Augie (left), Stan (Center), Crosby Prizer (right)

“Every house was open to every one of us youngsters in the neighborhood. ...We ran through Martha’s Park or along the beach and entered any house at will, finding another family of relatives apparently glad to have us. Cookies and fruit lay about for the taking and little boys like Augie (a childhood friend) and I helped ourselves.” Stan Hart

From Beverly Thomas Prizer: “The photo was taken at Seascape probably around 1941 or 1942. Stan came to my father’s memorial we had at Seascape (summer of 2001) and spoke of fond memories of his friendship with Dad during their childhood summers in Harthaven.

Red Cat

“...Harthaven surely was no Newport. Nor was it Southhampton or Bar Harbor, or, closer to home, West Chop. At the start it was decidedly upper middle class. ...it was not a boastful community and never aspired to society. You might say that Harthaven lounged on the ascending edge of respectability, reflective of business success. John O’hara would have found much to savor there while F. Scott Fitzgerald would have found it lacking.”

“Harthaven was ...not stuffy. It was, however, parochial and somewhat narrow gauge. The older crowd seemed to exude a way of life that was abundant in humor and action and a style that flowed from a Yankee heritage. Another Yankee, Ralph Waldo Emerson, cautioned his fellow Americans - those who were borrowing their ...lifestyles from England and other European countries - when he wrote: “Insist on yourself, never imitate.” I think of the older crowd that way. I rather doubt they consciously imitated anything. They were as normal as an August nor’easter or the herring run that fed through Harthaven into Farm Pond in Oak Bluffs.” Stan Hart

Stan Loved to sail - Here are photographs of him aboard his father’s boat - Stormy Petrel - and a photograph of his schooner - Red Cat.

In later years, Stan moved from Harthaven to Abel’s hill. But he always retained a fondness for Harthaven, as he wrote in the Vineyard Gazette in 1983.

“On soft summer nights I rode ...past the Oak Bluffs Country Club (which was) ...humming with the great songs of the war, Moonlight Becomes You and I’ll Be Seeing You. Navy officers from the airfield ...were dancing inside and army troops preparing to land at Normandy were there too. The girls of the Vineyard danced in their arms: the night was too short, days ticking by, the summer going too fast. An exalted ambiance of danger mixed with love, conspired in the night air to tantalize a 14 year old on his bike.”

“As a long time (summer resident) I took it for granted that in July and August on Martha's Vineyard things that mattered came to be. The rest of the time was lying in wait, waiting for the sweet days of pine needles and sand that started in mid-June and ended in mid-September, and whatever transpired during the off-season was transitory and of little moment. What happened on the Vineyard was cemented in the soul.”

Stan’s Movie -”I’ll be seeing you” - click below to play. Be patient - the images lag the sound... it’s worth it.

click this button