Martha Sylvia was born on March 3, 1918 in Chicago. She was the daughter of Swedish immigrants, and grew up during the Depression, in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. I always thought the name Sylvia was absolutely lovely, and she always hated it. She said she didn’t know where her mom got it from.

Martha put herself through college in the late 1930’s, working for Clarence Barnhart, the dictionary guy, at Scott Foresman Publishing. She talked about loving her visits to the Chicago Art Institute while living in Chicago, and somehow, eating chocolate cake.

She married at the beginning of World War II and converted to Catholicism towards the end of the war. (In those days, a non-Catholic marrying a Catholic had to promise to help bring the children up as Catholics. I know this has changed but I don’t know what the change actually is.) She said of her conversion, that after her first children were born she went off to find out what she had promised to teach them so she could keep her word. She loved what she found.

She was confirmed at Saint Rita’s church, in Arlington, Virginia, in 1946 and took Saint Gertrude the Great as her confirmation name. Saint Gertrude is the only female saint who is called Great.

Mom had nine children, numerous grandchildren, and even more numerous great grandchildren, who are still arriving and will be arriving for sometime. Her oldest grandchild is well over fifty years old but the youngest is not yet twenty-five.

When her children were grown Mom returned to a project she had thought about for years, linking Emily Dickinson’s poetry to that of Saint John of the Cross. She had a deep understanding of Emily Dickinson best shown in that, when she read a Dickinson poem aloud, she made it instantly comprehensible. At the party for her fiftieth wedding anniversary we had t-shirts that said Fifty Years of Science and Poetry, my father being a pioneer NASA scientist.

She also discussed the stages of the spiritual life and made them comprehensible if not thereby simple to achieve. She pointed out that according to Saint John of the Cross, there are two dark nights. One is the Dark Night of the Senses and the second is the Dark Night of the Soul. The Dark Night of the Senses is a purging from sin; many people who should know better confuse this with the Dark Night of the Soul. The confusion arises because they have forgotten or more probably never knew that there are two experiences of spiritual aridity. Very sinful people who experience desolation of spirit are not in the Dark Night of the Soul, but rather of the Senses.

The Dark Night of the Soul comes to those who have given up most of their sins.

Following the two dark nights is the Ladder of Love which is where the soul experiences a mystical union with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while still here on earth.

Martha died September 28, 2004. May she rest in peace and eternal light.