Mary Wolverton

Mary Wolverton, 59, passed away on Dec. 24, 2025, at her home and surrounded by family in Vineyard Haven, after battling breast cancer for several years. 

Mary was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1966, to Ann and Ben Wolverton Jr., and grew up on the family’s sustainable farm in Troy Mills, Iowa. She attended North Linn High School, and graduated with a B.A. in theater arts from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. After working in fashion fabric design in Miami, Fla., she returned to Iowa, where she worked as a costume designer for Riverside Theatre in Iowa City and Theatre Cedar Rapids. In 1993, she relocated to Martha’s Vineyard, where she worked at Essence in Edgartown. She later started her own line of clothing called Wild Iris, and made custom textile furnishings. A resident on the Vineyard for more than 30 years, she also worked as a cabinetmaker, a teacher’s aide, and a musician, eventually building her own home here.

Mary enjoyed traveling to Ireland to hone her musical skills, and she taught fiddle lessons to young students for many years on the Vineyard. As a concert promoter, she helped foster performances by some of the world’s biggest and most respected names in traditional music at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven. Some Vineyarders will remember Mary from Wednesday night fiddle sessions, an Offshore Ale staple. Mary also enjoyed spending time in her garden and going on hikes.

She is survived by two sons, Mattie Harcourt Wolverton and Sunny Wolverton Harcourt; and their father, Gregg Harcourt. She is also survived by three siblings and their spouses, Susan Wolverton and Heberth Obando, Nan Wolverton and Ed Hood, and Tom and Seher Wolverton; as well as five nephews and one niece. 

Mary will be greatly missed by her family, as well as by the artisan and agrarian community she was so connected to on Martha’s Vineyard. Please help honor her memory by enjoying some good fiddle music. A celebration of her life will be held on the Vineyard in the spring.

Mary’s family wishes to thank her caregivers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Martha’s Vineyard Hospital (Mass General Brigham) and the VNA of Cape Cod–Martha’s Vineyard Hospice. Their care of Mary in her final days was extraordinary, for which we will be eternally grateful. In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to facilitate the compassionate efforts of such caregivers, or a donation in her honor to the Polly Hill Arboretum (pollyhillarboretum.org), which Mary loved, or to your favorite nonprofit, would be welcome.

Visit chapmanfuneral.com for online guestbook and information.