Martha Seif

1930 - 2024

CHAMPAIGN - Martha Patricia Seif, 94, passed away at Carriage Crossing Senior Living, Champaign, on Monday (March 18, 2024). 

She was born in New Jersey on Jan. 11, 1930, to Kenneth and Bertha (nee Kirch) Molter.

While a senior in high school, Martha was introduced to her future husband, Robert Dale Seif, by her classmate, Barbara Seif, Robert's sister. Martha and Robert were married June 24, 1950, and Barbara and Martha became lifelong friends. In 1956, after Robert finished his post-graduate work at Ohio State and Cornell University, they moved to Urbana, where Martha would live the rest of her life.

After her husband's death in 1994, Martha returned to school to explore and develop her lifelong artistic skills, studying at Parkland College in Champaign under Don Lake and at The Clearing in Ellison Bay, Wis. For the final 25 years of her life, she was an exhibiting watercolor artist, specializing in flowers and landscapes. Martha was a winner of the Zion National Park Centennial watercolor competition and the recipient of the Hardy Gallery 60th Annual Juried Exhibit Honorable Mention Award in 2022. 

Martha was particularly proud of the historic timeline panels she painted on the rear wall of the sanctuary of her church, Community United Church of Christ in Champaign. She artfully documented the church from its beginning as the Goose Pond Church in Champaign, where Abraham Lincoln once spoke, to its current identity as a campus church which proudly flies rainbow flags.

Martha was a friend to many in the community and was involved in her children's schools and activities and with the MI Club (for spouses of Illinois agronomy faculty). She was an active supporter of her church, attending regularly and serving on many committees. She was a quilter and a talented seamstress, designing and sewing clothes for herself and her family.  

Martha spent years (in her 80s!) researching and documenting her genealogy. She traced her ancestors back to at least one soldier in the American Revolution and to a pilgrim on the Mayflower. She became a proud member of the DAR and was active in its C-U chapter. Her work also led to her admission to the Mayflower Society. Her efforts left a unique legacy for her daughters and for their descendants.

Martha was preceded in death by her husband, Robert Dale Seif; sister-in-law, Barbara Seif; and Robert Laible, the husband of her daughter, Denise Seif.

She is survived by her only sibling, Lucille (John) Hann; daughters, Shireen (Gary) Moore, Renee (Fred) King, Jeanette (Alan) VonKrosigk and Denise Seif; grandchildren, Kari VonKrosigk, Shane VonKrosigk, Alana (nee Moore) Qualiardi, Taylor Moore and Hanna Laible-Seif; and three great-grandchildren, Dekker, Dysen and Oakley VonKrosigk.

The family would like to thank Carriage Crossing Senior Living, Carle Hospice and her in-home caregivers, Amanda and Lynn, for their outstanding care during the final years of Martha's life.

A celebration of Martha's life for her family and friends will be held at Community United Church of Christ, 805 S. Sixth St., Champaign, at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 30.  

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Carle Hospice at carle.org/services/hospice, Community United Church of Christ at community-ucc.org/ or the Parkland College Art Gallery at webapp.parkland.edu/artgallery.