Longtime Islander Dorothy R. Howell died of natural causes on June 8, 2015 in Encinitas, Calif. She had moved there in 2000 to be closer to her two daughters, trading the breezes of the Atlantic Ocean for those of the Pacific. She was 98.

Dorothy came to the Island in 1939 after graduating from Salem State Teachers College (now Salem State University) to teach grades one through four in a single room of the West Tisbury School. She settled easily into Island life, meeting and then marrying E. Everett Howell in 1941. She “retired” from teaching then, as it was not permitted for a married woman to teach in Massachusetts at that time.

In 1950, with daughters Patricia and Lucille, Dorothy and Everett moved to Vineyard Haven, where Dorothy lived in their home on State Road until 2000. She resumed teaching fifth and sixth grade at Tisbury School in 1958, where she remained until a real retirement in 1985.

While teaching, she also worked with Everett at Howell’s Studio, where her specialty was selecting appropriate matting and frames for customers’ valued art. After Everett’s death in 1980, she converted the photography studio into an art gallery and sold paintings and sculpture by local artists.

Dorothy was a competitive tennis player at both the West Chop Tennis Club and Farm Neck. She could place a ball anywhere in the court and was always sought out by other club members as a doubles partner. She also used this competitive nature to win at duplicate bridge, something she enjoyed doing well into her 90s.

After retirement, she enjoyed traveling all around the world. At first, it seemed like she just visited other islands, especially in the Caribbean, but she soon branched out to countries in Europe, as well as New Zealand, Australia and China. She left scores of photo albums as a tribute to these extensive excursions.

She is survived by daughters Patty Howell and Lucille Sansing and their husbands Ralph Jones and Tom Hannen; granddaughter Dina Sansing and her husband, Hal Paris; and great-grandson, Oliver.

The family will return her ashes to the Vineyard this summer to be buried with her beloved husband on her beloved Island.