Ellen Sonia (Shufro) Orleans of Vineyard Haven died Sept. 24, 2015, the day after her 89th birthday, at the Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Oak Bluffs.

She was born to the late Bern and Fran Shufro on Sept. 23, 1926, in Chicago Heights, Ill., the youngest of three siblings. She graduated from Bloom Township High School in Chicago Heights in 1943 and received her college degree in economics from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1948. She married Ned Orleans in her senior year, on April 2, 1948, and later had a son and daughter.

In high school Ellen was an active and engaged young woman; she was a member of the Latin Club, the National Thespian Dramatic Honor Society, president of the National Honor Society, commissioner of the Bloom High School Welfare Department and recipient of the DAR Good Citizenship Award.

At college, she became interested in labor unions and held various co-op job positions devoted to union organizing and education, including one with the United Auto Workers in 1945 under the supervision of Walter and Victor Reuther, prominent international labor organizers.

Following graduation in 1948, Ellen and Ned moved to Dayton, Ohio, where Ellen became a library assistant in the Oakwood Library. When Ned entered graduate school in Cambridge in 1950, she went to work in the Personal Book Shops in Boston, the personnel department of Boston University, and the Baker Library of the Harvard Business School.

As the two children grew up, she volunteered in the elementary and middle school libraries in Alexandria, Va., and Yellow Springs, Ohio, where the family lived. She worked for Antioch College Education Abroad and befriended a succession of students who remained in touch with her for many years. When the family moved back to Alexandria from Ohio, Ellen volunteered for Handgun Control and the Council for a Livable World. She was later employed as the librarian and book store manager for the Washington Public Affairs Center at the University of Southern California in Washington, D.C. She retired from USC after nine years, hailed as a “tower of strength” and “a breath of gentleness” by colleagues. Working in libraries, she was devoted to helping students and committed to spreading her love for reading throughout her community.

Ned introduced Ellen to Martha’s Vineyard — he had been coming to the Island since age one in 1925 — and it became her favorite place. In the late 1950s, Ellen and Ned bought land, and in more than 40 years of cherished stays, they rented a succession of houses in various places on the Island. Eventually they bought a cottage in Lagoon Heights next door to the one Ned’s parents had rented. In 1990, they followed their longstanding dream of moving to the Island full time and built a house on Chapde Lane in Vineyard Haven.

Happily settled in Vineyard Haven, Ellen volunteered at the Food Pantry, was a member of the Committee on Hunger, worked for the Chamber of Commerce for three years, volunteered for the Historical Society, was a registrar for the Tisbury polls, was on the Vineyard Haven Library Board for seven years, and was chairwoman of the library board at the planning of the last expansion. She started a book group and participated in discussion groups, enjoying warm and lively social connections. She was a caring and attentive person who made friends wherever she went. Even in her last years at Windemere, she was loved by the staff and was usually more concerned about their welfare and the welfare of other residents, than her own.

An enthusiastic reader, she was interested in birds and bird song, had a creative and astute sense of interior design, used her artistic talents to create beautiful bulletin boards that changed with season and holidays, was an avid gardener, cultivated a collection of ceramic, metal, and wooden frogs, loved to travel, and had a warm (and often silly) sense of humor. She was fond of children, and when out at a restaurant or in a crowd, could be counted on to engage an eager youngster in a game of peek-a-boo. She delighted young neighbors with her special candy drawer (with parental permission), a tradition begun with her son and daughter. She was devoted to her family, and loved being a mother and grandmother.

She is survived by her loving husband of 67 years, Ned Orleans of Vineyard Haven; her son Jonathan Orleans and his wife Linda Liefland and grandchildren Eliza and Rebecca of Fairfield, Conn.; daughter Jennifer Orleans and her husband John Skrovan and grandchildren Sarah and Matthew of Ithaca, N.Y.; and sister Lois Godfrey of Northfield, Minn. Her brother Arnold Shufro predeceased her in 2000.

A memorial gathering, Remembering Ellen, will be held Saturday April 2 from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Society Meeting House in Vineyard Haven.

Donations in her memory can be made to the Island Food Pantry, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or a cause or charity of choice.