Janet H. (Cohan) Aldeborgh died peacefully at home in Edgartown with family by her side on Nov. 24. She was 88.

She was born on March 16, 1932 in Wellesley to B. Harrison Cohan and Hildegarde (Nelson).

She grew up with her three siblings, Barbara (Edgehill), Marshall, and Dorothy (Hughes), on Cliff Road in Wellesley and attended Dana Hall School and Vassar College. She raised her family while living in Hyde Park, N.Y. and summering on Martha’s Vineyard at Herring Creek Farm (formerly known as Great Plains Farm, then owned by her parents) over the course of nearly 50 years. She eventually moved to the farm for retirement.

Janet embodied kindness, dignity, generosity, warmth and grace, exemplifying all in times of both bounty and tragedy.

Her life was filled with family, friends, travel, sports, a bevy of pets (including her beloved horses and dogs), and an endless stream of household and farm-related projects that brought her as much joy as sore muscles. She was as adept with a hammer and trowel as a sewing machine and computer. An Olympic-qualifying equestrian, she rode from a young age through to her 80s, including in dressage and cross country competitions throughout the Northeast. A picture and caption of her appeared in Sports Illustrated under the title “No Sport for Sissies,” tumbling over the nose of Bay Boy as he refused an enormous hurdle.

She fox hunted with the Rombout Hunt Club, rode trails in Dutchess and Dukes counties and languid hacks on South Beach. She was a lifelong tennis player, most notably, if not infamously, with her often uproarious posses from the Edgartown Yacht Club and the whimsically monikered Tootsies and Mother Cluckers, and was a downhill skier who loved Mad River Glen. She also was a seamstress, hostess and comfort food cook who was notoriously strict in protecting the family secret of her mother’s coveted meatloaf recipe.

She fought a long and courageous battle with mesothelioma, defying all her doctors’ predictions by sheer force of poised will, which her family chalks up as a win against this insidious disease. Never have so many said they were inspired by all that she was. She will be greatly missed.

She was predeceased by her loving husband of two years, Robert T. McGusty, who died in 1955, and her devoted husband of 61 years, John Erik Aldeborgh, who died in 2017. She is survived by five children, Mary (Urch) A. (St. John) of Edgartown, John E. Jr. of Edgartown, Timothy D. of Denver, Colo., Erik H. of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., and Edgartown, and Tjark J. of Edgartown; grandchildren Christopher, Peter, Alexandra (Alex), Erika, Samantha (Sam), Hannah (Nikki), Winsor (Windy), Tjark, Nils and Kazara (Kaz); and great-grandson Corbin.

A family celebration of her life will be held in the coming months.

Donations can be made to Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard, a source of great comfort to her and her children.