Marjorie Moore

I have known Woods Hole for eighty-one summers but never wintered here. I grew up in the Veeder House on West (Albatross) St.--swam twice daily at Stony--learned scientific names at Science School--accompanied my grandfather (retired as captain of the Bureau of Fisheries vessel Phalarope) trolling for blues and stripers, hauling lobster or eel pots, raking for quahogs. (Things his family had done for 400 years.) I played ping-pong and square-danced at the MBL Club and brought my beaux home where they were tested on their skill at eating lobster.

During World War II I ran up the flag mornings at the Yacht Club, watching the Navy flag across the water and listening for the bugle. (I was helping my grandfather, Bob Veeder, who was replacing the regular Club steward who was away in the Army.)

While studying at Radcliffe I was recruited by Mary Sears to teach Seashore Life at Science School, teaching another generation "limulus", "physalia", "crepidula", etc.

Then, my Harvard beau having passed the family lobster test, I came home from a postgraduate Fulbright year at the University of Strasbourg to marry him at the Church of the Messiah on Sept. 11, 1954, becoming Mrs. Stephen A. Moore on a day which just happened to be the day of Hurricane Edna. (This is another story.)

We have now watched two more generations learn to swim at Stony, row, sail, and make Woods Hole friends at Science School.

I have sung for forty years with the Woods Hole Cantata Consort, and for a few years led walks around Eel Pond for the Historical Society. Doing research for that I learned that my family has been involved with Woods Hole history since its inception, when the governor in Plymouth sent Richard Bourne to buy land adjoining Falmouth from the Indians to provide room for that settlement to grow. When a surveyor divided the land for sale, again my family was there buying. When the British in 1779 gathered at a tavern on Pasque to plan the burning of Falmouth my grandfather's ancestor the tavernkeeper sent his son in the night to alert Woods Hole, saving Falmouth. In the next century, the Swift who created a shipyard in Woods Hole and built whalers was my great grandmother's first cousin.

In years past my Woods Hole relatives included MBL, WHOI, and Fisheries connections, also workers with Sam Cahoon's Fish Market, the Post Office, the Police, and the Sands of Time Motor Inn. Now I am down to two cousins: Sue Veeder who runs the Sands of Time, and Rob Veeder living retired on Two Ponds Road.