Virginia M. Early died on March 26 at Long Hill in Edgartown. She was 97 and had been in failing health for several years.

Virginia, née Virginia Maury Flannery, the oldest daughter of Isabel Gautier Gregory Flannery and John Spalding Flannery, Sr., was born and raised in Washington, D.C. Her father was the private attorney for six Supreme Court justices including Oliver Wendell Holmes and served as Special Master in the multi-st ate inheritance tax case of Col. Edward Howland Robinson (Ned) Green, son of Hetty Green who was known as the Witch of Wall Street. Virginia was descended from John Walker Maury, once Mayor of the City of Washington, and related to Matthew Fontaine Maury, called Pathfinder of the Seas for his work m apping coastal waters.

She attended the Potomac School and the Madeira School in Washington and graduated from Vassar College in 1933. Returning to Washington, she worked tirelessly as a volunteer in the Junior League, rising to a position as first vice president of the board of directors and chairman of the placement committee during World War II. In this role, she oversaw placing women in paid and volunteer jobs related to the war effort from anti-aircraft patrol to the Casualty Information Service to civil defense.

She also coordinated volunteers who staffed hospitals, the Red Cross and the Travelers’ Aid Society as well as programs for the wounded and their families, children and the poor.

Virginia met her future husband, Thomas G. Early, in Washington, D.C., where he was Secretary of the Civil Aeronautics Board and was involved in building Washington National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Airport). A colonel in the Army Air Corps (the precursor to the United States Air Force), Tom served under General William (Wild Bill) Donovan in what became the Office of Strategic Services. Virginia and Tom’s marriage was delayed while Tom carried out OSS missions in Africa and Italy until 1944 when he was able to schedule a leave. Soon after, Virginia accompanied Tom to San Francisco where he helped organize the United Nations Conference on International Organization that drew up the United Nations Charter.

Tom and Virginia settled in Old Greenwich, Conn., where they raised five children. She was active in the PTA, the Junior League and Garden Club of Greenwich and tutored local children in reading and French, in which she was fluent. When her children were all off to college, she worked at the American Institute for Foreign Study.

First visiting Seven Gates Farm in West Tisbury at the age of 11, Virginia spent every summer thereafter in the old cape her parents purchased there. In the early days, the extended Flannery family decamped from steamy D.C., traveling by train to New York, by overnight steamer to New Bedford and by ferry to the Vineyard. Groceries were delivered each week by horse-drawn wagon from Vineyard Haven and the family went once each summer to Gay Head for a picnic, an all-day excursion.

After building a year-round home on the family property and moving to the Island full-time in 1978, Virginia found outlets for her organizational skills and love of flowers in the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club where she served as board member and president in the late 1980s. She particularly enjoyed working in the greenhouse at the Wakeman Center. With her sister Timmy de Geofroy, she shared a concern for conservation and a passion for walking, and together they made daily rambles along the Vineyard shores in search of sea glass.

Virginia will be lovingly remembered for her devotion to her family and many friends, her keen interest in people of all ages, her sense of humor and her ability to remain calm in the face of chaos or calamity. To everyone who knew her, she was the epitome of a lady, dignified and proper on the surface, but always with a twinkle in her blue eyes that said a laugh was about to erupt.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at Our Lady Star of the Sea church in Oak Bluffs on April 4, followed by interment at West Tisbury Cemetery.

Survivors include her sons John G. Early of Chilmark, and Thomas G. Early Jr. of Cedaredge, Colo.; daughters Alice C. Early of Chilmark, Elizabeth Early Sheehan of Deering, N.H. and Margaret Early Sykes of Cambridge; grandchildren Charlotte and Henderson Sykes of Cambridge; niece Anne de Geofroy Burns of Cos Cob, Conn. and nephews Charles A. de Geofroy of Chilmark and Louis F. de Geofroy of West Tisbury, and their children Maury, Alexander, Andrew, Olivia, Michelle and Sofia de Geofroy. She was predeceased by her husband Thomas G. Early in 2003, her sister Fontaine F. (Timmy) de Geofroy in 1998 and her sister Anne Dudley Flannery in 1992.

Donations in her memory may be made to Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.