Emilie Jacobson Jacobi, a summer resident of Chilmark for almost 80 years, died April 15 as the result of complications from pneumonia. She was 85 years old and lived in Manhattan. Her Vineyard home was on the Windy Gates property in Chilmark.

At the time of her death she was still working as a senior vice president of the Curtis Brown literary agency, which she joined shortly after graduating from Radcliffe College in 1946. Her lengthy roster of distinguished writer clients included Martin Mayer, Betty Friedan, Ogden Nash, Anne Edwards, Daphne du Maurier, William Golding, C.P. Snow, Rumer Godden, Elizabeth Bowen and David Lodge.

Mr. Lodge, author of Small World, said of his agent: “She had an air of great wisdom, based on extraordinarily long experience in the literary and publishing worlds, and kept a calm sense of proportion in a profession given to exaggeration.”

She first came to the Vineyard at the age of six when her parents rented the Judge Davis house in Menemsha, now the site of the Beach Plum Inn. Her father, James C. Jacobson, and Tom Stix, also a Vineyard summer resident, were partners in an early book club venture. Barbara Lipke, Mr. Stix’s daughter, and Emmy became lifelong friends. Both families purchased homes in Windy Gates, and Emmy and Barbara remained close summer neighbors for the last 55 years.

Emmy became a Gazette reporter some 70 years ago, writing up the Menemsha Pond races, in which she was an avid competitor. She was an active member of the infamous Windy Gates tennis group, as was her mother Marjory Bitker. Later, Emmy took on the role of maintaining the group at Windy Gates and then in various diasporas ending at the late Robert Walker’s home in Menemsha.

During World War II Emmy continued to summer on the Vineyard. With her best friend, Esther Kuh, she would cool beer bottles on the Windy Gates beach for the Coast Guard patrols who were running to punch time clocks along the south shore. Esther Kuh’s daughter, Cathy Thompson of Menemsha, was chief Chilmark librarian in recent years.

Other wartime reminiscences included sailing with a portable radio in September of 1939 and hearing the bombs falling on Warsaw. On another sailing occasion Emmy and a friend were approaching a naval vessel in Vineyard Sound when they noticed that its guns were being trained on them. They later learned that President Roosevelt was on board on his way to meet Churchill at sea to plan the Atlantic Charter.

Born in Manhattan August 29, 1924, Emmy Jacobson graduated from Woodmere Academy, on Long Island, before attending Radcliffe, where she was an American history and literature major. Her main extracurricular activity was the college radio station, which she both programmed and administered.

She is survived by her husband, Fritz Jacobi, a writer and editor, her sisters Elizabeth Reiss of Orange, Conn., and Margaret Jacobson of San Jose, Calif., as well as by eight nieces and nephews and three stepchildren.

An informal ceremony will be held at Windy Gates on the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend, at a time to be announced.