Martha Ann McElroy

Martha Ann Watkins McElroy, 83, passed away in the early hours of September 18, 2025, at Forest Manor Nursing Home, Northport, Alabama. She was a loving daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and – her true calling – teacher. Martha was, simply put, a lady, in the loveliest and most down-to-earth sense: gentle and generous, open and kind to everyone, with the sweetest smile, the most genuine nature, and a sharp sense of humor that could catch you by surprise.

Martha Ann Watkins was born in Durant, Oklahoma, on December 2, 1941, to Bennie Velma DeArmon Watkins and Everett W. Watkins. She was born five days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. When her father was called to service and boarding the bus to go to war, military personnel announced that "anyone with a pre-Pearl Harbor baby can go home." According to family lore, Everett stepped off the bus where Bennie held Martha in her arms…and he kissed his first-born daughter on the forehead.

Three years later, Martha's sister Alice was born, and Martha's life cannot be narrated or understood without a chapter on Alice. To be sure, they were different personalities. As a child, Alice loved to play outdoors and begged Martha to join her. Martha usually declined with a phrase that our family still laughs about today: "But it's dirty out there!" Martha married young and settled into what we might now consider a conventional life; Alice was a child of the '60s, wearing her Angela Davis button and protesting the Vietnam war outside of Holmberg Hall at the University of Oklahoma. But make no mistake: sisters Martha and Alice shared an extraordinary love. Alice died of brain cancer in 2006, and, in Martha's words, not a day passed that she didn't miss her sister.

Martha grew up in Atoka, Oklahoma, where her mother had also been raised. She was homecoming queen (like her mother before her!), but more importantly she was an excellent student and a very serious pianist. One of Martha's cherished memories was a high-school trip to New York City with her piano teacher, where she and the other students performed in Carnegie Hall. After graduating from Atoka High School in 1959, Martha at first planned to pursue piano in college, and while at the University of Oklahoma she studied with the renowned Sylvia Zaremba, who was an artist-in-residence at the time. While Martha never gave up her musical life, she eventually turned to another love, English literature, which she taught for many years.

Preparing to attend the University of Oklahoma in the summer of 1959, she met Dugan Hendricks at orientation. They pledged Kappa Alpha Theta sorority together and became lifelong friends. When Dugan began dating Mark McElroy, from Chickasha, Oklahoma, they introduced Martha to his brother David.

Martha and David married on July 1, 1962, in Atoka. David passed away on July 1, 2025, on their 63rd wedding anniversary. Martha commented to her daughters only two weeks before her death, "I miss David. I miss his sense of humor." Like any couple, they had their differences and challenges, but they were completely devoted to one another, and they built a beautiful life for themselves and for Tricia and Anne.

After they married, Martha finished her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. They subsequently moved to Reed Springs, Missouri, where they both taught high school. In the mid-1960s, they moved to Kilgore, Texas, where Martha's paternal cousin lived. She taught junior high; David taught high school; and in 1969 they had their first daughter, Tricia Alice. When David's father became ill later in 1969, the family returned to Chickasha and eventually settled into his childhood home. Their second daughter Anne Denise was born there in 1974.

But they missed Kilgore and later that year returned to East Texas, where they would make a lifetime's worth of friendships. They embarked on long teaching careers. For a few years, Martha taught music to elementary students at Trinity School of Texas in Longview. She directed musical theatre productions; created ukulele choirs; and generally cultivated an appreciation of music for countless young people. She maintained a private piano studio for years, hosting recitals at their home in Kilgore.

Martha left teaching briefly in the 1980s to serve as the Director of Christian Education at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore. This was an important professional experience for her, but she missed the classroom and returned to teach middle-school English.

Gradually, over the years, she migrated towards senior English, where she finally found her true teaching home. In her time in the Kilgore school system, she created an innovative, year-long mentorship course, in which students were paired with professionals in the community; established the very first AP course in the school district; and eventually became a district-wide administrator in charge of "gifted and talented" education. Martha adored her students, and she especially loved creating opportunities for those students who didn't have access to the resources available to her own daughters.

She, of course, was the best resource of all.

