A discussion led by Nantucket Historical Association's Chief Curator & Obed Macy Research Chair Michael R. Harrison with year-round and summer Nantucket residents Harvey Young, Jim Malone, Sheila Lucey, and Emily Aswad. They share memories and insights about summer recreation on Nantucket including sailing, biking, golf, enjoying Nantucket Harbor, and more. The conversation is inspired by the 2023 featured exhibition at the Nantucket Whaling Museum, "Summer on Nantucket: A History of an Island Resort." Learn more about the exhibition at nha.org/whats-on/exhibitions/....
Sheila Lucey, Nantucket Harbor Master, grew up in the Boston area and enlisted in Coast Guard after graduating High School. She served in the Coast Guard for 24 years retiring in 2007. She spent the majority of her career on the Cape and Islands. She served one tour in Cuba and Haiti for drug and migrant interdiction. Sheila came to Nantucket in 2002 for her final assignment as Officer in Charge of Coast Guard Station Brant Point. After retiring from the Coast Guard, Sheila went to work for the Harbor Masters office and became Harbor Master in 2012. As Harbor Master, Sheila performs several missions including search and rescue; directing the lifeguard program; maintaining private aids to navigation; managing the pump out program; managing 2200 moorings; and performing beach maintenance among other things. Sheila has partnered with Egan Maritime Institute and Nantucket schools and teaches safe boating to middle and high school aged students to make sure the island's young people are safe in and around the water.
Harvey Young attended Nantucket schools through the 9th grade and is a high school graduate of Cushing Academy, in Ashburnham Massachusetts. In the late 1970’s, Harvey moved to the Pacific Northwest where he had many work experiences, including jobs as a tree planter, salvage logger and lumber grader. He worked in fish canneries and crewed on a commercial Dungeness crab boat. For a short time he was also a roughneck on a drilling rig. In December of 1992 he returned to Nantucket with his family. Over the last 30 years he managed, then owned and operated Young’s Bicycle Shop. He is now semi-retired from the bike shop and is enjoying leisure time on the island with his wife, Ellen and their children, Emma and Jasper.
Jim Malone was born in Boston in 1947 and was raised in Central Illinois, where he began playing golf in 1957. He graduated from Boston College in 1969, the University of Virginia Law School in 1972 and received a L.L.M in Tax Law from Georgetown University Law School in 1977. He began his law career clerking for a federal appeals court judge and then spent 7.5 years at the United States Department of Justice trying tax cases throughout the United States. Beginning in 1982, he entered the private practice of law in Chicago. He retired from law practice in 2005 and has spent the past 17 years teaching part-time at the University of Virginia Law School. Jim has been club champion at both Sankaty and Nantucket Golf Club, has won six Sankaty Member-Guest Tournaments and qualified for and played in the U.S. Senior Amateur in 2002. In the late 1990’s Jim began exploring the history of the Sankaty course, and has continued that interest to the present, writing a history of the course which he continually updates even to the present.
Emily Aswad grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts, where she learned to sail and began racing competitively. She has worked as a sailing instructor in the summers along the east coast since 2003 in a variety of private clubs and community organizations. Emily’s love of coaching led her to pursue teaching as a career. She has worked as a special educator and interventionist since 2012 during the off-season in Massachusetts and Vermont, where she currently resides. Emily has been spending her summers in Nantucket since 2017 as the Assistant Program Director at Nantucket Community Sailing. She thrives on linking her passion for teaching to sailing by bringing her knowledge of programming, curriculum design, and inclusion to Nantucket Community Sailing.
Michael Harrison has held curatorial positions at the National Building Museum, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, and the Glasgow Museum of Transport. He is the author of numerous books and articles, as well as nearly seventy historical reports on maritime, architectural, and engineering topics for U.S. National Park Service’s Heritage Documentation Programs. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and holds a master’s degree in museum studies from the George Washington University.