To retire or not retire – that is the question, to which I speedily and emphatically replied, “No brainer – retire!” After 23 years at the Harwich Police Department, and years before working as a waitress, dog groomer, corrections officer, nurse’s aide, Teddy bear maker and child care provider and in newspaper editorial, it was time. Some congratulated me on my decision, some comments were cautionary – wh...

            Sophie Wanda (Mastalerz) Szlosek, 96, passed away on November 8th in Chatham.             Sophie was born in Wilbraham, the daughter of the late Michael and Antonina (Samel) Mastalerz.  She lived for more than sixty years in Ludlow with her husband, Frank, where they built a home, raised a family, and operated a successful contracting business. Throughout her life Sophie was active in her par...

Ethel Grant (Forgeron) Porter, 92 1924 - 2016               CHATHAM - Ethel was born, worked and lived in Chatham her whole life.  She married at 19 to Warren Porter and they had five children; David, Steven, Kitty, Danny, and Timothy.     Ethel always worked, first as a waitress for 45 years and then as a child care provider in her daughter’s family day care for 21 years.  She retired at age 86 wit...

ORLEANS — Now the Lower Cape can get its locally-grown food faster and fresher. The Orleans Winter Farmers Market at Nauset Regional Middle School has a new, weekly schedule through April. Almost 40 vendors will take turns sharing the school's cafeteria every Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon except Dec. 24 and 31. On Dec. 3, customers were lined up and ready to shop when market manager Elise Waldron rang the tra...

ORLEANS — The many moving parts of the town's long campaign to remove excess nitrogen from its waters were on display in great detail at the Nov. 30 selectmen's meeting. The board reviewed the plan of attack through next June 30 with engineering firm AECOM and the town's consultant, Mike Domenica, looking at an updated timeline that included decision points for the board to act. Case in point: the oyster ...

Time-lapse images taken over a 30-year period by Landsat satellites, compiled by Google and released by Time Magazine, include a 10-second glimpse of three decades of evolution of Chatham's barrier beaches.  Chatham is among dozens of locations across the globe highlighted in the video, which was initially put together by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey and then cleaned up and assembled into one video monta...

Corrine Andrews Moore, 93, of Chatham, passed away Thursday, November 17.  Born in Quincy in 1923, she attended Quincy High School and met her late husband, Donald H. Moore, also of Quincy.  Donald, a veteran of WWII, took up work in Philadelphia, settling in Southern New Jersey to raise their 3 children. They remained in New Jersey until 2000 when they returned to the place she loved, Cape Cod, and took up resid...

Gail K. Nickerson               Gail Kuhns Nickerson passed away peacefully at home with family and friends early in the morning of November 17, 2016.               Gail was born March 30, 1930 in Mineola, New York, daughter of Frank and Hazel Kuhns. Raised initially on Long Island, the Kuhns family left the city life and bought a working farm in Mill River, when Gail was in elementary school. Growing...

CHATHAM – There was an empty space at the community center, and George Gatzogiannis wanted to fill it. The space was on the wall right behind the front desk which Gatzogiannis, a building supervisor at the center, mans most weekdays, greeting visitors and signing in the folks who use the various facilities in the Main Street building. One of those people is local artist Steve Lyons. Gatzogiannis had tried t...

CHATHAM – How can the town encourage the reuse, rather than demolition, of commercial buildings in neighborhood centers, especially if they are historically significant? Incentives, the planning board was told recently, ranging from relief from dimensional requirements and density bonuses to reducing permit fees and tax breaks. As part of its ongoing review of recommendations for the Route 28 corridor conta...

CHATHAM – The town's First Night celebration is a survivor. As it heads into its 26 th year, the annual event has left New Year's Eve celebrations in other communities in the dust, and still reliably sells out its 7,500 admission buttons. Mounting First Night Chatham is a massive effort, however, that takes many hours of planning and help from hundreds of volunteers. “To put on something like this, it real...

CHATHAM – The municipal fish pier will be packed with young fans of Santa Claus Sunday as the Jolly Elf himself arrives in style on the historic Coast guard motor lifeboat CG36500. Santa will be pulling in to the north jog at the pier at 1:30 p.m. this Sunday, Dec. 4, accompanied by a contingent of active Coast Guard members from Station Chatham as well as the operators of the lifeboat boat made famous by the ...

CHATHAM – A resident is calling for the chairman of the conservation commission to apologize and step down following a confrontation over a skiff stored on the shore of Oyster Pond. Resident Elaine Gibbs said Conservation Commission Chairman James “Buck” Upson showed up at her home on Oct. 26 and questioned her about a skiff on her private property on Oyster Pond along Stage Harbor Road. She said Upson identif...

CHATHAM – The following council on aging events are scheduled this month. Most take place at the Stony Hill Road senior center and require registration or reservations. For information or to register for a program, call the COA at 508-945-5190. Monday, Dec. 5, Holiday Extravaganza Lunch and Show, “Making Spirits Bright,” featuring Tom Madden. Noon, tickets $9. Space is limited, reservations are required. Fr...