Martha, known then as Marcie, was my suite mate at Pomona College our Freshman year in 1955. We remained good friends, and, with Nancy Carlson and Paula Rohrbaugh, became a foursome with adjacent dorm rooms our Senior year. Nancy and Paula were great Martha admirers and were readers for her as well. Winnie the Pooh was our favorite non academic read. Martha had enough vision to get around easily and could recognize people by their shapes and voices. She took class notes in braille, had people read to her, and excelled in spite of these handicaps. She had a keen intelligence, and in a school of bright students, was among the brightest. Martha was devoted to her family and regaled us with many stories of her parents, her brother Phil, her aunt and uncle and her fabulous cousins. They were central to her life and helped her deal with all the challenges she faced. Her father was already severely and tragically handicapped with Parkinsons when Martha was in college. In her senior year, she became seriously ill and was diagnosed with Lupus. Amazingly she was able to return and graduate Phi Beta Kappa at the top of our class. Martha and her family were told that her retinitis pigmentosa, the eye disease that both she and Phil inherited, was not progressive. This was not true, and one can only imagine the anguish she must have felt as her sight deteriorated after college. Yet Martha did not spend a lot of time feeling sorry for herself and met adversity with incredible courage and acceptance. I admired her greatly for this. A story I would like to tell occurred when five of us went to Yosemite one summer. We hiked the steep trail to the top of Nevada Falls and camped there. Nancy and her future husband Bill went rock climbing and Marcie, Sue and I decided to return to the valley. Instead of the regular trail, we gook a very rocky trail down the other side of the falls, I guess because we thought it was shorter. In hindsight, I can't believe we could have been so foolish and inconsiderate. Yet Martha, never complaining, made it down without incident. I remember being totally impressed at her sure footed descent. One could say her life was a sure footed ascent against tremendous odds.