Block Island

ABOUT THESE BLOCK ISLAND STORIES...

Some stories have appeared in The Block Island Times, the excellent weekly newspaper on Block Island, 14 miles off the Rhode Island coast. When Dutch explorer Adriaen Bloch passed by in the early 1600s, he named the land he saw Adrian's Isle. If the name had stuck, this unspoiled island might have attracted legions of visitors as Martha's Vineyard did. Instead, the island became known as Block Island, a homely name that kept the crowds at bay for many years.

The first newspaper where I worked as a news reporter and photographer was The Newtown Bee, a weekly in Connecticut. If you spelled one person's name wrong, your telephone would ring the day the paper came off the press. On Block Island, if you spell one person's name wrong, that person will storm into the newspaper office the day the paper appears online.

In news, the goal is truth based on accurate facts; the watchword is accountability. A local weekly newspaper is the best place in the world to learn the skill and craft of news reporting as well as the meaning of accountability.

You know it's summer on Block Island when...

You know it's summer on Block Island, Rhode Island, when you have to observe the island - wide speed limit of 25 miles per hour because the Rhode Island state police have sent cops to the island to supplement the local police.

You know it's summer on the island when you leave town to drive "down the neck" toward Mansion Beach in the morning, and you encounter dozens of bicyclists riding in single file along the roadside, forcing you to drive in the middle of the road until you pass all of them.

You know it's summer on the island when you leave your house to drive "up the neck" to town in the afternoon, and you must drive in the middle of the road because now two rows of bicyclists are riding on either side of the road, one group going toward the North Light and the other group going from the North Light back to town.

You know it's summer when Bill at the Old Post Office Bagel Shop opens not only for breakfast but also for lunch. This is a welcome event because Bill's grilled eggplant sandwich with goat cheese, roasted red peppers and arugula on toasted sour dough bread is my personal favorite. My next favorite sandwich is the veggie wrap at Three Sisters.

You know it's late spring and early summer when you wake up early in the morning to the sounds of songbirds busily greeting one another just before the sun comes up.

You know it's summer on the island when you wake up early to the sound of a baby crying in the house next door which has been rented to a family that traveled a long distance to come to the island to enjoy quietude. How ironic is that!

Block Island: Tying the Knot

Couples who want an informal Block Island wedding often choose a civil ceremony at a hotel or outdoors near a lighthouse or on the beach. These small weddings are usually the most personal on Block Island.

Under Block Island’s 1672 charter as well as the general laws of the state of Rhode Island, the authority to officiate at marriages is vested in the First Warden and the Second Warden of Block Island.

Second Warden Johno Sisto officiated for the first time at a wedding on Dec. 31, 2004, at Settler’s Rock. It was cold, but the sun was setting behind the North Light, providing a stunning backdrop for the wedding photos.

Another couple had their hearts set on being married while they were barefoot on the beach even though it was February. Halfway to the North Light, the bride and groom stood barefoot on the sand while Sisto read the vows as quickly as possible so that frostbite would not set in.

The tide was coming in on July 4 when a couple who wanted to be married on Sandy Point walked to the very point of Sandy Point. Sisto warned them to be careful not to get caught in the rip tide. The daughters of the bride and groom from their previous marriages played the flute and chased the music when the wind blew it away.

Sisto was at a loss for words when the tide brought a dead gull close to the groom’s feet, but everyone in the wedding party was laughing. “It was a lot of fun,” he said.

Sisto said that he reminds couples who call him that they must have a marriage license either from the Town Hall on Block Island or from their hometown Town Hall if they are from mainland Rhode Island. They must also have two witnesses to sign their marriage license, making five the minimum number of attendees at a tiny wedding: the bride and groom, the officiant and two witnesses.

One couple came to the island to get married quietly because they did not want the stress of a big wedding. They arrived at the Town Hall with their wedding clothes but had no one with them to be their witnesses. 

