Eleanor Schwabe Wendeborn, 105, a resident of Hillside Village in Vineyard Haven from 1982 to 1996, then of Windemere Nursing Home until 2005, died Feb. 14 in Louisville, Ky.

Eleanor was born on March 9, 1901, in Heidelberg, Germany, while her father was a doctoral candidate at the university there. When she was 10, the family, including brothers Peter and Fred, immigrated to Portland, Ore.

While still in Oregon, Eleanor climbed every major peak in the Pacific Northwest. When she moved to White Plains, N.Y. to be near her daughters and their families in 1947, she became active in the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Westchester Trails Association, hiking and organizing camping trips through her seventies. She retired in 1966 as office manager for the Westchester Children's Association Guidance Center.

At 83, she moved to the Vineyard to be near her daughter, Wendy Culin.

Still active in the community, she composed and typed the Hillside Village Newsletter at her electric typewriter well into her 90s, reminding seniors how the recycling system worked. She personally monitored the recycling bins.

At 94, she was honored by the U.S. Postal Service as the "Oldest Customer Advisory Council Member in the United States." The Vineyard Haven postmaster drove her to council meetings at the Post Office.

She was an activist in every organization she joined. As natural foods matriarch of her family, opera lover, grammarian and environmentalist, she left a rich legacy for all who knew her.

When Eleanor, walking the halls in her early 100s at the Windemere Nursing Home, was asked, "Have you climbed any mountains lately?" she would stand up tall (all 4 foot, 8 inches of her by then) and reply, "No, because there aren't any mountains here on Martha's Vineyard!"

When 104, she and her daughter Wendy Culin moved to Louisville, Ky., to be near Eleanor's granddaughter, Cassandra Culin.

She had been married to the late Robert H. Wendeborn.

Survivors include two daughters, Vivian (Wendy) Culin, a resident of Vineyard Haven from 1973 to 2005, and Ellie Pruess of Ashland, Ore.; five other grandchildren, Lenore Culin of Nosara, Costa Rica, Taylor Culin of Simsbury, Conn., Ray Culin of White Plains, N.Y., Linnea Pruess Wardwell of Ashland, Ore., and Craig Pruess of Marborough, Wiltshire, England; and nine great-grandchildren.

Memorial donations may be made to the Vineyard Conservation Society.