Linda Mary Wilson died peacefully on Dec. 13 at home in Oak Bluffs on the Island she had come to love. She was 83.

She was well satisfied with her life. She was a mouse, hiker, hitch hiker, balletomane, inveterate traveler, writer, artist, identifier of ferns and a collector.

She was born on April 13, 1939 in Kerrville, Tex. She taught Latin in the public schools of Jefferson County, Colo. While in Denver, she completed a master’s degree in library science.

Life events took her to Quincy. When she served as a school librarian in Scituate, she and a colleague enrolled in what they called Adult Klutz ballet classes in Boston. Her goal was to audition for a part as a mouse in the annual winter production of The Nutcracker. Though she felt she had the proper shape for the costume, in this rare instance she grew faint of heart and did not audition.

In the 1970s she bought a cottage in Oak Bluffs and spent her summers exploring the Vineyard. Her sister, niece and nephews joined her often.

She returned to Texas to serve as head librarian at St. John’s School in Houston after a December in Quincy that had only five hours of sunshine for the whole month. She loved the camping and rugged hikes in Big Bend National Park and, a contrarian by nature, she felt an affinity for that demanding yet richly-satisfying environment.

Boiling Texas heat and her summers on the Vineyard convinced her to return to the northeast — this time to Connecticut, as the head librarian at Greenwich Academy’s upper school.

She always missed Texas tacos. Winter visits to Austin family and Houston friends solved that problem.

After retirement she moved full-time to the Vineyard. She embraced the difficulties of Island life. Without an early morning taxi, she walked to County Road and hitched a ride to the ferry terminal, making a Boston surgery appointment just in time for pre-op procedures.

She gifted her extensive collection of Margaret Armstrong art nouveau book covers to the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. She cataloged ferns at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens.

She collected ribbons at the Agricultural Fair for baking, jams and jellies, and arts and crafts. Prize-winning collections included shell and sea glass ornaments, felted animals and Santa heads, dramatic bead jewelry and great bags of sheep’s wool from her Scotland travels. Her dogs won ribbons as well and some years her great-niece and great-nephew showed the dogs. Family members also entered and won recognition at the fair.

Linda took Vineyard tapestry classes, participated in writers’ workshops and served on the board of the Oak Bluffs Public Library. She was elected to the Oak Bluffs cemetery commission in 2016. She served as assistant librarian at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum when it was located in Edgartown, working with the whaling and other archives. She collected ephemera, including hand-painted Vineyard postcards. She had occasional articles published in Vineyard newspapers.

She rescued two miniature long-hair dachshunds that had been abandoned on an up-Island beach. Her little dog Alice was with her all the rest of her days.

She traveled extensively in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, Mexico, Canada, Greenland and Iceland. She read widely, loved and attended ballet and plays and films, and delighted in art exhibits.

Linda is survived by her sister Kathleen Wilson; her niece Margaret Roberts; her nephews Richard and Robert Jenkins; and a great-niece and great-nephews.

Her family is grateful to Hospice and Palliative Care of Martha’s Vineyard, Linda’s caregivers and her kind and attentive neighbors for helping her to the end of this journey.

A memorial service will be held in the spring when her family can gather.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard, P.O. Box 1236 Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 and the Oak Bluffs Public Library, P.O. Box 1421, Oak Bluffs MA 02557.