Marianne (Hamilton) Durgin, a longtime seasonal resident of Aquinnah, died peacefully at the home of her daughter, Jane Hoffman, in Huntersville, N.C., on August 17.

For years, she and her husband, the late Frank H. Durgin, an MIT graduate who became the director of its Wind Tunnel, summered with their children at the multi-colored Rainbow House on Moshup Trail. The Durgins bought the shorefront land in the 1950s and, with the help of the late Herbert Hancock, built their home there. They chose the colors for its siding to resemble a Mondrian painting.

Marianne was born on Jan. 11, 1932, in Portland, Me., a daughter of Emery C. Hamilton and Alice (Smith) Hamilton. She attended school in Cape Elizabeth before going to Wellesley College, graduating in 1953. She later received a master’s degree in library science from Simmons College. She worked for some years as a librarian at her alma mater, Wellesley.

Although on the Vineyard she could walk in no time from her house to the ocean beach below, she tended to be a beach reader rather than a surf swimmer. She could happily spend hours reading on the sand, listening to the thundering surf.

The house was set between the beach house of the late Lillian Hellman and a cranberry bog, and cranberrying was always a major fall event for Marianne. The berries would be frozen and taken back to the Durgins’ year-round residence in Belmont. They would reappear as cranberry jelly and sauce at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

For her jam and jelly-making, Marianne also sought out blueberries, huckleberries and beach plums wherever she could find them, up-Island and down. The grapes that grew beside the house were picked each fall and taken back to Belmont where — along with the raspberries, blackberries and strawberries she grew there — they were turned into jelly or jam. It was often sold to benefit the Ladies’ Aid Society of Chebeague Island, Me., her father’s birthplace. She and Frank frequently summered there after their retirement.

Their winter residence in retirement was in Largo, Fla, where Marianne was well known for her sugar-free apple pie and her ability at crossword puzzles. She was also a devoted Red Sox fan. She will be long remembered, not only for her cooking skills but for her quick wit and warm heart.

She is survived by her five children: John of LaConner, Wash., Jane Hoffman of Huntersville, N.C., Lora Corl of Chesapeake, Va., Sally Wang of Portland, Conn. and Frank of Swarthmore, Pa., as well as 13 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held on Chebeague in October.