Marta Beatriz Herrero

Marta Beatriz Pecuch Herrero passed away on the night of Thursday, February 20, 2025, at her residence in the assisted living group house where she spent her last years, not far from her long-time home in Tempe, Arizona. She was 84 years old. Her daughter and hospice workers were with her, and she had had the opportunity to receive visits and phone or video calls from many friends and family members. She is survived by her children, Pablo and Laura, and her younger brother Juan, who lives in Argentina. We will have a memorial service in honor of her life on Friday, May 2, 2025 at 10:30 AM at the Franciscan Renewal Center (5802 E Lincoln Dr, Scottsdale, AZ 85253). There will be a reception starting 12:00 PM at Aunt Chilada’s (7330 N. Dreamy Draw Dr., Phoenix, AZ 85020).

Marta was born on September 8, 1940, in a small town in Argentina, to Jaromir Pecuch, an immigrant from Czechia, and Maria Brunovsky, who was from Slovakia, later growing up in Bernal, a suburb of Buenos Aires. Her first languages were Czech and Slovak, and she only began to learn Spanish after beginning to play with other children. After World War II, her parents attempted to move back to Czechoslovakia, so she spent second grade in that country before returning to Argentina.She learned English and French in school, and was drawn to mathematics and engineering. After graduating, she enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires to study mathematics, where she added Russian to her list of language proficiencies, taking a job translating mathematics papers from that language into Spanish. In an upper-division complex analysis class, she met Domingo Antonio Herrero, the son of two immigrants from Spain, who had also lived his entire life in Buenos Aires and was majoring in mathematics. They got along well and started dating, then got married when they were 24 years old. They spent their honeymoon hiking and staying with local residents in Patagonia, the southern part of Argentina.

Their plan was to continue their mathematical studies in Argentina, but attacks on the University of Buenos Aires and its closure changed the trajectory of their lives. Marta and Domingo taught at a university in Bariloche, in the southwest of the country, before moving to Chile in 1967, where they lived for a year and applied to graduate school in the United States.

They were both admitted to the University of Chicago and moved to Chicago, Illinois at the start of 1968. Domingo earned his PhD. in 1970 and Marta finished hers remotely in 1972 while they were living in Albany, New York. Planning to return to Argentina, with the hope that the situation had improved, they took teaching positions in Campinas, Brazil, in the summer of 1972, where they lived for a year and acquired some proficiency in Portuguese. Their son, Pablo, was born that January.

In the middle of 1973 they moved to Rio Cuarto, Argentina, and taught at a university in that area. They continued to live there until 1976, at which time they moved to Caracas, Venezuela because their lives were once again in danger in the country of their birth, after a fascist military coup. People started disappearing, with the government disavowing their existence, including several of their acquaintances. Their daughter, Laura, was born in Buenos Aires that year.

Venezuela had its own set of problems, so after a few years they looked elsewhere, and both obtained visiting professorships at the University of Georgia in Athens. The family moved there in the summer of 1980, with the children enrolled in bilingual programs and watching PBS shows to learn English, and lived at the residence of a professor who was away on a visiting contract that year. Afterwards, they moved to Tempe, Arizona, to work at Arizona State University. Marta and Domingo travelled extensively while at ASU and interacted with colleagues from various other countries, particularly Romania, whose language they picked up conversationally. They mentored and befriended graduate students from China, India, Germany, Italy, and many other places. Marta also exercised her drive to help others by participating in the Sanctuary Movement, assisting refugees fleeing life-threatening conditions in Central America in obtaining asylum.

Domingo obtained tenure at ASU and worked there until he passed away in 1991. Marta worked at multiple ASU campuses and at Glendale Community College. She had a tenure-track position at ASU West but did not obtain tenure, and retired in 2009. The next year, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which gradually reduced her ability to do many of the things she loved. She nonetheless continued to pursue origami, singing in church, charity, activism, and visiting with friends.