Martha Lewis Raine

Martha Ann Lewis Raine—known as MarthAnn to her siblings and as Marti to the many friends she gathered across a life lived boldly and with exquisite taste—died Wednesday, January 28, 2026, in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She was the youngest of thirteen children born to Tommie T. and Daisy Lewis of Columbus, Mississippi.

She is survived by her husband of sixty-one years, Dr. Charles H. Raine, III; their children, Charles Herbert Raine, IV, Christopher Mark Raine, and Shani Christi Phinizee Raine; her grandchildren, Charles H. Raine, V, Danielle Nicole Raine, John Aaron Gilchrist, Jr. (Jack), Andon Cooper Raine, and Bryant Lewis Gilchrist; great-grandson, Charlie; her sister, Frances Lewis Buchanan, and her brother, Melvin Lewis. She was preceded in death by her parents and siblings, Wilbur, Major, Alva, Helen, Elois, Herbert, Tommie, Maurice, Clark, and Cornell.

Marti was beautiful, competitive, wickedly funny, and strong-minded. There was never a time in her life when she couldn't stop the action of a room simply by walking into it. As a teenager in Columbus, she was fierce and physical on the basketball court at Hunt High School, a Beauty of the Week in Jet magazine, and later, organized and modeled in USO shows in Taiwan. Marti attended Tennessee State University in Nashville, where she pledged Delta Sigma Theta and met a brilliant young man from Selma, Alabama who was attending Meharry Medical College at a much younger age than most of his peers named Chuck Raine. They married on December 18, 1964.

After saying their vows, the newlyweds were stationed in remote Glasgow, Montana, where their sons Charles and Chris were born in rapid succession during some of the most turbulent years in American history. From Montana, they moved to Tai-Chung, Taiwan, where they lived among expatriates, military families, and Chinese dissident artists and intellectuals. It was a life of bridge games, mahjong, and spirited political conversation, and a launching pad into the worldly sophistication that would define them. The family settled in Racine, Wisconsin, where Dr. Raine built his medical practice while he and Marti worked to build a community of peers and lifelong friends who shared their values. She founded the Racine chapter of The Links, Incorporated, deepening her lifelong commitment to civic service and community. She also channeled her legendary competitive fire onto the tennis court, spending hours refining a wicked forehand on the backyard court before winning the Wisconsin state doubles championship with her partner and dear friend, Shockie Yunian.

Shani was born in 1979. In 1989, the family moved to Orangeburg, South Carolina. No matter where the Raine family lived—Montana, Taiwan, Wisconsin, South Carolina—Marti created a world of elegance, warmth, and exacting standards. Her bridge parties were legendary. Her hospitality was immaculate and magnetic. Her manners were impeccable and purposeful, deployed not as pretension but as both a negotiating tool and, when necessary, a perfectly timed comeback that left no room for doubt.

Her home was always the place where the best stories were told. After the first rounds were poured, tales would come of surviving the Jim Crow South, of close scrapes and shenanigans, and they'd be recounted with the defiant humor of people who knew exactly how far the culture still had to go because they had seen it from the inside. Marti's conspiratorial gleam would appear just before launching into a story designed to make her grown daughter squirm, and that gleam was as much a part of the evening as the cocktails and ever-present spinach ball hors d'oeuvres.

When the boys were young, she could be found on hikes or cheering them on at their tennis matches. She'd often set aside time for tea parties with her daughter that always made Shani feel like a princess sharing tea with the most beautiful and witty queen. Marti taught her children that manners leveled the playing field between young and old, rich and poor; that clothes should be excellent, diction unreproachable, and homes cared for with pride. Standards mattered.

When Charles came home with newly bright red, spiked, relaxed hair for a UB40 concert, she took one look and informed him that he would be shaving his head before the upcoming family photograph. As a young teenager, Shani did her best to dig her heels in on trendy (not quite appropriate) outfits for family functions, but she always lost those battles to her timelessly stylish mother. Sometimes Shani would even admit to being glad in the end. Marti valued effort, showing up well, and the belief that how one begins is how one goes on, and she had a memorable way of making her expectations unmistakably clear, often resulting in hilarious retellings around the Thanksgiving table.

Marti's generation of Black parents took the phrase "you have to work twice as hard for half as much" not as a saying but as a way of life. She and Chuck fiercely protected their children from the prejudices they could prevent while preparing them for those they could not. They raised them with an understanding of history, responsibility, and joy—of furs and laughter, of brilliance and belonging—and with the expectation that they move through the world with both confidence and care.
She could look at you over the rim of her glass and tell you exactly how things were, with a one liner that left no room for argument. She had a laugh that filled a room and a silence that could still one. She was beautiful, formidable, and deeply, fiercely loved.

Marti will be remembered in the rooms she once filled with her laughter, stories, standards, and with so much love. Chuck, Charles, Chris, Shani, Jennifer, Erica, Aaron, and her beloved grandchildren will forever be marked by the generosity, lessons, and laughter she gave so freely to those she counted as family.

A memorial service will be held at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, SC at 2pm on February 20, 2026.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Trinity Foundation.