Sisto called his parents, Jack and Theresa Sisto, who were at home working in their garden. “We went to Second Bluffs and had the wedding there. My folks gave them an island tour and brought them back home for a bottle of champagne. Then they took them back to the boat,” Sisto said.

Many couples request civil marriage ceremonies because they want or can afford only a small simple wedding instead of a large choreographed production. Some couples, however, get married in a civil ceremony with a few of their closest relatives and/or friends as the first act of a two-act play.

They come to Block Island, get married by a civil officiant, enjoy intermission and stay for the big wedding with many guests who have no idea that the happy couple was legally married before they got to the church on time.

Sometimes the big wedding is planned for a place on the mainland, and by getting married on the island, the couple has a personal, intimate ceremony before taking the lead roles in a performance for an audience of many wedding guests.

Sisto recalled officiating at a 2005 wedding at the Old Town Inn. The bride was from Poland and all her family and friends came from Poland for the wedding. After every two or three sentences, Johno had to stop so that the bride’s brother could translate into Polish.

The groom, who was from Brooklyn, N.Y., was so eager to marry his bride that he interrupted Johno and said, “I do,” and everyone laughed. Johno finished all his words, the translation resumed, and this time, the groom responded, “I do, I do!” The bride’s brother translated this as, “Ya, ya!” Everyone laughed again.

Although some brides and grooms contribute to the text of their vows for church weddings, civil ceremonies often start from a more secular point of view. Some brides and grooms write their own vows entirely while others review suggested wedding vows, choosing some phrases and discarding others so they wind up with the words that mean the most to them personally.

Sisto said that almost everyone he has married has enjoyed references to the natural environment of Block Island. He is especially fond of the wording in this text, which makes an analogy between love and the ocean tides:

“Love does not follow from moment to moment and day to day in a level constant stream. It has ebbs and flows. Remember the tides that fall away from the shores that circle this island always rise again. Hold fast, have faith in the strength of the love that brought you to this moment.

Former First Warden Martha Ball says that one of her most memorable weddings was a ceremony scheduled for the weekend after Sept. 11, 2001. The bride and groom, along with both families, were living far away.

With air travel disrupted by 9/11, the wedding party could not fly to Block Island, but the family decided to come to Block Island even though it meant driving across the country.

“They decided that the life affirming thing to do was not to postpone the wedding. In a terrible time of awful uncertainty, everyone in the family was together when normally they would not have been,” Ball said

Block Island Labyrinth

Overlooking Sachem Pond and the North Light, the labyrinth on Block Island is a private space used by the public with the blessing of its owner, Barbara MacDougall.

“The good thing about the labyrinth is that it’s not denominational. It’s not Buddhist. It’s not Christian. It’s a spiritual entity in itself,” said MacDougall, who graduated with a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School and has been a chaplain at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“You can bring whatever religion you believe in to the labyrinth,” she said, explaining that sometimes people pray while walking slowly on the winding path.

MacDougall recalled spending a lot of time in prayer in the labyrinth with a friend whose son was killed in a World Trade Center tower on September 11, 2001.

Other times, people leave a problem in the entry and then walk the labyrinth until they come to the center, turning around at that point to walk back out. By the time they arrive at the exit, which is the same as the entry, the problem is sometimes resolved in their minds.

Some people focus on their blessings in the labyrinth, and by the end of the walk, they feel full with gratitude.

In meditation, MacDougall said, the Buddhists concentrate on breathing in and out, and that’s how they let go of the busyness of life. In the labyrinth, concentrating on walking makes it possible to free the mind from the burdens of everyday life.

MacDougall’s labyrinth is not the first public labyrinth on private land off Corn Neck Road. Just down the road Kathy Schleimer built a labyrinth on property she owned but had to sell. The new owners were hesitant to have the public on their property so they demolished the labyrinth. Around this time MacDougall visited Grace Church Cathedral in San Francisco where she got the strong sense that the island needed a labyrinth now that Schleimer’s labyrinth was being taken down.

