TOPSHAM – Virginia Cook Nye Newton, 90, died Aug. 6, at the Governor King Wing of the Highlands, with her family at her side.

She was born in Lincoln, Neb., in 1918, the oldest of the four children of Edwina and Paul Cook. In 1939, she married the Rev. Kenneth E. Nye and served as a minister’s wife in Haverhill and Webster, Mass., Chappaqua, N.Y., Glenview, Ill., and Greenwich, Conn., until his death in 1975.

During their life together, she and Kenneth had four children, William R. Nye, now of Brooklyn, N.Y., Kenneth P. Nye of Freeport, Nancy Nye of Durham, N.C., and Mary Nye Segalla, of Charlottesville,Va. In 1947, the Nyes purchased land on Lake Androscoggin in Wayne, establishing a family vacation home that still serves as the gathering place of the extended Nye family.

In 1978, she married Albert Newton of Allendale, N.J. They were married until his death in 1984. When she was 80 years old, she built a house on the top of the hill overlooking her beloved Lake Androscoggin. She lived there alone for five years. She was an avid gardener, bird feeder, and lover of the natural world.

She is survived by her two sisters, Margaret Tristan of Sudbury, Mass., and Marian Brown of Grand Island, Neb.; her brother, Paul Cook of Albuquerque, N.M.; her four children; eight grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; and many, many people whose hearts she touched.