25 years marks a silver anniversary. But after spending nearly a quarter century at the microphone, Barbara Dacey’s memories are colored gold. “She was dressed beautifully. She was wearing this big hat and walked into the door in a way that was very dramatic,” said Ms. Dacey, the curly-haired woman who first knocked on the Vineyard Haven doors of radio station 92.7 FM herself in 1981.

The day was expected to draw a crowd in the thousands — and it did — but inside Ocean Park on Sunday, large swaths of grass were visible and vending booths were quiet at the second annual Martha’s Vineyard Festival. Outside the park, however, sidewalks and house porches were jammed.

The big wooden doors of the Chicama Vineyards shop closed for the last time Sunday evening at two minutes past five. The shelves of the shop, once stocked with wines made from the grapes grown outside and vinegars infused with that wine, were empty, or nearly so. Hundreds of people stopped in over the weekend to celebrate the end of an adventure in farming and business begun 37 years ago by the late George and Catherine Mathiesen.

On Sunday, with the turn of a lock, that adventure came to a close. It was a bittersweet ending.

On Tuesday afternoon as thunderstorms threatened, they came to the West Tisbury Grange Hall early and straggled in late: fishermen fresh off their boats, cooks from Chilmark and New York, politicians and lawyers in coats and ties, teenagers on skateboards. They came to honor Clarissa Allen and Mitchell Posin, recipients of the 25th annual Award for Creative Living from the Ruth J. Bogan and Ruth Redding fund. The Permanent Endowment Fund for Martha’s Vineyard gives the award every year to acknowledge an Island resident who embodies the spirit of Vineyard living.