Natalie Nowell Goethals died on Jan. 16 in Monterey, Calif. after a long illness. She was 97.

She was predeceased by her husband, George W. Goethals II, her son, John N.H. Goethals, and her sister Barbara Jackson.

Natalie was born in 1926 in Stockton, Calif., attended the Orme School and Ranch in Flagstaff, Ariz. and Palo Alto High School. She matriculated at University of California at Berkeley.

She completed her education at Harvard with a master’s degree in education, where she met her husband, George. They married in 1952 and she quickly became a stepmother to his three children from a previous marriage before having four children of her own.

As the children launched, she found work as an administrative assistant at Radcliffe College, then Buckingham Browne & Nichols School where she also taught a child development course to high schoolers. She finished her career as a loan officer at Harvard University.

Following her retirement, she became a deacon at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Cambridge, volunteered as a hospice aide and continued to travel the world, see her friends and visit her children on Martha’s Vineyard and in Williamstown, Richmond, Va., Tucson, Ariz., Needham, Hawaii, California and Chicago.

Natalie spent many summers on the Vineyard, enjoying afternoons on the beach, dinners with friends in West Tisbury or Quansoo and tending her own gardens. She was also a volunteer at Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary for several summers.

Struck by dementia in her 80s, Natalie was a beautiful soul who continued to love flowers, chocolate, a good book and a saucy joke. Her children, Karen, George (Al), Mary, Sam, Jem and Ann, her grandchildren and great grandchildren mourn her passing and celebrate her release from the bonds of her illness.

A private memorial service is planned for the summer on the Vineyard.