Nancy Martin

Nancy Martin was born and raised in Vancouver, BC Canada. She attended boarding school on Vancouver Island and in Toronto following which she attended University of Toronto, where she studied Physical Therapy. After practicing physical therapy for several years, including a year in London while there was still rationing from World War II, she returned to university to earn a teaching certificate and then became the first physical therapy teacher and head of the physical therapy program at University of Alberta. She remained there seven years. She earned a BA in French and Spanish from University of Alberta while working full time teaching physical therapy and running the physical therapy program. In March 1962 she married Samuel E. Martin, Professor of East Asian Linguistics at Yale University. They had two children, Norah and James. The Martin family lived in Hawaii for several years, but made their permanent home in Hamden, Connecticut. Nancy was for many years a member of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church parish, a volunteer at the New Haven Colony Historical Society, and a volunteer at Yale's Peabody Museum. She also worked for several years as a physical therapist at Whitney Center, a continuing care community in Hamden, CT. Nancy always went the extra distance to help people in need, often people others would not have recognized as having need. Nancy was well known for her talent at knitting and crocheting. She devised her own patterns, and published a book of patterns for crocheted stuffed dinosaurs and knitted children's sweaters with dinosaur patterns that sold at Yale's Peabody Museum Gift Shop. Nancy paid a great deal of attention to the anatomy and functionality of her stuffed dinosaurs and other crocheted and knitted toys. She never put in any sort of wire stiffeners to make her toys stand up as she thought that would make them less fun to play with, and she was very proud of having put the correct head on her Brontosaurus rather than the more easily recognizable incorrect head than was opted for in the movie Jurassic Park. She also made sweaters with dinosaur patterns for the Peabody gift shop. In 1995 Nancy and Sam moved to Vancouver Washington. There Nancy was an active volunteer at Southwest Washington Medical Center (now PeaceHealth Southwest), where she was part of the weekly sewing group and where she knit baby sweaters for the gift shop and for the Healthy Steps Clinic. She also crocheted hats for the Cancer Center. As a result, she recorded the most volunteer hours of any volunteer for several years in a row. After Sam died in 2009, Nancy moved to Touchmark, where she made many new friends whose company she very much enjoyed. In the final year of her life she also enjoyed the company of the wonderful caregivers from Touchmark Home Care.

Nancy Martin

November 19, 1925 - June 17, 2013