Criseyde (Cris) S. Jones, a West Tisbury resident for six decades, died on March 16 at Fall River HealthCare. She was 89.

Born on Jan. 3, 1933, in El Dorado, Ark., she came by her Chaucerian first name honestly: her father Weldon Stone was a playwright and English teacher and her mother Katherine (K) Moss Stone was a librarian. Cris was an avid reader who fostered the love of language in others. To the end of her life, she was a force to be reckoned with in word games from Scrabble to Bananagrams.

She received her undergraduate degree at the University of Louisville and later earned a master’s degree from Tufts University in child study and human development, with a focus on early childhood intervention.

She married Kenneth M. (Mal) Jones in Germany in 1957. By way of a honeymoon, they drove across the Sahara together in a Volkswagen bus. After Cris attended photography school in Santa Barbara, she and Mal moved in 1960 to a small camp on Deep Bottom Cove, Tisbury Great Pond, thus beginning her decades-long relationship with the Vineyard. Though the marriage eventually ended, her connection to West Tisbury and Martha’s Vineyard never did.

Her love of language continued on the Island, where she helped organize writing workshops that followed guidelines developed by English professor and longtime Vineyard summer visitor Peter Elbow in his book Writing Without Teachers. Later, she became a regular volunteer for the West Tisbury library’s annual book sale.

While raising her children, Cris was active creatively and politically. An early member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), she spoke out against the Vietnam War and in favor of reproductive rights and environmental responsibility. She started the Christiantown Gallery in West Tisbury with her friend Bonnie Miller. A skilled potter herself, she stopped by to visit Tom Thatcher in his pottery studio on the Edgartown Road — a visit that grew into a lifelong friendship.

She almost always shared her home with a dog and often a cat. Her children Annie and Owen had ponies and she often rode with them. The late Marjorie Manter Rogers was her friend and mentor in all things equestrian. She relished all opportunities to be out in the natural world. While living on Deep Bottom Cove, she sailed her Sunfish across the pond so she could walk on the barrier beach. When living in town, she had to drive but however she got there, she treasured her hours by the ocean.

In the mid-1980s, Cris put her master’s degree to use as an early childhood specialist, working first on the Cape and Islands and then for the San Bernardino Office of Education in California. She worked in San Bernardino for 15 years, returning to the Vineyard every summer and most vacations until she retired in 2004.

She was an only child but also one of many cousins who descended from the Moss side of her mother’s family. She maintained close contact with them and their children her entire life.

She is survived by her daughter Annie Nichols of Rehoboth; son Owen Jones of Lakeville; granddaughter Sarah Nichols of Fall River; and grandson Kevin Nichols of Warwick, R.I.

She was interred in the West Tisbury cemetery next to her mother Mimi Stone, who spent her last years on the Island. A memorial gathering is being planned for this summer.

Donations can be made to the Friends of the West Tisbury Library (P.O. Box 905, West Tisbury, MA 02575) or to the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s campaign for re-election to the U.S. Senate from Georgia.