My sister, Lucy Hart Abbot, died this morning, Oct. 3. She was 87 years old and died, essentially, of old age.

Everyone called her Bideau. Originally my parents called her Billy Lu. That was at the start, after she was born on Hart street in New Britain, Conn. That southern-style adoption of their own names, Lucy and Bill, would not endure. My brother couldn’t say the words and called his older sister Bideau. And so her distinctive name came to be, leading many people to assume she had been born in France.

Poor Notification

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I do not know the seriousness of the current potential contamination of Oak Bluffs water but it seems rather distressing that most residents found out about the situation by word of mouth instead of any kind of an official announcement.