Eleanor (Ellie) Groel died peacefully on Feb. 1 at the Henrietta Brewer House in Vineyard Haven, where she lived the last few years. She was 100, just two months shy of her 101st birthday.

She was born Eleanor Adelaide Mencke on April 8, 1921 in Philadelphia to John William Henry Mencke and Eleanor Alsop Mencke. She graduated from Westfield High School in Westfield, N.J. and remained friends with many of her schoolmates.

Ellie graduated from Smith College in 1942. When the war arrived, she joined the Navy WAVES. She thought her assignment would be to a faraway post. Instead, she was initially dispatched to Northampton for basic training, just blocks away from Smith College.

She was assigned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard where she met Lieut. Gordon K. Reese. They married on Feb. 14, 1944. The Navy reassigned Lieutenant Reese to Long Beach, Calif., where their first child, Gordon K. Reese Jr. was born. Adventure arrived when General Motors, Gordon’s post-war employer, sent the young family to South Africa for four years.

Back in New Jersey, Ellie became a full-time mother to Gordon and Sally, who was born in 1950. She was a Cub and Girl Scout leader and always found time for volunteer work. She loved books and worked at a friend’s bookstore. After tutoring math, she decided to teach full time and did so for 20 years while also obtaining her master’s degree.

The family first rented on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer of 1950 and the camp on Chilmark Pond was a second home for 25 years. Ellie took in all the Vineyard offered, from fishing and clamming to tackling the daily crossword while on Abel’s Hill Beach. She played golf for many years but tennis was her love and she played well into her mid-80s.

In 1975, Richard Anderson built her a classic post-and-beam house on Abel’s Hill, where she enjoyed entertaining for many years. Today, it’s the home of her granddaughter Elizabeth Anderson Moriarty, her husband Tim and their three children.

After her first marriage ended, Ellie met and married Campbell C. Groel in 1983, blending two families, lots of shared friends and a love of the Vineyard. Ellie retired from teaching which freed them to travel. They began splitting their time among Campbell’s home in West Orange, N.J., Vero Beach Fla., and the Vineyard. For the last 25 years of their active retirement years, they spent winters in Vero Beach and were on the Island every summer. Ellie volunteered at the Polly Hill Arboretum and she and Campbell were members of the Edgartown Yacht Club and the Edgartown Golf Club.

Her family thanks the late Elizabeth Sandland of the former Long Hill House in Edgartown where Ellie lived for several years. They are also grateful to the caregivers at the Henrietta Brewer House who enabled her to remain on-Island and receive home-like care.

Ellie was predeceased by her husband Campbell Groel in 2005, and her first husband Gordon Reese in 1999, as well as her brother John Bernard Mencke. She is survived by her son, Gordon Reese Jr. and his wife, Laurel Walker of Green Valley, Ariz.; her daughter Sally Anderson and her husband Steve Flanders of West Tisbury; granddaughters Allison Myers and her husband Ed of Folsom, Calif., Mandy Crabtree of Sacramento, Calif., and Liz Moriarty and her husband Tim of Chilmark; and her great-grandchildren Reese and Sean Crabtree; Matthew and Julia Meyers; and Finn, Maeve and Cormac Moriarty. She is also survived by her stepsons, Peter Corbin and his wife Lillian of Millbrook, N.Y., Hunter Corbin and his wife Jeanette of Fair Haven, N.J., and their combined four children and seven grandchildren.

A memorial will be held at a future date.