‘My Blessed Shelter Island’

This is one of the pieces performed in the Shelter IslandHistorical Society’s 2008 “Voices from the Vault program ofexcerpts from letters and documents stored in the Havens Housearchives and read by actors. It was printed in the Reporter in lastyear’s holiday issue. In the spirit of the season, we offer itagain.

The author of the piece, Dorothy Payne, was born on theIsland in the 1880s. In her later years she wrote a memoir aboutgrowing up here, titled “My Blessed Shelter Island, dedicated toher parents, William Otis Payne and Catherine Burns Payne,published in 1950. The memoir took the form of letters to hergranddaughter, Katherine.

There was no last minute shopping in those long ago ShelterIsland Christmases. There were no stores, no gift shops, no supermarkets or credit cards. Wrapping paper? Of course, white tissuepaper with red ribbon, ravishing but rationed, the decorating themeof the red, green and white of the Christmas tree.

Shopping sprees were few and gifts were simple. An order sent toSears Roebuck weeks in advance was awaited eagerly. One ferry tripto Greenport in early December was adequate to assure a merryChristmas for all.

Papa gave me a bright, shiny fifty cent piece for my Christmasshopping. In the variety store on Front Street in Greenport, withits over-loaded counters I found a ten cent thimble for Mama, acollar button for Papa’s stiff-bosomed Sunday shirt and that leftthirty cents to squander for the others on my list.

Tiny calendars were a penny apiece and a few sheets of red orgreen construction paper were the answer. Christmas tree shapeswere cut from the green paper while stars and bells werepainstakingly cut from the red, then paste, made from flour andwater in an ironstone saucer, was applied with a toothpick to theback of the tiny calendars and affixed to the center of each tree.Perfect gifts for aunts, uncles and cousins.

A cedar tree from Ram Island beach stood in the west bay window,decorated with popcorn and cranberry festoons, wallpapercornucopias filled with nuts and tiny candies hung from thebranches and I recall the Christmas Eve celebrations in the oldchurch.

During my childhood the church Christmas celebration was onChristmas Eve, not the previous Sunday, not two days before butalways on the night before Christmas when the good fairy SantaClaus did arrive with his backpack of toys, candy and oranges. Sowhat if the dust in Santa’s whiskers made Clifford Clark sneeze!Clifford, Santa said, they sneezed at the North Pole also.

In my high button shoes and many starched petticoats I stoodawestruck and breathless as the Sunday School superintendentlighted those hundred and more wax candles that were attached tothe branches by metal clips.

If I could live again but one Christmas moment it would bebefore a tall fragrant cedar, in my little Presbyterian Church onShelter Island that I would choose to stand. I would smell againthe perfume of those salt-sea-washed cedar branches.

We walked home afterwards through the lane, Papa toting themarket basket of oranges, boxes of hard candy and the meaningfultoken gifts from my loved and loving peers and teachers. AnotherChristmas Eve in the old Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. Couldthat be the star of Bethlehem hanging low over Gardiner’s Bay?

May God send you his Christmas peace, dear Katherine, as it oncewas found for me on my blessed Shelter Island.

Your loving grandmother.