Ultimately, Martha completed her MA in English from the University of Texas at Tyler. She did this while teaching and raising her girls. And she did this before computers!

Martha was a woman of intelligence and many talents, and she was always eager to share her gifts. She read voraciously. She was a longtime member of P.E.O. She was an accomplished seamstress, having been taught by her plucky and beloved grandmother Annie DeArmon. She knitted, she crocheted – with many creations going to the prayer shawl ministry at her church. Eventually, she made the most beautiful quilts. She accompanied children's choirs at First Presbyterian, Tuscaloosa, and she taught piano even in her later years. Unsurprisingly, her favorite student was her only grandchild Niamh Alice McNaughton. And when it came time for Niamh to move on to other teachers, Niamh lamented to Tricia, "Oh, please don't fire Mimi."

Martha had a gift for creating special moments and traditions. Not a tennis player herself, Wimbledon finals during her girls' young years always involved getting up early for the match and having strawberries and cream. Not a person who loved the outdoors, she nevertheless reveled in taking her girls to buy plants at the first hint of spring, helping them to make the patio beautiful. She hosted "high teas" for her students, hoping to expose them to something unfamiliar and yet refined, to introduce something beautiful into their lives. Every single year, she and her girls made the infamous McElroy Christmas sugar cookies, which entails a laborious process that Tricia, Anne, and Niamh continue to this day. To bypass this tradition…well, it doesn't bode well for the year to come!

Martha also had quiet and meaningful moments with her girls. She would sit patiently listening to both of them practice the piano. She would help them with new and difficult reading assignments, literally line-by-line. Martha made sure that Tricia and Anne felt her unqualified and unwavering support every single day of their lives, from when they were babies until her passing. Even as adults, they cherished her guidance.

Raised in the severe doctrine of the Church of Christ, Martha later embraced and thrived in the Presbyterian faith of her adulthood. She was a woman of immense faith, and yet her faith was quiet and rooted in the scholarly study of the scriptures. Heaven will benefit from her teaching!

Martha was a loyal and generous friend to so many people in Oklahoma and Texas and, finally, in Tuscaloosa. In Kilgore, she had a picture in her bathroom that read, "Bloom where you are planted." One of Mom's best traits was the ability to make friends and to flourish wherever she landed.

Finally, there is Niamh Alice, Martha's granddaughter, her most favorite and beloved person. When Niamh turned a year old, in summer 2009, Martha and David moved to Tuscaloosa, where Martha gave Niamh her first baby doll; taught her piano; took her for milkshakes after school; taught her to stitch American Girl doll clothes; attended every single school event; and relished in the privilege of watching Niamh grow into the extraordinary young woman she is today.

Tricia, Anne, and Niamh would like to acknowledge and give thanks for the incredibly tireless and loving caregivers, at Capstone Village and Forest Manor, who have treated our family like their own for years. There are too many to name, but these women do important and difficult work that often goes unrecognized and unrewarded. They appreciated Mom and Dad for the vibrant, gifted individuals they were and made sure they were treated with dignity, even in the most undignified moments of being human. The McElroy family – small but mighty – claims you as our own forever. Words cannot express our love and gratitude.

Martha is survived her daughter Tricia Alice McElroy of Tuscaloosa, Alabama; her daughter Anne Denise McElroy of Nashville, Tennessee; and her granddaughter Niamh Alice McNaughton of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She is also survived by her dear friend and sister-in-law Dugan McElroy (Santa Fe, New Mexico); two nephews, David McElroy (Santa Fe) and Ross McElroy (Keller, Texas); a great-nephew, Reid McElroy; and a great-niece, Ryan Kate McElroy. She is preceded in death by her husband David, her beloved sister Alice, and her parents.

Friends are invited to a memorial service on Monday, September 29, 2025, at 1pm, in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church, Tuscaloosa.

Honorary pallbearers: David McElroy and Ross McElroy; Scott Nichols and Mark Reeves (Ellijay, Georgia); Homer Hulme (Chickasha, Oklahoma); David Castles (Kilgore, Texas); and David Hedrick (Kilgore, Texas).

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions to Hospice of West Alabama and to Meals On Wheels.