Courtney S. Brady lived in Edgartown for 62 years as a summer and year-round resident and spent a great part of her life volunteering for Island organizations as varied as the town ambulance service and the Martha’s Vineyard Mediation Program. She died on Jan. 15 at the age of 87 after a long illness.

Mrs. Brady was especially drawn to serve institutions and causes whose needs were dramatic. For 13 years she worked as a nurse at the former Boston City Hospital where her patients were often the indigent, homeless or victims of violence; they also included the first HIV/AIDS patients and prisoners. Across the eastern half of the state, she helped to review the cases of foster children to determine whether they could return safely and happily to their homes.

She was born Lila Courtney Stanley on July 13, 1936, the daughter of Augusta Leovy and Clarance Stanley. She lived the first 11 years of her life in Pittsburgh, Pa. where from her bed at night she could see the horizon glow red as factories down the hill cast weaponry for the war.

The Stanleys moved to Greenwich, Conn. in 1947, where she befriended future Edgartown year-rounders — and fellow volunteer EMTs — Edith Radley and Bill Hudgins. She briefly attended Stanford University before moving to New York in 1955.

There she worked for Hanover Bank and Steuben Glass and served as a guide at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels where she toured King Baudouin of Holland through the American pavilion.

In 1960 she married George T. Dunlop 3rd, who was teaching English at the Taft School in Watertown, Conn. The couple began to visit Edgartown in 1962 and in 1969 bought the former Charles Teller house across from the Charlotte Inn on South Summer street.

They divorced and Courtney married D. Norman Brady of Edgartown in 1976. It was after the unexpected death that year of her youngest child, Christine, that Mrs. Brady began her life of Island service, initially in the medical field. After training, Mrs. Brady joined what was then the Edgartown Volunteer Ambulance Association as an EMT and developed her talent for dealing with emergencies in homes, on the road and anywhere accidents happened or people fell ill. She loved this work as well as the police officers, firefighters and fellow EMTs with whom she served at the Edgartown fire station.

In 1982 she graduated valedictorian in her class from the Newton Wellesley School of Nursing and began working part time at Boston City, the inner city hospital on which the television series St. Elsewhere was based.

At home she joined the town financial long-range planning committee and sign committee, volunteered at the Island health clinic and as a mediator and board member at the mediation program.

She was an avid host to scores of family members and friends who came to visit her home in Edgartown. She traveled often, hiking the hills of France, snorkeling with dolphins in the Gulf of Baja and sailing up the west coast of Costa Rica with her family aboard a four-masted schooner at Christmas in 2013. She enjoyed crewing the family’s racing Herreshoff 12½ on Edgartown harbor, as well as nature walks, knitting, needlepoint, tennis and seeing plays at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. She was a member of the Edgartown Yacht Club, Chappaquiddick Beach Club and Chilton Club in Boston.

An eager amateur actor, she played both a mayfly and a washing machine with the Peter Luce Play Readers group at the Tisbury Senior Center.

Mrs. Brady is survived by her son G. Thomas Dunlop IV, daughter Glenny Dunlop Bartram, son in law Brent Eric Bartram, grandchildren Carter Henry Bartram and Adair Louise Bartram, brother Frank L. Stanley, sister in law Elizabeth (Betty) Stanley of Canton, Conn., and her nephews and nieces Jonathan Stanley, Liza Stanley, Emily Stanley, James Stanley and Helen Stanley Baker.

She was predeceased by her daughter Christine Courtney Dunlop, husband D. Norman Brady and brother and sister in law William and Mahin Stanley.

A graveside service at the Tower Hill cemetery will be held privately. A memorial service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown is planned for the spring.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Martha’s Vineyard Mediation Center, either online or by mail to 15 Merchant’s Circle, Vineyard Haven MA 02568.