Martha Ellis Green - known as Martie for much of her life - was born in 1922 and raised in Concord, MA. Her first home was an asparagus farm. Later, she moved to a home down the road from the Verrill Farm. In the winter, after school, she went skating on the pond in her backyard and came in for fudge and hot chocolate prepared by her Aunt Ruby Hoffman. Her children and their cousins spent wonderful summer days at her childhood home, climbing trees, harvesting blackberries, and swimming at White Pond.

Martha was president of the class of 1944 at Radcliffe College. She babysat and taught ballroom dance to pay for school and lived at home until her senior year, getting a ride to class from a professor at MIT. During the war, women began to attend Harvard classes with the men, and they had new opportunities after graduation. Martha became a White House intern and had tea weekly with Eleanor Roosevelt, but she didn't share these stories with her children until they were in their 20s. Martha shared a house with several young women, and through one of them, she met her true love, Navy sailor Harry Green. They married in 1947.

Martha and Harry moved to Boston for Harry to attend Harvard Law School, and Martha worked at the League of Women Voters on Joy Street. They lived "on the back of" Beacon Hill in the building where the MBTA Red Line enters the tunnel.

Martha and Harry raised three children, moving to support Harry's career from Boston to Philadelphia (briefly living with Harry's parents); Arlington, VA; Queens, NY; Baltimore, MD; Richland, WA; and Greenwich, CT.

In the early 1960s, Martha became President of the League of Women Voters of Baltimore County. She declined a bribe from Spiro Agnew when he ran for Baltimore County Executive and asked her to reveal the LWV debate questions in advance. She was active in the civil rights movement, taking her children to demonstrations and teaching them to stand up for the rights of others. She served on the first Human Rights Commission in Baltimore County.

As her youngest child, Ellen, was finishing high school, Martha planned to return to school herself to earn a masters' degree in counseling at Bridgeport University. At the time, the women's liberation movement was in full swing, and many women were seeking new career opportunities when their children were grown. Sadly, Harry died in 1972. Martha went to work at Marymount and Sarah Lawrence colleges, leading two of the earliest programs designed to help women moving into careers in midlife. In 1978, she moved to Barnard College where she served as director of career services for many years. She commuted to the upper Manhattan campus on the train and embraced the NYC culture. Her children sometimes meet women who remember how she helped to set them on meaningful pathways at work.

After she retired from Barnard, she taught herself Excel and continued to work as an online researcher and headhunter. She moved in her retirement to Lexington, MA.

She was excellent at bridge and a golf enthusiast. Indeed, she was a spirited enthusiast about many things! She was thoughtful about other people and what might be going on for them. She kept her sense of humor and her gratitude for those around her up to the last days of her life.

She was the loving mother and mother-in-law of Julia Brody and her husband Dan, Charles (Chuck) Green and his wife Mindy, and Ellen Teninty and her husband Ron. She was an active, playful grandmother and is survived by Isaac and his wife Jessica, Andy and his wife Diana, Emily, Harry, Sasha, Shaina, Noelle and her husband Don and sons Wesley and Ian. Martha was excited to see pictures of the newest family member, great grandbaby Nora.

Martha was predeceased by her brother William D. Ellis, cousin Thomas Hoffman who was raised with her in her Concord home, and sister Julia Ann Ellis, who died in childhood.

Martha's family expresses deepest gratitude for the many caregivers at Brookhaven in Lexington who made a home for her in her later years and last days. Gifts in her memory may be made to Silent Spring Institute or another organization that is meaningful to you.

Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord.