Alma Muriel Stibolt of Oak Bluffs died on Thursday, April 26 after a brief stay at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. She would have celebrated her 96th birthday on Mother’s Day, May 13.

Alma was born in Springfield, one of four daughters of Ruth Tilton Loerke and Albert Loerke. She graduated at the top of her class at Springfield Technical High School and married Hans Stibolt, also a Springfield native, three weeks before Pearl Harbor. They met on a blind date arranged by a good friend of Hans, and Alma’s cousin and best friend, Shirley Schrade. Years later, Shirley and her husband, Frederick, moved to the Vineyard and for the rest of their lives were nearby neighbors of the Stibolts.

Early married life took the Stibolts to the midwest, but they always considered Massachusetts their home. They started visiting the Vineyard for vacations in 1959 and built one of the early houses at Waterview Farm in Oak Bluffs in 1996. Alma and Hans owned and operated The Edgartown Lodge Apartments, and later started and operated the Long Ship at Nevin Square in Edgartown, as full business partners in everything they did.

Alma had many interests but family came first. She nurtured each of them. She enjoyed golf and was among the first to call Farm Neck home. She was an active member of Trinity United Methodist Church in Oak Bluffs, drove for Meals on Wheels, and participated in the community greenhouse in Oak Bluffs and the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club. She skied into her seventies and loved boating, shellfishing, sailing and hiking on the Vineyard into her eighties.

She is survived by her husband of 76 years, Hans Stibolt; a daughter, Nancy Newman and her husband, Jon, of Oak Bluffs; a son, Kenneth Stibolt and his wife, Evelyn Banda, of Knoxville, Tenn., four grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Her sister, Verna Bergman of Springfield, also survives her.

A memorial service, which Alma wanted known as her farewell service, is planned for May 19 at 11 a.m. at Farm Neck Golf Club.

Donations in Alma’s memory can be made to Oak Bluffs Ambulance at P.O. Box 2131, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557.