Martha Springer Pollock, a gracious, thoughtful woman who embraced life with intelligence and compassion, died on March 22 at home in Pacific Palisades. ‘It all went by so fast,’ Martha said early this month as she anticipated her 99th birthday. Martha Way was born to Mary Prewitt Springer and Melvin Springer in Bayfield, Colorado, on March 31, 1910. The family, including her two younger beloved brothers, Melvin ‘Jim’ and Llewellyn, traveled to San Diego in 1919 by car, negotiating part of the trip over sand dunes on a wooden plank road after a team of horses pulled them across the Colorado River. They moved to Delta, Colorado in 1920 and Martha excelled in her academic work in the outstanding public schools. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she studied sociology and was a member of Pi Beta Phi. Martha met her first husband, Jack Edwards, at the university. They married in 1930 and moved to Seattle, where she was a child welfare worker for the county court. After Jack passed away in 1940, Martha briefly joined her father’s bank in Delta, and when World War II started she enlisted in the new Women’s Army Corps. She had many challenging stateside postings, including Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, using her interviewing, psychology and sociology skills from 1942 to 1945. She worked compassionately with soldiers returning from the European battlefields, many suffering from what is now recognized as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In 1945, upon her honorable discharge at the rank of staff sergeant, Martha traveled to Hazelton, Iowa to assist the family of newly widowed Perry C. Pollock and his two children, Perry Holman ‘Pete’ and Reba Pamela ‘Pam’. Martha and Perry were married in 1946 in Austin, Minnesota. Soon after the birth of their son, Thomas Joseph, in 1949, they moved to La Mesa, California. Martha joined the First United Methodist Church, and later the Grossmont Community Concert Association, the La Mesa Women’s Club, the Singing Hills Golf Club, and various children’s relief efforts in the county. She and Perry contributed to the life of their church for 50 years, and were instrumental in securing the church’s present organ. Martha’s volunteer activities included reviewing children’s court documents in the county’s dependency system for Voices for Children, an organization of CASA (court appointed special advocates). An adventurous traveler, Martha visited nearly every state and many locations around the world, from Norway and Spain to China and New Zealand. She had numerous interests, including opera, bridge and flower propagation, and avidly read about a wide range of topics. She lived comfortably the past year in Pacific Palisades at the home of her daughter Pam, and most recently enjoyed the frequent visits of her five-month-old great-grandson, Sean Perry Mininsky. Martha was predeceased by her husband Perry in 2004, and is survived by her children, Perry H. of Aspen, Colorado (wife Jacqueline Mastrangelo), Pamela Bruns of Pacific Palisades, California (husband William), and Thomas of San Diego (wife Christine Gritzmacher); and grandchildren Alan Bruns of Seattle (engaged to Kara Heist) and Allison Bruns Mininsky of Los Angeles (husband Michael and son Sean). Open services will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 4 at the First United Methodist Church in La Mesa. A committal for the family will be held afterwards at Greenwood Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers the family suggests donations to Voices for Children in San Diego (www.voices4children.com).
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