Back on the island in 2001, MacDougall and 11 “friends of the labyrinth” used dousing rods to find the place on the land destined to be the center and then built the path with Kathy’s stones from her dismantled labyrinth. During one May weekend, the group created an 11-ring labyrinth in the style of a 9th century labyrinth about 40 feet in diameter.

The stones line the path that forms an intricate circular route from the entry to the center where people sometimes leave messages and memorabilia. The return route is the same path in reverse and brings the walker back to the entry that opens into the grassy buffer between the labyrinth and the outside world.

The MacDougall family bought property on the island in 1978. Even then, surrounded by her four young children, Barbara MacDougall heard a voice inside her that said, “You’re going to use this land as a spiritual place for people to come.”

How many people visit the labyrinth each year? MacDougall has no way of knowing except that she has 1,000 brochures printed annually, and the supply is always gone before the year ends. Family members have told MacDougall that at the height of the summer, they have counted 50 to 75 people per day.

The footsteps of so many visitors over the years have altered the terrain somewhat from a flat surface in 2001 to a slightly concave indentation in the earth. “It has been walked so many times that the paths are becoming gullies,” MacDougall said.

 Jens Risom: Furniture Designer

Danish-born furniture designer Jens Risom leans forward at the dining room table he designed where he and his guests are enjoying a lunch of lobster bisque, crabmeat, and home-baked wheat grain bread made from a Danish recipe. At age 94, he exudes energy as he speaks quickly and laughs heartily at his contemporary house in New Canaan, CT.

Recalling a conversation he had with architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1940s, Risom says: “I was very young, and he was very famous. He said, ‘Oh, yes, young man. I’ve heard about you. You design furniture, don’t you? What do you think about my furniture?’”

Risom’s reply was honest and forthright.

“Of course, your architecture is a wonderful guide for all of us, but when it comes to furniture, wouldn’t it be nice if the chairs were a little more comfortable?”

Wright replied, “Young man, God created man to stand up or lie down – not to sit!”

“Well, that may be true,” Risom told Wright, “but people are sitting, and they need comfortable chairs.”

Later on, Wright recommended that Risom’s furniture be used in one of Wright’s houses.

As Risom and his guests savor the moment with laughter, Risom’s wife, Henny, takes advantage of the pause in conversation to place a wooden board of cheeses next to Risom’s plate. She speaks close to his ear. “Eat that,” she says, pointing to a slice of cheese. “You want me to eat so I won’t waste away?” Risom asks. His wife nods yes. He eats the cheese with a slice of the Danish dark bread.

Jens Risom was born May 8, 1916, in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father was an award-winning architect, Sven Risom, who sent him to a business college for two years and then to Stockholm to work at a residential furniture shop. Returning home to Copenhagen, Risom studied furniture design from 1935 to 1938 at the School for Arts and Crafts.

A chance meeting in 1938 with the American Ambassador to Denmark sparked Risom’s interest in the United States. In early 1939, Risom traveled to New York City and became a freelance textile and furniture designer. With war breaking out in Europe, he told his Danish girlfriend, Iben, to come to the United States quickly. She arrived in December 1939, and they were married a few days later.

After meeting Hans Knoll, a young German furniture entrepreneur, Risom designed 15 pieces of furniture for Knoll’s company, which launched in 1941.

Risom’s designs combine the purposefully clean lines of Scandinavian furniture with details to make the chairs comfortable for people today. He is as concerned with the craftsmanship of his furniture as he is with materials, color and finishes. “Throughout history, people have never before expected to be as comfortable as people do today,” he says.

Sipping coffee after lunch, Risom recalls the World War II years when “I could smell that we might eventually be involved. The Army had first right to all webbing for parachutes, but I found out that a lot of the webbing submitted to the Army did not meet the stress test because it was not strong enough to hold a soldier.” Risom bought webbing rejected by the military because it was still strong enough to use for chairs.

