Maude Urmston Chilton, of Wilmington, Del., Boston and Vineyard Haven, died on Sunday, Jan. 23, surrounded by family and friends at her home in Wilmington at the age of 74. The cause was colon and related cancers.

Mrs. Chilton, who was Maudie to her friends, was born in 1936, the daughter of Thomas and Maude Urmston of Wilmington, Del. She was a descendant of Edmund Randolph, first Attorney General of the United States, and the granddaughter of Edmund Randolph Williams, founder of Hunton and Williams, the global law firm based in Richmond, Va. She attended the Tower Hill School, the Ethel Walker School and Bradford College before marrying Thomas (Tim) McLemore Chilton in 1955. They had grown up on the same street together in Wilmington. However, neither took much notice of each other until they attended the same party. He liked that she was almost six feet tall and carried bright blonde, naturally curly hair. She was flattered by his excessive cutting in and appreciated his unusually athletic style of dancing. After their marriage, they moved to Geneva, Switzerland and then later to Buenos Aires, Argentina. She had an excellent ear for languages and her mastery of both French and Spanish contributed to her lifelong love of travel and meeting new people.

Maudie’s interests were many and varied. She was an EMT, a teacher of English as a second language and a volunteer at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. In addition to being an avid rider, skier, tennis player and sailor, she was also a maddeningly consistent golfer and a champion bridge player. She even took up ice hockey briefly. Her personality was exemplified by her physical strength and stamina, which had her climbing the Sydney Bridge, roped in, only eight weeks after hip replacement surgery. In addition, that same surgery had her applying ice spikes to her crutches so she could mount the huge snow banks on the corners around Copley Square where she lived. Maudie was continually in motion; she and Tim skied the Haute Route, biked through France and rafted down the Snake River.

Maudie’s greatest resources were called upon for the raising of her six children, which she did with energy and aplomb throughout her many moves in Europe, South America and the eastern seaboard of the United States. She believed strongly in the importance of education and advocated and nourished every learning experience possible in their multiple locales. Maudie excelled in cajoling principals, declining Latin verbs, feeding the multitudes, throwing parties, playing the piano, playing touch football, collecting house pets, planting gardens, and, in many a chaotic but closely calculated run to the Vineyard, always, always, making the boat.

She was a member of the Colonial Dames of America and belonged to the Wilmington Country Club, the Country Club and the University Club in Boston, and to the West Chop Club of Martha’s Vineyard.

Maudie is predeceased by her loving husband of 50 years, Tim Chilton, but is survived by her six children and their spouses: Court and Collette Chilton of Boston, Cecily and Bruce Matthai of Baltimore, Md., Eve and Sal Martirano of Rye, N.Y., Maude Chilton and Timothy Schmidt of South Orange, N.J., Edmund and Ann Chilton of Wilmington, Del., Mariana Chilton and Leonard Gamberg of Philadelphia, Penn.; by 15 grandchildren; and by her two brothers and sisters in law, Thomas and Sheila Urmston of Sherborn, and Randolph Urmston and Eliza Davidson of Seattle, Wash.

A memorial service will be held in Wilmington, Del., at the Lower Brandywine Presbyterian Church on Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, 111 Edgartown Road, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 or the Ethel Walker School, 230 Bushy Hill Road, Simsbury, CT 06070.