Martens, Olga (1914-1989)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 27 Jul 1989 p. 3

Birth date: 1914

text of obituary:

Elkhart Woman Dies in Jet Crash

ELKHART, IND. — Olga Martens of Elkhart died July 19 in the crash of a United Airlines DC-10 at Sioux City, Iowa. She was 75.

More than 100 people died in the disaster.

Martens, a member of Hively Avenue Mennonite Church, Elkhart, was returning home after visiting her son, Duane, grandchildren and new twin great-grandchildren in Denver.

She and her husband, Harry, who was not on the flight, were longtime leaders in developing or administering church-sponsored relief ministries to North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

Harry Martens served Bethel College, North Newton, Kan., as business manager during the 1950s and as assistant to the president, 1957-1959. The couple moved to Elkhart in 1959, when Harry became assistant to the president of Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

MARTENS WAS named Woman of the Year in Elkhart in 1977 by the Elkhart, Edwardsburg and Union chapters of Beta Sigma Phi Sorority. In recent years she had been active in the Elkhart Altzheimer’s [sic] Support Group. Her husband has had Altzheimer’s [sic] Disease for several years.

She taught kindergarten at Jimtown Elementary School, 1959-1966. In 1970 she became director of the nursery school at the First congregational Church in Elkhart.

Martens was born in Harvey County, Kan. She grew up in the Buhler area and graduated from Bethel. She taught elementary school in Kansas for several years.

SHE HAS BEEN characterized as “a creative and determined young woman” who married the “imaginative and idealistic” Harry Martens in 1937. The couple went to New York City in 1940, where Harry studied personnel administration at Columbia University.

After graduation, they began church work, which included establishing Mennonite and Quaker Civilian Public Service units in the Midwest and on the East Coast. During their exposure to the people’s struggle in Puerto Rico after World War II, they decided to give a 10th of their time in service.

A needlework project she started in Puerto Rico to help local women earn money from their local art developed into the Mennonite Central Committee Needlework Project in 1946.

THE COUPLE served 1967-69 with MCC in relief work in the Jordan Valley on the West Bank of Palestine. Living amid the refugees, martens established a mother-child center within three months of their arrival. She helped open additional centers and also started kindergartens in the refugees’ tent cities.

Survivors, in addition to her husband and son, include a daughter, Delia Miller of Duluth, Minn., five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A memorial service was held July 25 at Hoffnungsau Mennonite Church, rural Inman, Kan. Another memorial service is being held July 27 at the Chapel of the Sermon on the Mount at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, with Marcia Yoder-Schrock and Virgil Gerig officiating.

Reported by John Bender.