MARIE PATRICIA MARTIN
1942-2021
Marie Patricia Martin (78), executive secretary, gardener, cook and the best wife ever went to our Lord on Sunday January 31, 2021.
Marie was born in Pittston, Pa. to Anthony C. and Mary Helen Wisnouskas (maiden Krakosky) on March 17,
1942. She is survived by her husband Alden Jeffrey (Jeff ) Martin (72) of the Woodlands. She was preceded in death by both parents and two siblings, her brother Joseph Wisnouskas of Buffalo, N.Y. and her sister Gerri Stone of Warwarsing, N.Y. Marie will be interred alongside her parents at Forest Park Westheimer on February 25th at 3pm, wake in the Forest Park chapel at 2pm. In lieu of flowers, please send donations in Marie’s name to Spanish Meadows Community, 1480 Katy Flewellen Road, Katy, Texas 77494.
Marie, formerly of
Fulshear, Texas (1989-2020) was raised through her high school education in Milford, Connecticut (class of 1960). Always a hard worker, Marie was a part of the workforce from the late 1950s. She helped put her two younger siblings through college.
After a divorce from her first husband, Robert Leahy, Marie Leahy went to work for Conoco Inc. in 1974 at their High Ridge Park corporate HQ in Stamford, Ct. Marie worked as an administrative assistant for International Exploration. She bravely transferred to Houston two years later. A living Mary Tyler Moore, Marie drove to Houston by herself. Stopping overnight in Lake Charles, she encountered her first flying palmetto bug and almost went out to sleep in her car.
During 1979 in Houston, Marie met and married her second and final husband,
Jeff Martin, a Conoco geologist who kept a sailboat at Canyon Lake. Marie soon moved up to the executive floor at Greenway Plaza in support of Government Affairs. Her next promotion was to support CEO Constantine (Dino) Nicandros’ staff as administrative assistant to his executive assistants for 12 years, during which time they moved from Greenway to the Dairy Ashford complex in the
West Houston Oil Corridor. After Mr. Nicandro’s retired, Marie moved to Corporate Safety, and in the new century moved once more to ConocoPhillips Pipeline, where she retired in 2010 after a remarkable 36 year ConocoPhillips career.
Marie enjoyed her home with husband Jeff from their Weston Lakes residence in Fulshear for 31 years from 1989-2020. Marie loved to garden and won numerous Garden of the Month awards. She was also a gourmet cook and enjoyed cooking for her friends. Marie and Jeff liked to travel and made several fly-drive trips to visit friends all across the lower 48 and
Hawaii. By their 70s, Marie and Jeff grew weary of caring for such a large property and found a more efficient home in The Woodlands’ Sterling Ridge. They began remodeling in the summer of 2020, only to have Marie struck down by a brain aneurysm and heart attack on Labor Day. Alas, she never was able to make it home, despite her bravely fighting a five month battle. Marie was tough and made us all proud, but sadly in the end, the pneumonia won.
A hysterectomy in 1981 prevented having children of her own. So, Marie had an impact on other people’s children, often as a Godparent, such as Houston ISD school teacher and administrator Heather Kabay and her brother US Navy Chief Anthony Grosso of Jacksonville, Florida; Taylor Schuh Hastings of Indianapolis Indiana, and her brother Nathan Schuh of Spring.
In the 1990s, Marie and Jeff sacrificed to move her parents from Connecticut and kept them at home in Fulshear their last ten years, Tony (1998) surviving Mary (1993) his last five years.
Marie has had a positive impact on the children and grandchildren of Jeff ’s late sister Judy Worthy of Willis who passed in November of 2020 and is survived by son David Worthy with granddaughter Emily, and by daughter Jolyn Hammond of Adamsville, Tennessee with children Ryan and Maessi Fontenot of Willis. Marie also tried to have an impact on her late brother Joe’s children, Justin and Taylor Wisnouskas of Buffalo, N.Y.
Here lies one of the world’s hardest workers. An extraordinary wife, executive secretary, gardener, cook and friend to so many, Marie Martin will be sorely missed.