Mary Jane Martin

Martin, Mary Jane Mary Jane Martin, known to most of us as Jane, died Wednesday, May 21, 2014. Jane was a remarkable woman whose loss is felt by many, including, besides her family and friends, her many ex-students and her entire neighborhood, where she and her dog Lady were daily fixtures along the sidewalks, and where she always stopped to share a few friendly words with anyone who was outside as she passed by. Jane was born in Tucumcari in 1928, and was raised there and in Portales and then the tiny town of Christine, Texas, until her family moved to nearby San Antonio when Jane was in high school and Trinity University, where she graduated in 1949. Soon thereafter she met a young officer, Irl Richard (Dick) Martin, in the Army at Fort Sam Houston, where she was teaching English. They married in 1952. Dick was part of the then-secret atomic testing at Eniwetok Atoll in the south Pacific in 1954. When he returned to San Antonio, he completed his tenure in the Army, being discharged as a Captain, while Jane began her public school teaching career in Killeen. In 1959 the young couple moved to Albuquerque, where Dick completed his engineering degree, and Jane taught English at McKinley Junior High. Dick was diagnosed with lupus, assumed to be related to the atomic testing, and died in 1972. Jane continued to teach in the Albuquerque Public Schools, switching from one of her loves, literature, to another of her loves, underdogs, in teaching students with emotional and behavioral difficulties until 1983, when she retired. She was one of those teachers who continued to get letters and cards from her former students until they were parents and grandparents. Another of Jane's loves was her succession of dogs and cats, who mostly just appeared on her doorstep over the years. Friends commented that if they were reincarnated, they hoped they would come back as one of Jane's pets. She was a lifelong passionate Democrat who had difficulty understanding why all other intelligent people didn't understand politics in the same way. Jane became ill in 2002, and she courageously dealt with her progressive illness every day until her death, maintaining the attitude that "I have this day" even when her life's circumstances were greatly diminished. Jane has been cremated, and her ashes will be buried with her husband at the military cemetery at Fort Sam Houston.