7/16/1938 – 5/4/2024
Lawrence, KS
Services for Helen Onis Tilley Martin, 85, Lawrence, will be at 10:30 am Saturday, June 8, 2024, at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont Street, Lawrence KS 66044, with a potluck lunch following services.
Helen Martin died unexpectedly on Saturday, May 4, 2024.
Helen was born July 16, 1938 in Panama City, Panama, the daughter of Marjorie Locke Tilley and Joseph Otto Tilley. She graduated from Balboa Union High School in 1954, and earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from New Mexico State University and a master’s degree in humanities at Iowa University.
Helen married Edwin John Martin, whom she met at New Mexico State University, in 1959. They lived in Ann Arbor Michigan from 1963 – 1974, and then in Lawrence Kansas from then on. They built a house in Pleasant Grove, south of Lawrence, and enjoyed traveling, attending live jazz venues, classical concerts and lectures, and sailing. Helen was widowed in 2001.
Helen was a potter beginning in 1970 when she took her first ceramics class in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She sold her work in art shows around Kansas during the late 70s and early 80s, and was a member of The Hand and Eye shop in the Casbah on Massachusetts Street. Later, she started selling her work at the Lawrence Farmer’s Market, where she was planning to start this year’s season the following weekend.
Helen loved living in Lawrence Kansas, and was a vital part of so many communities. She attended the same dance aerobics class for over 40 years, and made many friends with the other women in class. She sang in the choir at Plymouth Congregational Church for over 40 years, and was looking forward to the major work they were to perform the next day. She volunteered for Audio Reader for many years. As a potter, when she moved into town from Pleasant Grove in 2007, she did much of her ceramics at the Lawrence Arts Center, where she befriended many other potters both young and old. Many younger potters considered her a mentor. She also played bass in her daughter and son-in-law’s Scandinavian folk dance band.
Family was also very important to Helen, and she traveled often to Phoenix Arizona to visit her son and daughter-in-law, and was there in the lives of her four Phoenix grandsons as well as her two Lawrence grandsons. She made dinners, washed dishes, attended soccer games and music concerts, played peek-a-boo, and went on hikes.
In the two weeks before her death, Helen spent a week with her son and daughter-in-law in Arizona, playing with her great-grandsons, visiting old friends, and hiking to the top of Thunderbird Mountain; made several trips out to her daughter and son-in-law’s farm to commune with the sheep, have dinner and play games; went to her dance aerobics class and choir practice; worked in the studio at the Lawrence Arts Center and visiting with all her friends there; visited the Farmer’s Market to buy pastries and talk to all her friends there; and made plans to visit a friend in the hospital and take another friend out to lunch.
Helen is survived by her daughter Theresa Martin and son-in-law Byron Wiley, Lawrence, Kansas; son John Charles Martin and daughter-in-law Michelle Martin, Phoenix, Arizona; sister Marjorie Janet Tilley Lee, Cerro Punto, Panama; six grandsons, Martin Bergstrom, Brooklyn, New York; Beckett Bergstrom, Lawrence, Kansas; Jack Martin, Peter Martin, Elliot Martin, and Scott Martin, all Phoenix, Arizona; and five great-grandsons.
Online condolences may be sent at www.rumsey-yost.com.
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