Marie Cardoza Martin
99, Sacramento
When one of Marie Martin’s loved ones was in need of good luck, she would give them a sculpture of a rooster, a nod to the Portuguese folk tale of the Rooster of Barcelos. “When I got my first job, she gave me a rooster figurine to put on my desk,” her granddaughter Emily said. “She was an incredibly kind and open person. I don’t know anyone who didn’t like her. But she wasn’t your stereotypical sweet little old lady. She had this really biting wit.”
The daughter of Portuguese immigrants, Martin was born on a dairy ranch in Tranquility, Calif. After graduating from Merced Business College, she found work as an office manager and later owned two businesses, including a janitorial service. In 1952, she married Edward Morgan Martin Sr., and they settled in San Francisco.
Although she was a working mother at a time when that was uncommon, Marie Cardoza Martin always found time to put her four children first.
“When I was in the fifth grade, I was in a play and I needed several costumes made, so she sewed all my costumes,” her daughter Lynette said. “And as she was sewing, her sewing machine broke so she actually finished sewing all my costumes by hand. Not once did I ever hear her complain that she had work the next day or she was making sacrifices. That was just what she did out of love for her family.”
Martin was most serious about two things: her Catholic faith and her Portuguese heritage.
“When we were little, like 6, 10 and 12, she taught us a song in Portuguese that her aunt had taught her,” Lynette said. “We didn’t know what we were saying, but she’d make us sing it at all the family functions. And all my aunts and uncles and everyone would be laughing and we didn’t know why. Apparently what we were singing was not necessarily appropriate. But we all still know it to this day.”
“She was hysterically funny,” Emily said. “She was just very fun. She had this wisdom where she was willing to talk through all kinds of things.” Martin was also fiercely independent, insisting on living alone in a Roseville apartment well into her 90s. She kept her mind sharp by reading mystery novels, doing crossword puzzles and keeping up with current affairs.
Martin, who was living in a care facility at the end of her life, is believed to have contracted COVID- 19 but was never tested. She came down with a fever and died Nov. 21. She was 99.
In addition to daughters Michele and Lynette and granddaughter Emily, Martin is survived by her son Edward Martin, daughter Celeste, sister Alyce, seven grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband, who died in 1993. The couple had been married 41 years.