Doris Hillman Blackwell died peacefully on May 5 surrounded by her family after suffering a stroke nine days before. She was at the home of her daughter, Anilise, in Menlo Park, Calif., where she was visiting.

Born in New York city on Jan. 22, 1920, she attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Riverdale and the Horace Mann School for Girls in Manhattan before setting out for college in California. She earned her bachelor’s degree in child development from Mills College and her master’s degree in child development from Columbia University.

As a young girl she first came to the Vineyard in 1933 with her family as the guests of her grade-school chum, Jack Ware and his family. Her family became members of the Vineyard Haven Yacht club where she excelled at tennis and sailing. As teenagers, she and her sister, Anne, were among the few girls who crewed at the yacht club. Dorie spent her summer days training and racing on boats skippered by Frank Jewett, Hugh Schwarz and Jack Ware, with whom she developed lifelong friendships.

Her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Van Arsdale Hillman, retired to the Vineyard in 1948, first owning the Nip and Tuck Farm, and then moving to Harbor View Lane. Her father was a well respected osteopathic physician on the Island and her mother was a founding member of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club.

In 1948 she married Herbert Ware von Colditz and moved to California where she raised her children, John Hillman von Colditz and Anilise Thomsen von Colditz Hyllmon. Herb and Doris divorced in 1970 and in 1972 she married William S. Hutchings.

In California her career flourished. Her professional life exemplified her deep commitment to excellence in early childhood education and education for women.

She helped found and served as president of the board of directors of the Lafayette Cooperative Nursery School (1953) and the Blue Skies Day Care (1980), a premiere institute for early childhood care and education in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She served as president of the alumnae association at Mills College and as the alumnae trustee to the board of directors for the college (1960 to 1968).

Professionally she held the position of director of the lower school of the Head Royce school in Oakland, Calif., from 1968 to 1980, leading the school into a developmentally-directed admissions program and helping to guide the transition from an all-girls school to a coeducational middle and upper school program.

Her other lifelong passion was the study of spirituality and personal growth. She studied under Ruth Mitchell, Katherine Jarvis and John Randolph Price. After retiring she served as a lay minister, teacher and prayer circle leader at the Lakeside Temple for Practical Christianity in Oakland, Calif.

In 1997, she returned to Vineyard Haven and the harbor view neighborhood full time. Once back on the Island, she was blessed to find love again. In 2000 she married her new neighbor, George Blackwell at his 90th birthday party on his family’s property on Quitsa Lane. They shared seven years of joy and contentment together.

She is survived by her son, John, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and daughter, Anilise, of Menlo Park, Calif.; her son in law, Warren Sattler; five grandchildren, Sarah, Nathan, Kaitlin von Colditz, Jonathan and Benjamin Sattler; and five step-daughters, Joanie Hutchings Dranginis, Sally Hutchings Keenan, Scilla Blackwell Hastings, Janie Blackwell Bloomfield and Margo Blackwell Gardner; and numerous step-grandchildren.

She was predeceased by her first child, Herbert Thomsen von Colditz; her husbands, Bill Hutchings and George Blackwell; as well as her sister, Anne Hillman Burton.

A memorial service will be held on Sunday, July 10 at 3 p.m. in the West Tisbury Congregational Church.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Blue Skies Day Care in Oakland or to the building fund at the West Tisbury Congregational Church.