The home that housed a legend
Madaket Millie's renovated cottage remains a landmark
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Piles of discarded scallop shells no longer fill the yard. A rustic ice cream stand run on the honor system for payment, hundreds of waddling, quacking ducks and numerous dog pens are gone from the landscape. Curling shingles have been replaced, and the once cluttered, rarely cleaned cottage is now sparkling inside.

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The tiny house on Hither Creek that sustained "Madaket Millie" Jewett for 26 years now belongs to a couple who live in Russia and will use it in summer for guests. But a quarterboard over the door reading "Millie's," that at some point replaced the one designating her cottage as the "U.S. Coast Guard West End Command," remains as a reminder of Jewett's legend.

She was a feisty woman, who for most of her 82 years, reigned as Nantucket's western area watchdog for the military's search and rescue arm. Millie was eventually awarded the Guard's most esteemed civilian designations as honorary Chief Warrant Officer-4 and honorary Commanding Officer for her limitless dedication to duty.

The winter winds that blow strong over the Creek today are as harsh as

BEVERLY HALL PHOTO

those that blew when Millie was a very

young girl and she and her father, fisherman Walter Jewett, moved from town to her grandmother Etta Jewett's Madaket farmhouse on the land where the cottage stands.

But the winds of fate that blew through Millie's life were even more biting. Millie's mother abandoned the family when Millie was only a baby. Her brother moved to Alaska in the 1930s. Later, her father committed suicide. Lore has it that she once almost had a mail-order groom, but when he saw Millie's squat, muscular countenance with the trace of a moustache and straggly hair, he got back on his boat and was never seen again.

Millie found her solace in unwavering watches to keep track of vessels and fishermen in trouble, and in her deep love for animals, which she much preferred over people.

Often displaying a sour puss and gathering a reputation as a hard-edged curmudgeon, Millie's acquaintences knew better - she was really a softie when it came to creatures and children. It is written that when Millie's larder was low, she sacrificed her own meals to feed the assorted menagerie that lived with or found refuge with her.

Widely written about and photographed, usually to her chagrin, following her death almost 16 years ago on March 1, 1990 the Ames Street bridge was renamed Millie's Bridge in her honor. Unbeknowst to her, in 1997 Frances Ward Weller published a nicely illustrated children's book called "Madaket Millie," wherein she described Millie as an eccentric and reluctant celebrity.

A multitude of pictures and articles about Millie are contained within the Nantucket Historical Association research library collections, from where much of this story's background was found.

Millie's story and the subsequent evolution of her cottage and its owners begins when she was born on Sept. 24, 1907 on Darling Street. When she, an older brother and her father took residence at Grandma Jewett's, Millie was four and began milking Madaket cows in the days before paved roads and electricity, according to an interview she granted Stan Grossfeld. She also told him she only went to school in town one day a week in a horse-drawn wagon, the rest of the time getting lessons from what her grandmother read to her at home.

Millie tried to enlist in the service when World War II broke out, but was turned down because of poor eyesight. Undaunted, she took to training dogs for military service, something she had an incredible talent for and the only part of her life she finally announced she took pride in. Millie was not one to boast, as history attests.

In early January, 1947, the Coast Guard decommissioned and closed its Madaket station, established in 1891, for what was considered a lack of need for the outpost. But young Millie, who had already taken an avid interest in the goings and comings of boats, discovered on that same day (which differs in records from Jan. 3 to Jan. 9) a freighter named Kotar went aground off Sheep Pond Road.

Its captain, disoriented in the fog, sent his distress signal as being 40 miles southeast of the island. When Millie saw the ship's lights, she immediately alerted Coast Guard Station Brant Point. The incident, to her, was proof that a lookout was still necessary on Nantucket's western end, and from that day on she maintained her vigil.

After her father's death, Millie lived alone in her grandmother's farmhouse. When it fell into disrepair, island master carpenter Elmore Taylor negotiated a deal with Millie. In exchange for the farmhouse property, in 1964 Taylor built Millie a snug onestory, two-bedroom cottage on the land that she could live in rent-free for the remainder of her life.

