Virginia C. McLean, 79, Was Editor and Librarian

Virginia Culver Hipkoe McLean, 79, died at her home in Oak Bluffs on May 14, after a lengthy illness. A longtime resident of Lagoon Pond, she was born on March 7, 1925 in Bellingham, Wash., where she was raised. She was graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in English.

While attending university, she met the man she would marry, the late Dr. Alan A. McLean, a prominent psychiatrist, author and leader in the budding field of applied industrial psychiatry. The McLeans began to summer on the Vineyard in 1965 from their home in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. After their divorce in 1975, Virginia became a year-round resident of the Island.

In New York, Virginia managed the Center for Occupational Mental Health, a group associated with Cornell University. In this role she was editor of a journal that published original articles and abstracts of literature in this emerging field.

On the Island, she worked for several years at the Vineyard Haven Library until her retirement in 1994. At work she would often surprise the unsuspecting with her wry, often cynical wit. She had a distinctly offbeat sense of humor. She worked in various sections of the library, finishing her career there in the children's section which ideally suited her background as an avid reader and her early experience in preschool education.

Virginia volunteered her time to promote civic involvement, serving as president of the Martha's Vineyard League of Women's Voters from 1978 to 1980. She was also president of the Eastville-Lagoon Association in the 1980s and an active member of the Vineyard Committee on Hunger, joining soon after its founding in 1975 and serving as its president from 1990 to 1995.

She is survived by her sons, Richard McLean of Oak Bluffs and Robert McLean of Toronto, Canada; granddaughters Sarah McLean and Emily McLean, both of Toronto; and her sister, Janice Lind of Linden, Wash.

Donations in her name are encouraged to the Vineyard Committee on Hunger.