Martha Wallace

Wallace, Martha Rudy "Marty"

who used tactful diplomacy to help unify the numerous organizations she joined and led, died on October 13, 2025. She was 98. A lifelong Republican and mother of five sons, she was elected to the Pinellas County School Board in 1972 and served eight years, the last three as chairman. Her biggest impact was on education and the arts, serving as a trustee of Eckerd College, as a founding partner of Bayboro Books, and as an early supporter of the Salvador Dalí Museum. Her reach extended further still. Mrs. Wallace directed the Junior Red Cross from 1948 to 1950 and served as president of the Junior League of St. Petersburg in the mid-1960s. As her children grew up, she was president of the Riviera Junior High PTA and a member of the Pinellas County Council PTA. Those experiences, coupled with a desire to support integrated schools, led her to run for the school board. By 1971, tensions over measures to desegregate schools through busing were coming to a head. A federal court order required school officials in Pinellas to enact one of the most comprehensive desegregation plans in the country. As a first-time political candidate, campaigning throughout Pinellas, Martha Wallace defeated the leader of an anti-busing group backed by Gov. Claude Kirk. In her first four years on the school board, Mrs. Wallace collaborated with other board members to implement the desegregation plan. A trend of parents withdrawing their children for private schools, which had doubled several years prior to 1972, began to decline. Mrs. Wallace visited all the county's 115 schools, championed Curtis Fundamental Alternative School and worked to relieve school overcrowding. She was honored as the National School Board Member of the Year in 1978 by the American School Guidance Association, and the board was named "School Board of the Year" by the National School Board Association. Martha Rudy was born on August 29, 1927, in St. Petersburg, the daughter of Martha and Merle Rudy. Her father, a lawyer, was a founder of the Pinellas County Republican Party. The family operated a seasonal inn in Blowing Rock, NC, where young Martha loved to go in the summers, spending time with the horses in the stables and leading guests on trail rides. She graduated from St. Petersburg High School on June 5, 1944, where classmates had voted her "Miss SPHS." She celebrated in Ybor City with friends. Between 1 and 2 in the morning of June 6, they were having Cuban sandwiches at the Columbia Restaurant when they noticed an extra edition being loaded into a newspaper box outside. A huge headline announced the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, known ever since as D-Day. The half-dozen high school graduates understood that their lives had changed. She was a dedicated "Green Devil." All five sons and several grandchildren would later graduate from SPHS. She enjoyed attending many reunions with lifelong friends. The Class of '44 continued to meet every 10 years, then every five as they aged, including a 70th reunion in 2014 at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club. Martha majored in political science at Duke University, graduating magna cum laude. On April 9, 1949, she married John P. Wallace, the son of insurance executive John B. Wallace and his wife Margaret. A Democrat, his family's political roots ran as far back as the Harding administration, and included an uncle, Henry A. Wallace, who served as one of Franklin Roosevelt's vice presidents and ran as the Progressive Party candidate for President in 1948. She attended the GOP convention in Philadelphia with her family that summer, and a month later the Progressives met in the same halls to nominate Wallace. As Martha recalled later in life, "after college I faced a challenge - as the daughter of Merle Rudy, 'Mr. Republican' of Pinellas County, did I dare to marry John Wallace, the nephew of FDR's Vice President Henry Wallace? Love prevailed." Over ten years she gave birth to five boys, who would participate in spirited debates with their Republican mother, their Democrat father and each other. Those often occurred during Sunday dinners after services at First Presbyterian Church, where Mrs. Wallace was a member for 86 years and served as its Sunday school superintendent and as the church's first female deacon. Martha and John, proud of their family's contributions, fostered commitments to community leadership, political engagement and good governance. The middle son, Peter, served as a Democratic speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. As her husband's egg hatchery grew into one of the world's top exporters, with interests throughout Latin America, she juggled a busy household with civic commitments. She did so with a certain invisible toughness, the kind that does not have to lay down the law. She inspired loyalty with kindness, calmness and thoughtfulness, her family said. She became a trustee at Eckerd College in 1976 and remained active for 20 years, including three as board chairman. She and John gave leadership gifts for the college's Armacost Library, its Wireman Chapel, the Peter Meinke Endowed Professorship in Creative Writing and the Wallace Boathouse. In 1982 she joined three friends - Marion Ballard, Maryann Rucker and sister-in-law Sally Wallace, a St. Petersburg City Council member - to co-found Bayboro Books. Another close friend, Suzie Babcock, later joined their ownership group. The bookstore was a sentimental and intellectual hub on the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus as it grew. Mrs. Wallace also played a critical role readying the Salvador Dalí Museum for its 1982 opening and dedication, an event she co-chaired. Along with her many contributions came accolades: The Liberty Bell Award, by which the St. Petersburg Bar Association honors leadership by a nonlawyer, the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club's Benjamin Franklin Award for integrity and achievement in elected service, and many others. As her sons became adults with families of their own, get-togethers often took place in Boca Grande, where Mrs. Wallace refined her tarpon fishing over dawn or sunset hours "in the pass" and "on the hill" with husband John serving as captain and guide. John Wallace died in 2001, at age 77. Mrs. Wallace continued to serve as an emerita trustee at Eckerd, where she was a Life Member of the Friends of the Library Board and received an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters. Eckerd celebrates her service with an annual Martha Rudy Wallace Day. She cherished her longtime friends, enjoyed relationships with caregivers who became dear friends, and celebrated the companionship of a beagle named Charley, who lived to age 15. In the summers, one or another of her sons would drive her to Blowing Rock. It was a chance to talk and share time, to take in the cozy quaintness of the mountain town she had enjoyed growing up. In the summer of 2007, she hosted her sons and their spouses and all grandchildren at her mountain home for canoeing, hiking and BBQ in celebration of her 80th birthday. She died peacefully at home, in the hometown she had improved in so many ways. Mrs. Wallace is survived by her sons, John Rudy Wallace and his wife, Erin; Thomas Rudy Wallace; Peter Rudy Wallace and his wife, Helen; James Powell Wallace and his wife, Holynn; and David Appleman Wallace and his wife, Lynn; by nine grandchildren, Daniel McSwain Wallace and his wife, Tania; Hannah Rudy Wallace, John Prince Wallace, John Huston Wallace, Caroline Harris Wallace, Andrew Ji-Ming Powell Wallace, Elizabeth Ling-Na Rudy Wallace, William Babcock Wallace and Henry Larson Wallace; and three great-grandchildren, Sofia Huntington Wallace, Oliver Glenn McLeroy-Wallace, and Mateo McSwain Wallace. A memorial service begins at 11 am on Saturday, November 29, at First Presbyterian Church, 701 Beach Drive Northeast, St. Petersburg. The memorial will be preceded by a private graveside service and followed by a reception at the church. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to either the Sailing Endowment or the Martha Rudy Wallace Endowed Scholarship at Eckerd College, delivered to the Office of Advancement, 4200 – 54th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33711.

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