Donald Hurley, Jr., Chilmark summer resident, died on March 18 after a long illness. He was 78.

Born on November 15, 1941, in Boston, Don was the son of Donald J. and Miriam Greene Hurley, who spent summers in Chilmark, beginning in the late 1940s. In 1954, the family built a home, Quitsa Mooring, on Nashaquitsa Pond.

The year 1954 was significant for all Vineyarders as Hurricane Carol pounded the Island and destroyed the Harris Creek Bridge, near the unfinished Hurley house.

For several weeks, Don and his younger brother, Steve, provided ferry service in their rowboat to stranded up-Islanders until the Army Corps of Engineers could replace the bridge.

During his early Vineyard summers, he was a member of the Chilmark little league baseball team, the Tigers, where he made friendships that lasted a lifetime, including with great pal, Wesley Cottle, of Chilmark.

In his teens, Don spent several summers delivering milk for the Martha’s Vineyard Dairy and working as a swordfish spotter out of Menemsha. In adulthood, he enjoyed playing golf at Farm Neck Golf Club where he was a charter member.

Don was a graduate of Belmont Hill School and a member of the class of 1964 at Harvard College. Don served in the United States Coast Guard during the middle 1960s. He married Nancy Mae Burns on October 15, 1966. They remained married for 51 years.

After several years in Manhattan, where he was in Chemical Bank’s executive training program, they moved to Lloyd Harbor, Long Island and lived there until Nancy Mae’s death in 2017.

Don was a director of the British investment bank, Kleinwort Benson. He retired as senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Institute for Applied Economics, a research organization.

He is survived by his sisters, Rosamond P. H. Shugrue (Page) and her husband, Edward, of Largo, Fla., and Cornelia Hurley McPeek of Brookline; a brother, Stephen Nash Hurley, of Chestnut Hill; daughter, Courtney Hurley Pierson, and her husband, Timothy of Hanover, N.H.; a granddaughter, and many nieces and nephews.

In March, the family held a private service at the Chilmark Cemetery, where he was interred beside Nancy Mae and their two infant children. There will be memorial celebrations in Lloyd Harbor and Chilmark once social distancing restrictions are eased.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to Belmont Hill School, 350 Prospect Street, Belmont, MA, 02478.