Martha ‘Martie’ Jensen
- Published: August 28, 2026
Martie passed away April 5, 2026, aged 97. She was born July 8, 1928, in Newburgh, New York, to Helen Hoyle Hutchman and Edwin C. Hutchman, the first of two daughters. Martie attended elementary and secondary school in Indianapolis, where her mother was a teacher. She graduated from Radcliffe (now Harvard) College in 1949. While at Radcliffe she sang the Bach B minor Mass with the Radcliffe Choral Society, the Harvard Glee Club and the Boston Symphony, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. After the dress rehearsal, she and some fellow singers managed to sneak into another rehearsal directed by assistant conductor Leonard Bernstein.
After graduation Martie worked several places, including a Quaker work camp, where she met Dave Jensen. They got married in Iowa City in 1951, and their first child, Peter, was born in 1952. Because Martie was the first person to request natural childbirth in Iowa City, Peter’s birth was witnessed by a gallery of medical students, although Dave was not admitted. The family moved to Yellow Springs the same year because Dave’s friend Henry Dyer told him about a job at the Antioch Bookplate Company.
After living in several apartments in the village, including one behind the co-op on High Street, the family moved to the Vale, where they eventually built a geodesic dome from a kit, with the help of local carpenter Ray Olds. Winnie was born in 1953, Joel in 1957 and Raven in 1968. Martie taught the nursery group at the Antioch School for several years and then trained as a medical laboratory technologist at Clark Tech and worked at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield.
In the ‘60s Martie became interested in Zen Buddhism and Japan, when a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk lived in the Vale for several months. She studied Japanese, collected woodblock prints and visited Japan several times.
In 1987 Martie moved to northern California, where her son Joel was working as an engineer. After she retired from her med tech position, she and her partner, Jerry, bought a house in Forestville. There was a huge fig tree in the yard that was covered with ripe figs once a year. They adopted a ginger cat, Poncho. Martie and Jerry traveled to England, China, Tibet and Russia, among other places.
After her son, Peter, was diagnosed with ALS, Martie moved back to Yellow Springs in 2001 with Jerry and Poncho. They bought a house in Goes and joined the Unitarian Fellowship. After Poncho passed away they adopted three more cats, Max, Minnie and Emily. Jerry died in 2004, Peter died in 2005, and after a few years Martie moved into a house in the village.
Martie was unfailingly kind and generous. She doted on her family, friends and cats, and was adept at keeping in touch with loved ones near and far. She liked to bake and cook. She sang with the Yellow Springs Community Chorus and in her last concert with them she sang the Bach B minor Mass again. She also sang with a local women’s a capella group, the MadriGals. She committed many poems to memory and could still recite Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse,” which she learned in high school.
Martie was predeceased by her parents; husbands, Dave and Jerry; sister, Loie; sons, Peter and Joel; and daughter Winnie. She is survived by daughter Raven (Mike); daughters-in-law, Kitty (Patty) and Kathy; son-in-law Tom; grandchildren, Mike, Lilarose (Cassidy), Kumar, Nick (Kasey) and Risa; great-grandchildren, Evadene and Emily Maeve; extended family Marian, Ian (Erica, Julian, Felix), Bjorn (Natalie), Jeanne (Bob) and Brad (Jacque); and nieces, nephews and friends.
A memorial service will be held Aug. 8, 2026, 2–4 p.m., at the Vernet Ecological Center in Glen Helen.
Contributions in Martie’s memory may be made to Glen Helen, at 405 Corry St., Yellow Springs, OH 45387, or glenhelen.org.
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