Catriona Proudfoot, a tutor from Aberfeldy, has died of a stroke at the age of 88.
Mrs Proudfoot fell ill on June 30 and did not recover, dying in Perth Royal Infirmary 10 days later.
She offered free English tutorials for children in the town having retired to her childhood home in 1983 after working for many years as a teacher in England.
Her family paid tribute to Mrs Proudfoot, saying “teaching was in her blood”.
They also praised the nursing staff who took care of her at the hospital.
Her daughter Helen said: “We are very grateful for the care and attention she was given in the stroke unit in her last days.”
Helen said her mother remained active in her twilight years, continuing to complete cryptic crosswords, knit and make fudge for local charitable events.
She said: “We, her children, admired her fine mind and sophisticated wit.”
Mrs Proudfoot was born Catriona Kennedy Macbeath on February 17 1925 in Glasgow, the second child and only daughter of the eminent philosopher and ethicist Alexander Macbeath, who was Gifford lecturer at St Andrews University in 1948-9, and his wife Grace Ann Stewart.
In 1930, she moved to Perthshire, attending Breadalbane Academy in Aberfeldy. She went on to Edinburgh University, where she studied English and French, graduating in 1947 with a second-class degree. She then began teaching English and PE at Holly Lodge girls’ Grammar School in Smethwick.
She met Leslie Proudfoot in Dublin and married him in 1952 in the Moness Hotel in Aberfeldy.
Throughout her life she never stopped teaching, helping a local servant learn to read during a stint in Sierra Leone and returning to the classroom once her family moved back to the UK.