When the United Service Organization set up recreational facilities at Army bases, Risom-designed furniture, including chairs made with webbing, was used because it was practical, sturdy, and less expensive than reproductions of antique chairs. “We delivered furniture to all the USOs around the country. These people had never seen furniture like that before. They did not say, ‘This is really quite nice.’ They said, ‘This is not too uncomfortable,’” he says.

To meet another wartime need, Risom worked with a company that produced big zippers to design a heavy, water proof canvas cover large enough to contain a tank. “In four minutes you could, with zippers, unwrap the whole thing,” he says.

Although Risom was essentially doing defense work, the Army drafted him anyway. “They wanted me, which was silly of them, and not very good for me,” he says, lowering his gaze as he remembers being assigned to the headquarters of the Third Army under General George Patton as it made its way through France and Germany until the war ended.

When he returned to New York City, Risom faced a turning point in his career.  While he was away, Knoll had married a woman who designed heavy metal furniture.

“When I came back, Knoll welcomed me with open arms, but I could see that I wasn’t going to have much of a chance with my wood furniture so I said I was going out on my own, and he got very upset,” he remembers, shaking his head sadly. “Actually, we never talked to each other after that.”
Several months later, on May 1, 1946, Risom launched his own company, Jens Risom Design, Inc., to both design and manufacture his own furniture.

With his company becoming successful as returning soldiers married and moved into houses that needed furnishings, Risom and his wife and daughters, Helen, born in 1943, and Peggy, born in 1947, settled in 1949 in New Canaan, CT. They had two sons after they moved there: Thomas in 1954 and Sven in 1959.

In 1956, a friend suggested that the Risoms visit Block Island. The island reminded Iben Risom of Denmark. The landscape was just hilly enough to see the ocean from almost everywhere, and the beaches were all open to the public whether you owned property nearby or not.

From then on, the Risoms rented a house on the island for a week or longer in the summer until 1965 when Risom bought seven acres of land for $5,000 and built a prefabricated house to his own specifications. The land is near the northern tip of the island and affords a commanding view of the North Light and the waters of Block Island Sound.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Risom’s furniture company was prospering with showrooms in New York City and Chicago as well as in London. From 1954 to 1974, Risom organized the production of his furniture designs so that the parts were manufactured in the southern United States and sent to northeast Connecticut to be assembled in an old mill in North Grosvenordale, a village in the town of Thompson.

At its height of operation, the company had 300 employees, including many high school dropouts. Risom beams with pride when he describes how he worked with the state of Connecticut’s labor department to set up an adult education program at the mill for his employees who did not have high school diplomas.

“We hired teachers from four or five communities to come and teach our workers from 4 to 6 p.m. three days a week. Every six months we would run cars into Hartford for them to take the high school equivalency test,” he says.

The 1970s were a decade of change and emotional challenge for Risom. In 1974, with energy costs rising because of the national oil and gas shortage, the furniture company was sold. Risom’s beloved wife, Iben, became ill with cancer and died in January 1977 when their youngest son, Sven, was only 17.

Two years later, Risom married his present wife, Henny. She had been a childhood friend of Iben in Denmark when both women were classmates at a girls school. Iben and Henny kept in touch over the years and with their husbands met for dinner in London where Henny was an osteopathic doctor. “Henny’s husband died first, then Iben died and so I said to Henny, ‘How would you feel about living in the United States.’ She said she would never live in the United States, but she came to visit and stayed,” he says.

In his 94th year, Risom views his life’s work as a combination of artistic design and practical business acumen. For the past five years, Ralph Pucci International, which has a New York City showroom, has been selling a new line of furniture Risom designed. Some pieces are variations on Risom’s older designs; still others are new. They include a sofa, dining tables, side tables and an armchair. Design Within Reach also sells many Risom-designed furniture pieces.

Risom is especially happy that all four of his children love Block Island where they grew up and continue to spend time. As for married life, he smiles, “Henny and I have been married for only 30 years so we are still newlyweds.”Jens Risom: Furniture Designer