The Inspiration for Daffodil Weekend
It's all About the Flowers
The sun rose at 5:45 this morning and will set at 7:31 this evening.
For the past month we have enjoyed visions of daffodils blooming across the island, brightening the otherwise grey and dreary landscape of April. This isn’t nature’s gift to the island; daffodils are not indigenous to Nantucket. It is all due to the vision and initial generosity of one woman fifty years ago, Jean MacAusland.
The wife of the founder of the now defunct Gourmet magazine, Earle MacAusland, Jean had a vision of a million daffodils blooming all over the island. She and her husband called Nantucket home for many years. flying to the island in their private plane – not a Gulfstream jet, but a little six-seat Aero Commander, piloted by a guy named Tony Benjamin. The MacAuslands loved the simplicity of island life and spent as much time as they could here.
Jean was a person with a generous spirit and lived life to the fullest. She was a patron of the arts, and her Shawkemo home was filled with sculptures and paintings by island artists. She also loved good food and knew the chefs in Nantucket’s best restaurants and often ordered off the menu.
She loved a good time. Before she met her husband, she’d been a showgirl in New York and loved singing the songs of Johnny Mercer. These tidbits tell you a little about the woman who was behind the genesis of what we will celebrate this weekend, the 49th Daffodil Festival.
Most importantly, Jean was a member of the Nantucket Garden Club and shared her vision with like-minded flower people. In the fall of 1974, she funded the first planting of a million daffodils across the island, starting with Milestone Road.
Over the years the garden club continued the efforts of mass daffodil plantings on all the major roads of the island. At the same time the club encouraged community members to plant daffodils in their own gardens, distributing bulbs to school children in little plastic bags every fall, each bag always marked with the variety of the bulb. A daffodil flower show, consisting of categories of individual cultivars as well as arrangements with a variety of themes in which prizes were awarded, gave competitive gardeners inspiration for planting and nurturing these springtime bulbs.
In order to view the daffodils in bloom along Milestone Road, the idea of an antique car parade from town to Sconset, ending in a tailgate picnic was conceived. Jean owned a mint-condition Rolls Royce, so she was always near the front of the line. Flint Ranney’s antique LaFrance fire engine always led the way.
Jean MacAusland passed away in September of 2000 at the age of 82, but her legacy lives on every spring on the island of Nantucket. The photo of her at the top of this column is from the Nantucket Historical Association archives, taken by Beverly Hall and donated by Map & Legend, a publication founded by Kate Stout, where the photo first appeared.
What About the Weather?
In typical Nantucket fashion, the weather report for Saturday, when all the big events for the Daffodil Festival are scheduled, is predicted to be rainy and windy, with gusts of up to 35 mph possible. At least there’s no snow in the forecast.
The weather will, no doubt, influence the plans of some who planned to come over Saturday by boat for the day, whether through boat cancellations or people’s own desire to skip an unpleasant boat ride and a day which may well be a washout.
The Chamber of Commerce made the decision Thursday to go forward with the antique car parade, pointing out that it is advertised as a rain or shine event. Some of the cars, notably convertibles, may not participate, but who knows.
The crowds in town Saturday may be smaller, but many people are already here, having arrived on Thursday or earlier, and some have been here all week with their kids, since it is school vacation week.
The Daffodil Flower Show at Bartlett’s Farm is a weatherproof event and still a go. It’s in the greenhouse. I can think of no better way to experience the heart of this festival weekend by attending the flower show, and if you’re a gardener it is fun taking photos of the single cultivars on display that you find especially enchanting and then ordering the bulbs to plant in your own garden this fall. The daffodil show is from 2-5 pm Saturday and 10 am to 3 pm Sunday.
Where to Eat - What Just Opened
This weekend is also a good opportunity to get lunch or dinner in town at one of the seasonal restaurants that just reopened.
The Club Car is a cozy space to settle into on a cold and windy day, and they just reopened for lunch and dinner this weekend. The dining room there is nice, since it was redone in a more traditional island décor, but I like eating at the bar.
Straight Wharf Fish is the place to go in town for seafood with a view of the water. Fish sandwiches – grilled swordfish, battered and fried cod, lobster, scallop and clam rolls are on the menu. They also serve a great tuna poke bowl, a roasted salmon and several very good salads.
Because the front of the store is also a fish market, Straight Wharf has achingly fresh seafood. They are open from 11 am to 9 pm. Sit on the weather-proofed deck for views of the water or in the dining room. Look for it behind the gazebo. Takeout is also available. No reservations.
The Languedoc, a perennial favorite of ours, is open again but you should call for reservations. I’ll skip this busy weekend and we’ll go in May for our favorite dishes there.
The new deck space at the Brant Point Grill at the White Elephant is open, and I got a chance to check it out for lunch Thursday. More to come on this in my Delicious column closer to Memorial Day.
I will tell you this, however: I thoroughly enjoyed BPG’s new menu and my Thai coconut crab salad and vanilla cheesecake with a blueberry glaze for dessert. So check it out. It’s a different menu and different vibe from last season. I think you’ll like it. What remains the same are the same great views of the waterfront from the deck.
Things I’m Happy About This Week
WMVY 88.7, which provides the soundtrack for just about every day in our house, just boosted its radio signal in the past few weeks so that station is now coming in loud and clear. WMVY plays a blend of music that is appealing to those of us who came of age in the 60’s and ‘70s. They also play current artists popular on the Vineyard where the radio station is based.
Nancy Thayer’s latest Nantucket book, “Summer Light on Nantucket,” was released this week. It is Nancy’s 38th novel. She writes about one a year. Compared to fellow island author Elin Hiderbrand’s enormous success, Nancy’s work is sometimes overlooked. Her books are wonderful reads and deserve more attention.
Winter Street is finally getting resurfaced after sewer lines were run under the street in the off season and new sidewalks installed. But there will be no asphalt on this downtown street. Instead, there’ll be cobblestones. When the road crew ripped up the asphalt they discovered a layer of cobblestones, so they decided to return the street to its original pavement.
I’m not sure how happy I am about that. Ankles have been turned by a misstep on cobblestones, and high heels ruined by stepping wrong in a gap between the stones so much that it is close to a tradition.
The only thing worse is Belgian block that has become disrupted over time. If you think I’m wrong, take a stroll down the alley that serves Still Dock and the Belgian block paving around the gazebo on Straight Wharf that was laid down in the 1960’s. I think you’ll agree that all of that Belgian block paving needs to be replaced. My vote is for brick.
Happy Daffodil everyone! Look next week for my take on some of the articles we’ll be wrestling with on the floor of Town Meeting, May 3.