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In memory of
Martha Nell Havenstrite
February 10, 1932 - February 13, 2019
Feb 10, 1932 - Feb 13, 2019
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In lieu of flowers
In lieu of flowers, consider a gift to Metropolitan Community Church, Key West.
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Martha's obituary
Martha Nell was born Saturday, February 10, 1932 on the rolling plains of Weatherford, Oklahoma. She was the youngest of three children born to Helen Peet Spradling and Wilbur Rodney Spradling. She was the last surviving member of her family. Her oldest brother, Wilbur Rodney Spradling, Jr., was shot down over Korea, July 22, 1952. Her middle brother, Edward Grant Spradling left this earth from the Yucatan, January 1, 2019.
Martha Nell is survived by her husband of 60 years, John Joseph Havenstrite; her three children, John Joseph Havenstrite, Jr. (Mary Kay Hyde), Margaret Helen Havenstrite, and Mary Elizabeth Bauer (Caray David Bauer); and her five grandchildren, Sarah Katherine Bauer, Julia Margaret Bauer, Molly Nell Bauer, Arlo Ryland Havenstrite, and Frankie Freeman Havenstrite. She is also remembered fondly, mourned, and celebrated by countless friends, cousins, and a very noisy schnauzer.
She lived a good life, and had a happy childhood despite the depression, ravages of Oklahoma’s dust bowl, and insecurity of a world at war. Her father traveled as a salesman. Her mother stayed at home, nurtured the dreams of her children, and managed the menagerie of pets collected by her brood: dogs, cats, a goat, prairie dogs, chickens, and a badger that took possession of their garage for weeks.
As a young girl, Martha Nell was unlike many of her peers. She was smaller, more independent, more musical, more studious, and disinterested in dating. But she was popular, and an excellent student. Her fellow students awarded her an accommodation for her Spanish, though she couldn’t read or speak it. Her music teacher assigned her the base drum in the Weatherford High School marching band, though she couldn’t lift it. Perhaps most telling, her friends voted her most likely to succeed.
Then one day in the summer of 1949 her father unexpectedly died. At the time her brother Bill was in Annapolis at the Naval Academy, and her brother Grant was studying at Oklahoma City University. Thus, the job of managing her mother’s grief, and the family’s pain was largely left to Martha Nell. She was 17.
The next year, still focused on her mother, the two enrolled in Southwester Oklahoma State University in Weatherford. Not long thereafter, while sitting alone in the choir loft looking out over the congregation her eyes fell on an older neighbor sitting with her elderly mother. At that moment, it occurred to Martha Nell that unless she went somewhere else for her education she and her mother would be sitting side by side in the pews of the First Methodist Church of Weatherford for the rest of their lives.
Two weeks later, without informing anyone, she transferred to Oklahoma College for Women. Later, wanting still more opportunity, she transferred to Oklahoma University where she earned both a bachelors and masters degrees in Speech Pathology. She was among the first licensed Speech Pathologists in the state.
In 1955, degree in hand, Martha Nell set off to Tulsa in pursuit of a career in special education, new friends, and new experiences. Then, one evening a friend introduced Martha Nell to a cousin. His name was John. He had recently returned from a tour of the orient courtesy of the Unites States Air Force. He was younger. He had a job. He was single. And he seemed nice, so they dated a bit, got engaged, and then married on August 2, 1958.
That union would last the rest of her life, produce three children who produced five grandchildren, and a collection of pets to rival that of her childhood: cats, dogs, turtles, a bullfrog, rabbits, a nearly immortal catfish, some ducks, and an alligator.
Across the years she moved nine times in the way oil field families did, but she set roots twice. The first time was in New Orleans, where she raised her children, and where she returned to the service of the disabled. The second was in Colleyville where she would embrace retirement.
As a young girl Martha Nell had a distinguishing physical disability, and her middle brother had learning disabilities invisible to most. These shared experiences taught her forgiveness, empathy, and value of stoic perseverance. And so it was that in 1975 Martha Nell, feeling the tug all teachers feel to teach, she reentered the special needs classrooms of the New Orleans public school system.
Martha Nell would spend her entire career in the service of the deaf, the blind, the intellectually disabled, and multi-handicapped children for whom mere recognition was an accomplishment. It is a special calling. It is hard work. But Martha Nell loved her students. She was a good teacher. She changed lives. And she used those experiences to teach her children empathy in ways only mothers can.
She was also generously, gently loving. She loved order and routine (red beans every Monday, hot dogs every Tuesday, pot roast every Wednesday, stew every Thursday, beans and weenies every Friday), and she loved her friendships (the high school “gang,” the Gourmet Club, her quilting bee), she loved her family (her mother, her brother, her brother’s memory, her marriage, her children, her grandchildren), she loved her students, and she loved her church.
Martha Nell was a Methodist. The product of a long line of Methodists. She married a Methodist, also the product of a long line of Methodists. She raised her children in the Methodist Church. Most of her friends were Methodists. Most recently, she was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Colleyville. But Martha Nell was also a member of the Metropolitan Community Church of Key West. And that pairing reflects her independence, morality, open theology, and serves as another example of her unconditional love of those others may marginalize.
Martha Nell was lots of things, and all of those things were good. She will be missed. She will be celebrated. She will not be forgotten, for she lives on...
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In lieu of flowers
In lieu of flowers, consider a gift to Metropolitan Community Church, Key West.
Memories & condolences
My family spent many vacations with John & Martha Nell & family. We all stayed in huge houses with screen porches which…
My family spent many vacations with John & Martha Nell & family. We all stayed in huge houses with …
My family spent many vacations with John & Martha Nell & family.…
In lieu of flowers
In lieu of flowers, consider a gift to Metropolitan Community Church, Key West.
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