Martha Wilkerson Hunt

1923 - 2012

Martha Wilkerson Hunt was born June 2, 1923 in Jacksonville, Texas and died June 29, 2012 in her home in Houston, Texas. She was the only child of Earl Martin Wilkerson and Kathleen Shearon Wilkerson. Raised in Port Neches, Texas, she graduated from Port Neches-Groves High School in 1940. She received a Masters degree in Bacteriology from The University of Texas at Austin 1945 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Martha worked first at the Texas Department of Health, then moved to Houston to work at the Baylor College of Medicine, studying Relapsing Fever under Dr. Daniel Jenkins. While living in Houston she made lifelong friends with several roommates on Watts Road, including Bettye Beason and Mary Kirby. She and Mary took a memorable trip to Acapulco, Mexico. She attended St Paul's Methodist Church and sang in the choir. There Martha met Richard Henry (Dick) Hunt at St Paul's Coffee Club. She contracted tuberculosis from an adjoining research lab at Baylor. After her recovery, Martha and Dick married at her parents' home in Port Neches on December 13, 1952. They moved to a fondly-remembered apartment near the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and St Paul's on Pinedale St. Martha and Dick built a suburban home in Pasadena Texas near the Shell Refinery in Deer Park where Dick worked as a Research Chemist. Two sons, Earl Richard Hunt (1954) and John Russell Hunt (1957) were raised there. The family spent three months in Holland in the fall of 1957, along with short stays in England and Christmas in Paris. She made lifelong friends with several Dutch Shell families,. In Pasadena, Martha was active in the League of Women Voters and Pasadena city politics. She was instrumental in pushing for the creation of the city Health Department and helped expose corruption in city politics. From the ensuing investigation, in 1962-65, Gene Goltz of the Houston Post won a Pulitzer Prize and triggered indictments sweeping the Pasadena City Hall. Through the Institute for International Education at the University of Houston, Martha and Dick hosted foreign students from Saudi Arabia, Taiwan/China, Iran, and India. They especially embraced Satish Gupta and later his family as their own. Martha had an enduring fascination with and embrace of foreign cultures. Holidays at home became multicultural events. In 1974 she and her family toured Berlin, East Germany, Russia (Leningrad, Moscow, Yalta), Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary as a bequest from her late uncle Randall Bevens and his wife Dorothy Shearon Bevens. Martha and Dick moved to the West side of Houston in 1975. She and Dick found enduring friends and fellowship in the Share Group at Ashford Methodist Church. Ceramics classes led to a continuing artistic relationship with her teacher, Donna Adams who encouraged Martha's artistic development and introduced her to techniques for hand-building, different clays, glazes, and firing techniques including primitive firing and Raku. Martha treasured her 1981 workshop experience with primitive-fired pottery taught by Barbara Gonzalez from the Saint Ildefenso Pueblo in New Mexico. Folk arts and crafts were one of Martha's continuing passionate interests. Her home was a gathering place for her many friends. Her many artistic and literary creations include etched aluminum trays, silk screen Christmas cards, plastic ornaments, hand-built ceramics, miniatures, copier art (electrophotography, prize-winning), film photography, and digital photography. "Limited Perspective", a volume of her poetry, was copyrighted in 1986. She combined her photographic work and other design elements with her poetry and phrases to make unique individual cards which were treasured by many of the recipients. Casa Ramirez in the Houston Heights held a showing of her cards. Martha faced many serious diseases and medical setbacks, from malaria as a child through heart disease. When food and drug allergies ruled out conventional treatments, she adapted with a holistic response including modifications to her diet, acupuncture, and meditation. She delighted in her step-grandchildren. She brought people, art and cultures to herself when she could not longer go to them, and worked actively on philosophy, poetry, and art as long as she was able. Martha was preceded in death by her husband Richard Henry Hunt in 1991, brother-in-law Russell Aubrey Hunt Jr., and cousins Dan Melear, and William Wilkerson Jr. She is survived by sons Earl Richard Hunt and John Russell Hunt, cousin Julia Eckber and husband James Eckber, their son Jacob Eckber; sister-in-law Bessie Burris Hunt, niece Gail Hunt Henry and partner Sam Francis, Gail's children Margaret Henry and Michael Hunt Henry; niece Judith Hunt and husband David Wallace, Judy's daughters Kristin Caldwell and Elizabeth Gardner; nephew Curtis Hunt and wife Cheryl Hunt, their son Ryan Hunt; Earl's wife Susan Spruance, and step-grandchildren Sarah Spruance Langner, Carl William Langner, John Spruance Langner, and Christine Elizabeth Langner; Earl's ex-wife Lorre Marie Weidlich, and many younger nieces and nephews. The family would like to extend sincere thanks to her physicians, especially primary care doctor Dr. Russell Radoff and cardiologist Dr Patrick Cook, and to recognize numerous caregivers at the end of her life who gave willingly of themselves so Martha could accomplish with them the things she no longer could do alone. A non-denominational memorial service for Martha will be held Saturday, July 21 at 2:00 PM at Forest Park Westheimer, 12800 Westheimer, Houston, Texas 77077. She will be interred in the family plot at Nicholasville, Kentucky beside her husband.