Roberta (Bobbie) Gilluly Tilton died July 2, 2020, in Providence, R.I. She was 83.

She was born in January 1937 to Walter S. Gilluly and Hilda Marie Norton in Edgartown. After her father died in 1941, Bobbie, her mom and sister Jean moved from their Ocean Heights home to live with her grandparents Orin Norton, a blacksmith, and Elsie Maude Shurtleff on their farm in Edgartown.

Her favorite memories from childhood were the smell of her grandfather’s apple orchard in bloom, swimming in Yvonne Canha’s water ballet classes at the Bend in the Road, tap dance classes, helping her grandfather prune the apple trees, ringing the bell at the Methodist Church with her sister Jean and her grandmother on the day World War II, and her first trip off-Island to Boston with her mom and sister after the war when she was eight.

She attended the Edgartown School, where she excelled scholastically, played the clarinet and was valedictorian of her 1954 graduating class. She was quiet, calm, self confident and reserved. In seventh grade she met an outgoing, exuberant boy named Steve Tilton, who, although he was smart enough, never applied himself to school work. She was not impressed. Her view changed many years later, and they married in September 1956.

After high school she completed a two-year course in medical administration at the Chandler School in Boston. In summers she worked for Dr. Nevin in Edgartown and as a telephone operator.

After she and Steve married they lived in Edgartown, had their first child and then moved to Minnesota where Steve’s brother David and his family were living. Bobbie flew with their four-month-old, Stephanie and Steve drove his 1941 convertible red Plymouth with all their possessions including their wedding gift from Bobbie’s sister Jean, a cocker spaniel they named Zeb after Steve’s great uncle Zeb Tilton.

With a loan from Bobbie’s grandfather Orin, they bought a home in Woodbury, Minn. After the birth of her second child, Faith Joy, Bobbie began working in the office of the company Steve worked for, Homelite. On her old Singer sewing machine that had come west in the Plymouth, Bobbie made clothes for her daughters, including beach cover ups, and checkered two-piece bathing suits. Every summer the family drove back to the Island for their vacation.

After the birth of their third child, Bobbie began working in the office of the company Steve and his brother David started, Tilton Equipment Co., where she worked for 40 years.

In 1973 Bobbie and Steve built a waterfront home on Sunset Lake a few miles north of White Bear Lake in Minnesota. After that they always lived on the water — Edgartown harbor, the Ohio River in Jeffersonville, Ind., and Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.

Her great passions in life, were family, gardening, cooking, pets, traveling, reading, swimming and nature. She loved trees and flowering plants, knew the names of roadside weeds and, when growing vegetables was always on the lookout for the best manure.

She loved to cook; the caramel pecan cinnamon rolls she always made for Christmas breakfast will be missed the most.

Travel took her to Japan, Hawaii and 36 other states in the U.S., Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, France, Italy, Bermuda, a Carribean cruise with her sister in law, Carolyn, and a 40th wedding anniversary trip with Steve to the coast of British Columbia.

She is survived by her daughters Stephanie of Edgartown, Faith and her husband Martin Schmidt of Forest Lake, Minn., Jennifer of North Attleboro; a sister Jean Gilluly of Falmouth; grandchildren Jessica of Waxhaw, N.C.,, Mark Schmidt of Plymouth, Minn., Jake Schmidt of Hermantown, Minn.; five great-grandchildren, Anthony, Claire, Abigail, Cora, and Annabelle Roberta. A graveside service was held July 11, 2020, in the New Westside Cemetery in Edgartown.