Janice Tyack Hull died peacefully on Thursday, Dec. 4 in Jacksonville, Fla. after a long illness. She had been a longtime Vineyard resident, although her last years had been spent in Bonita Springs, Fla. She was 91 and was the wife of the late Daniel Hull, the former longtime executive secretary of the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce.  

Born in Waterbury, Conn., on Jan. 14, 1917, Janice was the daughter of Hilda and Dana Tyack, a local banker. She graduated from The Northfield School in Northfield, Conn., and studied art at the Traphagen School of Design in New York city. Over the course of her life she pursued many interests. She believed in learning for its own sake and was active in community politics wherever she lived. She served a s a national delegate for the League of Women Voters. She was a school board member in Plymouth, Conn., spearheading the building of a new school against considerable opposition, even before she had children of her own. Before moving to the Island year-round, she was a Cub Scout leader and she belon ged to the local mountain’s ski patrol.

Vineyard people may remember that she was a judge at the fair, and a member of the zany Quansoo yacht club. She kept bees and goats, and was a member of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club. An accomplished amateur artist in many media, she was the assistant to the local casting director for Jaws and Jaws 2, and local casting director herself for Jaws 3. She also helped to cast the movie Silverado. After she retired to Florida, she volunteered as a tutor at the local elementary school.

Opinionated but fully open about her (usually formidable) reasoning, she is remembered for the aphorisms she collected, from the stern — “It’s a poor workman who blames his tools”, “You had all the time there was,” and even “Work, for the night is coming!” — to the philosophical – “Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is just out of grasp. But if you will sit down quietly, it may alight upon you,” — to the hilarious and absurd — “If you don’t work you don’t eat. Jesus Christ said that, but it’s true just the same!”

A lifelong progressive Democrat and member of the American Civil Liberties Union, she relentlessly took the side of the dispossessed and unfortunate, writing letters and otherwise trying to move opinion. She was a fervent opponent of the introduction of casinos to the state, and was quoted in a collection of reader comments on the subject in the Boston Globe in September, 1994: “I feel very strongly that gambling takes money from those least able to spare it. It makes the casino area susceptible to crime, and casinos are horrible places for children to wander around in . . . if they are brought by their parents.”

Though she could, and did, come at these ideas with lots of detail and from many directions in her later years, two favorite sayings can serve as her epitaph:

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.” And, “Must we give the fruit of our bodies for the sins of our souls? No. What does the Lord require of us? To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.”

Mrs. Hull was predeceased by her husband in 1982. She is survived by her sister Barbara Hull of West Tisbury, her son Daniel Tyack Hull of Somerville, and her daughter Stephanie Haviland of Brooklyn, N.Y.; three grandchildren, Alexander and Claire Haviland, and Sunday Hull; and numerous nieces and nephews, many of whom summered with her as children, including Michael and Jared Hull of West Tisbury, Hannah Beecher, Cecily Hull of West Tisbury and Salem, and John Beecher, of Thomaston, Conn.; a grandniece, Charlotte Hull of San Francisco, Calif., grandnephew Joshua Hull of North Carolina; a sister in law, Rose Terrill, nieces Margo and Julia and nephews Dana and Roger, all of California.

A memorial service will be held at a future date to be announced.