Exhibition honors veterans

Islander William W. Coffin took 31 portraits of young Nantucketers before they went off to serve in World War II. The photographs were recently donated to the Nantucket Historical Association by Coffin’s daughters, Marilyn Coffin Brown and Carolyn Coffin Marlowe.

They are mounted as an exhibition at the Whitney Gallery of the NHA Research Library, 7 Fair St., and are on view from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

An opening reception is scheduled on Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11, from 2 to 3 p.m. at the gallery.

The men in the photos exude innocence, known in hindsight to be heartbreakingly fleeting.

“They have these wonderfully smiling and exuberant faces. They have the full flush of youth,” said curator Ben Simons. Visitors will have the chance to inscribe their own memories of the men and add to the NHA’s knowledge of their lives in journal below the photographs.

Portraits of veterans include Albert “Bud” Egan (1917-2000), founder of Marine Lumber and the Egan Foundation, James K. Glidden, who continues to practice at his family law firm Glidden and Glidden, and Walter Barrett (1917-1993), an assessor, selectman, planning board member, and who operated the Tuckernuck YoHo – a boat service to the island.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION John Franklin Welling (left), was born in 1912 in Providence, R.I. He lived on Nantucket for a time and died in 1945. Charles Welton (right), born in 1925, still lives on Nantucket. The NHA hopes people will add to the history of these and other photographs in journals placed at the exhibit.

— Laura Raskin