Mary Perkins Wilson Brown died peacefully on the afternoon of April 17 at home with her children by her side.

Mary, or Perk as she was often called, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on Nov. 26, 1919. Her father, William Arnot Wilson, was her first and greatest love, and her childhood was happy and joyous despite the economic hardships of the times. She married Daniel P. Brown on May 16, 1942. After he returned from service in the Navy, his work took the family from city to city until they settled in the Chicago area in 1955.

Perk was a quiet, intelligent, interested person. Her journals of travels throughout the world are observant, humorous and enlightening. She served as president of the Junior League when they lived in Philadelphia, and she volunteered for any kind of service she could give to others. She loved to solve crossword puzzles, played bridge as often as she could find a game and read avidly. She was noted for her colorful shoes and clothes.

Perk first came to the Vineyard when she was eight years old. Her aunt Jane Wilson invited the family to join hers in a visit to her sister Helen Mayhewߣs house in Chilmark. Perk and her cousins and their cousins and friends had a wonderful time together. In her old age, she got a painting by Allen Whiting of a barn she remembered from summers with Johnny Mayhew, Mike Athearn, Willy Huntington and others as Johnson Whiting mowed the field nearby.

After Perk was married, her mother, Laura (Polly) Wilson, moved to the Vineyard full time. Perk, Dan and their children Put and Polly spent every summer with her mother and developed a great love for the Island. After Danߣs death in 2001, Perk moved to the Vineyard and lived in the house her mother and second husband Brewer Corcoran had built in 1956. She resumed her volunteer roles with the hospital and reading to schoolchildren until her health no longer permitted it.

She leaves her children, Daniel Putnam (Put) Brown, Jr. and his wife Nannie of West Granby, Conn., and Mary Rawson (Polly) Brown of Vineyard Haven, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at the West Tisbury Congregational Church on Saturday, May 5 at 4:30 p.m. Perk would be honored to have donations in her name sent to either the First Congregational Church of West Tisbury, P.O. Box 3000, PMB 3111, West Tisbury, MA 02575, the Tisbury Volunteer Ambulance Association, P.O. Box 1469, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 or Hospice, PO Box 2549, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557.