Author Elisabeth Ogilvie dies at 89

CUSHING – Elisabeth Ogilvie, a prolific author best known for her colorful portrayals of Maine coastal and island life, died Saturday at her home in this midcoast town, 10 days after suffering a stroke. She was 89.

A Boston native who vacationed in Maine and later moved there permanently, Ogilvie wrote 46 books, including 30 novels and 15 books for young adults.

“Although most of her books were not mysteries, Elisabeth Ogilvie was very like the fictional Jessica Fletcher, living and writing about life on a Maine island. Her following was so great that two of her fans published a newsletter that was distributed to 48 states,” said Karin Womer, who served as her editor on her most recent books.

Among her most beloved works is the Bennett’s Island series, which begins with “High Tide at Noon,” “Storm Tide” and “The Ebbing Tide.” Published in the mid-1940s, the “Tide Trilogy” drew upon the atmosphere and characters that Ogilvie encountered during summers with her family on remote Criehaven, 25 miles off the Maine coast, which she called “the island of my dreams.”

She continued writing about the island well into her later years, completing the series with “The Summer of the Osprey” in 1987 and “The Day Before Winter” 10 years later.

Ogilvie’s other works include three historical novels, the “Jennie Trilogy,” which recount the early 19th century adventures of a young woman who flees social turmoil and family violence in the Scottish highlands and carves out a new life on the Maine coast.

She also wrote an autobiography, “My World is an Island.”

After graduating from North Quincy (Mass.) High School in 1934, Ogilvie “took a writing course or two at Harvard, but it was the end of the Depression and nobody could afford college at that point,” said her niece, Barbara Mosher, who cared for her in her later years.

Ogilvie, who never married, lived for many years in a farmhouse on 33-acre Gay’s Island, off Cushing, and moved to a weathered white clapboard bungalow on the mainland five years ago.

Fellow author Dorothy Simpson, her housemate and friend for more than 50 years, died in 1998.

Ogilvie’s survivors include Mosher and other nieces and nephews.