a brother, John Brooke of Centerville; three daughters, Emily Brooke of Yarmouth, Jennifer Brooke of Framingham and Michelle Brooke of Ft. Meyers, Fla., and one grandson.
Basil G. Dandison, 102
Was Publishing Pioneer
Basil G. Dandison of Yarmouthport, formerly of Lexington, died at Heatherwood Assisted Living in Yarmouthport on Jan. 4. He was 102 years old. He was a frequent visitor to the Island for the past 35 years, visiting his daughter, Chloe Nolan, and enjoying yearly gatherings of the family. Mr. Dandison was engaged in international book publishing for many years and had worked in more than 70 countries.
He was born in West Bloomfield, Mich. In 1918 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served aboard the battleship U.S.S. Maryland. After his discharge in 1923, he returned to school and was graduated from the University of Michigan in 1929.
From 1930 until 1939, he was business manager of the Bureau of University Travel, an educational foundation. He joined the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. in 1939 and held several management positions in the firm's international units, including executive vice president in the McGraw-Hill International Corp.
In 1947, Mr. Dandison headed the new international division's education department and launched book publishing programs in Europe and Asia, including international student editions, low-cost reprints of McGraw-Hill texts sold to students overseas. He also made history by traveling on the first round-the-world business trip by plane. He flew on a Pan American Clipper seaplane on a five-month trip to 30 nations.
In 1962, when Mr. Dandison was directing the company's international marketing, McGraw-Hill received the "E" for Export Award from President John F. Kennedy, honoring the corporation as the only U.S. publisher to distribute textbooks successfully overseas.
During his years in publishing, Mr. Dandison located scores of authors whose writings he brought to McGraw-Hill for publication. One of the foremost was Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson of MIT, whose economics textbook has been used around the world for more than five decades, has sold more than four million copies and is translated into dozens of languages, including French, Romanian, Japanese, Vietnamese, German and Russian.
Mr. Dandison was a pioneer in the dissemination of books of U.S. origin throughout the world, and was a leader in the book industry's international activities. He was also a trustee of the U.S. Council of the International Chamber of Commerce.
After his retirement from McGraw-Hill in 1965, he continued work as a consultant to publishers in the United States and abroad. He also engaged in many overseas assignments for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the International Executive Service Corps (IESC). He served as an active volunteer in the IESC until he reached 90.
Until just before his 100th birthday, when his eyesight began to fail, he read four or five publications daily to keep up with current events in the United States and abroad. Throughout his final years, he maintained an avid interest in the activities of his children and grandchildren and friends from Lexington. As the most senior resident, he was lovingly cared for by the staff of Heatherwood Assisted Living for the past three years.
Mr. Dandison is survived by a son, Basil G. Dandison Jr. of Yarmouthport; daughters May Louise Paton of Toronto, Canada, and Chloe Nolan of Edgartown; and six grandchildren. He was married
for 62 years to Minnie Joy Remick, who died in 1992.
A memorial service for family and friends was held last week at the Kelley Chapel in Yarmouth. The Cape Cod Marine Unit played Taps. He was one of the oldest living Marines in the country.
Arnold K. Brown Jr.
Was Conservationist, Sailor
Arnold Kaywood Brown Jr. of Vineyard Haven died peacefully on Wednesday after a valiant struggle with lung cancer. He was 68 years old.
Arnold was born in Providence, R.I., on May 2, 1933. He was the only son of the late Arnold Kaywood Brown and the late Alva Jefferds Brown. He grew up in Barrington, R.I., and was educated at Moses Brown School in Rhode Island and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He was graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1955, majoring in history.
Arnold, or Brownie as he was affectionately known, met his wife, Edie, 50 years ago while a freshman at Harvard. They married
the day after college graduation, enjoyed a two-month honeymoon traveling throughout the United States, and started married
life in Germany, where Arnold served several years as a commissioned U.S. Army officer. They were later stationed in Texas and Missouri, until Arnold left the Army in 1962.
Arnold and Edie returned to Barrington, where he began his career at the Fram Corporation. He soon headed Fram's international division, traveling extensively throughout the world, and then served as executive vice president. In 1974, Arnold left Fram and moved with Edie to the Vineyard full-time. They purchased and expanded Woodchips Designers Inc., which they owned until 1990.
Arnold loved Vineyard life and treasured his 30 years as a year-round resident. He had been introduced to the Island in the early 1950s through Edie's family. His in-laws were the late Edwin and Helen Chinlund of Vineyard Haven and New York.
Arnold was involved in wildlife and environmental conservation. In the early days of Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, he helped to lay the groundwork for the sanctuary that exists today. It was at Felix Neck that he met his dear friend, Gus Ben David, who introduced him to the birding world. He became an avid birder, traveling frequently with Edie to scope out the latest species. Arnold also spearheaded Programme for Belize, an effort that ultimately set aside 700,000 acres of rain forest for conservation.
The family home on Grove avenue was warm, welcoming and housed many of Arnold's entrepreneurial ventures. Working with his treasured, invaluable assistant, Daryl Knight, he maintained his connection to Belize through a travel organization that booked accommodations at the Chan Chich lodge. His other ventures included caretaking and a mail-order book business.
During the past six years, Arnold managed the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club. He loved being out on the water, and truly had an appreciation for a wild, windy day. He especially enjoyed his role as mentor to the latest generation of sailors, and implemented a program bringing sailing to Island youth. He was touched to have an annual high school team racing event named in his honor this fall.
Through the years, Arnold held many positions that reflected his varied interests, including commodore of the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club, treasurer of the Southern Massachusetts Sailing Association, finance committee member for the town of Tisbury, deacon at the First Congregational Church and board member for a number of organizations including the Visiting Nurses Association, Massachusetts Audubon Society and Hawk Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary.
His years on the Vineyard were rich and full of friendship and warmth. If you were fortunate enough to walk down the street with Arnold Brown, you quickly realized the wide variety of his many friends and acquaintances. He was a master of conversation, an absolute individual. He was an interesting, vital, vibrant person, and his dynamic presence will be sorely missed.
He is survived by his wife, Edith Chinlund Brown; his daughters, Lynne Brown Strang and Cynthia Brown Andrews, and their husbands; five grandchildren and one great-grandson.
A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9, at the First Congregational Church in West Tisbury. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary, Box 494, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568.
