My first and best memory of Edie was when I was about 8 years old. I was walking on North Water Street past the Cottage Street landing on my way to go crabbing at the lighthouse beach. I spied a small sailboat called a Sailfish. This was the original off-the-beach boat, a narrower version of a Sunfish without a cockpit. Edie was sailing this Sailfish on port tack into Edgartown Harbor. Her blond hair blowing in the wind, her long legs gracefully aligned in the direction of her passage, the sun gleaming and smiling on it all. She was not sailing the boat, she was being carried by it, like a princess. I never forgot that scene and will never forget Edie.
She married Henry Beetle Hough (Pulitzer prize winner – shown below) and helped him run the Vineyard Gazette for many years.
Sailfish
Edie Blake sailed one just like this
Henry Beetle Hough
Husband of Edie Blake
Don Poole
On the set of Jaws – Conway house in the background
Edie Blake
with her book