The cottage came to her nicely furnished. A friend gave her a television, but Millie preferred the sound of the sea or listening to her radio system connected with the Coast Guard. Years later, someone gave her a washer and dryer because Millie always did her wash by hand and hung it on a line in the yard. Though no one has documented a search of the machines, it is not outside the realm of possibilities that Millie used them to store pet and bird food, and continued her hand washing ritual.

It is written that you can count on one hand the number of times Millie traveled off Nantucket in her entire life. Once a week, a Brant Point Coastie picked up Millie to go grocery shopping in town (mostly for food to feed her menagerie of canines, felines and fowl) and visit the station.

Millie worked at plumbing, digging wells, and opening scallops at a record clip to earn a living. Though not exactly what one would call a tidy housekeeper, Millie's scallop shanty near her cottage was reputed to be fastidiously clean, with waxed walls and counter top to make it easier to sanitize after a day's shucking.

She was steadfast in her duties for many years, but in 1981 Millie required brain surgery after a tumor was found. Her neighbor and friend, the late Fred Rogers, visited her at Massachusetts General Hospital and took her for what, accounts say, were "joy rides" in a wheelchair because Millie so disdained being cooped up in airless rooms with windows she could not open.

Rogers, who knew Millie for 30 years, described her as having a gruff exterior, but underneath it, being the warmest human being he had ever met.

Millie was brought home from the hospital in a Coast Guard helicopter - the ride of her dreams - and continued her infamous lifestyle until the years began to take a toll and her health dimished. She died the evening of March 1, 1990 at Nantucket Cottage Hospital after being found on the floor of her cottage a few days earlier by an electric compa- ny employee and Coast Guard personnel. Her ashes were scattered over Madaket.

Old salt as Millie was, Madaket resident Beverly Hall, who met Millie in 1965, recalled that she always wore a skirt, and appreciated it when people "sweetened" the deal if she was asked for a favor, such as when Hall requested she care for her pets for a short time. It was not begging, it was one of the ways Millie used her wits to sustain her lifestyle.

"She had a tough veneer, but she never wore a pair of pants," Hall remembers. "She was a woman of few words, but at times she could be quite loquacious."

Paul Moran and his mother bought Millie's house and property, which held a shed and scallop shanty, from Elmore Taylor. Millie continued to live there rent-free for four years until her death.

"A couple times when she went to the hospital, neighbors would come in and clean it up and she would get so mad," said Tim Moran, who purchased the cottage from his brother 10 years ago. He said by then the interior had been gutted and replaced with new walls, flooring and appliances. His brother also renovated the scallop shack so it has a small bedroom and moved it closer to the house.

Moran recalled that while Millie was still there and he had to move a dock, he asked to use three logs to roll it on that Millie had available. She said he only needed two. He took the three, but she was right, as usual in common sense matters.

Moran decided to sell the cottage because it was too small for his family, though he called it a "spectacular spot and a great retreat." Last September, Caren and Charlie Ryan bought the 1.6- acre property, which includes a boat house besides the converted scallop shed, for $2.7 million. It is an amount that would probably make Millie's eyes roll in her head from disbelief.

The Ryans, who have two children and have been Russian citizens for the last 10 years, also own 343 Madaket Road next to Millie's, and did not want someone coming in who would alter the property and potentially build another Nantucket 'trophy home' on the water.

They will spend summers at the bigger Madaket house and use Millie's cottage for visiting friends.

"We don't plan on making any changes [to Millie's]," said Caren Ryan. "Someday, the Historical Association or Lifesaving Museum might want it. When Millie's was put up for sale we were concerned that someone would tear it down and put a big house there. It seemed too much of a shame to have someone build a bigger house there - that was our thinking.

"It may lack historical value, but it commands a lot of affection," she continued. "It's a beautiful little spot. We love Madaket. It's not manicured."

If Millie listened in on that conversation, she would be happy to know the sanctuary she and her animals and birds enjoyed, is being protected

and cherished. I