Virginia Vogel Mattern died peacefully at home in Stamford, Conn., on May 16 after a brief illness. She was 88 and had been a lifelong summer resident of the Vineyard, a place she held close to her heart.

She was born in Boston on April 1, 1933, along with her twin brother Ralph Booth Vogel, the children of Virginia Kingswood Booth and William Dickerman Vogel. They had an older sister Grace, and younger brother Frederick 3rd.

The family lived in Cambridge and Beverly Farms for several years before relocating to Milwaukee, Wisc.

Ginnie graduated from the Emma Willard School in 1951, and Wellesley College in 1955, where she played tennis and basketball. Immediately after college she moved to Rome to take an art course, and traveled extensively. The experience sparked a love of travel that would take her to far-flung corners of the globe throughout her life, including Thailand, Syria, Egypt and Chile. She went on many African safaris, as well as visiting the European countries.

She met her future husband Gray Mattern through a mutual friend at a wedding. He was headmaster at Wilbraham Academy, and a pianist and writer. They were married in January 1959. They had four children: Heather, Candice, Jennifer and Gray Jr.

Gray retired in 1971. In 1974 he was appointed director of the European Council of International Schools, and he and Ginnie moved to England. They lived in Surrey for 17 years, before returning to settle in North Stamford.

Ginnie first came to Martha’s Vineyard when she was three months old and her parents rented a house on the Edgartown harbor. Her grandparents spent summers at the Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown, in an era when it was common for families to take up residence at the hotel.

In the 1960s Ginnie and Gray bought an unfinished house tucked into a slope of Manaca Hill on Chappaquiddick. They hired Bob Marshall, a well-known Chappy contractor, to help finish the house and build an addition. They also did much of the work themselves, with Ginnie putting up paneling and building bookcases, enjoying the DIY role. The Chappy house remains the family summer home today, and there are many happy memories of time spent there, including evenings with friends gathered around the piano while Gray played favorite show tunes.

An all-around sportswoman and avid tennis player, Ginnie competed in tournaments at the Edgartown Yacht Club, winning many through the years. She had a passion for fishing, and could be found out on a boat daily with Ed Case, and later with Kay Ficks on the General. For the past 13 years she had gone king salmon fishing with a group of women in British Columbia. She developed a love of clamming and scalloping when she and Gray spent three winters on Chappy in the early 1970s.

In the 1980s Ginnie became interested in southwestern pottery while visiting her sister in Santa Fe, N.M., and began collecting. Later she donated her collection to the Denver Art Musuem, which houses one of the largest collections of North American indigenous art in the country.

She also collected sculpture. A signature Barbara Hepworth piece, Biolith, now sits at the entrance to the British Art Museum at Yale, a gift from Ginnie in memory of Gray, who died in 1997.

She was a Sterling Fellow at Yale, and was a member of the Chappaquiddick Beach Club, the Edgartown Yacht Club, the Mill Reef Club in Antigua, the Longmeadow Country Club, the Edgartown Golf Club and the Chappaquiddick Community Center. In 2012 she sold a two-acre parcel of land near her home on Chappaquiddick to the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation for a modest sum, to remain as open space.

In addition to her husband, she was predeceased by her twin brother Ralph and sister Grace; and her daughter Jennifer Bartholow, who died in 2020.

She is survived by her daughters Heather Sideman of Milton and Candice Webster of West Tisbury; son Gray Mattern Jr. of St Petersburg, Fla.; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Services will be private. Donations can be made to Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, or the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard.