On Nov. 12, 2024, the Island lost a devoted advocate for the environment and the working waterfront. Surrounded by her family, Virginia Crowell Jones departed on her final voyage from her home in West Tisbury. She is buried in a green burial plot overlooking the Tisbury Great Pond.
The daughter of Thomas and Lydia Howes Bardwell, Ginny was born on Dec. 10, 1941, in Oak Bluffs. When she was 2, her parents parted, and Lydia and Ginny moved in with Joe and Bessie Howes at the house across from Alley’s store. Joe, born in 1874, became Ginny’s primary babysitter. He had a reputation in town as a legendary raconteur, and he entertained his charge with memories from his childhood and the escapades of seafaring ancestors. Famously one spring, the toddler Ginny followed behind her grandfather unearthing the peas he was carefully planting. She threw them into the woods, saying, “ You never know, Joe, you never know.” In her teens, she delivered papers, and saved enough to buy a horse, Nicka. Ginny (and her grandfather, at times) rode Nicka all over the Island.
Ginny attended the West Tisbury School and the Vineyard Haven High School, and graduated in the class of 1959. She met Everett Jones while he was milking cows at Whiting’s Farm. Everett and Ginny were married in 1961. She attended St. Lawrence University, where Everett was already enrolled, and when Everett was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania graduate program, Ginny also transferred to Penn, and graduated in the class of 1963 with a B.A. in cultural anthropology. Two months later, Ginny gave birth to their son, Douglas. Their daughter Caitlin was born in 1966.
After college the family settled in Mystic, Conn. Ginny joined the Noank Quilt Factory, a coven of sailors, quilters, hippies, and rebellious housewives. In the early ’70s, Ginny lost her mother Lydia and her grandfather Joe, and separated from Everett. She turned the Mystic house into the Mission, an informal boarding house for wayward sailors. The wayward sailors also helped with splitting the woodpile, and stoking the wood stove. In the mid ’70s she audaciously, or prophetically, bought a 63-foot Alden yawl, Foam, and with a captain and crew, headed for southern latitudes. Ginny eventually let go of Foam, but not her love of ocean voyaging.
After volunteering for many years, in 1978 she was employed by Mystic Seaport as the secretary and assistant to the director of ship’s preservation and curation. She helped manage the shipyard office, commiserated with the shipwrights and caulkers, researched historic watercraft, and organized a few of the Museum’s Classic Boat Rendezvous. She completed maritime trade courses offered by the museum, and turned many belaying pins. She also moved ballast from many bilges, and sanded and painted many hulls and spars.
In 1985 Ginny returned to Martha’s Vineyard, and became office manager and troubleshooting ombudsman at the fledgling Gannon and Benjamin boatyard in Vineyard Haven. Ginny presided in her “oval office,” managing the books, connecting G&B with her legion of nautical associates, screening customers, and keeping young children’s fingers out of the bandsaws.
While at Gannon and Benjamin, she made Caribbean passages aboard Zorra, cruised to Maine on Gen. George Patton’s schooner, When and If, and enjoyed many day sails on the eclectic yachts in Vineyard Haven Harbor. Ginny also organized day sails for breast cancer survivors aboard the When and If. In 2002, Ginny and a friend bought a 40-foot sloop, which they sailed to Ireland via the Azores. She also made passages with her son Douglas aboard the yawl Pacifica, from Hawaii to Port Townsend, Wash., then south to San Diego. “Although the Pacific,” she said, “was not very pacific.”
She transited the Panama Canal in 2012 aboard a merchant vessel, and also spent a week as chaperone with the seventh-grade class of her grandson, Everett Healy, on Shenandoah. In her final days, a trip to the Shetland Islands was on her mind
Serving on the West Tisbury planning board for nearly 30 years, Ginny was outspoken and steadfast, a dragon guarding the gate against rapacious development. She expressed her love and gratitude for Martha’s Vineyard in her work in conservation. Her Chilmark property became Mermaid Farm, started by Caitlin and Allen Healy. She was involved with the Vineyard Conservation Society starting in 1968, and served on the board many years.
Briefly, she enjoyed working at the Allen Farm wool shop, and was a loyal member of the knitting group at Howes House. Ginny was also the first female admitted to the Island’s salty Barnacle Club, a men’s-only organization (until Ginny).
From 2007 to 2017 she worked in various positions in the Chilmark Town Hall, and as the assistant harbormaster in Menemsha, home port of two of her favorite enterprises — the historic dragger Little Lady, and the Fishermen’s Preservation Trust.
Ginny’s last waterfront enterprise was the Fo’c’s’le Locker, a repurposed fish freezer at the late Everett Pools in Menemsha, filled with nautical books, tales of Island lore, local antiques, and vintage wool sweaters.
Ginny is survived by her two children, Douglas and Caitlin; daughter-in-law, Deborah Dominici; son-in-law, Allen Healy; grandsons Everett and Kent Healy; the Jones family; brothers Doug and Tom Bardwell; and many wayward sailors.
A celebration of her life is planned for the spring.
Donations in Ginny’s memory may be made to the Vineyard Conservation Society, online at bit.ly/VCS_donation, or to the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, online at bit.ly/MVSG_donate.